St. Paul daily globe., 1891-04-19
ALTON PEOPLE HAPPY
they Say That Business Was
Never Better Than Since
the Boycott.
afthe Fight Continues a Rate
War Will Be the Re-
suit.
Canadian Pacific and Grand
Trunk Fight Over North
western Traffic.
Depew Says Gould's Move-
mentS Don't Interest
Vanderbilt.

CHICAGO, April 1S.-It would be diff
hcult to imagine more cheerful lot of
men than the officials and agents of the
Chicago u Alton railroad appeared to
be to-day. "The boycott is working
admirably" one of them said. "Busi
ness was never better on our line.
Train No. 5, for Kansas City,
pulled out of the depot with
nine coaches and not a vacant seat
in any of them" A passenger official
of one of the other Western roads. COM
menting on the situation, said: Il
have said from the first that this boycott
is the best thing that could have hap
pened for the Alton, and it is so turning
out. The public does not care a
straw whether commissions are
paid or not, and its sympathieS
are always with the under dog in the
fight. Thousands of people, to whose
American ideas the word ''boycOtt' is
repugnant, will sacrifice their own con-
venience if need be to give the Alton
ticket agents of connecting lines out
side the territory where commits
siOnS are forbidden VIII do all in
their power 30 help the Alton" Com
paratiyely few of the Eastern roads are
enforcing the order to accept no Alton
tickets, but these few are the leading
lines, and one of Il EN- is the Pennsyl-
vania company, which occupies the
union depot with the Alton, and is
therefore its most convenient Eastern
connection at Chicago. The only
Western roads that have thus far in
structed their agents to sell no tickets
over the Alton road to points in trunk
line territory are the Atchison, the
Southern Pacific and the Union Pa
citic. Others have refrained from TAX
ing this step on the advice of
their legal counsel that they will
be liable to the Alton for
damages under the law as it stands at
present if they refuse TO sell through
tickets over that road, even though no.
titled that such tickets will not be hon
Ored on Eastern lines. If the fight is
kept up for week or two it will not
unlikely result in one of the
DlttereSt rate wars that has
been known for years in the West.
The Alton is bound to protect its busi-
ness. and under the circumstances it
may not long be able to do this without
slashing rates. The board of rulings of
the Trunk Line and Central Traffic as
sOciations met this afternoon with
the representatives of those West
ern roads that have ceased
the payment of commissions to
Eastern agents. The object was to ar
rive at better understanding concern
ing some of the points involved in the
new order Of things, the Western lines
being particularly desirous of having
the prohibited territory definitely
defined. There are a number of
tral Traffic and Trunk Line associa-
ions that are not members of either of
those organizations and have not pro-
hibited the payment of commissions to
their agents, and the Western roads
wanted to know if they would be boy
cotted if they continued the payment of
those commissions. The board of rul-
lngs agreed to issue circular at once,
defining the forbidden territory.