[milwaukee-electric] Re: National City Lines.

[Gary Schnabl]

On 3/28/2011 11:03 PM, Don L. Leistikow wrote:
> William Sell and list:  National City Lines was an organization that was
> incorporated in 1936, for the expressed purpose of of acquiring and
> operating local transit companies
>
> A complete history..."Revisiting the      American Streetcar Scandal"
> was written by Al Mankoff and.... can be viewed on the internet.  See
> the rul, below;
>
> http://njtpa.org/public_affairs/intrans//scandal.html
>
> The indicted companies were:  National City lines, Inc., American City
> Lines, Inc., Pacific City Lines, Inc., the Standard Oil Company of
> California, the Federal Engineering Corporation, the Phillips Petroleum
> Company, the General Motors Corporation, the Firestone Tire&  Rubber
> Company and the Mack Manufacturing Corporation.
>
> The individuals indicted were; E.  Roy Fitzgerald and Foster G. Beamsley
> of NCL;  H.C. Grossman, GM;  Henry C. Judd, Standard Oil of California;
> L.R. Jackson, Firestone Tire&  Rubber Company;  Frank B Stradley, and
> A.M. Hughes, Phillips Petroleum.
>
> In March 13, 1949, they were all convicted on one count of conspiring to
> monopolize a part of the trade and cmmerce of the United States.
>
> At that time, NCL owned or controlled, 47 local transportation systems
> in California, Missouri, Washington, Utah, Maryland, Alabama, Florida,
> Illinois, Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Michigan,
> Texas and Ohio.
>
> But then, read it for yourself.......
>
> Don L. Leistikow
I believe that the GM et al. conviction involved a conspiracy of selling 
motor coaches (monopoly?). However, they were acquitted of conspiring to 
acquire the ownership of the traction companies.

On another matter, my grandfather was pretty much self-employed most his 
life. He emigrated the Austrian Alps during 1901 while he was seventeen 
and settled in what was then the town of Wawatosa before Milwaukee 
annexed it. He died when I was only seven or eight, so I almost never 
talked with him, as he left Milwaukee for Texas in 1928 and my parents 
eventually lived in his former farmhouse on Capitol. I only saw him on a 
very few occasions.

He once worked on Milwaukee's streetcars, but what he did I do not know. 
Beside truck farming, he was a carpenter and house builder--both in 
Wawatosa/Milwaukee and in the Low Rio Grande. Was there some kind of 
work that carpenters routinely did on the streetcars?

Gary
-- 

Gary Schnabl
Southwest Detroit, two miles NORTH! of Canada--Windsor, that is...

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