The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-06-12
A CHAT WITH PULLMAN.
The Great Car Builder Talks Of His
Work and the Fair,
The Rise of q Great Corporation from .
Small Beginning-Where and How Such
an Immense Business LIS Managed
In the Presidents Once.
IoopYRreHr, 1881

George M. Pullman is the best
known citizen of Chicago, because he,
living there and there commencing his
experiments in transportation, appears
ubiquitously all over the land, and not
even Uncle Sam shows up, for the mail
wagons in red, white and blue are to
be seen only in our large cities, while
the costly Pullman cars run past all
the villages and petty stations. Old
as these parlor and sleeping cars are,
some millions of the American people
do not yet understand just what they
may be, as can be seen by the intrud-
ers at the country stations, who sit
down and are little dazed to note
how kind the road has been to them
for the first five or ten minutes. They
cannot quite understand how the pas
sengers STARE at them, whereas they
expected to have the whole stare, as
country folks learn things through
their pupils. The Pullman building
in Chicago is on the Lake Enont, and is
very conspicuous building, made of
red terra Gotta and brick, with q
huge central arch, and the whole
building over the arch recessed, like
the Mills building in New York,
where Pullman has his eastern offices.
The president Of the Pullman Car COM
pany holds continual levee, and I
felt while sitting about his room and
holding over at frequent Interrupt
tions, that he probably had more call
ers than the president of the United
States. Each man must come to bust
ness at once, unless he pays call Of
respect, and while / was sitting there
army officers, foreign counts and dis
tant railroad magnates came in, and
in the presidents methodized way he
gave them all time enough, and each
seemed to leave not feeling that he
had been forced out, yet none had q
long stay.
Mr.. Pullman's Office suggests some
of his finer cars; his desk is of mahog-
any, about Ave feet square, and he sits
at it in the middle Of the room, his
hair now turning gray, and his goatee
quite gray, and his skin healthy yet
pale, suggestive of the hard labor he
has been doing all his life. He is his
own executive. An Office outside OF his
contains his confidential men, who
receive cards and know who they are
talking about. Beyond this room you
see half a dozen people at ali times,
some of them, perhaps, wanting to be
Pullman conductors, others to inter
oede for conductors in trouble, and
still others to sell supplies, ETC.. AS he
has large house about two miles out
from his office, on the Lake Front,
where he entertafns, most of the nota-
bi1ities call at his office for conven-
fence. In this large Office room the
carpet Is of blue color and with an
old gold band for a border. The pic
lures around are suggestive Of the
place, such as Fromentin's "Sleigh
Ride in Russia Frith's English Rail-
way Station" ''The Derby Race a
portrait Of Thomas A. Scott and Frank
Thompson.
81 took look at your worlds fair
train in the Transportation building
81 want you to see that when it can
be explained to you. You know that
about six years ago began the vesti-
bule trains in this country, making a
continuous thing of train, like the
deck Of ship, where one crosses plat
forms between the cars without know
ing it, and where the shock Of col
isions and the prevention of telescop-
ing are obviated by solid frame
through the train. have now ex-
tended that system to the tender of
the engine, SO as to protect the fireman
and the mail-car men"
Without some such innovator as
you have been, doubt If mankind
would have thought of bringing the