SPECIAL TAXATION 
 
 FOR THE USE OF STREETS. 
 
 ARGUMENT OF 
 
 SAMUEL jf ELDER, Esq. 
 
 IN REMONSTRANCE. 
 
 BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON 
 STREET RAILWAYS. 
 
 April 6, 1897. 
 
6.X 
 
 COMMITTEE ON STREET RAILWAYS, 
 1897. 
 
 Hon. Richard W. Irwin, .of Hampshire 
 
 Hon. Clarke P. Harding, ..of Norfolk. 
 
 Hon. John D. H. Gauss,. of Essex. 
 
 Hon. Joseph B. Farley, .... of Franklin, Hampshire. 
 
 Of the Senate. 
 
 Messrs. George A. Brown, 
 
 Eugene M. Moriarty, 
 
 Edward H. Hoyt, 
 
 Patrick J. Kennedy, 
 
 Walker S. V. Cooke, 
 
 Joseph O. Neill, 
 
 Daniel D. Rourke, 
 
 Otis V. Waterman, 
 
 Freeman O. Emerson, 
 
 Julius C. Anthony, 
 
 William A. Josselyn, 
 
 Of the House. 
 
 of Everett, 
 of Worcester. 
 of Bradford, 
 of Holyoke, 
 of Milford, 
 of Fall River. 
 
 of Boston, 
 of Wakefield, 
 of Boston, 
 of Adams, 
 of Pembroke. 
 
<], 
 
 $ 
 
 f 
 
 * 
 
 In Committee on Street Railways. 
 
 Tuesday, April 6, 1897 . 
 
 CLOSING ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER, ESQ. 
 Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: 
 
 The questions that have been asked of me with regard to the 
 length of time I am going to take, call to mind, if you will par¬ 
 don me for a digression before there is anything to digress 
 from, the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic that 
 was held here in Boston some years ago. At one of the great 
 camp-fires a large number of speakers were introduced. One 
 man from the West, at the very close of the meeting, found him¬ 
 self called upoD. It was about midnight and most of the com¬ 
 rades had begun to depart from the hall. He had written his 
 speech out and committed it to memory, and there was no way 
 in which he could shorten or vary it. So he marched forward 
 to say it just as he had learned it : 
 
 “ Mr. Commander and gentlemen of the Grand Army of the 
 Republic, on this great and momentous occasion, what shall I 
 speak about ? ” 
 
 Some one down at the rear of the hall yelled out,“ Speak about 
 a minute.” Well, I cannot cut my argument down to that length, 
 but I went over a good many street railway matters last Thurs¬ 
 day, and shall endeavor not to repeat myself to any great extent, 
 and thus shall be much briefer than I then was. 
 
 v 
 
 
 Three Methods of Dealing with Street Railways. 
 
 It has already been said in the course of these hearings—and 
 I am now beginning to repeat myself for a moment—that there 
 are three ways in which the State can deal with street railways. 
 One of them is to secure the lowest possible fares for the public. 
 An illustration of this method is Detroit, where the fares, at 
 least on one of the lines, are very low indeed. Under Mayor 
 and Governor Pingree an effort has been made to obtain for the 
 citizens the lowest possible transportation rate. To that end the 
 railroad is relieved from all taxation whatever, and is relieved 
 from all care of the street, the municipality assuming all of that 
 expenditure. 
 
 * 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 A second way is to secure the largest return to the muni¬ 
 cipality which is possible, and to relieve the taxpayers, as far as 
 possible, from taxation. That has not been the policy in any of 
 the cities of the United States, but in a certain form it has been 
 attempted abroad. 
 
 A third plan is to get a substantial amount of taxes to the 
 city or Commonwealth, to secure considerable assistance in the 
 repair and maintenance of the streets, to encourage exten¬ 
 sion of lines and to get the best possible service for the people 
 at a restricted fare. This last has been the Massachusetts plan. 
 It was adopted back in the seventies, after very full consideration. 
 It has been carried on, as I believe these hearings demonstrate, to 
 a very successful issue up to the present time. The plan is not 
 to make the road promise to give the best service, because you 
 cannot rely very much upon promises—I am not doing any dis¬ 
 courtesy to the rail ways to say that—but to make their selfish 
 interest work along the line of improved and extended service. 
 We have in this State taxation commensurate with the taxation 
 of other corporations. In addition thereto the care of the 
 paving of a large portion of the streets is placed upon the 
 railways, and then it is provided that when dividends are earned 
 above a certain per cent, fares may be reduced by the Railroad 
 Commissioners. This applies to all railways in the state. But 
 in the case of the West End road, which I represent, there is an 
 added provision in its charter, that the rates of fare shall never 
 exceed the rates existing at the time the charter was granted. 
 This is the Massachusetts scheme. It produces a large amount 
 of taxes for the cities and the state. It materially reduces the 
 burden of caring for the streets. It secures reasonable fares and 
 makes it to the interest of the railways to employ available 
 earnings in improved service and in extension of lines as the 
 public demands them. 
 
 I think you will agree with me at the outset that a system 
 which has been in operation for twenty years ought not to be 
 changed in any radical way until there is a consensus of public 
 opinion demanding that change. The close of this century 
 brings a ferment of opinion and discussion upon certain ques¬ 
 tions, the rights of the people, their relations to combined cap¬ 
 ital, the danger of too much combination, the assumption by the 
 state of industrial enterprises and of transportation, and the 
 
5 
 
 question whether individual and combined effort are better 
 than collectivism. This discussion is well enough. Good 
 often results from things fully considered even if rejected. But 
 until this ferment and discussion reaches some definite result and 
 some fixed plan, I think you will agree with me that 
 no radical changes ought to be made. No such definite result or 
 fixed plan has yet been arrived at in street railway matters by 
 the reformers. Take the present year. You are deluged with 
 bills which look in all directions, not according to one line or 
 another line, but in all directions at once,—to the lowest possi¬ 
 ble fares without the slightest abatement of the burdens of the 
 railways, to the largest possible return to the municipality, 
 going to the extreme of municipal assumption of the roads 
 themselves; and third, to regulating, controlling and directing 
 the management and even the details of operation. 
 
 The proposition before us today is to separate railways from 
 other corporations, and to appropriate a part of their earnings. 
 It is conceded that the proposition is novel as contained in each 
 one of the bills before you. The bills propose to tax street rail¬ 
 ways, just as other corporations are taxed, to continue the burden 
 of caring for part of the streets, and in addition to separate 
 them from all other corporations, and to impose upon them a 
 rental, as one man calls it, a tax as another man calls it, for the 
 use of the streets. 
 
