USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > History of Chicago : historical and commercial statistics, sketches, facts and figures, republished from the "Daily Democratic press" ; What I remember of early Chicago, a lecture, delivered in McCormick's hall, January 23, 1876 (Tribune, January 24th) > Part 17
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Another index to the development of the Northwest is found in the rapid growth of our railway system. .
The following table shows the number of miles of railway in the six States above named, in 1860 and 1870, and the number of miles completed in 1872:
Increase
1860.
1870.
in 10 yrs.
Built in 1872.
Illinois
2,790
4,031
1,241
838
Iowa
655
2,095
1,440
585
Kansas
None
931
931
511
Minnesota
None
795
795
712
Nebraska
None
1,058
1.058
218
Wisconsin
905
1,512
607
555
Totals 4,350
10,422
6,072
3,419
It will be noticed that more than half as many miles of railway were built in these States during last year as were built in ten years between 1860 and 1870. But to the Western farmer this astonishing rail- way progress serves only to increase the hideous writhings of what your excellent Governor Carpenter aptly calls "the skel- eton in his corn-crib." It promotes the rapid settlement of the country, thereby adding largely to that surplus production
which even now can only be relieved by burning corn for fuel. While Governor Carpenter's metaphor is fearfully true, and, with our present means of transit, that skeleton must remain fixed in the corn-crib, there are millions, may I call them living skeletons, clad in scanty flesh, pinched and wan with the gnawings of remorseless hunger, whose shout of joy and thankfulness would make the heavens ring, could this corn be brought within reach of their starving wives and children.
But before passing from this branch of the subject, let us take another example from the commercial statistics of Chicago. The first shipment of wheat from that city, 78 bushels, was made in 1838, and in 1844, only twenty nine years ago, the shipments were less than a million of bushels. Up to that time no other cereal had bon shipped eastward. In 1871, the receipts of all kinds of grain-flour being expressed in bushels-were 83,518,202, and the ship- ments 71,800,789. Last year the receipts, as furnished me by Charles Randolph, Esq., Secretary of the Board of Trade, were 88,426,842. Allowing about the same figures for city consumption, the shipments for 1872 would amount to 76,000,000 bushels. The figures for each year in most cases show a steady increase of the shipments of breadstuffs, keeping pace with the settlement of the country west of Lake Michigan. A reference to the tables showing the commerce in the animal products of our vast fertile prairies would yield the same results, and need not be given here.
With all the increase of production west of Lake Michigan we have added but one railway to our channels of transit for it to the seaboard since 1855 ; in all, we now have four railways, the lakes, the Welland and St. Lawrence and the Erie canals. After having studied carefully the re- sources, and the probable development of the territory we have been considering, I said to the first Convention, held at To- ronto, to consider how our transit lines could be increased, on the 13th of Septem- ber of that year ; "As well attempt to lead the boiling current of Niagara to the sea in hose-pipe as to ship the products of these 700,000 square miles to the ocean by the Erie and the Welland canals, and all the railways now or hereafter to be con- structed." The commercial crash of 1857-8, and our four years War of the Rebellion have somewhat delayed the ful- fillment of what then seemed to many the vagaries of an over-heated imagina- tion ; but that it is literally, even painfully true, to-day, this Convention cannot doubt for a moment.
The question before the Farmers' Con- vention, of Illinois, recently held at Bloom- ington, mooted as I learn almost with de-
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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
.
spairing earnestness, was, Can any present relief be found for the high freights and the ruinously low prices of our produce ? I can see but two sources-one in an active demand at high figures, caused by a war in Europe. This would only be tempo- rary, at best. The only permanent relief is to be sought for by opening a channel, hereafter to be noticed, for vessels of 1,000 tons, down the St. Lawrence to the ocean.
