There is nothing we can do, there is not a thing. I know a man personally, I can show it to you by time of year, a woman was being beaten, somebody was trying to take her pocketbook, and she was trying to hold on to it, and this guy has got a razor cut from here to here just because he got off the bus to see what was going on. It started on the bus; in fact, it was happening right there on the steps of the bus, and he got up out of his seat, and no sooner was he out of his seat when he got a razor cut from here to here, and he will carry this scar for the rest of his life. He knows who that is, who cut him. He knows who did it, but he cannot testify at all because he is afraid that he is going to lose his job.

Mr. DowDY. Is he a bus driver?

Mr. RICHMOND. Yes, he is a bus driver, yes. But these womenMr. BROYHILL. You mean if he testified he would lose his job? Mr. PHILLIPS. The company does not want any publicity.

Mr. RICHMOND. He would not lose his job, but the company says he will lose his job. They inflict the fear he will lose his job. They cannot fire you for that, but they maybe fire you for some little misdemeanor later on, like being late for work. There are other ways of getting you.

Just like in the Army, you go one way or the other. So these are some of the things we are confronted with.

Once these policemen escort these women to the buses, these women stick around us and think we are policemen. They figure somebody is going to attack them. They feel the "bus driver is going to help me," and we have been given strict orders to stay out of that.

Mr. BROYHILL. Do you have policemen riding on the buses at night? Mr. RICHMOND. Well, a policeman is like a sore thumb. Nothing happens while a policeman is there, and it is just like some of these end-of-the-lines, policemen are sitting there or detectives sitting there and in their so-called unmarked cars. A kid can pick it out, a kid knows it is a detective sitting there. He is not going to rob nobody while the detective is sitting there.

So the next night nobody is there, and you get robbed.

We have one man who is a new man he worked 11 days and got robbed seven days out of 11. This does not make sense.

He is actually he is doing a public service to the people of Washington, D.C. Still, now he went back on to

Mr. MACHEN. Let me ask you this in connection with that one man. When you report in on that does the company report it to the police or not?

Mr. RICHMOND. Oh, yes. This is another thing. Once you are robbed, a gun stuck in your nose, you are afraid of death, you are trembling and you are afraid to go back to work. A guy is scared, a gun is stuck under his nose, and if you have $90 in your pocket, if you have anything over $11, you have to pay this back. You have $80 company money in your pocket; if a guy comes in with a gun and takes it from you it is a robbery, right? But still you have to pay it back to the company. You never heard nothing like that.

Mr. BROYHILL. You have to replace the money?

Mr. RICHMOND. You have to replace every penny over $11 if you do not have it locked up in your box.

Mr. BROYHILL. I see.

Mr. RICHMOND. Yet but that is still a robbery.

Mr. BROYHILL. How much change do you carry, company money? Mr. RICHMOND. Well, it varies. Some runs carry $40, some $20, some carry

Mr. BROYHILL. And you have it locked in the box?

Mr. RICHMOND. Not all of it, some you have to work with. Like you have a barrel of quarters, sometimes nickels, and the others are supposed to be locked up, and as you sell tokens or as you give change, you put the dollar bills in your pocket, and the moment you get over $11 you take this money and put it in the locked box. It is just a little bit of a locked box there.

Mr. BROYHILL. When is it that you will have the scrip?

Mr. RICHMOND. Sunday, the 4th of August.

Mr. BROYHILL. All around the clock?

Mr. RICHMOND. Right.

Mr. BROYHILL. You won't carry any change?

Mr. RICHMOND. We won't carry any change, won't carry anything. Mr. SHANDS. I would like to say something more about this scrip. The run I am working now, I worked last year and the year before last, as a matter of fact, the year before that, this is the fourth time that I have chosen it, the people that were paying then are paying now. It is the guys who were not paying then who are not paying

now.

Mr. Dowdy. You are talking about people who get on the bus and refuse to pay you?

Mr. SHANDS. Yes. They are not going to pay anyway so I do not think there is any question of working with the thug who has made up his mind not to pay.

Mr. DowDY. What are your instructions from the company when somebody gets on and won't pay?

Mr. SHANDS. You are supposed to collect the fare if you can, just what force is necessary, there is not any force, you just ask.

