The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-21
NEARLY 15O MEN GET MEDALS FOR QUARTER
 CENTURY SERVICE
(Continued from Page Five,

l you are a part of it today-you who have | been longest in the service-and it repre- | sents the qualities which I have de- 1 scribed to you. There were 1758 men in this army who had served 25 years or more when the list was made up. We l have found that there are other men who were not on the original list. I am sure 1 when we get through it will be 1SO0 or more.
 1 OVER FIFTY YEARS IN SERVICE l Inside that group there is another l group There are 34 men who have been 1 more than 50 years in the service. There l is yet another group, one which gives me peculiar pleasure. It is composed of me-
 groes, and there are 245 of them who have l served the company more than 45 years. | They are the kind of negroes many of us grew up with, the kind of negroes we | love.
 Some IS months ago it seemed to me | that, having these sentiments, it was i entirely fitting that the company should | show some mark of appreciation of the l service to which I have referred I ac- cordingly made plan to have medal struck which I might distribute to those
 men and I am here for that purpose i Our first problem was to find an artist | who could produce something of high ar | tistc merit. We took the advice of a
 number of people who are competent to
 advise and finally, upon the recommenda- | ton of the director of the mint at Wash 1 ington, we went to Victor Brenner in New 1 York. He is the man who designed the Lincoln penny. It has been said, and 1 justly, too, I believe, that the Lincoln penny represents the American spirit. we told MT. Brenner we wanted a ! medal to represent the spirit of the south and particularly the work in which we
 are engaged. We prescribed to him cer- tain conditions The front of the medal | was to symbolize the entire railway serv- | ice, not as it was yesterday, for, while | it is to be given to the men who have been long in the service,s it is tosthe men who
 have made possible the modern roads of
 today.
 WHAT MEDAL REPRESENTS
 There is but one thing which repre- | sents the railway, and that is train in
 motion. So we had photographs taken
 and submitted them to MT. Brenner. My 1 thought was to have a train in motion
 passing cotton mill, as the most typical industry in which the south is engaged, l but the artist rebeIled. He said there was 1 nothing artistic in a cotton mill He placed scenery in it instead. The photo graph which he chose was taken in north
 Georgia, with Train No. 37 on it's way to ! Atlanta, with mountains In the back ground. We selected the dispatcher at Greenvile for the reverse side of the
 medal. Outside his window was a sec
 tion gang at work, symbolizing the main- 1 tenance of the road On the back of the
 medal is the name of the man who re-
 ceives 1t. On the front is the name of the
 company, then two words, For Loyalty
 Loyalty is a characteristic, an emo
 ton of the very highest quality of which
 man is capable. It is the sentiment which
 we all know mothers have for their
 children, and children for their mothers.
 But there is another loyalty which no
 man can escape who remains long in
 one occupations, and that is loyalty to l his own job. I do not mean loyalty to
 any one set of men or any company. The | loyalty for which this medal is given 1 is the loyalty a man pays when he does | his work well and honestly, and for many years has done it efficiently and
 has his own reward for having done it. 1 the loyalty to his job.
 | "It is a bronze medal. It Is not a gold medal. It is not set with diamonds. | It is a symbol of sentiment.
 "In making up the list of those to whom the medal is to be given we have been under great difficulties because of
 the imperfect records of service back of
 1894 We have made mistakes and if any mans name is not on this list let me
 know through your superior officer and | da1