And now we come to the price of freights, and what is needed to lower them to such a figure that the farmers west of Lake Michigan can ship the products of their broad acres to the ocean, and not have the proceeds of their toil consumed in getting them to market. On this branch of the subject, the cost of freights east of Chicago is the only thing to be considered, for the railway charges to that city can only be reduced gradually, by competition among the railways and by the greater amount of products to be handled. The freight on corn from Des Moines to Chi- cago, and place's west to the Missouri, has, I understand, been reduced from 20 to 17 cents per hundred-about 12} cents per bushel-and, in process of time, a fur- ther reduction may possibly be made. The average of all rail freights between Chicago and New York, for the year 1871, was 29.1 cents per bushel, and 31.2 per bushel for wheat. I have the opinion of the Presidents of two of our largest rail- ways, that if half a dozen double track railway lines, devoted entirely to freight, were built between New York and Chi- cago, the rate could not be reduced below 20 cents per bushel. That would make the freight charges on a bushel of corn from Des Moines to tide water 32} cents at the lowest rate that can be hoped for by all rail, and, adding the commissions of the middle men, 35 to 40 cents would be levied, so that you may safely calculate it will cost you at least three bushels of corn to lay down the fourth one in New York. Using propellers betwen Chicago and Buf- falo or Erie, and rail to New York, the average tariff of freight for 1871 was 23.4 cents per bushel for corn, and 25,2 for wheat, being about 6 cents less than by all rail.
The average freight on corn by sail vessel, from Chicago to Buffalo, for the past summer, was a small fraction above 9 cents per bushel. Add charges for handling at Buffalo 1} cents, and cannl freights to New York 12 cents on corn, and 12} cents on wheat, and the charges on these grains to New York will be about 23 to 25 cents per bushel. Owing to the large amount of produce to be moved, freights have ranged from 2 to 5 cents higher during the present year above the rates ruling in 1871. The rates by pro- peller and rail to Buffalo and New York,
and by sail and canal, have approached very nearly to the same figures. All lines are taxed to their utmost capacity, and more. The Erie canal can not be enlarged, for the watershed of the country through which it runs will not afford a larger sup- ply of water to feed the canal, and the question returns what can be done to se- cure for our products a more capacious channel, and therefore cheaper transit to the ocean ? I answer, in the language of the late Captain Hugunin, one of our best and earliest lake navigators : " The Great God, when he made the mighty West, made also the lakes and the mighty St. Lawrence to float their commerce to the ocean." True, we have the Rapids of the St. Lawrence and the Falls of Niagara ; but without these we could not have the great lakes, and without them meteor- ology has long since proved that our vast teeming prairies would be arid as the re- gions of Central Asia. Around these natural barriers man's energy has built a series of canals, passing vessels of some three and part of the way six hundred tons between the lakes and tide water. Every tyro in commercial knowledge knows that as you increase the tonnage of a vessel you diminish the relative cost of freights. Enlarge the Welland and the St. Lawrence canals, so as to pass vessels of 1,000 tons burthen, and I have the opinion of the eminent railway Presidents above referred to that a bushel of corn can be transported from Chicago to Montreal for 14 cents ; and by the Caughnewaga canal, of similar size, and the Champlain canal, duly enlarged, to New York, at 18 cents. This view is more than confirmed by our able engineer, Colonel R. B. Mason, who, in his report on the Georgian Bay canal, as Consulting Engineer, with Kivas Tulley, Esq., of Toronto, estimating the cost of freight, in vessels of 1,000 tons bur- then, by lake, at 2 mills per ton per mile, by canal and river at 8, and ocean at 1}, foots up the cost of transporting a bushel of wheat between Chicago and Liverpool at 20 cents, and to Montreal a fraction above 9 cents. Take the first estimate, viz., 14 cents as the cost of freight on a bushel of corn, between Chicago and Montreal, and we have six cents added to the price of every bushel produced by our farmers. The effect of that on their wealth and prosperity would be wonder- ful. Suppose only half of it reaches the pockets of your farmers, and it would add 20 per cent. to the value of every acre of land he possesses. Take the figures for your surplus as put down in the Govern- ment census for 1869, with the deductions for home consumption as made by Gov- ernor Carpenter in his able address before your State Agricultural Society, and three cents a bushel on your corn and wheat
105
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
would put into the pockets of your farm- ers $1,200,000 per year-the sum to go on increasing every year, for aught I know, to the end of time. The value of such a reduction of freights to the entire North- west is far beyond the limit of any figures which I should dare to give.
ENLARGEMENT OF THE CANALS.
