Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-13
CHIEF ARIHUR'S GOOD MANAGEMENT

n.
cap and pair of oYeralls, and engaged in
oiling his locomotive and scanning it with
critical attention, was familiar figure al
the Albany depot of the New York Central
Railroad not so many years ago. Peter NJ.
Arthur, for it was he, was very capable
engineer, and the fact alone that he was in
charge of locomotive attached to one Of
the fastest passenger trains on the line
proves the statement. Then he earned S125
month; now his salary is said to be 500 8
week and his income from his rent-roll Of
houses and lands and interest on money in
bank and stocks is double that amount.
Mr. Arthur is knight Of the foot-board no
more, and his jumper has given place to
broadcloth and his overalls to doeskin. He
no longer carries his dinner in a tin bucket,
and his hands are no longer hard with
honest callous. Then he lived in a modest
cottage; now he maintains an establishment
in Euclid avenue the most elegant resi-
dence street In all America.
As the chief officer in the Brotherhood of
Locomotiv Engineers, Nh. Arthur has been
in the public print and mind for Is years. The
executive head of the very best organized
body of workingmen in the world, he has
been man of no little influence from the
day on which be took his oath and assumed
his functions. The great strike of 1877
soon followed, when men with burning
torches threatened every house and public
building in the citv of Pittsburg. Mr..
Arthur's power was felt then as it has been
a score of times since. In the recent strike
of engineers on the Burlington road he
again became figure in the national eye,
and a thorn in the flesh of certain engineers
who sought war rather than peace. On
Wednesday of next week the twenty-sixth
annual convention of the Brotherhood will
meet at Denver, Col. Mr.. Arthur will be
q candidate for reelection to the Office
of Grand Chief Engineer and it is certain
that he will be opposed by those who
DO NOT APPROVE OF HIS POLICY,
as we'll as those who think he has had the
Office and its S., 900 salary quite long enough
for one man. The future of the organization
depends to large degree upon the result of
the election. The brotherhood was founded
upon the policy that settlement of differ
ences concerning wages and other vital
questions should be made by consultation
between employer and employe, rather than
by concerted abandonment of work and
physical force. The three chief engineers
Arthur-always were in harmony with that
policy The new chief if there is to be one,
NAV be an entirely different sort of a man.
Every person, therefore, who ships pound
of freight or rides from one town to another
will be interested in the meeting next week,
and the election to follow.
The first annual session of the brother
hood was held at indianapolis in August,
xrho off nd
disgraced BY the order for neglecting his
family and immoral conduct, was the grand
chief engineer. In his report to the dele
gates he gave an entertaining sketch of the
origin of the association, saving that a
handful Of engineers employed on the Michi-
gan Central road had assembled at the home
OF one of their number in the town of Mar
shall, Mich, to discuss their grievances and
10 e. jider the advisability of some united
effort. That was in April, 1868. This,
then, was the
BEGINNING OF THE BROTHERHOOD
that in the year 1889 has 26, 900 members, is
divided into 425 subdivisions, is established
in every State and Territory in America and
throughout the British provinces, and has
paid in hard cash to the widows of departed
engineers nearly s., SOC, 900.
founder of the brotherhood, thus enumer-
ates the causes which led to the meeting at
MARSHALL: ''The disposition manifested on
the part of the superintendent of motive
power on that road-the Michigan Central
to wage aremorseless war upon the best
interests of labor, ana especially his en-
crOachments upon the established rights and
usages of the engineers in his employ, and
hn nnti ~ fhair bod L.
come insuferable, and the engineers as a
class had become satisfied that the safety of
their positions as engineers, and the security
OF their pecuniars interests demanded a
unity OF purpose and combined and organ
lied action" This conference resulted in
the call for meeting at Detroit on the
5th of May, at which engine drivers
from the Michigan Central, Michigan
Southern, and Northern Indiana, Detroit
and Milwaukee, Grand Trunk (on the
American side), and the Detroit branch of
the Michigan Southern were invited to at
tend. A constitution and a series of by
laws embodying the fundamental principles
of the organization as it exists at the present
time, were drafted and accepted, and II en-
gineerS signed their names thereto. In
three months the Brotherhood of the Foot
divisions or lodges at Marshall and Adrian,
Mich, Chicago, ILL.,, Norwalk and Crest
line, O., and Michigan City, Lafayette and
Laporte, Ind. During the following Au-
gust these divisions were organized into a
grand national division (now the Grand
International DiYislon) and this is the body
which will meet at Denver.
At the organization of the grand division
Robinson was elected grand chief engineer.
In his address to the delegates he related
HOW HE HAD BEEN PROSECUTED
because of his prominence in the new move
ment. From the time of nv first connec-
tion with the brotherhood, as delegate to
Detroit in May" said he, ''the Master Me.
cbanic of the middle division of the Michi-
gan Central Railroad. at Marshall, had given
evidence of his hostility to the organization,
and his dislike of myself especially, as one
OF its originators, by pursuing me with everv
conceivable annoyance, and this enmity at
last eliminated in my discharge from the
service of the company"
The first serious trouble to confront the
brotherhood came with a controversy in
which the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne and Chicago
Railroad company and its locomotive engi-
neers were the central figures. The engi-
neers. who left their employment, were mem
bers of Division No. IL. After they were de-
feated by the railroad company they deserted
from the brotherhood and tore up their char
ter. Chief Robinson hurried to Fort Wayne.
the scene of the defeat and desertion. but his
Offices were of no avail. In his review of
the disaster he said the officials of the rail-
road fused the combined influence and
power of centralized wealth and corrupted