The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-06-02
Col. Richards, of Missouri Pa
cif1c, Sounds Warning.
Warns Federation of CONNER
cial Interests to Be Careful.
RAILROADS TO FIGHT
Resent Attempt to Interfere in
Railroad Board.
Says MiIlers and Others Are in
Trust.

1.-The fight of the Kansas Federation
of Commercial Interests against the
railroads isn't going to be a one-sided
affair much longer. The railroads are
getting ready to take a hand. They
propose to give some of the interests
identified with the federation a touch
of high life
This is the introduction to an inter-
view of Colonel ]. H. Richards of Fort
Scott, general attorney for the Mis-
souri,. Pacific for the south half of Kan
sas, as it appears in Kansas City rail-
road organ.
The statement that the railroads are
getting ready to take a hand" will
be news to most Kansas people. The
people of Kansas have been SO misled
as to believe that the railroads have
been taking a hand for some time. The
appearances at the recent Republican
state convention were that they not
only took a hand. but that they took
the whole deck.
And Colonel ]. H. Richards, general
attorney for the Missouri Pacific, who
takes occasion in his interview to abuse
some of the principal shipping indus
tries of the state, was one of the chief
manipulators of the Republican state
convention. He was turned down by
the Republicans of his home county,
and was not even allowed to go as
convention, but he helped to boss the
state convention. 1t will be remember
ed that the State Journal published
one of Colonel Richards letters just
prior to the state convention, in which
he solicited votes for himself as a can
didate for legate-at-large to the ma
tiOnal convention, and offered passes TO
the convention to his friends and sup
porters. Colonel Richards is a close
friend of Senator Burton and L. T
Kelly. This may account for the fact
that the Missouri Pacific received re-
duction in its taxes by the state board
of railroad assessors this year.
Here is what Colonel Richards says
with reference to the fight which the
State Federation of Commercial Inter
estS is making on the railroads:
The railroads have stood about all
this abuse that they are going to. They
propose to do some hghtlng them-
selves, and if the federators get hurt
il will be their own fault They have
started the scrap. A good portion of
the fedora ton is made up OF mlllers
Now, almost all these millers are in a
trust and are operating in open viola
ton of the federal, as well as the state,
antitrust law They have a combine
that is air-tight, and its object is to
control the price of the necessities OF
life This is what is termed criminal
trust It doesn't matter what the
farmer gets for his grain, the millers
who belong to the trust fix price on
-four that is outrageous Not only that;
they try TO brow beat everybody Win
whom they do business, especially the
railroads They have not bulldozed US
yet into giving them a secret rate and
are therefore fighting us through the
federation. They are trying to get
some one else to pull their chestnuts
out of the fire. If we would give the
millers trust some inside freight rates
So that it could crush out Independent
competitors, it would pull this fight of
in a minute. But the railroads refuse
to give it any concessions over the in
dependent millers-
tThen there is the elevator trust,
known as the grain trust 1t is Sc
cretly encouraging this fight on the
roads There never was more soul
less trust than the grain trust. 1t
simply fixes an arbitrary price to pay
for the farmers grain, no matter what
the market conditions are. Every
farmer in Kansas knows that he is
being gouged out of from to cents
a bushel on his grain by the trust.
It wouldn't matter how much the rail-
roads reduced freight rates on COM
modities handled by these two trusts.
They would simply put the money
down in their pockets. Neither the
farmers nor the consumers would reap
any benefit from it.
"Still, these two trusts are trying
to work the farmers and consumers