Street Car Demise
Jon Hartmann (letter, Nov. 21) restates the myth that the Pacific Electric was done in by the oil lobby and other assorted malefactors. He even claims that they were found guilty in court of conspiring to monopolize ground transportation. This is not true.
General Motors, Standard Oil, et al. were indicted in 1947 on two counts under the Sherman Antitrust Act. They were convicted only on the second count: attempting to monopolize sales of supplies used by the bus lines they controlled. Simply put, they were convicted of conspiring to have their bus lines buy buses and supplies from them, not monopolizing transit. The L.A. Railway had decided to convert to buses in 1940, four years before GM bought it.
Rail transit was killed off by the decisions of thousands of individuals to use their cars. While some find it comforting to think that some monolith did in the Red Cars, the fact remains, we did it to ourselves.
STAN SCHWARZ
Pasadena
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