There are two things about which the public is most critical--one is the management of the newspaper, the other the management of the railroad. In his heart the average citizen believes that he could operate either his daily newspaper or the railroad passing through his town much better than it is being operated; he would perhaps hesitate to announce this opinion, but his attitude is coldly critical, and it is to be remembered that the railroad is all out of doors--all out in the weather, everything about it exposed to the limelight and visible to anybody's naked eye. There is no human activity the operation of which is attended with so much publicity. All our earnings and expenses are published; all our charges and all our methods the subject of regulation, intelligent or otherwise. Many years ago Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt, journeying to Chicago, was met on the outskirts of the city by an enterprising reporter for a daily paper, who boarded the train and forced himself into the presence of Mr. Vanderbilt and his party, and demanded news on behalf of "the public." Probably Mr. Vanderbilt, resenting the intrusion, said something uncomplimentary to the reporter and possibly to the "public" he claimed to represent, and the next issue of that paper quoted him in scare headlines as using the phrase, "The public be damned." Mr. Vanderbilt subsequently denied having said it, but whether he did or not and whatever may have been his provocation, the phrase has for nearly forty years been used as indicative of the railway man's attitude toward his patrons. Many years ago also the late George B. Blanchard, being on the witness stand at Albany, was asked what was the correct basis for making freight rates, and replied, "What the traffic will bear"--a most excellent answer, but a most unfortunate one--for it has passed into history as meaning "all the traffic will bear," which is a very different thing. Such things as these, distorted as they have been, conspired to inflame public opinion, but that is not all. It is the custom and privilege of men past middle age to be reminiscent and I ask your indulgence for a very brief history of the events that have led us to our present status. My railroad experience began about forty years ago and the railroad business was then much like any other business--it had its price list as did the merchant; but, like the merchant, it had its discounts for large shippers and for special conditions, and the discounts were irregular and various. The larger shippers demanded concessions as a right, and the principle was generally admitted. Naturally the result was favoritism, not because the railroads desired especially to favor one as against another, but because in the nature of things secret rates could not well be given to everybody.