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Lawyers and public men had grown red with anger as they denounced him as a tyrant, and an enemy to the Constitution, because he wished to stop a dishonest system of rebates by the railroads.
I went from there to the Department of Railroads and was given a copy of freight and passenger rates which on examination proved to be very simple and that required no great lawyers with legal cunning to draw up as they did in my country in making tariff schedules to fool the people and open a wider door for graft rebates and special privileges.
Independent producers joined to fight for existence, and at length the railroads gave way and agreed to abandon the contract with the South Improvement Company, and the legislature of Pennsylvania annulled its charter, although in one way or another rebates continued and the absorption of rivals went on.
All this was the common railroad practice of the times. But another portion of the contract was not so common. It provided that the roads should give the South Improvement Company rebates on all oil shipped by its competitors and furnish it with full way-bills of all such shipments each day.
It must include putting a complete stop to rebates in every shape and form. This power to regulate rates, like all similar powers over the business world, should be exercised with moderation, caution, and self-restraint; but it should exist, so that it can be effectively exercised when the need arises.
These several rebates will reduce our sum total to eight hundred thousand women, when we come to calculate the number of those who are likely to violate married faith. Who would not at the present moment wish to retain the persuasion that wives are virtuous? Are they not the supreme flower of the country?
"This is running in all the coast papers," he said, and read: "OUR PLATFORM: No promotion shares. No construction profits. No bonds. No incompetence. No high-salaried officials. No monopoly. No passes or rebates. No graft.
There should be regulation by the National Government of the great interstate corporations, including a simple method of account keeping, publicity, supervision of the issue securities, abolition of rebates, and of special privileges. There should be short time franchises for all corporations engaged in public business; including the corporations which get power from water rights.
The railroads, pledged to give rebates to the Consolidated, had been forced by Ridgway, under menace of adverse legislation from the men he controlled at the State-house, to give him secretly a still better rate than the trust. He owned the county courts, he was supported by the people, and had become a political dictator, and the financial outlook for him grew brighter every day.
This crime is one which in its nature is deliberate and premeditated. I think over a fortnight elapsed between the date of Palmer's letter requesting the reduced rate and the answer of the railroad company deciding to grant it, and then for months afterwards this business was carried on and these claims for rebates submitted month after month and checks in payment of them drawn month after month.
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