THE SOUTH: Waiting for the Day

After the second drink of bourbon, a Southerner is apt to start talking about those awful freight rates. The subject is no joke in the South. For Southerners claim, and with rebel yells, that discriminatory freight rates have stunted their economic growth and made them mere colonials of the imperial East.

The problem is an old one, almost as old as railroads themselves. When the roads first started expanding after the Civil War, they charged whatever the traffic would bear. In the South & West, where roads were few and traffic was light, they fixed high rates. By...

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