The most constant grievance was discrimination--that the roads varied their rates for the benefit or detriment of especial types of freight, of individuals and of entire localities. Through business between competing points was carried at a low figure, while the roads recouped themselves by charging heavily in towns where competition was absent. Shippers complained that rates between St. Paul and Chicago, for example, where competition existed were hardly more than half the charges to places at a similar distance where a single road was in a position to demand what it pleased. Manufacturers in Rochester could send goods to New York City and reship them to Cincinnati, back through Rochester, for less than the rate direct to their destination. Yet the direct haul was seven hundred miles shorter than the indirect. Secret arrangements were commonly made with favored shippers by which they secured lower rates than their competitors. When it became evident that transportation cost entered into the price of substantially everything which the ordinary citizen consumed, and when it was considered that a slight rise in railroad rates might easily amount to a heavy tax on a shipper or an entire region, it was seen that uniformity of rates was a matter of the utmost concern. In brief, then, it was complained that the growth of the transportation system had placed enormous power in the hands of a small group of men, many of whom had indicated by their selfishness, arrogance and questionable practices that they ought not to be entrusted with so great a measure of authority.