Great Falls daily tribune., 1919-01-04
EDITORIAL PAGE
HASKIN LETTER
TO SKIP OR NOT TO SKIP
By FREDERIC ]. HASKIN

istrator Potter informed the city that so
far as he and the fuel administration
was concerned, skip stops might be
abolished at once.
This was hailed joyfully by the news
papers as one of the less renowned
blessings of peace. 1t meant, they said,
fewer drenchings. fewer pay bookings
and fewer old ladies killed on the way
to market. As a war measure the city
would put up with skip stops gladly,
but now it was little short of sinful to
continue them, seeing the damage they
had done. Will it be tomorrow, they
asked, or next day that the Transit
Company will order it's motormen to stop
at every corner?
But in the maftime reporter had
seen one of the company's officials and
got from him q statement saying that
| the company wasn't quite SO sure the
skips ought to be abolished, nor was he
quite sure that the people wanted them
| to be.
Then the storm broke. Four powerful
newspapers cried .tperfidy'. charging
that the traction gang had taken ad-
vantage Of the city's patriotism to put
something over on It. One newspaper
sided with the company, while the rest
maintained an attitude OF critical neu-
trality. The company Indignantly denied
the charges, and said it had demonstrat-
ed its patriotism by not pushing the in
creased fare issue, even when there was
ample justification. 1t pointed out that
with no sign of let-upwi in the overhead
cost of operation the fiVe-cent fare rate
couldn't hold out forever, unless some
sort of retrenchment was made Any
way, it claimed, most of the people We're
IN favor of skip stops, and ANXIOUS TO
keep them.
The anti-skip newspapers did not deny
that skip stops would save more than
81 100000 yearly. as the transit off
cials claimed but expressed confidence
that the passenger would get none OF IT.
They played up the increase IN deaths
from accidents at street crossings, and
each fresh accident was given front page
display with appropriate headlines.
The Transit company then announced
that the passengers themselves shall
finally decide whether skip stops are to
go or to remain. They have appointed
a committee of thirteen to decide
whether the temper Of the public IS
Favorable or unfavorable. It viii make
its decision some time this month.
Meantime both the company and its
! opponents are carrying on active cam
paigns The company got psychologist
70 say that the increase III street cross
ing accidents was dIle to an epidemic OF
the psychosis of wartime recklessness
rather than to skip stops. 1t gave this
fact to its passengers by means OF
bulletins posted in the cars, and followed
it with others. Fresh bulletins are now
being added under the slogan know tbs
Truth and the Truth Shall Make 1ou
Free"
What is happening in Philadelphia is
likely to be repeated all over the coun-
try. As previously stated the skip stor
has become almost universal, but there
lis considerable agitation afoot to MAKE
lit extinct With Philadelphia as radi
ating center the agitation is spreading
thruout the east. in Scranton it ha'
already resulted in the abandonment O.
the skips.
Incidentally. this row over the ques
ton whether TO skip OF not TO skip ma.
, | be counted upon To stimulate the ten
, denry toward municipal ownership o
car lines, which has developed during th'
war.