Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-07-28
UNJUST DETERMINATIONS.
Violations of Law Which Breed No.
nopolies to the Direct Loss
of the Farmer.

Judge Gaynor, of New York, stated
it as his belief that rebates and secret
rate cutting to favored shippers has
led to the creation of trusts and COM
bines and that if the law was amended
to punish these determinations the
trusts would be curbed. Perhaps Judge
Gaynor is a little too sanguine of the
effect that putting all shippers by the
railroads, be they great or small, on the
same footing would have, but there is
no doubt that taking from the trusts and
combines the determinations by the
railways in their favor would abolish
one of their great monopolies.
To the farmer of the west it does not
matter which trunk line carries his
wheat or corn to the seaboard, or wheth-
er it eventually reaches New York or
other city on the Atlantic, or some port
on the gulf of Mexico. The interest
of the farmer eases when he has sold
his grain to the buyer at the nearest
railway station. But it does make a
vast difference to him, if he ships a car
load OF grain, or cattle, or hogs to Chi
cagD or elsewhere, that the freight rate
charged him shall be no more than to
the elevator company or the big cattle
buyer. 1t is also of the utmost impor-
lance to the farmer that he should have
an equal opportunity in being furnished
cars like other shippers, in fact that no
discrimination in rates or opportunity
shall be made against him.
AS nearly all the railways are inter-
state corporations, it is necessary that
federal legislation should be enacted to
give the interstate commerce commits
sion power to punish railway officials
who disobey the law. The present law,
as amended by the Elkins bill, makes
1t a misdemeanor on the part Of any
person or corporation ito offer, grant
or give, or to solicit, accept or receive
any rebate, concession or discrimina-
ttion in respect of the transportation of
any property in interstate or foreign
commerce at a less rate than that named
in the tariffs published and fled"
But the law does not provide for a
way to punish the lawless railway off
clal and is therefore secretly, and often
openly, violated with impunity. The
republican majority in congress has al
ways refused to vote for an amendment
to the law giving the Interstate COM
merce commission the necessary power,
though the democrats have time and
again proposed such an amendment.
The same opposition from the republic
ans prevented the monopoly breeding
protective tariff from being revised,
though the democrats have struggled
to reform it, but every republican in
congress has stood like a stone wall
against even reducing the tariff on those
products Of the trusts that they sell
cheaper abroad than here.
Republican candidates for ngre
and senators may declaim upon the
stump and make promises that they vii;
favor reasonable revision OF tariff rates
but their votes show they had no such
honest intention. Some of them seek
shelter under the plea that in a caucus
of republican members of congress the
majority decided to stand pat and
they had to keep within party lines.
That is an ancient dodge at Washington.
for the trusts and corporations always
have a majority of the republican men,
hers ready to do their bidding.
If the farmers will pass resolutions at
their oranges or clubs. demanding a
pledge from the candidates for congress
to regard party lines less and declar-
ing that otherwise they will vote and
work against such candidates election,
there would surely be a majority in the
next congress that would pass the re.
lief demanded