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contract, of course, this contract will not stand." That is the sense of it. That is a release on our part; and we will not hold you to it, and you can not hold us.

Here is what Klein actually does. He sends up a number of cars, as many as he wants, and puts them out on the front. They go ahead and get all the business they can get. It is not what they say they do; it is what they actually do. They have picked them up on the street; and if the Willard Hotel Co. did not agree to it, that has not anything to do with it-they did it.

When people would come down out of the door, whether they bought anything in the Willard Hotel or not, they stretched it to serve their purpose to take the guests of the hotel, because they came out and got in the car and went off. They put the cars up there. They did not undertake to serve that hotel with all the cars they needed, and they have not done it. They have put up what they got. If Klein gets an order from any of his offices, he telephones to the nearest place near that stand and sends them over there, and then marks the ticket "No commission " to the hotel for that passenger— not that they are not marked rightly-and I believe there was an argument between the management of the Willard Hotel and Mr. Klein at one time about Klein not giving the proper amount of commission, and Klein said they were not entitled to it, because it was not business which came from the hotel. In other words, they used the street for a garage or for a stand. I think that the record will show that they have done a lot of business contrary to that decision even-the thing they stand on-notwithstanding they were not entitled to that decision, we will say; but I will show it a little later.

They operated there. I think they owe this District the amount of money they paid these hotels in commission for occupying this public street for these number of years, and that an accounting should be had, and that some regulation or some law should be passed compelling hotels to pay that money back to the District, because they had no right to it. It was gotten unlawfully and gotten through camouflaged arrangements.

I will not bring all this stuff out now, but it can be proven. Here is the Terminal Taxicab Co.'s form of ticket, and it is marked "No commission"; but that is a long story to go into. But there is proof. I can tell you a funny story, but it would not serve for the purpose of myself and others right now. I want them to have what belongs to them.

You will find up at that fork these terminal taxicabs back through there. That is a very narrow space, and you go out with your car and there is no place to park it. If you come along with a public car and stop there to get a passenger, they will come along and hustle you along and run the cars together so the passenger can not get through to get to it. They run their cars up for a passenger, and you can not get through without them running on your rear guard. They have broken three of my cars up for me in a year. If you stop there to let somebody out or get somebody, terminal cars will run into you.

The arrangement between Newkirk and those men there I can prove by the taxicab drivers of the Terminal Co. And the pictures

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show that they put one Terminal taxicab away down in the corner, not giving a hacker a chance to take one off that space.

The sight-seeing cars pay a commission to the Terminal Taxicab Co. for the privilege of standing in the garage. The sight-seeing cars pay them, and they must go through that hole and stay there until they are checked up, and then go off.

Now, I say that in order to correct the situation that exists there it is not absolutely necessary to have any more laws. We want some way to have these laws applied. Apply them where they are.

Now, I can show that every time the commission tries to do someting for you-and they try always-every time the authorities-we will say the commissioners, or whatever it is that has the authoritysay to the Terminal taxicab, or somebody, "Now, if you do not sit down we will spank you," and that is the end of it. It is like a man saying it to his own child, and it passes, and that is the last of it.

If I might ask Mr. Hight a question, which involves his hotel, he said the other day, in answer to a question of Mr. Stern, that Judge Morris had no stock in his company.

Mr. HIGHT. Absolutely none.

Mr. MALTBY. And never had any?

Mr. HIGHT. No.

Mr. MALTBY. What is the name of that company?

Mr. HIGHT. The Willard Hotel Co.

Mr. MALTBY. Who are the principal stockholders?
Mr. HIGHT. That is not material.

Mr. MALTBY. It is very material in this case.

Mr. HIGHT. No; I do not think it is, with regard to Judge Morris. Mr. MALTBY. Well, who are the principal stockholders in the Raleigh Hotel?

Mr. HIGHT. You were asking whether Judge Morris ever held any stock in the Willard Hotel, and he never did hold any.

Mr. MALTBY. I am going to be very plain. The decision affecting hotels, which was called the Willard Hotel decision, affected all the hotels. Judge Morris, on March 1, 1904, decided this case, and it applied to all hotels. Judge Morris died September 12, 1909. Judge Morris made a will June 20, 1904. He had 108 shares of stock of the Columbia Hotel Co., of the par value of $100, but it was valued at $1,250.

