Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-08-12
BEGAN AS BRAKEMAN, NOW 4
is RAILROAD PRESIDENT
Stanton EGre5 Declares He
Started at Bottom and
Just Naturally Worked
Hard All the Time
BY DONALD G. DOUGHERTY


Copyright, 1922, New York Evening
World, by Press Publishing Coz
NEW YORK.-To hear Stanton
Ennes tell it, there is no particular
significance to be attached to the
statement that the newly elected
president Of the Wheeling and Lake
Erie railroad thirty-eight years ago
was a brakeman throwing switches
out on the Missouri Pacific railroad.
But that is because it is Mr.. Ennes
who is the new president of the
Wheeling and Lake Erie.
The fact that you can name in
breath all the railroad brakes" who
have wound up their careers as rail-
road presidents does not seem to
stir Mr.. Ennes at all-and that is
because he is just a genuinely mod
est man.
He says: 'I'm no novelty. All the
railroad presidents got to the top
by starting somewhere at the bot
tom-in a roundhouse or a division
office or as a telegrapher-and by
working hard all the way up"
And neither is the additional fact
that Stanton Ennes' father was
railroader before him, engaged in
the construction end Of the railroad
business, a matter worth recording
on print paper, in the estimation Of
Mr.. Ennes.
The elder Ennes didn't urge his
son to go into railroading nor did
he help the lad get his first job.
Young Stanton got part way through
high school when he was 16, picked
up biography with the Western
Union, worked as an operator for
several years and then took his first
brakeman's job with the Missouri
Pacific at st. Louis, not particularly
because of anything more pressing
than that the young fellow was just
then looking for a job and caught
on to the fact that the M. P. needed
chap like him for $50 month.
So you cannot put a pink cloud of
romance up behind Mr.. Ennes' be-
ginning as a railroader if you let
him have his way about it.
1t was back in 1884 that Stanton
Ennes first put his dinner pail, Ian
tern and flag in the caboose of a
Missouri Pacific train. Eighteen
years passed before his work brought
him at the age of 38 to his first
executive position. that Of superin-
tendent Of what is now called the
Joplin division Of that road. Two
years later he went with the West
ern Maryland, and then he served, in
succession, with the Grand Trunk,
the Great Northern, with the West
ern Maryland again, with the Balti-
more and Ohio and finally with the
Wheeling and Lake Erie.
AS Mr.. Ennes, seated at his big
glass-topped desk out ON Huron road,
Cleveland, sketches, in brief, detail
bare fashion, these transfers of his
services and his personality from
one road to another, it becomes in
stantly plain why he was changing;
plain that everywhere he went he
won the confidence of his associates
and superlors; plain why he was get.
ting bigger with every change.
+ 1t was Vice President F. H. Nc
Guiggan who took the former brake.
AAAc11 away Ii Viii lIlS dIlu
when Mr.. McGuiggan went to the
Great Northern. And when Carl r.
Gray left the Great Northern to be-
come president of the Western
Maryland, he took Mr.. Ennes along
to be general superintendent and
two years later he made him general
manager of that road
When, in 1918, the government
took over the railroads, Arthur
Thompson was appointed federal
manager of the Baltimore and Ohio,
the Western Maryland and several
smaller lines. Mr.. Thompson trans
ferred Mr. Ennes, placing him in
charge of the Baltimore and Ohio
eastern lines with headquarters az
Baltimore.
"And that war time experience"
says Mr.. Ennes. was full of the
hardest problems of my thirty-eight
years of railroad work. The B. & O.
not only was one of the largest car
riers of troops and munitions, but
was one of the hardest, if not the
hardest, hit by the influenza cpl
demic, which, as you will remember.
came at a most critical time when
men were so difficult to replace be-
cause of enliStments and munitions
making. We recorded lightweight
deaths down at the division termina!
of Keyser in just a few weeks and
had to appeal to the western lines
for volunteers"
But the stocky, gray-haired, kind
ly-faced Ennes must have met "the
hardest problems of his thirty-eight
years Of railroad work" in convinc-
ing fashion, for when the govern
ment returned the railroads to their
OWnnrc nftnr fhn prnciInnt
lei Willard, of the Baltimore and
Ohio, invited Mr.. Ennes to remain
at his post as manager instead Of
returning to- the Western Maryland
Mr.. Ennes accepted and remained
with the 3. & o. until 1921, when
he was elected vice president and
general manager of the Wheeling
| and Lake Erie. That office he held
| until July 1 this year when he sue.
ceeded William M. Duncan as pres
| ident, Mr.. Duncan becoming chair.
man of the board.
When you first begin to talk with
Mr.. -Ennes you sense that his quiet
but nevertheless arresting PERSONAL
| ty has been responsible for a large
measure of his success.
AS you go on talking with him +
hardly requires diagram to realize
that his wide experience has been
another mighty contributing factc-
you know that what he doesn't
know about railroading isn't neces-
sary to be known.
But when you drag out that stand
ard, oft-used question of the inter-
view, "Well, if you had to begin all
over again, would you choose some
other occupation?" you get in his
reply and the manner in which he
| makes it what is probably the big.
q ID cidarettes |