Omaha daily bee., 1888-03-18

" QUINCY
A RETENTIvE MEMORY.
Mr.. Potter and the Chicago, Burling-
ton g. Quincy had been inseparnbly as
sociated together foryears, and to speak
Of one was to include the other. He
was familiar with every station on the
main line and could call by name every
agent employed at these stations, pro-
vided they had been employed any con-
siderable period. With the engineers,
conductors and subordinate officials he
always maintained the most friendly re-
lations, and never failed to call them
by their first names when they were cas-
ually met on the road. Familiarity he
never tolerated, but his keen PERCEPTION
and rare judgment OF men enabled him
to readily distinguish between manly
independence and impertinence. He
admired the former and despised the
latter.
HIS EvEN-HANDED JUSTICE.
No employe ever appealed to him in
vain for the correction OF a just griev-
ance. An incident will illustrates:
A conductor who had been discharged
by the division superintendent at OF
tumwa for no other reason than the wish
OF the superintendent to give the run to
a son-in-law. Robert Patten, the ag-
grieved conductor, conscious OF having
given no occasion for dismissal, re-
quested the superintendent to give him
a pass to Chicago and return.
what is your mission to Chicago?'
queried the nervous superintendent.
II am going to lay my case before
me the justice denied me here, replied
the conductor.
you'll get no pass from this office, "
was the decisive response,
Mr.. Patten, nothing daunted, paid for
a dispatch and hreached Mr.. Potter, from
whom there came a few minutes later
an imperative order to the superintend-
ent to issue the desired passes. They
were issued, and two days afterward the
conductor returned from Chicago, ac-
companied by Mr.. Potter. He investi-
gated the case thoroughly, and after
ascertaining the facts refused to be sat-
istied with reinstating the man. He
did much better, and appointed him
night trainmaster, with headquarters in
the superintendent office.
REWARDED HIS FRIENDS.
The high respect and kind regard in
which he was held by the men
would have enabled him to have trans
ferred many of the Chicago, Burlington
& Quincy employees to the Union Pacific,
had he merely announced that he
wanted them to come. Conductor Hill
now running on the Kansas Pacific, be-
tween Denver and Kansas City, was dis
charged from the "Q' last June, on ac-
count of an accident, for which he was
only technically responsible. He was
given employment under Mr.. Potter,
and is one of the most honorable and
competent conductors in the service of
the Union Pacific, as he was also on the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy.
HIS COMMAND OF MEN.
During critical period of the great
strike of 1877, in which employees of the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy were in
volved, an incident occurred at Burling-
ton which strikingly illustrates his
wondrous control of men. That tre-
mendous contest for supremacy was not
conducted in the quiet and orderly way
that has marked the struggle now in
progress between the same road and its
men. Fully. a thousand angry
men had gathered at the old
depot near the river front, and their
turbulent conduct gave rise to a just
fear that single overt act would ignite
a flame that boded disaster to the extern
sive property of the company located at
Burlington. Foreseeing the approach
ing storm, Mr.. G.. T.. Perkins assayed to
reason with the crowd, but he was
treated with contempt and hooted down.
AT this juncture, when the men were
becoming turbulent and were on the eve
of violence, a determined looking man
was seen pushing his way through the
crowd. 1t was Tom Potter. He was
recognized and as though moved by a
common impulse the men fell back and
opened Il way for him. Leaping upon a
baggage truck, he took n sweeping sur
vey of his grim audience. as though TAX
ing a mental inventory of its compost
tion. The angry mutterings ceased and
silence reigned. Turning to a number
of bronzed tiremen and time-scarred en-
gineers, he addressed himself to them:
Has any one of you ever appealed to
me for a courtesy, or requested the
righting of wrong that has not been
granted or rectified If you deserved it?''
said he. ''Do you believe that the de-
struction of property will provide you a
remedy for the evils you make COM
plant about. / want to meet you like
men and | will assure you we can reach
satisfactory solution of the trouble by
an appeal to reason than resort to vio-
lence." At this, stalwart, red-headed
engineer named Tom Hawksworth.
who, like his great leader, has crossed
life's division and been consigned to the
''windowIess palace of death, "strode up
10 Jne trucks, gfaSpeu MI. FOtIef Dy une
hand, gave it an air brake squeeze, and
fairly yelled: ''You bet your life, Tom
Potter, we will follow your lead. Boys,
three cheers for Tom Potter" and from
Il thousand throats a fierce yell of de-
light went up. In fifteen minutes they
had assigned 100 men to guard and pro-
tect the property of the company, an ex-
ample that was followed along the en-
tire line the next day.
Buenos Ayres, in the Argentine Re-
public, is now the largest city in South
America, the census of 1887 giving it u
population of 434 900. The population
of the entire country has increased IT'S
per cent in the last twenty years, while
that of the United States in the same
period Of time has increased only 10 per
cent.
A new musical instrument, the Claw
harp, the invention of M. Diez, OF Brus-
sells, has passed a successful private
trial. 1t has keyboard like piano,
but the mechanism plucks the strings
like IL harp instead of striking them.
Any pia mist can play it.