By July 1945, Lincoln’s trolleys were on their deathbed.
A newspaper obituary for the streetcar declared that the once-indispensable mode of transportation was succumbing to natural causes.
“The gas engine put them in the discard, just as railroads did the stagecoach,” said a Lincoln Star editorial after the transit system’s owner moved to eliminate trolleys.
In cities like Omaha, streetcars did, in fact, die naturally. A postwar surge in car ownership gave people new commuting options, and slow-moving trolleys gummed up traffic.
But the switch to buses in Lincoln followed the playbook of a company at the heart of a corporate conspiracy to prop up automotive, oil and rubber interests.
It all started with five brothers from Staplehurst, Nebraska. The Fitzgeralds, led by middle child Roy, quickly grew National City Lines from a tiny Minnesota bus operation into an emerging transit empire.
The company got into the streetcar business in the 1930s, buying up dozens of local systems across the country. But once NCL acquired them, it often switched out the electric trolleys for petroleum-powered buses.
NCL’s rapid expansion was bankrolled by its investors: General Motors, Mack Trucks, Standard Oil, Firestone Tire and other industrial giants, according to a federal indictment.
In exchange, NCL bought its buses, fuel and tires exclusively from its corporate stockholders.
The Fitzgeralds came for Lincoln’s streetcars in 1942. Within three years, NCL replaced the city’s last surviving trolley lines with shiny, new GM buses.
In 1947, federal prosecutors alleged NCL and its supplier-investors had colluded to illegally undermine free trade. The transit company’s takeover in Lincoln provided a courtroom revelation.
Defense witness John Wilson admitted on the stand that he bought the Lincoln Traction Company with NCL’s money while working as a Mack executive, according to the Lincoln Journal. The statement contradicted Roy Fitzgerald’s claim that he never consulted with the supplier-investors on acquiring streetcar lines.
Wilson, dubbed a “Fitzgerald stooge” by the prosecution, was hired to run the NCL-controlled St. Louis transit system two years after the Lincoln acquisition.
NCL and its investors were federally convicted of conspiring to establish a monopoly on the bus, tire and fuel markets.
The punishment? Four-figure fines for the corporations and $1 slaps on the wrist for Fitzgerald and other executives.
By then, the damage was already done for the streetcar systems NCL had dismantled, said Richard Schmeling, a Lincoln public transit advocate who co-authored a book about the city’s trolley era.
Lincoln’s trolleys were already “old and weary” when the company took over, but NCL accelerated their demise, Schmeling said.
The streetcars made their final run hours before Japan’s surrender formally ended World War II. That timing was no coincidence, Schmeling said.
The federal government barred companies from transitioning to buses during the war since motor vehicles, gasoline and tires were needed at the front lines. NCL swapped streetcars for buses in Lincoln as soon as it could, Schmeling said.
Other NCL-owned streetcar systems in places like Los Angeles and El Paso were in much better shape and might have persevered if the company hadn’t torpedoed them, he said.
A popular narrative emerged years after the court case that GM and its co-conspirators aimed to kill all streetcars and American public transit at large, said Robert Cervero, a professor emeritus of city planning at the University of California, Berkeley.
The 1988 Disney movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” brought that narrative to a national audience. The villainous Judge Doom, played by Christopher Lloyd, buys the Los Angeles streetcar system so he can dismantle it and build a freeway benefiting his own business interests.
The truth, Cervero said, is that market forces and capitalistic competition drove the companies profiting from the combustion engine to target streetcars.
The public preferred technologically improved cars and buses to aging trolleys, which took up space on jammed-up streets, Cervero said. Many streetcar operators struggled financially to maintain their networks and were happy to offload their assets to companies like NCL, he said.
“There’s this presumption of a bit of evilness, but (the companies) largely were responding to the aspirations and desires of the consuming public,” Cervero said.
NCL controlled only about 10% of the nation’s transit systems. Pinning the downfall of streetcars on the transit company and GM is giving them far too much credit, historian Robert Post wrote in a 2006 book.
