The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-09-16
SOMETHING FOR KANSAS RAILWAY
MANAGEMFNTS TO THINK
ABOUT

Every prosperous year in Kansas has
proved the signal fer rise in her rail-
way stocks, as every disastrous year
has threatened to bankrupt her trunk
lines. This conjunction of facts have
seemingly utterly failed of impressing
railway managers, or otherwise they
have become the helpless creatures of
outside influences and of adverse combi-
nations. In face of the multiplied in
stances furnished by experience that all
the years in which Kansas made her
greatest growths the railways fourished,
and that their stocks went down, divi-
dens disappeared, and bankruptcy
threatened at each successive
period when immigration ceased
and population failed to increase, the
owners and controllers of Kansas rail-
WAYS still submit to the dictatlon OF
traffic associations packed in the interest
Of centers of other states. Notwlthstand-
in thorough knowledge of the fact
that the only hope for all her local and
branch lines of railway lies in the traffic
created by the local producer and local
consumer. the Kansas railways submit
to special rates the year round for home
seekers from all parts of Kansas to all
the territories and states of the Pacific,
but the home-seekers of other states
must pay full fare if they would
come to Kansas, save and except
the chance of some excursion granted to
Kansas at long intervals. Kansas bust
ness centers and Kansas communities are
continually and Systematically discrimi-
uated against in favor of other outside
points at the dictation of traffic associa-
tions and presidents agreements. 1t
makes no difference whether the haul is
from the gulf to the lakes, or from the
Pacific to the Mississippi river, both
halIls being across the state of Kansas,
her people must pay, in spite OF the pro-
visions of the bastard interstate law, and
its rascally commission, the sum Of two
hanls, or for her shorter haul pay per
cent. over and above the sum total of the
long haul. This fact was shown by the
EAGLE but two or three weeks since in
figures taken from present schedules
and which figures were afterwards sub
mitted to the state board of railway
commissioners and admitted to be cor
rect by freight,experts.
Kansas has more miles of railroad
than any state in the union, save one,
which milage is Of more Importance to
Missouri and Illinois than TO her own
people. vet in the development and
growth of Kansas lies the only hope of
the owners of these Kansas railroads,
and there can be no rapid growth of the
state as a whole in the absence
of the hearty cooperation of the man.
agement of her traffic lines. A million
people added to Kansas, a million pro-
ducers and consumers, are of vastly
more Importance and of more perms-
nent value to the railways of Kansas
than any extra profit they can possibly Sc
cure through determinations dictated by
traffic associations or from any additional
outside business awarded by subsidized
interstate railway commission. The nat
ural resources of Kansas in the way of
rich agricultural lands and pastures and
mines together with her acquired interests
demand one or two million additional
people. and right now. These secured
and the railways of Kansas would not
only pay dividends but their stock sell
at par. independent of any adverse &C
ton that outside railroads might choose
TO take. But the railways of Kansas,
beyond an occasional excursion. are not
only doing nothing to secure this de-
manded increase of population, business
and wealth, but on the other hand are
actually permitting the interests of for
eign roads and of remote trade centers
70 fix schedule rates, which are dwarfing
the growth of the best Kansas towns and
discouraging and driving from the state
the very originators of traffic.
In other and probably more conserva-
tive words, the trunk lines of Kansas do
not seem to have adopted such policy
toward the state and all Its varied. strug-
Cling and numerously developing inter
ests which would best subserve the inter-
ests of the railroads themselves. Neither
through their arrangements nor bv the
dictates Of outside associations or comb
nations can these roads or their interests
be discovered from Kansas, from her
people, nor from their fortunes. There
can be no possible chance for Kansas
railroads IN the future except in the
prosperity of the people whom they were
built to serve. To fail to serve Kansas
without discrimination, and fairly, is to
invite woes and final bankruptcy at the
hands OF legislation. Everything else
being equal, coal and pigs, and wheat
and corn and steers can be hauled Mt the
same rate per ton and per head per mile.
that they can be hauled in Iowa or Texas.
or in any other western state, and the
Kansas merchant and manufacturer can