The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-02-06
HALF OF A MILLION
Is the Amount of Wichita'S
Clearing House Exchange.
IN ONE WEEKS WORK
Future DEVELOPMENTS Will
Double the Amount.

Wichita is all right SO is the country
about her, as is the great valley up and
down for miles and miles. Her bank
clearings for the past week only wanted
f2,76S of aggregating a half million Of
dollars. The increase over a year ago
lacked but the tenth Of a cent fraction Of
being sixty-three per cent. That is an
Increase which smacks of old-time bust
ness. But it is all business now. When
the bank clearings ran higher in the
boom times they represented much Of
real estate speculation, of buying and
selling that added nothing TO the COM
mercial Importance Of the city. Now it's
only business. The volume of the straight
out business OF Wichita today is greater
than at any time in her history-greater
than in the cattle days, the wheat days
Or the boom days. There are no big rail-
way pay rolls, no state disbursements,
no mining operations represented in the
figures of yesterdays published bank
clearings report for Wichita. The figures
and the increase represents our straight
put commercial life, as shown by the act
ual transactions with the banks. It is
but that portion Of it cleared up and set
tied by the exchange of drafts, checks
and the like. No city in the state does
make or can make such a showing of its
own purely commercial business. As q
commercial center Wichita has no rival
in the state. But there is not a business
man in the town who does not know that
the weekly bank clearings might just as
well be a million or a million and a half
as a half million dollars. The livestock
and packing business ought to be double
what it is. The grain trade five times
what it is, when other things would be
favorabIy affected in proportion. Our
wholesale lines are steadily reaching out
farther and farther, our retail interests
spreading wider and wider, but Wichita
a center Of livestock and grain inter
ests is not what she ought to be- 1t was
expected by our merchants that the holt
days would be followed by an unusually
dull season, principally because of the
fact. we suppose, that the fall and Holt
day trades had proved extraordinary. Con-
trary to such expectations the winter
trade has been most satisfactory. There
did not occur the expected dimunitiOn.
The usual after-holiday slump was not
nearly so pronounced as in the past. Upon
the other hand the indications are all
promising for an unusual good trade and
q live business the coming year. In the
meantime the elevator enterprise should
be revived and materialized. The Whit
taker plant should be put into as full
work as that carried on by the Dold
house. The Oliver-Imboden mills, which
have been silent since the erection of the
new Imboden mills. should be sold and set
TO grinding. In addition to this our mer-
chants should keep the people of the
towns of the field from which they draw
trade advised of the superior stocks of
goods carried in this city, and of the spe-
cial bargains which they from time to
time are respectively offering. Wichita
having regained all her lost ground and
in som CORRECTIONS acquired more than she
ever had, is ready TO move forward and
upward and the close of 1898 should find
her a long stride in advance of where she
was at the opening of the year-fnd her
self in position to demand and enforce
concessions along her line of traffic inter
ests to which she is entitled on a basis of
her superior tonnage.