The enlargement of the Welland and St. Lawrence Canals so as to pass vessels of 1,000 tons burthen will accomplish nearly all the beneficent results above specified. If our Canadian neighbors pre- fer for any reason to do this, let us be thankful and bid them God speed. A better thing, in my judgment, to be done, is to build the Huron and Ontario Ship Canal from the Georgian Bay to Toronto. The people of the cities on the Lower St. Lawrence fear, as I think without reason, if this canal is built, the diversion of the trade of the Northwest to New York. The citizens of the valley of the Ottawa very naturally insist on the improvement of their great river ; impracticable, as I think, for there would be some 400 miles of close river and canal navigation, and, if I mistake not, a depth of only eight feet of water. Were it not for these rea- sons, I believe the people of the Dominion would be unanimous in favor of the speedy construction of a ship canal from the Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. This, I confess, is an old pet project of mine, and as one of your most far seeing citi- zens, J. B. Calhoun, Esq., and His Excel- lency Governor Carpenter, have each recently referred favorably to it, will you permit me to add a short description of the route and its prospective advantages® to the commerce of our vast and rapidly developing Northwest. Let us turn our attention to the map.
Starting from Chicago to the Georgian Bay, the northeastern part of Lake Huron, the track of a vessel is very direct to the mouth of the Nottawasaga River. Thence we have slack water navigation up that river, with occasional reaches of canal through the sandy shores to avoid bends in the river, to a point 20 miles from its mouth. The elevation of 130 feet is over- come by 11 locks, with an average lift of about 12 feet. We have now reached the summit level of Lake Simcoe, only nine miles distant. To reach it, a ridge com- posed of clay and gravel must be cut through at an average depth of 50 feet, and 78 feet at its summit. From Barrie, on Kempenfeldt Bay, there is lake navi- gation for 22 miles to the mouth of the Holland River. The river and marsh for 10 miles can very easily be made navi- gable by steam excavators. The real difficulty and expensive part of the work is here reached. A ridge 10 miles in
width, composed of clay and gravel, must be cut through at an average depth of 90 feet, and 198 feet for half a mile at its summit. Once through this ridge, the line follows down the valley of the Humber 23 miles. There are required 39 locks, with an average lift of about 12 feet and a total lockage of 470 feet. Of course, this route has about 260 feet more lockage than that by the Welland Canal ; but it has advantages hereafter to be noticed that make it in my judgment far pre- ferable as the great highway for the com- merce of the Northwest. The total dis- tance from the mouth of the Nottawasaga to that of the Humber on Lake Huron is only 100 miles. More than half of that distance is on the summit through Lake Simcoe, through which steam tugs would take vessels in a few hours. There is less than 40 miles of close canal navigation on the whole route ; the other parts of it are through Lake Simcoe and the valleys of the Nottawasaga, the Holland, and the Humber Rivers. Lake Simcoe and its tributaries afford an ample supply of water to feed the canal from the summit in both directions. Very little water would be needed on the north from Lake Simcoe, for the Nottawasaga River would supply that. This route to tide waterissome 400 miles shorter than that by Lake Erie and the Welland Canal ; and it is nearly as much shorter to New York by Oswego than by Lake Erie. It is about 800 miles shorter to Liverpool. It will save two days in time to tide water, and of course a fraction on freights to pay the expenses of the extra 260 feet of lockage. A very great advantage is, that the general direc- tion of the route makes it the best possible for vessels to avail themselves of the southwest winds of summer. By the Lake Erie route the vessel must beat against that for more than 150 miles after passing Point aux Barque on Lake Huron down the St. Clair River and Lake and the De- troit River to Lake Erie. The difficult navigation over the St. Clair Flats, though now materially improved, is also avoided. And besides, the track of the vessel through the Georgian Bay and Lake Sim- coe would be through cooler water than around by Lake Erie-an advantage not to be overlooked in transporting grain in bulk to the seaboard. The danger of its being damaged by heating is thereby pro- portionately removed. Open this route with a sufficient capacity to pass vessels of 1,000 tons burthen, and you have a channel of ample dimensions to carry the commerce of the mighty West to the ocean. You thereby reduce the freight on a bushel of corn to 14 cents, perhaps to 10 cents, to Montreal, and to about 20 to 25 cents to Liverpool. By so doing you give cheaper bread-perhaps reduce its
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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
price nearly one-half-to the millions of Great Britain, and add immensely to the wealthı, and, therefore, to the means for the intellectual and the social improve- ment of the 30,000,000 wlio are soon to live between . Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains.
