105 
Allustration: D. Scott & Co., of Olney, are large shippers of eggs to New York City. 
The freight on a barrel of eggs to Vincennes, thirty-one miles from Olney, is as much 
as from Vincennes to New York City, nine hundred and thirty-six miles. At Vincennes 
there are two roads leading east, one via Indianapolis, one via Cincinnati. D. Scott 
& Co. have been at law with the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad for the past fifteen 
months, and the prospect is that it will not be settled in the next fifteen months. If 
the farmers would combine and raise a fund to oppose the railroad companies, it might 
do some good, provided the suits did not drag too slowly through the courts, or the 
railroad-trains quit stopping at our stations, as they have done at places on this rail- 
road. : 
Mower, Minn.—The farmer has no chance, for as.soon as there is an advance of any 
importance in the eastern markets the railroads raise their freights to correspond with 
the advance. 
Kankakee, IU.—The cost of sending a bushel of corn to Chicago, a distance of but 
fifty-six miles, is 10 cents. Price paid for same here (Kankakee) is 22 cents. Unless 
some power controls these monopolies the people will assert their rights by other 
means than by legislation. They are creating a magazine by their exactions and per- 
sistency that must explode some day when they least look for it. The people of the 
State, not farmers alone, are now organizing to protect themselves, and they will do it. 
Olmsted, Minn.—It costs us more to send a bushel of wheat from here to Winona, 
sixty-eight miles, than it does from Mankato to Winona, one hundred and thirty-five 
miles. Now, it is plain that if it is worth but 8 cents to take it one hundred and 
thirty-five miles, it cannot be worth but 4 cents to move it sixty-eight miles. We pay 
10 cents to take it sixty-eight miles. Interests are conflicting, and a war between them 
not only probable but imminent. Either will admit this view to be wrong and detri- 
mental to their interests, but I suppose neither will retire while the other is on the 
war-path. Voluntary submission by both to fair legislation on the subject of freights 
and tariffs would certainly be a great improvement over our present overcharging 
and unsatisfactory manner of exchanging our products and manufactures. 
Beaver, Iowa.—These corporations have been built up, fostered, encouraged, and sup- 
ported by our national and State governments, enriched beyond measure by grants of 
the people’s property, until with hundreds of millions of stock, inflated or otherwise, 
they seek to bribe every department of the Government, and consume the remaining 
substance of the people. Our legislators are bribed and their mouths stopped by free 
passes on all these roads; the publishers of our journals throughout the State are 
silenced in the same manner; and no voice is raised in sympathy for or defense of the 
masses, or against these engines of oppression which are crushing out our existence. 
Hardin, Iowa.—A man by the name of Merry actually demonstrated, a few years 
since, that wheat could be shipped ascheap from Dubuque to Liverpool, via Mississippi 
River and New Orleans, as to New York. A company was formed and warehouse 
erected in New Orleans, and then—we were disappointed. Chicago saw it, Chicago 
felt it, and Chicago bought Mr. Merry off by giving him certain transportation monopo- 
lies in Chicago itself, and thus ended Mr. Merry’s practical scheme. Not so, however, 
Mr. Merry himself—he grows richer and richer, and cares not a fig how wheat gets to 
New York or Liverpool so that he reaps his transportation profits in Chicago. 
Green, Wis—Freights from Monroe to Milwaukee have gone up from $20 per car 
to $35, which is an addition of 75 per cent. 
Green Lake, Wis—I would suggest that Congress regulate the railroads. Give us 
an appropriation for the Fox and Wisconsin River improvement, and open water 
communication between the East and West; or that western people manufacture their 
own goods and consume their own productions. 
_ Carver, Minn.—There are many railroads in this State that refuse to ship the pro- 
duce of farmers, in order to give speculators a chance to make money in combination 
with the officers of the railroads. 
Henry, 1U.—If the Agricultural Department would aid in urging Congress to lend 
its aid in constructing a double-track railroad from the Mississippi River to the sea- 
board, say New York, with a charter compelling said railroad to carry freight at a 
uniform and reasonable rate, this would of itself compel other railroads to carry at 
nearly the same rates. 
Troquois, [ll.—The principal cause of discouragement is the combination of railroad 
companies to collect from one-half to three-fourths of the proceeds of our crop to carry 
the remainder to the consumer. The General Government must encourage manufac- 
turing interests in the west, by this means bringing the consumer to where our corn, 
beef, and pork are raised, and regulate the charges of carriers either by competing 
lines or statutory restrictions in charges. A 
Jasper, Iowa.—I would suggest that one grand trunk double-track line of railroad 
be built from Chicago, or some other point on Lake Michigan, to the sea-board, owned, 
run, and controlled by the General Government, also another on the great Mississippi 
River to some point on the sea-board of some southern State, say North or South Car- 
olina, transportatio” +o be fixed at the lowest paying rates. 
‘ 
