Railroad men in high position declare that discriminations always will exist. President Ripley of the Santa Fe says: “The situation is practically remediless. I think it will always be.”[351] President J. J. Hill of the Great Northern says: “You may say there shall be no discrimination. But that condition will never exist. If there were no discrimination the people would come down here in great throngs and ask you to authorize discrimination. We have to discriminate.”[352] When I asked President Fish of the Illinois Central how discriminations could be stopped he said: “Tell me how to enforce the Ten Commandments and I’ll tell you how to stop discriminations.” Another railroad president, whose name I am not at liberty to give, said in reply to the same question: “Discriminations will never cease so long as there is competition among the railroads, or political favors and protection can be secured thereby, or railways and railway men are interested in other businesses than transportation.” President Hill also recognizes the factor of special self-interest in addition to the influence of competition. He says: “I think that every railway officer in this country should be disqualified from having any interest, directly or indirectly, in any large producer of traffic, whether it is a coal mine or a factory or a mill or anything else, on a line of railway where he is on the pay roll.” “SENATOR CLAPP. And the reason for that suggestion is what? “MR. HILL. That he cannot be fair to the other fellow and punish himself. “SENATOR CLAPP. And the opportunity is such that it cannot be detected and prevented? “MR. HILL. It is so easy, if there is a great demand for coal in one direction, or for some commodity in one place, for him to help one fellow and forget the other.”[353] One of the gravest dangers lies in the fact that men who are largely interested in the great industrial corporations control certain railway lines and have large influence with many others. The interlocking of railroad interests with other industrial interests is a cause of discrimination second only to the pressure of railroad competition for traffic that is used by shippers as a means of extorting the favors they desire.