In the Counselman case (142 U. S. 547), Jan., 1892, the U. S. Supreme Court decided that a witness could not be compelled to testify in regard to discrimination in which he was involved, since the Federal law made it a criminal offence to make or benefit by discrimination. Unless the law exempts the witness from prosecution in consequence of his answers or in relation to the subject of them, he is not obliged to answer a question when the answer might tend to incriminate him.[52] Refusal to answer on such a plea is of course equivalent to confession of guilt. In this case Counselman, a large grain shipper, had been given rates on corn some 5 cents less per hundred than the rates paid by others from Kansas and Nebraska points to Chicago, over the Rock Island, Burlington, and other railroads. Five cents a hundred is an enormous profit on corn which the farmer had sold at 18 to 22 cents per hundred, and such a margin would enable the favored shipper to drive every one else out of the trade; and on many western roads it has been practically the case that only the railway officials and their secret partners can do business. Counselman refused to tell a United States grand jury whether or no he had had any rebates from the railroads in 1890. He said he had received none from Stickney’s road, nor from the Santa Fe, had had no business with the latter, he thought, but as to the Rock Island, C. B. & Q., etc., he declined to answer on the plea that to do so might incriminate him. Some railroad officials testified freely, but neglected to tell the truth.[53] Discriminations as a rule were secret. Even when it was clearly known that favoritism was being shown, shippers were generally afraid to complain, and in the small percent of cases where complaint and investigation took place it seemed impossible to get at the truth in any large way, because the railroad men for the most part would not “cough up” the facts. Still, something was done by the Interstate Commission, the courts, and the Industrial Commission. Some progress was made and some light secured. The jets of flame that here and there came up through the cracks from the under-world showed very clearly what was going on beneath the surface of railway affairs. _Direct Rebates._ Direct rebates on interstate traffic appear to have been checked for a few months after the passage of the Commerce Act, but the railroads admitted that they still gave rebates on traffic within a State[54] just as they continued to give passes, making them good within one State, insisting in respect to both rebates and passes that they had a right to give them because the law did not reach State traffic. Nevertheless, as the Commission remarked, such rebates inevitably affect the rates upon interstate traffic, and a competing road whose traffic is taken a little further, crossing the state line, may be compelled to give rebates or surrender important business.