The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-04-12
THE KANSAS RAILWAY SITUATION

| neWed prosperity Tor the state, IOr Ils
peoples and all Of its interests. There
is no other hope no other way out. No
| other single agency can so powerfully
| contribute towards this desired end as
| the railways themselves. This is un-
questioned. BY submitting TO the re
| ceivership-sweat, by scaling down ex-
penseS, and by wiping out indebted
ness by the millions, they may live, but
prosperity is only possible in lifting
| the state 10 the prosperous plane Of the
eighties. 1t will not do for the railway
| arrangements 10 say that if they added
a million people to the population of
! Kansas in the next two or three years
that there would be found nothing for
them to do and that, therefore, distress
and poverty would ensue. The pOpu-
latiOn of Kansas could be speedily
doubled by the direct agency and eff
forts of the railways themselves, not
only but such added population be rem
dered prosperous, as prosperous at
least as the peoples Of any of the east
ern-middle states. Every town in Kan
sas should have its dinner-pail brigade.
There is not one that has. Every
quarter section in Kansas should make
an equal showing with the quarter
sections of Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio, in
agricultural products, in sheep, in cat
tie, in hogs, in hay, in whatever could
be rendered profitable, and this without
reference to terminal packing houses,
terminal elevators, or terminal mar
ketS of any character which are con-
centrated and which flourish because
Of special freight facilities. If the
town and village manufacturer were
guaranteed his fuel and raw material
at the rates per ton per mile given the
man at the city terminal, and the same
rates for the shipments of his product,
every village, town and city would
boast its industries and manufactures.
This is just as true with reference to
the products of the prairieS. 1t is the
uneven show which Kansas has that
squeeZes its people and the railways
saS railways can see any way out other
than through the prosperity of the peo-
pie of the state then they see farther
than we confess that we can. Kansas
City might be made a Chicago and
Chicago a New York, yet what would
these commercial magnitudes avail as
the termini of the Kansas roads, so
long as the country these roads ira
verse and the people they serve remain
pauperized because Of unequal condi-
tons and prejudicial transportation IA
cilitieS. There are hundreds of thou
sands of tons of hay in Kansas this
spring standing in the stack, and hun
dreds of thousands of tons OF fodder
untitled and rOttening, and millions
of bushels of corn unfed and unSold,
and why? Run the query back to its
ultimate, and answer. For the trunk
line which runs only from one big COM
mercial center to another and which
thus depends solely upon freightS
which have been concentrated, il is
different, still any man, in any village,
along the line of the Pennsylvania Sys-
TEN, from New York to st. Louis, who
desires TO start a factory or industry |
Of any sort which originates traffic will |
be guaranteed by that road freight pro |
lection on both his raw material and |
product equal 10 that enjoyed by the |
at the terminal CONNER |
cial center.
In the absence of the opportunity to |
build up and develop manufacturing |
interests and to add consumers in the |
way of tin-bucket brigades, in the way |
Of wage-earnerS and consumers, Kan |
saS is compelled To depend wholly on (
grain and grass and their resultant |
live stock. These must be transported |
long distances. If the freight rate is |
such as TO absorb all the possible /
profits, then the production correspond |
ingly falls off. SO we have had our |
corn-rate fight and our later cattle-rate
row, which later is now especially in /
evidence. The roads formerly charged /
by the car load. They have substituted 1
the 100 pound rate. This new schedule,
so the cattle dealers claim, abSOrbs
their former margin of profit. Meet
ngs have been held by cattlemen, and
we believe they have appealed TO the
state board Of railway commissioners.
In the necessity for such an appeal will
be found the wrong. What is of adj
10 the Kansas producer. the |
Kansas local manufacturer, the Kan
sas local packer and the Kansas dealer
viii be found TO be To the advantage
Of the Kansas railway. While 1t is
conceded that the Kansas roads are
sweating blood in the futile effort OF
their arrangements 10 make both ends
meet We hold that the desperate con-
1iuons are attributable TO policy from
which nothing better can be expected.
The roads should not only grant the
,atJlemen the old carload rate or re-
iuce the 100 pound rate TO conform TO
Il, but they should revolutiOnize the
whole situation by adopting 4 policy of T
first building up Kansas in population
and developing her every interest 81
that the reaping of the after reward
would be rendered as sure as SatiSfac-
Tory.
TALKING THROUGH HIS HAT.