Arizona republican., 1920-03-16

MIAMI Fla March 6.-Miami had a jitney service which is said by >wldely travelled persons to be one of the best in the United States. But this jitney service has a greater distinction than that It has fought two corporations and the city council and licked them all. It now parks its cars on the street car tracks, which are mementos or d dead enterprise and it has also put a bus line out of business. These giant killing feats it accomplished in dra- matic struggle by reason of having the people back of it. The Miamans liked thoir little jitney service and they re- fused to let it die.
 This battle between the independent jitney operators and the street car and other corporations is of course an old story. The same fight has been fought in scores of cities. But almost, if not quite everywhere else, the corporations have won out. In these United States, for some reason, corporations almost invariably win out against independent operators of any kind. Organized money seems to command the sympa- thy of judges and legislators to an al- most incredible extent, and the public seldom has nerve enough to take a hand in the game. Here the legislators sympathized with the corporations too, but the public made its wishes in the matter most clearly known, literally
  own hands. It is refreshing to discover one instance in which the little fellows won out.
 It would appear that the street car service n Miami, however. was never a very big fellow and certainly not very efficient one. It is said that the people used to run to their doors to watch the street cars go by, it happened so seldom. None the less, old citizens remember that way back about 1917 the street car company made some kind of an attempt to have the Jieneys put out of business and that the at tempt failed. Then the car barn and all of the street cars burned up, and the car company was out of the run ming.
 It was then that the real enemy of the jitney drivers. was organized in the form of a bus company which pro- posed to operate large motor buses over the same routes the jitneys tras- eled It is said that they intended to charge ten cents for exactly the same trips that were costing the citizens nickel in the jitneys. It is also said that they had signs all painted and ready for use. charging quarter Tor trip that could be made in jitney for q dime But it never got chance to use these signs.
 About the time the bus company was organized the town council passed a law which placed a variety of limita- tions upon the operation of jitneys. The most formidable of these made it nec- essary for each driver Of a jitney to furnish bond for the good behavior of himself and his car in the sum of sev- cral thousand dollars. It was a sum which no iitney driver could possibly pay It was intended and expected by some people to be the death of the Miami jitney service.
 l., T,x. {I... f1r1e- put eight buses into operation with the fare fixed at a dime where the jitneys had charged a nickel But the buses immediately encountered the formid- able difficulty that almost nobody would ride in them. They made their regular and scheduled trips in lonely and empty state.
 Meantime. all of the jitneys reap peared on the street It was against the law for them to operate for hire without having put up that prohibitive bond, so they did not operate for hire. Instead. each of them carried sign saying Free Union Jitney," and gen. eral invitation was extended to all the good people of Miami to ride wherever tIey wanted to go for nothing.
 The jitneys had already commanded a good deal of popular sympathy, and now they won the town folk over com pletely. Everyone rode in the free union 1itneyS, and no one fOde III the DuseS. When he got out of jitney, the pas senger threw his fare on the seat and in order to show that he was on the side of the independent operator and the five-cent ride, he often left quar- ter or fifty-cent piece instead of nickel The jitney operators made more money giving free rides than they everl did charging a regular scale of fares
 Meantime, the jitney operators, who had organized themselves into Local No 494 of the International Brother hood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stable men and Helpers. went into court and found a judge who declared that the ordinance compelling them to put up a bond was unconstitutional. They then resumed operation at the usual fares The buses, in order to meet this competition, came down in fare to five cents, but even at that price they