Who Shot The Streetcars?

[Ocklawaha]

Thought this might be a fun study thread that all of our history sleuths could dig into...

In 1934, the Kiwanis Club spearheaded a campaign to rid Miami of streetcars and modernize the city transit system. The newspaper took up the cry. On the afternoon of October 17, 1939, only hours after receiving official permission, the last trolleys rolled across the causeway, ending the service that had begun nearly 20 years before. In the rush hour the next morning, 30 buses seating 23 passengers each were required to handle the loads that the 12 trolleys, carrying 48 passengers each, had handled the morning before.

On October 8, 1940, a special election granted the Miami Transit Company the authority to run buses throughout the city. The final conversions were set for November, and on the afternoon of November 14, a gala parade, celebrating the passing of the trolley, rolled through downtown Miami. On the unusually cold night of November 16, 1940, the last trolleys rolled along Miami's streets.

Finally, it is interesting to note that initial proposals for the present-day Miami-Dade County Metrorail system called for early construction of a line across MacArthur Causeway through south Miami Beach, following almost the identical route.

SOURCE: http://www.miamidade.gov/transit/about_history_families.asp

JACKSONVILLE - Sold in 1932 - Total Abandonment in 1936

...Members of GM's special unit went to, among others, the Southern Pacific, owner of Los Angeles' Pacific Electric, the world's largest interurban, with 1,500 miles of track, reaching 75 miles from San Bernardino, north to San Fernando, and south to Santa Ana; the New York Central, owner of the New York State Railways, 600 miles of street railways and interurban lines in upstate New York; and the New Haven, owner of 1,500 miles of trolley lines in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

In each case, by threatening to divert lucrative automobile freight to rival carriers, they persuaded the railroad (according to GM's own files) to convert its electric street cars to motor buses -- slow, cramped, foul-smelling vehicles whose inferior performance invariable led riders to purchase automobiles.

As the largest depositor in the nation's leading banks, GM also enjoyed financial leverage over the electric railways, which relied heavily on these banks to supply their capital needs. According to U.S. Department of Justice documents, officials of GM visited banks used by railways in Philadelphia, Dallas, Kansas City and other locations, and, by offering them millions in additional deposits, persuaded their rail clients to convert to motor vehicles.

Where these measures were unavailing, GM formed holding companies to buy up and motorize the railways directly. Thus, it helped organize and finance United Cities Motor Transit as a wholly owned GM subsidiary, as well as Greyhound, Rex Finance, Omnibus Corporation, National City Lines, Pacific City Lines, American City Lines, City Coach Lines, Manning Transportation and numerous other concerns, which acquired rail systems across the country, including those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, San Diego and Oakland.

With officials of Greyhound and National City, it helped acquire and dismantle the $50 million North Shore Line, the fastest electric service in the world, providing Wisconsin's lakeshore cities and Chicago's northern suburbs high-speed access to the downtown loop. With a pack of notorious mobsters, it helped purchase and scrap the street railways serving Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Where rail systems could not be bought, GM bought rail officials instead, giving Cadillacs to those who converted to buses.

And where rail systems were publicly owned and could not be bought, like the municipal railway of St. Petersburg, Florida, GM bought their officials instead, according to FBI files, providing complimentary Cadillacs to those who converted to buses.

(OCK NOTE: DITTO FOR TAMPA, Jacksonville got a GM distribution center)

GM admitted, in court documents, that by the mid-1950s, its agents had canvassed more than 1,000 electric railways and that, of these, they had motorized 90 percent, more than 900 systems...

SOURCE:  http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm

When I was a boy, we used to play "Kick the Can. We'd chalk a baseball diamond in the street and kick a tin can from base to base until somebody caught it. That game reminds me of what E. Jay Quinby did. He was a naval commander during World War II who was still stationed in Key West, Florida, in January 1946 when he "kicked"a 37-page manifesto to home plate in Washington, D.C.

En route, his manifesto detailing a deliberate conspiracy to eliminate electric-powered mass transit in the name of gasoline-powered profits, was kicked to the "bases"of hundreds of mayors, city managers, transit operators, transit engineers, congressmen and newspapers all over America.

"This is an urgent warning to each and every one," Quinby cautioned in the opening paragraph of his document, "that there is a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilitiesâ€"your electric utilities (street car systems)! Who will rebuild them for you?"

There were congressional antitrust hearings and a federal trial, but they weren't taken very seriously. Gasoline was 12 cents a gallon and no one had heard of the ozone layer yet. The corporations were convicted and fined $5,000. The individuals were convicted and fined one dollar each.

In August 1946, Railroad Magazine, reported, "Mass Transportation, a magazine which at one time represented the electric railway industry, recently devoted its front cover, plus the first five pages, to an attempt to smear E. J. Quinby . . . . But why this bitter attack . . . . the magazine attempts to belittle him by pointing out the low-cost edition of [his manifesto]; its cheap grade of paper, and how it was printed in a 'furnace basement.' É.the use of the entire cover and the opening five pages to lampoon Comdr. Quinby is quite amazing."

SOURCE:  http://www.almankoff.com/scandal.shtml

Bradford Snell, who has made a career researching the auto industry for 16 years: In 1922, only one American in ten owned an automobile. (Everyone else used rail.) At that time Alfred P. Sloan (President, General Motors) said, 'Wait a minute, this is a great opportunity. We've got 90 percent of the market out there that we can somehow turn into automobile users. If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars. And if we don't, then General Motors' sales are just going to remain level.'

General Motors / Oil Company ConspiracyThey had to get rid of the streetcars. They wanted the space that the streetcars used for automobiles. They had to find something they could put in place of the streetcar. Sloan had the idea that he wanted to somehow motorize all the major cities in the country. That meant replacing all the street railways with busesóultimately thinking that no one would want to ride the buses and therefore they would buy General Motors automobiles.

Sloan wanted to get in very big in this field. What he bought was phenomenal: the largest bus-operating company in the country and the largest bus-production company. And using that as a foothold, GM moved into Manhattan. They acquired interests in the New York railways and between 1926 and '36 they methodically destroyed the rails.

SOURCE:  http://www.culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

Any theories on the local shooter? Was Ed Ball involved in this? Mr. Stockton sure was. Who got the big Riverside GM parts center? Who owned it locally?

Want to research the Motor Transit Company, Mr Ingle President, 12-19-32, which took over the JTCO?


OCKLAWAHA