USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 54
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It is, thus, evident that Louisville in the years directly following the war, established her railway connections throughout the South; that she had by liberal contributions and subscriptions brought most of Kentucky under her commercial supremacy; and that through the lack of other great railways leading southward had secured the most strategic position of any city competing for the southern trade.
It becomes necessary now to note more particularly the success she had in re-establishing her southern commercial relations. Louisville was
57 Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 4, 1869.
58 Joseph Nimmo, Jr., Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, 1879, in H. R. Ex. Doc. 32, Part 2, 45 Cong., 3 Sess., Appendix 18, "Information furnished by Mr. Sydney D. Maxwell, superintendent of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce in regard to the Southern Trade of that City," 173.
59 Report of the Senate Select Committee on Interstate Commerce (Testimony),
in Sen. Doc., No. 46, Part 2, 49 Cong., I Sess. (Cullom Report), 1383, 1384. 60 Cincinnati Commercial, Dec. 4, 1869. 61 Ibid., May 22.
62 Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, Sept. 10, 1869. The mayor in his message of January, 1872, called attention to this growing conviction on the part of the Louisville merchants : "There are frequent and loud complaints from our mer- chants and shippers that the only direct outlet that they have to the South is con- trolled adversely to their interests; and, in short, that the corporation that was built up by Louisville men, Louisville money, and Louisville trade, has failed to pacify the just and reasonable expectations of the city of Louisville and other friends." Louisville Municipal Reports for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31st, 1871 (Louisville, 1872), 28, 29.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
in almost every respect much more fortunate than her chief rival, Cin- cinnati. She was a southern city, her trade before the war had been almost exclusively with the South, and she had the first railway connec- tion with that region. In the days before the Ohio River had been bridged, the very fact of her situation south of the river was no mean advantage in her competition with Cincinnati. Being a southern city she was much more sympathetic with the South, and the South in turn could look upon her with more friendship. In time of crop failures in the South, she was generous in her aid to the poor there. In 1866 she sent about $2,500 to the poor in Atlanta alone.63 When southern states- men and confederate generals died she could with perfect honesty and sincerity close her business houses and go into mourning.64
Immediately on the close of the war she began her relentless campaign for southern trade. According to the hostile Kentucky Statesman, "Her merchants go South and appeal to the disloyalty of their political record to seduce custom, and when they find that the South demands a better market than she affords. it again appeals to the more sectional feeling at home to prevent that South from getting to that market." 65 She soon adapted herself to the new conditions and to the new methods of selling. She no longer waited for merchants to come to her doors ; she hired thou- sands of commercial travellers "whose chief credentials", according to a Cincinnati critic, "lay in having been in the rebel army." 66 Her drum- mers worked for the interests of the whole city as well as for their indi- vidual houses. If a drummer of hardware could sell a consignment of groceries for a Louisville house, he always took the order and passed it on to the Louisville groceryman.67 The city also began to spend large sums of money for advertising. According to a Cincinnati observor, "her merchants advertise more than Cincinnati merchants. * * In addi- tion to that, she has an army of drummers continually on the go through the South." 68
Louisville held the strategic point for all trade with the South or travel to the northward. As was remarked by one, "Its southern railroad makes it metropolitan-a funnel through which all our western longitudinal rail- way travel must pass." 69 In speaking of southern buyers, a booster for Louisville asked, "Where can they go for the thousand of engines, plan- tation mills, cotton gins, sugar mills, wagons, carts, plows, shovels, spades, hoes, pork, lard, bacon, beef, flour, furniture, etc., so readily as to Louisville ?" 70 And she always made special efforts to see that the buyers who were passing through on their way to the north should never get farther than her limits.71 But she was not content to rest her pros-
63 Annual Communication of the Mayor and Reports of Departments of the City of Louisville, 1866, 22; De Bow's Review, New Series, 1870, Vol. 8, 147. Louisville was thoroughly possessed with the proverbial southern hospitality. Under the heading of "Freedom of the City" appear the following in the city auditor's report for 1866: For entertaining "Pioneers" of Cincinnati, $872; for entertaining legislative committee, $398; entertaining railroad visitors from Knox- ville, $108.10; and for President Johnson's reception, $070.67. Annual Communi- cation of the Mayor and Reports of Departments of the City of Louisville, 1866, 21.
64 Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 15, 1870. The death of Lee afforded one of these occasions.
65 Quoted in Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, March 11, 1870; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, May 16, 1865.
