Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-12-27
Street Cleaners Busily Engag-
ed in Removing Snow.
INCENTIVE TO INDUSTRY
Pay Of Wagon Drivers Advanced to
So a Day.
HOLIDAY FETES A DRAWBACK
Many Members of Force Fail to Re
port for Duty-Superintend-
ent's Comment.

With more snow threatening and CIV
ing promise of another of those nice.
old-fashioned snowstorms-just the kind
said not to exist any more-Supt. Wood
of the street cleaning department has his
force out on the streets working for all
they are worth in clearing away the al
ready frozen blanket that covered the city
Christmas morning. No work will be
done on cutters today. as those which are
not already opened have frozen up tight
and the gutter plows would not make
much Roadway against the ice
The snow which fell for an hour this
morning will not be taken into considera-
ton until tomorrow morning. That is
where the white wings cleaned up yester-
day and Christmas day will have to be
considered officially clean and free from
snow until tomorrow.
More Pay for Wagon Drivers.
Mr.. Wood got the snow wagon drivers
pay advanced from $1.75 a day to So a
day this morning. That is insignificant
on the face of it. as piece OF news, but
there Is something interesting behind it.
Mr.. Wood wants to make the street
cleaning jobs the premier blue ribbon
jobs-de-luxe-paying just D little more
than any other job of the kind-so that
when a snowstorm ties UP traffic and fills
the streets with ice and slush there will
be rush Of men looking for the jobs on
the street cleaning force. Other cities
pay snow wagon drivers even higher
prices than So q day.
Hold there been premium offered yes
terday and Christmas day there might
have been a different tale to tell of snow
removals on some Of the streets, said Mr..
Wood today.
Festivities Interfere.
Merry Christmas interfered with the
white wings and their general orders to
roust out whenever the snow falls to the
extent of making Supt. Wood very weary
Of life this morning. His speech was
made up Of wise saws on the unreliability
Of the weather and the conduct OF the
average man on holiday.
Members Of the white wings corps are
expected to report for dafy whenever the
snow fall apears to be about over. Even
Christmas makes no exception to this
rule. 1t SO happens that most Of the
white wings corps was on the move con-
siderably the night before Christmas
what with the last-minute shopping and
the reunions and the Efe-saving stations
so when the men woke up late Christ
mas morning it had been noised abroad
that the white wings had grown suddenly
tired.
Supt. Wood and his inspectors had a
tremendous lot Of work to do. They had
TO get the wagons out and all the horses
had tobe roughshod. Nobody suspected
a snowstorm when they went to bed the
night beforehand SO a lot OF work had
to be done before the gutter plows and
= ovelers started to clean up the gut
tiers.
hey did fhe work all right, according
to Commissioner West, who took time
off to jump from various sections of the
city to others just to see what the gane
was doing. He said this morning he
was surprised to see that the inspectors
got SO much work done.
Cause Of the Delay.
The Christmas celebration, deferred by
the work on the cutters, caused all the
white wings to sit up late Christmas
night making up for lost time, SO that
yesterday they were all tired. too. and
no one felt much like work, although the
superintendent and the inspectors were
out at o'clock am driving the force as
fast as 1t would go.
But holiday and day after." said
Mr.. Wood, with tired grOan this morn
ing.
Even at that they cleaned up about 2ut
miles of cutters. The gutter plows are
the real snow eaters, ii seems, and one
of them can be operated at cost OF
$.75 day.
About twenty-four of them were al
work yesterday and Christmas. Out in
the outskirts there were other methods
employed for freeing the cutters from ice
and the concentrated effort was made on
the avenues and heavy traffic streets in
the business section Mr.. Wood said this
morning that half the town had been
covered.