The daily silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1903-1907, 1905-03-03
ANOTHER TRICK.

a San Francisco dispatch contains the
following;
Fully 1000 employees of the Southern
Pacific Company received notice yester~
day that their services were no longer
required. julius Kruttschnitt issued the
order of discharge through II. j. Small OF
this city, the superintendent of motive
power and machinery. These men aver
aged wages of s. per day each. so that
the daily saving in wages to the company
by their dismissal will amount to S4,S0u
or a total of $124, 500 per month of twenty
six working days.
9Th men who have been let out are
from the shops, no trainmen or clerks be
ing affected. In the Sacramento shops
alone fully $50 men are now out of work.
Tn order also affects a lot of men in the
shops in Oakland. Sixteenth street in this
city, Dunsmuir, San Luis Obispo, Los
Angeles. Tucson and E Paso. A little
over 10 per cent of all the shopmen OF
the ~company's lines west of Ell Paso anu
Reno, or 1000 employees. have been
scratched from the pay rolls. In the
shops east of FL Paso the discharges
number 900 men.
THE Hartman road is said to be in
a better financial condition than ever be
fore. Business. both passenger and
freight, is heavy on all Southern Pacific
lines. Net earnings during the present
fiscal year are yielding a surplus of about
s700.0O0 a month. And yet a reduction of
wages of many mechanics n laborers
to the extent of 1924, 800 per month is
deemed absolutely necessary by the Har-
riman people at this aime.
THE officials make haste to explain
that the men have been laid off tenn
porarily, say, perhaps, four or fve
months, and that it is usual for the com
pAny to take some such step almost every
year. Why any shopmen should be dis
missed, they say, is due to the fact that
work in the shops is now very slack and
that a full complement of men in any of
the shops at this time of the year is moi
required.
During the last two years the com
pany has bought many new locomotives
and cars and has completed the bulk of
the work of changing LOCO of its engines
from coal into oil burners. With the
latter work about finished. the services
of a lot of mechanics is, the officials state.
now absolutely unnecessary. Again, much
of the rolling stock being new. ii does
not call for many repairs, and therefore
many other men can easily be dispensed
with for a number of months to come.
1T is known that Hartman and
kruttschnitt think the shop pay rolls
during the past year have been excess
sively large as compared with the two OF
three preceding years, and they want to
equalize matters by materially reducing
them during 1905
1t is not generally known that the line
between Sparks and ogden is no longer
under the direct management of the old
Southern Pacific system, but has been
transferred to the Oregon Short Line and
Oregon Short Line officials manage the
east end of the system. The Oregon
Short Linz people have never had the ex-
p%erience in handling big properties and
are classed among railroad men as a
cheap lot" The Oregon Short Line
keeps up the roadbed and rolling stock.
do all the buying and employ all the la
Dor, but the receipts go into the general
treasury of the Southern Pacific as usual
The effect of Oregon Short Line methods
has been felt in Winnemucca on several
lines and will probably be felt again
in the near future. IAN the traffic will
bear is still the motto and local charge
back" is what keeps. the Southern PACING
mare well groomed and in running trim.
The transferring of a part Of the system
TO Oregon Short Line management is only
another trick to fool the people, and it
has worked TO perfection in the Nevada
legislature this session. Nevada is still
"a bridge" but 1t is an Oregon Short
Line bridge" The change Is yet in It's
experimental stage and the long head of
Traffic Manager John G, Stubs is maxi
ing the people of Nevada pay for the ex-
pertinent.