One of the most important forms of discrimination is the railroad pass. Many persons of wealth or influence, legislators, judges, sheriffs, assessors, representatives of the press, big shippers, and agents of large concerns, get free transportation, while those less favored must pay not only for their own transportation, but for that of the railway favorites also.
A farmer and a lawyer occupied the same seat in a railroad car. When the conductor came the farmer presented his ticket, and the lawyer a pass. The farmer did not conceal his disgust when he discovered that his seat-mate was a deadhead. The lawyer, trying to assuage the indignation of the farmer, said to him: “My friend, you travel very cheaply on this road.” “I think so myself,” replied the farmer, “considering the fact that I have to pay fare for both of us.”
The free-pass system is specially vicious because of its relation to government. Passes are constantly given to public officials in spite of the law, and constitute one of the most insidious forms of bribery and corruption yet invented. I have in my possession some photographs of annual passes given by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1903, 1904, and 1905 to members of the State Legislature, and the Common Council of Philadelphia.
The Constitution of Pennsylvania, Section 8 of Article 8, says: “No railroad, railway, or other transportation company, shall grant free passes, or passes at a discount, to any persons except officers or employees of the company.”
The question is whether the members of the Legislature are employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Recently the Pennsylvania Railroad gave notice that after January 1, 1906, no free passes would be issued except to employees. As we have seen reason to believe, this may still include members of the Legislature, and even if the order should happen to be enforced according to the common acceptation of the word “employees,” there are plenty of ways in which free transportation can be given to men the railroad management deems it desirable to favor. Railroads have made such orders before, and in every case the fact has proved to be that the order simply constituted an easy method of lopping off the overgrown demand for passes, a ready excuse for denying requests the railroad does not wish to honor, without in the least interfering with its power of favoring those it really wishes to favor. In cutting off passes under said order to multitudes of city officials in Pittsburg lately the Pennsylvania railroad officers stated that the demand had become so great that those having free rides were actually crowding the paying passengers on many of the trains. The Philadelphia North American declared that in that city every big and little politician expected free passage when he requested it, and that there was no ward heeler so humble that he might not demand transportation for himself and friends to Atlantic City, Harrisburg, or any other point on the Pennsylvania line. The Springfield Republican said: “It does not appear to be recognized, in the praise given to the present action of the railroad company, how great an impeachment of its management the old order constituted. We are told that passes were issued literally in bundles for the use of political workers, big and little.”
We watched with much interest to see what the railroad would really do when the time for full enforcement of the order came. In Pennsylvania, as was anticipated, the order has been used as a basis for refusing passes to the overgrown horde of grafters who have feasted so long at the Pennsylvania’s tables. The railway does not want anything this year in Pennsylvania that the grafters can give it, and it is an excellent opportunity to punish the Pittsburg politicians for allowing the Gould lines to enter the city. But in Ohio the situation is different, and, in spite of the recent order, the time-honored free passes have been sent to every member of the Ohio Legislature. A press despatch from Columbus, January 1, says: “One of the notable events that marked the opening of the general assembly to-day was the unexpected arrival of railroad passes for every member. The Pennsylvania, first to announce that the time-honored graft would be cut off, was the first to send the little tickets, and the other lines followed suit.”
The Pennsylvania is not alone in its delicate generosity to legislators and other persons of influence. The practice is practically universal.[3] From Maine to California there is not a State in which the railroads refrain from giving passes to legislators, judges, mayors, assessors, etc. And the roads expect full value for their favors. Some time ago a member of the Illinois Legislature applied to the president of a leading railroad for a pass. In reply he received the following:
“Your letter of the 22nd to President ——, requesting an annual over the railroad of this company, has been referred to me. A couple of years ago, after you had been furnished with an annual over this line, you voted against a bill which you knew this company was directly interested in. Do you know of any particular reason, therefore, why we should favor you with an annual this year?”
The railroads give passes to legislators and public officials not, as a rule, in any spirit of philanthropy or respect for public office, but as a matter of business; and if a legislator does not recognize the obligation that adheres to the pass, the pass is not likely to adhere to him in subsequent years.
