The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1889-08-15

The financial editor of the New I Ork
Times in his Sunday review said:
1.-THE Alton will continue to make
some trouble at Kansas City, and the
noise made over it diverts attention
from the fact that Kansas has this
season about the biggest crops she has
ever raised. Those crops are of vastly
greater Importance to the stock mar
ket than whether the other roads shall
or shall not divide the cattle business
with the Alton at Kansas City"
In measure he is right. The great
central, able-bOdied factor in the bust
ness of the southwest this year is that
the crops are big enough to satisfy
anybody and that they will make ev-
ergthing connected with them-and
what 'tp-hourish. Out here we
do not care much about the stock mar
ket, further than, wishing to see the
railroads do profitable business on
fair and square principles. We are
more directly concerned with trade. ag-
riculture and manufactures, for it is
in those departments of industry that
most of our money and labor is in
vested.
Yet the position of the Alton and the
transportation question to which 1t
gives rise have very much more than
temporary meaning.
Neither the Alton nor the Rock Is
| land can establish the chief trade GEN.
ter of the southwest. Nature made
New York the metropolis of the Allan
tic coast and Chicago that of the north
ern part of the middle basin. Rail
roads must, in the end, haul freight
where nature points. They can make
mistakes and twist trade around for q
few months, but they do it at heavy
cost to themselves and shippers. Kan
sas City has to be the distributing
point for the southwest.
The Alton has a clear conception OF
| the situation and seems to be endeaV-
oriDg to govern itself by trade laws
| The Rock Island and Santa Fe are try.
| ig to make water run up hill and, while
| they may push little of it up, the cost
will force them to abandon the under
taking ultimately. Just how long they
| will be learning the lesson depends on
how soon the inherent advantages Of
| Kansas City are brought up as re-
Inducements to the Kansas City cause
| From the first railroad building to The
| present the companies have under
stood that they must be provided with
Kansas City lines. Their common un
Outstanding on this point has partly
| ObViated the necessity of river traffic
| and has allowed Kansas City to make
q normal prOgreSs-Or approach it
i
the lever with the longest arm. Il
would have been far better if Kansas
| City had used the river without inter
i mission, because the roads would have
had constant reminder of Transports
tion laws before them and the foOlisl
efforts to make cities out of what pro
violence intended to be proSperou;
towns would never have been begun
| Money and some ill feeling WOulC
1 fhnV.ohxy hoE hQnV1 coxrn6
The Rock Island, Missouri Pacific
and Santa Fe have been parallelinI
| each other until the excitement ha
blinded them to other considerations
This city must pull them up sharply
They must act upon the theory tina
this is the one competitive point IN thu
neighborhood or see US build up trans
portation routes which do. In assum
ing to be the one competitive poin
Kansas City is not ''hogging" anything
1t is demanding recognition of the law
under which we have invested capita
and are doing business here.
The Missouri river is the lever W
will have to put into position ant
swing our weight on. If the Rocl
Island and the Santa Fe wish to do al
exclusive business between the south
west and Chicago, it is their privilege
If the Missouri Pacific wants to d.
l OUolDCoo OnAg UCbnOCA OO1OAehOOs Nv
braska and Kansas City at one ent
and st. Louis at the other, all right
1t is in our power to make the bushes
SO small that a swarm of stock holders
among them Mr.. Jay Gould, will hav'
to live on dividends of something les
than nothing.
Denver is ringing the joy bells be
cause a railroad line 1,2O0 miles lonl
has just connected it with the gulf
Denver thinks it is now great com
petitive point. We are only 600 mile
from a good gulf harbOr aud no mile
at all from a navigable river. We ar
not as far from the southern Atlanti
seaboard as Denver is from Galveston
All we have to do is 10 force on tn
world, including the railroads, tn
the knowledge that they must give u
cheap rates 10 and from every point o
get along without much patronage.
Kansas City is now too big to besl
tate a moment about playing the han
nature dealt her. Water competition
is the sharp stick that always bring
railroads out of the sulks. Kansa
City Times.