Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1905-05-25
Frank 7. Campbell Files a
scathing Arrangement Of
Railway Rate Practices
CONDITIONS IN IOWA SHOWN
Decrease of Population Declared to Be
Due to the Policy of the Railroads
Which Drives Our Factories From
State to the Big Commercial Gen.
tiers.

Des Moines, May 25.-F'ormer State
has filed with the interstate commerce
committee of the United States Senate
an extended argument in favor of vi
talizing the interstate commerce COM
mission by giving it power to adjust
railroad rates and enforce it's orders,
subject to appeal to the courts.
In his argument Mr.. Campbell dis
cusses the freight rate question from a
national and an Iowa point of view.
He names number of factories which
he declares, have been driven out of
this state by unfair railroad rates. He
refers to the closing of twenty-five
Iowa packing houses, and says:
zone by one have valuable manu-
featuring industries been forced from
us to seek locations where rates are
more favorable. Here is partial
list of plants that have gone from us:
Header works from Grinnell to
Chicago.
Baker Barb Wire factory from Des
Moines to Chicago.
Palmer Wagon factory from Mar
shalltown to Chicago.
"Oil mills at Boone to Kansas City.
wheel Scraper works from Mt.
Pleasant.
Starch plants from Des Moines and
Ottumwa.
"Oat meal mills from Iowa City.
"Oil mills and other industries from
Iowa City.
Great lumber mills from Clinton.
"Ottumwa Cutlery and johnson Ruff
fer Co.
''Sioux City Stove works.
Barb wire factories, Cedar Falls,
Marshalltown and Grinnell.
Population Decreased.
add to this catalog of lost indus
tries, with their thousands of employ
es list Of silent factories to the
number of nearly 100, reported by the
last census and you will discover why
Iowa population has fallen off nearly
census Of 1900 shows seventy mine idle
factories in Iowa, with a capital of
81 ,293,200, that are as silent as
country cemetery, and that empha-
sizes the testimony of western jobbers
of Sioux City and lumbermen of Des
Moines that there is a peaceful ac-
quiesence' in this state in present con-
ditions. If we all had the special ia
vors these witnesses enjoy we would
probably think so, too.
while this testimony was being
given before your committe, an ex-
of the Iowa railroad commits
sion was in consultation with the lum-
bermen here, who are sorLly exercised
on account of the discrimination of
$50 a car in lumber rates from the
Pacific coast to st. Paul by which
lumber merchants are en-
abled to undersell Iowa dealers and
are flooding the northern half Of our
state with the products Of st. Paul
yards.
'In this list Of idle establishments
are twenty to thirty packing houses,
the new stock yards at Des Moines,
with their fifty-six acres Of silent
buildings, and empty pens, killed by
Smokeless chimneys of
Keokuk. Marshalltown, Iowa City,
Ft. Madison, Ottumwa, Coun-
Gil Bluffs and other cities are silent
witnesses of the havoc wicked discrim-
nations and high rates have wrought
in our fair commonwealth system
it Is proposed to perpetuate''
Rates Have Advanced.
Mr.. Campbell comments at length on
the fact that railroad rates have been
advanced materially instead of reduc-
I'd as claimed by the railroad mag
mates. He shows that not only the in
come of the railroads has increased
but that the rates on the
products of the producers Of the coun-
try have remained up while the cost
If hauling freight has enormously de:
On this subject Mr.. Campbell
says:
president j. J.. Hill in his argument