Note 273 — Chapter XXVI · PRIVATE-CAR ABUSES.

The Beef Trust is one of the largest shippers in the world. Its packing-house shipments from Chicago are said to amount to some three thousand million pounds (3,000,000,000 lbs.) a year. Its shipments from Kansas City, Omaha, St. Joe, St. Louis, etc., are also enormous. There is also a vast traffic in poultry, eggs, dairy products, fruit, and vegetables, that is controlled by the Trust. Is it any wonder that a railroad president or manager should refrain from action that might lose him his share of this huge business? It would make a sad hole in his receipts. Dividends would be emaciated and might vanish or appear with a minus sign. His stock would sink in Wall Street. Angry directors, bankers, investors, and stockholders would assail him and attack his management. And as a result of defying the Trust he would put himself out of office and his road perhaps in the hands of a receiver.