In many cases the pass is the first step on the road to railroad servitude. Governor Folk said to me: “The railroads debauch legislators at the start by the free pass. It is a misdemeanor by the law of this State to take such a favor.[4] But it seems so ordinary a thing that the legislator takes it. He may start out with good intentions, but he takes a pass and then the railroad people have him in their power. He has broken the law, and if he does not do as they wish they threaten to publish the number of his pass. He generally ends by taking bribe money. He’s in the railroad power anyway to a certain extent, and thinks he might as well make something out of it. In investigating cases of corruption I have found that in almost every instance the first step of the legislator toward bribery was the acceptance of a railroad pass.”
At the annual dinner of the Boston Merchants’ Association, January, 1906, Governor Folk said: “One of our greatest evils is the domination of public affairs by our great corporations, and we will never get rid of corporation dominance till we get rid of the free pass. That is the insidious bribe that carries our legislators over the line of probity. First seduced by the free pass, destruction is easy. No legislator has a right to accept a free pass; no more right than to accept its equivalent in money.” Even the laws against the free pass, Governor Folk says, often play into the hands of the railways and emphasize and fasten corruption upon the State by putting legislators and officials at the mercy of the railroads in consequence of the fact that the taking of a pass is a violation of law, so that the railway has a special hold upon the donee as soon as the favor is accepted. This is likely to be the effect unless the law is so thoroughly enforced as to prevent the taking of passes, which is very difficult and very seldom achieved.
Governor Folk is doing his best to abolish the pass evil. It used to be a common thing for officials of all grades to ride on passes. And any influential person in Jefferson City could get a pass by seeing a member of the House or Senate, who would send a note to Colonel Phelps and a pass would be forthcoming. Now the legislators decline to accommodate their friends by making these little requests, for the matter might come to the ear of Governor Folk. Moreover the government employees in Missouri have been cut off from these railroad “courtesies.” The statute does not apply to appointive officers, but the Governor does not intend that his department shall be honeycombed with railroad influence if he can help it. One of the officers of a subordinate branch of the government went to him and asked him about the matter. “I do not want a pass for myself,” said the interrogator, “but Mr. W. told me that he would like for me to see you before he accepted a pass and see if you had any objections. And I want to add, Governor, that it has always been the custom for the employees in this department to use free passes.” Governor Folk’s countenance lost its smile for the moment, as he said very slowly and sternly: “Tell the employees of your department that if any of my appointees ride upon railway passes they will be instantly discharged.”
These insidious bribes in the guise of courtesy and honor for position—these free passes which Governor Folk denounces as the first steps to corruption—are prevalent in all our States. Even in honest old Maine, the frosty forest State, I found the railroad pass in full bloom. Speaking to a joint committee of the House and Senate at Augusta a few months ago, I exhibited a number of photographs of passes given to legislators and councilmen by one of our big railroads. The members examined these photos with much interest and some facetious remarks. On the way into town a famous lobbyist who has long and close acquaintance with the legislature of Maine laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks over the memory of the scene, puffing out between his explosions the explanation of his merriment: “Every one of those fellows has a railroad pass in his own pocket.” Inquiry in other directions tends to confirm his statement.
It is hardly possible to imagine that the ordinary legislator or judge can be entirely impartial in reference to a railroad bill or suit when he is under obligation to the railroads for past favors and hopes for similar courtesies in the future.
When a judge finds that jurors in a railroad case have accepted passes from the railroad he discharges the jurors as unfit for impartial service,[5] yet that same judge may have in his pocket an annual pass over all the lines of the road that is plaintiff or defendant in the case.
Some railroad presidents and managers have told me that passes are given as mere courtesies and are not intended to influence the conduct of officials. This may be true in some cases, but as a rule the railroads do not give charity; but expect favor for favor, and value for value, or multiplied value for value. Railroad men have sometimes admitted to me that the psychology of the pass is closely related to that of the bribe, and that they sought and obtained political results from the distribution of transportation favors. And aside from such admissions the evidence on the facts is overwhelming.
A prominent judge who had been on the bench for years in one of our best States and had always received passes from various railroad companies, found at the beginning of a new year that one of the principal railroads had failed to send him the customary pass. Thinking it an oversight he called the attention of the railroad’s chief attorney to the fact. “Judge,” said the lawyer, “did you not recently decide an important case against our company?” “And was not my decision in accordance with law and justice?” said the judge. The attorney did not reply to this, but a few days later the judge got his pass. After some months it again became the duty of the judge to render a decision against the company. This second act of judicial independence was not forgiven. The next time he presented his pass the conductor confiscated it in the presence of many passengers and required the judge to pay his fare.
