The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-05-24
MARKET-STREET
COMPANY TRIES
ANOTHER STEAL
Would Defeat the New
Charter.
BUNK0ED ITS BONDHOLDERS
INDUCED TO PURCHASE THAT
WHICH DID NOT EXIST.
MAYOR PheIan Tp+;,,o4o- rl.4 II.
INDUCED TO PURCHASE THAT
WHICH DID NOT EXIST.
Mayor Phelan Intimates That He
Will Use His Veto Against the
Latest Attempt to Rob
the Public.

Robbery perpetrated by the Market
street Railway Company is always con-
dition precedent TO the endeavor to prove
an alibi. The crime has been continuous
Tor years. The attempt to shift the Onus
was made Tuesday. when the Street Com
mittee Of the Board Of Supervisors was
used as a stalking horse for a most out
rageous onslaught on an uususpecting
public After robbing it's own stock.
holders by the use Of methods that would
call for the wiping off the stock Of the
company from any stock board in the
country, the Market-street Railway Com
pany is attempting to sandbag the San
Francisco public into such acquiescence
in the steal as Will make ii presentable in
q court of justice.
The particular robbery referred to is
that where the MarKet-street Railway
Company sold something that it did not
possess. AS the purchaser of the Geary-
street Railway Company il has become
sponsor for an issue of bonds to the
amount of $751; 600 which do not mature
until 1921 These bonds have been sold in
the open market. The Geary-street Rail
way Company has a franchise that runs
till 1908. What becomes of the other
eighteen years represented by the bonds?
Does it take a mathematician to figure
out to what extent the bond purchasers
have been bunkoed? Hardly. Would an
ordinary citizen be convicted of having
obtained money under false pretenses on
the same conditions? Consult the police
records.
In selling bonds calling for conditions
which do not exist and which can exist
only on the baldest speculation. the Mar
ket-street Railway Company is guilty of
the baldest robbery: yet in the face Of il
all it has the assurance to go before the
Board OF Supervisors of a looted city and
ask that Its crimes De made virtues in
order that the public may suffer that its
courts.
pervisors for fifty-year franchise for the
extension of the Geary-street franchise
the Market-street Railway Company
shows the predicament in which il is
placed. II does not come as it should and
ask something that should be granted.
Not bit of it, 1t comes, like the aggre-
cation of criminals that it is, caught in
the act. 1t IS abJect for the time that it
may become domineering in the end. 1t
SAYS to the Supervisors that in the event
that fifty-year franchise is granted Fl
Will surrender the four-year franchise If
still controls. Its own language in the
resolution submitted % the Street Com
mittee shows that. said surrender and
abandonment. nevertheless, to take effect
and be in force only upon the award of a
new franchise over said route as herein
before applied for hat is a nice open
and above board offer of nothing for
something or the people Of San Francisco
never saw one.
In addition. as Mayor PheIan pointed
out yesterday in an interview, it is an
effort TO evade the provisions of the new
charter which the people of San Fran
cisco voted should 90 into effect at the
beginning of the next year. The charter
provides that franchises shall be limited
10 twenty-five years and at the end of
that time the roadbed shall revert to the
city. VIII it succeed? The Mayor init
mates that ii may not.
There, is no doubt he said yesterday
that all ordinances granting franchises
under section IS of the consolidation act
must be submitted TO the Mayor for his
ba he decsnDs Of the Snrs as' SonTt
bear out this Interpretation. whether the
franchises are sought under the act of