Devils Lake inter-ocean and Devils Lake free press. (Devils Lake, Ramsey County, N.D.) 1905-1909, 1907-08-23
1NTER-oCEAN DEVILS LAKE NORTH DAKOTA AUGUST g. 1907

"a 4
and control of the railroads are
not free from this selfshness
and greed. They have not stop
ped with handling their trans
portation questions with that in
view, but have gone far beyond
and have taken an active interest
in the making and enforcing of
the law for the purpose, not of
securing justice, what is fairly
theirs, but for the purpose of Sc
curing unfair advantage and
holding unfair advantages al
ready secured.
"To this end they have spent
their money in politics. For this
purpose they have corrupted
men in public life; for this pur-
pose they have defeated legisla-
ton that was designed solely to
secure justice for all parties con-
cerned.
"The railroad people have not
treated the public fairly at
large in two important respects.
In the first place, they have dis
eliminated between shippers
and localities. Some of the heavy
jobbing houses in the country
have been largely built up by a
system of rebating which is now
illegal and was always dishonest.
"The railroads of Wisconsin
have shown by their own books
that they paid over seven million
dollars in rebates in less than
seven years. 1t was the same in
Minnesota, and when the at
tempt was made last year to
force the railroads to disclose to
whom these rebates were paid,
public officials were subject to
influence sufficient to prevent
the disclosure and protect the re-
baters.
1T is unnecessary to argue
that it was not fair for the rail
roads to charge one shipper a
higher rate than his competitor
for doing the same service. Not
only did they discriminate as be-
; tween shippers, but they dis
eliminated and do discriminate
, to this day between localities
building up communities into
great cities and retarding other
communities in exact portion.
= "There are very few towns in
, the northwest that have not sui
: fered severely in this respect
/ This city in which we are assem-
, bled has not had and does not
: have at the hands of the rail
, roads square deal in this re-
( ,spect. It is the only port on the
: Great Lakes enjoyed by the PEG
= pie of Minnesota and yet, the ad
! vantages Of that natural fact il
: denied to Duluth and denied t,
e Minnesota by railroads for tn
benefit Of Chicago and othe:
] points.
t "Not only have the railroad
f Disseminated between individ
n ual shippers, not only do the.
r discriminate between differen
f localities but they excessivel,
f burden all shippers and all local
d tiles, except the favored few, b
y rates and charges that are un
l. reasonable.
h "Last winter our committee i,
n the senate made very thorougl
d and exhaustive examination int
o the railroads of Minnesota TO
g the purpose Of ascertaining thei
n value. We found that all tn
it railroads in the state of Mime
sofa were overcapitalized to tn
i extent of being approximate
e half water. Some of the raj
d roads like the Chicago Grea
n Western were capitalized to a
d laest five times the actual cos
y of reproducing the roads today
l. but the general average of all tn
= railroads as shown by their ow
It figures and their own report