St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 14, 1909

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slay is a military @ eS truggle between the i | the Christian Spe irt of the wn “ole in the play is ¢ eiderhahn, who wing asco de Gomez, @ Sr Others in the : °, B. L. Ottenad, « seph F. Koenig, ruckhoff sr., H. J, my eck, Anthony H. Ww, kmann. pee. pers of the cast are ss in St. Louis. High School ig the ¢ lic high school in © * a W ITS VA . erville, ee in te re of Consun tio 4 irs. Would that its value.” (Sign rs, Ursuline ‘father John’s jum, morphine or any form u f the so-ca or their vst iad been impaling oh are 1 against them. Nog, ». Fifty years in ws — ‘ Nee Ss 7s POR tees 4. ¢ on a le patch eens gat you Ww some of the “most | ios hacer peer earta.” for Sale” Wants Today tell of Farm Opportunities | po RR — VOL. 62, NO. 86. k hiskbroomettes Win, "Siting A venue Car Has Been Cleaned! - 5 Some PRING AV. Bet ‘ _ FEMININE TOUCHES —eey a = TOR i fost have WE Love THE PASSENGERS ‘SPRING AV. Car =. 0N 1999 ix 2, ee a cv vA nee Aner —-> 1S WwaaT HAs HAPPENED: FLOR AL DECORATION FOR. REAR re AIR. STRAINER KG ~, AcTHING . DEAR, 1 JUST RODE ON ONE OF THOSE | “CS ou seas es his year. -In- e whiskbrooms 5 itt: nebebsitate alnew style of al vectra The “rat” will be discarded and p colffure will be so arranged as to suggest unconventipnal lines of the mop, The ne handbag vill be replaced by a r duster attached to the belt by links of silver.—Spring Avenue Line Fash- ™ has her suffragettes, militant vomen, who throw stones through the window of the House of Lords, and think n to be carted off to jail because they be temerity to demand a right to vote. is has her whiskbroomettes, who do not c through anything, and who will as eee se long es their actions are in- @ concerted and unalterable opinion or : Hh St. Louis, backed. by equally. strong Pate ne St. Louis and West St. Louis 2 ited Railways Co. is handing’ the peo- fge and acrid specimen cf a citrous fruit to commerce as @ lemon. . ; oasting ‘ects of th. City Council and nbers of the execut:ve committee of brence between the Council and the Hettes is that the Council is always fo do it “next Friday,” and the whisk- Oty > it now. + Council adopted a beankatton:. The t. Louis Improvement Association sent _ Get Busy With Dusters a the women got busy. rg seems probable that these wom- | in’ the Spring avenue line note quoted y @ they won't have to. But the point cannot force the betterment of any other way, they will cheer- Whiskbrooms for aigrett»s, mops for PQuestion is this: Js the United Rail- fallous enough to permit them to do it? ber has’ been banished from its i he hratroe Can, MeCalch take the responsibility of encouraging sh wesc’ would make a. woman ahh 3 ’ . Bs 4 bs ‘wag pote. . remove by § one aplication of civic ‘pride‘and elbow grease. Tired of having their letters ‘of ietnat thrown ‘into the waste basket, they are: ‘prepared to use any legitimate means, no matter. ‘how unconven- tional, to force the United Railways Co. to real-' ize the enormity of its offense in refusing to give adequate transportation facilities to those who ride on the Spring avenue trolley cars. Spring Line Passengers | Get Only Transportation *. ™— am why the hoodoo was put on the Spring & i | } | avenuc line has never been mdde clear to to the residents of northwest. St. Louis.’ Those who are not conversant with the methods of corporations are unworldy-wise enough to think that this -line, if properly conducted, should be one-of the best-paying branches of the United Railways system. ‘It passes through a densely scidadhed district, and its terminal is in a portion of the city which is populated by the best class of small. property holders, whose investments in their little homes represent the savings of years. Thousands ride on the Spring avenue line every day, yet for ‘the nickels which they give to the United Railways Co. they receive practically nothing in the way of comfort, convenience or even cleanliness. A Post-Dispatch reporter and artist, who rode on Spring line cars a few days ago because they had specific instructions to do so, were frankly skeptical when they started on the expedition. “These people haven’t any more cause for com- plaint than those who live on other lines,” said one, ; *No, I guess not,” said the other. So they stood near the fish stand at Union Mar- : ket and waited for a Spring line car. , And they waited. And they waited. And they waited. fo— ic Car Arrived, but It Had es to Jump the Track First @e. «¢ '® IFTEEN minutes passed. A rickety, rattly, dust-begrimed and