The Elkins Bill became law in February, 1903. In December of the same year the Interstate Commerce Commission reported that they believed the payment of rebates was largely discontinued, but that pressure upon the companies to maintain published rates had “begotten a new crop of expedients for the purpose of favoring particular shippers.”[177] Private-car abuses and terminal-railway abuses especially have “grown up much more intensely and to an aggravated degree since the Elkins Act than ever before.”[178] In 1902, in consequence of the exposure of wholesale rebates in the dressed-meat traffic, etc., temporary injunctions were issued against 14 leading railroads of the West, and while the matter was still before the court the Elkins Bill was passed, settling the injunction question in favor of the Commission. The railroads, convinced that rebates were dangerous, for the time at least, turned their attention to methods of discrimination not so subject to injunction or other judicial disorder. To these they have given their main allegiance, though they have by no means abandoned the rebate. CHAPTER XVIII. THE WISCONSIN REVELATIONS. In 1903, as stated in a previous chapter, Governor La Follette began an investigation of the railroads in Wisconsin, in relation to illegal deductions from the gross earnings returned by them as a basis for taxation. The investigation covered the period from 1897 to 1903, and it was found that $10,500,000 of illegal tax deductions had been made in that time, about $7,000,000 of which was in the form of unlawful rebates and discriminations. Every railroad of any importance in the State had paid rebates every year in large amounts both on passenger traffic and freight business. Here is a table of the rebates paid in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Elkins Law by the leading railways in Wisconsin, so far as brought to light by the investigation:[179] ILLEGAL REBATES PAID TO SHIPPERS IN WISCONSIN, 1897–1903. FREIGHT. PASSENGER. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul $1,346,237. $170,968. Chicago & Northwestern 3,023,810. 614,361. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha 515,323. 64,559. Wisconsin Central 244,492. 82,475. “Soo Line” 464,041. 39,807. Burlington 366,105. Other Railroads 158,677. 489. ——————————— ————————— $6,118,689. $972,661. These figures represent only part of the rebates really paid, and do not touch in any way the vast amount of favoritism which does not take the rebate form nor appear in any cash item.