David Josiah Brewer

“ The question is not whether, if he should receive and store in his elevator grain for others, he might not so far bring himself within the scope of the law as to be deemed, for that transaction, engaged in the business of maintaining a public elevator, and thus bound by the charges fixed by statute; but whether, when he maintains an elevator exclusively for his own business, the fact that at times he has used vacant room in it for the storage of the grain of other persons, compels him to receive grain when tendered, irrespective of the injury which it does to his own business. ”

“ I dissent, in the third place, because by this law the elevator man is bound, not merely to receive, store, and discharge the grain which is tendered to him, but also to insure and pay the cost of insurance, it matters not what that cost may be, whether more or less than he receives for the whole service. ”

“ So it is that when any farmer or other individual can, at a cost of less than $200, provide himself with all the facilities for storing and shipping the entire product of an ordinary farm; when, along the line of a single railroad, there are 600 elevators already constructed, owned, and operated by 125 different persons; when, at every station at which grain is marketed, there are from 2 to 10 such elevators,-it is held that there exists a monopoly such as justifies control by the public of the prices at which grain shall be stored in any one of these many elevators. ”