My Memories of Eighty Years Part 20

There never was but one strike on the New York Central during my administration, and that one occurred while I was absent in Europe. Its origin and sequel were somewhat dramatic. I had nearly broken down by overwork, and the directors advised me to take an absolute rest and a trip abroad.

I sent word over the line that I wanted everything settled before leaving, and to go without care. A large committee appeared in my office a few mornings after. To my surprise there was a representative from every branch of the service, pa.s.senger and freight conductors, brakemen, shopmen, yardmen, switchmen, and so forth. These had always come through their local unions.

I rapidly took up and adjusted what each one of the representatives of his order claimed, and then a man said: "I represent the locomotive engineers."

My response was: "You have no business here, and I will have nothing to do with you. I will see no one of the locomotive engineers, except their accredited chief officer."

"Well," he said, "Mr. President, there is a new condition on the road, a new order of labor called the Knights of Labor. We are going to absorb all the other unions and have only one. The only obstacle in the way is the locomotive engineers, who refuse to give up their brotherhood and come in with us, but if you will recognize us only, that will force them to join. Now, the Brotherhood intends to present a demand very soon, and if you will recognize our order, the Knights of Labor, and not the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, we will take care of what they demand and all others from every department for two years, and you can take your trip to Europe in perfect peace of mind. If you do not do this there will be trouble."

I declined to deal with them as representatives of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Then their spokesman said: "As this is so serious to you, we will give you to-night to think it over and come back in the morning."

I immediately sent for the superintendent of motive power and directed him to have posted by telegraph in every roundhouse that the request of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, of which this committee had told me, had been granted. The next morning the committee returned, and their leader said: "Well, Mr. President, you have beaten us and we are going home."

Then I appealed to them, saying: "I am a pretty badly broken-up man. The doctors tell me that if I can have three months without care I will be as good as ever. You must admit that I have at all times been absolutely square with you and tried to adjust fairly the matters you have brought to me. Now, will you take care of me while I am absent?"

They answered unanimously: "Mr. President, we will, and you can be confident there will be no trouble on the New York Central while you are away."

I sailed with my mind free from anxiety, hopeful and happy, leaving word to send me no cables or letters. After a visit to the Pa.s.sion Play at Ober-Ammergau in Upper Bavaria, I went into the Austrian Tyrol. One night, at a hotel in Innsbruck, Mr. Graves, a very enterprising reporter of a New York paper, suddenly burst into my room and said: "I have been chasing you all over Europe for an interview on the strike on the New York Central." This was my first information of the strike.

As soon as I had left New York and was on the ocean, the young and ambitious officers who were at the head of the operations of the railroad and disapproved of my method of dealing with the employees, discharged every member of the committee who had called upon me. Of course, this was immediately followed by a sympathetic outburst in their behalf, and the sympathizers were also discharged. Then the whole road was tied up by a universal strike. After millions had been lost in revenue by the railroad and in wages by the men, the strike was settled, as usual, by a compromise, but it gave to the Knights of Labor the control, except as to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The early settlement of the strike was largely due to the loyalty and courage of the Brotherhood.

During my presidency I was much criticised by the public, but never by the directors of the company, because of my activities in politics and on the platform. For some time, when the duties of my office became most onerous, and I was in the habit of working all day and far into the night, I discovered that this concentrated attention to my railroad problems and intense and continuous application to their solution was not only impairing my efficiency but my health. As I was not a sport, and never had time for games or horses, I decided to try a theory, which was that one's daily duties occupied certain cells of the brain while the others remained idle; that the active cells became tired by overwork while others lost their power in a measure by idleness; that if, after a reasonable use of the working cells, you would engage in some other intellectual occupation, it would furnish as much relief or recreation as outdoor exercise of any kind. I had a natural facility for quick and easy preparation for public speaking, and so adopted that as my recreation. The result proved entirely successful.

After a hard day's work, on coming home late in the afternoon, I accustomed myself to take a short nap of about fifteen minutes.

