Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1887 — REGULATING THE RAILROADS [ARTICLE]

REGULATING THE RAILROADS

The manager of a Chicago manufacturing house, in a letter to iho Interstate Commission, complains that he is now compelled to pay his fare, whereas former.y ho rode upon a pass. He asks that section 22 be sua-

pended for tbe Chicago 4 Northwestern Road. Mr. Taft presented a communication to the Interstate from Sutton 4 Ca’s dispatch line, setting forth that the action of the transcontinental roads toward the shipping interest via Cape Horn has been of the most violent nature. They had exerted every effort to annihil&to the shipping interest of the country. They had taken the long-haul traffic at a los<, which they must make up from charges on the short-hanl traffic. Complaints against unjust discrimination and excessive rates were received from several dairymen of Orange County, New York, and milling firms of Atchison, Kan. J. Searies, Jr., representing the Eastern sugar refiners, entered a protest against granting the petition of the San Francisco refiners. He recited the history of the Hawaiian sugar trade, and showed how, by a combination with the railroads, San Francisco refiners could lay this foreign commodity down in New York at prices their Eastern competitors could not meet. Ralph W. Thatcher, a miller of Albany, N. Y., told the Commission he had a contract for certain favorable terms of transportation, under which he had built an elevator. The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company refused to carry out the contract since the interstate law went into effect, and his business was at a stand-still. He wanted an order directing the company to fulfill its contract A “sufferer” from Mankato, Minn., writes that for the last five years the people of that vicinity have been paying their fares to the conductors, thereby making a goodly saving. Suddenly tho conductors have experienced a change of heart, and ara charging schedule rates, evidently fearing the effect of the new law. He asks the aid of the commission for a return to the old system. Justice, Bateman & Co., wool merchants of Philadelphia, in a letter protest against suspending Section four as regards transcontinental lines. Tbov say the protests against the section come from parties who have been enjoying great benefits from cut rates, and instance tho case of wool. Last year San Francisco merchants had a rate of 50 cents per ICO pounds, while parties several hundred miles farther east had to pay $3 to $4.50. There is woo', they say, now in Philadelphia, grown in Montana, which the railroads forced to be sent thence via San Francisco, making a haul of 4,000 miles, while if shipped direct it would have traveled only 2,000 miles. The object of tho discrimination was to give the San Francisco merchants an opportunity to exact toll before it reached its natural destination. Hotel proprietors in Chicago are complaining that the interstate commerce law is working serious injury to the hotel business. The operation of the fourth section of the interstate commerce law has been suspended for seventy-five days on the Northern and Southern Pacific, Atchison, and St Louis and San Francisco roads.