It has long been claimed by the railroads of the United States that their rates of freight are lower than those of any other country, and that the nation's progress in industry and commerce has in large measure been due to the cheapness and the efficiency of its transportation service. By way of proof has been instanced the proportion that the transportation charge bears to the selling price of the staple commodities. It is said that the rate charged for the transportation of food products does not affect their selling price in any market of the United States—that price being fixed by the processes of supply and demand which the amount of the freight rate does not influence. In the spring of 1907 inquiry was made upon this point among the produce dealers of the city of New York, who gave the information contained in the following paragraphs.
The price paid by the housekeeper per dozen for eggs during the season of shipment seldom exceeds by more than five cents the price received by the Western farmer who takes them to the country store. That is, the railroads bring eggs a thousand miles to New York for a cent or a cent and a half a dozen, and two thousand miles or so for about two cents and a half a dozen, the dealers taking the remainder of the five cents as payment for handling. The net difference between the price paid per pound for butter at the creamery, whether in New York City or in the Mississippi Valley, and that paid by the New York retail dealer averages about one and one-half cents for commission and one cent for freight.
In December, January and February turkeys are taken from the Texas ranches to marketing centers, the transportation charge on ten birds weighing one hundred and twenty pounds being about 25 cents. After these ten birds have been dressed and packed they weigh about one hundred and two pounds, and the freight rate from Texas to New York is $1.50 for 100 pounds. That is, a Texas turkey that retails in the New York market for 20 cents a pound will have paid one and three-fourths cents per pound to the railroads that took it from the ranch to the concentration point and thence to the market. The farmer in Texas received about nine cents per pound, leaving a trifle over nine cents to be divided between the packing house, the produce merchant and the retail dealer. Chickens and other dressed poultry that come from Chicago pay a freight rate of about three-fourths of a cent a pound, the railroad company supplying a refrigerator car, and keeping them iced while in transit.
The rail rate from Chicago to New York on grain and grain products for domestic consumption has been about 17½ cents per 100 pounds; that is, a bushel of oats or corn or wheat, that may bring in New York anywhere from 40 cents to $1, has been brought from the Western farm for from eight to fifteen cents. Hay that has yielded the farmer $18 or $19 a ton and sells in New York at about $24 has paid the railroads somewhere from $3 to $5 per ton, according to whether it came from the meadows of the Ohio or the Mississippi Valleys.
A bullock that weighs 1,200 pounds will, at Chicago, bring on an average $5.50 per 100 pounds, which includes an average of five cents per 100 pounds for freight from the grazing grounds. Its total value at the stock yards, therefore, is $66. When it has passed through the packing house its weight will have been reduced to 700 pounds. From Chicago to New York it will pay 45 cents per 100 pounds freight or, in other words, the 700-pound carcass, which, if retailed at an average of 15 cents a pound would bring $105, has paid the railroads between $3.50 and $4 from the far West to the metropolis.
On potatoes the freight rate per barrel containing about two and a half bushels is $1.05 from Florida, 65 cents from South Carolina, 45 cents from North Carolina, 30 cents from Virginia, and from this 12 cents per bushel the rate scales down to five or six cents per bushel from nearby regions. The freight rate on tomatoes from Florida is 25 cents per package of six baskets, from Texas 15 cents for twelve quarts, from Mississippi 76 cents per 100 pounds, and from the nearby farms eight cents per bushel of twenty-eight quarts. The freight rate on cantaloups to New York ranges from less than a cent for a melon from the Carolinas to about two and a half cents for that from California. Oranges from Florida to New York pay the railroads from four to nine cents a dozen, and those from California six to twelve cents a dozen, as they may be large or small. A three-pound can of tomatoes from Maryland pays the railroad about one-half cent per can.
