New-York tribune., 1919-08-06
Undoing Jake Sharp's Work

Considered in the abstract the state
ment of Lewis Nixon, of the Public Ser
vice Commission, is, of course, admirable.
There should be unified traction service:
the holding company is a pest; franchises
should not be perpetual; fares should
be flexible to meet fluctuations in the
purchasing power of the nickel; the
value of property devoted to the public
service should be ascertained.
But these items in many respects seem
counsels of perfection. There is no clean
slate. We inherit good things from the
past, but also inherit the consequences
of blunders. Moreover, policies we now
rail at were deliberately adopted. Per-
haps our decisions will be no more i'm
peccable than those Of prior decades
When intramural transportation agen-
cies were established it was taken for
granted that definite contract was best
for the public. Companies agreed to pro-
vide specified service for a specified price.
The concession seeker thought the chance
OF gain more than offset the risk of loss
Bargains were made and when outside
conditions added to the purchasing power
OF the nickel traction magnates did not
agitate for flexible fares.
Mayor Hylan in many ways is ridicu-
lous and demagogic-has seemed little
interested in actually serving the public
provided that by disservice and by an
peals to ignorance, selfishness and preju-
dice he might get things satisfying to his
ambition. But a bargain is a bargain,
and his insistence that the rough side of
one should be endured by those who en-
Joyed its smooth side is a position not
easy to assail.
Mr.. Nixon says the city is unable
to acquire the traction systems EXCEPT
through confiscation or abandonment and
that both of these things are impossible.
That the courts will prevent confiscation
is, OF course, certain. But is Mr.. Nixon
sure that the courts, if the question were
before them, would hold that a bargain
whose terms are binding against the city
is not binding against the other party?
That the public may abate it's right to
full pound of flesh is doubtless true. But
will the courts write a new bargain? To
DO so would require an unsettlement of
long established legal principles.
But the public is interested in service
as well as in rates. 1t wants street cars
to run, and it is clear, bargain or no
bargain, that business conducted at a loss
cannot long endure. And it is also clear
to most judgments, if the companies can
not operate for Il five cent fare that the
city cannot; and that thus, though there
be abandonment by the companies and
the city operated, fares would undoubt-
edly go up.
The practical thing, therefore, would
seem to be to postpone academic debate
and to get down to the concrete business
OF llquidating, to the public's advantage,
franchises now practically worthless to
their possessors. There is great oppor-
tunlty to undo the work of Jacob Sharp
1t should be possible not merely to solve
the fare problem, but to recast all the
relations of the city to the surface trac
ton companies
But this policy is not applicable to the
subways. With the subways contracts
are of an essentially different nature
Under them the city holds the bag and
a noncompensatory fare is ultimately at
the expense of the city. The city owns
the subways and the operating companies
have preferences with respect to their in
come, and if six cents is spent to per-
form a service that brings in only five
cents taxpayers must meet the deficit
"Why blame pretty girls for being
bra1nless?' asks one of those persons
1Ih0 dnliuht In .t.,,.4