The Spokane merchants combined and put their freight business in the hands of one agent, who could swing every pound of freight to the Northern Pacific or to the Oregon Navigation Co., or to the Great Northern, etc. Then the railways pooled against the merchants. The latter adopted the policy of tendering a reasonable sum for freight, and if the railways wouldn’t take it, the merchants replevied the goods and left the companies to sue for the freight. The companies got tired of that and made some concessions. But Spokane still suffers from severe discrimination, as we shall see hereafter. Coal hauled fifty miles to Leadville sold there for $7 a ton, while in Denver, after an additional haul of 150 miles, the same coal was sold for $5.50 a ton. The Michigan Central and other roads charged higher rates on carriages and buggies to San Bernardino than to Los Angeles, some distance further on.[126] From Pittsburg to Colorado the rate on rails was $1.60, while the rate all the way through to San Francisco was only 66 cents. From Pueblo to San Francisco, 1,559 miles, the rate on bar iron and on rails was $1.60 per hundred, while from Chicago to San Francisco, 2,418 miles, the rates were 50 cents on bar iron and 60 cents on rails; and even from New York to San Francisco the same rate of 60 cents was made for rails.[127] Sometimes the charge is much greater going one way between two given points than it is going the other way between the same points. For instance, “Gloves from San Francisco to Denver pay $2 a hundred. You ship the same packages back from Denver, which has 5,000 feet of elevation, to San Francisco at the sea level, downhill, like a toboggan slide, and it is $3 a hundred downhill to $2 up.”[128] The discriminations against Denver are severe both from Eastern and Western points. Sugar is carried from San Francisco to Denver at 75 cents; to Loveland it is 93 cents; but hundreds of miles further on, to Omaha, it is only 50 cents.[129] “Mr. Kindel has been driven out of the manufacture of upholstering goods and of spring beds in Denver because of similar differences. He wished to manufacture albums in Denver, but was forced to locate in Chicago because the freight rate on books from Chicago to San Francisco was $1.75 per hundred and from Denver to San Francisco $3, while the Denver manufacturer had to pay 97 cents freight on his raw material (paper, etc.) from Chicago to Denver, $3.97 against $1.75. So too, the freight rate on books from Chicago to New York is 75 cents, from Denver to New York $2.72.”[130] “The difference in rates on coal oil has been so great that oil has sometimes been shipped from Chicago to San Francisco and back again to Denver.”