The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-07-06

pany has borne its full share by eliminating
from its estimates the use of capital and
machinery, and in many cases going even
below that and taking work at considerable
loss, notably the fifty-fve Long Island cars
which was the first large order of passenger
cars let since the great depression and
which was sought for by practically all the
leading car builders in the country. My
anxiety to secure that order, SO as to put
as many men at work as possible, was such
that put in bid at more than $500 per
car less than the actual cost to the COM
pany. The 800 stock cars built for the
Northwestern Road and the $50 refrigerator
cars now under construc ton for the same
company, will result in loss of at least $l2
per car. and the twenty-five cars just built
for the Lake Street Elevated Road show a
los of S79 per car. l mention these partic-
ulars SO that you may understand what the
company has done for the mutual interest
and to secure forsthe people at Pullmanyand
vicinity the benefit of the disbursement of
the large sums of money involved in these
and similar contracts, which can be kept
up only by the procurement of new orders
for cars, fol-, as you know, fabout three
fourths of the men must depend upon. con-
sure you that if this company now restores
the wages of the first half of 1898, as you
have asked, it would be most Unfortunate
thing for the men, because there is less than
sixty days of contract work in sight in the
shops under all orders and there is absolute
ly no possibility, in the present condition
of affairs throughout the country, of getting
any more orders for work at prices measured
nv the of Nav 1909 Hinder SI1oh a
scale the works would necessarily closesdown
and the great majority of the employees
be put in idleness. a contingency arousing
my best efforts to avoid.
''To further benefit the people of Pullman
and vicinity, we concentrated all the work
that we could command at that point, by
closing our Detroit shops entirely, and lay
ing off large number of men at our other
repair shops, and gave Pullman the repair
of all cars that could be taken care of there.
also, forsthe further benefit of ourpeople
at Pullman, we have carried on a large sys-
tenn of internal Improvements, having ex-
pended nearly $16o,oO0 since August last in
work which, under normal conditions. would
havesbeen spread over one OF two years.
The policy would be to continue this class
of work to as great an extent as possible,
pIOf1u6lAs Ol COuTSt, LILO Iueu SAOW
a proper appreciation of the situation by
doing whatever they can to help themselves
to tide over the hard times, which are SO
seriously felt in every part of the country.
There has been some complaint made
about rents. AS to this, I would say that
the return to this company on the capital
invested in the Pullman tenements for the
last year and the year before was 8 S2-100
=
in Pullman renting for from Sc to So per
month, and the tenants are relieved from
the usual expenses of exterior cleaning and
the removal of garbage. which is done by
the company. the average amount COL
lected from employees for gas consumed is
about 81 month. To ascertain the exact
amount of water used by tenants, separate
from the amount consumed by the works
we have recently put in meters by which
we find that the water consumed by the
tenants, if paid for at the rate of cents
per 1000 gallons, in accordance with our Or
iginal contract with the village of Hyde
Park, would amount to about $1,000 a
month, almost exactly the rate which we
have charged the tenants, this company as
Stunning the expense of pumping At the
increased rate the city is now charging us
for water we are paying about $500 a
month in excess of the amount charg ed to
the tenants. The present pay rolls at.Pull-
man amount to about $1,000 day.