Excerpt from The Relations of Kansas Railroads to the State of Kansas

The management of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company have requested me to investigate the transportation question, as affecting the interests of the State of Kansas and the interests of the Atchison road, and to submit the results of such investigation to the Honorable Board of Railroad Commissioners.

This request appears to have been made in consequence of certain complaints now pending before this commission.

It appears that the railroad law of Kansas requires two things - first, that freight rates shall be regulated so as not to unjustly discriminate between individuals or between localities, and second, that such rates shall be reasonable.

Unjust Discriminations.

No complaint, whatever, of unjust discriminations has been made against the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, except in the ease of Osage City as to coal rates, and this complaint seems finally to have resolved itself into a desire for reduced coal rates. (Since this statement was prepared, the city council of Osage City has taken the necessary action to withdraw the complaint of that city.)

Thus one entire branch of alleged abuses is eliminated from this hearing, and that, too, a branch which has everywhere given rise to the most numerous and most serious complaints. Heretofore, in the old countries and in all of the United States, the great cause of complaint has been alleged unjust discriminations, either between individuals or between rival localities. The history of the railroad problem shows, that wherever and by whomsoever it has been investigated, it has been conceded that the precise range of rates was not a matter of so much importance to shippers and to the public, as it was to have them uniform under like circumstances and free from unjust discriminations.

It has not been the result of chance, that-the adjustment of rates on the Atchison system of roads has been such as to avoid in the main charges of this kind, but it has been the result of great care and a scrupulous attention to the equities of the situation and the rights of all parties.

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