 Street Railways Impose no Additional Servitude upon 
 the Streets* 
 
 The grounds upon which this radical and novel change is asked 
 I for are practically three. In the first place, the petitioners 
 
 say that the use of the streets by street railways is an additional 
 servitude upon the streets for which the road ought to make 
 compensation. In the second place, they say that the munici¬ 
 pality provides the roadbed of the street railways and gives a 
 valuable something to the street railways, for which compensa¬ 
 tion ought to be made. And in the third place, they say that the 
 street railways make absolutely no compensation for the franchise 
 which the State has granted to them, and ought to do so. I beg 
 to say, gentlemen, at the outset, that I think every one of these 
 propositions is false, that the whole basis of this agitation is 
 weak and rests upon sand. 
 
6 
 
 Take the first. Mr. Quirk began this hearing and based his 
 bill upon the ground that the street railway imposes an ad¬ 
 ditional servitude upon the street. To the lawyers of your 
 committee, that argument requires no answer whatever; it 
 is fallacious according to all decisions ; and my reply will there¬ 
 fore be of the briefest possible character. If it was an 
 additional servitude upon the streets, no street railway could 
 exist for one instant in this Commonwealth. When the streets 
 of the Commonwealth were laid out as highways, the law 
 conceives that they were dedicated to the uses of the public. 
 Of course originally no one thought of a dedication, except for 
 travel, on foot or on horseback and in vehicles, for those were 
 the ways in which the highways were used. But as the require¬ 
 ments of the community became more complicated, other things 
 were found for which the streets ought to be used, sewers, for 
 example, and the question arose whether sewers were an addi¬ 
 tional servitude. The question would arise in this way. The 
 owners of the land abutting upon the streets often own the land 
 under the streets, subject to the purposes of the dedication. If 
 a sewer was a new servitude, then the owner of the street was 
 entitled to additional compensation from some one, because his 
 land had never been dedicated to any such purpose as that. But 
 the courts held that sewers were within the public requirement 
 and a part of the original dedication. The same was true of water 
 pipes, gas pipes and the like. The question of street railways was 
 of the same character. Was it a new or an old use ? It was found, 
 especially in crowded localities, that the use by vehicles alone 
 did not serve the public. A very large proportion of the citizens 
 had no carriages. If all the citizens rode in carriages, there 
 were no streets in the cities which were ample enough to accom¬ 
 modate them. And so public convenience and necessity was 
 adjudged to require the laying of rails and the running of large 
 vehicles upon them which could be utilized by the public. Such 
 use therefore was not an additional servitude, but within the 
 original dedication and akin to the driving over the street by the 
 man who had his team. That question has arisen in this State 
 and has been settled. 
 
 Attorney General vs. Metropolitan Railroad, 125 Mass., 515. 
 The question has arisen in other States whether the running 
 of steam railroads over public highways was an additional ser- 
 
7 
 
 vitude, and there the courts have decided that it was, the line 
 being drawn between local street railway service and long-distance 
 service, and between the two methods of propulsion. To show 
 the extent to which the doctrine of dedication has been carried, 
 I will cite a case which arose concerning the Metropolitan sewer. 
 This sewer was in no sense a local use, or within the require¬ 
 ments of a small town, especially such a town as Winthrop, 
 where the great trunk line of sewer came to be emptied into the 
 sea. It was no part of the sewerage system of Winthrop. And 
 the owners contended, in the case of Taft against the Common¬ 
 wealth, that a great underground tunnel in the public streets for 
 the service of twenty-one cities and towns was not within the 
 original dedication. But the court held otherwise, even in that 
 case, and held that the great tunnels of the metropolitan sewer¬ 
 age system were within the original grant by the owner to the 
 public. 
 
 Mr. Harding. What is the citation? It is quite recent? 
 
 Mr. Elder. Very recent. It was the case of the old gentle¬ 
 man Taft of Taft’s hotel at Point Shirley. Lincoln Ex’tor vs. 
 Commonwealth, 164 Mass., 1. 
 
 So much, then, for the claim, which is absolutely unfounded 
 that street railways impose any additional servitude upon the 
 streets. It is because human beings, citizens, sit in the cars and 
 ride in them that railways are allowed to run, not by virtue of 
 special grants to railways. And this exact question has been 
 recently so decided after the fullest discussion by the Supreme 
 Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 Howe vs. West End Street Railway, 167 Mass., 46. 
 
 Locations in the Public Streets are for the Benefit of the Public 
 and not the Railways. 
 
 In the second place, it is contended that the companies get 
 something valuable in the nature of a road-bed by the use of the 
 streets for which they ought to pay. Now, that has been suffi¬ 
 ciently answered from a technical point of view in what I have 
 just said. But look at it from a practical point of view. Do 
 you believe the street railways run through our public streets 
 because they want to? They do not. They run through our 
 public streets because they have to. 
 
8 
 
 Mr. Waterman. Necessity creates the law of action, doesn’t 
 it? 
 
 Mr. Elder. That is it, precisely. It is because the public 
 want to be carried to store doors, to street corners and houses 
 that the railways are allowed and compelled to run in the pub- 
 lie streets. Without going into it in detail, as I mean to a little 
 later, just stop and consider. Your steam roads all through the 
 Commonwealth today are separating their roadbeds in every 
 conceivable way from the public use. They are separating the 
 grades so that other .travel shall go above them or go under 
 them. They are putting up gates and barricades everywhere to 
 prevent their location from being the roadway of the public. 
 Why? Simply because it is too expensive for them to risk the 
 public upon their lines of road, because concurrent use by the 
 public is inconvenient and expensive. Take the case of the 
 street railways, the paving alone required for use of the streets 
 as a roadbed costs $6,500 a mile. 
 
 Mr. Waterman. Does that include the 18-inches outside? 
 
 Mr. Elder. That includes the 18 inches outside—$6,500 a 
 mile, and in many sections as high as $7,000 a mile, to get the 
 use of this roadbed which the petitioners say is gratuitous. If 
 the railways owned their own roadbed, as steam roads do, they 
 would not be compelled to spend any part of it. Then the 
 tracks require to be made much more expensively than those of 
 any steam road in the Commonwealth. The railways use 
 heavier steel rails than any steam road in the Commonwealth, 
 and the expense for curves and switches is almost prohibitive. 
 Why? Because the public and the teams drive over and use the 
 track. You watch a teamster in any of our cities, .and you will 
 find that the instant he gets a chance, over he goes onto the rails 
 of the street railway, and his big dray or van goes pounding along 
 on the rails and over the expensive switches and curves, dam¬ 
 aging them and necessitating repairs to an extent which would 
 not exist in the slightest degree if a roadbed by itself could be 
 had. Then, too, the concurrent use by the public of the roadbed 
 results in multitudes of suits for personal injuries, which cost 
 the railways hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which 
 would not arise if the public did not compel the railways and 
 the nature of the service did not compel them to conduct their 
 business in the streets. 
 
9 
 
 Street Railways already pay Taxes upon every dollar of 
 Value Resulting from the Use of Streets. 
 
