St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-09-08
PASSENG Err RATES.
A General Manager Gives the Globe"
Some of the Reasons for
Decentralization.
The System of Paying for Advertising With
1,000-Mile Tickets Pernicious.
Especial Telegram to the Globe.

regular fare. 1t is said that traffic mana
ger of Council Bluffs line remarked Friday
that if rates did not firm up before
to-day an open cut would be declared. Pas
senger rates to Kansas City, st. Paul and the
east are in about the same condition. So
general is the Generalization that railway
circles are exceedingly alarmed and man
ayers are nervously awaiting an outbreak
which is liable to occur at any time. we'll
known general manager to-day impaired to
a GLOBE reporter rather startling informa-
ton outlining the facts that he believes to be
at the bottom of the passenger rate trouble.
Railroad managers said he, 'have for
some time been at loss to know why pas
senger rate agreements are not carried out.
Compacts of the strongest kind will be signed
and penalties without number will be pro-
scribed for the violators, but yet rates cannot
be maintained. We have wondered why
such should be the condition of things, and
lately have been devoting every effort TO
discover the cause. Recently, you remem-
Der, one of the trunk lines was
alleged to have paid for advertising with
an enormous quantity of 4,O00-mile tickets,
which were made transferable and good un-
til used. These were said to have been
sold by the man who did the advertising to
scaipers at a low figure, and they, in turn,
offered them al rate materially lower than
tariff. This gave me an idea and I set on
foot rigid investigation, but 1 found that
the practice was carried to an extent that
was simply appalling. So many roads have
been in the habit of doing this and scapling
shops are so stocked with these tickets
that there is not a passenger agent
in Chicago to-day who can
make his own rate to any competitive point.
The former has been taken out of their
hands entirely, and the scalpers control the
rate making privilege. To such magnitude
has this pernicious practice grown that pas
senger agreements are practically dead let
ter, and have become convinced that this is
the prime cause of the present extensive de-
moralization. The system is certainly the
most absurd l ever heard of, and why it has
been all9MSes99, ITO grow to such
proportions is more than I can
tell. An advertising solicitor asks $50
cash for an advertisement. The advertising
TEN is in vogue offers instead of the cash
from seven to fifteen mileage books contain
ing 1000 miles of coupons. The average is
about ten books for a $50 advertisement.
These at 219c per mile would be worth
$25 each, or $3.50 for the ten.
The solicitor will sell the books
to scalpers for about S12 apiece,
and they win sell to the public for SIS or
$50 what the railroad asks S25 for. To make
everything straight on the company's books
$3.50 worth of advertising viii be charged up
and in the other columns will be entered
$3.50 worth of 1000-mile tickets. Both are
fictitious, the company makes no money by
the transaction and the tickets 90 on the
market to demoraize rates and indirectly
sacrifice hundreds and thousands of dollars
worth of revenue.
at was this practice which disrupted the
Council Bluffs passenger pool and which has
led to a threatened war between that point
and Chicago. One road stocked the market
with milage tickets to pay for advertising and
rates could not be maintained. Scalping
Offices in Chicago, Rock Island,
Council Bluffs, Omaha and other inferno
date points were literally flooded with these
tickets, which brokers were selling at little
over one-half the regular rate. The brokers
were ticketing all the business One other
line essayed to counteract the effort by issu-
ing a special class of duplicates, with which
they paid for their advertising, but they were
so sick of it that they gathered their tickets
in as fast as they could. Nothing could be
done to compete with the free mileage tickets
and the pool dissolved. The above named road
is still paying its advertising bills in the same
way and the scalpers are making the rates
between Chicago and Council Bluffs, and
this has not only effected through rates but
local as well. passenger wishing to 90 to
Rock Island is sold mileage ticket and a
broker at that point takes it, BY
this means he has saved 81 or more on
a ticket to- Rock Island. He does
it by buying an advertising mileage ticket of
scalper. Brokers are. growing rich because
this practice, while the railroads are sacrifice
ing revenue every day which properly be-
longs to them. A fair sample of what the
mileage tickets are doing is found in Des
Moines. Two years ago there were but two
brokers in that place. Now there are six
and all them making money. The regular
rate to Des Moines is S1O.45. By purchasing
mileage ticket of a scalper the Journey will
cost from So to $3.50. The brokers at Chi
cago and Des Moines are making a fortune
out of it, while the railroads are losing the
business. If the railroad issuing the tickets
was realizing profit in the deal it would
not be so Objectionable, but the tickets are
counted for just one-fifth their actual value
when given IN for advertising This makes
the practice absolutely without reason and
why general agent can be so foolish is too
deep for me to fathom.
''Aside from the actual loss to the roads
providing the business is conducted souarely.
another feature is presented The tempta-
ton to the employees who make the contract
and deliver the tickets is too great for most
men to resist. The opportunities to make an
over issue, to receive commissions for
crooked work, and in other ways beat the
company, are practically submitted. The
very nature of the practice necessitates great
looseness in the matter of checking the mile
age ticket accounts, and no road which
Auopls luis system OF paying LOT It's aGVt Tti J.
ing pretends to watch the transactions care
fully. The conductors are instructed to ask
no questions when the tickets are presented.
and as consequence no suspicious
looking mileage tickets are reported
to headquarters. There seems to
be a sort of tacit understanding that
any apparent irregularity must be winked at,
so the em0lOves direatlv oo0naotad ,-;4t, +l,o
transaction have full latitude to all that dis