Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-20
THE P. r. rs SKIP.STOP LOGIC;
WHAT IT REALLY PORTENDS

NOBOD1 who KNOWS the infamous MS
~ tory of the Philadelphia Rapid Tran
sit Company and its underlying corpora
tons is. going to be taken in by its pres
cnt clumsy and Clownish ~maneuvering
over the skip-stop question. But lest
there may be ignorance on this point
among some of the very estimable mem
bers of the Committee Of Thirteen who
have submitted their good names to the
uses and possible abuses of this effort to
put over on the public for purely mer-
cenary motives a subtraction of service
that is at once deadly to pedestrians and
irritating to passengers, it may be we'll
to discuss the subject clearly and with
out mincing language.
The first act Of this committee was to
hold a secret meeting at which it elected
as it's chairman the chairman of the
State Public Service Commission, which
is supposed to be investigating the stand
ing and credibility Of the P. r. T. along
fundamental lines touching the proposed
lease with the city. W. D. B. Ainey is
the gentleman referred to and his mere
acceptance of service on such a commit
tee, quite apart from taking the chair
manship, shows an utter lack of compre-
hension of his official relation to the COM
pany, a deplorable want of taste both on
his part and on the part of those who
prevailed upon him to serve and an alb
sence of understanding by his fellow
committee members at the very first
stage in their proceedings of what is
fitting and proper. Already complaints
are pending before his commission which
he must later help to adjudicate.
But let that pass.
The second act of the committee was
to receive a communication in the nature
of instructions from Thomas Z. Mitten,
president of the company, which in itself
is a wholly disingenuous presentation of
the situation they are expected to eluci-
date and is evidently intended to preju-
dice their minds at the outset to such an
extent that they will be unable to see
the public side Of the controversy when
it is presented-if it ever shall be fairly.
The third act of the committee was to
authorize the secretary to invite the pub
fishers of the four Philadelphia papers,
which have been bold enough to tell the
P. R. T. management, to appear before
that body at a meeting this afternoon
with such evidence as you may have to
support, to justify or s~ubstantiate the
charges which your paper has made that
deaths were caused by skip-stops."
OF all the impudent efforts by the
p. R. T. in the past to impose upon the
people of Philadelphia, this is the most
ludicrous.. Plainly, Mr.. Mitten wants to
confuse the issue. He wants to direct
attention away from the relatives and
friends of the victims whose lives were
ground out by his street cars at skip
stop crossings and turn this into a quar-
rel between his company and the news
papers. He wants to make it appear
hat there is some malicious or intrigu-
ing purpose behind the %outspoken criti-
cisms of his laundering management and
thinks he can do so by o~bscuring the
fact that the newspapers ne mentioned
were merely recording the opinion of the
great riding public upon whose nickels
he has to depend to earn that 5 per cent
dividend and pile up further that four
million dollar surplus of which Mr.. f. T.
Stotesbury is so proud,
And, strangest Of all, the committee
appears to have been meekly led into
this deception!
OF course, the evidence of whether the
skip-stops caused the recent deaths re-
ported in the newspapers is readily OBJ
tainable first-hsnd, relative, relevant and
germane, from the eye-witnesses of the
accidents, whose names were listed by
the police and whose statements will
probably be found carefully compiled in
the claim department of the p. r. t.
il they have not been conveniently
pigeon-holed or eliminated by the famil-
lar settlement" The Coroner's court
and the police courts where the impli-
Gated motormen were arraigned are the
proper places to apply for such ,testi.
mony. 1t seems silly to point this out ia
the members, but it is necessary since
Mr.. Mitten adroitly avoided doing so,
Let the committee go to the obvious
sources and not try to shift response.
bility.
Now al to the skip-stop itself, about
which Mr.. Mitten writes with such
copious but non-illuminating phrases
The milk In that cocoanut is the $250,O0C
which he asserts can be saved yearly in
fuel and maintenance. That is what he
is after. That is why he imported an ex,
pensive set of press agents to hunt out
biblical proverbs and capNh phrases Il
cozen the public withal, and not the
promised Improvement Of the service