grease-bespattered craft BOYS in sight. It was a Spring line car. The conductor explained that it! had jumped the track on the way downtown, and he and his motorman had.to wait for the crew of thé next car to help them back on the rails. “Then the next car must be close behind you,” said the reporter. Sing “No, I guess it jumped the track back- there somewhere, too,”’ he muttered. It was noticed that although only half the seats were taken six women stood in the aisle and hung on straps. . ' The conductor was very frank about it. ¢ . “The seats are so dirty they don’t want to sit down,” he said. | At Jefferson avenue a woman boarded the car. Fie esas wae aaa ‘She moved (hacer cag ecg oo cxteaspwetinn i They will ‘insist’ that the scenic railway$.—® Tule which to a lifelong railroad man like : oe, be protected from dust and dirt, she sat down. » “Lots of em do that,” said the conductor. a 2. | No “Thank You’’ on This | | Line; Seats Not Wanted | eo ee i e way and Natural Bridge road and back downtown showed that the statement was true. The investigators were told that in the morning and evening rush hours no man _=§ is thanked for giving his seat to a woman, not be- cause the women do not appreciate the courtesy, RIDE to the end of the line at King’s high-, the risk of ruining their clothing by contact with! the seats. : For several years the statement that the cars! on the Spring line are never washed has been ac-, cepted as literally true by everyone who has rid-¥ den on them. There are other grievances, too. The route, starting at Fourth and Elm streets, is more than seven miles long, and there are, cars run seven minutes apart in the daytime, but t) but because they would rather stand than run X ) "HOPES TO MAKE ST. LOUIE GATEWAY TO WE a J TTHINKK yo VRE "STRONG. ENOUGH Now | BENJAMIN * PAS KEEN. Benjamin McKeen, No. 17 in the Post-Dispatch Limelight Series, Has Been With: the . Vandalia -All His Business ” Career. — ee — — } feel the public pulse every 10 minutes’ or . so. Retail merchants and theatrical: man- °. P OLITICIANS and editors are supported. to, agers hold stop watches on it. Railroad officials, as a class, may not.epend so much time or draw such long breaths in ‘public puise feeling, but St. Louis has ac least one railroad man who has tried it, and has shown the public the result. For a year or more Benjamin McKeen, general ;manager of the Vandalia, studied the question } ) a. eight cars on the line. On an average’ these} ' \ : at night every third car is turned back at Spring| | avenue and Natmral Bridge road, and along the two miles of the route beyond that point the time, space between the cars after 7 p. m. is from cen to fifteen minutes, providing they do not jump the} track. | Figures compiled by the Northwest St. Louis, Improvement Association show that in the last six § months an average of 12 cars a week hae left} the rails. 9 extensive repairs have been made on the! N roadbed for severa] years, members of the} association say, and the condition of the$ track is such that many women and children ney nauseated by the constant jolting, bumping and | ) ! . swaying of the cars. ‘ Property Owners say that ‘the inadequate, street car service to the neighborhoods which must depend on the Spring avenue line for trans-}) portation facilities has kept real estate values in} that portion of the city from increasing as they | have in other sections, where at least a semblance | of proper service has been maintzined. \ Mrs. George Ledbetter organized the whisk-} avenue. The first recruits were Mrs. Frank! Arling, 4961 Margaretta avenue; Mrs. Louis Her-} zog, 4108 North Euclid avenue, and Mrs. E. 8.1 Greenway, 1823 Pierce avenue. i } whether St. Louis was ready to pay the price of progress. Progress, in this case, meant 24-hour train service to New York. The price meant $4 a passenger extra fare. | As long ago as 1905, when the time went down and the fare went up between New York and Chi- cago, McKeen’s Noonday Club friends began to ask him: “Ben, why don’t your people put on one of those fast trains from St. Louis to New York? You’ve got the roadbed and the rolling stock to do it with.” “Quite so,” was the general manager’s reply. “But would you pay excess fare to ride a little b raster?” A pause, usually followed by, “Yes, I would, but [ don’t know whether enough other people would do it to make your train pay.” PROBLEM SOLVED, BY INCREASED BUSINESS ND that was the problem with McKeen. -It A continued to be a problem until last sum- mer. Then he noticed that: things were picking up in the city ticket office of his own line, Q and in those of