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great aggregate value. For this it promised to give the people a fare, including one transfer, that shall not exceed 5 cents, with six tickets for 25 cents, or twenty-five for $i, good between 5 : 30 to 8 A. M. and 5 to 7 P. M. until January I, 1905, when the same fare was to be extended over the entire day.
In view of these conditions the league held the first public meeting of indignation and protest when such a course required a good deal of courage. It condemned the ordinance with unsparing vigor, but scrupulously avoided personalities. As a result a large and representative committee was appointed to oppose the ordinance before the common council, and this was the beginning of a long and bitter contest between the people of all classes and the street railway and city government. Indig- nation meetings were held in all parts of the city, two of them called by the league, and the upheaval will not soon be forgotten. Unfortunately the meetings were not always conducted as exclusively upon the merits of the case as the initial meeting had been, and it is believed in some quarters that this may have been conducive to an unfavorable result the passage of the ordinance in the face of injunction proceedings and general adverse popular opinion. Litigation growing out of the controversy is still pend- ing in the Wisconsin supreme court. The position of the league was that the ordinance was a serious infringement of the interests of the city, and the duty of the city government was to continue the existing conditions until such time as the road should make a more equitable condition.
Chicago has taken a sensible course in regard to its railway franchises ; its board of aldermen having appointed a Street Railway Commission, with a competent secretary, to consider the subject in a thorough and systematic manner against the time when the extension ordinances must come up for considera- tion. The feature of the situation in Chicago which deserves emphasis is the breakdown of the nonpartisan organization of the council, as the result of partisan activity. There has been a wonderful improvement in the Chicago city council within the last few years due very largely to the work along independent lines of the Muncipal Voters' League and similar bodies. The
