(A)
Topeka Kansas, August 2nd, 1886
A.A. Robinson, Esq.,
2nd V.P. AT&SF RR.
Dear Sir:
All who are acquainted with the present course of Railroad events in the section of country traversed by the Santa Fe system, will agree that the question of extending the trunk line of that road from Kansas City to Chicago is constantly becoming more important, both to your Company and to the public. Year by year the traveling and shipping public and the entire patronage of the Santa Fe´ system of roads are urging with increased force the necessity of this extension. The time seems to have arrived when the policy of your company should be defined, and I herewith submit a few considerations bearing upon the subject.
The danger of too great delay cannot well be overestimated. It is well understood that a new road in a new Country may be built too early or too late to secure its richest results. As an example, it is now apparent to all, in the light of subsequent events, that the Santa Fe Company would be in a far better condition to protect its old business and to secure new business had it started a full year before it did to construct the auxiliary lines now under way in this State. In a growing section of Country like this with our soil production, industrial development and increasing population, the danger is all in the direction of delay rather than in premature activity. All experience in this belt of sites goes to show that if such a thing as too early advance in this matter were possible, the advance would soon be overtaken and corrected by the growth of communities like those of the Mississippi and Missouri River valleys; while on the other hand advantages once lost by delay are likely to be seized by other roads and can never be regained.
It has been suggested that the construction of the proposed line would stimulate the present Chicago and Kansas City trunk lines to build feeders west of the Missouri River into Santa Fe' territory. This is clearly a surface view of the subject and closer examination of the subject will show that delay has thus far served and will continue to serve as a direct stimulant for those trunk lines to invade your territory and for these reasons-
To the patrons of your entire system west of the Missouri River, Chicago presents attractions to the shipper and to the traveler far superior to those of any other City. It is the great point of concentration and of distribution for all the West, the Great Lakes Region, Canada and the East. The mass of the people adjacent to the Santa Fe' system are bound to the North by ties of blood, of sympathy, of emigration, of association and of business. Since the assurance of the construction of your auxiliary system in this State and the Indian Territory, our people, above all other things, want direct rapid and unobstructed communication with Chicago with only one carrier to deal with in the entire transaction and they will patronize the road which furnishes it. They may overestimate somewhat the advantages to be derived by such communication but they believe full in these advantages and if the Santa Fe fails to furnish them they will never rest until they secure branches all through this State operated by the Chicago and Missouri River trunk lines. If it were believed to be the established policy of your Company not to put its patrons in direct communication with Chicago, it would be a powerful inducement for every Chicago road, now reaching the Missouri River, to build in immediately; but if the Santa Fe at once furnishes these facilities that inducement will, in large part, be removed. The successful progress of the Rock Island road in Kansas during the past six months in the way of voting aid, securing right of way, etc. can be credited to this well understood anxiety on the part of the public. The Managers of that enterprise have from the first relied upon this fact as a means of overcoming all obstacles in this State and when their lines in this State are completed and in operation they will depend upon it as an aid in securing business.
Failure on the part of the Union Pacific to build to Chicago has not saved that line in Nebraska from being paralleled and intersected by other Chicago roads. The discouraging financial feature of the U.P. road today arises from the fact that its Eastern terminus is at a way station where it is forced to turn over and give away to rival lines a vast business, while at the same time those lines are tapping its sources of business and consuming its vitals farther west. Even the celebrated Tripartite Agreement surrounded by all the safe-guards which wisdom and experience could suggest, failed to protect the Union Pacific Territory. So the delay of the Santa Fe has not prevented the Rock Island, the Missouri Pacific and the Frisco roads from building into some of its best interior points in Kansas. The development of Kansas and Nebraska during the past few years has increased the aggregate of local business so enormously that these incursions up to date may not have been seriously felt by the U.P. and Santa Fe roads; but when this rapid growth stops or becomes a slow growth as in the older States, and when Kansas and Nebraska, like Illinois become grid-ironed with roads, with the resulting sharp competition in rates, then the roads which deal directly with the sources and destination of business on the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes will be best prepared for the contest.
