Arizona republican., 1909-02-10
DAY
 IN COUNCIL Railway Employees Protest Against Proposed Laws I COMMITTEE HEARING
Morning Sessions in Both Houses Brief, Tame, and Distinguished Only by In- cipient and Unimportant Legislation.

The feature of yesterdays session of the legislature occurrea, paradox ically speaking, after it was all over. It was the hearing by the corpora tions committee of the council in the afternoon on the railroad bills. The proceedings differed from the ordi nary committee hearing in that the meeting was public. All the members of the council were present, many of the house members and the gall cries were well filled Chairman Nor ton presided.
 No special bill was under consider ation, but the entire subject was gone over, though none of the mem bers took part in the discussion eX- cept MesSrs. O'Neill and St. Charles. The meeting was rather for the pur pose of giving the representatives of the organizations of railways an op- portunity to make a formal protest against any or all of the bills, on the ground that no good for anybody is possible while a great deal of harm to organized as well as unorganiZed labor engaged in railroad work would inevitably be hurt.
 The speakers were T.. H. Purcell, conductor of the Fl Paso & South western; J. L. Seamands, conductor of the Southern Pacific; E. R. Me ! Daniel, conductor of the Southern Pacific; N. La Beaume, machinist of the Tucson shobs; w. L. Fox, con ductor of the $. F. P. x F., and W. < { P P'l@no' engineer of the S F. P | The speakers were all given a re- spectful hearing and the members manifested an interest in their state ments-s Conductor Purcell, the first speaker, briefly described the circum- stances under which. the delegation ! had been sent. It was a matter he said which had been discussed in their lOdgerooms where the proposed | legislation was gone over. MT. Pur- cell desired to correct a statement which he said was the product of | ignorance or malice and that was ] that the delegates had come here in the interest of the railroads. There had been he said. no conference be- tween him and his associates on one side and the railroad officials on the other. It was a subject which con- cerned the employees and they had taken it up. The money for the eX- penses of the delegates had been l raised by the various lodges.
 In reply to a question as to the number of union men represented in this territory in this movement he replied that there were more than 22OO.
 The speakers, as all the others were after him, were questioned by l from. Poor's Manual for 1906 and 1907, intended to show that the pro posed reduction of the revenues would be small in comparison with the total revenues of the companies.
 On this point the speakers said that they had no knowledge of the affairs of the companies, but they did know that when there was a falling away of revenues there was a | corresponding falling away of the revenues of the employees. There was nothing theoretical about that; that was a certain condition. Conductor Seamands, who has the run between Tucson and Yuma des- cribed traffic conditions on his divi- sion and said that the passenger business on that line had always been run at a loss. In his opinion if the pending legislation were enacted 1t would mean the taking off of many trains.
 Conductor MDaniel spoke at greater length than any of the Oth- CTS. He said that for months his company had been contemplating the taking off of the international train between Douglas and Tucson and had been prevented from doing so, only by the prayers of the board of trade of Tucson. Mr O'Neill showed I by the manUal that the company was now charging more than four cents a mile; that the earnings per mile of the passenger service was more than the average mile earnings of the road.
 MT. M'Daniel said he was unable to controVert those figures, but the overwhelming fact, more powerful than any figures, was that the com pany was so well convinced that the | train did not pay that it wanted to abandon it. That was something that could not be gainsaid by figures. | Of this fact the business men of Tucson were well aware.
 MT. O'Neill asked Mir M'Daniel to point out some feature of his com mission, bill which he thought would | be iniTnical to union labor. Mir. MDaniel having made no study of the bill said that he could not do so but he said significantly: 'The bill I might not furnish the company with q good reason for doing so but mere excuse to retrench would be sufficient. The retrenchment he said had so far not taken the form of a reduction of wages for under the lagreement the company could not do that. There had always been a lay ing off of crews or a shortening of hours. Tt is the businesszpf the of- lficials of the roads," said Mir. M'Dan- iel ito make a showing to the stock [holders."
 At this point Mir. O'Neill in his questioning from Poor's Manual be- gan to get into deep water. He found that within a certain period there