Their clothes were made in New England.
They paid the railroads nine cents apiece for transporting their clothes, including shoes and hats, from the point of manufacture to the Mississippi Valley.
The combined freight charges on all the clothes worn by the eleven men in the group, including shoes and hats, was less than one dollar.
If freight rates were advanced 10 per cent the increased price to these men on their entire wearing apparel would be less than one cent each.
If they have to pay more than that per cent it will not be because freight rates are advanced.
LESSON II.
Freight Rates and Agricultural Implements.
Consider the McCormick harvester. It mows, gathers, binds and stacks the bearded grain, while its proud possessor cracks his whip above the backs of his three-horse team. It has banished the nightmare of farm mortgages from the great prairies of the West.
This particular harvester we are considering is cutting grain one hundred miles west of the Mississippi River. It was built in Chicago and sold for $130.
The farmer paid $1.76 to have it brought to him from Chicago, three hundred miles away.