Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1897-07-01

While the railroad traffic managers
of the country are staggering bewilder-
ed under the blow of the supreme court
decision in the case of the TRANSMITS
souri Freight Association, and railroad
stocks are tumbling in all directions, it
ought to be mentioned that in that
opinion the great tribunal passed upon
one of the things that have been "the
matter with Kansas For several
months there has been in print sort
Of consultation of physicians upon the
Kansas malady, but, so far as l have
read, no finger has been placed upon
that running sore of varying name
which was once called the Transmits
souri, Freight Association. Professors,
politicians and htterateures have been
telling the reading and wondering
world "what is the matter with Kan
sas." But probably because they
found the ills too numerous to mention
fully, or perhaps because opinions diff
fer as to their relative Importance, or,
what is most likely, because where
popular interests are involved the worst
truth is last to be conceded, the rail-
road-carrying system has been omitted
from such a catalogue of diseases as
has never been pasted upon bottle of
patent medicine. OF these booms,
knavery, droughts and cyclones have
received most frequent mention.
But from residence 10 Kansas ofal-
most twenty years do not think it ex-
traVagant to say that not all the hot
winds, with their meanings, nor all the
cyclones, with their terrors, have
wrought in that locality so much to
bankrupt and dishearten men as has
Deen accomplished by this invisible and
silent force. From end to end of that
great garden this combination wiped
away industries just as surely and just
as completely as if the torch had been
applied to them. 1t destroyed the home
markets and home enterprises as effect
ually as the navigation act was intend
ed to do by directing where and how
the colonists should trade, when Pitt
said that the Americans had no right
to make even o nail for horseshoe. 1t
extracted and carried away the sub
stance of the people Industries Ian
guished and died before their eyes just
AS plainly as the blades of corn with
cred in the wind AS to the correctness
Of this proposition, every informed cit
izen of Kansas will say that there can
He not the slightest question. And this
Explains to some extent the broken
boom.
The system of rates fixed by the
Trans-Missouri Freight Association
made it impossible for jobbers and
manufacturers to live in Kansas, while
the local rates were almost bar to do
hSobAS hohAS. n COupAo VI cAHhlplCS
ont Of thousand will serve to illus
trAte the injustice of the system and the
helplessness Of the people over whom
it ruled, not purposely, perhaps, but
really, eonsummate despot Upon ar
ticles from the South, like sugar, GER
tain rate was fixed for Arkansas City,
on the Southern boundary Of middle
Kansas. Carried to Newton, eighty
miles further North, the rate on the SUI
gar was-nOt more, but about one
fourth less. Carried eighty miles North
east to Emporia, and the rate lost
about another quarter. At Topeka it
was still less and at the Missouri river,
the "basing line" $50 miles from Ar
kansas City, the rate was lowest.
The schedules were so nicely adjust
ed that it was little cheaper for the
Arkansas City dealer to let the sugar
20 on $50 miles and then come back
Through Kansas City wholesaler than
70 take 1t from the cars upon its arriv-
al at this place In like manner the
Kansas grocer was compelled to come