The railroad commission in one of our giant States says the fact “that for the most part passes are given to official persons for the purpose of influencing official conduct, is made manifest by the fact that they are not given to such persons except while they hold official positions.”[6]
The president of an important railroad is stated to have said that he “saved his company thousands of dollars a year by giving annual passes to county auditors.” And a man who had been auditor for many years said that the taxes of the —— railroad company were increased about $20,000 a year because it was so stingy with its passes.[7]
Members of legislatures and of Congress have told me that after voting against railroad measures the usual passes were not forthcoming.
A little while before the introduction of the rate legislation now pending, in pursuance of President Roosevelt’s regulative policy, a congressman from the Far West was visiting with us. He had free transportation for himself and family anywhere in the United States any time he wanted it. A lady in the family asked him if it was the same way with the rest of the congressmen, and he said “Yes.” I have in my notes conversations with senators and representatives from eighteen States, and all of them stated, in reply to my questions, that passes were an established and regular part of the perquisites of a member of Congress.
But since the Esch-Townsend bill for the fixing of rates by a government commission came on deck, I understand that the congressmen who supported it are learning the lesson conveyed in the pass-denying letter above quoted, as some of the railroads are refusing all the requests of such congressmen for free transportation. The president of one of these railroads is reported to have said: “I never was in favor of granting political transportation, and now I have a good opportunity to cut off some of these deadheads. Transportation has been given them in the past on the theory that they were friends, but when we needed friends they were not there.”
This, however, is only a passing phase—an emergency measure to punish a few congressmen who have shown so little appreciation of the right of the railroads to make the laws affecting transportation, that they actually voted for what they deemed right or for what the people desired, rather than for what the railroads wanted.
Aside from such little eddies, the great stream of dead-headism flows on as smooth and deep as ever. The people take the thing so much as a matter of course that it has been a constant cause of surprise to passengers on the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad to see Governor Douglas pay his fare day by day as he travelled to and fro on an ordinary commutation ticket.
A prominent judge of Chicago tells me that for years the leading railroads entering that city have sent him annual passes without request. I found the same thing in Denver, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and nearly everywhere else I have been in this country. The mayor of one of our giant cities told me this very morning that the principal railroads sent him annuals but he returned them. It would be better if he would turn the next lot over to a publicity league or put them in a museum.
In many cases the railroads are practically forced to give passes. A. B. Stickney, President of the Chicago and Great Western Railroad was asked by the Industrial Commission[8] about the giving of passes to members of the judiciary of Minnesota and Illinois. President Stickney said, “If any of them ask for transportation, they get it; we don’t hesitate to give to men of that class if they ask for passes; we never feel at liberty to refuse.”
“Is there any good reason why a judge who gets a good salary should have a pass—any greater reason than why John Smith should have a pass?”
“That depends,” said President Stickney, “on what you call a good reason.... Twenty-five years ago I had charge of a little bit of a road that was a sort of subordinate of a larger road.
“I had occasion to visit the president of the superior road about something, and he said: ‘Mr. Stickney, I see that the sheriff of this county has a pass over your road. I should like to know on what principle you gave that sheriff a pass.’
“‘I did it on the principle that he was a power, and I was afraid to refuse him,’ I said.
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘I refused him.’
“‘You will wish you hadn’t before the year is over,’ I replied.
“Sometime afterwards, and during the year, I went into the office to see the superintendent, but he was not in; I went into the general freight agent’s office, and he was not in; I went into the general manager’s office, and he was not in. So I then went into the office of the president and said, ‘What kind of a road have you got? Your superintendent is not here, your general freight agent is not here, and your general manager is not here.’
“He hung his head down and said: ‘Do you remember that conversation we had about that sheriff’s pass? He’s got all those men on the jury and has got them stuck for about two weeks.’”
Q. “That answer seems to indicate that railroads would be afraid to refuse for fear of the penalties?”
A. “I think the railroads find there is a class of men that it is to their interest not to refuse if they ask for passes.”