But, says one, the cost of this work is appalling ; it can never be built. Let us see. Colonel Mason and Mr. Tully, in 1858, estimated the cost of the entire work at less than $24,000,000. Capitalists in this country and Europe have offered several times to build it for $40,000,000. This is scarcely more than our Credit Mobilier gentry managed to get as a gra- tuity from our Government-some un- charitable people will call it stealing-for building a railway from the Missouri river to Salt Lake. Six cents a bushel saved in freights on the grain even now shipped from Chicago would pay for the canal in less than ten years ; and the same sum saved on the grain imported into Great Britain would pay for the caval in less than five years. If you add the savings on animal products and merchandise pass- ing east and west, the whole cost of the improvement would be paid for in three years, and the world would thenceforward have the use of it free of charge on its cost for all time to come.
-
The question, Who are to buy the surplus products of the Northwest ? is all that re- mains to be noticed. Besides the people of New England who would be immensely benefited by this canal, right across the Atlantic are nearly 40,000,000 of people in Great Britain, ready to buy and to consume that surplus, and, with the pro- ducts of their strong arms and skillful hands, to pay for all we have to spare them. England employs her energies mainly in commerce and manufactures. Large sections of the country are devoted to parks and pleasure grounds. Her wealthy men are constantly increasing the area of these pleasure grounds, and thereby lessening the space devoted to food culture. It was stated a few years ago that Coates, who manufactures the spool-cotton used in the making of our clothing, gave his check for £76,000, ($380,000), for several small farms, which he intended to improve as a splendid park. So essential are supplies of food from abroad to the life of Great Britain, that in a year of poor crops in the countries bor- dering on the Black and Baltic Seas, from which her cereals are mainly drawn, Mr. Cobden declared there was not money enough in Threadneedle street-the Bank of England is located there-to procure
. the deficiency to save, the people from starvation, had they not found an ample supply in the United States. Reducing their figures to our standard, and adding
one-eleventh for December, the imports of wheat into Great Britain for the last year were 115,000,000 of bushels, and about 50,000,000 of bushels of corn. Judging from the tables of former years, when the crops are poor in Europe, America furnishes about one bushel in five. Enlarge the St. Lawrence route, as proposed, so that it shall not cost more than one, two, or, at most, three bushels of corn and wheat to lay one down in Liverpool, instead of six or seven, as by the present means of transit, and America might furnish one-half or two-thirds of those imports, to her own great profit, as well as that of the people of England.
But, says some patriotic individual, this route lies entirely through a foreign coun- try. What we do to influence its construction ? It seems to me that cheaper freights from Chicago to the ocean would add immensely to the pros- perity of every railway between Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains. What they most need is cheap freights to the seaboard. The North Western, the Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Chicago, Bur- lington & Quincy, the Rock Island, and especially the Illinois Central, could well afford to combine their influence upon the money markets of the world to command the means to build the canal-a thing which we have not the least doubt the Canadians will be most happy to have them do. And what shall we say of the great Northern Pacific Railway ? Will it not be essential to the success of that ro d ? How can the products of the vast country through which it runs find a mar- ket except through a greatly enlarged water-channel to the ocean ? And, be- sides our railways, every man of the mil- lions now living, or hereafter to live, between Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains, has a direct interest in the success of this great enterprise. By re- fusing all further consideration of the Niagara Ship Canal, let Congress give assurance to Canada that she shall have the carrying trade of the Great West, if she will so enlarge her canals as to com- mand it. And, better still, let us have a reciprocity treaty, in which the whole subject shall be considered and settled for an indefinite number of years to come. Commerce sees not the imaginary line that divides the Dominion from the United States. She knows no good reason why there should be any more trammels on the trade between Chicago and Mon- treal than there are between Chicago and New York. The world has nearly out- lived such an absurdity.
