MINOR
CARRIERS
ALL GROUPS

gondola, coal and coke cars on their lines than they owned. In 1916 the state of Nebraska memorialized Congress to enact legislation which, among other things, would insure the return of equipment to the roads in that section.1 Conditions were so bad in Illinois about the same time that the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of that state made a trip to the seaboard to try to find out why railroad equipment of western lines was being detained in the East. He maintained that grain elevators in Illinois were full and that some elevators had received but one empty car a week, in some cases but one car per month. On a tour in March, 1918, through seven states of the far West and Northwest for the United States Department of Agriculture, to stimulate a greater acreage of spring wheat, President Thompson of Ohio State University found that many of the alleged violations of the rules of the Food Administration in that area were due to the shortage of cars and transportation service. Areas that had much wheat could secure no substitutes; many small places were reported to have received but one car per month; potatoes were rotting in Idaho because they could not be marketed; live stock in some areas were almost starving, while but twelve hours away by rail, hay was rotting that could be transported.

In view of such unequal distribution of equipment among railway systems, it is not surprising to learn that the Interstate Commerce Commission discovered in its investigations in 1906 that in furnishing cars, railroads stipulated that their equipment should not go beyond their own line. If the shipper did not care to consent

1 For copy cf memorial, see Hearings before House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 64th Congress, 2nd Session, on H.R. 19546 and H.R. 20256 and H.R. 20352, hereafter referred to as "Esch Hearings."

2 Esch Hearings, p. 41.

Kansas City Hearings, pp. 192, 196; Minneapolis Hearings, p. 137; St. Louis Hearings, pp. 3, 4, 7, 8, 36, 117, 118. See note 3, p. 139. See also Railway Age, April 26, 1907, p. 683.

to this arrangement, he received no cars. That the roads have continued to resort to this method of keeping their equipment at home is seen from the evidence which was given to Commissioner McChord at Louisville, Kentucky, in November, 1916.1

The consequences of the inadequacy of the transportation system have been so insistently forced upon our attention since the outbreak of the war that comment concerning recent conditions is unnecessary. But it is not generally appreciated that transportation has been carried on under intermittent embargoes upon freight for more than a decade. Conditions were so bad more than ten years ago that the Interstate Commerce Commission made investigations, taking testimony relative to conditions at widely separated points.2 Substantially, all told the same story of failure of transportation facilities and resulting commercial embarrassment and loss. The investigations of the Interstate Commerce Commission at that time showed clearly that the business offered to the carriers was far beyond the transportation facilities. The Commission was informed that farmers, especially in the Northwest, were unable to market their grain because of the inability of the carriers to serve them; and that grain was being stored on the ground in some instances in bins eighteen to thirty feet deep, and covering acres of ground. The testimony taken by the Commission showed that the country elevators were

1 42 I. C. C. R. 657 (662).

Testimony was taken relative to conditions in such widely separated areas as the lumber producing regions of Oregon and Washington, the Southern cotton belt, the West Virginia coal fields, and the grain fields of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Northwest.

Testimony in Senate Documents, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, Nos. 233 (pp. 1–275) and 333 (pp. 1-502). Document No. 233 contains the testimony taken at St. Louis and Kansas City. The testimony taken at both places is paged consecutively in this document, hereafter referred to as "St. Louis Hearings" and "Kansas City Hearings." Likewise Document No. 333 contains the testimony taken at Minneapolis and Chicago, hereafter referred to as 44 Minneapolis Hearings" and "Chicago Hearings."

Railway Age, December 7, 1906, p. 722.

full because grain could not be shipped to important terminal elevators. Up to the time the Interstate Commerce Commission made the investigation, in the latter part of December, 1906, important terminal elevators had not been more than one-third full.1 Naturally this meant much loss to the farmers, not only from grain spoiling or its destruction by vermin, but also because grain buyers insisted upon much wider margins in all purchases, and hence offered a lower price to the farmer. In some instances grain dealers refused to buy grain at any price, because of the uncertainty of getting it to market or the likelihood of damage through heating due to the unusual length of time it would be in transit.' Selling grain in terminal markets on contracts was extremely difficult if not impossible. Purchase at a loss was sometimes necessary to cover such contracts. This uncertain movement of wheat and lack of transportation meant that flour mills were often forced to shut down, in some instances for two months at a time. All this meant that farmers were forced to borrow money and pay interest on it and, in some instances, to pay storage and insurance on grain, which later they were compelled to sell at a reduced price. The president of a national bank in the Northwest presented to the Commission letters from 350 banks in his state that had accounts with his bank showing that farmers were obliged to hold their wheat because of lack of cars; and he indicated that altho ordinarily he would not be lending a dollar to

1 12 I. C. C. R. 561 (563).

Chicago Hearings, pp. 396, 419, 420, 474, 475; St. Louis Hearings, p. 71, and Minneapolis Hearings, p. 117.

Minneapolis Hearings, pp. 31, 97, 98-99, 113-114, 130, 133, 198; Kansas City Hearings, pp. 270–271.

p. 14.

Kansas City Hearings, p. 212; St. Louis Hearings, p. 50; Minneapolis Hearings,

Minneapolis Hearings, p. 102.

Kansas City Hearings, pp. 232, 270–271, 272; St. Louis Hearings, p. 48; Minneapolis Hearings, p. 133.

1

these banks at that time of year, he had within a sixtyday period extended credit to these correspondents to the extent of $600,000.1

There was much trouble also in the marketing of live stock throughout the important live stock areas." Dealers waited for cars weeks and even months. In instances where it was necessary to drive live stock some distance to the station, it had to be kept in yards or small pastures while waiting for cars. This often meant shrinkage in the weight of fat cattle to the extent of 200 pounds per head. It was sometimes necessary to wait so long for cars that it was too great a sacrifice to market cattle, and they were driven back to pasture. Those who were forced to sell their live stock, after waiting for weeks for cars at one station, were compelled to drive them across the prairie from seventy-five to two hundred miles to another railroad, there again to find conditions but little better. The president of the American Live Stock Association testified that in Texas the delays in shipping cattle extended from two months to any indefinite length of time." The secretary of the same Association testified that in Wyoming it had been necessary to hold sheep at the loading station from thirty to sixty days; and then in some instances it was necessary to trail them for two hundred miles across the country to another railroad. It was sometimes necessary to dip sheep as many as three times while waiting for cars."

1 Minneapolis Hearings, pp. 119-120; 12 I. C. C. R. 564; for similar testimony by other bankers and elevator men, see Minneapolis Hearings, pp. 117, 132, 170.

It was contended in the Kansas City Hearings (p. 148) that stock men of Panhandle, Texas, alone lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of inability of railroads to furnish transportation.

* Testimony relative to the trouble live stock shippers had in securing railway service, in Kansas City Hearings, pp. 147, 148, 151, 153, 154, 155–158, 162, 163, 166, 173, 174, 175, 183, 190; St. Louis Hearings, pp. 69–70, 115–116; also Senate Doc. 311, 60th Congress, 1st Session (1908), Hearing on S. 3644, pp. 1-134.

St. Louis Hearings, p. 145.

5 Kansas City Hearings, p. 177.

Ibid., p. 162.