short of
stock at the time the train containing his car passed through his town
on its way to Council Bluffs, the consignee prevailed upon the station
agent to set out his car. In due time he received a request from the
general office of the railroad to pay an amount equal to the rate per
car-load from Council Bluffs to Atlantic. The request was promptly
complied with by the appreciative nurseryman, who after all had been
saved an annoying delay by the courtesy of the company's agent.

An infinite number of similar discriminations might be cited. They all
show the same violation of the fundamental principles of justice and
equity, the same despotical assertion of the power of the railroads to
regulate the commerce of the country as the caprice or selfish interests
of their managers might direct.

Discriminations between commodities, or, as they might also be called,
discriminations in classification, are probably the most common of
unjust railroad practices. For the purpose of establishing as near as
may be uniform rules in all matters pertaining to rates, the various
roads operating in a certain territory usually form traffic
associations. The general freight agents of the roads that are members
of the association in turn form a select body known as the rate
committee. These committees of freight agents have for more than twenty
years constituted the supreme authority in all matters pertaining to
freight classification. The trunk line classification recognizes six
regular and two special classes, and every article known to commerce is
placed in one of these classes. One whom Providence has not favored with
the mysterious wisdom of a general freight agent might suppose that
considerations of bulk, weight, insurance and similar factors formed a
basis of railroad classification. Nothing, however, is farther from the
truth. Freight charges, when permitted to be fixed by railroad
companies, are invariably such as the traffic will bear, and freight
classifications are arranged on this principle, provided competition by
water, rail or other land transportation does not demand a modification.
It is, as a rule, not to the advantage of a railroad to entirely starve
out any commercial or industrial concern along its line. Hence tariffs
are scarcely ever made entirely prohibitory. Railroads proceed here upon
the principle of the robber knight of mediaeval times, who simply
plundered the wayfaring trader to such an extent as to re