Wichita eagle., 1889-05-29
THE EAGLE NOT CRANKY.
The Missouri River BaSing Must be
Wiped Out in the Traffic
of Kansas


! traffic rates for Wichita, it must not be
| concluded that the EAGLE is lacking in
| conservatism. Conservation has been
the factor of all others which has led up
to its success in nearly all OF the
grand triunphs won for Wichita.
No man in the state could have higher
appreciation OF the value Of railroads as
| a developer and wealth accumulation
than the writer, and no editor in the
state has gone farther in his pleadings
with our law making power, or
been so emphatic in his warn
ings to them of the disaster
that would follow unfriendly or incon-
siderate legislation. No one more
thoroughly understands and deprecates
the trouble created in several other west
ern states recently upon the rate ques-
ton, by the ilI-advised and radical if not
extreme actions and rulings Of the COM
missioners of those states. We know
that foreign investors, upon whom our
chief dependence rests for the money to
carry on these western enterprises, are
very quick to take alarm, not only, but
that by the foolish vaporings and buster
ing pretentions of the papers and of the
traffic managers who would deny
the righteous adjustment of Wichita's
rates, has already caused no in
considerable uneasiness in the east All
this is affirmed upon the one hand and
not denied upon the OF her, but the
knowledge of the fact remains with US
that had the railway managers them
selves, in the proper spirit, recognized
the justice and the wisdom of the adj
justment made by the board Of commits
sloners, nothing further would have ever
been heard of it, and their receipts for
traffic would have in no wise suffered.
But what has happened has happened,
and the railroads themselves are only
and wholly to blame. Had they recog
nized the fact that the forty Or fifty job
bing concerns Of Wichita were being
treated unfairly, and bad then given
them the same chances to serve their
customers as had been afforded Leaven
worth, AtchiSon and Wyandotte
and other towns, instead of
continuously burthening Wichita,
from the insane idea that if
Wichita was kept down to somewhere
near the general level Of surrounding
county seats and other local towns, that
the railroads would thus be enabled to
indefinitely impose and collect local
rates or the sum of two or more locals,
on all the traffic west of the Missouri in
Kansas, there would have been no trou-
bic. The motto of these roads has been
for years-for Wichita has always led
hold up and encourage every town in
south Kansas at the expense Of Wichita,
or otherwise we lose our local tariff and
our Missouri river base. Even now the
demonstrations and claims made by
other towns are not upon any well
founded fact, or basis, but are for the
purpose of embarrassing the commits
sion, being inspired by the railroads
themselves. For the very town which
yesterday claimed in the dispatches
the same rates as Wichita, the tonnage
data for that town is being gotten up by
an employee of railroad-not in the IN
.terest of that town which, by the way,
claims with such gusto that she is one
fourth as great as Wichita, but gotten |
up to embarrass Wichita. The proofs |
we have and can furnish them, although |
the inhabitants Of that same town, who |
in their ignorance demands that which !
neither the state or interstate commits |
sions could legally grant, or enforce, are !
probably just as ignorant Of who in
spired their fight.
Speaking Of Missouri river base, we
wish TO add to what we said last week, |
that the Missouri river rate is purely an
arbitrary one, fixed in the first place
b. the old pooling system aud after
wards as a matter of convenience held /
to under the interstate traffic law |
as a water-route which makes such |
a base possible. But the EAGLE further /
declares that commerce breaks down ali |
barriers, even to great extent those Of /
an international character. Commerce |
and its demands had more to do with |
cementing the original thirteen colonies
into union of states than any other |
single demand, either of patriotism, SEN
timent or of business. The Missouri |
river must be eliminated or wiped out |
as an arbitrary basing line. There is no /
sense in it for the railroads and it isruin- |
Gus for Kansas. The only basing lines
are those of product and supply. Com
petition must 90 to the regions where |
the freight originates to find the true
base for fixing competitive rates. This,
while it is question for the railway !
in one sense and for the |
traffic manager III another, is after all in
a superior sense a question of public poll
cy, of craftsmanship.
The whole conclusion of this matter
is one of far reaching Importance to the
future of Kansas, to her future in every
material sense. To go back
on the ruling made for Wichita in obedi-
ence to the demand of the selfish traffic
and of the narrow vaporings
of editorial writers, who either do not
what they are talking about.
or otherwise are hypocritical, is to go
back on Kansas; is to settle down in the
ignoble conviction that Kansas must
ever remain tributary to Missouri towns,
as Iowa is today wholly tributary to Chi
cago, and as Indiana is today to Chicago
and Cincinnati. Kansas can only be great |
in the possession of one or more great
cities, and all that Wichita
asks or demands is an opportunity
10 contribute TO the chances Of that /