all other lines. The folder racks had to be refilled twice as often as the summer before and nobody bothered to ask what the sec- ond class rate was. Everybody was traveling, -and- there was no complaint about the cost. son ended, those in the East who had not traveled | elsewhere went to the Hudson-Fulton celebration, )and those in the West flocked to the St. Louis Centennial. The “uppers” ‘were sold out every night, and the Pullman conductor had to give up his cherished bunk jin the stateroom: When everybody had some money for the rail- )roads, it seemed, » good many persons would have a little extra money for them. Hnough per- proom brigade at her home, 4215 North Euclid | i sons to support a train a day, or rather two trains ye day, for it was to be expected that the ‘‘other people’ would put on a new train if the Vandalia- } Pennsylvania did. Mi So, a few weeks ago, after: the necessary ar- Armed with whiskbrooms, feather dusters ana geese with the Eastern end of the system, cloths they jumped on a Spring avenue car ati the end of the line and gave it an old- fashioned ff }) hour part of the proposition “went” so well that none of those who hastened’ to reserve berths tor cleaning. The effect was startling, Next day the United, Railways Co. actually had three of the Spring Line cars washed at its own expense. But the end is not yet, The “whiskbroom-. ) ettes” and the Northwest gt. Louis Improvement Association say -they are going to keep up the, crusade until @ woman can ride ina Spring line | car without ruining her elothes or becoming sea- f McKeen informed the public of the coming test of its prosperity and speed capacity. And the 24: tast Sunday’s initial run sainen to mind the $4 i) | extra. EXTRA FARE PENALTY FOR FAST TRAVELING | HAT there should be extra fare to pay was a} ordained by a rule not’ of McKeen’s mak- ing, probably not of any one man’s making As the summer sea-: mind - ‘when he wrote about the decree of ‘the “moving. finger.” This sort of thing has to wait, as the ritraliee tion of dining cars a few years ago had to walt, until the public is ready for it. When Mr. McKeen decided that St. Louis: was ready for fast time and excess fare, he was. ing also on the territory west of St, Louis. he had this territory, as much as St. Louis, the mind when’ he penciled out the time schedule on which. the Pennsylvania 24-hour trains are now running. FIGURED ON GETTING | BUSINESS FROM WEST F HE started his train from the Union Sta- | tion in the. morning, he figured, the “other people” would start theirs in the. evening. If ‘he gave the St. Louis men a business day here before starting, the “other people’ would give them a business: day in New York on ar- riving. It was an evenly -balanced proposition, pass an i sed both sides of tha river. Mention of the river is a vcaieiee! at - pleasant letter-writing episode between & * MeKeen’s office and the City Hall last when Mr. McKeen notified. th t —Neonpaeg had decided to no “"Pulfiiiment of this p romise so far as St. Louis was concerned, but when he | | looked West -he’ decided in favor of an Poteet train. “What I wanted to do,” he explained to a Post- Dispatch reporter a few days ago, “was to make St, Louis, instead of Chicago, the gateway for Western passenger business to the East. Chicago is naturally the gateway to the Northwest, and this city should be the gateway to and*from the West ‘and Southwest. lt was because it seemed to me that an evening train would better ac- commodate business from Kansas City dnd points further West, that it was decided to have the train leave here at 6 p. m. I wanted to make the time 5 p. m.; but the Western connections would not permit. “Now that we have fast service Bast, it is time to consider whether St. Lodis cannot got: Malis faster service West. Chicago has trains to the West and Northwest which are a!most the equals in speed and equipment of the fastest trains to New York. Why should not St. Louis have wach: trains to the West and Southwest?” teow HIS HOBBY TO MAKE ST. LOUIS A GATEWAY | and McKeen, nave remained mach les to the St. Louis public than certain | hold boxing matches in court, and | im partially lambast the stage, the Dress rest of the public. Mr. McKeen, hove oftice in the Ces > sg MAKE St. Louis the Western 6 sas ‘tall ents ok Mc! the chief hobby of Mr. pm The gate way proposition means to b na ot: “that 20. many paanengors..0 487.1 ‘Station, pages to carry their g ee ee oe ahah sipaanp bet thet 4 be. Phage ane Posed line ‘be santpped McKeen would seem as Lane as the ar - met r A . “5 ct DORR Sey eke ke Vale es De OR A EIR G OR Bale De