66 Cincinnati Commercial, Jan. 13, 1868.
67 Ibid., Sept. 3, 1870.
68 Ibid., June 9.
69 Ibid .. Oct. 18, 1869.
70 Richard Deering, Louisville: Her Commercial, Manufacturing and Social Advantages (Louisville, 1859), 27.
71 According to a Cincinnati observer, "She has spread her net for the purpose of catching all the trading fish that come up from the South." Cincinnati Commer-
Vol. II-24
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
perity on her southern trade alone. She had not fostered her railway con- nections to the north of the Ohio River without a keen expectancy of reaping her reward in the commerce arising there. This region was, of course, not a major interest of hers; but any trade that increased the radius of her markets had a great moral effect on the city.72 Especially were trade extensions into regions dependent on Cincinnati welcomed.
Louisville as heretofore stated, had a powerful friend in the Louis- ville and Nashville Railroad as it gave her preference on its lines. But outside of the Louisville and Nashville system she had her problems in securing equitable rates and fair treatment. Directly after the war her trade suffered in Nashville, due to the refusals of the Nashville and Chat- tanooga and the Nashville and Northwestern railroads to connect their tracks with the Louisville and Nashville Road. As a result Louisville's trade passing beyond Nashville was forced to pay $10.00 a car for trans- ferring to the other railroads.73 In 1866 the Louisville chamber of com- merce petitioned the Georgia Legislature to reduce the rates on the rail- roads of that state.74 About this time Louisville was able to conclude an agreement with the Mobile and Ohio Railroad by which her freight was to be carried from ten to twenty-five per cent cheaper than like freight from St. Louis.75 In order to secure fair treatment on the Eastern roads, the Louisville merchants formed a "Union Freight Association" among themselves to combat high freight rates. They kept an agent in New York City for this purpose, and later placed them in other eastern cities.76 And through fear that the contemplated bridge at Newport across the Ohio to Cincinnati would obstruct her steamers, the city sent a committee to Cincinnati to protest.77 In these ways and many others, Louisville was always wide awake, ready alike to defend facilities already possessed or to acquire new ones.
In keeping with this spirit, her merchants made good use of the South- ern Commercial Congress, which they entertained in 1869. They took special care to produce the proper impression upon the numerous dele- gates, who had come from all parts of the country, hoping to make buyers of them if possible. A parade of "Louisville-at-work" was hastily im- provised. Many of the city's businesses were represented in action: Bread was baked, beer brewed, and hand-bills printed as the procession moved forward. According to the newspaper reporter, it "was the greatest thing ever got up on wheels in this city." 78 Not to be outdone,
cial, June 9, 1870. Another writer pictures Louisville besetting the southern buyer in this manner : "All Southern merchants passing through to Cincinnati are most industriously and ingeniously beset to tarry there and make their purchases. This process is the great mercantile industry of the place. Cincinnati sells much the cheaper ; but Louisville is very clever and pertinacious, and so consistently 'on your side, you see,' that it captures all the impressible traders. *
* Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 18, 1869.
72 Cincinnati Commercial, Aug. 19, 1870. A Cincinnati correspondent to the Cincinnati Commercial, Sept. 3, 1870, gives this amusing picture of Louisville's joy over an extension of her commerce: "If a merchant sells a bolt of calico or a demijohn of whisky to a customer out of the usual radius of Louisville's trade, he does not stay to wash the black from the marking-pot off from his hands before he runs to his neighbors with the good news, and makes them glad also. The tidings spread, Snooks has sold a heavy bill of goods to a merchant from Tadpole, Indiana. All the trade of Tadpole used to go to Cincinnati. An item must be made of this in tomorrow's papers. Less all take a drink to Louis- ville's luck; and they all drink, and the Tadpole merchant among them. The chances are that that fortunate man if he accepts everything offered him, will have enough surplus whisky and cigars to start a small grocery store when he gets home."
73 Affairs of Southern Railroads, 642.
74 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Dec. 8, 1866.
75 Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, Dec. 3, 1867.