Mr. RICHMOND. They tell you collect the fare if possible.

Mr. SHANDS. But other than that you go on, but it is a terrible thing to have 20 people who won't pay.

Mr. MACHEN. If that is true, if you put the scrip system in for the law-abiding citizens, all the others have to say is, "I am not going to give you money for scrip," and they won't pay, and they get a free ride.

Mr. SHANDS. If you have 20 people who pay and you get this one guy who did not pay, that makes it rough.

Mr. DoWDY. What is your name?

Mr. KANE. My name is Martin Kane.

Mr. Dowdy. You go ahead and make your statement.

Mr. KANE. In regard to the discussion that has been going on in regard to the scrip system, this program has been inaugurated for about two weeks or three weeks and has been proven successful in regard to retarding robberies.

The program was carried out under the direction of the WMATC, and will begin 24 hours this coming Sunday.

Along with this scrip system in order to provide protection for the drivers, the Amalgamated Union has also requested the D. C. Transit System to construct safety shields around the operators to retard assaults. This is being at the present time thrashed over between the

company, the union and the WMATC. We are in hopes that this will be another addition in regard to the safety of the bus drivers.

This scrip system has created a problem, I understand, with cab drivers. The cab drivers' union has called our union offices shortly after we inangurated the scrip system, with the complaint that we were driving the thugs to robbing cab drivers.

Our problem in coming here is actually the fact that the type of people who are on the street and who are assaulting not only bus drivers but members of the typographical union and the general public of Washington are here in number, they have been here and they have progressed with such a rapid pace over the last few years, with no deterrent to stop them, it seems to me that it is only going to be a matter of time before the members of the Metropolitan Police Department are going to be forced to resign their positions, as well as any other responsible person, and I know from the records on a slide-scale basis, that the rate at which the robberies in our business have increased over the last eight years, would make any successful businessman envy them.

This dollars and cents gain, I do not think there is any industry in the country that has made the progress that the robbers, so to speak, as a private industrialist can show for gain.

Mr. Dowdy. I have stated that any mother who is raising her son to be a criminal is derelict in her duty to him if she does not bring him to Washington, D.C., to practice his profession. Here, he will be protected by the courts from punishment.

Mr. KANE. It seems to me that one of our problems is the fact that we all know we are not getting the backing of the law enforcement agencies. We have policemen; we do not know why they cannot do their job. We look up to them, we envy them.

I personally believe we have the finest and most intelligent group of policemen in the country right here in Washington. I have had the opportunity to work with the police department on different occasions during the riots and the civil disturbances, and they know within the nth degree as to what they can accomplish, what they can do, and what they cannot do.

When I first came here to Washington I came here with the idea that, at that time, I was living in a rural area which was being hit by the recession in the late '50's, and I thought that as a responsible individual and as the father of a large family that I would move to a more lucrative location where I could support my family without going on welfare, without asking anybody's help, to find a job and to do my best.

Coming to Washington where I understood there never had been any suffering or depression, the economy was great, I did not intend to settle as a bus driver, but after starting out in that career I found it to be quite lucrative and I prospered. But with the threats of losing a limb or losing my life and leaving a widow and children to suffer, as the present time I am in regard to weighing the situation, I am on the fence as to whether I have done the right thing here. I am quite a few years older than I was when I came here, and I would not have the opportunities that I would have had on the farm, and with the responsibility of children growing up, educating them, is just another thing, and you cannot pick up and move.

I think that what I am looking for is effective laws where criminals are taken into the courts, taken off the streets, so that I can walk safely up First Street or Independence Avenue or any other street in the District of Columbia, and so could my children, without having to send an armed guard, if they were interested in visiting the Congressional Library, which is open until 10 o'clock at night. You would now not allow your 18- or 19-year-old downtown to visit the Monument, and I do not know, if the crime progress continues, how long it will take before these criminals have taken over the seats in the Congress.

It may not happen soon, but progress is progress, and we are not retarding them in any degree than I can see.

Mr. MACHEN. Let me caution you that members of the Congress are not elected from the District yet; they come from all over the United States.

Mr. KANE. I do not think our problem is in the District only. But, of course, this is the one that is in our back yard.

