The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-12-10
RAILROAD NEWS.
Topeka Ticket Brokers Are Not
Scared.
Say the Council Cannot License
Them Out of Business.
MIR. HENDRICKS TALKS.
Says Railroads Can Compel
Brokers to Quit.
ssPro- Broker" Circulars Are Be-
ing Distributed.
IR. HENDRICKS TALKS.

The ticket brokers of Topeka do not
| take kindly to the recent attack which
| has been made on them by the rail-
ways.
Chas- Hendricks. who is one of the
| principal ticket brokers in town. said
| today:
If the railways should get the coun-
ell to pass an ordinance imposing a
prohibitive license ticket brokerage,
would not stop business 1 would
simply go ahead, allow myself to be ar
rested, and carry the case to the
preme court l would win as sure as 1
should carry up the case. The council
can not license a man out of business
But l do not anticipate that there is
any danger. 1 do not believe that the
council is composed of that kind of
N en-"
Brokers not only in Topeka, but all
over the country, maintain that the at
tacks which the railways make on
them are mostly bluff" and that as a
matter of fact. the roads are not so
very hostile to the brokers after all
1t is a well known fact that railways
frequently put into operation by means
of a friendly broker a cut rate between
certain points for the purpose of get
ting on the inside track of business,
and meet real or fancied cuts by OPP
ponents-
1.-The solution of the ticket brokerage
problem said Mr.. Hendricks today,
rests entirely with the railroads No
legislation is necessary to get rid of
with their passengers, they would in
struct their agents to redeem all I'M
used tickets at their face value This
would drive every ticket broker in the
country out of business. His sole profit
is made by buying tickets at greater
reduction from their face value than he
sells them for. The broker would have
no tickets to sell if the railways re-
deemed them at face, and where no ser
vice is performed it would be the only
honest course for the railroads to pur-
there
ticket brokers; brokers who forge
tickets, and who sell bad tickets. But
they are not recognized as legitimate
members of the business any more
than is a Swindling dry goods merchant
recognized by reliable business men.
The ticket brokers in Chicago recently
convicted of ticket forging are not
members of any brokers' association"
AS a REPUTATION of the campaign of
literature which the railways have
started against ticket brokers, as told
of in last Saturdays State Journal, the
ticket brokers are circulating literature
in defense of their profession. One of
the Topeka ticket brokers is circulating
the following statement, printed under
the head, About the Ticket Brokers'"
Scarcely a day goes by but what
the newspapers contain some article
attacking the business of ticket broker
age. To be sure there are ticket
brokers in this country who are not
honest, but so are there many ticket
agents and railway conductors, and
they are. no doubt, all of them candi-
dates for the penitentiary.
why shouldn't the railways knock
on the ticket broker? One of the lead
ing passenger agents stated a few years
ago at a banquet in New York city
that the brokers of this country saved
the travelling public SIS, 900, 900 every
year, which the railways would get
were there no brokers' Only two years
ago some eastern railway companies
spent over a million dollars to get a law
passed in the New York legislature
making it a crime for any person to
buy or sell a ticket other than through
an authorized agent of the railway
company. A New York City ticket
broker at once went to New York City
ticket office and paid full fare for a
ticket to Albany, which he sold for
81 90 less than he paid for it He was
promptly arrested, put in jail and the
case was carried to the Supreme court
Here it was held that a railway ticket
was the purchasers property and he
could sell it for what he could get, and
the law was therefore unconstitutional.
Recently lady went into a brokers'
office on the avenue holding ticket
from Kansas City to Wichita She told
the broker that the railway agent In
Kansas City had told her she could not
stop at Topeka on her ticket, and as it
was necessary for her to stop here she
a ticket to Topeka. Maybe the railway
agent in Kansas City did not know she
would have been compelled to stop here
had she come on the Santa Fe Plug
any farther West Anyway the rail-
way companies should not charge $500
to Kansas City from this point, because
the fare from here to Lawrence is only
IS cents and from Lawrence to Kan
sas City S1.20, making a total of S1-9S.
Still the railways sell hundreds of tick
cts every month at $500 each.
Many of the railway companies claim
they could make lower rates for large
gatherings were it not for the ticket
brokers' This is not so, for within the
past few weeks the railways have made
the unprecedented low rate of $500 from
Chicago to Buffalo and return The
regular fare is $3.50 each way, or $27
for the round trip. The reason the
railways made this low rate was be-
cause the Buffalo brokers had hundreds
of Chicago tickets they had paid from
$500 to $1,000 each for and which they
must now sell at a loss.
Ticket brokerage is a perfectly 1egi-
innate and honest business and any