Of course they submitted, and
defended their submission as a measure of self-preservation.
No great intelligence is required to detect in this situation the
evidence of a vicious circle. The absorption of Americans in business
affairs, and the free hand which the structure and ideals of American
life granted them, had made business competition a fierce and merciless
affair; while at the same time the fluid nature of American economic
conditions made success very precarious. Every shrewd and resolute man
would seek to secure himself against the dangers of this situation by
means of special advantages, and the most effective of all special
advantages would, of course, be special railroad rates. But a shipper
such as John D. Rockefeller could obtain special rates only because the
railroads were in a position similar to his own, and were fighting
strenuously for supremacy. The favored shipper and the railroad both
excused themselves on the ground of self-preservation, and sometimes
even claimed that it was just for a large shipper to obtain better rates
than a small one.
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