The telephone companies in California are subsidiary companies of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, an eastern company. This eastern company exacts 41⁄2 per cent commission on the

gross business done by the companies in California. All applications by the local companies for increased rates must first be submitted to the eastern company, which, if approved, furnishes the funds to properly present the application of the local companies before the Railroad Com

mission.

The Southern California Company is owned entirely by the eastern company. It recently filed with the railroad commission an application for increased rates asking permission to install an optional metered or flat rate in the City of Los Angeles. The application was opposed by the Municipal League of that city and a committee known as the Mayor's Telephone Committee, but in spite of the best showing they could make the Railroad Commission ordered the installation of the metered rate in Los Angeles, thereby granting even more than the company hoped to obtain, so it is claimed.

It is now proposed by the Los Angeles people to attack the American Telephone and Telegraph Company through the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission as well

as through the state commission. The citizens of Los Angeles propose to raise a fund of $75,000 to defray the expenses, and it is their desire that the League of California Municipalities join them in the fight and try and arouse public opinion to realize the importance of the controversy. One suggestion made is that every city of the state file proceedings before the railroad commission and intervene with the eastern cities in fighting the case before the Interstate Commerce Commission and perhaps the Federal courts and even Congress.

A meeting was held in Los Angeles on Tuesday, January 26th, and another in San Francisco on Thursday, January 28th, at which time full details of the controversy were explained. It is believed that if the Los Angeles rate is upheld the same rate of increase will be asked for by all the telephone companies of the state which are affiliated with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. In San Diego and Los Angeles the telephone tolls have been increased more than 100 per cent since 1923, and this additional burden is unjustified and should not be tolerated. A further statement of the action taken at the meetings in Los Angeles and San Francisco will be sent out later by special letter or published in the next issue of "Pacific Municipalities."

DR. MCCLINTOCK: Ladies and gentlemen of the League of California Municipalities: The subject upon which I volunteered to speak was "Traffic." I find on the program that Mr. Whitnall has added a comment. I do not know exactly what he means by this comment. Perhaps he means to imply that, after all, traffic is not worth talking about any way what of it? or perhaps he means, is there anything that can be said, of a constructive character, for the solution of this problem, which, I believe, is as widespread among all of the cities of California as any other municipal problem. There is, I think, probably no delegate here from any city of any size, however small, who does not bring to this convention with him some very vital problem regarding the regulation and control of street traffic in his community. One of the chief difficulties with the traffic problem is the speed with which it came upon American cities. Most of us were not conscious of traffic difficulties ten years ago. I remember the time, in my own home town here of Long Beach, in 1915, when traffic was not a problem at all. There was plenty of room for all of the people to move over the streets. There was plenty of room for all the people to stop at the curbs wherever they desired.

There has probably been no change in the habits of individuals, in all of the history of civilization, that has been so phenomenal as the introduction of the internal combustion motor as applied to automotive vehicles. In 1895 there were 300 automobiles in operation. This year, in the United States, there will be eighteen

million automobiles in operation. The growth of the automobile industry has undoubtedly benefited in every branch of life those people who come in contact with it. Those people who are public administrators know something of the benefit that automobile transportation has brought to the city activities of the city administration. Just as one example, compare the old horse drawn fire apparatus with the splendid apparatus which you see standing in front of the hotel, and that could be duplicated in every branch of city administration.

The automobile has had a very significant effect upon the social structure of the community, making it possible for us in our larger cities to have individual homes instead of living in congested apartments and tenements near the place where we must carry on our work.

But, notwithstanding the benefits which the automobile has brought to the American city of today, it has also brought with it very harassing and vexing problems. I am going to mention two of the chief aspects of the automobile problem of today, and then attempt to tell you something of what is being done, in a scientific way, to remedy those conditions. conditions. In the first place, the increase in the number of automobiles has brought about a demand for street space, which is far in excess of anything which the original city planners could possibly have imagined. The main streets in the city of Los Angeles today were laid out, in the first city plan, or one of the first city plans, about the middle of the last century. The streets are just as wide

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THE CHAIRMAN: We will go on to the subject of the symposium on the gasoline tax and motor vehicle fund. I think that we ought to have a very good and full discussion on this subject this morning. This is the last session that we are going to have and I believe that we are all interested in what share of the gasoline tax the city should get. The subject is open for discussion.

