“Now the Commission did, acting on that suggestion, invite every president of the trunk-line railroads to come to Washington. They came, all of them. Mr. Calloway was there for the New York Central; Mr. Thompson was there for the Pennsylvania Railroad; Mr. Murray and Mr. Cowan came there for the Baltimore and Ohio; Mr. Harris came from the Philadelphia and Reading, and Mr. Walters was there for the Lehigh Valley. I do not remember them all, but they all came there. Those gentlemen all said: ‘It is true; we have departed from the published rate. We did not like to do it, but we did. But we have gotten through. We shall depart from the published rate no more. If you gentlemen will only let bygones be bygones, we assure you that in the future there will be no discrimination under this law.’ “Well, I expect, perhaps, that we ought to have said to them, ‘You are a pack of consummate liars; we do not believe anything you say, and we will prosecute you if we can. But we did not think so; we believed exactly what they said, and we told them we did, and they went home, and no prosecutions were begun on the facts which we had against the Baltimore and Ohio. Then we called, at the request of certain persons in the West, the presidents of all those lines, and they all came. Mr. Marvin Hughitt came; Mr. Bird, of the Milwaukee line, came; in all, 30 or 40; and we had the same sort of an experience meeting again. They all said: ‘We have sinned, but we have got through. Now, gentlemen, just help us to maintain the Act to regulate commerce.’ We said: ‘We will do it.’ And they went home. “Now, I do not wish to pass any criticism at all on these gentlemen. I have not the slightest doubt that they meant precisely what they said. I think I know something about the difficulties under which they labored; but they did not maintain those rates for a month, probably.... There has not been a time since I have been an Interstate Commerce Commissioner, when, if the traffic officers of the trunk lines between Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard would have consented to tell the truth under oath, the Interstate Commerce Commission would not have stopped the payment of rebates. I have been able to discover no way in which to make them tell the truth.” “SENATOR NEWLANDS. In regard to the future, will it not be possible for them to commence again this system of rebates? “MR. PROUTY. I think they pay rebates now. “SENATOR NEWLANDS. You think they do? “MR. PROUTY. I think they do.”