GM did not respond to a request for comment.
Many other streetcar systems faded without direct intervention from the auto industry. Voters in Omaha, Nebraska’s last trolley holdout, overwhelmingly approved a 1954 ballot measure to switch the last streetcar lines to buses.
A streetcar revival is underway in Omaha, but Lincoln has no such plans, a city spokesman said.
Schmeling, 86, never got to ride Lincoln’s old trolleys, but he sees their legacy all over the city, especially in its transit system.
“What we have today operated by buses basically isn’t that much different from the streetcar system we had,” Schmeling said. “I wish we had it. I wish they were still here.”
32 Comments
Good article. Thanks. Explains how corporations work
I suspect the Flatwater editor often pats himself on the back that people make comments like “good article” in this comment section. (After all, we already know that he gets heartburn over people posting criticism of the articles.)
But reading this one, I wonder if James meant for the inflection of his post to come across as sarcastic? Because obviously he didn’t mean that this article literally explains how corporations work. He likely meant that the allegations being made were objectively already obvious to any rational person.
We all know that corporations exist to make money. And since the article freely admits that streetcars were teetering on death’s door in a rapidly growing economy where car ownership was becoming more common, a rational reader would probably conclude that the behavior of a corporation in this case was not actually a “conspiracy” in the strictest sense of that term, but merely an effective business plan to profit from the current market conditions… exactly the way that corporations do every day.
At any rate… not exactly news is it? More of an opinion piece, really.
…what…?
What is this article trying to accomplish? You start out telling me there was a “corporate conspiracy” to do these heinous deeds, but then multiple admissions throughout the article totally undermine that narrative.
You admit that streetcars in many cities did die naturally, as their old fleets of slow moving streetcars were gumming up traffic.
The government had blocked a switch to busses because of economic reasons related to the war, but when the war ended there was a natural rush to make the switch.
And Roger Rabbit? I barely even remember that movie from when I was a kid. Apparently as a kid I never realized that movie was a forerunner of Captain Planet style propaganda. Good to know I suppose, but it doesn’t add anything of value to your argument.
Then you quote Cervero, who argues that consumers didn’t want streetcars anymore, they wanted the transition to a car-centric street design, and the die off of aging street cars would have happened either way even without a conspiracy that simply sped up the process.
So any rational reader would finish this article asking if the headline was all but outright lying. The “corporate conspiracy” was natural market forces at work. But I’m sure we will see some of the same people who tried to prop up public transportation in the comments section of another recent streetcar related article showing up in here to tell us how cars raise their heart rate… And public transportation allegedly doesn’t even though there is a non-zero chance of being literally set on fire when you ride it.
Thanks for reading. National City Lines and their supplier-investors (corporations including GM, Firestone and Standard Oil) were convicted in federal court of conspiracy to monopolize the bus, tire and fuel markets in 1949. That decision was subsequently upheld by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals: https://web.archive.org/web/20221228052950/https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-national-city-lines-4
Cool argument, bro. So why did you write a whole article disputing the finding of that court?
Also, assuming you believe court rulings are always correct, shall I presume you also support the outcome of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization?
The article denies neither the court’s decision, nor the perspective of those who feel villifying GM’s role in the streetcar’s end was a bit heavy-handed. Citing Robert Post’s book was an apt add-in.
When schools teach their students about the U.S. Civil War, many briefly attempt to summarize motives for both the Union as well as the Confederacy. Is this approach treasonous? Does it dispute the outcome of the war?
If your assumptions about the author and their views on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization are to be taken seriously in your question, then can you elaborate upon how this pertains to the history of Lincoln’s streetcars in particular?
You seem to have completely missed the context of what is being discussed here, or are choosing to appear intentionally ignorant.
My question is very simple: Why does the author claim there was a “conspiracy” when the outcome of the cited court case is the sole item of evidence for this conspiracy, while the rest of his article was peppered with numerous facts proving no conspiracy was even necessary much less actually took place?
If you have no answer to the question, I’m sure your sophistry is needed elsewhere.