76 Cincinnati Commercial, July 22, 1869.
77 Ibid., Nov. 4, 1870.
78 Ibid., Oct. 13, 15, 20, 1869.
937
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
Cincinnati succeeded in getting the convention for the following year ; but a friend admonished: "You intend to throw Louisville in the shade, of course ; you must be up and stirring. The Falls City has done so well that the delegates are in raptures with it." 79
During the years directly following 1865, Louisville was undoubtedly prosperous.80 She was very successful in capturing a large amount of the southern trade. Cincinnati was forced to admit her rival's favorable trade situation in the Ohio Valley, but she claimed that it was "the Louis- ville and Nashville Railroad, with James Guthrie at its head, that is put- ting the iron spokes in the commercial wheel of Louisville. The city, of itself, has done nothing enterprising in the matter, and is less capable of such generous impulse than Cincinnati. * * * If Cincinnati lan-
guishes, Louisville snores." 81 By the end of the decade (1870) when the Louisville monopoly was showing signs of being broken by the con- struction of other roads, the city's prosperity was less marked.82 At all times Cincinnati preached ruin in Louisville. Her visitors consistently reported the city in distress. A Cincinnati correspondent says, "One can hardly expect the newspapers of Louisville to enlarge upon the dismal prospect, but it is cheeky in them to flippantly assail the correspondent who tells but half the truth when he says that Louisville is dull." 83 But it was only natural for Cincinnati to paint the picture of her rival as dis- mal as possible. The two cities were striving to extend their trade in the same field, with Louisville as the most fortunate contestant. But Cincinnati and her endeavors must be considered as a necessary element in the general situation.
III
CINCINNATI AND THE SOUTHERN TRADE
Cincinnati at the beginning of the Civil war was the largest city west of the Alleghenies. She had grown in population by decades in the period from 1820 to 1860 as follows: 9,000; 24,000; 46,000; 115,000; and 161,000. In the latter year her clothing manufactures were three times as great as those of Chicago, St. Louis, and Louisville combined.1 Her prosperity was doubtless unsurpassed in the West. One of the main causes of this commercial supremacy was her success in securing and holding her markets.
The "Queen City of the West" as she chose to call herself was, in fact, a southern city in most respects. Although situated on the north bank of the Ohio River, she was very intimately connected with the South. Her trade was almost wholly down the Ohio with that section, with which she strove to keep on good terms both politically and commercially. One of her spokesmen in 1860 said, "She has been called North during the controversy, and possibly thought that was her name; but it is a misnomer, she is not North, but West; and further than that, she is not properly
79 Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 18, 1869.
80 The mayor in his message of April 16, 1868, says, "The past year has, for our citizens, generally, been a prosperous one. Great advancement in every direction, and in all pursuits, have crowned our endeavors; and although the political and financial complications existing in the country have, to some extent, depressed
* * " our trade and commerce, yet that which we have exists on a firmer basis. ** Louisville Municipal Reports for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 1869, 3. 81 Cincinnati Commercial, Jan. 13, 1868.
82 Ibid., Jan. 13, 1868; Jan. 11, 1871; Louisville Municipal Reports for the Year Ending December 31st, 1871, 30, 31.
83 Cincinnati Commercial, Jan. 13, 1868.
1 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 19, 1866.
B. AND O. R.R
BALTIMORE
St. LOUIS
CINCINNATI
LOUISVILLE
LEXINGTON
EAST TENNESSEE
NORFOLK
DECATUR
NASHVILLE
MEMPHIS
LOVISE
WOCHEN
1
7
CORINTH
DECATUR
EAN .UD ATLANTIC
ATLANTA
GEORGIA
R. R.
S. C. R.R.
CENTRAL
CHARLESTON
MACON
MONTGOMERY
3710.W
SAVANNAH
PENSACOLA
RAILROADS IN 1871.
