WEDNESDAY, MAY 27,
THE M011NING ASTOMAN, ASTORIA, OREGON.
,
A
Twenty Years
I'Broomstick Car'' First Appeared Just Two
Decades Ago Now It Is Omnipresent,
Is an Important Factor in Transportation
and Has Opened a Vast Field for Investment
HUSTON, May 26,-Twfiity year
UK o (hit SprinK a lliton direct rail
way innnaKcr went to Kivlinxmtl,
Vu., to iniicct . tlie ni'wly tcnrl
trolley line, There he nnw 22 mot
ormen, one aft cr the nthrr, mart
their car (rom the cur burn ami go
ImziitK up hill nnil down through
the city utrccu. The upectucle wan
something newin street railroading.
The Richmond line, the first prac
tical application mi any scale of the
principle of the overhead trolley, had
been in operation itince February 11,
1W$, Of it Micecwi there was no
)iitition. The HuHtoiiian went home
to take immediate lep for the in
Hallution of a trolley ytcm on one
of the line lending outward from the
Hub, Ronton wan thin the first very
large city of the United State to be-
2. The Intcrurban Electric Train,
Which Carries Both Passen
gers and Kxprcss, Is the I ligh
cst Development of Modern
Transportation.
S. The " Semi-Convertible " Car,
with Air Brakes, Folding Steps
and Inclosed Platform, the
Last Word in City Street Car
Service, Is a Closed Vehicle
in Winter and an Open One
in Summer.
gin to electrify its street car services.
Since then in the brief space of two
decades there have been built in this
country alone trolley roads which
carry more than live billion passen
gers annually.
If one person had to do all the trol-
ley tripping for all his fellow Amer
icans he would travel in a straight line
more than fifty thousand times around
the earth. In order to finish his task
in a single year he would have to go
day and night at a rate of about ISO,
000 miles an hour say two thousand
times as fast as the human voice is
carried through the air. At the pres
ent rate of growth of the industry he
would be obliged a few years hence
to exceed the velocity with which the
light leaps from sun to planet.
All this in twenty years. The mod
ern world moves fast. Men who
would resent Dr. Osier's chloroform
ing were students at Harvard Uni
versity a little less than two decades
ago when the plush seated vehicles
remodelled from horse cars and pro
vided with motors and controllers.be
gan to zip to the accompaniment of
sparks from the overhead wire along
Main street into Bowdoin Square,
Boston. That and one other were
the only electric lines in the country
beside the one at Richmond. Today
the student in any of the New Eng
land universities can travel by trolley
far into the middle west or to a con
siderable distance southward or
northward along the coast.
Often as the story of trolley de
velopment has been told, the rapid
itv with which it has taken place is
not always appreciated. This sort of
lectric transportation is not yet of
age. Within the life time of a boy
the horse has been retired. Because
Iff -WsJkzfiz'
JpH if
JSmm
of
Trolley Tripping
of the inconvenience of animal power
an a motive .street car managers ev
erywhere a few years ago were eag
erly watching the outcome of exper
iment with electric traction, for
years they had kept watch on the
pioneer effort: Thomas Davenport's
little circular toy railroad shown at
Springfield, Ma., in IMS; Professor
Mose fi. Farmer's car propelled from
a nitric acid battery in 1847; Thomas
Hall's toy motor car on a 40-foot
track, the marvel of visitors at Char
itable Mechanic's Fair at BoMon,
IK57; Professor C. G. Page's trial
motor car run over the Washington
and Baltimore railroad line in 1879;
the trial motor cars experimented up
on by the wizard of Mcnlo Park in
the early eighties; Leo Daft's exper
imental roads experimented at Coney
Tha
1.
Island and Mechanic's Institute Fair
at Boston in 1884; Chas. J.' Van De
pocles' demonstration line at the New
Orleans Exposition of 1885; John C.
Henry's Kansas City Independence
line, first exemplifying the overhead
wire system with a rod which the
management of the road called a
(roller but which the employees
called the trolley, fixing the name of
the system for all time. When fi
nally Frank J. Sprague's line at
Richmond was declared successful
practical men all over the country
were eager to make the change as
soon as possible.
To help them do this it happened
that within a very few years after the
first successful operation at Richmond
a great deal of money became avail
able for what appeared certain to be
come a profitable form of invest
ment. The steam railroads in the
early nineties seem to have been pret
ty well constructed. Many of them
were no longer so profitable as a few
decades before. Particularly in New
England, where so many of the great
continental lines were projected, and
to an extent elsewhere, owners of
railway stocks were beginning to
sell their holdings and to re-invest in
electrical enterprises. Telephone se
curities appealed to many, with the
result that today, as President Vail
has recently shown, more than three
fourths of the share capital of the
parent company of the Bell system
is held in New England.