Van Oss says that at one time in this country half the passengers rode on passes.[9] That seems incredible. There is no doubt, however, that the pass evil was enormous before it was checked by State and Federal legislation, and still prevails to an astonishing extent. Six years after the Interstate Act prohibited all preferences, and twenty years after the State crusade against passes and other discriminations began, C. Wood Davis, a railway auditor of large experience, and an executive officer having authority to issue passes, stated that “ten percent of the railway travel of this country is free, the result being that the great mass of railway users are yearly mulcted some $33,000,000 for the benefit of the favored few. No account of these passes is rendered to State, nation, or the confiding stockholders.”[10] If ten percent still ride deadhead, as is quite probable, the resulting tax upon paying railway users is now over $50,000,000 a year. The effect of legislation has been to give the railways an excuse for shutting off the less influential of the former deadheads, while the big people ride free in spite of the law.[11]
The Hon. Martin A. Knapp, Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, says: “A gentleman told me that on one occasion he came from Chicago to Washington along in the latter days of November, and every passenger in the Pullman car, besides himself, was a member of Congress or other Government official, with their families, and that he was the only passenger who paid a cent for transportation from Chicago to Washington, either for his passage or for his Pullman car.”[12]
Paul Morton says: “Passes are given for many reasons, almost all of which are bad.... Passes are given for personal, political, and commercial reasons.”[13]
Big shippers and their agents get them as a premium on or inducement to shipments over the donating railroad. When we went to the St. Louis Exposition we had to pay our fare, but the shipping manager of a large firm I have in mind was given free transportation for himself and family, though he was abundantly able to pay. In fact, those best able to pay ride free, while the poor have to pay for the rich as well as for themselves.
One way in which the railway managers evade the Interstate Commerce Law, in giving passes to large shippers and others, is to designate the recipients as employees of their own or other companies.[14]
President Stickney, of the Chicago and Great Western Railroad, said in a recent address before the Washington Economic Society:
“The law which makes it a misdemeanor for any individual not an officer of a railway company to use a pass was enacted by Congress and approved by the President 18 years ago, and as an individual rule of action it was ignored by the congressmen who passed it and by the President who approved it; and subsequent congressmen and presidents, with rare exceptions, have ignored its provisions. Travelling, they present the evidence of their misdemeanor before the eyes of the public in a way which indicates no regard for the law. The governors of the States, many of the judges,—in short, all officialdom from the highest to the lowest,—the higher clergy, college professors, editors, merchants, bankers, lawyers, present the evidence of their misdemeanor in the same manner.”
As we shall see presently, there are other forms of passenger discrimination, such as the free private car, the rate war, etc.
But neither of these nor the selling of tickets below the normal rates through scalpers, constitutes so inequitable or dangerous a form of discrimination as the pass system. As Hadley says: “The really serious form of passenger discrimination is the free-pass system. It is a serious thing, not so much on account of the money involved, as on account of the state of the public morals which it indicates (and develops). When passes are given as a matter of mere favoritism, it is bad enough. When they are given as a means of influencing legislation, it is far worse. Yet this last form of corruption has become so universal that people cease to regard it as corrupt. Public officials and other men of influence are ready to expect and claim free transportation as a right. To all intents and purposes they use their position to levy blackmail against the railroad companies.”[15]
Other leading countries are not afflicted with this pass disease to any such extent as we are; some of them do not have the malady at all. In France and Italy I was offered passes, but the government roads of Austria, Germany, and Belgium not only did not offer passes, but refused to grant them even when considerable pressure was brought to bear.[16] The Minister of Railways in Austria informed me that he had no pass himself, but paid his fare like any ordinary traveller. No amount of personal or official pull could secure free transportation. The same thing I found was true in Germany. Only railway employees whose duty calls them over the road have passes. The Minister pays when he travels on his own account. And the Emperor also pays for his railway travel. It is the settled policy of government roads in all enlightened countries to treat all customers alike so far as possible, concessions being made, if at all, to those who cannot afford to pay or who have some claim on the ground of public policy: as in South Africa where children are carried free to school; in New Zealand, where men out of work are taken to places where they may find employment, on credit or contingent payment; and in Germany and other countries, where tickets are sold at half price for the working-people’s trains in and out of the cities morning and night.
Even in England, though the roads are private like ours, the working-people have cheap trains, and public officials pay full fare. The King of England pays his fare when travelling, and if he has a special train he pays regular rates for that too. Members of Parliament also and minor public officers pay for transportation. Passes are not given for political reasons. The law against this class of discriminations is thoroughly enforced. But in this country not only members of Congress and other public officials, but some of our presidents even have subjected themselves to severe criticism by accepting free transportation in disregard of Federal law.