Republican farmer., 1919-04-11
Adherents of Jitneys
 Take Capitol by Storm
Continued from Page one.)

When MT. Davis had finished, Sem stor Dillon asked if he might oues- ton him The consent was given and he askeE the South Norwalk man. If it is true that trolley concerns in 27 states are in financial difficulties, would you say their stock was wa tered too?"
 ''I know nothing about positions in Kalamazoo or elsewhere said MT. Davis, I'm talking about Connecti- cut
 Do you know how much the salary is of any official of the Connecticut company questioned Senator Dillon.
 'To be frank with you I don't said
 MT. Davis. ''but I will say this. If they are getting five cents a year it lis too much. They are not worth it, and their treatment of the people of Connecticut, after the generous grants given them by this General Assembly is proof of that.''
 Attorney John T. L. Hubbard of this city was the next speaker. He attacked the placing of the jitneys under the commission. EfWe admit jitneys are common carriers" said MT. Hubbard, but We maintain that all common carriers are not public utili- ties. An express wagon, and the so- called taxi, are common carriers. No one suggested placing them under the commission"
 James D. Hart of New Haven said the Public Utilities Commission was nothing more than an adjunct of the trolley company and would do their bidding. They will kill the jitnev or anything else if the trolley company says so," said MT. Hart. T am strongly in favor of the bill that will
 place jitneys under the Jurisdiction of local police authority. What does a member of the commission who lives in the upper part of the state know about conditions in New Ha- ven? I beg and beseach you to con- sider this matter carefully and not to let the trolley company bill go through, but pass the measure which
 would put the jitney under the juris- diction of the local police and Motor
 Vehicle Department"
 Several officials of the jitney driv-
 CTS appeared to oppose one measure and speak for the passage of others. The secretary of the New Haven Jit- ney association said:
 Look what the jitneys have done during the war. They carried ser
 vice men free. Did the trolley com
 pany do that?"
 This brought a howl of laughter and a round of applause. The New Havener also pointed out the number
 of jitney men who were in the service
 and had returned to pursue their oc-
 cupation. A returned soldier also spoke on this subject.
 Captain Wheeler of the Bridgeport
 Police Department, said the police commissioners of this city were
 heartily in favor of the bill giving the control of jitneys to local au- thorities, and asked for its favorable | considera ton.
 President Matssoth of the Park City Bus association made an appeal for the jitney that carried weight with the committee. He said they were perfectly willing to take out insurance and he knew of two companies that would write it. We are willing to do anything that is fair" he said. If the committee would take a trip to | Bridgeport and notice that the Con- necticut company run cars every few minutes on the lines in which jitneys compete, and give the people no ser vice on other lines. they will see that the jitney has delivered the goods We cannot operate under the juris- diction of the public utilities corpora ton.
 Under local jurisdiction and insur.
 ance we will give the people the bes
 service. The insurance will do away with reckless driving and will force the undesirable element out of the business. We don't want them any more than you do. The police o1 the city are better able to handle the jitney than any other body A:
 I said before, we are willing to play
 fair and always have, but don't tuEr us over to the Commission. It would be a death blow.
 The crusade of the jitneys to an6 from Hartford was a spectacular af- fair. Stiff pace was kept up at the start, and the police of several cit ies escorted the procession from toWr line to town line. When several ol the big busses were left in the rear by the fast drive, a halt was called at the outskirts of Berlin. The parade started at 10 a. m yesterday morning and returned tc | Bridgeport nearly 12 hours latSr Large crowds cheered the driver! along the road.
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