The San Francisco call., 1904-10-23
CHAPTER XIII.
I,he InsurrcctionarIes.

CHAPTER XIII.
The Insurrectionaries.
When the Receiver Guilfords, great
and small, set their official guillotines
at work looping off department heads,
overlooked by many; namely, the pos
sible effect of such wholesale changes
in leadership upon the rank and file.
The American railroad in its uncon-
solidated stage is a modern feudalism.
Its suzerains are the president and
board of directors; its clan chiefs are
the men who have built it and fought
for its footing in the sharply contested
field of competition. TO these leaders
the rank and file is loyal, as loyalty
is accorded to the men who build and
DO, rather than to their SUCCESSORS who
inherit and tear down. Add to this
the supplanting of competent executive
officers by a staff OF political trencher-
men, ignorant alike of the science of
railroading. and the equally important
subsistence of industrial man-han-
ding, and you have the kindling for
the fire of insurrection which had been
slowly smoldering in the Transwest-
ern service since the day when Major
Guilford had issued his general order
number one.
At first the fire had burned fitfully,
eating its way into the small econo-
mics; as when the section hands pelt
stray dogs with new spikes from the
stock keg, and careless freight crews
seed down the right of way with cast
off links and pins; when engineers
pour oil where it should be dropped.
and firemen feed the stack instead of
the steam dome.
But later. when the incompetence of
the new officials became the mocking
gibe of service, and the cut-rate
avalanche Of traffic had doubled all
mems tasks, the flames arose highers
and out of the smoke of them doomed
the shape of the dread demon of de-
moralization.
First it was Hank Brodrick, who
freights in a mountain of Wreckage in
the deep cut between Long Pine and
Argenta. Next 1t was an overworked
night man who lost his head and
cranked a switch over in front of the
west-bound flyer, laying the 1920 on
her side in the ditch, with the postal
and the baggage car neatly telescoped
on top to hold her down.
Two days later it was Patsy Gala
han; and though he escaped with his
life and his job 1t was a close call.
He was chasing a time freight with
the fast mail, and the freight was
taking the siding at Delhi to let
him pass. One of the red tail-nghts
of the freight had gone out,
and Callahan mistook the other for the
target lamp of the second switch He
had time to yell at his fireman, to fling
himself upon the throttle-bar and to
set the airbrake before he began to
turn Irish handsprings down the en-
bankment; but the wrecking crew
camped two whole days at Delhi gath
ering up the debris.
1t was we'll on in the summer. when
the two divisions, east and west, were
strewn with wreckage and the pit
tracks in the shops and shop yard were
filled to overfowing with crippled en-
gines, that the insurrectionaries began
to gather in their respective labor
groups to discuss the growing hazards
of railroading on the Transwestern.
The outcome was a protest from the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,
addressed to the receiver In the name
of the organization, setting forth in
plain terms the grievance of the
members, and charging 1t bluntly
to bad management. This was
followed Immediately by similar
complaints from the trainmen, the
praying for relief from the incubus
of incompetent leadership. Not to be
behind these, came the Amalgamated
Machinists, demanding an increase of
pay for night work and overtime: and
last, but not least, an intimation went
forth from the Federative Council of
all these labor unions limiting at possi-
BILE political consequences and the
alienation Of the labor vote If the
abuses were not corrected.
What dye calc'late the major will
do about it?" said Brodrick, in the
roundhouse conclave held daily by the
trainmen who were hung up or off
duty. will he listen to reason and
give us a sure-enough railroad man or
two at the top?"
mot in Elm t'ousand year" quoth
Dutch" Fischer, Callahan's alternate
on the fast mail "Haf you not de
Arkoos been reading? 1t is bolotics
from der beginning to der ent; nit der.
Governor vorwarts."
Then am tellin' you-all right now
there's goin' to be a heap o. trouble"
drawled pike County Griggs, the
oldest engineer on the line The shop
men are b'ilin'; and If the major puts
on that blanket cut In wages he's talk
In about"
"1f,'" broke in Callahan, with fine
scorn. 'Tis slaping on yer injuries
ye are, Misther Griggs. The notice is
out; twas posted in the shops this
day"
''Then that settles It," said Griggs.
gloomily. When does II take hold ?"
"The first day av the month to come.
An they're telling me 1t catches every
body, down to the missinger b'ys in
the of-ces."
Griggs got upon his feet, yawning
and stretching before he dropped back
into his corner Of
the wooden settle.