The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-01-18
A NUT FOR CHICAGO TO CRACK

A NUT FOR CHICAGO TO CRACK
Chicago is becoming alarmed over the
marked decrease in shipments east
ward. which is shown for the year just
closed. The falling off is mostly in
grain and but for an increase in pro-
visions, chiefly packing house products
the showing would have been much
worse.
The decreased shipments are attrib-
uted to the competition of New Orleans
and the south in the grain export bust
ness and of the 500 lines and Canadian
Pacific in the -four business in the
northwest. The total shipments of
grain for 1897 were 1.65S, 4O8 tons, against
1886, 443 tons in 1896, a falling off of
2O5030 tons. Flour shipments for 1897
were S3s, 921 tons, against 354, $50 tons in
1886, a decrease of 15,709 tons. Provis-
ions, the only class showing an increase
amounted to 653, $50 tons, against 57O,-
$50 tons in 1896
The competition of the southern lines
is something that Chicago must soon
take into account unless a large guam
tity of export grain and other cOmmo-
dities, which have in the past been
going through that city, is to be sent
through the gulf ports. The Illinois
Central have been spending millions of
dollars in building elevators and in
creasing the terminal facilities at New
Central has been spending millions of
largely increased export business from
that port. The new Kansas City, Pitts
burg & Gulf railroad, with it's route to
Port Arthur, was opened last summer
and is adopting very aggressive tactics
to secure business. Other southern
lines have been extending their connec-
lions into the corn fields of the west
and diverting shipments which other
wise might have gone to Chicago.
Railroad men admit that the cOmpe-
titiOn of the southern lines will be felt
more in the future than ever before,
and that unless something is done to
meet the new situation Chicago's ex-
port business must suffer tremendous
~. President Stuyvesant Fish of the
Illinois Central is quoted as saying:
The possibilities of New. Orleans are
poundless- No other seaport anywhere
can point to the long trunk lines run
ming directly out of it. There is the
southern Pacific, reaching to the Pa
enc coast; the Texas & Pacific drain
ang the country northwest: the Illinois
central to the north, with its side lines
through the west and east; the Louis
vile q Nashville, covering the eastern
coast and then penetrating the iron re-
glons of the northeast; the Queen &
Crescent system, and the Great South
ern railway and its connections honey
dividing the south and the north. New
York has no such an outlay, Boston
cannot touch 1t, and, in fact no other
port is near it The thing that made
Chicago was that the city as city
made everything so cheap that it paid
Shippers to route their stuff through
Chicago. New Orleans needs to catch
that spirit-nake it to the advantage
OF shippers to send their export pro-
ducts this way and she will lead the
United States in exports
In addition to New Orleans there are
Galveston, Port Arthur and Mobile to
be reckoned with. Galveston and Port
Arthur have but recently entered the
field as competitors for the export trade
OF the great west and their presence
will doubtless have the effect of urging
New Orleans on to greater efforts If
the effects of the opening of these new
routes of foreign commerce are so soon
1elt, what may they not be in time?
Chicago is not alone in the matter of
declining business. In the face of an
enormous increase of export business
for the entire country, New York too
shows a considerable falling off in the
outward bound shipments from that
port, doubtless due in a large measure
to the same competition of the gulf
ports.
Old things seem to be passing away
IN the commercial world and the indi-
cations point to a revolution in the
transportation business of the country
In the changes which are taking place
Kansas appears to have nothing to
lose.