Wow, you are gassed about … nothing… and don’t identify yourself as a “rational reader” when a history column raises your blood pressure so bad you start rambling about the supreme court lol. it never said it was some kind of exposé either, you’re just stuck on the title, nobodys coming to take away your juice
Stick to cry laugh emojis on the LJS comments.
Very ironic Kyle, to insinuate another person is raising their blood pressure and complaining about nothing, yet you arrive to the discussion with nothing beyond the most childish and poorly conceived insults this side of a Gary Coleman pun. Somewhere a pot is calling the kettle black in your name.
“So any rational reader would finish this article asking if the headline was all but outright lying. The “corporate conspiracy” was natural market forces at work. But I’m sure we will see some of the same people who tried to prop up public transportation in the comments section of another recent streetcar related article showing up in here to tell us how cars raise their heart rate… And public transportation allegedly doesn’t even though there is a non-zero chance of being literally set on fire when you ride it.” “Also, assuming you believe court rulings are always correct, shall I presume you also support the outcome of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization?” aw don’t be scared big g, streetcars aren’t coming back to Lincoln
How is copy pasting a bunch of random stuff and then accusing someone of being scared supposed to accomplish… anything, really? It’s like this was your first time using the internet and it didn’t go very well.
How is copyy pasting a bunch of randdom stufff and then acccusing someonee of bEing s C a R e D supposed to accomplish………………….. anything, really? It’s liek this was yor firsst time using the internet, and it didn’t go didn’t go very well.
Well, you have definitely proven that Flatwater’s alleged “moderation” of these comments isn’t particularly effective. Pat yourself on the back for that I suppose. (And not for your inability to correctly utilize juxtaposed capitalized and lower case letters in a single word for irony.)
Terrific piece! I love it when history can be used to put current events in a wider context. Well written and researched.
The story about the “great conspiracy” to get rid of streetcars is much overblown. The truth is that streetcars were a technology whose time had come … and gone. Not only had they been overtaken by the American form of automobility transportation, but the bus had clearly taken over for transit purposes, being far less expensive to buy, operate, and with FAR less fixed infrastructure to maintain, and having far greater flexibility (during WWII, when aircraft manufacture was so important, thank heavens we had the buses to bring workers to the remote construction sites where there had to be runways, including the B-29 plant at what is now Offutt AFB — where my grandmother worked in food service. The main economic impact of the replacement of streetcars and buses was to extend US public transit without taxpayer subsidy for two to four decades, depending on the city. Since the government takeover, transit utilization has sunk remarkably as the costs — and taxpayer subsidies — have gone sky high. Streetcars disappeared all over the world, including in London and more than half of the US streetcar cities where NCL and the like never came near. For a better view of the reality of what was going on, I suggest Cliff Slatter: https://utahrails.net/streetcars/slater_General_Motors_and_the_Demise_of_Streetcars_7667.pdf
(You want more popular and academic papers, just let me know — I collect them.)
Oddly, there IS an actual streetcar conspiracy that very few people have ever heard of. As US automobility increased around 1910, there was a growing move to jitneys, cars/trucks converted for sorta-transit, followed by purpose-designed/built buses — where were absolutely beating streetcars all over the US — so, the streetcar industry worked very hard to get jitneys and buses made illegal — and, to a great extent, it worked. This delayed the improvement of US transit by decades until the obvious benefits become so overwhelming they could no longer be ignored.
The Omaha streetcar revival is a serious waste of taxpayer funds that is based on deliberate misstatements and one-sided analysis and have far more long-term negatives than positives. In the future, if you are thinking of doing any more transit pieces, give me a call or e-mail — I was born and raised in Omaha (Central HS ’65, UNL ’69) and have over a half-century in the transit business, including doing a lot of analysis on the Omaha streetcar.
Gotta say, I agree with you Mr. Rubin.
And in spite of the title of the article, I suspect that the author knows better as well. The article itself cites multiple facts explaining how streetcars died off, including a book from an author who denies the corporate conspiracy theory explanation.