 Coming, now, to the third proposition. We are told con¬ 
 stantly in these hearings that the railways of this Common¬ 
 wealth do not pay anything for their franchise. Don’t they, 
 gentlemen? When gentlemen come before your committee and 
 attempt to instruct you; when promoters and proposers of bills 
 tell you that the street railways do not pay anything for their 
 franchise, they tell you simply arrant nonsense. The railways 
 pay taxes upon every penny of their franchise in the most 
 cleverly devised way which the skill of Massachusetts has been 
 able to invent. 
 
 In the first place, to consider the legal aspect of the claim, 
 compensation for a franchise, as every law writer says and 
 every judge says, is paid by the exercise of the franchise. 
 The public gets its compensation for the granting of the fran¬ 
 chise in the fact that the railway exercises the franchise. The 
 people require to be carried, not in their own carriages at great 
 expense, but at a five-cent rate between the various sections of a 
 city, and they are willing to give the right to railways to lay 
 tracks and run cars to accomplish that object The minute the 
 railway lays its tracks and sets its rolling stock in operation, 
 the public gets cheap conveyance, and it gets its compensation 
 for the use of the streets. It is true upon every statement by 
 every judge and every law writer. Judge Gray, in the case of 
 Metropolitan Railroad Co. vs. Quincy Railroad Co., 12 Allen, 
 269, said : 
 
 “The charter of a street railway corporation is the grant of a 
 franchise to lay iron rails on part of the public highways, to run 
 horses and cars thereon for the transportation of passengers, 
 and to receive fares for such transportation, in consideration of 
 the benefit to the public resulting from the establishment of 
 such means of travel, and in compensation for the expenses in¬ 
 curred by the grantees in laying their rails and ruuning their 
 cars. ” 
 
 You cannot revoke a franchise while it is exercised in that 
 way. When a street railway or a steam railroad ceases to oper¬ 
 ate under its franchise and the public loses the benefit it ought 
 to have gained, then the franchise can be revoked. The public 
 
10 
 
 has a right to take back to itself the thing that it gave, because 
 it is not getting the thing which it bargained for. The law has 
 been stated in another way, namely, that the expenditure by 
 the street railway of its money completes the contract between 
 itself and the Commonwealth. Up to the time it spends its 
 money, there is no completed arrangement. To expend its 
 monpy is to comply with the condition imposed in the grant, 
 and then the contract goes into effect. 
 
 But beyond that, is there not also direct compensation for the 
 franchise? The railway is taxed as other corporations are, upon 
 its real estate. It is not taxed directly upon its rails in the 
 streets. But the Commissioner of Corporations ascertains the 
 market value of its stock, takes the number of shares and mul¬ 
 tiplies it by the market value of each share, and thus gets the 
 total market value of the road. From this he subtracts the 
 amount paid for local taxes, and then he taxes the street railway 
 company upon the difference at the average rate of taxation 
 throughout the State. 
 
 Mk. Waterman. Is that the way they get at the State tax ? 
 
 Mr. Elder. That is the way they get at the State tax. In 
 other words, if the fact that the railroad is running in a street 
 without buying the street, adds anything to the value of the cor¬ 
 poration itself, the value of its stock is enhanced corresponding¬ 
 ly. If the use of the street increases the value of its plant or its 
 earning capacity, that shows in the stock market in the price at 
 which the stock will sell, upon the commonest rules of human 
 selfishness. The instant that value is added to the stock, the 
 Commissioner of Corporations seizes upon it and gets this tax 
 out of it. No better system has ever been devised anywhere in 
 the world for getting at the value of franchises. And it is 
 operative with street railways as with all other corporations. 
 This system results in a large tax. If the West End Street 
 Railway Co., mostly located in the city of Boston, was taxed on 
 its franchise here, it would pay a tax about $12.50 per thousand ; 
 but being taxed by the State at the average tax rate throughout 
 the State, it pays about $15 on the thousand. So that $2.50 
 per thousand is annually added to the franchise tax of the road 
 which I represent. 
 
 To refer to the figures for an instant, although I shall call 
 them up again, how many of these petitioners knew what the 
 
11 
 
 West End Street Railway pays in taxes in a year ? Were we 
 not all surprised when we found that the taxes paid by this rail¬ 
 way, said to be practically nothing, amounted to $343,897.50 
 last year ? We have been told a great deal about Ohio and what 
 the law has done in the city of Cleveland. The city of Cleveland 
 is one-half the size of Boston ; and the street railways of that 
 city paid in ten years up to 1896, the sum of $347,280 to the 
 public treasury ; only $4,000 more than the West End Railway 
 paid in a single year. So much, then, for the third argument 
 which it seems to me is answered, first as a matter of law, and 
 second is answered as a matter of fact and in dollars and cents. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, we are met here as we were at the hearing 
 last Thursday, by the claim that the elevated railroad, in the 
 charter that it asks for, offers to pay this very tax that we 
 are objecting to paying. Does it ? Section 8 of that proposed 
 bill is as follows : 
 
 “If the annual dividend paid is four per centum or less ” (that 
 ife, on the stock of this elevated railroad) “ the sum payable that 
 year shall be a sum equal to one-half per centum of the gross 
 earnings of all the lines of elevated or surface railroads, owned, 
 leased or operated by said corporation.” 
 
 That is, if no more than four per cent, dividend is paid, then 
 the franchise tax is to be one-half of one per cent. 
 
 “ If said dividend is more than four per centum, and does not 
 exceed six per centum, then a sum equal to one per centum of 
 the gross earnings ; if said dividend exceeds six per centum, 
 then a sum equal to the excess of the dividends over six per 
 centum in addition to one per centum of the gross earnings.” 
 
 You see that not until the dividends are over six per cent, 
 does the Commonwealth get more than one per cent, of the gross 
 earnings. Mr. Harding’s bill proposes three per cent, if the 
 Company earns a dividend of five per cent. I have already 
 called attention to what is granted by the State in the 
 elevated railway bill, if passed, as a consideration for this one 
 per cent.—30 years’ tenure of its franchise, free from interfer¬ 
 ence with fares and’from change of burdens. If it were proposed 
 to the West End road to grant such things as those, as a com¬ 
 pensation for increased returns to the municipality, then we 
 should certainly be desirous of being heard upon it and of con¬ 
 sulting our clients as to their willingness to accept. But no 
 
12 
 
 such proposition is before us now. I am dealing, as you are 
 dealing with this question just as it is presented by the four 
 bills which are before you. If different bills or amended bills 
 are to be considered at any time by the committee, we crave 
 leave to be heard upon them. 
 
 House Bill 49, 
 
 And that brings us, if you please, to the bills which are before 
 you to-day. Mr. Quirk’s bill House 49, is short and sweet. If 
 a great change in the policy of the State in dealing with cor¬ 
 porations was ever compressed into small compass, it is in this 
 bill: 
 
 “ Section 1. Any corporation occupying any part of a public 
 street in the city of Boston shall pay to the city therefor such 
 pecuniary or other compensation as the Board of Aldermen, 
 with the approval of the Mayor of said city may prescribe. 
 