Many others, particularly during
the dull times about 1892 and 1893,
put capital, for which there were but
small dividends in the established in
dustrial enterprises, into trolley pro
jects. Electric street car systems
were installed in all the more popu-
lout cities, after superceding the
cable cars which had been invented
about 1873, Frequently there were
several little electric traction compan
ies in a city; later came such -onsoli-dntioni
in the direction of efficiency
as the Boston Elevated Railway Com
pany, the Detroit United Railway
Company, the New Orleans Railways
Company, the United Railways and
Klcctric Company of Baltimore and
many others. Toward the end of the
nineties came the beginning of the
great intcrurban systems of the Mid
dle West, one of the most prominent
promoted by a New England inter
est which has since come to grief, but
most of them successfully and con
servatively financed. The whole
country had awakened to a percep
tion that the trolley was going
further. Figures told a remarkable
growth. Some 8,000 miles of track in
1890 bad expanded to nearly 23,000
in 1902. The number of fare passen
gers had more than doubled in 12
years. The number of employees be
came an army twice the size of the
standing army of the United States.
The time came early when not only
the largest cities and their suburbs
were seen to offer a field for elec
trical equipment but places of from
twenty to two hundred thousand as
well. Capital from the eastern money
markets was on the lookout for in
vestment in traction enterprises in
promising cities of the West and
Progress of Twenty Years.
The Old-Time Horse Car,
Now a Relic of the Dark Ages,
is Falling into Decay in the
Back Lots.
South. With astonishing rapidity",
the slow moving "hayburners," as the
mule cars were called in southern
places, were retired in favor of mod
ern electric conveyances. Such
cities as Savannah, Columbus, Dallas,
Houston, Tampa, Birmingham, Knox
ville, Jacksonville, Key West, El Paso
and many more were given modern
transportation, usually by co-operation
of local and eastern capital. The
New Englander is traditionally a
close student of the growth of the
country; wherever it has seemed to
him that an important city is in pro
cess of upbuilding there he has in
vested his savings. Investors in
other sections have frequently got
the benefit of his shrewd guesses.
This movement, still going on, has
become tremendous considering that
it is only twenty years from the very
beginning of the trolley system and
What Women Need
Something to put the blood in good order when they are pale and
weak; something to clear the complexion when it is sallow or muddy;
something to strengthen the digestion when food disagrees ; something
to tone the nervous system when it is depleted. That something is
eecliamti
A natural and sufficient remedy for the weaknesses and derange
ments so common among women. A course of these pills will relieve
congested conditions, dispel depression, act mildly on the bowels,
stimulate the liver, increase the red corpuscles in the blood, and
strengthen the functions of the several organs.
For backache, lassitude, low spirits, dizzy spells, weak nerves
and all debilitated conditions, Beecham's Pills are
The Right Remedy
la boxes with lull directions, 10c. and 23c
hardly fifteen years since the princi
ples of scientific equipment of elec
tric systems in growing cities were
developed.. Hundreds of millions of
the savings of thrifty eastern people
have been expended on transporta
tion systems of the United States,
Canada and the island dependencies.
The glacier of Mount Rainier have
been harnessed, the resources of the
nation's "white coal" brought into
usefulness. It was not long since
that an official trained in the Boston
Elevated Railway Company was call
ed to Manila to install a yioroughly
modern street car system in the Phil
ippine capital. Although the elec
tric car service is only twenty years
old, American enterprise has had it
running for about a third of that time
in Americanized Porto Rico. The
business depression of the past few
months has in some respects stimu
lated further trolley building partic
ularly in communities which have not
already been provided with the facil
ities. The vehicles themselves on which
everyday Americans this spring and
summer travel to their Dreamland or
Wonderland or whatever the local
pleasure park is illustrate the quick
ness with which modern inventions
are improved. For the first electric
Jnes in Richmond and Boston horse
cars were slightly remodeled. These
were practically the little abbreviated
boxes with shabby upholsterings that
jogged through the streets of all Am
erican cities. For summer use the
managers of the new electric lines
took the ordinary open cars, invented
in Boston, the cradle seat being a
device of J. E. Rugg, now an official
of the Boston Elevated Company.
