The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-05
A RAILROAD PRESIDENT
DenOunces Pools and Rebates and | Gives His Remedy for Trusts.

New York World.
 James J. Hill, President of the Northern Securities Company and the foremost railroad president of Ameri- ca, said yesterday to The World
 ''rhe most offensive word to the American people is 'pool-railway pool Any administration or congress that attempts to legalize railway pools will be quickly turned out by an up- rising of the people.
 There is a very simple method of dealing with the trust question. Let it be made necessary for any industrial corporation that wishes to do an inter state business to secure a Federal li- cense; but before that license is is- sued the corporation must prove that It's capital is real money and based upon actual value.
 "A majority of trusts nowadays are the products of promoters who hastily gather in two or three concerns. whitewash them over and over. again. carry them down to Wall Street to feed the lambs.
 'The general business of the coun- try is not booming-it is only quietly and moderately prosperous.
 The retail business of Chicago. the fastest-growing city in the country is down 10 per cent this year.
 The effect of proposals to do radi- corporation interests Is already being felt in q checking of business
 I have confidence in President business interests of this country.
 T believe that the President will not wish to signalize the beginning of his new administration by nasty and ill-considered action, although he is seek to attack invested wealth.
 Every railroad would be happy to have rebates abolished and the law against them enforced.
 Why does not the Interstate Com merce Commission prosecute President Ripley of the Atchison. if he has been giving rebates? The law never has been enforced nor any one prosecuted.
 "A pool is a game in which you hand over your property to another man to divide-a device by which a weaker concern seeks to obtain an equality with the stronger.
 The inevitable law of nature is the survival of the Attest. You cannot change that law by legislatiOn.1 It may work for short time, but in the long run nature will triumph.
 "A railway pool would help one town and ruin the next.
 The Canadian Pacific Railway once Francisco to its terminus at Vancou- Yer and cut the transcontinental rates. The Transcontinental pool, then in ex- lstence, paid the Canadian Pacific half million year to discontinue busi- ness out of San Francisco.
 Who paid that half million? The shippers. of course.
 Southern planters are burning their cotton. Japan and the Far East could take 2,00O,000 bales of our cotton, but the past year they took only about 100000 bales.
 Not long ago we made q through rate for cotton from Galveston to HongkonS and encouraged shipments. The government ordered us to publish our rate-make it known to the world We declined and discontinued the rate The cotton is being burned.
 Ten years ago there were practi- cally no shipments of lumber from the Pacific coast to the East. We (the Great Northern) cut the rate from 90 cents to 40 cents. It was not long before shingles were legal tender in the State of Washington.
 Tn one year the Northern Securities Company reduced freight rates two million dollars
 , The government says we must pub fish our rates and have them all equal ized-even fixed by the government.
 "Competition Is the test that proves the survival of the Attest
 NO government has a right to put a check on one and give a bounty to another.
 ''The people of this country are en- deavoring to expand their trade and carry 1t unto all parts of the earth. The railroads are prime factor in this movement
 we are not compelled to push this