 “ Sect. 2. This act shall take effect upon its passage.” 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, it is supposed that the street railway prob¬ 
 lem in its relation to the municipality has been solved. I don’t 
 know that I need to address myself seriously to that bill. Will 
 you expose the street railways of this Commonwealth to the 
 caprice or, I should say, to the judicial judgment of Boards of 
 Aldermen? Will you allow those honorable bodies to determine 
 whether a pecuniary compensation or “ other compensation ” 
 shall be exacted? We are told that some words are as broad as 
 the mantle of charity. But no mantle of charity will ever be 
 broad enough to cover procedure under the words “ other com¬ 
 pensation.” One of the witnesses who appeared here said that 
 one great object of this movement was to secure to the railroads 
 tenure in the streets and to prevent railways from being black¬ 
 mailed. I should be the last person to suggest that any board of 
 Aldermen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would be 
 guilty of blackmailing any street railway within their limits. 
 And I hope that no gentleman will say to me, as the monarch of 
 the seas says to the captain in Pinafore, “ Captain, I would be 
 the last man to insult a British sailor,” “ Admiral, You are the 
 last man who did insult a British sailor.” 
 
 This bill is objectionable, because, in the first place, it is 
 unconstitutional. If justifiable at all, a bill of this kind is 
 
13 
 
 a tax ; but it does not provide that any authorized Board of As¬ 
 sessors, acting under oath, is to assess the tax. It leaves the assess¬ 
 ment without the slightest suggestion whatsoever as to the basis 
 or method on which the tax is to be levied. The whim or caprice 
 or sound judgment of the Board of Aldermen, assisted by the 
 Mayor is the sole test. It fixes a tax upon corporations in one 
 city and upon no others. I doubt very much, gentlemen, if that 
 bill was proposed with seriousness. Mr. Quirk alone presents it, 
 and it is not supported by the testimony of any witness what¬ 
 ever. When Judge Carpenter of New Hampshire was first ap¬ 
 pointed to the Supreme bench for that State, he held a term 
 down at Dover, and a prominent lawyer came before him, and pro¬ 
 ceeded on an interlocutory matter to argue with great vehemence 
 a radically wrong proposition. Judge Carpenter was not then 
 known in that section, having practiced in the northern section 
 of the State. He finally said to the lawyer, “ There is prob¬ 
 ably no man in the State of New Hampshire who knows better 
 than you do that that is not the law.” “Oh, yes,” was the 
 reply, “ that is so ; but I could not tell what view your Honor 
 might take of it.” Mr. Quirk seems to be trying this bill on 
 this committee in very much the same way. 
 
 House Bill J64. 
 
 We come next to Mr. Hoag’s bill, House 194: 
 
 “Any city of thirty thousand or more inhabitants shall, and any 
 city or town of less than thirty thousand inhabitants may, either 
 by way of rental or direct taxation, assess and collect such 
 pecuniary or other compensation from any corporation, private 
 company or individual now occupying or making permanent use 
 of any part of a public street, highway or parkway, by virtue of 
 any grant or franchise within the boundary of said city or town, 
 as the Board of Aldermen in said city, or the Selectmen of said 
 town, may determine.” 
 
 That bill is open to all the objections which have been sug¬ 
 gested to the other bill. It is, in addition to them open to the 
 further objection that it proposes as many systems of taxation 
 as there are cities and towns in the state, and makes possible as 
 many systems in each place as there are corporations using the 
 streets in each place. 
 
14 
 
 Mr. Hoag evidently felt the difficulty of his position in draft¬ 
 ing this bill. Upon what ground can you place this imposi¬ 
 tion ? His bill suggests “ rental or direct taxation.” But we 
 all know that rental comes from contract. The owner of premi¬ 
 ses contracts with his lessee for the payment of rent. This 
 is not a contract, and it cannot rest upon any contractural rela¬ 
 tion. One of the parties is to have no voice in the amount to 
 be paid. So he puts in- 
 
 Mr. Waterman. Do you tnnix that a franchise is a qualified 
 gift ? 
 
 Mr. Elder. A franchise is a gift liable to revocation if it is 
 disused, yes ; in that sense it is qualified. 
 
 So he puts in the phrase “or direct taxation.” The bill is 
 open to the same objection as to unconstitutionality that the 
 other one is and more. It provides that cities of 30,000 
 inhabitants shall impose this tax, and cities and towns of 
 less may impose it. This does not call for proportional taxa¬ 
 tion, but the constitution does. It places the taxing power in 
 local boards, but the constitution places it in the Legislature. 
 How long would such a law stand before our courts ? Not for a 
 single instant. Why, in the nature of things or on principle, 
 can there be any difference in taxation between a city of 30,000 
 and a city of less. Mr. Hoag is the only one who comes before 
 this committee for the purpose of advocating his bill. 
 
 House Bill 734. 
 
 Now, we come to what I may be pardoned for calling an or¬ 
 phaned bill, that of Mr. Bradley, House 734. 
 
 “ Section 1. Every street railway company which runs any 
 cars within the limits of any city or town in this Common¬ 
 wealth, whether its routes are partly or wholly within said city 
 or town, shall annually, on the first day of November, pay into 
 the city or town treasury the sum of fifty dollars for each car 
 run by said company within the limits of said city or town.” 
 
 If it fails to do so, it shall pay interest on the amount, and 
 the officers of the company are charged with the duty of execu¬ 
 ting the law. Apart from the things said with regard to the 
 other bills, let us look at the practical operation of that bill. 
 In the first place, do you suppose that in Boston, or anywhere 
 
15 
 
 in this Commonwealth, you will have one set of cars for 
 winter use, and another set of cars for summer use, if the 
 roads must pay fifty dollars apiece for every car that they run ? 
 Unquestionably not. When a road is to be mulcted in taxes for 
 giving additional accommodations to the public, the natural re¬ 
 prisal is to make the public ride in one kind of car the year 
 round, as they do in Detroit, so that the tax may be paid on the 
 smallest possible number of cars, instead of on the largest. 
 Again, the bill provides that the road shall pay to any city or town 
 in the Commonwealth, whether its routes are partly or wholly 
 within said city or town, a certain amount of money, fifty dol¬ 
 lars a car. What would be the result of that, in the case of the 
 West End road, for instance ? Here are fifteen cities and towns 
 served by the West End road. On some of its lines it runs the 
 same car through five or six cities and towns, and it is compelled, 
 or it may be, to pay fifty dollars to each of those cities $ind 
 towns upon one car. Well, the upshot of that is simply this : 
 the bill would drive the West End road to run its cars to 
 the boundary line and stop and make the passengers all get out 
 and get into another car that ran through the next town, and so 
 on. The order to “ change cars ” would teach the public town 
 boundaries in most aggravating object lessons. Take the line 
 that Mr. Warren represents, the Lynn & Boston, running 
 through the charming towns and cities of the North Shore, and 
 think how many changes a long suffering public would make of 
 a summer afternoon or evening. The bill is well adapted to rail¬ 
 ways within a single municipality, but not to those serving 
 many cities and towns. Bat, as I said, gentlemen, this is an or¬ 
 phaned bill; even Mr. Bradley does not come here to advocate it, 
 and I will take no further time upon that. 
 