The freight rates to New York on foodstuffs have been selected as typical of the transportation charges applying on such commodities in the main channels of traffic from the West to the East; and, in so far as fruits and vegetables are concerned, from the South to the East. The transportation charge per consumer's unit on these foodstuffs is a trifle less to Philadelphia and adjacent Delaware and New Jersey; another fraction lower to the great Pittsburg district, and still lower to the cities of the West and South that are nearer the places of production. As prices of food products fluctuate within a fairly wide range and freight rates also fluctuate, though within but a very narrow range, the rates and prices specified in the foregoing, as well as in the succeeding paragraphs of this chapter, cannot be considered as of specific application at any given time in the future. They were exact at the time they were collated and will very closely approximate accuracy at any period.
As New York may be considered representative of the places to which edible products of the West and South are consigned, so also may St. Louis be considered a typical center of reception of the manufactured products of the East. The information given in the immediately following paragraphs was obtained from merchants and manufacturers of that city.
The transportation charge on the material entering into a pair of shoes made in a St. Louis factory averages one and one-quarter cents. The transportation charge required to place that pair of shoes in the hands of a consumer in any part of the United States averages between two and three cents. The material entering into an ordinary bedstead, such as retails in St. Louis for $8, will have paid the railroad about 40 cents. From ten pounds of nails made in Pittsburg and retailed in St. Louis the railroad will have obtained a trifle over two cents, and from ten pounds of wire two and one-half cents. An axe made in the Pittsburg district that retails in St. Louis for $1 will have paid the railroads one and one-fourth cents. At Kansas City that same axe will have paid freight of a fraction over four cents and at Denver, where the retail price will have advanced to $1.30, it will have paid 14 cents freight. A padlock retailing in St. Louis at 50 cents will have paid the railroads a little more than one-half cent; at Kansas City it will have paid one cent, and at Denver, where the retail price advances to 75 cents, it will have paid two cents to the railroads. An eighteen-gallon galvanized iron tub that retails in St. Louis at 80 cents will have paid the railroad from place of manufacture two and three-tenths cents; to Kansas City the freight rate will have been six and one-fourth cents, and to Denver 15 cents, but here the retail price of that tub is $1. A stove that weighs two hundred pounds and retails in St. Louis for $18 will, in carload lots, pay 44 cents to Kansas City or Omaha, and retail there for $22; $1.48 to Denver, and retail there for $25; $2.50 to Seattle, and retail there for $30. When a housewife of St. Louis buys a dozen clothespins she has paid the railroad five ten thousandths of a cent. If she buys a washboard at 50 cents she has paid the railroad forty-two one-hundredths of a cent. In Denver she would pay for that washboard 60 cents, of which the railroad would have received two cents. The higher rates and prices that have been specified as applying in Kansas City and Denver may also be taken as applicable to cities in the interior South and Southwest, such as Oklahoma, Fort Worth and San Antonio.
In response to inquiries made concerning certain staple articles of daily and general use in various of the smaller cities and towns extending from Massachusetts to Georgia and Illinois, and from Michigan to Mississippi, it has been ascertained that throughout this region the transportation charge on such articles ranges as follows: On a man's suit of clothes, from two to eight cents; on calicos and ginghams, from one-fiftieth of a cent to one-fifth of a cent a yard; the freight charge paid on the entire apparel of a fully dressed man or woman in this section would range perhaps from six or seven to 16 or 18 cents. The rate on an ordinary dining room suite consisting of table, sideboard, six chairs and a china closet would average from 75 cents to $5, on a parlor suite of sofa and four chairs from 50 cents to $4, on a bedstead and its equipment from 75 cents to $1.50, in each case from the factory to the home. The lumber used in the ordinary eight-room house will have paid the railroads from $35 to $150, and the brick from $6 or $8 to $50 or $60, as the kiln may be near or remote. A fifty-pound sack of flour from the mill, even at Minneapolis, in but a few cases has paid a freight rate of over eight or nine cents to the consumer. Products of the beef or the hog are carried from the western packing houses throughout this territory at rates that vary from a fifth of a cent to not exceeding a cent per pound.