The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-01-05
ST. LOUIS PREPARING
ARRANGING TO CARE FOR HOSTS OF
REPUBLICANS NEXT JUNE
Capabilities OF Hotels, Restaurants
and Railways for Handling Wis.,
itors to the Convention City.


| exorbitant rates for rooms during conven-
| tion week. The newspapers Of the city have
| been protesting loudly and the citizens who
went East to get the convention have been
giving out many interviews denying the
| charges. The published stories greatly ex-
aggerate the facts. st. Louis has a great
fall festival every year. and. during the
height of the festivities, the city is so full
that great many people cannot find sleep
ing rooms, while others are glad to pay s..
81 or $ a day for any kind Of accom-
modations. Every hotel in st. Louis fills
its parlors with cots during fair week and
charges the same price for the privilege of
occupying a room with twenty other men or
women as for a single room at any other
season. The same thing is done in every
city in the United States during big gath
erings. That is what ST. Louis is going
to do during the week Of the convention,
and a man who wants a room to himself
will have to pay not only the room rent but
the board of all the other people who might
occupy that room. This will make single
rooms decided luxures. But the regular
rates OF 81 and So a day Will be preserved
at the big hotels for those who are willing
to bunk with one or two or five or ten 9TH
ers. There are many rooms to be had out
side the hotels, though, and good restaurants
without number.
CHEAP LUNCHEoNs.
The dainty luncheon which Is so great
feature Of the landscape in New York and
Philadelphia, and particularly in Washing
ton, is represented here by the "delicates-
sem eating room, where you can get
stomach full while sitting on a stool and
pay only 10 or 10 cents for it, There are
many Of these institutions. Then st. Louis
has an office lunch system which will be
useful during the convention week In feed
ing the enormous crowds of strangers. Sew
eral local concerns put UP box luncheons on
the plan adopted in New York about year
ago. They serve these to Office men regu-
larly or they sell them over the counter
The boys who make delivery to the offices
always have extra !uncheons on hand and
you can stop one Of them the street,
and for 10 cents procure what almost
amounts to a square meal. You get two
good sandwiches, two kinds Of cake Some
thing like coffee cake or sweetened bread
but quite palatable), and either handful
of nuts and raisins or one or two pieces of
fruit. Food supplies OF all kinds are cheap
er here than they are in the East and there
will be no difficulty about feeding everyone
The citizens are talking of making special
preparations for the visiting correspond
ents. They have heard how Minneapolis
fitted up for their use big Office building
which was converted for the season OF
the convention into a hotel. The necessity
for this arose from the lack of hotel accom-
modations. The same reason does not exist
here; yet a great many newspapers have
not engaged quarters at the hotels and
many of these will not feel like paying $40
or $50 a day for the inferior accommoda-
tons now to be had. So the citizens are
discussing the advisability of taking posses
sion of some one Of the big Office buildings
now under construction and fitting it with
working rooms and sleeping rooms and tel
egraph offices for the benefit OF tie news
paper correspondents. St Louis is a great
advertiser and it's people have learned from
the experience of 1888, when the correspond
ents almost without exception. roasted
the city, that the visiting newspaper man
has some power for good or evil.
RAILWAY FACILITIES.
Your correspondent asked DIR. Taussig,
president of the Bridge and Terminal Com
pany, yesterday, how he expected to handle
the trains which would come into the city
during convention week. There was great
congestion of traffic in 1888. But the chief
complaint then and during the knights
Templar conclave was about the delay in
handling the baggage of arriving passen-
gers. During the knights Templar con-
clave, DR.. Taussig says, forty thousand
pieces of baggage were stacked up in the
old sheds which, under the name Of Union
Depot, so long disgraced the city. The aisles
of the station were piled high with them,
a f0 cfr oh ba
confusion for many days. Some people
went away from the city at the end of the |
week without getting their baggage. This
trouble cannot be repeated at the conven-
ton in June, for the new Union Station
here has the finest accommodations for bag
gage, as we'll as passengers. of any station
in the world. "Our capacity for handling
trains is doubled by the building of the
new bridge" said DR.. Taussig to me, land
we will have no difficulty in handling all
the trains promptly" After spending an
hour in the switch tower, / believe this.
Almost all the traffic which now comes into
the Union Station or departs from 1t moves
between the hours of and in the morn
ing and 8 and 10 in the evening. The sta
ton is almost deserted at midday. There
is a fast train of the Pennsylvania con-
nection OF the Chicago limited-which starts
out In the middle Of the day and an express
of the same road arriving at in the
afternoon; but these and few other fast
trains and one or two accommoda tons
comprise the business OF the Union Station
in the middle of the day and the great train
shed, so busy in the morning hours, is al
most deserted. 1t Is In the middle Of the
day that the railroads will arrange to bring
in most of the trains carrying big delega-
tons This will divide up the business of
the Terminal Company, which handles the
incoming trains of all the roads. and at no
time Of day will there be more business to
handle than there is now in the rush
hour of the morning or evening. 1t will be
surprising if the business is not handled
easily and quickly.
During fair week it Is customary for the
railroads TO sidetrack a great many special
trains for day or two. DR.. Taussg tells
me he believes there will be no need CT
sidetrackiag trains during convention week,
he thinks most of the delegates will want
TO go to hotels. But IL there is any such
need. tracks can be made available in a
yard just below the station. This is not
the regular storage yard OF the Terminal
Company, but freight yard, and II Is not
very clean or pleasant place. but
it can be made pleasant If necessary. The
regular storage yards for passenger cars