24 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



to encourage their manufacture in Colorado if the railroads would have 

 been willing to change their classification of freight so as not to discrimi- 

 nate against the growth of the manufacture. Most of the boilers made in 

 Colorado at this time were made from scrap iron. 1 If the freight rate 

 on boiler iron had been reduced to 75 cents a hundred, it was said before 

 the committee that the boilers made in Colorado would have been equal 

 to the demand in that state. It was also stated that this lowering of the 

 rate on boiler iron would have had a great effect in developing mining in 

 the state. In 1881-82 when there seemed for a time to be a prospect 

 favoring the growth of this industry, the Colorado Iron Works employed 

 from 150 to 300 men. 2 



Mr. James W. Nesmith, the president of the Colorado Iron Works, 

 testified before the committee in verification of the testimony already 

 given by other witnesses concerning the discrimination against the 

 development of the iron industry in Colorado. He said it did not pay 

 to manufacture boilers in Colorado as the freight on boilers was at that 

 time less than the freight on the iron from which boilers were made and 

 this iron would have to be shipped in from Pittsburgh. Boilers from 

 the same point could be brought in for less money. To make the boilers 

 in Colorado would have cost as much more as the labor put into the 

 manufacture of them was worth. Mr. Nesmith testified that this discrim- 

 ination had always existed. There was a rate war beginning June 2, 

 1884, when for a time there was a difference of twenty-five cents between 

 the freight rates on raw and manufactured iron. The Colorado Iron 

 Works did not manufacture more than 33 per cent, of the boilers which 

 they might manufacture were it not for the discriminating freight tariff. 

 The five or six iron manufacturing concerns in Denver in 1885 had all 

 dropped out of the business of making boilers on account of the unfavor- 

 able freight rate, and had devoted themselves to the manufacture of 

 other things. At that time $1,000,000 was invested in the various 

 machine shops of the city, all of which could engage in the manufacture 

 of boilers were it not for the rate against them. These various shops had 

 a capacity to employ 1,200 men, but owing to the unfavorable attitude 

 of the railroads toward the development of manufactures in the state, 



1 Evidence, Special Railroad Committee, p. 169. * Ibid., p. 168. 



