The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-21
rHE 11REIGHT RATEs.

As a factor toward securing reason
able freight rates. the Topeka Com
merciaI club has taken itself out OF
the lists. This association for many
years has Iabored on all occasions to
correct unjust, and sometimes extor-
tionate rates made against this city by
the railroads.
Just now when the house has passed
by unanimous vote a bin similar,
though less forcible. than other states
around us use in securing reasonable
rates. the Topeka Commercial club has
stopped pushing.
Topeka regards the railroads with
such favor that she viii submit to
gross imposition, even when a remedy
appears to be almost at hand. The
pleasing personalities and the per-
suasive pleasantries OF many of our
railroad people have swung the COM
mercial interests of this city, as rep
resented by the club, away from any
efforts to control freight rates.
The club has restored harmony, but
high rates still remain.
Topeka is today charged SLIP per
ton for freight on steam coal from
southeastern Kansas when the rail-
roads are today hauling the same coal
into Kansas City, a few miles further
away. for So cents per ton. A mild
word for this Kind OF a railroad rate
is extortion. How are we going to
build up factories in Topeka under
such discrimination?
For years the freight rate on this coal
to Topeka has been $1.25 per ton. Last
summer we were granted a reduction
20
paying eighty cents. After our reduc-
ton was given US we were still paying
into Topeka 80 cents more than
Kansas City. Kansas City has since
been given a reduction Of rs cents per
ton so we are now paying 81 cents more
than Kansas City, or twice as much
freight on our own coal as Kansas City,
Mo, pays the same railroad company
for hauling coal further than we ask
to have it hauledl
The railroads will haul Usage coun-
ty coal to Topeka for so cents per ton,
and they will haul it on to Kansas
City for five cents more per ton. If the
coal is coming the other way, they
haul it to Kansas City for So cents
and they haul it on to Topeka for 81
cetns,
Topeka is paying for its freight into
Topeka from two to three times the
rate that is charged just before it
reaches Kansas City, Mo. When Ar
kansas City, Kansas, wishes to ship a
carload of wheat to Galveston it pays
.wo or more times the rate that the
shipper pays from Kansas City to
with the wheat going right
through Arkansas city.
When wheat is shipped from central
Kansas to the Missouri river the rate
charged is about Is cents per hundred
pounds. When the same wheat is ship
bed from the Missouri river to Chicago
he rate runs from six to nine cents, |
md some times lower, although the dis
ance is twice as great from central |
Kansas to the Missouri river
These are a few of the points that |
nave aroused the people of Kansas |
,ver the railroad freight situation |
They are not personal matters. Ex-
1ressiOns of this kind do not mean an |
4 gonism to the roads except for their /
Unjust and unreasonable charges.
These are the sorts of things that have
the public to ask for the
passage of the Carver railroad bill
The people of Topeka don't wish to
larm the Santa Fe, or any other road, /
hey simply want justice and reason
Lble rates and those in favor of the
house railroad bill are simply, in a
nilder manner, asking Kansas to step
n and do what other states have done
lnder more severe laws.