192 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



has a monoply of its traffic, there is no overwhelming rea§on, from 

 the manager's point of view, why the road should give this place as 

 favorable a freight rate as it is obliged to give other places on its lines 

 located at points with more than one railroad. The population of 

 the small town therefore remains stationary, or even dechnes, owing to 

 the fact that manufacturers, having located there in an early day, and 

 having discovered the disadvantages they are under in the matter of 

 transportation, decide to move their plants to the larger town where com- 

 petitive rates prevail. Other lines of business are also crippled. Real 

 estate in the town is affected, and its value dechnes. Farm land in the 

 vicinity of the small town suffers and its value also declines. All things 

 considered, a town from which goods must be transported at a higher 

 rate than from other places on the same railroad is a good place to 

 emigrate from. The same causes that make this a good town to leave 

 make the place where lower rates prevail a good place to settle, and 

 this is one of the reasons why the larger places are growing so rapidly. 

 Railroad freight rates, as at present fixed, are tending to give a forced 

 growth to our cities. 



Freight rates are so adjusted that the distribution of industries is pre- 

 vented. Why should the western part of the United States be supphed 

 with great numbers of articles made in New York, when the same articles 

 can be made in St. Louis ? Why this enormous haulage ? Manufactures 

 have developed slowly in the western states, and these states are offering 

 various inducements to encourage manufacturing industry within their 

 borders. Many of these states are offering bounties, and others are ex- 

 empting new manufacturers from taxation. One of the reasons for this 

 lack of manufacturing development in the West is the freight rate from 

 eastern cities. The rates are made low enough to enable the eastern 

 manufacturer to invade successfully the local western market and 

 dehver the goods there at a lower price than the local producer. This 

 has tended to prevent capital from coming into the western territory to 

 estabhsh manufacturing industries. A conspicuous illustration of the 

 attitude of the railways toward the movement of manufactures to the 

 western states appears in the testimony of Professor Ripley before the 

 United States Industrial Commission. A number of men had planned 



