Freight Rates and "King Cotton."
"Befo' de wah" cotton was king. Of our exports it still leads all our domestic products, having no second in sight.
If the entire cotton crop of the United States was compressed into one bale its value would be about $750,000,000.
Of this bale in 1908 the railways got a little "jag" worth according to the Interstate Commerce Commission $12,394,000, or less than 2 per cent.
An advance of 10 per cent in rates on cotton could not add more than one-fiftieth of a cent per pound to the price of cotton.
LESSON VIII.
Freight Rates and a Sack of Flour.
Minneapolis, as all good little school children know, is the seat of the flour industry of the United States.
If they do not learn this at school it is impressed upon their receptive minds by every illuminated billboard and painted rock that meets their gaze from Eastport to California.
There are half a dozen brands of flour ground at Minneapolis and every one is better than all others.