In Topeka and Wichita, and the same will be true in regard to Hutchinson, McPherson, etc. the Rock Island people are paying out large sums of money for the purpose of grounds, in the heart of those towns for ample depot and warehouse purposes. Wherever that Company or the Missouri Pacific are coming in contact with the Santa Fe they are putting forth every effort to make friends in view of future contests for business. The Company contest will be an unequal one, unless your company has the power to reach out on equal terms with other companies directly to the East without having to rely upon negotiations with intermediate lines, having divided or adverse interests, duties and responsibilities. With that power in its hand your company possesses other special advantages, which will enable it to retain its supremacy. Some of the special advantages are as follows-
The AT&SF Company now has in operation and under immediate construction more than five thousand miles of road, including its interests in California and in the Atlantic and Pacific Road, all of which is west and southwest of the lower Missouri River. A most striking and valuable feature of this mileage is that it is constructed in accordance with a well defined system and is not an aggregation of roads thrown together. Nearly the entire system consists of a trunk line with Kansas City as its base, and with feeders converging on the right or left and all tributary to the trunk. No other road reaching into Chicago can ever hope to have so large, so valuable and so systematic a mileage located in this area of country, and this fact of itself will make a Chicago extension of more value to the Santa Fe than to any other Company. If other Companies can afford to operate their old roads, and every few years to construct a new one from Chicago to the Missouri River, depending entirely or mainly upon local business, then the Santa Fe can better afford to operate a similar road, assisted as it would be by so vast an auxiliary system. Such a line would also make the Santa Fe more independent and give it additional power in adjusting contests arising out of trans-continental traffic, and all other competitive business.
Another consideration which should be taken into account is that Kansas City is the favorite and natural gateway into and out of Kansas and the States and territories intersected by the Santa Fe system. That City with its suburbs, now has a population of about 140,000. In bank exchanges it ranks tenth among the Cities of the United States, standing next to Pittsburgh and above such Cities as Providence, New Orleans, Louisville, Milwaukee and Detroit. It has a far better livestock market than St. Louis and in sympathy, methods and location is in much closer contact with our people.
The attraction of human gravitation is so strong that occasional travelers who in the aggregate furnish the great mass of the passenger business, prefer to move with the crowd and where the most is to be seen, providing other inducements and facilities are equal. As illustrations - for years past the Santa Fe has run a daily sleeper from Topeka direct to Chicago via Atchison. Though it furnishes better accommodations, even passengers for Chicago taking the train at Topeka refuse to patronize it for the reasons stated. The Wabash again has struggled for years to secure the travel between the east and southwest over its direct line by way of Toledo, but the traveling public steadily insists on going by way of Chicago.
It is an axiom among common carriers that freight shipments follow passenger travel, other things being equal. It follows then, that Kansas City possesses decided advantages over any other point north or south of it as an outlet from this State and business arising or terminating on your system will go that way, if you give it equal facilities rather than by St. Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth or any point south of Kansas City.
As indicating the value of which such an extension would be, reference might fairly be made to the enormous loss which would result to any of the great systems or roads now leading into Chicago from the west, northwest or southwest provided it was shut out of that City, with an Eastern Terminus at some point on the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers.
These above conclusions have been based upon the assumption that the proposed extension would furnish facilities only equal to those furnished by other lines. If it should furnish better grades and a shorter line, as I understand might be the case, the advantage would be still greater.
The channels of commerce will remain as first established under like conditions and similar circumstances. Under the old conditions the position of the Santa Fe was safe. But the positions are entirely changed with two powerful lines penetrating the interior, each working upon a liberal and comprehensive plan, one upon the North and the other upon the South, one offering St. Louis and the other Chicago as Eastern termini, each seeking to establish new channels of commerce at the expense of your Company. No one can predict how far these lines may extend into Colorado, New Mexico, Indian Territory and Western Texas, but it is certain that the inducements for those companies to penetrate the remote parts of your system would be largely diminished if your company should show a determination to at once place its patrons in direct communication with Chicago.
The following is a summary of some of the reasons showing the necessity of a Chicago line to the Santa Fe system, under new condition of affairs so rapidly developing.
1 - A line could now be selected which would likely support itself and pay a fair interest in the investment not counting its value to the present system. Every year's delay makes such selection more difficult as the territory between Kansas City and Chicago becomes occupied by other roads.
2 - It would place your traffic Department in a more independent position in dealing with Colorado Trans-continental and all other competitive business.
3 - The line would be shorter and with better grade than any other now in existence or likely to be built hereafter.
4 - The present and prospective enormous mileage of your road, and its concentration upon natural and easy lines at Kansas City, as the most important gateway of the State will make both your system west of the Missouri River and the proposed extension of special value as auxiliaries to each other.
5 - By at once placing your entire patronage in direct rapid and unobstructed communication with Chicago, you deprive other roads of inducements which now exist to build in this direction, and thus, in a large measure you protect your entire system.
Very respectfully,
(signed) Norris L. Gage
Volume 12 part of page 29 - 33 Splinters transcribed in altered form for the web by Matt Lee.
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