VICE-PRESIDENT WHEELER: I was not prepared with anything in particular, but, in order to start the discussion I will say that we had this matter up at the legislature, that is the committee did, but I have forgotten what became of it. In the county of Los Angeles we are not particularly troubled with that problem, for the reason that the Board of Supervisors allowed to the cities a portion of the tax, I could not say just offhand, and I do not know as it is any fixed percentage, but it is based upon the necessities of certain communities to receive that amount of money. And I will say that we have had many arguments with the Supervisors before they took that course, and the result of it was that the city of Los Angeles itself is getting a very fair proportion of the tax money. In talking this subject over this morning with the delegate from Delano, I noticed that his argument is the same argument of practically every city: that the cities should receive back a portion of these funds, as it is the cities where a large portion of this tax originates, naturally there being more automobiles in the city than there are in the country, and that the

city should receive back an equal portion. We did not look at it that way. We pay probably two-thirds of the whole gasoline tax of the state of California and yet, after paying two-thirds of that tax, we do not believe that that tax should, in its entirety, go back to the municipalities in which it is collected. Why? Down town, in a residence street where property is worth $10,000 a front foot, paving costs no more there, or practically no more than it would out in the country along side of a piece of land held by some farmer who is simply existing, a farmer say who owns three or four acres along the highway, and the same amount of tax there would absolutely confiscate that man's land. He could not raise another onion or another potato if the street were paved with gold brick. We did say this: in the first place that, if it were not for the outside community, that is the rural community, the producing community, if that were taken away, in thirty days time all of us fellows would be down here along the beach digging clams with a stick in order to make a living. And that is absolutely true because we are not the producers of those things that human beings must have in order to live. They come from the rural districts. There life has been made more tolerable by the advent of the telephone and the auto, and now the radio and many of those things, the parcel post and the rural delivery. But I will tell you that no community can stand or become great or rich or powerful, and remain so, unless they have a back

country around about them that, first, is productive, and then properly taken care of, and unless those primary producers of those things which we must have today receive a fair share of the public attention. Now, we say this, and this is the plan of the Supervisors in our county in the first place, we go to them and we say approximately how much they have turned in to them, so many hundred thousand dollars this year for instance from the tax. We know about what that is. It was formerly my business, as Chairman of the public works committee of the Council, having in charge all the public works, the streets and all those things, to find out what this amount was. And then we laid out a plan of action, and, mind you, friends, this was done also with the aid and assistance of the regional planning commission and also the city planning commission. First, we picked out certain highways, certain streets leading to the outside that were highways, or continuation of certain highways or roads that led into the city from the outside communities. For instance the Cahuenga going from Hollywood right over the hill into the Fernando Valley. The land itself is absolutely and utterly useless. You could not raise a goat on it, ordinarily. The only good it ever was used for was when the Mexican army surrendered to General Fremont there. That is the only time it was worth anything. But it is a strategic point, all the travel from Santa Barbara and Ventura and all up the Coast, and probably 90 per cent of the travel to Bakersfield and Fresno and San Francisco and the northern part of the state goes over the Cahuenga. Those of you who have been over that pass lately know that the steam shovels are working there now and that it is in a bad condition. But, in order to widen the road and make the necessary improvements we could not

tax those people abutting on that frontage there for the improvement of that highway. That road is used by many trucks daily, loaded with cement and gravel and rock. And when that road is finally paved it must be of extraordinary thickness and durability in order to stand up under the heavy travel. And it must be very wide because all the travel of the state, practically, is concentrated right in that narrow part of the funnel and then branching out a mile. or so beyond on both sides. And that is only an instance. We have a number of other cases, not quite as bad as that, but important. So we said to our Supervisors: "We are going to open this street, we will put in so much. We believe that so much from the general fund is at your disposal and that part is needed for the pavement of the Cahuenga Pass road, or the road to Whittier or to Pasadena or one of the beach roads. We are building two or three additional roads to the beach and they are nearly completed." And the Board of Supervisors took it under consideration. They say that they will not allow us money which will go into the improvement of a purely private residential street. And I believe they are absolutely right in that respect. They have no right to take money from the gasoline tax or the distillate tax and use it to help to pay for the pavement on Spring Street and Broadway, say, where the value of that property is from five to ten thousand dollars a front foot. If those property owners are not able to pay for the paving in front of their property which, as the last speaker said, has been increased in value by the unearned increment there, in fact society has created those values, it is too bad. We believe that they at least should pay for the paving in front of their own building. But we say in the case like the Cahuenga Pass highway, where there is no taxable property abutting on the road, and which