We must not imagine, to begin with, that we are entirely blameless. We are in some respects only realizing the wages of past sins. We have done many of "those things which we ought not to have done," and we have left undone many of "those things we ought to have done." Most of the evils date back many years and many of them might have been prevented had the government done its duty and enforced the law. Yet even in most recent years we can find some mistakes with which to concern ourselves. It is not strange that many men who have suffered loss through delays in their traffic, or in their personal transportation, or who saw themselves deprived of profitable business because they could not secure cars, should have become exasperated and, not having time to properly analyze the difficulty, thought that the railroads were lacking in foresight and management. But let us go back a few years. It is a great mistake to hold the railroads responsible for such practices as rebating in those days, when it would have been impossible to throw a stone in a commercial community without hitting somebody who was taking rebates and wanting more. Many men are today running for office on anti-railroad platforms who if you were to say "Rebates" would duck their heads very much as David Harum said his Newport friends would do if he called out "Low bridge!" That rebates were wrong nobody questions, but to pillory a man today for accepting rebates at that time is a farce. Many persons believe that the so-called discriminations, resulting in the secret arrangements, were largely influenced by the desire upon the part of railroad officials to favor one man against another, but no thoughtful man who has at all studied the problem believes this. Rebates and other forms of discrimination,--whatever may have been the result in specific instances,--had their origin mainly in the competition between carriers for the traffic. Incidentally, in transacting railroad business through secret arrangements, as became the custom in that period, there were many cases of discrimination in favor of the strong and against the weak. There was a strong feeling upon the part of many men, both in and out of railway service, that the larger shipper, under the ordinary rules of business, was entitled to a lower rate, and they could not conceive the real principle which should govern the making of railroad rates,--which, however, has come clearly to be realized since that time. The railroad systems, generally, were not more anxious to pay rebates than they were to pay higher prices for their supplies, and simply pursued the course of their competitors because, otherwise, they saw nothing but loss and probable bankruptcy staring them in the face. The railroads were forbidden by law to meet and make formal agreements for the maintenance of rates, and by another law were required to compete. We all thought that the old plan _was_ competition.