The Unseen Cost of a Changing Railroad
A 1887 editorial warns that new federal commerce regulations could dismantle local trade networks in Seattle and beyond, favoring big cities at the expense of regional producers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Some statistics recently published regarding transportation systems suggest that in this direction, as well as in others, we move to conditions under the weight of competition such as has been experienced in England, Germany, or France. The truth is that the difference in rates for through freight vs. local business is not the work of one man or of a pool; it is not the clever conception of any commercial organization. It has grown up gradually, and it must be traced to causes outside the control of pools or of legislation. It has been due to the all-pervading law of competition which, like the law of force of gravity, has defined the limits of each commercial center.
This transportation system is an accepted fact. Any radical change, any enactment that overthrew it and instituted another, must, whatever its ultimate consequences, be disastrous to every interest as today established. Section 4 of the new Interstate Commerce bill is the radical defeat in the bill now under discussion in the Senate. It mandates that carriers cannot charge more for a shorter distance than for a longer one on the same line. If the bill passes, the railroads will either have to apply the through rates to all local points, or they will abandon all competitive through business to the river, the canal, and the Canadian roads. If they apply through rates to all local points, all business will be centered in New York. That city will overshadow this country as Paris does France. All interior points will sink into insignificance, and we will have such a centralization of commercial and political power as we have not heretofore dreamed of.
“All interior points will sink into insignificance, and we will have such a centralization of commercial and political power as we have not heretofore dreamed of.”
This 1887 editorial captures the exact anxiety felt in frontier cities like Seattle as federal regulation began to challenge the monopoly power of the railroads. Much like today’s debates over the 'Amazon effect' and centralized logistics, the struggle remains one of maintaining regional economic autonomy against the gravitational pull of a few massive, national power centers.
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