BEARING ON THE POSITION OF LOUISVILLE AND CINCINNATI
CHIRURGTON And WELDIN
·
And
MYVILLE
CHATTANOOGA
WILMINGTON
VICKSBURG
GEORGIA
AND
R. R.
939
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
any party; but a natural arbiter between the parties." 2 The same speaker, addressing a delegation of southern visitors emphasized Cincin- nati's desire to avoid the extremities of northern agitators: "In the pres- ent case, the guests we have received and listened to for several days, are slaveholders who are not only strangers, but are obnoxious to the over righteous residents of the free States; but they have plenty of money to buy our surplus, and they have also very valuable commodities to sell. They ask us to help them and to help ourselves, to get wiser and richer * by contact than we were before. * Many of her citizens fought in the Confederate armies during the war that followed.+
One of the first effects of the war was to completely stagnate the city commercially and industrially. Her southern markets slipped away almost over night. But like Louisville she soon found other activities. The war brought with it many needs that had to be filled; and none were more extensive or more important than feeding the armies. The troops in the West soon began to depend on Cincinnati as their great storehouse for supplies. And in this respect she quickly forged far ahead of Louisville. Her pork packing and various manufactories of army clothing and ma- terials gave her prosperity greater than she had ever enjoyed before. As the South was gradually opened up by invading armies, she began to regain and to increase her river trade again. The increase of down-river commerce from 1862 to 1865, in some articles, was as high as 800 per cent.5
When the war was over, Cincinnati hoped to regain all her southern trade and again enjoy her ante-bellum prosperity with that region. As was said by a Cincinnati citizen interested in re-establishing southern trade, the "South has enriched other cities in their past, and her valuable products would again be able to do the same thing." 6 But the Queen City could not accommodate herself readily to the new conditions pre- vailing now in the South. Her moneyed men, many of whom had grown rich during the war, were more content to invest in Cincinnati property and collect rents, than to help extend the city's commerce.7 Drumming and advertising were used much less extensively than by Louisville.8 But she had faith in the ultimate conquest of the southern markets. Her mayor had no doubt of her future glory: "That Cincinnati is destined (if her rulers are true to the spirit of enterprise and progress) to be one of the largest inland cities of the country, and of the world, I verily be- *
lieve. * When the far South regains its former prosperity and its teeming products are brought to our doors by the swift locomotive and the ponderous steamer, the business interests of our city will be second to none other of its class in the country." 9
2 The Railroad Speech delivered at the Merchants' Exchange in favor of the Knoxville Route to the Gulf, by W. M. Corry (Cincinnati, 1860), Sept. 17, 1860, 27. 3 The Railroad Speech delivered at the Merchants' Exchange, by W. M. Corry, 27.
4 James Parton, "Cincinnati," in Atlantic Monthly, August, 1867, 232 Cincin- nati Daily Gazette. April 18, 1866.
5 The mayor in his annual message of April 18, 1862, spoke of the effect of the war on Cincinnati: "Our progress and prosperity have been greatly checked by the war-our trade, commerce and manufactures have been seriously interfered with; upon Cincinnati, indeed, the burden has fallen as heavily, perhaps, as on any city in the Northern States." Mayor's Annual Message, and Reports of the City Departments of the City of Cincinnati, April 14, 1862 (Cincinnati, 1861), 4. It should be remembered that much of the Mississippi Valley had been opened up to trade by 1862 and that Cincinnati was engaging extensively in this. Hence the 800 per cent increase has considerable significance.
6 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 20, 1866.
7 E. A. Jones, The Financial and Commercial Statistics of Cincinnati (Cin- cinnati, 1871), 14-16.
$ Cincinnati Commercial, Sept. 2, 1870; Joseplı Nimmo, Jr., First Annual Re- port on the Internal Commerce of the United States, 1876, 87, 88.
9 Annual Report of the City Departments of the City of Cincinnati for the
940
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
As for tributary territory, Cincinnati could reasonably hope to hold the rich Kentucky Blue Grass region against all rivals. The Kentucky Central Railroad running south from Covington, gave her ample connec- tions with this district. And over this line she received large consign- ments of corn and live-stock from the Blue Grass farmers.10 She held without a rival the tobacco districts of Boone, Pendleton, and Mason counties, and shared with Louisville the Kentucky River and Owen County districts.11 The Cincinnati merchants were also pushing their commercial campaign farther to the south and west in Kentucky, encroaching on the regions where Louisville claimed to hold sole sway. They identified themselves in various ways with the people there. At the Madison County Fair in 1869, they offered a prize of $250 in a live- stock contest.12
But Cincinnati was a long time in finding her ante-bellum glory and prosperity. She could not hope to grow rich from her restricted Ken- tucky district alone. Her river traffic was no longer to be considered a vital element, despite the fact that some of her citizens still based their hopes on it.13 Steamboats from New Orleans had dropped in number from 319 in 1848 to 76 in 1870.14 The following table shows a compari- son of her river and rail traffic:
1875
River
1855 $20,700,000
1865 $ 77,400,000
$ 43,800,000
Rail
18,000,000
I16,200,000
157,500,000 15
Her imports and exports for the years from 1865 to 1870 show the unhealthy condition :
Year
Imports
Exports
1865
$307,000,000
$193,000,000
1866
362,000,000
201,000,000
1867
335,000,000
192,000,000
1868
280,000,000
144,000,000
I869
283,000,000
163,000,000
1870.
