Part 1 (2/2)
”Here's something from headquarters.”
We crowded close around him. His pen flew across the clip; the message was addressed to all division superintendents. It was short; but at the end of it he wrote a name we rarely saw in our office. It was that of the railroad magnate we knew as ”the old man,” the president of the system, and his words were few:
”Move the trains.”
”Move the trains!” repeated the superintendent. ”Yes; but trains can't be moved by pinch-bars nor by main force.”
We spent the day arguing with the strikers. They were friendly, but firm. Persuasion, entreaties, threats, we exhausted, and ended just where we began, except that we had lost our tempers. The sun set without the turn of a wheel. The victory of the first day was certainly with the strikers.
Next day it looked pretty blue around the depot. Not a car was moved; the engineers and firemen were a unit. But the wires sung hard all that day and all that night. Just before midnight Chicago wired that No.
1--our big pa.s.senger-train, the Denver Flyer--had started out on time, with the superintendent of motive power as engineer and a wiper for fireman. The message came from the second vice-president. He promised to deliver the train to our division on time the next evening, and he asked, ”Can you get it through to Denver?”
We looked at each other. At last all eyes gravitated towards Neighbor, our master-mechanic.
The train-dispatcher was waiting. ”What shall I say?” he asked.
The division chief of the motive power was a tremendously big Irishman, with a voice like a fog-horn. Without an instant's hesitation the answer came clear,
”Say 'yes'!”
Every one of us started. It was throwing the gage of battle. Our word had gone out; the division was pledged; the fight was on.
Next evening the strikers, through some mysterious channel, got word that the Flyer was expected. About nine o'clock a crowd of them began to gather round the depot.
It was after one o'clock when No. 1 pulled in and the foreman of the Omaha round-house swung down from the locomotive cab. The strikers cl.u.s.tered around the engine like a swarm of angry bees; but that night, though there was plenty of jeering, there was no actual violence. When they saw Neighbor climb into the cab to take the run west there was a sullen silence.
Next day a committee of strikers, with Andy Cameron, very cavalier, at their head, called on me.
”Mr. Reed,” said he, officiously, ”we've come to notify you not to run any more trains through here till this strike's settled. The boys won't stand it; that's all.” With that he turned on his heel to leave with his following.
”Hold on, Cameron,” I replied, raising my hand as I spoke; ”that's not quite all. I suppose you men represent your grievance committee?”
”Yes, sir.”
”I happen to represent, in the superintendent's absence, the management of this road. I simply want to say to you, and to your committee, that I take my orders from the president and the general manager--not from you nor anybody you represent. That's all.”
Every hour the bitterness increased. We got a few trains through, but we were terribly crippled. As for freight, we made no pretence of moving it. Trainloads of fruit and meat rotted in the yards. The strikers grew more turbulent daily. They beat our new men and crippled our locomotives. Then our troubles with the new men were almost as bad. They burned out our crown sheets; they got mixed up on orders all the time.
They ran into open switches and into each other continually, and had us very nearly crazy.
I kept tab on one of the new engineers for a week. He began by backing into a diner so hard that he smashed every dish in the car, and ended by running into a siding a few days later and setting two tanks of oil on fire, that burned up a freight depot. I figured he cost us forty thousand dollars the week he ran. Then he went back to selling windmills.
After this experience I was sitting in my office one evening, when a youngish fellow in a slouch-hat opened the door and stuck his head in.
”What do you want?” I growled.
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