One becomes accustomed to exhibitions of municipal indifference upon matters involving questions like reform, which, though they are not really abstract, often seem so to the average voter. Reforms are, relatively at least, invisible things. But the Free Bridge is not invisible. Far from it! There it stands above the stream, a grim, gargantuan joke, for every man to see—a tin can tied to a city's tail.
The three used bridges which cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis are privately controlled toll bridges
In writing of St. Louis I feel, somehow, like a man who has been at a delightful house party where people have been very kind to him, and who, when he goes away, promulgates unpleasant truths about bad plumbing in the house. Yet, of course, St. Louis is a public place, to which I went with the avowed purpose of writing my impressions. The reader may be glad, at this point, to learn that some of my impressions are of a pleasant nature. But before I reach them I must rake a little further through this substance, which, I am becoming very much afraid, resembles "muck."
St. Louis has, for some time, been involved in a fight with the United Railways Company, a corporation controlling the street car system of the city. In one quarter I was informed that this company was paying dividends on millions of watered stock, and that it had been reported by the Public Service Commission as earning more than a million a year in excess of a reasonable return on its investment. In another quarter, while it was not denied that the company was overburdened with obligations representing much more than the actual value of the present system, it was explained that the so-called "water" represented the cost of the early horse-car system, discarded on the advent of the cable lines, and also the cost of the cable lines which were, in turn, discarded for the trolley. It was furthermore contended that, in the days before the formation of the United Railways Company, when several companies were striving for territory, the street railroads of St. Louis were overbuilt, with the result that much money was sunk.
In an article on St. Louis, recently published in "Collier's Weekly," I made the statement that the street car service of St. Louis was as bad as I had ever seen; that the tracks were rough, the cars run-down and dirty, and that an antediluvian heating system was used, namely, a red-hot stove at one end of the car, giving but small comfort to those far removed from it, and fairly cooking those who sat near.
This statement brought some protest from St. Louis. Several persons wrote to me saying that the cars were not dirty, that only a few of them were heated with stoves, and that the tracks were in good condition. With one of these correspondents, Mr. Walter B. Stevens, I exchanged several letters. I informed him that I had ridden in five different cars, that all five were heated as mentioned, that they were dirty and needed painting, and that I recalled distinctly the fact that the rail-joints caused a continual jarring of the car.
Mr. Stevens replied as follows:
"In your street car trip to the southwestern part of the city you saw probably the worst part of the system. Some of the lines, notably those in the section of the city mentioned by you, have not been brought up to the standard that prevails elsewhere. I have traveled on street cars in most of the large cities of this country, north and south, and according to my observation, the lines in the central part of St. Louis, extending westward, are not surpassed anywhere."
As I have reason to know that Mr. Stevens is an exceedingly fair-minded gentleman, I am glad of the opportunity to print his statement here. I must add, however, that I think a street car system on which a stranger, taking five different cars, finds them all heated by stoves, leaves something to be desired. Let me say further that I might not have been so critical of the St. Louis street railways and its cars, had I not become acquainted, a short time before, with the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, which operates the street railways of Minneapolis and St. Paul: a system which, as a casual observer, I should call the most perfect of its kind I have seen in the United States.