The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-08-20
DON'T EVERYBODY SEE 1Ta
The Peerless Princess Pluck in Holding He
Own Against DscouraGtng Odds.

the Missouri river dead-line, in every towI
from the mouth of the kaw to Sioux City.
Their fictitious importance, so long boil
stored up by unhoIy rate discriminatoins
are shriveling up. The interests and con
Germs that grew great and powerful from
undue traffic advantages can no longer
strike to hurt. They are finding that they
have enough to do to protect themselves
meanwhile dreading tho righteous de
cisions of courts and commission:
that must come. Ever since
the formation of the Missouri Traffic asso
citation, which, conspiring in the interest
of the Missouri river towns, established
basing line which was intended to ban
Wichita with her four trunk lines out OF
her own field and to rob her of all com
merclal Importance, the Peerless Princess
has been forced to struggle against great
odds. But for the magnitude of her field
and her acknowledged advantage in
location she would have been forced
down and out. That she has held her own
beyond expectation, when all the adverse
conditions under which she has been COM
PEELED to struggle are taken into the con,
sideration, none will deny. And she Is
here today, on bed rock, and less dis
turbed in her trade, less threatened in her
life, than any of the cities forming the
basing line combination. The all power
full pooling conspiracy which in defiance
of the interstate and antitrust laws has
been building up Kansas City, Missouri.
and st. Joseph, at the expense
Of Kansas town, will soon
be SO knocked out as to be
too weak to help anyspoint or place. ex'
cept in a legitimate way. and to hurt no
place without hurting themselves. These
salaried traffic managers saw and under
stood, six years ago, that should Wichita
be justly treated. that should her whole
salers and manufacturers, live stock and
grain dealers, and packers be awarded
the same rates per ton per mile, or given
car per mile for the same kinds
of traffic fixed for Missouri river points
and for towns east of such line, that
Wichita would. inevitably, have rivaled
Denver and Omaha in the volume of her
business, in her tonnage of meat products,
in grain and in -four, in agricultural inn
plements and in live stock, groceries and
fruits. The same rate per ton per mile
on coal and factories then contemplated
and planned for, some of which were bnilt,
would have been fourishing, and the
same rate per car per mile for southern
lumber, which passes by our very door, to
towns hundreds Of miles north. would not
only have sustained our great car works,
but made them among the most important
in the country. As for the trunk and local
lines of railway at this point, both their
through and local business would have
been immeasurably increased and bene-
flied.
But all these facts. and others,
are now, and will go before
the courts, and before the interstate and
state commissions. In the mean time,
Wichita is holding her own. She has
suffered less during the prevailing de-
preston of business than any of the
towns and cities which have been given
advantages at her expense, as well as at
the expense of all Southwest Kansas.
While, under such circumstances and in
such universal panic, she is not -four.
ishing as she would be with fair
show; yet her bank clearings re-
veal less decrease than a
hundred heretofore prosperous western
cities. In the mean time an adjustment
of freight rates is coming. Presidents aud
managers of our railroads are slowly,
probably, but surely comprchsnding the
harm that has been worked for their sys-
TENS and stock owners by the narrow and
cut-throat policy which has been enforced
by the keads of theft freight departments.
Courts and commissions will also be hand.
ing down their mandates and decision.
Meanwhile the confidence of the people
Of the country is going to be restored and
the hundreds of millions OF dollars which
have disappeared to hiding places will
again seek investment but in something
beside inflated booms and wind ventures,
and so solid prosperity for another series
of years will spread over the land. And
where is the young city. east or west, so
favorably constituted, so surely made up
and located for growth and expansion as
Wichita's. Again, before these things
can come about, the Cherokee strip. on
our southern border, will be opened and
settled with an hundred or two hundred
thousand new people. who will build q
score of bright live towns, and make and
improve thousands OF new additional
farms. all within direct and easy reach of
Wichita is all right.
A BIG LOT OF GRAPES.
trE y.llay rouId pro1-,ca