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Show INSISTS THAT THE SITUATION IS DESPERATE President Griffin of the Chicago Chi-cago Board of Trade Sends Second Telegram to Commission. ADMITS MISTAKE IN FIRST MESSAGE Railroad Men Agree Present Pres-ent Conditions of Traffic Are the Worst in the Country's History. CHICAGO, Feb. 22. A second telegram, tele-gram, in which thrre -were traces of apology for the belligerent tone of the first one sent yesterday, was put on tho wirns to the interstate commerce commission today by President Joseph Griffin of tho Chicago Board of Trade. "We recognize fully' reads today's telegram, "the respect due your honorable hon-orable body, and if I have been emphatic em-phatic in my statement you will understand under-stand it is because of the desperate plight in which we find ourselves at thin time. ' ' Mr. Griffin explains that he now finds that the car supply order, which he was led to believe by local railroad men emanated from Interstate Commerce Com-merce Commissioner McChord, really came from the car service commission of the American Railway association. In his telegram yesterday, acting on this misconception, Mr. Griffin accused the interstate commerce commission of utler failure in the emergency, and of having done more harm than good. He and his traffic committee conferred on the question of going Into the courts or of appealing to congress for prompt, dictatorial dic-tatorial action to straighten out matters. mat-ters. Final Plea. With the misunderstanding cleared up, today's telegram was said to be a final plea on behalf of the board of trade and, in a general way, on behalf of the farmers and country grain elevators eleva-tors of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys. val-leys. Mr. Griffin reiterated that the grain trade of this section is in a desperate way. Forty million bushels of grain are held up in loral elevators; seven million bushels additional are in cars, some of which should have been shipped three months ago. lie told reporters that food product factories in Chicago in many cases are running only 25 per cent of capacity because they cannot, ship their products out and that, one of the biggest corn products factories in the world1 may oavc iu cio.e uuwn entirely it conditions con-ditions are not remedied. He said that although the elevators have ceased to operate they fear, because of the short-ago short-ago of laboring men, to lay off any hands, as they might not be able to get them back again. Thus their expenses remain at the maximum. Cause of High Prices, "The holding up of grain and grain products is what, largely, is sending food prices soaring in the east and entailing demonstrations such as that made by women in New York City," Mr. Griffin said. Chicago representatives of eastern railroads admitted that the situation was the worst in tho country's history, but declined to concur in Mr. Griffin's prediction of yesterday that if a remedy rem-edy is not found there will be rioting and anarchy within thirty days. The railroad men said that, with improved weather, preference in the shipment of, foodstuffs and other measures adopted bv the railroads the situation should clear up rapidlv. j Meanwhile food prices in Chicago showed no sign of a decline. Wholesalers Whole-salers generally predicted still higher prices before new crops are harvested. When shown the statement of the car service committee of the American Railway association, to the effect that Chicago grain shippers have been receiving receiv-ing 200 cars a day, ,T. p. Griffin, president presi-dent of the board of trade, said: "For thirty days Chicago has been shipping four or five cars a dav; that's all. We had, it is true, cars of western roads to load, but we couldn 't get them hauled east. Now we are informed that we must get our cars from eastern roads. That practically shuts ub out of the eastern east-ern market entirely." The board was closed today, but Mr. Griffin, traffic experts and lawyers continued con-tinued in conference on tho situation. BELIEVE ACUTE STAGE OF THE CAR SHORTAGE OVER WASFIIXfiTOX, Fob. 22. Many-empty Many-empty freight ears rolled west at passenger pas-senger train speed today from congested congest-ed railroad yards of the oast, according accord-ing to interstate commerce commission advices from its investigators. Fair weather and a holiday gave the roads the first real opportunity in more than a week to exert their maximum energies ener-gies to relieve the car shortage that (Continued bDWe INTERSTATE COMMERCE COM-MERCE COMMISSIONER COMMISSION-ER M'CHORD, who is taking tak-ing an active part in raising freight blockade. v . V r b s t ' t ' ' $ $ v.- v;i INSISTS THAT CARS IE MT TO BE 1 (Continued from Page One.) has threatened famine in some section? 