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Originally Posted by sammyg2
Oh hogwash. That is well OPINIONATED, not well documented. Slanted and innacurate.
Jim Klein is about as unbiased as Michael Moore.
Sloan and others recognized that the streecar system was inefficient and a huge waste of public money.
They saw an opportunity to offer the public something better and make money doing it, and they did. We used to call that THE AMERICAN DREAM but it somehow became evil to some "folks" along the way , but that leads to another documentary made by Jim Klein: 'SEEING RED", a sympathetic look at lives of American communists and their struggles to fight against capitalism.
You make is sound like Sloan took away something good and replaced it with something bad and it was not in the public's best interest. that simply is not true.
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On April 9, 1947, nine corporations and seven individuals (constituting officers and directors of certain of the corporate defendants) were indicted in the Federal District Court of Southern California on counts of 'conspiring to acquire control of a number of transit companies, forming a transportation monopoly" and "Conspiring to monopolize sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by National City Lines".[n 8]
The initial court case was in the Federal District Court of Southern California. In 1948, the venue was changed to the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois following an appeal to the United States Supreme Court (in United States v. National City Lines Inc.)[7] who felt that there was evidence of conspiracy to monopolize the supply of buses and supplies.[n 9]
In 1949, Firestone Tire, Standard oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, General Motors and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies controlled by National City Lines and other companies; they were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. The verdicts were upheld on appeal in 1951.[n 9] The corporations involved were fined only $5000. In addition, the jury convicted H.C. Grossman, who was then treasurer of General Motors. Grossman had played a key role in the motorization campaigns and had served as a director of PCL when that company undertook the dismantlement of the $100 million Pacific Electric system. The court fined Grossman the magnanimous sum of $1.[