The San Francisco call., 1899-04-28
Local Jobbers Fear Railroads
Have Played Them False.
The Great Northern Said to Have Made a
New Tariff for the Benefit of
Eastern Competition.

the San Francisco jobber and then they
got it back on the short haul to custom
ers at intermediate and local points, and
it is on the short haul and local business
the big lines figure for their biggest
money AS it was under the old schedule,
when the Eastern man controlled the in
termediate trade. the roads had but the
one haul. The freight was picked up at
ST Louis or Chicago and dropped along
the line wherever a customer was located,
but under the prohbitiVe rate everything
had to be brought first to the San Fran
cisco jobber and then shipped out again.
The merchants and the railroads were for
once in great accord ana San Francisco
had fighting chance to eventually get
all that was due her.
a few months later, however. it became
apparent that the Simmons people had
not given UP the fight nor played all their
cards Their representatives appeared
again on the coast and to offset the in
creased freight rate they approached old
customers and guaranteed them sufti-
cient discount or rebate on their freight
bills to warrant them IN again trading
with the Eastern house, and at the same
time the merchants here noticed that the
Simmons people stopped routing their
freight over their old ines and were ship
ping nearly everything by the Santa Fe
system. A suspicion mat the Santa Fe
was evading the terms OF the agreement
was at once aroused and a close watch
was kept for some further indication that
an attempt was being made to break up
the new schedule and open the gates
again for tide of Eastern competition.
The next indication came three weeks
ago, when quiet tip came into town that
the Great Northern had secretly reverted
to the old rate and that the Northern Pa
cific was standing in on a deal to again
throw the Eastern firms into the Western
territory.
and Metal Association at once called upon
the local agents of the Great Northern
and demanded to know if the road had
inaugurated the old tariff. They
thew
not been so advised. kilograms to
correspondents in Tacoma and Sc
attle elected nothing more definite
but each day the agents Of other roads
represented on the coast were being
warned by their head offices that the
Northern roads had broken down the bar
rier between the West and East, al
though their new tariff sheets had not
issued.
Since that time there have been two
or three secret meetings of the inter-
ested jobbers each week, and ways and
means to combat the latest danger to To-
cal trade have been much discussed. 1t
was suggested that the Seattle iobberS
and others in the Northwest be lined up
and prevailed upon to request the North
ern roads to restore the schedule, but
that proposition was spoiled by an
equally we'll authenticated tip that it was
upon pressure brought to bear by the
Seattle and Tacoma jobbers that the road
had gone back to its old schedule, in or
der to prevent a San Francisco invasion
of the northern field.
1t was also hinted that certain local re-
tailers were interested in the restoration
of the old rates. and that the action of
the Great Northern was but the begin
ming of a movement on the part of all
the roads, carrying transcontinental
freight. This rumor the Southern Pacific
people emphatically deny. They say that
the northern roads have not so wide
sphere of influence south of Portland.
their action will force like action on the
part of the southern and Ogden lines, and
that the present rate is more to be de-
sired by them from every standpoint
than the old one. The Santa Fe people
say the same thing.
As it stands, however, the jobbers are
meeting every other day or so to dis
cover. if they may, just what they have
to fight When they find the enemy
they will be ready for the mix-up, and
the few of them who were willing to talk
of the matter yesterday were willing to
guarantee they would put the quetus on
the Eastern firms before it was all over.