Note 280 — Chapter XXVI · PRIVATE-CAR ABUSES.
Reading edition
Rep. 1904, p. 15, 10 I. C. C. Decis. 1904, p. 360. Dealers have protested against paying 4 or 5 or 6 times the fair charge for ice, and have now and then refused to pay, telling the companies they could sue for the charges. But the car companies knew a better way. They ordered the cars of the disobedient dealers delayed and notified them that in future icing charges must be prepaid on all shipments to them or from them. These orders were enforced by the railroads and the kicking dealers were helpless. (Evidence, etc., 201–203.)
With a commission business such as that involved in the case referred to, an order for prepayment of icing charges or freight rates or both means ruin. For farmers and other producers will not prepay charges on perishables, and will not therefore ship to commission merchants to whom the railroads do not give credit that permits the payment of charges at their end of the line, i. e., on delivery.