Judge Doom Lived!
Dec. 16th, 2006 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythRemember in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, how Judge Doom wanted to buy the trolleys and shut them down to build freeways and make people buy cars?
That's actually somewhat true, except with GM doing the buying, not a toon judge. Well, here, let me quote about National City Lines: "Between 1936 and 1950, National City Lines (NCL), a holding company sponsored and funded by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum, bought out more than 100 electric surface-traction (streetcar) systems in 45 cities (including New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, and Los Angeles). Those systems were ultimately dismantled and replaced with GM buses."
Hardly the only force that brought about the end of the streetcar system, but definitely one of the major ones, I'd suspect.
The Disappearance of Trams
GM Streetcar conspiracy
The Straight Dope
Oh, and did you know that "General Smedley Butler testified before a Congressional committee that a group of men had attempted to recruit him to serve as the leader of a plot and to assume and wield power once the coup was successful." The "group of men" was a bunch of wealthy industrialists. But somehow, the story never became a big deal (wealthy interests, most newspapers were owned by a small group then, etc) and many of the references were deleted from the report, a full version has yet to come out. The Sentate report confirmed that "In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist government in this country." But nothing ever came of that, either. The Straight Dope has some more.
That's actually somewhat true, except with GM doing the buying, not a toon judge. Well, here, let me quote about National City Lines: "Between 1936 and 1950, National City Lines (NCL), a holding company sponsored and funded by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum, bought out more than 100 electric surface-traction (streetcar) systems in 45 cities (including New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, and Los Angeles). Those systems were ultimately dismantled and replaced with GM buses."
Hardly the only force that brought about the end of the streetcar system, but definitely one of the major ones, I'd suspect.
The Disappearance of Trams
GM Streetcar conspiracy
The Straight Dope
Oh, and did you know that "General Smedley Butler testified before a Congressional committee that a group of men had attempted to recruit him to serve as the leader of a plot and to assume and wield power once the coup was successful." The "group of men" was a bunch of wealthy industrialists. But somehow, the story never became a big deal (wealthy interests, most newspapers were owned by a small group then, etc) and many of the references were deleted from the report, a full version has yet to come out. The Sentate report confirmed that "In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist government in this country." But nothing ever came of that, either. The Straight Dope has some more.
