Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-20
THE PRESENT PRESIDENT.

THE PRESENT PRESIDENT.
Colonel Henry NJ. Watson, President o.
the Association, arrived at the Mononga.
hela House yesterday. He is President ot
the Buffalo Railway Company. Mr.. Wat
son was born in Otsego county, n. Y. His
first connection with street railway busines:
was in 1868. when he went to Buffalo and
became Secretary and Treasurer of the
Buffalo Street Railway Company. After
wards he became President of the company
and in 1890, when all the lines in the city
consolidated, he was elected to the positio n
he now holds. Besides his railway inter
ests. Mr.. Watson is also President of the
Bell Telephone Company, of Buffalo; Presi-
dent of the Railway Manufacturing Com
pany, a trustee OF the Erie County Savings
Bank, director of the Union Fire Insur-
ance Company, a director in the Farmers
and Mechanics Bank, and a director of the
Buffalo and Southwestern Railroad Com
pany. He is exceedingly popular with the
street railway men, and has attended al
most all the conventions.
''Pittsburg is great city," he said in an
interview yesterday. 'Its street railways
are in advance of those in any other city of
its size 1 have ever visited. Buffalo, al
Pittsburg, both in rapid transit and the
number of lines. Electricity, I think, is
the coming power, and the trolley system is
as yet the only successful one. | have a
great deal of money in storage battery COM
panies, from which 1 never expect to
realize anything. The storage sys-
TEN may seem possible to scientists, but in
it's commercial sense it is a failure. Edi-
sons claim that electricity can be carried
through the rails by system that he is now
working on. does not seem to me to be
practical The clay and dirt from the street
will prevent the proper flow of the electric
current and besides do not see how danger
could be prevented. Edison's discovery
may turn out all right, however"
ALLEGHENY IN IT AT FIRST.
Among the best authorities on electrical
appliances that will be in attendance at the
convention, is Colonel Eugene Griffin, of the
Thomson-Houston Company. He is an ex-
army officer, and is popular with whoever
he meets In speaking of electric railways
he gave Allegheny the honor of having been
the first city in which the electric railway
was a practical commercial success. The
road was opened in 1888 by Bentley &
Knight. Continuing Colonel Griffin said:
'The first recorded description of the
electric car is found in the fourth verse of
the second chapter of Nahum: The chariots
shall rage In the streets; they shall jostle
one against another in the broad ways; they
shall seem like torches; they shall run like
lightning Notwithstanding this mention,
continued Mr. Griffin, sit was not until the
Allegheny road was opened that it became
a success. Previous to 1888, electric motors
had been used on several roads. Some of
these were doing well, and have been
prosperous since; but to the public these
were experiments on comparatively small
scale and did little to inspire general con-
fdence.
Referring to the future of street railways,
Mr.. Griffin said that the last census has
clearly shown astrongly marked tendency
of the population to drift toward large
cities.
ADVANTAGES OF BUILDING SUBURBS
''Such condensation of population, he
said, 'would indicate an increase of the
tenement house system in contradistinction
to the cottage system, a crowding Of people
beneath each root, an increase in vice, i'm
misery, crime and the death rate
This can be avoided by the building up of
but each man can only spare a
portion of his time and portion. of his
money to carry him to and from work. Let
us assume that he can spare 80 minutes
morning and evening from his work and can
pay five cents for each trip. If the Euro
pean zone fare system of two cents per mile
D prevailed this would restrict limits radius