The times., 1899-08-13
A Railroad EDic.


| A Railroad Epfc,
The name of Cy Warman has become
familiar to the public in the last decade, in
connection with railroad stories. poems,
and sketches, and one book, 1.-The Story
OF the Railroad" in which a part of the
history of the great West was reviewed
| His latest achievement "Snow on the
Headlight" is by all odds his best, and
though the style Is in places somewhat
ragged, the sentiment of the cheap nlelo-
drama variety, and the sententiousness
little overdone, there is SO much that is
| ilne IN the book that one may overlook all
these defects and be impressed with the
real strength and thoughtfulness of the
story.
Snow on the Headlight is the history
OF the great Burlington strike, told In the
form of truth thinly yelled as fiction. 1t
Is the kind of story that sets one thinking,
and reveals the tremendous mass of ma
| terial which lies ready to the hand of the
American novelist of the future. II is
4 really an epic describing the graphing of
| two Titanic powers-the Company and the
Brotherhood-and this is the first time that
the teller of such a tale has distinctly
! taken the workingman's side of it. This
is the work Of a man who, in the express
|
Where he uses rhetoric it is of the kind
that the engineer might applaud in the
| cheap theatre; where he does not, but han
| dies the big facts as they are, he does his
| best work.
| There was a great deal Of plain, bare
heroism in that strike, and the evidence of
it crops out on almost every page. Take
| the case of the men who, knowing what
the failure Of the movement would mean
to them and to their families, yet Joined
in sympathetic strike" when they had
no grievances. Perhaps they were FOOLS
| but they were plucky fools; and since, In a
war, man is counted hero who throws
/ his life away for his regiment even in
hopeless cause, 1t may be that these men
were also heroes. The man who has work.
ed for his place for twenty-five years, and
gives up all he has gained for the sake of
his Brotherhood, has his reasons for it
reasons which seem to him worthy and
/ good-and since they are strong enough to
move not one, but many hundreds of SEN
sible men, 1t may be admitted that they
are worth considering.
The big fight between capital and labor
/ is still going on It will continue, and grow
more fierce and bitter as the years pass.
until one or the other wins. That is a
fact which we might as well face now as
at any other time, Every employer who
treats his men considerably and has their
conference.-the can command that personal
loyalty which comes not from money be-
slowed but from personal characters
/ helping to settle this big problem peacea-
| bly,. Every man who does good work and
| acts according to the dictates of his own
conscience, refusing to become party to
| injustice or anarchy if he can possibly help
| it, is also helping to peaceful and wise
! solution. The danger comes from the men
| on both sides who are not honest, and just,
and generous-from the capitalists who are
grasping at mems liberties, and the labor
ers who are anxious for personal advance
ment There are enough OF these TO make
1t very hard for the men on both sides
who earnestly desire justice and prosperity.
not only for themselves, but for their
neighbors.
Just at present the fight is a blind fight
in the dark. This fact Is brought out for
chilly in Mr.. Warman's book. Both sides
fought for power in this big Burlington
strike; the company believed its course the
only one possible for the preservation CT
| its authority, the Brotherhoods were re-
solved to win the fight for the sake
of their liberty in the future. 1t was
disastrous fight. It worked wreck and
ruin to both parties. 1t meant, according
TO Mr.. Warman's estimate, the loss of
twenty million dollars to the company. The
men had no twenty millions, but they lost
their wives and children by starva-
| ton; they lost their homes on which
many OF them had been paying
installments; they lost hope and in
dependence; they deprived themselves of
| comfort and impoverished their homes. OF
| course, these tragic things did not happen
| In every home, but there were enough OF
| them. The led striker may have called it
a strike, but the papers emphatically and
| more correctly called it war. 1t was
| lfo lln
paigning.
| Some incidents of the war are recorded
| graphically and tersely by Mr.. Warman,
| who speaks as one who saw. Here is one:
Scores of criminals, deputies, and strikers were
rounded up for a hearing before Judge Meyer
| So great was the crowd of defendants that little
| room was left for the curious. The first man
| called was a laborer a freight handler whose
occupation had gone when the company ceased
| to handle freight. The charge against him was
peculiar His neighbor, driver for one
of the breweries owned cow, which, although
| she gave abundance Of milk at night, had
| ceased almost entirely to produce at the morn
/ ing milking. The German continued to feed her
| and she waxed fat but there was no i'm
| provement, and finally it was decided that the
| COW should be watched. About a. the
| following day a small man came and leaned
ladder against the high fence between the drivers
| backyard and that of the laborer Then the
| small man climbed TO the top OF the fence, bal
| anced himself carefully, hauled the ladder up
| and slid down into the Dutchman's lot All this
| was suspicious, but what the driver wanted was
positive proof, so he choked his dog and remained
| quiet until the man had MIXED the COW and
! started for the fence. Now the bulldog, being
| freed from his masters grasp, coupled into the
| climbers caboose and hauled him back down the
ladder 1t found upon examination that
| rubber hot-water bag, wei filed with warm milk
| was dangling from a strap that eneircled the
mans shoulders. shot.pouch fashion.
Upon being charged, the man pleaded guilty
h.o ha had 1lr tnlr. m.
| for the baby, who had been without milk for
| thirty-sx hours. The thought OF stealing had
not entered his mind until near morning of the
| second night OF the baby's fast They had been
up with the starving child all night, and lust
| before day he had gone into the BACKYARD to get
some fuel to build fire. when he heard his
| neighbor's COW tramping about In the barn lot
| and instantly 1t occurred to him that there was
milk for the baby; that if he could procure only
| teacupful, it might save the child's life He
| secured a ladder and went over the fence but
being dreadfully afraid, he had taken barely
| enough milk to keep the baby during the day
| and that night they obliged to walk the
floor again. 1t was only little past midnight
| when he went the fence for the second
| time Upon this occasion he took more milk.
| so that he was not obliged to return on the fol-
| lowing night, but another day brought the same
| condition OF affairs and over the fence he went
and continued to go every night. and the baby be-
| gan to thrive rs 1t had not done in all its life
/. The freight agent who was called as a
witness testified as to the good character of the
man previously. but he was thief Put to the
| test it had been proven that he would steal from
| his neigIbor simply to keep his baby from starv-
| ing so he went TO the workhouse, his family
| went to the poorhouse, and the strike went on
On the whole. 1t is somewhat optimistic
| to call strike war.
| AS to the deeper problems of the move
ment-the problems which deal not with
| the private affairs of men who steal milk