312,000,000
193,000,000 16
The year 1868 was particularly oppressive. Her commercial and manufacturing interests were affected alike.17
This condition produced on the part of the progressive business men such apprehension as to the future welfare of the city. As previously suggested, she was not extending her trade because the moneyed men of the city were content to collect rents. Citizens interested in the city's
Year Ending February 28, 1869, 4; Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, Oct. 10, 1871.
10 Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. I, 174, 178, 202, passim.
11 Ibid., 185; Joseph Nimmo, Jr., Annual Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, 1881, Appendix 6, 135.
12 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Nov. 22, 1865; Cincinnati Commercial, Aug. 12, 14, 1869.
13 A correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, July 25, 1868, decried any dependence on the river trade: "The cry about the preservation of the Ohio River navigation is a humbug of the highest order, and the hum has lulled the city of Cincinnati so completely that the trade from the South is going around her, and, in a short time, she will be off the line of trade, inland, and visited only by antiquarians, who will write of what she once was, and what she might have been."
14 Joseph Nimmo, Jr., First Annual Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, 1878, 79; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 18, 1866.
15 Joseph Nimmo, Jr., First Annual Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, 1876, 79.
16 Ibid., Appendix 8, 117; Cincinnati Commercial, Sept. 9, 1868; Henry A. and Kate B. Ford, History of Cincinnati, Ohio (Cleveland, 1881), 354.
17 Cincinnati Commercial, May 2, Sept. 9, 1868.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY
continued prosperity warned the capitalists that rent would soon begin to fall off, if the city did not expand. Many saw the cause of Cincinnati's stagnation in the lack of a driving genius like James Guthrie, who had built Louisville's prosperity. As remarked by one, "It is for want of a James Guthrie that a reputation of inertness has been fastened upon Cincinnati. The sweeping energy and far intuitions of one such man do more to vitalize the great enterprises without which no city can have its full expansion, than all the committees that ever dawdled into session, and shambled out after passing the pithy and feeble resolutions." 18
Cincinnati was convinced that her future greatness lay in adequate business relations with the South, which she assiduously cultivated at every opportunity. When the Southern Commercial Congress met in the Queen City in 1870, she made a special effort to show her best hospitality to the visiting delegates.19 She was especially desirous of surpassing Louisville who had entertained the convention the preceding year. The following entry in the city auditor's report is significant: "Paid H. B. Bissell, Chairman Committee, for expenses of entertaining Southern Com- mercial Congress, $5,000.00." 20
In the early part of 1870 a delegation of Cincinnati business men visited the South in order to create better commercial relations.21 As an additional move in the campaign she made arrangements for a return visit of southern business men. She asked the aid of Louisville in her preparations for receiving them, believing that that city would gain from the passage through her limits of these business men. Louisville, how- ever, refused to have anything to do with the venture, expecting and no doubt hoping that it would prove a failure.22 But Cincinnati continued her efforts, and in September of the same year succeeded in having a large delegation come north. Here a most amusing side of the rivalry of the two cities was shown. Seeing that it would be a success, Louis- ville decided to hold the delegation a few days as it passed through to Cincinnati, and show the members her hospitality. In pursuance of this purpose she sent a reception committee to Nashville to welcome them. But Cincinnati hearing of this move, sent her reception committee of three hundred to Nashville to out-maneuver the Falls City men.23 Another committee was sent to Louisville accompanied by the Newport Barracks Band to pilot the southern visitors through that city "and not permit any straggling by the wayside." After many amusing incidents, Louisville was forced to give up her idea of receiving and banqueting them, and the delegation passed through securely in the hands of the up-river men. On their arrival at Cincinnati, a magnificent banquet was given them, with seven hundred and fifty merchants, manufacturers, and other im- portant business men present. The freedom of the city was given in the literal sense of the expression. Street cars were free, the telegraph lines to the south made no charges, and the whole city was virtually placed
18 Cincinnati Commercial, Jan. 13, 1868.
19 These conventions were veritable love feasts between the North and South, where the business men of each section cheered the very mentioning of the heroes of each other in the late war, and where all vied in praising each other's noble qualities. The Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 5, 1870, counseled : "It becomes us all to exercise the best graces of hospitality and engage the attention of these gentlemen in their leisure moments in such a way as will be most entertaining and pleasing to them."
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