The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-12
Railroad Men of Prominence Who Got Their Early Training on the Railroad
 Lines of Texas

Lines Of Texas.

He can tell you everything and any thing which has any bearing remote or direct on the earning power of more than 13,000 miles of railroad under his control. There is nothing about railroad that Yoakum has done from carrying a transit to engineering deals, involving millions of dollars.
 President Newman.
 William H. Newman, president of the New York Central, Lake Shore and other Vanderbilt roads, and the executive head of all the lines known as the Vanderbilt system, was general freight agent of the Texas and Pacific Railroad thirty years ago. He was little of everything in those days. For while he was superintendent, then was in the traffic department, and he also served a short term of service in the passenger end of the service. There was no specialized system of railroad ing in the Southwest in those days. A man had to be little of everything Sometimes he had four or five titles and did all the work of three or four departments And he didn't have stenographer to do his letter writing, either. It was good, hard, steady work and plenty of 1t all the time. MT. Newman was in Texas during the great strike of 1886, the strike which broke Hoxie's heart He
 
 not leave the State till long afterward when he went into the operating de- partment of the Lake Shore. He still goes to Texas whenever he can, and it was one of these periodical trips some two or three years ago that a grizzled old Irish section hand climbed on the private car. He was promptly stopped by the porter, resplendent In gold braid.
 Who do you want to seer" asked the porter. ..s Bill Newman" answered the mick
 "Bill Newman is busy" answered the uniformed menial. IL.
 You go In and tell Bill Newman that Paddy Flynn Is outside and wants to see him"
 The porter was puzzled, but went in side Directly out came Newman and he grabbed the horny hand of the old man and invited him inside to have q drop of the crectur." And the section hand never removed his pipe or his hat. It was on this occasion that New man spoke something like this: "Do you know that with it all the best and the happiest days of my life were spent right down here in Texas. where l was busy from morning till night, and sometimes from morning till morn ing? This is where I learned how to run a railroad and how to run all de partments of it. Nothing like the expe- rience we youngsters got on Jay Gould's old railroads out here in the days when twenty miles an hour was canon ball time"
 President Finley.
 Mir. w W. Finley, President of the Southern Railway, was general pas senger agent and sometimes general freight agent of the Texas and Pacific in those same old days He was at it all the time. He had to he at it all the time Many of the old boys who were on the section in the days of thirty years ago remember him and speak of him in tones of affection yet. They talk of him as one of the fore most of the graduates of the South western school.
 Oscar C. Murray.
 Oscar C. Murray was general freight agent of the International and Great Northern at Galveston. It was a hus- tie to get business in that age New Orleans was considered the only South ern port and the Goulds had one line into New Orleans and two into Gal weston, and they were engaged in an effort to show that Galveston was real Iy the future great. They were play ing one Gulf port against another in the effort to obtain control of all the terminal facilities at both ports, an effort which came near success Mur- ray was young and full of Yigor and he