 Associated Board of Trade Bill* 
 
 Now we come to House Bill No. 445, the bill of the Boston 
 Associated Board of Trade. I do not intend to be'guilty of any 
 disrespect to that distinguished body of men, representing as it 
 does various business organizations in Boston. But I do not 
 think I shall be guilty of any disrespect when I say to you, 
 gentlemen, that I do not think you will be overawed by the 
 fact that this bill comes from this source. I ask you, gentlemen, 
 
16 
 
 what particular ground of knowledge the Associated Board of 
 Trade of Boston has which enables it to present this bill before 
 you ? Has it, gentlemen, been sitting, as you have been sitting 
 for weeks, now, for months, hearing all that is to be said in re¬ 
 gard to street railways and their relations to the municipalities ? 
 Has it heard the evidence ? Has it heard the suggestions of 
 counsel for the railways ? So far as we know, not in the slight¬ 
 est degree. So far as we know, not a single fact or a single figure 
 was before that honorable body when it formulated, or when some 
 one read to it this bill. It is only by thorough examination and by 
 thorough familiarity that it becomes possible to deal with any sub¬ 
 ject intelligently. With the varied interests imposed upon these 
 gentlemen, I doubt if they have had either the time or the incli¬ 
 nation to make the one or acquire the other. The responsibil¬ 
 ity does not rest upon them as it does upon you to determine 
 these questions. 
 
 Their position is this : they are men representing large inter¬ 
 ests, paying large taxes, and they come to you and as their con¬ 
 tribution to this discussion say : “ Reduce the taxes in Boston, 
 get something out of the street railways that our taxes may be 
 less.” They do not stand, as some other petitioners have, for 
 lower fares and improved service. They simply say : “ Reduce 
 our taxes for us, charge these railways more than you charge 
 other corporations, and let it go to our benefit.” 
 
 Let us consider, gentlemen, for a moment how carefully this 
 bill has been drawn. In addition to taxes now provided by law 
 it provides for a street franchise tax of three per cent, on gross 
 railway earnings. Has it appeared here, gentlemen, that they 
 have had such familiarity with the books of the West End Com¬ 
 pany and of the various railways through this State as to enable 
 them to say that three per cent, is the right figure ? What single 
 figure, work of accountant, auditor, anybody, have they brought 
 to you to show that three per cent, is the right sum ? Why 
 shouldn’t it have been ten ? Why didn’t they take twenty ? 
 Why shouldn’t it have been one ? Not one iota of evidence, not 
 one fact is brought to bear upon this question. They just say 
 three per cent, that is all. 
 
 But this bill attempting to be scientific, because we certainly 
 must give credit to the bill for all that it attempts to be—pro¬ 
 vides further that the payment of this franchise tax shall not re- 
 
IT 
 
 duce dividends below five per cent. Why five per cent.? 
 I agree that the Associated Board of Trade is capable of dealing 
 with a question of returns upon capital. Why have they picked 
 live per cent ? Do they pretend to tell you, gentlemen, that the 
 rate for investments of this character, involving risk, is five per 
 cent, in this state ? You can get very good mortgages, which 
 are absolute security, at five per cent, in this state. But their 
 suggestion is that five per cent, is a fair return on stock which 
 stands above several sets of mortgages and above several mil¬ 
 lions of eight per cent, preferred stock Do they mean to tell 
 you or has any expert testified that if the West End hadn’t al¬ 
 ready invested its millions of money, that they could get money 
 to build the road on a basis of only five per cent, dividends and 
 after that a division of profits with the city ? Certainly not. 
 And learned counsel felt the force of this fact, for he said that 
 he would not quarrel at a change to six per cent. If the 
 advocate of the bill admits that amount of doubt in it, it cer¬ 
 tainly is not entitled to any reverence, no mattter what source 
 it comes from. Almost the only witness who came to my 
 friend Harding’s assistance on this bill was Mr. Robinson, and 
 Mr. Robinson said the rate ought to be eight per cent., before 
 this tax should be imposed, showing how much of exactness 
 there is among the advocates of the measure. But, gentlemen, 
 the public statutes of Massachusetts, in existence when the West 
 End Road was chartered, when all these roads were chartered, 
 fixed ten per cent, as the proper return to railway stockholders 
 before fares could be reduced. That was the concensus of opinion 
 in Massachusetts as fixed in its laws and retained on its Statute 
 Book. Which of these figures will you take ? five, six, eight or 
 ten per cent.? What evidence has been introduced to enable you 
 to determine that question in favor of this bill. 
 
 The Railways Gain Nothing By the Bill From Permanent 
 
 Locations* 
 
 Both this bill and the Governor’s message provide that when 
 this tax is imposed something shall be given to the companies. 
 The Governor felt the fairness of doing so ; the advocates of this 
 bill feel the fairness of doing so ; and the bill provides that no 
 locations in the public streets shall be taken away without a 
 
18 
 
 new location of a similar character being given and compensa¬ 
 tion to the railroad company for the change. Thus the com¬ 
 panies are supposed to get something in exchange for the impo¬ 
 sition of this tax. Do they get anything, gentlemen? Nothing 
 whatever. Locations have not been revoked anywhere, except 
 with the consent of the railway companies, and they can’t be. 
 A lot of men go out along a new line of a street railway and they 
 build houses. Somebody proposes to revoke this railway loca¬ 
 tion. In they come, not for the railway, but for themselves, 
 and say, “ We shall be stranded out there where we have built 
 •our houses, you must not revoke that location.” They are sure 
 to be heard. 
 
 It is only in localities from which no public pressure can be 
 brought to bear upon Boards of Aldermen, that locations can 
 ever be revoked. And in such localities there is no business, 
 and the roads are quite willing to be relieved from operating 
 their cars. Don’t you believe, gentlemen, that in sparsely settled 
 districts the West End and all these roads would be glad to 
 have the authorities revoke their locations? Most assuredly 
 they would. If the West End could confine its operations to 
 four or five great avenues, it would make double the money that 
 it does with its 295 miles of track, stretching in every direction. 
 There is no danger in this direction, and nothing is given to us 
 by the bill. But the provision is significant because it shows 
 that both His Excellency, the Governor, and these gentlemen 
 felt that something ought to be secured to the roads if this 
 novel tax was to be imposed. If it preserved the roads from 
 constant agitation as to fares, from constant dictation as to 
 methods of service and demands for increased expenditure, it 
 would be of value. But as it is, it does not serve a single useful 
 purpose to the railways. 
 
