Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1916-04-26

As to this question OF the sale OF.
liquor on railroad trains AID In rail-
road stations, very much more III
moment. Consider now the liquor
question Of tie railroad from It's
primary star dpoinl, the standpoint
Of the employee-,ne man 10 whom
the safe operation of Tie trains Is
intruslcd in large or small degree.
Remember that there were many
times ard places twenty wears ago,
some even ten years ago, when
traveller might find railroad men IN
uniform and on duty drinking. And
the casual traveller did not zee the
lonely Yards "f those days-thc
yards where his personal safety
must be mos, carefully conserved
Yards which sometimes have had
more whisky bottles than coupling
pins StrrWn along their maze Of
tracks.
It's hard job this yard and
work, many and many apo:oGctlc
yardma>,er would have told at that
time; "ha,d enough III the pleasant
days of ,umm"r, plaiu hell in win
ter. Ye can't bl&&ae the yard bosses
if they're little blind. sometimes
when they see lhe byes maxim for
Rafferty'S or even that Polish Jlnt
the Yes, End Saloon"
There is much force to his argu-
ment, apparently. Practically all
of the great freight yards of the
railroads of America busy hubs
of that sort ol activity which is the
most importantof their many phases
of operaLior-are situated in desc
late barrcns outside of the large
cities. Not only are there hun
dreds and even thousands Of hard
working rallroaders employed in
each of THESE brick, remote places,
but they are invariably the termi-
nails of the freight run of all the
lines, big and little. Engineers,
fremen, and trainmen come piling
off the long trains at all hours of
the day, and the night as we'll, tir
ed, hungry, cold. Do you wonder
that Mikes place or the West End
looks inviting to them:
There are plenty of railroad
bosses to-day who call their drink.
ing men or the carpet and say: A
man befuddled by booze can't
work for me! A whisky user or
beer user is in no condition either
to run a train or have even the
smallest part in Its conduct.
1t is not quite four years ago
that muddled engineer walked in
to the shadows of a roundhouse at
a certain big railroad hub in the
East and clumsily boarded his train.
He had been drinking. He was not
drunk. A drunken man could not
have climbed into the locomotive
cab in = fashion that would have
escaned the attention of vigilant
roundhouse foreman. A drunken
engineer could not have signed in
for his run and escaped the sharp
eyes of the roundhouse clerk. But
a man with just enough drinks in
him to befuddle his thinking ca
pacity was the most dangerous fac
tor that railroad could have in its
employ that night.
The locomotive into which the
engineer climbed that July night
was as perfect piece Of mechanism
as might we'll be devised; it had
been carefully inspected and made
ready for its mighty run, $50 miles
up the line. The track over which
its path was to rest was the pride of
the heads of one of the richest roads
in America; it was carefully in
spected, every inch of it. And
there was not mile that was not
marked by the watchful eye of a
to yellow, and to red as it flashed
its messages OF safety and caution
and danger on the line just ahead.
Yet before that locomotive had
gone twenty miles, travelling at
tremendous, thanderous speed, it
had crashed into the rear Of a stall
ed passenger rain; the night eX-
press from the seahoard to the lakes,
filled to capacity with excursicnists
bound to spend a Fourth O. July
holiday. The locomotive eft the
last car of the stalled train almost
as sharply ana cleanly as an expert
woodsman would strike his sharp
ened AK through the grain of a
log.
RULE 6" NO LONGER a JOKE.
They took forty bodies out Of the
wreckage. When the dawn finally
broke through the fog, hanging
close ia tie stilled waters of the