Los Angeles herald., 1908-05-20
FAVORS SHOWN
FAvORITES BY
THE BOSSES
AoUEDUCT BOARD INvESTl
GATES CHARGES
NO ROOM FOR Los ANGELES
TorLERs
Relatives of Head Men at TehachaP'
Cement Plant Dropped When
the Board Hears Of
Action

why General Chaffee and Chief En-
gineer Mulholland hurried to Tehacha-
pi to find out the cause of the dlscon-
tent among employers of the aqueduct
board at the new cement works became
evident in the preliminary hearing
conducted yesterday by the civil ser
vice commission.
Unless the aqueduct board promptly
disproves the allegations of discharged
employees II Is more than probable the
commission will rescind its action IN
exempting carpenters from the civil
service for the benefit of the aqueduct
board.
Nepotism, favoritism and discrimina-
ton against Los Angeles workingmen
are the principal charges made
The aqueduct officials say in reply
that 1t is all the work of agitators.
A half dozen employees who had re-
Gently been "sent down the road or
discharged, faced the commission yes
terday anxious to reiterate their
charges and demanding that idle
workingmen of Los Angeles be given
chance to earn some of the $23,OO0,O0O
bond money which voters of Los An
geles authorized to construct the aque-
duct.
Hire Their Relatives
1t appears that the father of ono
high official-the aged man being "a
years old--was employed as labor
foreman; the son-in-law of another to
run the storeroom which contained a
few nails and was opened only part
of the day. The father of another
was a carpenter and helper. All had
work. These men, the witnesses say
have just been discharged by the board
of public works, whose members heard
of the nepotism.
The delegation also charged that the
class of material and workmanship be-
L. 4.
superintendentS was extravagantly
fine, entirely unnecessary for tempo
rary homes near a cement plant.
John T.. Parr, as spokesman for the
committee. was interrupted several
times by conflrmatory and explanatory
remarks by his fellow workers at yes
terday's preliminary hearing.
Parr said In part:
For six weeks we have been try
mig to get work at the aqueduct job,
as we were on the civil service list and
thought we should get some recogni-
tion. We were told no men were
wanted.
FINALLY we paid our way to Te-
hachapi and were finally given a
chance by the superintendents.
Get Their Old Hands
Then we found that there was a
standing order for fifteen carpenters.
but it was not filled till a bunch of
men came from Cotton and elsewhere.
These men had worked with some of
the head aqueduct men and knew
them Not one was voter or citizen
of Los Angeles.
"rhen one of our boys said he had
heard a conversation and it would be
we'll for us to put in our best licks.
The scheme was to can the whole Los
Angeles bunch; we knew too much.
First they put us on the job of
Al~
They gave US scraps and odds and
ends to work with; only rarely could
we get horse to pull the timbers and
we had to haul them on our backs for
200 yards sometimes.
"The plan evidently was to make our
labor figure up as high as possible so
as to give reasons for discharge. We
worked hard to save our jobs, but
under the circumstances we could not
make good records.
impending Ak
Pretty soon the order came to fire
us, just as the tip indicated. We were
told that our labor was proving too
costly and I was told that was inter-
fering with discipline. Between our
selves, and not in loud tones 1t Is true
we discussed the evident partiality for
the Cotton men. They were given box
molds to make for setting concrete in
and 1t was their privilege to tear them
apart and make them over If there
were mistakes. Not so with the Los
Angeles boys. We got the crusts.
"It seems strange to us that they
held us off until the men from Cotton,
who brought their families with them,
could come and take hold:
I'VE will make oath when called on
for our testimony"
Chairman Edelman assured the dele
cation that the full commission would
look into the charges.