The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-01-25
A STARTLING REPORT.

The report which the Interstate-commerce
Commission has just submitted to Congress
is certain to attract the attention of the
country. even if it does not move Congress
to act. The irregularities which railroad
managers admitted a few weeks ago in
brief this report presents in detail. Rebates
and discrimination in rates is the rule
rather than the exception. The extensive
producer is able to obtain much better rates
for the shipment of his goods than is the
small producer. BY this injustice the latter
is driven to the wall while the former
thrives. There is no scheme by which mo-
nopoles can be more successfully built up
than by a system of rebates which favors
one extensive shipper to the detriment of
others in the same business. 1t explains
the success of a few large establishments
at the expense of all others. The report
declares that the practice of this great in
justice is quite general; that it is wrong
that demands prompt remedy no one will
deny
The shippers are not the only sufferers,
since the system has robbed railroad lines
of the profits needed to make them good
properties. For years, by gentlemen
agreements and by pooling arrangements,
railroad managers have labored to check
the evil; but gentlemen in that business
seem not to have impressed travelling
agents, and the Supreme Court has set
aside the railroad pools in violation of
the interstate-commerce law. The railroads
have asked Congress for a law to authorize
pooling, but that body has refused. The re-
cent consolidation and merging of lines is
said TO be an effort of the railroad man.
ayers to get into position where the grow
ing evils of the unlawful rebate can be
broken off, not because they are conscience
stricken because of the wrong inflicted upon
the people, but because the rate-cutting
policy is running railroad properties.
One of the charges of the commission is the
most startling that has ever been put into
official report. Indeed, those foes of the
railroads who have been making charges
against their managers have never de-
clared, as has the commission, that leading
traffic officials, men whose names are
known throughout the commercial world,
agree with each other TO destroy vouchers
and to so manipulate bookkeeping as to
obliterate the evidences of their lawless
transactions-that they teach young men
in their employ to falsify ledgers, state
ments and reports to prevent detection
This is fearful charge for an official COM
mission to make against the management
of the leading railroads and the prOprietors
of the great packing houses. who equal.
If not worse offenders, since they present
the temptation. The public will expect that
the officials against whom such serious
charges are made will make some defense.
Perhaps this classifying of ledgers and this
destruction of vouchers may be defended by
railroad and packing house managers on the
ground that the United States has no right
to interfere with their business. and conse-
quently, when it does, the managers have
a right to resort to any method to enable
them to protect their rights.
With the admissions of railroad managers
and the revelations of the interstate-com-
mission before it. Congress will be severely
ana deSerVedly censureu III IL does not con-
fer power upon the commission to compel
the railroads to treat all patrons alike. If
the CONSULTATIONS and mergers will help in
this work of justice, all the better; but
the public and the railroads cannot longer
submit TO injustice into which the latter
declare they are forced by conditions There
can be no more important matter before
Congress than this evil OF rate-cutting in
the interest of a few. The isthmian canal
is a matter of minor Importance compared
with the abuses of the rebate system.