The San Francisco call., 1906-11-28
CARMEN TESTIFY
To HARDsH|Ps
Tell Arbitration Court of
Defective Equipment and
Numerous Breakdowns
OVERCRoWDED CARS

arbitration proceedings In the car
mems difiealties fHeved again yester-
day. After taekiHg Zip and down in the
dead sea Of scientific terms the wit
nesses began yesterday the tale Of
broken down cars, Irregularities in
the schedule and the crowded foot
board. with which the ordinary unsci-
entifc listener In more familiar than
he is with bust bars" and "synchro-
nizers."
The fourth case. that of the motor
men and conductors. was commenced,
and their story was in tongue under
stood by the people. 1t did take on the
terms of it's science at times. as when
J. Gay, motorman. testified. i gave
her the loop and she blew out on me.
Then I tried to run her into the barn
on her rear end and she blew out
again, so I had TO tow her in." but
even then 1t was difficult to translate
the narrative from experience.
This motorman worked on the Nc
Allister- street line and he told q sorry
tale:
81 had been gripman for eleven
years on McAllister street" he said.
THE rails are too light for the cleo
trio cars. They broke off the f1anges
to make them fit the other wheels.
The line is rough. The brakes are out
of order and the track shoes have
never been put on. The hand brakes
don't work we'll. The grades are very
steep. My shoulder is lame from try
ing to stop my car suddenly. would
be glad to get a day OFF to rest up.
But there are so many blockades on
the line that we all have to work over
time. Then the controllers are blow
ing out. One burned me yesterday.
We have 200 and 800 people on the
cars at time"
LIFETIME IN SERVICE
1t was told slowly and not without
many questions. The witness was a
man well along in years and had given
his best years in the service of the
company whose attorneys are working
to prove that he would be overpaid If
he were given SO for eight hours daily
work. These attorneys, however re-
Trained from cross examining him.
Richard Cornelius, the president of
the Garments Union, was called in the
afternoon and took up the story where
Gay had left off.
Fifty per cent of the men the COM
pany gets do not stay over six
MONTHS he testified. The company
has changed its schedule so that fewer
cars are run and faster time has to be
made. These changes are taking place
all the time. They have a weekday
schedule, a Sunday schedule, rainy
day schedule, cloudy day schedule
and a fair weather schedule so that a
man never knows when the time for
which he is paid will begin unless he
interprets the weather in the same
way the car-starter does.
Many of the runs are so arranged
that the men have to lay off twenty
minutes or an hour in the middle of a
half day and they are not paid for this
time"
Here Major Mclaughlin interrupted
90 of
question:
rs the man compelled to stay inside
the car barn during this twenty min
utes that you speak Off"
The major is the arbitrator appoint
ed by the railroad, and the purport of
his question was that the happy mo-
torman was free to wander over the
city at pleasure during his twenty
minutes off--without pay.
EQUIPMENT VERY BAD
He is not" replied Cornelius, but
he could not get very far from the
car barn in twenty minutes" After
the merriment aroused by this reply
had subsided the witness continued:
The equipment is very bad. Not a
week. has passed since the fire that
men have not come to me with COM
plants that the brakes on their cars
would not work, and l have taken
them up with the company. Many of
the sand boxes on the cars, used to
stop them on slippery tracks, Will not
work. Some of them throw the sand
two or three inches from the track In
others the plugs are out
l deem the liability for accident far
greater with the present equipment. /
think the statistics will prove that.
Many of the cars have no track shoes
l took that up with the company on
complaint OF the men. and they told
met was Mr.. Chapman-that the
track shoes had been torn off by the
new crossing the company is putting
In and they had not had time to put
break used to stop the cars in emer-
gencies.
Some men are relieved at the corner
of Third and Townsend streets and
kentucky: They receive no pay for
the time it takes them to go from one
of these points to another
Conductors have more clerical work
to do than many clerks in. the city. /
consider a motorman should be more
reliable man an than an engineer on
himself. and he has the right of way
The motorman must give every man
the right of way. and he is in danger
ment that he is on the platform.
We are not setting maximum wage
when we ask for eight hours and $3
We are willing that the company
should pay more to the men who have
been with them a long time. But we
ask that as a minimum wage The new
mar. really has the hardest of it. He
is given the hardest runs and has. long
waits between runs
The effect of the present conditions
is that the travel is congested and each
car has more people to carry; that
makes 1T harder for the men.
In cross examination Moore limited
himself to asking Cornelius how old he
was, and how long he had worked for
the company.
]. A. BoYling was called and pre-
sented 312 statements from as many
platform men in the employ of the
United Railroads showing. he said. a
raise of so per cent in the rents they
were paying. 1t seemed. however, that
only one-third of the men had testi-
fed and there was a doubt whether a
complete poll would show the same
percentage.
"SWITCHING BACK NUISANCE.
Moore became very particular on
cross examination and asked the wit
ness how many of the wives of these
men worked themselves, how many
took boarders and how many rented
nd ,anf fa