Then I would look over my tablets to see if any engagement was on to speak in the evening, and, if so, the preparation of the speech might be easy, or, if difficult, cause me to be late at dinner. These speeches were made several times a week, and mainly at banquets on closing of the sessions of conventions of trade organizations of the country. The reciprocal favors and friendship of these delegates transferred to the New York Central a large amount of compet.i.tive business.

While I was active in politics I issued strict orders that every employee should have the same liberty, and that any attempt on the part of their superior officers to influence or direct the political action of a subordinate would be cause for dismissal.

This became so well known that the following incident, which was not uncommon, will show the result.

As I was taking the train the morning after having made a political speech at Utica, the yardmaster, an Irishman, greeted me very cordially and then said: "We were all up to hear ye last night, boss, but this year we are agin ye."

The position which this activity gave me in my own party, and the fact that, unlike most employers, I protected the employees in their liberty and political action, gave me immense help in protecting the company from raids and raiders.

We had a restaurant in the station at Utica which had deteriorated.

The situation was called to my attention in order to have the evils corrected by the receipt of the following letter from an indignant pa.s.senger: "Dear Mr. President: You are the finest after-dinner speaker in the world. I would give a great deal to hear the speech you would make after you had dined in the restaurant in your station at Utica."

After thirteen years of service as president I was elected chairman of the board of directors. Mr. Samuel R. Callaway succeeded me as president, and on his resignation was succeeded by Mr. William H. Newman, and upon his resignation Mr. W. C. Brown became president.

Following Mr. Brown, Mr. Alfred H. Smith was elected and is still in office. All these officers were able and did excellent service, but I want to pay special tribute to Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith is one of the ablest operating officers of his time.

When the United States Government took over the railroads he was made regional director of the government for railroads in this territory. He received the highest commendation from the government and from the owners of the railroads for the admirable way in which he had maintained them and their efficiency during the government control.

On the surrender of the railroads by the government, Mr. Smith was welcomed back by his directors to the presidency of the New York Central.

The splendid condition of the Central and its allied lines is largely due to him. During his service as regional director the difficult task of the presidency of the New York Central was very ably performed by Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. Though the youngest among the executive officers of the railroads of the country, he was at the same time one of the best.

Among the efficient officers who have served the New York Central during the time I have been with the company, I remember many on account of their worth and individuality. H. Walter Webb came into the railway service from an active business career. With rare intelligence and industry he rapidly rose in the organization and was a very capable and efficient officer. There was Theo. Voorhees, the general superintendent, an unusually young man for such a responsible position. He was a graduate of Troy Polytechnical School and a very able operating officer.

Having gone directly from the college to a responsible position, he naturally did not understand or know how to handle men until after long experience. He showed that want of experience in a very drastic way in the strike of 1892 and its settlement. Being very arbitrary, he had his own standards. For instance, I was appealed to by many old brakemen and conductors whom he had discharged. I mention one particularly, who had been on the road for twenty-five years. Voorhees's answer to me was: "These old employees are devoted to Toucey, my predecessor, and for efficient work I must have loyalty to me."

I reversed his order and told him I would begin to discharge, if necessary, the latest appointments, including himself, keeping the older men in the service who had proved their loyalty to the company by the performance of their duties.

Mr. Voorhees became afterwards vice-president and then president of the Philadelphia and Reading. With experience added to his splendid equipment and unusual ability he became one of the best executives in the country.

Mr. John M. Toucey, who had come up from the bottom to be general superintendent and general manager, was a hard student. His close contact with his fellow employees gave him wonderful control over men. He supplemented his practical experience by hard study and was very well educated. Though self-taught, he had no confidence in the graduates of the professional schools.

In selecting an a.s.sistant, one of them told me that Toucey subjected him to a rigid examination and then said: "What is your railroad career?"

"I began at the bottom," answered the a.s.sistant, "and have filled every office on my old road up to division superintendent, which I have held for so many years."

"That is very fine," said Toucey, "but are you a graduate of the Troy Technical School?"

"No, sir."

"Of the Stevens Tech.?"

"No, sir."

"Of Ma.s.sachusetts Tech.?"

"No, sir."

