Taxies & Taxes

A mob of men in caps and turned-up coat collars surged noisily down a street strangely empty of cars. A taxicab wheeled into sight. The mob swept around it, forced out the passenger, blacked the driver's eyes. The tires were ice-picked, the windows smashed and the car rolled over on its side. That happened last week on Manhattan's Broadway and it also happened on Paris' Place de la Concorde.

Twelve thousand Paris taxicab drivers were striking against a two-franc (12 1/2-c-) additional tax on gasoline. They claimed that the companies from whom they rent their cabs ought to pay the tax. Once on strike, they added social insurance and better working conditions to their demands. To 100 non-strikers they showed scant mercy when they laid hands on them.

Nine thousand New York City drivers were striking against their companies' disposal of a 5-c--per-ride tax that the Tammany administration laid on last year. The companies had passed the tax on to the public by raising the first-quarter-mile rate from 15-c- to 20-c-. The public had passed it on to the driver by cutting his tip 5-c-. A local court had called the tax unconstitutional but the city was appealing. Last week Mayor LaGuardia told the companies he would drop the city's appeal if the companies would pay back the $500,000 "unconstitutionally" collected to the drivers who earned it. When the companies offered their unionless drivers 40%, the men did the unprecedented thing of striking. Independent drivers, protesting that they did not want to go on strike against themselves, were manhandled. New York streets became over night uniquely silent and clear.

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