The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-08-15
SAN FRANCIsCo's AILMENTS.
Her Merchants Must Wake Up or
Shut I'm.

Her Merchants Must Wake Up or
Shut Up.
Stockton Daily Independent. August 18TH
San Francisco merchants are short
sighted. They are in one respect Just
about like the old-time merchants of st.
LOUIS when Chicago began to be it's rival
for the trade of the West. They blamed
the railroads, which cut off their river
trade and sent it to Chicago, just as San
francisco blanes the railroads for send
ing what 1t regards as its legitimate prey
to the East. 1t took st. Louis men nearly
twenty years to learn that they must
forego the great profits to which they
We're accustomed, and to do business on
smaller margins. Many of them died or
failed rather than change. and San Fran
cisco merchants show disposition to
prefer bankruptcy or the grave to re-
lInqulshlng the big profits of the golden
days. What San Francisco merchants
want are lower transcontinental rates for
themselves and higher rates for mer-
chants at way points. They imagine that
this will be accomplished when they get
more railroads, but ii will not More
tranScontlnentall lines will be good thing
tor the State, but not for the hunkers and
SllurlanS Of jObbers in San Francisco
The new roads will benefit the State by
hastenlng the silurian either out of bust
ness or the old-time ruts, which are as
deep In his mind as those in the dilapi-
dated paYements in the wholesale dis
trlcts streets of his home More CONT
mental roads will increase Eastern COM
petition and compel the San Francisco
wholesaler to put down his prices or put
up his shutters. Already the Stockton
merchant can buy in the Eastern markets
New York. Boston, PHILADELPHIA or
Chicago-as cheaply as can the San Fran
CISCO lobber, and he gets freight at the
same rates. Why should he buy in San
francisco, except to sort up'' between
seasons?
When stove dealer can buy from the
foundries in Chicago, st. Louis, Cincin-
natl, or other Mississippi or lake points,
ana get these goods delivered here at $50
per carload he will not buy in San Fran
cisco at much higher prices than he pays
IN the East and pay freight beside. Rates
on other merchandise range up to 10 cents
per hundred weight. Why should mer-
chants buy goods that have paid freight
rates past Stockton and then pay another
rate to return? Stockton and cities of
half the size are visited constantly by
drummers in all lines from ali the East
ern commercial and manufacturing CEN
tiers. They sell to the best trade at the
same rates, quantity considered, that
they sell to San Francisco merchants.
rms has reduced San Francisco to a
pick up" market and q supplier of the
small interior trade. San Francisco is
not reconciled to the reduction nor are its
merchants awakened to the necessity of
competing with Eastern cities on an East
ern basis. They say the invasion of
their territory" is piratical: but calling
names will not cure it and will only oc-
casion loss of time as well as temper.
1t costs less to lay down goods in Stock
ton from New York than it did TO trans
port them from New York 10 Chicago
few years ago. Competitive lines would
II L., L
Stockton, but how they would help San
Francisco is not apparent. San Fran
cisco must help herself by Kidding her
self of those ''old men of the sea" who
hold her down. She must do business as
New York and Chicago do. on modern
business principles, with live men, not
ghosts of the past. More railroads will
help them then, but will not galvanize
mercantile cadavers into sprightly and
enterprising business men.