But it may be said that our commerce would build up a great city in a foreign country on the lower St. Lawrence, a rival to New York. The race will be between
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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
Montreal and Quebec. For myself I think the States west of Lake Michigan have fully canceled every debt they ever owed to New York. For a generation she has quartered a whole horde of political paupers and bummers on her lateral canals, many of whom do not collect tolls enough on the useless ditches over which they pre- side to pay a tithe of their salaries, not to mention their stealings ; and yet slie insists on taxing the commerce of the West, passing through the main canal, to support all her other canals and to pay her debts besides. As to New York City, she has for a generation legalized the grasping avarice of the most stupendous land pirate that ever lived-I mean, of course, Commodore Vanderbilt. He has watered the stock of the New York Cen- tral Railway over and over again, and yet on these watered (shall I call them ras- cally ?) values, he insists on taxing the life® out of the West for the benefit of his own pocket. To keep pace with him, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk for years stole, not only the receipts of the Erie, but issued stocks and bonds for more than the road was originally worth, and stole them as well, and of course new managers must tax Western commerce, if possible, so as to retrieve the fortunes of the road, and pay its stockholders dividends on their stocks and bring them up to par. For myself I believe the time is not distant when the Northwest will have the New York and the St. Lawrence routes bidding against each other for her commerce and her carrying trade in the liveliest manner. Writing on this subiect nearly twenty years ago I said : " It is true that national
pride and immense capit I and the beaten track of commerce are on the side of New York ; but God and Nature are stronger than all these, and let any intelligent man compare the 'Erie ditch ' with the mighty St. Lawrence, with a canal to pass vessels of 1,000 tons burthen from the Georgian Bay to Toronto, and he cannot doubt for a moment on which side the immutable laws of commerce will decide the con- test." A single cent per bushel on freights, two days quicker time, and in- creased capacity, will do it ; but six cents on freights will, beyond a question, turn our shipments of produce to the New England States and to Europe all down the St. Lawrence.
But, says one, how could we do without the Niagara Ship Canal in time of war ? Let us have no war. It is time that relic of savageism was banislied from the plans of Christian nations. The settlement of the Alabama claims gives hope that it can be done. For one, I am willing to put America and Canada and England under the strongest possible bonds to live in per- petual friendship and amity-America, by the certainty, in case of war, that her vast products shall rot in her fields ; Canada, that her commerce shall be ru- ined, and England with starvation staring her in the face. In the name of all that is true and good and holy, may the genius of our Christian civilization, with the Royal Cross of St. George in one hand, and the Stars and Stripes in the other, waving them over the sea and the land, proclaim to all the nations, let there be, now and evermore, peace on earth, and good will among men.
108
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
1875.
I take the following synopsis of the business of the city for last year, from the commercial reports of the Tribune, prepared by its able commercial editor, Elias Colbert, Esq., published January 1st, 1876 :
THE BREADSTUFFS MOVEMENT.
The following were the receipts of breadstuffs in this city during the past three years, flour being reduced to its equivalent in wheat in the footings:
Flour, bbls.
1875. 2,566,225
1874. 2,666,679
1873. 2,487,376 26,266,562 38,157,232 17,888,724
Rye, bu.
693,968
791,182
1,189,464
Barley, bu.
3,026,456
3,354,981
4,240,239
Totals 79,504,050
95,611,713
98,925,413
The following were the corresponding shipments :
Flour, bbls.
1875. 2,262,030
1874. 2,306,576 27,634,587
Wheat, bu. . 23,183 663
Corn, bu. 26,409,420
32,705,224
Oats. bu. 10,230,208
10,561,673
Rye, bu.
310,609
335,077
Barley, bu.
1,834,117
2,404,538
3,366,041
Totals 73,278,167'
84,020,691
91,597,092
LIVE STOCK.
For the first time since the construction of the Union Stock Yards-a period of ten years-we have to record a decrease in the aggregate receipts of live stock at Chicago. Of cattle and sheep, a much larger number have arrived than during any previous year, but this increase was more than offset by a decline in the receipt of hogs, and the figures stand thus : For 1874, 5,440,990; for 1875, 5,251,901,- decrease, 189,089. This is not an unfavor- able exhibit, in the light of the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, which shows in the four States whence our sup- plies are chiefly drawn,-viz .: Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri, - a deficiency, as compared with 1874, of 1,222,300 liogs. The wonder, therefore, is not that our receipts show a falling off, but that they so closely approximate those of 1874. It is also consoling to know that the decline in the past season's receipts was not peculiar to Chicago, as witness the comparative table furnished below, from which it appears that the percentage
of decrease at St. Louis is much greater than here, her arrivals of hogs being fully 60 per cent. less than for 1874. While our receipts of cattle show an increase of 76,877 head, there was a falling off in the arrivals at St. Louis of some 24,000 head, as follows:
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