I’m rather confused as to what Flatwater was playing at here. Their propaganda is usually more competent than this.
Jeremy, I remember reading an Omaha WH story some years ago that painted a picture much darker than your story here does, regarding the demise of the trolly system in Omaha. The article was probably 15-20 years ago, and, as I recall–maybe incorrectly–the article noted a lot of the same collusion and shady dealing in Omaha like that which you mention in Lincoln. Maybe the Omaha powers-that-be were just better liars than the ones in Lincoln. Maybe the public vote swung heavily towards the position that the trollies should be removed, but I’d be willing to bet that there was a trolly load of corporate money and influence that weighed in on the public’s thinking. Anyway, your article is a valuable piece of reportage in any case.
???
The entire network of passenger trains that so easily served the traveling public in the country during the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s was dismantled by the same forces as you reported on. When President Eisenhower proposed building the vast network of Interstate Highways, there was a proposal to build a rail system between the two sections of the highway. What a wonderful idea until GM, Firestone and others lobbied to squash it. Now there is just a single Amtrak train running east and west but once a day. The freight lines they travel over are constantly working to get them stopped too.
“t. Now there is just a single Amtrak train running east and west but once a day. ”
And Amtrak has NEVER made a profit. Gee, maybe that’s why rails were never built between the interstates?
But, your assertion of a grand conspiracy by GM, Firestone “and others” makes a much better story, right?
Are you saying they drew first blood
“Lincoln’s trolleys were already “old and weary” when the company took over, but NCL accelerated their demise, Schmeling said. ”
So, why does this fact contradict the headline?
Thats the same question I asked. The snarky response from the author (the only response provided thus far) was to cite the court case which allegedly issued a finding that there was a conspiracy.
But as we all know, courts aren’t always correct and often contradict each other. It happens virtually every week now that one activist judge will say Trump did a bad thing and issue a nationwide injunction to try to stop him, only for a higher court to point out that the judge didn’t even have valid authority to do that in the first place. The Supreme Court will overturn judgements that prior Supreme Court cases established. So in my mind, a court making the claim isn’t definitive proof.
And the proof definitely isn’t definitive when every single other fact provided in the article paints the opposite picture: Streetcars were old, slow, clogging up streets, teetering on being replaced any day, and largely unwanted by a general public that was buying cars.
Why even write this article? What was the goal? It’s just mystifying to write an article that disputes it’s own premise.
Pa-paw, Molly The Trolley is coming to eat meee
Sorry to hear that, Foley. You related to the state auditor? Maybe he could help you out with that problem.
A Sealion in its natural habitat, an internet comment section:
“Cool argument, bro. So why did you write a whole article disputing the finding of that court?”
Anyone reading past this point can see this person’s style in this, and every article they reply to follows a formula seeking to discredit the author of the article, force a debate-me argument “My question is very simple” and exit with an accusation intended to pivot discussion to culture-war/ideological topics rather than the article at hand, i.e. Lincoln’s Streetcar, “Also, assuming you believe court rulings are always correct, shall I presume you also support the outcome of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization?”
Since Flatwater won’t moderate their comments, so any readers confused by what’s going on here – nobody should engage with this individual.
Hello, this is Matthew Hansen, editor at Flatwater. We do, in fact, moderate comments. We don’t post those that violate our policy. Here is our policy: We are interested in comments, both on our site and on social media, that are relevant to the article. We welcome advice, criticism and insight.
We do not tolerate name-calling, personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, racism, commercial promotion or related “troll” behavior. We are not obligated to allow inaccurate information to be associated with our name.
No memes.
Please keep your caps lock off.
Comments that violate this policy will be rejected.
One person under an avalanche of false identities has been and is attempting to demean our work and discredit our journalists, one post at a time. While I don’t like this, the majority of said commenter’s comments do not appear to me to violate our policy. If you see one that you think does, please flag it for us by emailing our newsroom at [email protected] or simply by posting on here. To be clear: You don’t see the posts that violate the policy.
