Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-03-02
A KNOCKOUT.
Pullman's Last Hit at the
Excursion Men.
He CoRRALs THE s. P.
No Way of Getting Tourists in And
Out of the City Except by
His Cars.

The death-blow was given to the ex-
cursion business in and out of Southern
California when Assistant Freight and
Passenger Agent @. F. Smurr, of the
Southern Pacific, yesterday received an
official dispatch announcing that Pull
man had secured all the tourist cars on
the system. A few minutes later the
news was simultaneously received at the
Pullman and Santa Fe offices, and the
subject at once became one for general
conversation among the railroad and
business men. The HERALD, it will be
remembered, some time ago limited that
such deal was coming off, its informa-
tion being BASED on reliable private
pointers. The notification is a complete
Knockout to all the excursion
managers operating in this section, and
the position will be at once realized after
a brief explain alton. The deal whereby
the Santa Fe cars went into the hands of
Pullman did not, as was at first ex-
pected, do away with the excursion men,
for the Southern Pacific was still rum
ming its own cars in and out of the city,
and they at once transferred their busi-
ness to the lines operating over that sys-
tenn. AS result, the Burlington,
Rock Island, Walkers, Union Pacific,
Denver and Rio Grande, Phillips and
sunset agencies, all continued to adver-
tize and send out parties, the equipment
in each case being free of charge, and
the Santa Fe felt that it had been left out
in the cold on the proposition, for it had
to make its Pullman charges to every
one it sent out, whereas the other rail-
road men were sending out parties with
out extra charge. But now both the
transcontinental roads running out Of
this city are put on the same basis, and
the excursion men are as efectually
olockaded on the s. P. as on the Santa
Fe. III they now wish to send passen-
ger out of this city on ''free-of-charge"
basis, they will have to purchase for him
q Pullman ticket out of their own pockets,
or else he will be put off the train
by the Pullman conductor, who will
now have control oTer every car
on the train, except the day coaches,
and in these no overland passenger could
travel, for there are no sleeping accom-
modations. Then, again, comes up the
proposition OF supposing the excursion
man does pay Pullman's charges, which
are $3 per capita to the river and $4 to
Chicago, will not this be regarded as
cutting OF rates? as it will mean giving a
passenger a $33 or a $34 ticket for $50,
and rate-cutting is nominated as thing
of the past by virtue of what is known as
the gentleman's agreement entered into
by the roads represented in the
last convention held by the
Transcontinental Association. There
seems, therefore, no way out of the dif.
fculty, and yesterday afternoon Mr..
Smurr issued an order Withdrawing the
notification of any more Sunset excur-
sions, only those already booked being
admissible, and thus meaning that the
last tourist parties are on the road. In
quiries at the other excursion agencies
by HERALD man showed that the man
ayers thereof were ali befogged, and
the general opinion expressed by them
was that they would do nothing
in the matter until they had official in
structions from their individual head
quarters. 'I hate to book anyone for
one of our excursions now, though" said
one of the agents, s'because do not see
how am going to get him out of town,
because all of the tourist-cars will be
Pullman's."
The new order went into effect at once,
and all tourist cars now running over the
Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and
Santa Fe roads are therefore controlled
by Pullman. Business men gener-
ally received the news with re-
gret, because they said the withdrawal of
the excursion agencies does away to a
great extent with the liberal advertising
Los Angeles has received in the East by
these special managers as the lines now
will not have extra inducements to bring
their passengers to this part of the coun-
not, for as it has no competitor in the
northern or central part of the State, it is
to its interest to have its patrons there.