The provisions of the law forbidding rebates were in truth merely a bit of legal hypocrisy.

Rebates could not be openly defended; but the business of the country was honeycombed with them, and the majority of the shippers in whose interest the law was passed did not want the prohibition enforced.

Their influence at Washington was sufficiently powerful to prevent the adoption of any effective measures for the abatement of the evil.

The Federal Inter-state Commerce Commission, unlike the local authorities, would have been fully competent to abolish rebates; but the plain truth was that the effective public opinion in the business world either supported the evil or connived at it.

The private interests at stake were, for the time being, too strong for the public interest.