Mr. HIGHT. $1,000 a share.

Mr. MALTBY. As the word goes around town, and as most everybody knows now, the Columbia Hotel Co. is composed of men who were in the Willard Hotel Co. The name does not mean anything. The Willard Hotel Co. and the Columbia Hotel Co. are practically the same company.

Mr. HIGHT. They are absolutely not. They are entirely separate corporations. The Willard Hotel Co. has no connection with the Columbia Hotel Co., and the Columbia Hotel Co. has no connection with the Willard Hotel Co.

Mr. MALTBY. Judge Morris had 108 shares of record in this Columbia Hotel Co., which operated the Raleigh Hotel, and he made a decision which affected every hotel company.

Mr. HIGHT. Do you mean to impugn the motives of a judge on the bench in a case involving a few shares of stock in my company?

Mr. MALTBY. $135,000 worth. I am not impugning any motive. Mr. HIGHT. Do you impugn the motives of a judge on this bench? Mr. MALTBY. I am reading the record.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. I do not think that is material testimony in the

case.

Mr. LANHAM. He is now dead, and I do not think we ought to bring in anything of that kind.

Mr. BRADY. There were two other judges on the bench who agreed with him.

Mr. MALTBY. I am referring to the record. He testified that he did not own any stock in the hotel.

Mr. HIGHT. I did not.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. I wish you would confine your testimony to the legislation needed.

Mr. HIGHT. Mr. Maltby made the statement that Judge Morris owned stock in the Willard Hotel. I am president of the Willard Hotel Co., and I deny his statement. My denial has the exact facts.

Mr. MALTBY. There is a reason for public taxicabs at the Union Station, because they rely on the decision mostly in the case of the Parmelee Co., in Chicago, in 1901. The Parmelee Co., in Chicago, in 1901, guaranteed with a bond to maintain all the service necessary at that station; all of it. All right. This company does not agree, nor does it undertake to, nor has it done that. It does not give all the service, so the necessity for a public service is there.

Now, about the rates. There should be competition, for the reason that the public is paying to the Terminal and Federal taxicab companies too much money to run a mile. There are many miles run over here by these cars for 10 cents. The record shows that last year the Terminal Taxicab Co. got 47 and some odd cents per mile. If a public hacker can run a mile for 10 cents or 15 cents or 30 cents, I do not think the Terminal Taxicab Co. is entitled to 48 cents a mile. Mr. LANHAM. How are their rates established?

Mr. MALTBY. The rates are established by the Public Utilities Commission, which is composed of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia.

Mr. LANHAM. Do they give one rate to the taxicab company and another rate to the hacker?

Mr. MALTBY. Yes; but the hackers run on their own price. Some people come down there and get in a Terminal taxicab and go on. Other people, who know, will come out and seek a car that will haul them for less money--one of the hacker's cars. The hacker has the right to charge a certain amount, and because some hackers may be dishonest that has not anything to do with it. I say you can run them for 10 cents a mile. If I am given an equal opportunity, I will go over there and run them for 12 cents a mile, and be perfectly satisfied, and pay my drivers 46 per cent, where they pay theirs 25 and 28. I say the public is paying too much money, and for that reason there should be open, keen competition there, and let everybody get his own level.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. Does the Public Utilities Commission fix your rates?

Mr. MALTBY. Our rates are fixed by the commissioners, I think. Corporation taxicabs have a different rate from ours. While our

rate is apparently high-we will say we charge 70 cents for the first mile-we must carry one or five. They will charge 60 cents for the first mile, but if they carry four people they get more money than we do.

Mr. HIGHT. Is there not a flat rate for everybody? Does not the Public Utilities Commission establish the rate?

Mr. MALTBY. The Public Utilities Commission establishes the rate for the taxicabs with taximeters, but taxicabs which have no taximeters run under this rate card. The taxicab company, as a rule, has taximeters, but they have several cars that they give to their old drivers who have been there a long time, who run on speedometers.

Mr. HIGHT. Let me ask you something, with the permission of the committee. All the Klein cars that have signs in them state what the price per hour of that car is?

Mr. MALTBY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HIGHT. Is not that in accordance with a ruling of the Utilities Commission?

