DEAR SIR,—Referring to your query relative to the remarks alleged to have been made by me on December 31, 1904, to a reporter of the Chicago _Daily News_, I have to say that although I do not now recall everything that may have been said by me in conversations which were not intended for publication, it is quite possible that I did remark to some newspaper men that in my judgment Mr. Biddle’s personal action in the case was entirely justifiable, and exactly what I or any other railroad man would have done under similar circumstances. The contract between the Railroad Company and the Fuel Company was of itself neither unlawful nor unbusinesslike. On the other hand, it was perfectly defensible from a legal standpoint, as well as being good business ethics. The fault lay with the Railroad Company’s tariff bureau, which failed to properly publish the tariff, which should have shown that the published rate of $4.05 per ton included the price of the coal ($1.15 per ton). There was no discrimination in favor of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; in fact, discrimination was impossible, because there was no other shipper of coal in that territory. (_Signed_) PAUL MORTON. There were, however, other mining companies in adjacent territory, along the line of the Santa Fe in New Mexico, and at Gallup there were competitors in the same field. The same day that the Commission began to investigate the Colorado Case complaint was made about the rates from San Antonio, N. M. San Antonio lies 150 miles north of El Paso on the Santa Fe line from Trinidad, which is 500 miles from El Paso. The rate paid by the Fuel Company from Trinidad was $2.90 and the rate from San Antonio had been $1.25. “Under this adjustment of rates a coal operator at Carthage whose product reached the iron of the Santa Fe at San Antonio had been able to compete with the Colorado fields, and had entered into a contract for furnishing the Mexican Central Railway Company with its fuel. While that contract was pending the Santa Fe advanced the freight rate from San Antonio to El Paso from $1.25 to $1.50. By this action the operator at San Antonio was forced to give up his contract and go out of business.”[196] It seems clear that even our best railroads, while unwilling to countenance graft and desiring to avoid all criminal practices, see nothing immoral in granting whatever favors or imposing whatever disadvantages may be deemed necessary to forward the financial interests of the road.