We have seen in Chapter III how President Mosher of the Northern Grain Company fought La Follette’s railroad reforms because of his deep sympathy with, and appreciation of, the rights of railroads that were paying his company $30,000 a year in secret rebates. Another man who bitterly opposed La Follette, denouncing him as “an inciter,” a demagogue, etc., was an officer of one of the refrigerator companies that carries beer for a big Milwaukee brewery. At the very time this official condemned La Follette, his company was receiving from one to three thousand dollars a month in rebates from a single one of the Wisconsin railways, in addition to the mileage profits on the cars. No wonder the brewers and their allies opposed all progressive railroad legislation when they were getting $73,240 a year in mileage rentals, and many thousands more in secret rebates or commissions from the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul alone. These men were strongly of opinion that there was law enough already. An investigation in Minnesota a little before that of Wisconsin showed precisely the same sort of facts, namely, enormous amounts in rebates were paid by the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and other Minnesota railroads. But in the Minnesota cases, to forestall further agitation and publicity, most of the railroads paid the additional taxes demanded by the State. The railroads do not by any means confine their rebate operations to the States in which their lines are located. The case of the Camden Iron Works, recently before the Interstate Commerce Commission, shows that a railroad will reach half across the continent with a rebate in its hand to grasp important shipments. In this case the Northern Pacific gave R. D. Wood & Co. of Philadelphia, the owners of the Iron Works, a rebate of 5 cents a hundred on 1,500 tons of iron pipe. The Great Northern, the Canadian Pacific, the Delaware & Hudson, and other roads had agents on the spot trying to get the business away from the Pennsylvania, which would naturally have taken the shipment, but the 5 cent rebate carried the day and the iron went via the B. & O., the Great Lakes, and the Northern Pacific. The rebate was paid by a check for $1,500, and no one but the traffic managers knew of the transaction, which would probably never have come out except for the complaint of a traffic agent on the Pennsylvania, who had offered a rebate of 1 cent a hundred but did not get the business and was therefore blamed by his superiors. CHAPTER XIX. THE COLORADO FUEL REBATES AND OTHER CASES.