Birmingham state herald., 1895-11-30
THE CREAM
Pullman Company Has Been Getting and
 the Roads the Skim.

Pullman Company Has Been Getting and
 the Roads the Skim.
 The question of reducing the berth rate on Pullman cars is becoming a pop ular movement. and is heartily indorsed by the majority of railway officials. The Indianapolis Journal says:
 An official of the Pennsylvania com pany, in converse tion yesterday, said This move of D. A. Ford, general pas senger agent of the Pennsylvania lines east of Pittsburg, is all right. The lower berths on long distances should be 2( per cent lower, say $4 Indianapolis tC New York, and upper berths should be reduced In price % per cent, to $1.50 per night, where it is now $2. The Pullman company has been getting the cream of this sleeping car service long enough, and the roads getting the skinned milk. Another thing should be stopped-the giving of tips" to Pullman porters The company should pay them more. As the matter now stands, after the lower berths are all sold it is very difficult to sell the upper berths, even on excursions, and 1t results in hauling unnecessary sleeping cars. Lower prices for the up- per berths would in some measure over come this.
 general passenger agent of another system where Pullmans are run is quoted as saying that he was with the Pennsyl- vania company in this move. Passen- ger men know from their own experience that the uniform rate for upper and low CT berths alike has caused no end of trou- ble. What traveller has ever asked for the reservation of an upper berth? Ev- erybody who uses a Pullman sleeper wants lower berth, and the result is that the upper berth has come to be re- garded as a second-class attrac ction. Ere quently travellers have postponed their trips because they have been unable to secure lower berths. There is a popular aversion to the upper berth, and it would be wise move on' the part of the con- trolling company to fix a lower rate of fare for that convenience. They would profit by it.
 Another prominent railway official says: "The time is fast coming when several of the largest railway corpora tions in the country will be in shape to dictate terms to the Pullman monop- oly, and either compel that organization to reduce it's rates to the public and it's exhorbitant royalty extracted from the railroads or else there will be a move ment on the part of the roads to build their own sleeping and parlor cars. The Pullman company seems to have the rail- road companies at present between the upper and neither millstones. and is not afraid to grind them for all the grinding may be worth The Pennsylvania rail- road, being an enterprising corporation, spends many hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for advertising in the newspapers, and while the Pullman peo- pie get their share of the benefits, it is said that the company never spent cent for advertising of any kind, and never even issued one free pass to a newspaper man."
 President Pullman is reported as say ing he has received no request from the Pennsylvania or any other railroad to reduce the charge for upper berths in sleeping cars. He had heard it said the general passenger agent of the Penn sylvania had asked the general passenger agents in regard to their views as to the advisability of reducing the charge for upper berths 25 cents He could not see what he general passenger agents had to do with the matter. All the roads using Pullman cars were bound by con- tract, and such a thing as making war upon his company if he failed to make reduction was preposterous As far as he knew the managers of nearly all the roads were in favor of keeping the rates as they are. There was no prospect, he said of sleeping-car rates being reduced