Disregarding the
discrimination which is always apparent against those who are unpopular,
or who suffer under special opprobrium, as do liquor dealers, owners of
lotteries, and the like,[30] I will take, nearly at random, a couple of
examples of rate regulation, where tenderness has been shown property in
something approaching to a mathematical ratio to the amount involved.
In April, 1894, a record was produced before the Supreme Court which
showed that the State of North Dakota had in 1891 established rates for
elevating and storing grain, which rates the defendant, named Brass, who
owned a small elevator, alleged to be, to him in particular, _utterly_
ruinous, and to be in general unreasonable. He averred that he used his
elevator for the storage of his own grain, that it cost about $3000,
that he had no monopoly, as there were many hundred such elevators in
the state, and, as land fit for the purpose of building elevators was
plenty and cheap, that any man could build an elevator in the town in
which he lived, as well as he; that the rates he charged were
reasonable, and that, were he compelled to receive grain generally at
the rates fixed by the statute, he could not store his own grain.
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