 Hardly Any Two of the Petitioners Agree on What Should 
 
 Be Done* 
 
 Now, then, let us come to the way in which this bill was sup¬ 
 ported. Mr. Harding eloquently addressed you in favor of his 
 bill. A gentleman associated with him did the same. Mr. Rob¬ 
 inson, a street railway man, favored the bill for the reason that 
 he thought he could trade with the Selectmen of country towns 
 
19 
 
 for locations to better advantage if this bill became a law. On 
 the other hand, Mr. Frank Parsons opposes the bill. He says 
 that it takes away the right to revoke locations and that that is 
 a contractual right existing in the cities and towns. He says 
 three per cent, is too little of a tax, he wants more. An old 
 Scotch squire, whom Walter Scott tells about, invited the 
 * minister and a deacon to his house to dine and asked the 
 preacher to ask the blessing, which he did, and the squire said 
 that it was too long by half, and the old Covenanter said it was 
 a scant allowance of spiritual grace. That is just about the posi¬ 
 tion of this bill—no one is pleased with it except its author. 
 
 Mr. Franx Parsons prefers that lower rates of fares should be 
 sought for before increased returns to the municipality. Harry 
 Lloyd, who appears for the Labor Union, says the same. Mr. 
 Oliver Downing a member of the Massachusetts Democratic Club, 
 opposes this bill and wants municipal ownership. Mr. Charles 
 M. Cox of the Chamber of Commerce,—a member, you see, of 
 this Associated Board of Trade, says that this bill never was 
 presented to the chamber of Commerce, so far as he knows, 
 never was considered by it, and he opposes it because he wants 
 municipal assumption of the roads. Mr. Utley of Brookline, 
 who sought to be careful and conservative in his remarks, said 
 the whole subject was a very difficult one to deal with, and that 
 it seemed to him on the whole if something was to be done 
 with street railways it ought to be done in the direction of lower 
 fares rather than of increased returns to the municipality. And 
 then we had down here the quarrel from Holyoke, the handsome 
 looking member of the Board of Aldermen and the old gentleman 
 representing the street railways. The latter thought if he could 
 > ' get a little something, he didn’t care much what it was, to pre¬ 
 
 vent the Holyoke Board of Aldermen from attacking him any 
 more, he should be glad of it. That is the state of the evidence 
 with regard to this case. I think you will agree with me that 
 before the policy of the State of Massachusetts, continued for 
 upwards of twenty years, shall be radically changed in its deal¬ 
 ing with corporations and street railway companies, there must 
 be something more than this. There must be some well set¬ 
 tled and generally accepted plan. There is absolutely nothing 
 of the kind. One man wants lower fares. Another free transfers. 
 Another increased taxes. Another wants the city to take up the 
 
20 
 
 whole railway system, another wants to have you put the wires 
 underground. Another wants to direct the management of the 
 road and the prices paid for labor. Until there is something 
 definite, radical changes, as I have suggested, ought not to be 
 undertaken. 
 
 Street Railway Stock is Sold above par under Exist¬ 
 ing Laws* 
 
 There are some difficulties in the way of this legislation, one 
 which was pointed out by Mr. Warren. I don’t know how it is 
 to be dealt with. No way has been suggested even by the emi¬ 
 nent counsel representing the Board of Trade. Everybody 
 agrees I think, that some dividend ought to be paid on street 
 railway stock. The companies have done a great deal for the 
 public. Some dividend ought to be paid before any further tax 
 is collected by the state or city. But how are you going to 
 manage this difficulty ? For the last few years, under a law of 
 this state, stock of street railway companies is not sold at par, 
 but its value is fixed and it must be sold, when new capital is 
 wanted, at a rate fixed by the Board of Railroad Commissioners, 
 or by a sale at auction. In the case of the Springfield Rail¬ 
 road its new stock was sold at 170, in the case of the Lynn & 
 Boston at 125, and so a varying amount through the state. 
 You can declare dividends only on the par of stock, and where 
 you provide for five per cent., six per cent., eight per cent, 
 dividends in this bill before the tax is collected how are you 
 going to deal with stock for which 170 has been paid ? Five 
 per cent, on stock which cost 100 is very different from five per 
 cent, on stock which cost 170. There is absolutely no way. You 
 cannot declare one dividend upon stock sold at par, and another 
 dividend upon stock sold under law at 170. It must be uni¬ 
 form, and that being so I will defy the most ingenious drafts¬ 
 man to put a bill in form which shall regulate the proposed 
 taxation. When Mr. Warren asked my learned friend, Mr. 
 Harding, how he would do it, Mr Harding said he would ,l safe¬ 
 guard ” the rights of stockholders who had bought stock at more 
 than par. “ Safeguard ” is a broad word. But how he will put 
 “ safeguard ” into technical language I am at a loss to see. 
 
 I have suggested to you, gentlemen, that the street railway 
 
companies already pay a franchise tax,—that I need not review, 
 —a tax in the case of the West End of upwards of $343,000. 
 How much is that, gentlemen ?—I won’t say on their capital. 
 How much is it on their earning, gentlemen ? It is over four 
 and a quarter per cent, of the gross earnings of this road that it 
 now pays to the public. Isn’t that enough ? Mr. Harding said 
 that if the West End road were situated in the City of New 
 York it would pay $534,000 in taxes. 
 
 Mr. Harding. Four years ago. 
 
 Mr. Elder. Four years ago. Well, now, gentlemen, how 
 much did all the railways in the State of New York pay last 
 year ? They paid $999,713.36.. 
 
 Mr. Harding. Street railways do you mean ? 
 
 Mr. Elder. Street railways, yes ; $999,713.36. They had a 
 total income, as shown by the report of the Railroad Commis¬ 
 sioners of the State of New York, of $25,477,227.44. The street 
 railways in Massachusetts had a total income of $13,184,342.28 
 or about half that of the railways in New York, and they paid 
 $448,138.01 in taxes to the public ; that is to say, with about half 
 the income they paid about half the taxes to the public treasury 
 that the New York Railways did. As I said at the'last hearing, 
 and I must not repeat myself because of taking time, if the 
 Boston public would be contented with the kind of service that is 
 given in the City of New York, then they could pay taxes and 
 could do a great many other things that they don’t do. But 
 Boston is not contented with those old horse cars and kerosene 
 lamps and straw for your feet, and stoves for heating, and strips 
 of ingrain carpeting for seats, and locomotion by worn-out horses 
 which even their own newspapers are constantly caricaturing. 
 
 Broadway and Ferry Franchises. 
 
 It is true, gentlemen, that some ferry franchises are sold at 
 large prices. Ferry franchises are practically monopolies. Peo¬ 
 ple must get across at given points and can’t at others. And 
 you can sell such things as that in New York. 
 
 And a Broadway franchise can be sold for large amounts. 
 Seven miles, gentlemen, of line, fourteen miles of track, opera¬ 
 ting by cable through the largest and the thickest settled pop¬ 
 ulation on this side of the water, with only one establishment 
 
22 
 
 for its car houses and power plant and administration offices will 
 pay ! You can certainly get money for that kiud of a franchise. 
 You could here in Boston. If you were contented to deal with 
 Washington street alone or Tremont street alone and let one 
 railroad get the enormous traffic, it could pay something for it. 
 But you have asked to have fifteen cities and towns accommo¬ 
 dated by a large line, much of which does not pay, and for that 
 franchise, I submit, gentlemen, there cannot be compensation. 
 
