Wichita eagle., 1889-05-25

ger of the Chicago & Alton railway, In
an interview in the Kansas City Times
of the 23rd says:
1.-THE Chicago and Alton company heartily fayor rs
nrc an eouazatton of the freight rates through
Kansas City and those around IT, rms suDJect - , VI
control or loss Of the o6bing trade Of the immense
territory to the southwest. MNow that the kans
TO Kansas points that have been heretofore covered
by Kansas City, IL ST. Louis IS allowed 20 hodo Tue
Years. she viii Simply reship at Wichita. take ad-
vantage OF these new distance tariffs ana ctpture
the trade by underselIing Kansas City SoInething
should be done at once to equaze these rates and
OF the Chicago aud Alton are ready 10 aT az as
Identical with those of Kansas City on this ques-
ton"
And now the general manager OF the
Chicago & Alton, a railroad which does
not even touch Kansas soil, is making
himself heard against Wichita as
terminal point, and that through the
newspapers. When railroad manager
gets outside of his impenetrable shell OF
official-surroundings and over the mag
nate-wall that hedges him about and
protects even his actions from
the scrutiny of the average stock
holder of his road, to blow his
bazoo through the columns OF
a public journal, something more than
ordinarily serious must have happened.
No one knows that the officials OF the
Chicago & Alton were ever in Kansas IN
their lives. They only know OF Kansas
in the sense that the heir apparent
knows his future subjects, and that by
the revenues he draws from them. The
freight trains of the Chicago & Alton
for wears have rolled out eastward,
loaded to their fullest capacity with the
tonnage of Kansas, such tonnage deliv-
cred to her on Missouri soil, through GER
tain traffic arrangements maintained by
Kansas corporations with it. But 1t Is
becoming more and more evident daily
that the fact that the great state Of Kan
sas, the freight charges upon whose null
hilarious products have largely paid the
dividends of the roads terminating at
Kansas City, is not only a great state
agriculturally, great state in her live
stock interests, and a great state
in her manufactures, but that.
she is developing at least one
great city, is working its way slowly
through the wool of the high salaried
officials of these Kansas City roads.
And the knowledge of the fact seems to
lack soporfc qualities. In truth the
symptoms are more allied to frenzy. Mr..
C. H. Chapel, the general manager of
the Chicago & Alton railway system,
seems to be the latest victim. He IN:
blushingly declares himself through the
columns of the Kansas City Timas as
being in favor of ''forcing an. equaliza-
ton of the freight rates through and
around Kansas City" Does Mr. Chap
pei realize what he is talking about?
Does he know that Wichita today, in
her railway tonnage is three times big
ger city than was Kansas City when the
Chicago & Alton was first extended
to the Missouri river? Hasn't Mr..
Chapel awakened up to the knowledge
that in population, in wealth, and all
that goes to make up city, that Wich-
ita is a bigger town today than Kansas
City was eight or ten years ago? Hasn't
Mr.. Chappell yet discovered from his
traffic managers books that upwards
of 20 per cent of all the live stock deliv-
cred to the Union Stock Yards at Kansas
City are billed from Kansas and as
freight originated in Kansas, and that
large per cent of that live stock product
is already changing its course and into
Wichita's market? Can't Mr.. Chappell
appreciate the truth of the proposition
that the same line of events which forced
the Chicago & Alton westward to Kansas
City must also force the Chicago & Alton
on to the next City to the westward
or leave said line in the
soup? Does not Mr.. Chappell, the
general manager Of the now great Chi
cago & Alton railway system, compre-
bend that had his present policy obtained
in the past management of his road that
it could never have reached west of
Alton or OF st. Louis at the farthest?
Would he have the business men Of
Kansas to understand that their state
must remain tributary to a Missouri
town, town that pays no taxes in Kan
sas, and that railway arrangements are
called upon by him to use force" to
that end? Has Mr.. Chappell yet to learn
that the moment that the head of
great corporation rushes into print that
that moment he always gets left in that
the extreme emergency of such rush
never fails of involving the rights of the
people, who still rule in this country?
Would Mr.. Chappell have Us to under
stand that all US fellows out here
who are developing and making the
great state of Kansas, that all we men
and women who are building homes and
school houses and evolving civilization,
whose birth involved a revolution in
this country, ale of no value beyond
that of building up Kansas City and