In Philadelphia, a special federal court last week decided who will be permitted to buy Pullman's sleeping-car company. Its choice: a combine of 52 railroads which already use 96% of Pullman's 7,000 cars. The price: $75,000,000.
The court agreed with Pullman that the roads should be picked from the four bidders* because they "are the natural and obvious people to be in the sleeping-car business." To ward off danger of a new monopoly replacing the old, the court ruled that: 1) there must be no interlocking directorates among the roads and Pullman; 2) the Pullman serviceand the individual roadsmust buy new sleeping...