Investigation of the Regulation of Motor Vehicle Traffic...

Mr. LANHAM. From your experience and observation here with the automobile traffic, what would be your suggestions with reference to the kind of bill that ought to be presented and in what respect this one should be modified?

Mr. SYME. I wonder if you would let me, with all humility on my part, study that bill and make that suggestion to you in writing? Mr. LANHAM. I would be very glad personally, because I am a mere pedestrian and am simply trying to get-as the other gentlemen of the subcommittee are, I know-at what is really the right thing to be done for the welfare of the city and the citizens.

Mr. SYME. I would be very glad to study the bill just for what it might be worth, and I will go over it with Mr. Batchelder and just make in writing such suggestions as we think might aid you in geting a bill that you would really be pleased with yourselves.

Mr. BATCHELDER. We have the feeling, Mr. Chairman, that a bill covering the District of Columbia and having the sanction of Congress will have an effect throughout the country, and we would like to see as good a bill as possible enacted.

Mr. SYME. This has gotten to be a technical question, essentially a technical question, this matter of regulation of automobiles; and it is just growing in importance every day, and if Mr. Zihlman can get a bill here that in general terms stands as a kind of an automobile fountain of jurisprudence, as you would understand it, then with the light of all the experience they have we can get regulations with the sanction of Congress for the commissioners to act under and a method of handling it here that is really wise and fair and just to everybody, pedestrians and automobilists and business people who have to drive these trucks; and they have had an awful time in the last two years, because they have had to take just any help they could get, and anybody who could drive a car they had to take. If we can have a bill here that has been well studied out I believe it will become a model for the United States; and I believe it will tend more to uniformity in the traffic laws of the United States than any other one thing could possibly do, and that certainly is to be desired. Mr. LANHAM. Do you know of any elements or any factions in the city that could not unite harmoniously for a bill of this character? Is there anything that would thwart by diversion interest the satisfactory presentation of a bill of this character? You know in multitude of counsel there is wisdom.

Mr. SYME. I could not possibly enter that question, but my observation after 35 years here is that whether it is a question of the appointment of a District Commissioner, the jurisdiction and operation of the school board, the appointment of a chief of police, the doing of anything in the world in the District of Columbia, I have never seen the time, and it never has come, and I expect the millenium will be here before it does come, when there were not factions here that would not agree to anything that anybody else wanted to do. I have never seen them get together on any question in my life. I have never seen the bar able to get together on one man to recommend as judge.

Mr. OVERSTREET. That is not unlike other places, after all.

Mr. SYME. Now, I am not criticizing anybody, but I think it is one reason-now, I am not stating my attitude on suffrage one way

or the other; in fact, I don't care one way or the other, but they don't have any vote here, and they have got to have some way to blow off steam, and they have got to have something to blow it off about, and the consequence is they do it on about every question that

comes up.

Mr. LANHAM. There at least ought to be a widespread desire to get a good traffic law?

Mr. SYME. I think there is, and so far as this law is concerned I don't think you are going to have much trouble about that.

Mr. LANHAM. It seems to me this would be one about which there should not be very much division?

Mr. SYME. I think there is less likely to be friction on this than on anything else that I can imagine, but I am not willing to say there would not be friction on this. I don't believe there would be, but I would not say there would not be, and I don't have any diverse interests about it.

I can say right now that I imagine that you are going to find this, from the antecedents and connections, business, social, and otherwise, of certain gentlemen that I see here, that there is going to be quite a clash between the gentleman who drives a private cab for hire and the automobile taxicab company that runs a cab for hire and occupies the streets next to a hotel.

Mr. LANHAM. Still, that is an incidental question that ought to be settled on the grounds of general fairness.

Mr. SYME. I hope that question will be settled quietly, outside of the automobile association, which is looking at this situation in the kindliest light, not affiliated with any faction running automobiles. Mr. ZIHLMAN. The committee will stand adjourned until Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the committee adjourned until 10 a. m. Wednesday, March 17, 1920.)

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE

ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., Wednesday, March 17, 1920. The subcommittee this day met, Hon. Frederick N. Zihlman, presiding.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. The committee will be in order. Mr. Hammerly, who represents the public hackers, advises me that he is going to leave the city, and that he wants to testify before the committee before leaving, so if there is no objection, we will give Mr. Hammerly 15 minutes.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN M. HAMMERLY.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. Will you please state whom you represent? Mr. HAMMERLY. I am a public chauffeur. I am a member of the chauffeurs' association.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. What part of the bill do you want to talk on?

Mr. HAMMERLY. I want to talk on article 18 of the new traffic regulations.

front of the station, and keep the public hacker from driving in front of the station and endangering the lives of thousands of people; and it is worse now than ever, they claim, because up at the west end platforms they continue to circle around, because if they did not they would starve to death. They would never get a job over there, because there are 40 terminal cabs to get the people going to the hotels, and I have seen from 1 to 7 of those great big sightseeing busses lined up out along that pavement to get anybody that wants to take a sight-seeing tour around the city.

I have never heard of an accident at the Union Station caused by a public vehicle driver. I have never seen one over there since I have been there for four years. Yet on one occasion I had my operator's permit revoked for driving too slowly, and my operator's permit was revoked because I endangered the lives of thousands of people by driving slowly. We have traffic regulations that will convict you for driving fast. We have one now that convicts you if you drive less than 7 miles an hour, and from what I understand my permit was revoked for driving even slower than that. I was going not even 4 miles an hour, and I endangered the lives of thousands of people. That is the way that my permit was revoked, and yet on your permit it specifically states that you shall have notification three days prior to the revocation of the permit and a hearing before the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, which was positively refused me. I went and tried to get that hearing after my operator's permit was revoked, and they refused to hear me. I went there with two different attorneys, and the commissioners would not even see me. Mr. LANHAM. In view of the fact that that is private property down there, what recommendation have you to make to the committee on this proposed legislation to remedy the evils that you complain of?

