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traffic in the District of Columbia to protect life and limb. There is no question but what some of these sections will have to be amended, but as a whole the bill meets with the approval of the public-vehicle chauffeurs, commonly known as hackers, in the District. But what we are particularly interested in, Mr. Chairman, is section 18 of the bill which provides that a public vehicle chauffeur shall have an equal right to earn a living in the District of Columbia with the corporation-owned taxicab companies. At the present time, and we are in a position to present the evidence, these men are not in any way, shape, or form given a square deal.

Mr. LANHAM. You mean the private owners of vehicles for hire? Mr. STERNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. Will you please state the number of such vehicles in the District?

Mr. STERNE. We approximate it at 1,500. We get our information from the hack inspector.

Mr. LANHAM. What is the number of vehicles owned by corporations that are used for hire in the District?

Mr. STERNE. My understanding is that the Terminal Taxicab Co. has 100 or more vehicles in use in the District, and the Federal Taxicab Co. probably has a like number, and in addition to that the sight-seeing companies have a number of large cars, a dozen or so. There are also other small companies.

Mr. LANHAM. Of course, the relative number makes no special difference. I simply asked for information.

Mr. STERNE. Now, Mr. Chairman, to conserve time, I will use the term hackers, because that is what they are known as here. For a number of years these men have tried to get conditions under which they can labor and get a fair deal and be able to earn a living, without being pushed from pillar to post as if they were a lot of convicts and were not working under license. There are a lot of things that could be said here, but your time is valuable and so is mine. I am perfectly willing to make affidavit and furnish witnesses to prove the statement that I am going to make. At the Union Station there is a condition that exists which is absolutely unbearable. The Terminal Taxicab Co. has seen fit to erect platforms there, and if you yourself board a car in front of this building to-day and go to the Union Station you are not permitted to land on the curb, but you have to jeopardize your life by landing on the middle platform. If a public vehicle driver attempts to land at the curb he is put under arrest, and invariably when a public vehicle chauffeur is put under arrest the fine is always the maximum, $40. If you will subpoena the desk sergeant of the sixth precinct you will find that when the Terminal Taxicab man violates this rule it is a fine of $2, $3, or $4.

Mr. LANHAM. What is the idea?

Mr. STERNE We believe that the police department, not any one individual, but the system, is wrong, that the Terminal Co. is using influence, over the police department, and that the Terminal Co. seems to believe that they own the property around the Union Station.

Mr. LANHAM. Do all the vehicles, both those controlled by corporations and those run by private individuals, have access to these platforms for loading and unloading?

Mr. STERNE. No, sir. The corporation vehicles are permitted to drive along the curb and unload there, but the private machine must go in the middle and unload.

Mr. LANHAM. By regulations established by whom?

Mr. STERNE. By the Terminal Taxicab Co.

Mr. LANHAM. Who gives them the right to this property there, the exclusive right?

Mr. STERNE. That is what we are objecting to. Who gives the Terminal Taxicab Co. the right to secure, for $65, a garage license which enables them to occupy the public space in front of the Union Station?

Mr. LANHAM. Who gives them that license?

Mr. STERNE It comes from the District government, somewhere, but that is what we are protesting against. These men have protested for years to the District Commissioners, not only these District Commissioners, but to other commissioners. They have protested to the police department and their statements are practically null and void, and they have become so disgusted that they were delighted when they found that section 18 would practically eliminate a condition in the District of Columbia about which they have complained. I realize fully that there must be laws, and I advise these men that they have got to live up to the law, whether it is bad law or a good law.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. Mr. Sterne, as I understand it, the hackers you represent, whose cars are owned by private drivers and not by these corporations, have a right to use this outer platform at the Union Station?

Mr. STERNE. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. That is the only way that you can get into the Union Station?

Mr. STERNE. That is, they have a right to unload their passengers, but if they dare to enter what they call "the hole" on the west side of the Union Station they are immediately put under arrest and fined $40, on a charge of loitering.

Mr. LANHAM. Is that because they are trespassing on property that has been leased by the corporation?