 Besides Taxes Our Street Railways Take Care of Part of 
 
 Streets. 
 
 But, gentlemen, that is not all that the West End road and the 
 roads in this state are doing. In horse car times it was provided 
 that the railways should take care of the paving between the 
 rails and eighteen inches outside of the rails,—why ? Because 
 the horses wore it out as they went over it and because eighteen 
 inches outside was considered a fair amount for the wear and tear 
 upon the paving of the streets. That was well enough when 
 horses were used, but to-day horses are not used while electricity 
 is. The railways of Massachusetts to-day don’t wear one block 
 of pavement, they don’t touch it. They get their power from 
 above and they simply touch their own rails. Every reason 
 that ever existed for requiring street railways to pave the 
 streets after their tracks were once laid has ceased to exist. Not 
 only to pave them, gentlemen, the railways must keep them in 
 repair. That means that if a sewer in Boston, and I presume 
 elsewhere, is ripped up and the pavement of a street railway is 
 interfered with, the city does not replace it, but requires that the 
 street railway shall put it down again, though the city ripped 
 it up for its own purposes. 
 
 , Rep. Waterman. Where is the equity of that ? 
 
 Mr. Elder. There is not the slightest equity in it. $30,000 
 was the cost to the West End road for the City of Boston’s rip¬ 
 ping up the pavement of Atlantic Avenue to lay its sewers, in 
 addition to the interference with the West End’s business dur¬ 
 ing all the intervening time. 
 
 Rep. Waterman. Why don’t the West End contest that on 
 that point ? 
 
 Mr. Elder. Because, there is the law. Suppose, gentlemen, 
 
i 
 
 « 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 > 
 
 4 
 
 « 
 
 23 
 
 we were here asking you to repeal this law which requires the 
 railways to keep the paving in order, wouldn’t we have a thou¬ 
 sand times better case than these gentlemen have who attempt to 
 increase the burdens upon the road ? I submit that we should. 
 Why, gentlemen, it costs $6,500 a mile to lay the pavement, so 
 that the West End road has upwards of $2,000,000 of its capital 
 in pavement which it does not use. One funny thing about it is 
 that in a number of instances in which Boston has torn up the 
 paving for its own purposes it has carried off the paving stones 
 and required the West End to furnish new ones in their place. 
 We can’t complain. We can’t fight. We simply have to come 
 here and attempt to resist further attacks. Now, gentlemen, 
 how much does paving cost, a year ? In addition to the taxes I 
 have spoken of, the repair account of last year, gentlemen, for 
 paving, was $133,701.79. 
 
 Rep. Waterman. You didn’t put that into your brief that 
 you gave us. Why didn’t you put it in? 
 
 Mr. Elder. The brief for this hearing has not been fur¬ 
 nished, Mr. Waterman, the other brief was only upon free trans¬ 
 fers, and this we felt did not come within that subject. Track 
 reconstruction, estimated at $4000 a mile, for twenty-five miles 
 of reconstruction last year was $100,000. In addition to that, 
 the West End built twenty miles of new track last year. What for? 
 In outlying sections, where the public convenience demanded it, 
 and yet where no concern seeking merely returns upon its capi¬ 
 tal would have built it, but for the purpose—let us concede the 
 selfish side of it—of preventing any other company from getting 
 into the streets, and doing what the public fairly demanded, 
 twenty miles were built, making, at $6500 per mile, $130,000 
 last year. 
 
 Rep. Waterman. That all paid? 
 
 Mr. Elder. That is all paid, yes. That is all for paving, 
 not for tracks, but for paving, $130,000, making a total for last 
 year of $363,701.79 for paving alone. Don’t let me leave that 
 in doubt. For paving alone. That doubles the tax, a little more 
 than doubles the tax, and that too for paving that the road 
 doesn’t use or wear out. 
 
 The Chairman. I suppose, Mr. Elder, that that is a scienti¬ 
 fic way of building a roadbed, isn’t it, at the side, apart from 
 any wear that you say is gone, it is a scientific way of building 
 
24 
 
 a roadbed? You would do that in self defence anyway, wouldn’t 
 you, for the tracks? 
 
 Mr. Elder. Yes, sir, in a way that is true. 
 
 The Chairman. That is, it is the most approved method and 
 the cheapest in the long run, isn’t it, for your company to build 
 them in that way? 
 
 Mr. Elder. No, not the cheapest in the long run. It would 
 be much cheaper to place rails with a small amount of paving 
 than it would to go to this expensive construction. But what I 
 am using it for and calling attention to is this: that the road it¬ 
 self does not use or wear this paving at all, and that the city gets 
 the benefit of it. 
 
 The Chairman. Yes. 
 
 Mr. Elder. And the wear upon its rails is very much great¬ 
 er from the heavy teaming which follows along the line of the 
 tracks than it is even from the use by the cars themselves. In 
 other words, we are paying for the public use not only of the 
 paving but of the rails themselves. 
 
 Existing Handicaps Upon Massachusetts Roads, 
 
 Gentlemen, I called your attention at the last hearing to the 
 disadvantages under which Massachusetts roads operate their 
 lines and asked if it was fair to impose any further burdens up¬ 
 on them. But I want to recapitulate these disadvantages under 
 which the West End and other roads operate, illustrating by the 
 West End. In the first place, higher wages are paid in Boston 
 than almost anywhere else in the country, very much higher, 
 $2.25 a day against less than $2.00 a day outside, which is 
 $450,000 a year more than is paid in most other cities and 
 towns. It gets ten hours a day service, and not twelve, as they 
 do in the Western cities, which makes a very large difference, 
 not easily estimated or placed in figures. On account of the 
 congestion of the streets in the city of Boston, seventy miles a 
 day is the run of a car instead of one hundred, as it is in Phila¬ 
 delphia, and practically all of the western cities, which makes a 
 difference of thirty per cent, in the amount of work to be ob¬ 
 tained from the cars, from the motormen and from the conduc¬ 
 tors. Operating expenses are thus increased nearly thirty per 
 cent., amounting to certainly $500,000. Coal used here $3.25 a 
 
ton against $1.00 in practically all the cities with which com¬ 
 parisons have been made by petitioners. Feed wires required to 
 be put underground by the Massachusetts Legislature recently 
 cost $400,000. The heating of cars imposed by the Massa¬ 
 chusetts Legislature, increased the expense for power and the 
 size of wires and conduits at least twenty-five per cent. And now 
 the rental of the Subway, which is placed upon the company by 
 the situation of the city will amount to $332,500 a year. The 
 •question of adding a trifle more, gentlemen, $240,000 a year 
 more is before you for consideration. It is a fair question when 
 the back of the best servant will break. I think 
 
 The Chairman. Where did you get the last figure that you 
 gave? 
 
