Urban Transportation

In Cleveland councilmen beamed. They had learned (unofficially through the Cleveland Press) that the Equitable Trust Co. of Manhattan with the concurrence of the Rockefellers might ask them for a franchise to build a $40,000,000 subway which eventually will go to the municipality free of cost. One Peter Witt, obstructionist, thinks the private enterprise "perfectly silly," insists the city should build the urgently needed tubes itself, after a plan which he first suggested three years ago but which has remained ignored.

In Chicago councilmen mused over the offer of Investment Dealer Frederick J. Lisman and Lawyer John Maynard Harlan,* who represent much Chicago and Manhattan money, to spend (eventually) $300,000,000 on the reorganization of Chicago transportation: rip out the Loop elevated structures, build subways, refurbish surface lines. Samuel Insull (public utilities) recently made a similar offer. As in his case, the musing councilmen did nothing about the newer offer.

-Son of the late, onetime (1877-1911) U. S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan; brother of onetime (1906-18) Interstate Commerce Commission James S. Harlan; brother of Educator Richard Davenport Harlan ("the George Washington University Movement") ; father of the present Assistant U. S. District Attorney for Southern New York John Marshall Harlan (TIME, May 31). Twenty years ago, Chicago surface lines, well plundered, were in receivership. Lawyer John Maynard Harlan represented, the. court, then..