"Then you are engaged," said Toucey.

Mr. Toucey was well up-to-date, and differed from a superintendent on another road in which I was a director. The suburban business of that line had increased very rapidly, but there were not enough trains or cars to accommodate the pa.s.sengers. The overcrowding caused many serious discomforts. I had the superintendent called before the board of directors, and said to him: "Why don't you immediately put on more trains and cars?"

"Why, Mr. Depew," he answered, "what would be the use? They are settling so fast along the line that the people would fill them up and overcrowd them just as before."

I was going over the line on an important tour at one time with G. H. Burroughs, superintendent of the Western Division. We were on his pony engine, with seats at the front, alongside the boiler, so that we could look directly on the track. Burroughs sat on one side and I on the other. He kept on commenting aloud by way of dictating to his stenographer, who sat behind him, and praise and criticism followed rapidly. I heard him utter in his monotonous way: "Switch misplaced, we will all be in h.e.l.l in a minute," and then a second afterwards continue: "We jumped the switch and are on the track again. Discharge that switchman."

Major Zenas Priest was for fifty years a division superintendent.

It was a delightful experience to go with him over his division.

He knew everybody along the line, was general confidant in their family troubles and arbiter in neighborhood disputes. He knew personally every employee and his characteristics and domestic situation. The wives were generally helping him to keep their husbands from making trouble. To show his control and efficiency, he was always predicting labor troubles and demonstrating that the reason they did not occur was because of the way in which he handled the situation.

Mr. C. M. Bissell was a very efficient superintendent, and for a long time in charge of the Harlem Railroad. He told me this incident. We decided to put in effect as a check upon the conductors a system by which a conductor, when a fare was paid on the train, must tear from a book a receipt which he gave to the pa.s.senger, and mark the amount on the stub from which the receipt was torn. Soon after a committee of conductors called upon Mr. Bissell and asked for an increase of pay. "Why," Bissell asked, "boys, why do you ask for that now?"

After a rather embarra.s.sing pause the oldest conductor said: "Mr. Bissell, you have been a conductor yourself."

This half century and six years during which I have been in the service of the New York Central Railroad has been a time of unusual pleasure and remarkably free from friction or trouble.

In this intimate a.s.sociation with the railroad managers of the United States I have found the choicest friendships and the most enduring. The railroad manager is rarely a large stockholder, but he is a most devoted and efficient officer of his company.

He gives to its service, for the public, the employees, the investors, and the company, all that there is in him. In too many instances, because these officers do not get relief from their labor by variation of their work, they die exhausted before their time.

The story graphically told by one of the oldest and ablest of railroad men, Mr. Marvin Hughitt, for a long time president and now chairman of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, ill.u.s.trates what the railroad does for the country. Twenty-five years ago the Northwestern extended its lines through Northern Iowa. Mr. Hughitt drove over the proposed extension on a buckboard. The country was spa.r.s.ely settled because the farmers could not get their products to market, and the land was selling at six dollars per acre.

In a quarter of a century prosperous villages and cities had grown up along the line, and farms were selling at over three hundred dollars per acre. While this enormous profit from six dollars per acre to over three hundred has come to the settlers who held on to their farms because of the possibilities produced by the railroad, the people whose capital built the road must remain satisfied with a moderate return by way of dividend and interest, and without any enhancement of their capital, but those investors should be protected by the State and the people to whom their capital expenditures have been such an enormous benefit.

XIX. RECOLLECTIONS FROM ABROAD

I know of nothing more delightful for a well-read American than to visit the scenes in Great Britain with which he has become familiar in his reading. No matter how rapidly he may travel, if he goes over the places made memorable by Sir Walter Scott in the "Waverley Novels," and in his poems, he will have had impressions, thrills, and educational results which will be a pleasure for the rest of his life. The same is true of an ardent admirer of d.i.c.kens or of Thackeray, in following the footsteps of their heroes and heroines. I gained a liberal education and lived over again the reading and studies of a lifetime in my visits to England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I also had much the same experience of vivifying and spiritualizing my library in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Holland.