The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-01-07
LIGHT FOR KANSAS AHEAD.
Promised Relief from Enforced Tribute
to q Missouri Town.
Eon. Joseph w. Ady. United States
A+tornev for the District Of Kansas,
Commences Proceedings to Dl-
solve the Trans-Missourl
Freight Association.

commenced an action yesterday in he
United States court at Topeka to destroy
the trust known as the Transmissouri
association.
Our attitude with reference to the in
eerstate commerce law is well under
stood by every close reader of the EAGLE.
During the tendency of the bill, over
and over again, we unequivocally and
emphatically declared that the bill in
its general scope was but the legal 8 u
ment of gigant ,cpool. being enacted in
the interest of watered stocks and exces
sive issues Of bonds, and that its ''long
and short haul clauses were in restraint
Of trade and commerce and directly
tending to the destruction of county and
district trade points for the benefit of
such great commercial centers as control
the terminals Of the more important
railway systems.
That a concerted and relentless despot-
ism has ground the commercial inter-
ests of Kansas to the death, discouraged
every effort to plant new manufactur-
ing enterprises, and left to destruction
many of the products of field and
orchard, ever since the enactment of
that law and the naming of its commits
sion, and the subsequent organization of
the traffic trusts under it, is fact too
wildly realized by the merchants, man
ufacturers, dealers, miners, and shippers
of the entire region lying between the
Missouri river and the summit Of the
Rocky mountains to need any reiteration
at our hands.
The interstate law, which was enacted,
ostensibly, to do away with pooling at
common points, was followed by such
decisions of its commissioners, made in
pursuance Of its "Iong and short haul"
clauses, as have done a thousand times
more injury to commerce, in REFRESHING
trade, III discouraging manufacturers
at inland centers, and in bank
rupting the producer and miner
than could ever have happened from any
system of pooling possible under open
and free competition. The late great
distress Of the rural western states is
more directly traceable in our opinion to
the iron bound abuses growing out of
the interstate law and its consequent
bloodless and irresponsible traffic asso-
Citations, than to any other cause. These
traffic associations, which are but the
instruments Of trusts and combines of
the most unyielding and soulless charac-
ter, being first instructed as to the
amount OF money that each road repre-
sented must have annually to meet all
legitimate and illegitimate expenses, pro-
ceed 10 fix for the peo-
pies of the territory served by their
roads, respectively, such freight rate
schedules as will insure the desired re- |
turns, stopping for no interests or in no
direction, not even when the limit fixed |
is beyond that which the commodity to
be shipped viii bear. And so when and |
where some one road finds along its line
a commodity that it could profitably |
handle and keep within the price offered |
by the terminal market, such road dare
not thus serve the producer, trader or |
miner without the consent of the other |
members of the combine. To illustrate;
Southern Kansas was forced 10 let hun !
dreds of thousands of bushels Of peaches /
rot last season solely for the want of |
such an equitable rate as would have
peen profitable TO her own roads. but |
which roads dare not make, because
other roads Of the association carrying
southern fruits, which were in compe- |
tition with peaches, would not permit.
And these traffic associations which
cover the entire country from the Allan
tic to the Pacific and from the Gulf to
the Lakes, are SO linked and combined
that neither can act independently Of the
others no more than can one road act in
its own interest independently Of the
roads comprising the association to which
ii belongs, To illustrate this double propo-
sition: The Pennsylvania, the Baltimore
ct al, away at the other side of the con-
tInent, will not permit the Santa Re nor
Missouri Pacific 10 deliver goods from
New York to the people of Kansas by
way of the Gulf ports; and, when the
Santa Fe proceeded to carry out the
order of the Kansas state railway COM
made in the case known as
the Wichita Decision" the shipping IN
terests at the mouth of the Kaw, held
and controlled by Missouri town, and