1 ol' the country. Official? of bo tit the railroads and the commission expressed the conviction convic-tion tonight tiiat t ho acute srace of the shortage had passed ami that steady improvement in the situation would continue. The number of cars involved in-volved in the tie-up iucrea.-ed' by more than one-third in the two weeks le-tween le-tween January i'7 and February Id, and on the 'latter date reached the ?rand total of 165.274. In the absence of detailed report, the ear service commission of the American Railways association was unable un-able to say definitely what steps had been taken to relieve the shortage of gas coal, which threaten? a ''possible interruption" of service of 1 i c h t , heat and power companies in eighteen town? and cities in six middle western states. It was assumed, however, that the commission's com-mission's request of yesterday that coal be rushed to the points most in need was being followed. Situation in Chicago. The situation at Chicago, while causing caus-ing some concern to government and railroad officials, was not regarded here as desperate. Officials said that similar simi-lar conditions prevailed to a great extent ex-tent at other cities throughout the country. So far as reports relate to shortages, short-ages, it was said both at the interstate commerce commission and the car service ser-vice commission that there was nowhere no-where in the country at the present time an actual shortage of food or fuel needed for domestic consumption. Every city in the east, it wa said, so far as known, has plenty of food for immediate requirement?, and rising prices could not be justly attributed to shortage. Reserves had been almost wiped out in the case of flour in New England, but the situation therp was reported to have improved measurably. 165,274 Cars in Tie-up. The 163,274 cars involved in the general gen-eral tie-up are distributed in every section of the country and include all classes, loaded and empty, which, for reasons due to congestion, are temporarily tempo-rarily withdrawn from transportation service. They were distributed, bv sections, as follows: Xew England, 4704, an increase of 1000 per cent in three weeks; New York, Xew Jersey, Delaware, Marv-land Marv-land and eastern Pennsylvania, a 50 per cent increase;" Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and western Pennsvlvania, 41,101, a decrease of 12 per cent; Virginia, Vir-ginia, West Virginia and the C'arolinas, 3791, a 10 per cent increase; Kentuckv, Tennessee, Mississippi. Alabama, Georgia and Florida, 9726, a 30 per cent increase; Illinois, Iowa. Wisconsin and Minnesota, 18,493,' a 60 per cent increase; Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska Nebras-ka and the Dakotas, 52(34 (held bv snow blockade), as compared with none Jan-nary Jan-nary 20; Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas, 3 2,999, a 25 per cent increase; Texas, -Louisiana and Xew Mexico, 3521, a 130 per cent increase; in-crease; Oregon, Washington, Idaho, X'evada, California, Utah aad Arizona, 4369, a 10 per cent increase; on Canadian Ca-nadian lines connecting with American roads, 22,145, a 75 per cent increase. Bad Weather Blamed. Severe weather in the north and Xew England, the inability of connecting lines to handle the cars, congestion on home lines, freight embargoes and occasional oc-casional shortage of power were the chief reasons assigned for the tie-up by reporting roads. The total of 165,274 compares with 125,972 January 20, 122,-221 122,-221 January 27 and 1 15,007 February I 3, the greatest ratio of increase being about 20 per cent in the week begin -j ning January 2!S. A similar report on car shortage made public by the interstate commerce com- mission gave illuminating figures as to where most of the cars needed in the ! wefc and south are located in the east and middle west. All Xew England roads com hi nod held about 15,000 ca rs more than t hey owned. The total excess of cars over i lie number owned on all lines in New York, Xew Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and castPrn Pennsylvania was reported to tie 2.3i) per cent. The Chii-atio Belt line, owning 29 cars, showed ' the highest percentage of foreign cars of any roa'l, reporting 50'M), or KiiiO per cent. The St. Louis & Sau Francisco was reported to have ahout 7000 more cars than the number owned, the Denver & Rio Grande nearly near-ly 2000, the Missouri Pacific about 2500, the Pere Marquette about (KI00 and the Chicago & Northwestern about Interior points of greatest congestion were reported to be Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Detroit, lie-ports lie-ports from these centers today stated that empties were being dispatched out in trainload lots and the situation otherwise oth-erwise was improving. |