A big capitalist in the West got hold of great oil fields on the Pacific slope, wonderful prospects, contracts to supply big cities, etc. Some one told him he had better see the railroads before he made his contracts. He thought the transportation question would be all right and went ahead. When he got his contracts made and wanted to ship the oil, he asked for cars, and then he found the transportation question was not all right. He could not get the cars. Sometimes a railroad has arbitrarily refused to haul goods to certain consignees. A case of this kind came before the Texas Railway Commission in the case of the Independent Compress _v._ Chicago, Rock Island and Texas Railway Company. The Bowie Compress, located at the same station with the Independent, had some sort of pull which caused the railroad to refuse to haul cotton to that station unless consigned to the Bowie Compress. The railway also allowed compression charges out of the through rate on cotton shipped to the Bowie Compress, refused freight from points of origin, and reshipped the cotton from the Bowie press at through rates, while refusing such concessions to others.[85] The refusal to deliver at a certain place may be as effective sometimes as the refusal to deliver at all. When in 1890 Mr. Nelson Morris tried to establish competitive stock yards in Chicago to get rid of the graft of the Union Stock Yards owned largely by railway interests, the Vanderbilts being in the lead, his enterprise was loudly applauded by the stock raisers of the West; but the railroads made short work of Morris. They simply refused to deliver to his yards the cars shipped there. They did not recognize any such place as the Morris yards and calmly hauled all cars to the old terminal. If Mr. Morris wanted them he must come and get them and pay switching charges. This ruined the venture. Big shippers may be given an undue advantage by excessive difference between the rates on carloads and less than carloads.[86] On June 29, 1898, the Western railroads advanced their less-than-carload rates to the Pacific Coast to a minimum difference of 50 cents a cwt. above the carload rate; and “on a great many commodities the difference is greater than the profit on the goods.”[87] The Interstate Commission regards a moderate reduction on carload shipments as fair, but will not sanction lower rates for cargo or train-load quantities than for carloads.[88] CHAPTER XI. CLASSIFICATION AND COMMODITY RATES.