The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-07-02

until the conductor gave the engineer
the -highbaIl" and the train pulled out.
The boy was Il years old. He had
never been to school except insofar as
three or four terms in the university
of hard knocks may be considered
schooling. His hands and wrists pro-
truded some six inches beyond the
point where his sleeves had eSta bliSheu
their advance guard and the tails OF
his Prince Albert coat looked as though
they had withstood a surgical opera
ton. Later it developed that he had
so cents i'm his right hand trousers peck
ct. That night the boy went to work
as telegraph operator. freight ruStler
and general night factotum at the Car
bondale station at a salary of $50 a
month. Friday night of last week a
private car went out of the Topeka
yards attached to No. 6. 1t carried the
boy to station somewhat larger and
still farther east than Carbonate,
where he went TO begin his duties aS
second vice president of the Rock Is
land railway at a salary of $4,000
year.
In this country divers and sundry ex-
cellent people hold to the theory that
the poor man has no chance. Upon
tllne not so long 10 the windWard the
presidential candidate of a great party
made campaign based largely upon
the hypothesis that the young man.
AbSalom- is barred of opportunity
Ihere IS no better refuta ton of this
aslant and awry theory than Henry
Try Nudge Getting on in this world
i not so much matter of opportun-
lty as II is OF capacity. The deClara-
llOn or independence, a document held
in deep reverence in this country Laws
down as one of it's tenets the assertion
mat all men are created free and equal.
Nothing could be more fallaciOuS. Men
are not equal at birth or at any other
period in their lives. The prizes of this
life are not based on the exercise OF
governmental function. They go to the
men of clear mind, big brain and will
ling hands. The secret of Mr.. Mudge's
exceptional success lies in the two
words, capacity and Willingness"
He had no dowry of money. influence
or education. His father was a sec
ton foreman and he earned his first
money carrying water to the section
gang. His education was such as ir-
regular attendance in district school
! up to the age of Is years gives. At Il
ne went out into the world with no
other aids than capacity and willing
hand and opportunity unlocked the
gate for him. That's all.
The chronological order of Mr..
MHdge's ascendancy over men of af-
fairs has been recently thrashed out in
the mill % current events. But there
are salient features which read better
| for the retelling. He was born in Min
den, Mich. in 1856. The first entry on
his timeboOk was made in 1871, when
he went on the Santa Fe payroll as
at Larned. He graduated from that
job to position as section hand Hav-
ing hung around the station nights un-
til he learned telegraphy, the Santa Fe,
in the spring of 1872. sent him to the
little station of Peace, now an un-
marked and forgotten spot on the right
of way west of Hutchinson. to act as
station agent and telegraph operator
Mr. Mudge's administration of affairs
at Peace was OF short duration. Three
! days after he took charge of the office
the company closed it and Nudge was
4 turned over to the agent al Hutchinson
as helper.
Railroading in the old days wasn't
what il is now. In the west the sign
and insignia of the railroad man was
a strong and OdorOus breath rampant,
backed up by a brown jug cOuChant-
The agent at Hutchinson belonged to
the order He was careless of the
company rules and regulations as re-
CARDS the size of a jag an emplOye
was permitted to carry and at the same
time retain his place in the line at the
paymaSter's window Young Nudge
was temperate. He had no taste for the
| brown jug form of conviviality, and
seeing he was a different sort and
likely to set "A new standard for the
Office, the agent at Hutchinson offered
to trade him to T.. r. Bartlett, agent
at CarbOndale. Bartlett snapped and
Nudge stayed i'm Carbonate three
years. influenced doubtless by the fact
that il was in Carbondale that he met
and fell in love with the young woman
who subsequently beca me his wife. He
left Carbonate in 1875 to become q bag
gageman on the run into Denver.
During the next twelve or fourteen
years he was brakeman, a conductor a
telegraph operator. a dispatcher and a
roadma ster. AS late as 1882 he was
running a construction train out of
Ration and living in the way car with
his family 1t was no longer ago than
hot hsaf
trainmaster at San Marcial. After that
promotion came easier. He was assist
ant superintendent within a year and
a division superintendent soon after
ward. In 1898 they tucked the position
of general superintendent OF the west
ern grand division in his inside pocket.
A year later he went to the eastern
grand division in the same capacity
and in 1895 they pushed him into the
general Superintendency. He was APP
pointed general manager in January,
1900.
The men who worked under him say
no subordinate ever took a grievance to
| Nudge which did not receive respectful
sitiOn of the subordinate happened to
be He was 3 accessible to the man
who tamped ties at $1.10 a day as he
was to the man who came kid gloVed to
, desk in the general ofnces. A wooden
shirt and pair or brogans had the
same right of way in his Office as an
engraved card. He did his work ap-
parently without effort. In days of
railroad stress he came to the office
early and stayed late. When things
we're running smoothly he took his own
time about getting down in the morn
ing ana went away when the mood
seized him. He had few diversions. On
fine evenings, after the responsibilities
OF the day had slipped from his shotll-
ders. he went horseback riding. Once
a year he hid away fer d month in the
Glorietta mountains and hunted and
fished to his hearts content-par ticu-
larly fished. He IS a crack rod and
when he went to the mountains he cut
himself off absolutely from the general
offices, plunged into the wilderness fifty
miles from telegraph station and a
pOStOffice- Only his chief clerk knew
where to find him then and he never
bothered about il. When in the hours
of his leisure. Mr.. Nudge was not rid
ing horseback or buried in the Gloriette
mountains. ne was at home sprinkling
the lawn. or looking at the Thermometer
He rarely saw Kansas avenue by cleo
trio light and the pitch games at the
clubs were never a magnet sufficient to
draw him down town in the evening.
Railroad men say Mudge'S strength
lay in his exact knowledge of the de
tails of railrOadiBg. He knew track as
boy knows his fathers back yard.