The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-08-22
Among Most VoluminOus Ever
Issued Within State.
UNTIL OCT. 1 TO FILE.
Then Railroads Will Have 80
Days to Make Answer.
Contention Is Made That There
Is Change of Conditions.

The brief in the Galveston rate case
has been just printed and turned over
to John s. Dawson, attorney for the
state railroad board, who represents
Kansas in this important interstate
suit before the interstate commerce
commission. This brief is one of the
most voluminous ever issued in the
state and covers all the details of this
case brought by the Kansas railroad
commission in conjunction with the
Oklahoma corporation commission
and the commercial clubs and ship
pers' organizations of Kansas, Okla
homa, Texas and Colorado to seek
readjustment of the rates from New
York and the east to these southwest
ern states. Due allowance is made in
the pleading for their natural advan-
tage of a short rail mileage to tide
water at Galveston.
The case was tried before Judge
Prouty of the interstate commerce
commission at Kansas City last
spring and the complainants were
given until September 1 to serve their
briefs on the railroads. The railroads
have until October l to file their
briefs, after which the case will be
argued before the full bench of the
commission at Washington.
In his brief Mr. Dawson contends:
in Kansas and the southwest since the
present rates and the present system
of ratemaking for this territory were
established. That to counteract the eff
feet of the creation of a deep water
port ct Galveston a chaotic entangle-
ment of rate schedules has been made,
the like of which can be duplicated in
no other part of the country; and the
attorney for the Kansas commission
further contends that the rates are un-
T6HSOIa Dle in themselves nd
just determinations between localities
urging particularly that the CONNER
cial busiaess of Kansas which ought TO
be transacted by wholesale jobbing CEN
ters within the state is now largely en-
joyed by Chicago, st. Louis, Kansas
City and New Orleans on account of the
unjust system of ratcmakins. now used.
BY any fair system of ratemaking, a
large percentage of Kansas wholesale
business would be transacted at COM
mercial ccntefs within the state, situa-
ted as most of them are upon direct
line of the great railroad highways run
ing north from Galveston"
Mr.. Dawson's brief dWeIls at length
on the changed conditions in the
southwest since it was the home of the
cowboy, the Indian and the buffalo, at
which time the only railroads ran west
from the Missouri river, and the pres
ent system of rate making was estab-
lished on that basis. That system is
to the Mississippi, plus the rate to the
Missouri river at Kansas City, plus the
rate to final destination The system
prayed for is a combination of the rate
by sea from New York to Galveston
plus the rail rate from Galveston to
destination. 1t is we'll known fact
that sea rates are only nominal. owing
to the fact that nature made the sea
and it costs nothing to maintain 1t rs
does a railroad.
Copious statistics are used to prove
the development of the southwest.
The brief argues stoutly that there is
combination among the railroads to
continue their present artificial sys-
tenn of rate making. 1t shows that
while Galveston is the second port for
export in America, not one-fortieth of
| the freight cars emptied at Galveston
carry freight coming northward, and
! that there was an empty car mileage
| in 1908 moving out of Galveston
amounting to 14O.0OO,0O0. and that it
costs a railroad half as much to haul
an empty car as a loaded one. The
logic of this situation is that to reduce