Mr. MALTBY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HIGHT. Do you have the same thing in your cars?

Mr. MALTBY. We have the same thing, but it is made by the District Commissioners, as commissioners.

Mr. HIGHT. Tell me this: Klein has the signs in his cars?

Mr. MALTBY. Yes. You mean he is required by the ruling of the Utilities Commission to have them?

Mr. HIGHT. I presume he is. I do not imagine he would do it unless he was required to do it.

Mr. MALTBY. He does not do it is the point that I make.

Mr. HIGHT. Well, he does.

Mr. MALTBY. All right, I can show you where he does not do it. Mr. HIGHT. Every car of his that I have ridden in, and I have ridden in a thousand of them, more or less, at one time or another, had the sign in them. I suppose there might be one left out occasionally, but do you have those signs in your cars?

Mr. MALTBY. We are required the same as they to have it, but by a different body.

Mr. HIGHT. I am merely asking for information.

Mr. MALTBY. The rates are different.

Mr. HIGHT. Are there two different bodies that establish rates! Mr. MALTBY. The commissioners, as commissioners, make this card for the public hackers. The Utilities Commission, which is composed of the commissioners, the same persons, but in a different capacity, in different meetings, at different times, make the rate for the public utilities which is a different rate. It is an apparently low rate, and it is for one passenger, but when you take two or three passengers they get more money than we do, as a matter of fact.

Mr. HIGHT. Does not the Utilities Commission have jurisdiction over the rates charged by your cars?

Mr. MALTBY. No; we can go under the Utilities Commission any time our business is large enough.

Mr. ZIHLMAN. Not unless you are a corporation?

Mr. MALTBY. No; you do not have to be a corporation. My understanding is that we can go under the Utilities Commission, or they

will require you to go under them where your business is large enough for them to take notice of you. The Barnett Taxicab Co., which has about a $15,000-a-year business, is under the Utilities Commission, but I think he went under it because he is doing business at a hotel. They have always used that shadow to crawl under for protection.

I have had cases down at the police court, but Mr. Dunlop, the president of the company, runs to the Utilities Commission, and goes before the corporation counsel and says: "We are under the Utilities Commission, so it does not apply to us." All right.

I went to the Utilities Commission and said, "These men do not have rate cards," but Mr. Allen, the secretary of the Utilities Commission, said, "We have not passed any laws yet to punish these fellows." That is what we are up against. They have not passed any law to punish them, and until they pass such a law we can not touch them. There are plenty of laws to punish us, and they do not fail to punish us at all. It gets back to this one thing, that is the inactivity on the part of the powers that be, I mean those in responsibility, and this superactivity on the side of the police. They take the private car up, and leave the corporation car standing there, and so far as any price regulating is concerned, they do not fail to violate the law.

Mr. HIGHT. May I ask are your rates regulated at all?
Mr. MALTBY. Yes; they are.

Mr. HIGHT. You have rates that you are obliged to follow?
Mr. MALTBY. Yes.

Mr. HIGHT. But they are different from the corporation rates? Mr. MALTBY. Yes, sir. Now, the plainest thing in the world is speed. Everybody knows that these men do speed. The Terminal Taxicab drivers are not arrested for speeding at this station. The police do not see them. They rush from Twentieth and M Streets right straight through there. I am not charging that up to the officers of the company. They do not want them to speed, but I say they do it. Every one knows that the more speed they make the more money that car produces. The more trips I can make, or the more trips the man can make, the more money I will get out of that same car in a certain time, because they can just keep on going. At the Union Station they have gotten under this cloak of a garage. But they have filed with the Utilities Commission a report which covers their business in every way, and it does not go into the garage business there. If it does I have not been able to discover it. They should report that as a garage business if they do it over there, but they make that stand, and let it stand at that, for all that is a cloak, taking up this business, so they will have an excuse before the court and not be bothered.

Mr. LANHAM. Where is there any structure or garage?

Mr. MALTBY. 1235 Twentieth Street. That is where they keep all their cars, and whenever a car comes out, a driver is always with it. Coming back to the police, a policeman went over to the hack stand and found three or four men standing together in the snow last winter, when it was bitter cold, three or four men huddled together talking and beating their hands against their shoulders, and they arrested them for being 5 feet away from their cars.