Again, the tendency to lower rates in railroad service under the
stress of unregulated competition has a violence of which citizens
engaged in other branches of business are wholly ignorant. It
resembles the rush of the cataract. The education of the freight
agent has been in the direction of maintaining tonnage at almost
any cost. The net results are shown in the accounts of the oper-
ating department, which is separately organized. One effect of
the law has been to extend the scope of all reductions by making
general what was formerly restricted, localized and often secret.
Where, in the days before the law, a single rate was cut, the freight
agent must now reduce a tariff; and while he points with pride to
the increasing tonnage of the line, the loss of net revenue may be
excused as a result of the operation of the statute.
It has become a common criticism upon the present form of
congressional regulation of railway traffic, that while it prevents
discrimination and protects the public, it altogether fails to protect
the carriers. It presents no method of restraint upon impecun-
ious, extravagant, speculative or unreasonably aggressive railway
management ; it leaves the doors of competition open to the most
circuitous routes ; it puts the strong lines at the mercy of the weak,
and makes it possible for a road that should never have been built
to fix rates which all other competing roads must perforce accept.
