"Our rates," he says, "are formed by many things. In a general way, by the competitive territory into which we go, and in specific cases by the volume of business that comes or goes from a single point. The direction of the movement, including whether cars must return empty or loaded, is another factor. Then, of course, there is the great factor to which both passenger and freight rates must comply--the necessity for the railroad earning more than it pays out. Acworth, the English economist, says that a railroad must pay for three things, the expense of maintaining the organization, that of maintaining the plant, and that of doing the work. Our revenues, from one source or another, must meet that triple expense." Ask this big freight-man about charging "what the traffic will bear" and he looks grieved. He turns about sharply and asks you: "The earning-sheets of every railroad are public and they will show you that they are but making expenses, in a few cases paying about half the dividends that a healthy national bank or trust company or manufacturing enterprise might be expected to return to its investors. That makes it look as if we had begun to get some sort of scientific adjustment between expense and revenue, does it not?" You dodge the point. You have no desire to quarrel or to delve into high railroad finance, and so you say you simply want to know about rates. "It's a little simpler than Sanscrit," says the freight-man. "We begin to figure on common or basing points--" You interrupt and inquire as to what a "common point" really is. Then the traffic expert gets down to primer talk and begins to explain the thing to your real understanding. It seems that some years ago, when the railroads first "pooled" they had to find an equitable method of making a rate-sheet. Everybody made suggestions, and a Pennsylvania freight-clerk, named James McGraham, made the right one. It was adopted and became the standard of to-day--which goes to show that good can sometimes come out of iniquity.