The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-06-03
A DOG IN The MANaER.


weston and New Orleans were q good
and beneficial move on the part of the
railroads, but when they had complet-
ed those tariff sheets, Kansas City
should have been granted reductions
in ike ratio. All our merchants should
help US demand that Kansas City
should always be considered as the
{ great center of this western territory,
and that it should rank as deserving
the very best ratio Of all rate-making.
/ kansas City Star:
. In other words, whatever reduction
may be made. inthe interest Of RICH
and justice, to any Kansas point, be
cause of newly acquired facilities o.
newly developed and newer market
or outlets, Kansas City must have 1
proportionate reduction, and withOu
reference to her greater distance o.
her longer haul, but simply because
she has become to be considered a cen
ter; and all this at the expense of Z
territory which must be deprived Of
any new advantages to the end thai
Kansas City may maintain such pres
tige, so won. The assertion of the
Star that Kansas City grain dealers
have for twenty years been conserv-
ing the interests of Kansas grain grow
ers is the thinest hog wash, while the
demand that Kansas City shall always
be considered as the center Of the west,
and as such shall 'be entitled to the
best ratio of all rate-making" is, to say
the least unexampled gall, or would
be held to be such anywhere outside Of
! that town. Substitute the name Of
Chicago and how would Kansas City
estimate such talk. Kansas City is
| entitled to the advantages pertaining
! to her location and to her acquired faci-
: lities, and any claims beyond these are
as silly as have been her unreasonable
demand made in the past upon the fool
claim of that city being situated on the
banks of a Manageable river, claim
which, TO the disgust Of every sane
man, has been held % be sound by the
railroads and by the interstate COM
merce commission. There is not TO-
year-old boy in that west, of which
Kansas City claims TO be the center,
who does not know that if the people
within the corporate limits of Kansas
City were confined to the Missouri
river as their sole line of transporta-
ton that they would all starve to death.
Intensely alive to the fact, as we are
and have been for years, that every
additional million Of dollars, tolled
from the people OF this state In the
way Of profits, and invested IN Kansas
City, Mo-, is just as much forever lost
to the taxrollS of this state. and that
no state can ever be great without
commercial city or cities, and that the
peoples and properties Of this state, in
Guiding its railroads, are taxed to the
limit while the growth and develop
ment which should come 10 Kansas
towns is largely transferred by a short
sighted railway policy to the cities OF
other states, still we have no DISPOSE
ton to withhold the credit due the en-
terprise Of the shrewd business men
who have built up Kansas City Mis-
souri,. 1t is the dog in the manger''
spirit, as evinced by the quotations |
from the Star, against which we pro-
test Whatever of advantages of To- |
cation or of position Kansas City may |
have, are not begTudged by US nor |
would we seek 20 annul them. Still, |
upon the other hand, we do not propose
to surrender our own advantage Of
neareSs TO a newly improved seaport
in the interest of a place which hap
pens To be nearer some other port This
claim made by the Star, in the name of
Kansas City, Mo-, upon the people and
at the expense of every interest of
south Kansas, is preposterous not only,
but it is in the spirit Of the highway
robber without his mask. For twenty
years or more Kansas City has not
only been absorbing the surplus which
should have gone to strengthen Kan
sas towns and their commercial inter
eStS, but absorbed also the leading bust
ness man and their enterprises Of ali
the older Kansas towns, them and their
stocksin-rade, and capital There
being no terminal markets or ports TO
foreign markets, other than the lakes
and the Atlantic seaboard, everything
Kansas has produced has been forced
through that Missouri gateway at the
Haw's mouth. So everything reach
ng Kansas people has been subjected
10 the tolls of the same gateway. Every
farmers implement dealer in the in
.erior Of Kansas has been crushed out
ly the railways. Every manuractur-
ng interest of importance has been
lriven out Of Kansas towns because
hey were forced, by the railways, to
pay from two TO four times as much
'or Kansas coal for steaming purposes
rs Kansas City was paying. Elevators
md mills have been closed in the same
way in the interest of Kansas City.
City and Wichita are exactly
he same distance from the coal fields
# southeast Kansas. The railways !
ay southeast Kansas Steaming-coal | ,
Town in Kansas City for 40 cents per
on, the rate for the same coal being
ixed at S1.e0 per ton or more than
louble for Wichita And so we could
zone on with our packing interests, live
tock markets. etc. :
That the recipient of such advan- ,
ages should grow to be considered |
ne great center OF the western terri /
ory'' SIS the Star puts il. is not sur i
rising rha surprising thing heinz The