The age-herald., 1898-08-19
KANSAS CITY DID
 MAKE LOW RATES 10 the Labor Agents For Illinois Steel
 Company. BUT NOT F0R0NE CENT MILE It Vas Under the Standard Rate Cf
 Three Cents. MR. JONES BRINGS ALL INTO IT Asserts That Every Road Entering the City Offered Inducements, But Got Left-Negroes Who Went
 Month Ago Returning.
MR. JONES BRINGS ALL INTO IT

| The Kansas City, Memphis and Birming-
 was given the northern labor agents wto
 are seeking to take negroes out of this
 district special rate was granted but not so low as stated.
 Travelling Passenger Agent Charles
 Jones insists that the story which went out
 stating this did him an injustice. He gives
 a most emphatic denial to the statement.
 MT. Jones also makes the charge that
 the Kansas City.
 'I deny absolutely that my road made
 rate of 1 cent one cent and half per mile for the negro laborers which the Illi- nofs Steel company is shipping out of this district" said MT. Jones yesterday. "I did give them less rate than the full fare of 3 cents a mile but I had to do it to meet >the rate which other competing roads had offered. And now the agents of these same roads sore because they didn't get the business and are claiming that their roads never cut rates or offered any inducements to get laborers to leave tn district
 Always Given Cut Rate
 'l assert and I can prove 1t if necessary that there never has been party of la borers over ten in number taken away from this district who have not been given a cut rate of less than cents a mile. I refer to the Louisville and Nashville the Alabama Great Southern, the Southern and all other roads entering Birmingham, as well as the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham.
 There were fifty negroes sent to Chicago a month or two ago over the Louisville and Nashville road for which a rate of much less than cents was paid I offered them cut rate myself, and I know the agents would not have paid the Louisville and Nashville full fare if they could have sent them by another route cheaper.
 'I can also show another case in which it was notorious that the passenger agent Of every. road entering the ,city that had chance at the business were cutting rates unmercifully. That was last winter when party of Italian laborers wanted to go to l -o'srr>oa-ga gats=ru--regu1ar rate from -nero.~. l | that city is $19 while the road that got the 1 job took them for about $10 each. Yet I 1 didn't hear any kick then against the rail-
 roads offering a cut rate to get laborers to | leave the Birmingham district. They Will all Cut "When a crowd of men say they are go- | ing to Chicago, Pana or any other point 1 the Kansas City, Memphis and Birming- | ham and every other road takes it for | granted that they are going, and we would l be fools not to take the business if we can | get it and certainly we offer them induce | ments to go by road" l Negroes Are Returning l Large numbers of the negroes previously | sent to Chicago are now returning to Bir-
 mingham out of work and almost destitute | The authorities for this statement are a | number of gentlemen who keep a close tab | on such matters, because they are in a position to observe.
 "A number of the negroes who were sent | to Chicago by the Illinois Steel company a | month or two ago." said General Manager Mccormick, of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad company, "are gradually com Ing back to Birmingham. They beat their way on the freight trains or come any way they and I believe that eventually nearly every one of the fifty will return to this district. They don't get any better
 pay in the north than we give them here,
 and 1t costs a great deal more to live there."