Mr. DowDY. It is not a localized problem. It is probably more apparent here, but this is the problem all over the nation.

Mr. KANE. It is a problem for the lawmakers. I think we have to struggle with it in regard to looking out for our individual safety, but I think it is the lawmakers' job who were elected by their districts, to take a bite out of this problem so that it backs down a little bit, at least let us have progress in reverse to some extent.

Where to start, does not seem to be the average layman's problem as to put his finger on what can be done, but we do look up to the people who are elected.

Mr. Dowdy. This actually is a problem for law enforcement officers. The lawmakers might have to do something about them, now, that is something else. We have passed all the laws, I think, we can. Some of the laws passed by Congress may have made the situation worse, but the problem is law enforcement.

Mr. RICHMOND. Could I ask a question now, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Dowdy. Yes.

Mr. RICHMOND. It seems to me everybody is asking for the same thing. Everybody wants something to be done. I think everybody is asking for the criminal to be stopped.

Mr. Dowdy. Oh, yes.

Mr. RICHMOND. It seems to me that everybody is asking, like I say, everybody is asking, the same question. Everybody is going to the Congress. These are the only people we have to go to. What is stopping them really, what is stopping you from doing anything?

Mr. MACHEN. It is not just Congress. It is just like what you all are doing. It is not only going to take many of us who are cognizant of it. but it is going to take the aroused citizenry also, to insist that this small minority of your lawbreakers could be locked up and something could be done.

Mr. RICHMOND. It seems to me, Mr. Machen, that the wrong people get the publicity. You take these people like Rap Brown and Stokler Carmichael and so forth, any little thing they say is publicized all over television, and it makes people believe, it makes white people believe, that Negroes are behind these people, and this is ridiculous. Mr. Dowdy. It does not make me believe it.

Mr. MACHEN. None of us do. We know there is a very responsible citizenry regardless of race who are just as concerned. This is not color we are asking law enforcement. This is all concerned citizenry. Mr. RICHMOND. That is what I wanted to know.

Mr. SHANDS. I think our major problem is there is not enough action taken down at the courts, because the company won't even prosecute.

In 1964 I was sitting at the bus stop working some math problems. A group of kids came up, snatched my transfers and shot me.

I went down to No. 11 and looked at some photos, and I thought I had the guy, but the company had sent a representative from the claims department over and he told me, "Don't pinpoint the guy," you know. "Just don't choose him." So they had the pistol and everything. No action. I never heard anything from it.

A guy can rob you. I will tell you, once three boys took a man's cash carrier, beat him up on the head, so some guys caught the boys, turned them over to No. 5. So the next day they were out and they beat him again. You see that kind of stuff does not make sense. That is where our main problem is, right there.

Mr. DOWDY. That sort of thing just encourages them to do more. Mr. PHILLIPS. Well, the particular night that Mr. Talley, the operator from the Bladensburg Division, was shot, I picked his bus up at 21st and K Street. It was wrapped around that pole, and what I saw or what was left of the man, his brains smeared across the windshield; this is all he has to show for the time he has been with D. C. Transit. These are some of the hazards of the occupation, and that is it, and actually there wouldn't have been a thing done until the guys at night just literally refused to drive the buses without money. If the company would only back some of the operators who are willing to stick their necks out on the line, who would like to help protect the people on their vehicles, as I would if allowed to. I think I am about as much a man as the next guy, and it irritates me and it bugs me to see a little punk harass people on my bus. I know I could do something about it and stop it, but I cannot for the simple reason that the company that I work for limits me to my actions.

The best I can do is ask him would he please cut it out, especially when I can put him off my bus, but he knows if I put him off my bus, and he files a report on me, then I am called on the carpet for it, because I am not allowed to take this type of direct action.

Mr. MACHEN. Mr. Chairman, I know that we have to leave

Mr. DOWDY. Is Mr. Nebel here?

Have you all about finished?

I will come back if you have not.

Have you all finished?

Mr. RICHMOND. Yes, sir.

Mr. DowDY. Well, we appreciate your testimony. It has been enlightening, particularly on the orders that you operate under. It seems like you are under about the same type of repressive order that the city police are in trying to enforce the law.

Thank you very much.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you very much, sir.