The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-05-28
Daily II Eagle
M n. MURDOCH. Editor
A PRETTY STATE OF AFFAIRS.

A PRETTY STATE OF AFFAIRS.
The Eagle made no friends and was
often criticised as being prejudiced
and foolish for its many times repeated
assertion that everything Kansas rails
ed was first consigned to Kansas City
Missouri, per force of the Missouri
river basing line, and later, the Trans
Missouri Traffic association, as was
everything bought by Kansas forced TO
that point to be distributed about the
state at a local or increased freight
rate The grain of South Kansas, de-
signed for Galveston or other southern
port was first consigned 10 the eleyat-
ors and commission men of kansas
City, to be tolled and stole. Every hog
and steer produced by the state had to
be transported to the Kansas City stock
yards to undergo dockage and feed and
yard charges. Such a dead open and
shut were the trust institutions and
combine steals Of that town. ON the
products Of Kansas, that one high
Kansas railroad magnate resigned his
position to take a hand in the divvy at
the mouth of the Kaw. AS this thing
has been going on for years, so the
Eagle has talked about it for years
Every bill introduced in the Kansas
legislature for the protection Of the
farmers of Kansas against the rapa-
cious corporations which had spread
their net over the railway terminals at
the mouth OF the Kaw, was systemat-
ically defeated or otherwise Struggled.
Charges of Doodle by the Eagle and
other papers went unheeded, and in
vestigations and the committees in
structed to prosecute them were
swamped in champagne or banquetted
out Of sight.
A law was passed last winter looking
to the regulation of the charges of the
X. C. stock yards, whereupon howl
went I'D from the mouth of the Kaw,
which was heard from Chicago to Gal
weston, 10 the effect that the greatest
live stock market Of the world would
be hopelessly ruined, that no honest
MANAGEMENT of the stock yards could
live unless dockage was permitted and
said management be allowed to charge
81 bushel for corn and $50 ton for
hay. and so forth. The law seems TO
have a fatal defect in some one of its
provisions, as most Of the Pop laws
have. But an investigating committee
has been at work for month or so and
Gil that the Eagle ever charged has
been proven true. The books of the
stock yards company disclose the fact
that the dividends declared and paid
out to the stockholders since the organ
e4,32S,6O4.OO, and that in the mean time
the stock has increased by water and
otherwise from $4,000 TO S7,36S, $1,000.
Last year the yards paid a dividend o.
5.S2 per cent on that monStrous
amount of capitalization. Before they
commenced to water up the stock the
dividend one year was 50 per cent. The
ul1Ouut VI pfuutS idSl NcdI, VI iuis HUI
est concern, are certified TO as having
amounted to S429, 5000, almost half
million profits in one year off of an
original investment of $4,000. In 1884
the evidence showed that the stock
was doubled at a single jump without
the cost Of cent to the owners. All of
these enormous profits came out of the
cattle and hogs of Kansas. And this
is but one of the concerns owned and
controlled by that Missouri town which
having first stolen its name from our
state. has grown rich and powerful off
our people. dominating Kansas rail-
roads and controlling its internal affairs
by purchasing its agents and boodling
its lawmakers. There are those who
will yet live long enough to realize the
wisdom OF the Eagle in its former ad.
vocacy of the single proposition that
there was no possible future greatness
for Kansas except in the building up Of
commercial cities and centers within
her own borders.