Many of the improvements on ele
vated railroad cars, first adopted in
Boston, such as the "easy access"
doors worked by power, have been
applied to the more expensive type
of trolley cars. This means more par
ticularly the "semi-convertibles."
This is the type of car that seems de
stined to be universally used in the
larger centres of population. As late
as the St. Louis Exposition of 1904
the great commodious and comfort
able "semi-convertibles" which trans
ported the crowds to and from the
Fair were more or less of a novelty
to the public, although street car
managements had for years been ad
vocating something of the kind as a
means of avoiding investment in a
double set of cars.
Just what the popular attitude
would be toward them was unknown,
but hundreds of thousands of mcri
cans who visited the Louisiana Pur
chase Exposition liked the semi-convertibles.
They have since then
gained in popularity so that the sum
mer of 1908 finds them in use on many
of the best equipped transportation
lines of the country. Particularly in
such a climate as that of New Eng
land where warmth and cold, sun
shine and rain, succeed each other
almost without warning, such a cor
poration as the Boston Elevated Com
pany has found that they have solved
many of the difficulties of operation.
The various safety devices and con
veniences with which they are pro
vided, as compared with the crude
vehicles that were being installed 20
years ago, demonstrate how rapid
progress has been.
In intensive railroading, with bet
ter co-operation of railroads and trol
ley systems, is believed to lie the
future of electric transportation in
the big centres of population. Ex
periments in the ray of electrifica
tion on the New Haven and other
railroad systems are in that direction.
The next ten years of the trolley will
probably also see a continuation of
the present policy of financial leaders
and engineering experts in developing
the transportation facilities of smaller
but progressive communities.
For a burn or scald apply Chamber
lain's Salve. It will allay the pain
almost instantly and quickly heal the
injured parts. For sale by Frank Hart
and Leading Druggists.
Subscribe for the Morning Astorian.
60c a month by carrier or mail
mU4
OST CARD HALL
Entrance Whitman's BooR Store
$3000PostC3.rdStoc!(
WHOLESALE and RETAIL?
Free writing desk and material in connect
ion, also stamp department: stamps of all
denominations; post cards, books of
stamps and newspaper wrappers sold.
SEE SHOW WINDOW
Whitman s Book Store
ji Hill's Famous Dryers
For the balcony, lawn, fire-escape, wiftdow balcony ; ;
and roof have a world-wide reputation. They are in
a class by themselves. There are no other dryers simi- I
J ; lar or in any way to be classed with the Hill Clothes ; ;
Dryers.
The Foard & Stokes Hardware Co
Incorporated
Successors to Fo-.rd & Stokes Co. o
ttZ
j THE TRENTON A
First-Class Liquors and Cigars
x
Corner Commercial and 14th.
Sherman Transier Co.
HENRY SHERMAN, Manager. "
Hacks, Carriages Baggage Checked and Transferred Tracks and Furnitam
Wagons Pianos Moved, Boxed and Shipped.
433 Commercial Street
SCOW BAY BRASS &
ASTORIA,
HON AND BRASS FOUNDERS
Up-to-Date Sawmill Machinery.
18th and Franklin Are.
STEEL & EWART
Electrical Contractors
Phone Main 3881
To Republican Voters
AN OVERWHELMING majority of Oregon's
voters by registration have formally declared that
they believe in the principles of. the Republican
Party. Let them now show that they are honest
by voting in accordance with their declarations. The
Oregon election comes before the Republican National
Convention. Let every Republican voter in the Second
Congressional District uphold the honor of the Republican
Party in Oregon and strengthen the influence of Oregon's
delegation in the National Convention by voting for
H. M. Cake for United States Senator and W. R. Ellis
for Representative in Congress. If either of these Repub
lican nominees fail of election the primary election system
will be discredited and a return of boss rule will be invited.
The good name of Oregon's delegation to the National
Convention will be placed in a humiliating position. For
the effect it will have on the November election t is
imperative that the Republican nominees in the June elec
tion shall be elected by an overwhelming majority. As
a believer in the principles of the Republican Party it is
your duty to be at the polls June 1st, and vote for
Cake and Ellis.
SECOND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
REPUBLICAN CENT'L COMMITTEE
E. H7FLAGG, Secy. W. E. WILLIAMSON, Chairman
602 Commercial Street
ASTORIA, OREGON X
HIIMMIIMIH
Main Phone 121
OREGON
LAND AND MARINL EKCIKEEBS
Prompt attention given I ill repaii w sk,
. T4 Main 24SI
.... 426 BondZStreet
n
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