Wadsworth semi-weekly dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1899-1904, 1899-10-07

San Francisco, Cal. Sept. 81, 80.
To members Of the B. OF L. E. of
VIZ: Subdivision l6l, San Fran
cisco, Cal.; 53l, Algiers. La; 277,
Portland. Oregon; S, Los Angeles,
Cal; 1877, San Antonio. Texas; SIS,
Ogden, Utah; %, Tucson, Arizona;
1872, El Paso, Texas; l58, Wadsworth.
Nevada; 466, Roseburg. Oregon; AIS.
Rocklin. CAL; 366, Houston, Texas;
1876, Bakersfield, CAL; AIS, Duns-
muir, CAL; ITO, Sacramento. CAL;
and 283 Oakland. Cal-Greeting:
From various points within the juris-
diction of this Committee has come to
1t complaints of the injury to the men,
bership in general, caused by the un-
fairness Of portion Of the daily press
Of San Francisco, CAL, in reporting
anything in the nature of an accident
on the lines of the Southern Pacific
Railroad and the subject having been
carefully discussed and considered, 1t
is deemed by your General Committee
Of Adjustment 10 deserve your serious
consideration.
While as body the locomotive en-
geneers employed by the Southern
Pacific compare more than favorably
with those of any other system, wher-
ever 1t may be (and the same we think
can be said, class for class. Of our as
sociates in the service-the firemen,
the conductors, the brakemen, the
switchmen, the operators, dispatchers,
and trackmen), and while the truth, of
any charge that life and property is
any less safe in the hands of Southern
Pacific employees than in those of any
other systems can be safely challenged,
yet the happening of any accident on
Southern Pacific lines, great or small,
Is made the occasion for black head
lines, and among other prejudicial
statements the impression is given.
either by express assertion or Edirect
implication, that trains on S. P. lines
are habitually manned by incompetent,
drunken employees, who recklessly and
brutally disregard the safety of lives
and property.
Your duties require at all times the
highest degree Of vigilance and mental
effort. and few realize the countless
times in the life of a locomotive engin-
eer when slightest lapse on his part
would result in a wreck or disaster. and
to your credit be 1t noted that those
lapses are very few. The best will
sometimes make mistakes, and when
a man has safely hauled his trains
from year to year-a lifetime almost,
perhaps, as many of you have-with-
out one single blot upon his record.
scarce one slight error to him charged,
If he at last should one time fail, 1t is
unmeasured wrong to put the brand Of
incompetency upon him. based upon
one such error and clamor for his dis
sw-k - ,s.,r---. - . s1e
1t is sara Of the captain who recently
put the liner "Paris" ashore upon the
English coast that he had made pre-
viously five hundred trips across the
Atlantic without one single mishap;
and yet his error was at last from
simply reading 7:3o o'clock as $50
o'clock in an entry upon the chart.
Why his mind failed in its usual Wig
lance on that one occasion when SO
many million times before It had been
true, is one Of the mysteries that can
not be solved.
The unfairness named tends TO cause
the discharge of engineers for slight
lapse. for single lapse or error after
! long and capable service, by reason oi