United States Congressional Serial Set Volume 6976 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ...in New England; some little portion In the Central States; but we could ship conveniently to St. Louis In carload lots and transfer to the river and make use of It for at least 75 per cent of the commodities that we handle if we had the proper facilities and proper service. Congressman Borland. As your service has been improving you have Improved in the shipments? Mr. Schmelzer. It has been improving; yes. I am shipping a carload of goods from Cleveland via St. Louis and having them transferred to the boat line, because I am in no particular hurry for the goods, although the service now Is within 6 to 10 days between here and St. Louis. If we had a service of from 4 to 6 days, I should say we could ship at least two-thirds of the goods by water that we ship now and could make use of it in that way. Congressman Borland. Were the shipments In 1913 any measure of your ability to ship? Mr. Schmelzeb. Not in any sense at all. We did not feel that the boat line was ready to take on business at all in 1913. Congressman Borland. Now, what you say is typical of other sporting goods houses in Kansas City and their territory? Mr. Schmelzeb. I should feel so, yes; and I feel that as soon as the river Is in shape to use, not only Kansas City shippers will make use of it, but this entire territory. It is nothing uncommon for us to distribute carloads to companies at outlying points from Kansas City that partially originate here and that we control the routing of. Congressman Bobland. Of course you have not considered this phase of It, but. as a matter of fact, your high-grade tonnage coming from the East fills up the barges that have gone down with loads of agricultural products originating in the West and constituting interchange traffic, giving the...