Mr. HAMMERLY. While Judge Hardison's ruling states that it is private property, yet he says it is a public thoroughfare, and must be treated as such. There is about a space of 15 feet from the curb line out there, and I should say 200 feet from the curb line on the east to the west curb line, over to the wall where 40 cars can park. Mr. LANHAM. That is still private property?

Mr. HAMMERLY. But it is a thoroughfare.

Mr. LANHAM. And has been declared a garage, has it not?

Mr. HAMMERLY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. But the hole you speak of is not on the Washington Terminal Co.'s property? You are speaking of that space around Columbus Statue, are you not?

Mr. HAMMERLY. I am speaking about the space between Columbus Statue and the station proper.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. But in the hole is the archway where the taxicabs are?

Mr. HAMMERLY. In the hole is the archway. His decision is that they must not stand in there at all, nobody; that they must treat that as a thoroughfare, even though it is roofed over. Nobody will stand in there, but they will have an advantage over public vehicle drivers for the simple reason that they will place two men there, and they will have their cars directly outside of that hole.

and Mr. Headley were standing there, and just by chance Mr. Collins looked up and hailed me, and I stopped, and he said, "Capt. Headley wants to see you." I said, "I have a fare in my car. I have got to deliver this man to the Munitions Building." I do not know whether I was to wait or not, because he had not told me; but I said, "If I do not have to wait, I will stop on my way back and talk to him." He said, "That will do." He handed me a little paper slip and told me to go around to the first precinct and put up $5 for committing an offense about a month prior to that. I told Mr. Collins that I did not think that was just that I had not violated any law and did not feel justified in putting up $5. He said, "Do it anyhow to clear the thing up. You will get it back in court to-morrow." I said, "It is not only the $5, but I will have to lose a whole day's work to go to court to-morrow for something I have not done." He said, "Do it anyhow." I said, "All right; I will do it."

I went down and put up $5 at the first pecinct, and met Capt. Headley in court next morning, where I stayed from 9 until 2 before that case came up. When the case came up the judge fined me $5 that I had put up. They brought in Mr. Hart to prosecute that one

case.

That is how the public hacker is treated. I did not violate any law. On my word, I had not stopped until that officer stopped me, and then charged me with stopping. That is what we are up against in this city, and we need legislation, and we do not only need this legislation, but we need it properly taken care of; we need policemen who are going to give us a fair and square deal.

Day before yesterday I was standing at the Capitol. I went over and got Senator Smith and started for the Union Station. He lives in Baltimore. The first thing I saw when I got into the driveway at the Union Station was Mr. Newkirk, a policeman who calls himself the king. He is boss, he says, and he is going to be boss. He has told me that hundreds and hundreds of times, and he has made me stand on that stand day after day, without earning 15 cents, because he was the king. He has made our fellows stand over there behind that wall, and whenever we come out he arrests some one of us and prefers false charges against us sometimes.

Anyhow, I went in with Senator Smith, and he shook his finger at me, but that was just for a minute. He did not know I had Senator Smith in my car. He thought I was coming into the hole for a job, but when he saw Senator Smith get out of the car and I came around between the Terminal Co. and the post office he had a big smile on his face.

Yesterday I did the same thing. I did not have Senator Smith, but I had some other Senator or somebody from the Senate side of the Capitol. I was going in the Union Station, and there was Mr. Newkirk there again, conversing with a terminal policemen. Anyone out on the pavement could be murdered, and he would not know anything about it. He is not bothered about anything except to keep the public hacker from making a living at the Union Station. I have been working over there for four years.

That is what we are up against, and there have been statements made here that the situation is worse now than it ever was, and now we will have the anticrabbing law to prevent obstructions in

front of the station, and keep the public hacker from driving in front of the station and endangering the lives of thousands of people; and it is worse now than ever, they claim, because up at the west end platforms they continue to circle around, because if they did not they would starve to death. They would never get a job over there, because there are 40 terminal cabs to get the people going to the hotels, and I have seen from 1 to 7 of those great big sightseeing busses lined up out along that pavement to get anybody that wants to take a sight-seeing tour around the city.

I have never heard of an accident at the Union Station caused by a public vehicle driver. I have never seen one over there since I have been there for four years. Yet on one occasion I had my operator's permit revoked for driving too slowly, and my operator's permit was revoked because I endangered the lives of thousands of people by driving slowly. We have traffic regulations that will convict you for driving fast. We have one now that convicts you if you drive less than 7 miles an hour, and from what I understand my permit was revoked for driving even slower than that. I was going not even 4 miles an hour, and I endangered the lives of thousands of people. That is the way that my permit was revoked, and yet on your permit it specifically states that you shall have notification three days prior to the revocation of the permit and a hearing before the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, which was positively refused me. I went and tried to get that hearing after my operator's permit was revoked, and they refused to hear me. I went there with two different attorneys, and the commissioners would not even see me. Mr. LANHAM. In view of the fact that that is private property down there, what recommendation have you to make to the committee on this proposed legislation to remedy the evils that you complain of?