We’re looking into technical changes that may make it harder to post under an assumed identity as part of a website redesign. Until then, I would agree with you that feeding the troll is generally a bad idea.
For years, the Flatwater comments section was refreshingly different. People tended to be additive, disagreed with our stories and with one another respectfully, conversed as if they were sitting together at a coffee shop instead of hidden behind a computer. It was great. This recent change is a sincere bummer. We’ll work to make it better. I hope the commenters will, too. Thank you.
Matthew
Matthew, I’m sad to see that you neither understand the definition of internet trolling, nor do you have any meaningful rebuttal to my quite legitimate criticisms of your news publications.
Firstly, can you explain how my alleged “assumed identities” makes any difference? Your own website design merely asks me to input a name every time I make a comment. Nothing indicated says I’m obligated to provide a real name. And I would think people know that my legal name isn’t actually “logic haver” or “Kofi Annan” or whatever else struck my fancy at the time of my post. But does the name I provide change the substance of my arguments? And what about the other users who also give false names?
Secondly, regardless of my name, can you or any of your staff actually refute any of my arguments? Can you explain how an article about guys with man buns was an “investigation” that “matters” as required by your own mission statement? Can you explain why an article about a prison inmate going on a podcast didn’t contain fully truthful reporting about how said inmate violated prison policies by posting in your own comments section? Do you have any rebuttal at all to anything I’ve said?
Third, what makes you say it is only one person doing this? Right here on this very article you can see that “Tom Rubin” posted the exact same criticisms that I did. I can assure you that I am not the sole person posting all of the negative feedback your articles receive.
Fourth, while I acknowledge that you allow some of my posts, you and I both know you aren’t being fully truthful and that you have blocked more than a few. The ones you blocked didn’t violate any of your hypothetical rules, yet you blocked them anyway. Yet people frequently respond to me with childish insults, intolerant rants assuming my religious and political beliefs, and other sorts of actual internet trolling that you allow.
But it appears the answer to my above questions is going to be a very large “NO, GO AWAY” from you. By your own admission rather than addressing my concerns, you merely plan to rewrite the rules of this comment section to make it harder for me to comment. I believe that sort of censorship effort will ultimately do more to prove my point than I could ever do on my own.
“: The ones you blocked didn’t violate any of your hypothetical rules, yet you blocked them anyway. Yet people frequently respond to me with childish insults, intolerant rants assuming my religious and political beliefs, and other sorts of actual internet trolling that you allow.”
I’ve noticed this exact same practice from FFP, or lack of enforcement in many situations where I am attacked personally.
I suspect that most if not all of these censorship practices by FFP are largely based on the biases of the authors or editors, not on any published “rules” for commenting. It’s easier to publish ad hominem attacks from readers directed at commenters who have challenged FFP authors or their writing–kind of a third party, rear guard attack approach.
In any case Kofi et al., I like you, can handle posting comments and tolerating the personal and ad hominem attacks that too often follow.
What baffles me is the apparent belief by FFP folks that somehow they have an enforceable set of rules for commenting that is consistently applied.
“We do, in fact, moderate comments. We don’t post those that violate our policy. “–this is provably false, and you (Kofi) and I know it. I do not understand why any reasonable person would make such an assertion.
Matthew Hansen said in his post that if we suspect a comment violated the rules he listed (such a making a personal attack), we could respond to the comment in question and ask him to look at it.
I have already tested this several times by responding to comments that make personal attacks and saying something to the effect of “hey Matthew Hansen, come look at this!”
Can you guess what happened?
Nothing!
Be careful! If you find a way to stop allowing comments from people posting under assumed identities, that guy is going to lose his only reason to live 🙁
Matthew, need I even gesture at this comment? Did you not tell us only moments ago that “trolling” and “personal attacks” are forbidden? Then you allow a post like this one?
You either have rules on this site or you don’t. If you aren’t going to enforce any rules and plan to allow people to engage in this sort of behavior, that is your prerogative since this is your website. But don’t sit there and pretend as if the commenters are the problem when you created a digital Wild West for them to engage in virtual shoot-outs.