Mr. STERNE. That is our view of it.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. You can not use the space in front of the depot? Mr. STERNE. Absolutely not. That is a police regulation, as I understand it.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. How do they get passengers at the Union Station? Mr. STERNE. That is what I am coming to. In the District of Columbia we naturally must come to Congress with our grievances. We might as well live in Russia as far as having anything to doby our votes, I mean-as to what is going to be done here. I realize it is a long, long lane from this committee to the White House, in order to get legislation. I fully realize that. But when the Senate, on July 11, 1919, tacked on to the appropriation bill what is known as the anticrabbing law, which provides that no public-vehicle driver shall loiter or drive slow-that the loitering of public hacks or vehicles of all descriptions around and in front of hotels, theaters, and public buildings in the District of Columbia, either by stopping, except to take on or discharge a passenger, or unnecessarily slow driv

ing, is hereby prohibited, and that any driver of any such cab or hack who willfully causes such vehicles to loiter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and be fined not less than $10 nor more than $40, and the District Commissioners are authorized and empowered to make any further regulations, etc.

Now, Mr. Chairman, coming to the point, we contend that the highways the roads and the streets-in the District of Columbia are public thoroughfares, and in front of large hotels in this city and in front of the Union Station no one has the right to say that Ï, as a public-vehicle driver, with a license, complying with the law, shall not stand my cab along that thoroughfare if the corporation cabs have the right to stand there also.

Mr. LANHAM. You all pay the same license fees? I mean a public driver pays the same as the corporation driver?

Mr. STERNE. No, sir; they are not permitted to do hacking; but they do it just the same. They are supposed to do their business from their office, from their garage, and the other witnesses to follow me will show you hundreds of cases to prove that the Terminal Co. and the Federal Co. do a hacking business on the streets of Washington. How are these men going to get a living if they can not stand in front of a hotel, if they can not stand in front of a steamboat wharf, or the Union Station and get any business? How are they going to make any living?

Mr. ZIHLMAN. You did not answer Mr. Lanham's question. Do they pay a higher license fee?

Mr. ORVILLE COTT. We pay a hacking license, and the publicMr. LANHAM (interposing). Who are you and for whom are you speaking?

Mr. COTT. I am secretary treasurer of the Chauffeurs Union.
Mr. LANHAM. Those hackers pay how much?

Mr. COTT. It costs them $10 a year.

Mr. LANHAM. For an individual car?

Mr. COTT. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANHAM. What does it cost for an individual car belonging to a corporation?

Mr. COTT. They pay no license.

Mr. LANHAM. They pay no license?

Mr. COTT. That is, no hacking license.

Mr. LANHAM. What license do they pay?

Mr. COTT. As I understand it, they pay what they call a garage license. That is the only license they pay.

Mr. LANHAM. That does not give them the hacking privliege? Mr. COTT. No, sir; it does not.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. Mr. Sterne, will you proceed.

Mr. STERNE. Having had some experience in trying to get information quickly from the District Building, and I have been a resident of this city since I was 7 years of age, I asked Mr. Zihlman if he would not try to get, through the corporation counsel, some information, and on January 28 Commissioner Louis Brownlow sent Mr. Zihlman this communication and inclosed therein a copy of a communication from Corporation Counsel F. H. Stephen. I will not take up your time by reading it but I would like to ask permission to incorporate it in the record, if it is not objected to. How

ever, I would like to call your attention to Mr. Stephen's last statement in that letter. This reviews the court's decisions that have come up from time to time where men have been accused of violating the hacking regulations.

(The letter in full is as follows:)

COMMISSIONERS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
Washington, January 28, 1920.

MY DEAR MR. ZIHLMAN: In reply to your letter of January 20, I inclose a memorandum prepared for me by the corporation counsel.

If there is any further information that you desire on the subject, I will be glad to obtain it for you if possible.

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If by the language of the first paragraph of Mr. Zihlman's letter of January 20. 1920, we are to understand that by the terms "large taxicab companies of the District" that he refers to companies which have been in the habit under some agreement with the hotel companies of stationing their vehicles in front of the hotels for the use of guests thereof, then this matter was disposed of by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in the case of Willard Hotel Co. r. District of Columbia, reported in the 23 Appeals D. C., page 272, etc. I assume that what Mr. Zihlman has in mind is a state of facts identical with the facts of that case, as it has often been a subject of question by the public, by what right this exclusive use of the adjacent street was permitted the hotel companies for its cabs and motor cars.