 Mr. Elder. Three per cent. 
 
 The Chairman. Figuring on this bill here, No. 445 ? 
 
 Mr. Elder. Yes. Three per cent, is asked for and the in¬ 
 come was $8,000,000, which makes $240,000. 
 
 It was somewhat interesting to hear one “reformer” speak of 
 “ this trivial sum.” These gentlemen deal in such large figures 
 and vast interests, that they speak of a quarter of a million of 
 dollars in a way that no person who comes in contact with the 
 actual management of business affairs ever dares trust himself 
 in. 
 
 If you will pardon me, gentlemen, I want to say just a single 
 word more, and I shall not have to trouble you again. I want 
 before closing to call your attention to what has been accom¬ 
 plished by the Massachusetts system, whereby the companies 
 are compelled to do all that they can for the public. In addi¬ 
 tion to the admirable service which you see every day, consider 
 the way in which the street railway companies and the West 
 End Company have gone out into new and sparsely settled dis¬ 
 tricts and enabled the public to get away from the crowded 
 centres into comfortable homes where rentals and land values 
 are low. We have had cited to us constantly the example of 
 foreign cities. Glasgow has been cited to us over and over 
 again. It has a population of 800,000, and has how much 
 street railway service? Sixty-six miles of street railway in that 
 great city of Glasgow, two or three trunk lines in thirty-seven 
 miles of streets. Its fares we are told are marvelously low. Yes 
 •but its fares are so regulated that every time you pass a mile 
 
26 
 
 post or station you pay a new fare, the result being that the peo¬ 
 ple are huddled in the centre of the city to avoid paying re¬ 
 peated fares to get into the suburbs. 
 
 And Glasgow shows the result of that kind of a system. 
 Take the last census and you find that a large per cent, of the 
 population of Glasgow, amounting to 100,000 human beings, 
 live in tenements of one room. You find that forty-seven per 
 cent, of the population live in tenements of two rooms, namely, 
 264,000 of the population. The density of population in Glas¬ 
 gow is over fifty-seven to the acre, taking the average of the 
 occupied area of Glasgow, though in many sections it is upwards 
 of two hundred. In Boston, with our system of getting people 
 into the suburbs, it is twelve to the acre and no more. I want 
 to read just a single word which comes from Municipal Govern¬ 
 ment in Great Britain. 
 
 “ The proportion of the two-roomed dwellers, on the other 
 hand, had greatly increased. ,, These figures are taken after a 
 great improvement had been wrought. “ Thus, in 1891, there 
 were only 100,000 people living in one room, while nearly 264,- 
 000 were in two rooms, this class of dwellers constituting forty- 
 seven per cent, of all the people within the city limits at the 
 time of the census. A population thus housed might well give 
 employment to an army of sanitary inspectors. Small as these 
 abodes are, great numbers of them took lodgers in addition to 
 the regular family. Dr. Russell, the medical examiner, re¬ 
 marked, ‘ Nor must I permit you in noting down the tame aver¬ 
 age of fully three inmates in each of these one-apartment 
 houses/ ” 
 
 They call what we call a tenement a “ house,” it means one 
 room,—“to remain ignorant of the fact that there are thous¬ 
 ands of these houses which contain five, six and seven inmates, 
 and hundreds which are inhabited by from eight to even 
 thirteen.” 
 
 We have constantly had Berlin called to our attention. It 
 has a system of cheap fares, but also graded in circles, as I have 
 just described, whereby rents in the centre of the city are kept 
 at enormous prices and by which the laboring population is kept 
 herded together in the most unsanitary and immoral way. I 
 am reading from “ Municipal Government in Continental Eu¬ 
 rope ” which quotes from Herr. R. Bodkh, chief statistician. “ In 
 
1885 it was found that 73,000 persons in Berlin were living in the 
 condition of families occupying a single room in tenement houses ; 
 382,000 were living in houses,—(I mean by house the distinct 
 apartment of a household)—of two rooms ; 432,000 occupied 
 houses of three rooms and 398,000 were quartered in the luxury 
 of houses having at least four rooms. It was found that although 
 the one-room dwellers were only one-sixth as numerous as the 
 three-room dwellers, their rate of mortality was about twenty- 
 three times as high and the actual number of deaths among 
 them was four times as great. Compared with the dwellers in 
 houses of more than four rooms the mortality of the one-room 
 dwellers was at a thirty times greater rate. In a total popula¬ 
 tion at that time of 1,315,000, the 73,000 people who lived in 
 in one room tenement quarters suffered nearly half the entire 
 number of deaths. Their death rate per one thousand for the 
 year was 163.5 per cent., or about one-sixth of the entire number, 
 while the two-room dwellers sustained a death rate of only 
 twenty-two and five one-hundredths, the three-room "dwellers 
 escaped with the marvelously low rate of seven and five one- 
 hundredths, and the well-to-do people, who had four or five 
 rooms for their household, suffered by death only at the rate of 
 five and four-tenths per thousand population.” 
 
 Gentlemen, I believe the great service that our street railways 
 are doing in this country is not so much in the uniform and low 
 rate of fare, and in the return made to the municipality, as it is 
 in its effect upon the public. We have adopted in this country 
 the uniform fare, just as we have in our hotels. We all of us 
 prefer to go to an hotel and pay two or three dollars a day and 
 have whatever there is, to the European plan of paying a new 
 price for everything ordered, even to a candle to undress by. 
 Our street railway system has adopted precisely the same idea. 
 You pay five cents and can go the length of the line. It is true 
 that the rate is too high for the person riding six or eight or ten 
 blocks. He need not pay it unless he chooses. But the roads 
 are enabled' to run long distances because of the short trips and 
 uniform fare. And there is the enormous benefit, that the labor¬ 
 ing classes are not driven into great tenement houses and up 
 narrow staircases, living and herded together in single rooms, 
 but are enabled to go with their children into the outskirts, into 
 the fresh air and into ample and abundant homes. Such service 
 
28 
 
 as this to the public, not merely from a sanitary standpoint, 
 but also from the standpoint of morality, because the immorality 
 resulting from the herding of human beings cannot be exaggerated, 
 is an enormous saving to the public treasury, in sanitary inspec¬ 
 tion, and of illness and epidemic diseases. 
 
 Hamburg’s scourge of a few years ago from cholera was more 
 due to the herding of the people under the Hamburg, Berlin, sys¬ 
 tem of graded fares than it was to any other cause. The enor¬ 
 mous expenditure of the city and the enormous loss to its mer¬ 
 cantile interests cannot be estimated. I say, gentlemen, then, 
 that considering the payment of taxes by these roads, the return 
 made in the care of streets and the infinitely greater service 
 which they render to the community, there should be no change 
 in the policy of the State. No well defined plan for change 
 exists. The lines proposed are as shifting as water and cohere 
 as little as the sands of the seashore. 
 

 
 
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