Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-05-30
How the Southern Holds Up DanviIe.
IFrom The Way of a Railroad
with a Town." by Ray ,Stannard

with a Town by Ray Stannard
Baker in McClure's.
w. r. Guerrant, hardware mer-
chant. showed me freight bills on two
steel kitchen stoves Weighing eight
hundred pounds. The rate from Gin
cinnati to Lynchburg, five hundrei
miles, was s1.76 while from Lynchburg
to Danville, sixty-six miles, the rate
was SlS4. IN other words the Lynch
burg merchant would have paid only
S176 on his two stoves while the Dan
willie merchant paid $500 How, much
chance would a Danville merchant
have in competing for trade with a
Lynchburg merchant?
Horses shipped from the west by
the Southern can be put down at
Richmond, che hundred and forty-one
miles further than Danville. at much
less freight. There have been instance
es in which Danville dealers actually
had their shipments billed to Richmond
and when the horses reached DanVille,
they took them off-secretly, of course
and let the cars go on empty to
Richmond.
OF course Danville has also eX-
perienced many OF the lesser IMPOSE
tions of monopoly Shippers have had
trouble in getting cars when ordered,
they have had long delays il. receiving
freight, and they have also suffered ex-
asperating passenger train arrange
ments and poor service in other ways.
With no danger of any competitor get
ting the business the railroad could do
as it liked.
AS a result of high and discriminate
ing freight rates the wholesale business
OF Danville, once thriving and prosper
Gus, has been injured and the retail
business has suffered Jobbers in other
Virginia cities have taken away prac-
tlcally all of Danville's trade, even SELL
ing to merchants in smaller villages al
most in the environs of Danville. Every
commodity i'll Danville is higher in cost
than in other cities, therefore no farmer
or any one else trades in Danville If he
can avoid it. And every citizen pays
the tax of monopoly upon every pound
of sugar loaf of bread, ton of coal,
every hat, every foot of lumber.
The significant exception to this rule
for outdoing freights is tobacco On to-
bacco, Danville is Disseminated against
as compared with Lynchburg or Rich
moni exactly as it is on its incoming
freights. For example, the Southern
railway takes tobacco from Richmond
to Louisville, Kentucky, for "a cents a
100 pounds while the charge from Dam
vile. 141 miles nearer Louisville, is 40
cents, or nearly 70 per cent more for
141 miles less distance, and the cars
carrying the tobacco so thru Danville
on their way west. OF course the South
ern makes this rate to meet the rate of
the Chesapeake s. Ohio, which has the
short line from Richmond to Louisville.
OF these strange tobacco rates the in
terstate commerce commission says:
1t appears from the testimony that
it has been possible to ship tobacco
from Danville to Richmond, store it for
a time at Richmond and send it along
to market upon the same rate that it
could have been shipped from Dan
Vile itself in the first instance, altho
the first carriage from Danville to
Richmond was by the Southern and the
final shipment from Richmond may
have passed back thru Danville over
the same line.
Why is this? Because tobacco is
grown by farmers around Danville who
must ship from Danville. The farmer
cannot move his, farm and in his neces-
sity he is at the mercy of the railroad
monopoly.