EDITORIAL 



How Water Transportation Saves 



A large manufacturer in Pittsburg, Pa., 

 who uses one and one-half million tons of 

 coal annually, recently testified before a 

 Congressional committee that his coal was 

 brought from the mines to his mill, via the 

 Monogahela River route, for 3>^ to 4 cents 

 a ton. When, however, navigation on the 

 river was suspended for any reason the rail- 

 roads charged 44 cents a ton for transport- 

 ing the coal between the mines and the mill, 

 or eleven times as much for the same service. 

 — From the Report of the Deep Waterways 

 Committee of the Chicago Association of 

 Commerce. 



A ratio of 3^ to z^! Is it a matter 

 for surprise that, with traffic for long 

 periods seriously congested, and Con- 

 gress and the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission endeavoring to regulate 

 railway rates, the demand should be 

 voiced for the rehabilitation of our in- 

 land waterways and their active use for 

 purposes of navigation? 



5^ i^ ^ 



Kansas City's Fight for Her River 



KANSAS CITY, Mo., is pushing an 

 aggressive campaign for the re- 

 newed use of the Missouri. The city 

 feels that it is suffering from railway 

 discrimination, and that its future is 

 thereby menaced. Says the Neiv Or- 

 leans Picayune: 



Kansas Cit}' has found its trade placed at 

 great disadvantage because the railroads that 

 once made it a prominent cornmercial center 

 have moved on and are bestowing their fa- 

 vors on other places, leaving Kansas City 

 in the lurch. 



For instance, an adjustment of railway 

 rates recently gave cities south of Kansas 

 City rates which shut Kansas City out of 

 territory where it formerly sold large quan- 

 tities of goods, and when an explanation was 

 sought it was learned that the rates had been 

 made because of potential or actual water 

 competition from the East, via Galveston. 

 Enjoying no such location, Kansas City was 

 cut off from the benefits which cities south 

 of it were given. An attempt was made to 



boycott the Missouri, Kansas and Texas 

 Railway, in order to compel it to give Kansas 

 City better rates, but this movement was met 

 by a boycott against Kansas City in the 

 territory affected. The only course which 

 seemed open to Kansas City was to revive 

 river transportation. 



The New Orleans Times-Democrat 



says : 



The Kansas City crusade is one of the most 

 vigorous and best organized projects ever 

 started in this country. That city has appar- 

 ently made up its mind that its commercial 

 and industrial prosperity depends upon re- 

 opening the Missouri River, and using it as a 

 freight route to the Gulf. It is either "the 

 river or — go back," says the Kansas City Star, 

 and it expresses the opinion that Kansas City 

 has reached its zenith unless it can free itself 

 from the railroads and utilize the splendid 

 opporttmities offered it by the Missouri River. 



It is maintained that the railroads 

 have deliberately attempted to destroy 

 transportation by water. Says the Kan- 

 sas City Star of May 12th : 



The railroads caused the decline of naviga- 

 tion on the Mississippi. They did it by parallel- 

 ing the riv^r with lines of tracks on each 

 bank and by making the freight rates in com- 

 petition with th» steamboats so low that the 

 boats could not meet the competition and live. 

 Then the railroads bought the steamboat stock 

 under fictitious names, took the boats out of 

 the carrying trade and raised their rates to 

 double the old steamboat rates and more. 



The methods here described are, of 

 course, not unfamiliar to the student of 

 modern industrial warfare. The state- 

 ments sound like echoes from the 

 stories of meat and oil. The policy is 

 sometimes to undersell your competitor 

 until you have killed him ; in other cases 

 it is to bear the stock of his concern and 

 buy it up at bottom figures, in either 

 case making the consumer, afterwards, 

 pay the cost of the process. 



With characteristic energy and enter- 

 prise Kansas City is pushing what 

 seems to be a practical project to rem- 

 edy the situation. It is raising a mil- 