The matter in a nutshell concerning the court of appeals' decision is found on page 284 of the above volume, and a paragraph is here quoted in full from that page, as that paragraph seems to cover the field of the decision:

"Holding, as we do, that the owner of adjacent property, be he private individual, merchant, hotel keeper, or what not, is entitled to privileges and immunities in the public highway in front of his premises to somewhat greater extent that the general public or any other person, we must, however, reiterate the caution that such adjacent owner's use of the highway is necessarily subject to reasonable regulation thereof by the public authorities, and that we are not to be understood by anything that has here been said as holding that his rights are beyond such regulation. What we mean to hold in the present case is that, subject to all reasonable regulation by the public authorities to prevent the use from becoming excessive, the hotel company has the right to station and maintain its own carriages on the street in front of its own premises for the transaction of its own business and the accommodation of its own guests, without violation of any existing law or municipal ordinance."

Another opinion of the court of appeals dealing with this same subject was handed down November 4, 1918, in the cases of Ryan v. District of Columbia, and Lemphie v. District of Columbia, reported in the 46 Washington Law Reporter, at page 710. The evidence in the cases displayed that Lemphie and Ryan, when arrested and charged with stopping and loitering while seeking employment were wearing public hack badges and had stopped their automobiles close to the curb at the Willard Hotel, Lemphie at the time displaying on his car a "For hire" sign. The length of time these men had sat at the curb did not appear. The court, construing paragraph 32 of section 7, article 4, of the Police Regulations of July 31, 1915 (which paragraph recites that the fact that a "public hack or cab displayed a device to indicate that such hack or cab is not engaged shall not of itself be considered as soliciting patronage"), held that this paragraph in itself was an answer to the prosecution and should have brought about the dismissal of the cases in the trial court (police court). The court further indicated that the fact that a hackman placed his vehicle at the curb near a hotel did not necessarily indicate he was seeking employment, and a conclusion from the

opinion of the court in this case would seem to be that if public hackmen stopped their vehicles near the curb at or near hotels and do not openly seek patronage, there is no violation of law.

This subject is further treated in section 12 of the act approved July 11, 1919 (District of Columbia act), which section makes it a misdemeanor punishable by fine and possible revocation of license to loiter, either by stopping except to take on or discharge a passenger, or unnecessarily slow driving around or in front of the hotels, theaters, or public buildings in the District of Columbia; and the section in terms is made applicable to public cabs and hacks or vehicles of any description. This section is unquestionably directed to the matter Mr. Zihlman has in mind, and I am advised by Mr. Hart that prosecutions for violation of the terms of this section have been instituted in the District branch of the police court, one prosecution being brought against the driver of a public vehicle other than a taxicab leased by the hotel, and another prosecution against a taxicab the property of the Terminal Taxicab Co. Both of these cases have been heard in the police court, and Mr. Hart advised me that Judge Hardison reserved his decision thereon, but has indicated an intention to decide these cases within the next week or 10 days. In any event, these cases will eventually be passed on by the Court of Appeals, as either the District of Columbia or the defendant will appeal accordingly as the decision is given.

It is suggested in view of the above that Mr. Zihlman be advised that there is no regulation or order of the commissioners permitting the hotel companies to occupy the public streets adjacent to their premises with vehicles leased by them from private owners or companies and intended for the use of the hotel guests, but that on the contrary, the commissioners have endeavored to break up such a practice, only to be met with the decision of the court of appeals in the case above referred to, and that the commissioners have further endeavored to put into operation the terms of the act of July 11, 1919, and have done all that can be done under the circumstances to enforce the provisions of that law by instituting prosecutions which are now awaiting the decision of the judge of the police court.

F. H. STEPHENS,

Corporation Counsel.

Mr. LANHAM. What is the decision to which he refers in the last paragraph?

Mr. STERNE. About the taxicab companies occupying the thoroughfares in Washington in violation of law. We have waited some twenty-odd weeks for a decision from the police court. The court processes are so slow. These men that I represent are poor men. They have no money to go out and hire a lawyer to fight their cases. We believe that their only redress is through section 18 of this bill. Now, I grant that the commissioners have a right to provide a hack stand; I grant that the commissioners have a right to revoke a man's license if he is drunk on his car, if he violates any regulation, or has his light out, or is speeding; I grant that the commissioners ought to put those men out of business if they can not comply with the law. But I say that they ought to have a right to make a living in competition with these corporations equally and not be discriminated against on every little whim that the hack inspector happens to pick up and try to enforce.

Now, as people living in Washington know, there are hack stands provided on Pennsylvania Avenue between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets; there are hack stands provided near the Raleigh Hotel and around the Columbus Monument at the Union Station, and away from business at other points in the city. Those are supposed to be hack stands. I do not know, but I understand that there are many thousands of vehicles in the city of Washington. I do not know how many we have of all descriptions. These men are given a license to

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