Otro poco: NCL started with small cities in Illinois and Texas. Within several years, the company managed to devastate or destroy the trolley systems in some 40 cities, including Baltimore, Tampa, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Salt Lake City. Then, in the years that followed, the badly managed NCL bus companies disappeared as well, leaving no mass transit and, in many cases, no alternative means of transportation other than individual automobiles. How could such a scam go undetected for so long? GM and its conspirators operated through National City Lines and numerous other Enronesque subsidiaries and affiliates, substantially under the radar. Yet once the NCL conspirators seized a transit system, so many citizens complained that ultimately the FBI launched a massive nationwide investigation to connect the dots. It began October 2, 1946 when the Department of Justice sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover regarding "numerous complaints concerning the activities of National City Lines, Inc., and various associated companies in connection with the acquisition and operation of local transit systems acquired by those companies in various cities throughout the country. Through a series of contracts, manufacturers of buses, tires, and petroleum products have become important stockholders in the National City Lines. Investigation of the complaints disclosed the probable existence of a systematic campaign by National City Lines, acting with its manufacturing stockholders, to secure control over local transportation systems in various cities." The Justice Department memo continued: "It appears that National City Lines and its manufacturing associates have entered into a plan to secure control over local transportation systems in important cities of the United States....One result of the plan for integrated control over local transportation has been the elimination of electric railway cars in city transportation controlled by these companies." Then what happened? FBI agents in blue suits fanned out across America interviewing executives, transit experts, community leaders, and local officials. Subpoenas for masses of documents were served. On April 9, 1947, NCL, GM, Mack Truck, Firestone, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil of California, and a group of their key executives were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to monopolize. Count 1 alleged a conspiracy to control mass transit through systematic acquisition and in so doing exclude all competition for motor buses, including electric trolleys. Count 2 alleged a "conspiracy to monopolize" the bus business by creating a network of transit companies that were forbidden to "use products other than the products sold by supplier defendants." This was a first-of-its-kind prosecution--the first antitrust action against companies that were using exclusivity contracts and "required purchase" contracts in another industry, effectively creating a monopoly. All of the defendants were found not guilty on the first count, and guilty on the second. On April 1, 1949 the judge handed down his sentence: a mere $5,000 fine to each corporate defendant, except Standard Oil, which was fined $1,000. As for the individual co-conspirators, they too were fined. Each was ordered to pay "one dollar." The conviction withstood appeals all the way to the Supreme Court. By the time of the guilty verdict, GM, Firestone Tires, Mack Truck, Phillips Petroleum, and Standard Oil had succeeded in irrevocably changing mass transit in America--42 cities in 16 states were converted from trolley to motor bus--a trend that ultimately converted our country from clean, electric transportation systems to polluting petroleum-powered buses. America has never recovered.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 03:59:49 +0000
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