Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1906-07-19
KANSAS CITY MERCHANTS GET
AFTER RAILROADS.
Plan to Ship by Boat II Car Com.
panies Do Not Lower Rates
Navigation on the
Missouri. &:

Kansas City merchants who are not
satisfied with the rates charged by
the railroads do not go awry steam
boating on the Missouri, long regard
ed as q lost occupation, will be re-
sumed. .a.@ Il Il t,,ss.ss. ..5'5 n. "A.
The Missouri has reputation for
being a steamboat graveyard. In one
bend Of the river not far below this
city eight steamers went down in two
years in the palmy days before the
railroad. a s.&
Tn river channel is always shifting,
and this leaves sand bars and snags
to catch even the most skillful Of
pilots. A man may be thoroughly
familiar with the channel on the
down voyage, but by the time he gets
back on the return the main stream
may be running q quarer of mile
distant from it's old bed.
Steamboating received it's death
blow when the insurance companies
refused to issue risks upon any of the
boats. Inasmuch as the boats cost all
the way from $4,000 to $4,000. no
one has been found to engage in
steamboating on the Missouri in unin-
sured vessels. although under the
old freight and passenger schedules it
required only about four round trips
to get back the first cost of the boat.
There is still big fleet of boats
going out of St. Louis every week.
Kansas City wholesalers have been
trying to induce some of these steam
boat men to run between Kansas City
and st. Louis, but they won't do it.
They advise the jobbers to buy boat
and operate it.
Their objections are no longer
founded on the condition Of the river,
but upon commercial conditions.
They could not exact an arbitrary rate
from customers as in the days before
the railroad, and as fast as one Gus:
toner was secured for steamboat
the railroads would lure him away
with lower rates. 1T
Several years ago Kansas City job
bers got uneasy about the railroad
rate situation and started three boats
in competition. The railroads re.
duced rates as long as the stockhold-
ers kept the boats going, but when
they tired of a losing investment and
sold out rates began again to creep
upward. a
The new plan is to build but one
boat and use that as a club not only
to make the railroads reduce rates,
but also to keep them down. AS long
as rates were satisfactory the boat
would remain tied up. When they
went upward the boat would be put
into service.
Just now the men behind the
project are figuring how to fix 1t 50
that they can't lose. Under the three
boat plan it was often found that
stockholders insisted upon loading
them up with their own low rate
freight and letting high rate freight
that belonged to others lie upon the
wharf Isl.
Engineers have been at work and
have reported that the Missouri is
not so dangerous as it once was
Navigation has improved, /. boatmen
know more and are less reckless, and
the engineers have found ways tc
avoid the treachery of the river in
many instances. There is seven feet
|Eof water all the way from Kansas
City to st. Louis, and a 500-ton boat
| that would draw 26 inches Of water
when empty and no more than sia
feet when loaded would fiji the bill.