The Grafters

by Francis Lynde

  XXIII

  THE INSURRECTIONARIES

  When the Receiver Guilfords, great and small, set their officialguillotines at work lopping off department heads, they commonly ignore aconsequence overlooked by many; namely, the possible effect of suchwholesale changes in leadership upon the rank and file.

  The American railroad in its unconsolidated stage is a modern feudalism.Its suzerains are the president and board of directors; its clan chiefsare the men who have built it and fought for its footing in the sharplycontested field of competition. To these leaders the rank and file isloyal, as loyalty is accorded to the men who build and do, rather than totheir successors who inherit and tear down. Add to this the supplanting ofcompetent executive officers by a staff of political trenchermen, ignorantalike of the science of railroading, and the equally important sub-scienceof industrial manhandling, and you have the kindling for the fire ofinsurrection which had been slowly smoldering in the Trans-Western servicesince the day when Major Guilford had issued his general order Number One.

  At first the fire had burned fitfully, eating its way into the smalleconomies; as when the section hands pelt stray dogs with new spikes fromthe stock keg, and careless freight crews seed down the right of way withcast-off links and pins; when engineers pour oil where it should bedropped, and firemen feed the stack instead of the steam-dome.

  But later, when the incompetence of the new officials became the mockinggibe of the service, and the cut-rate avalanche of traffic had doubled allmen's tasks, the flames rose higher, and out of the smoke of them loomedthe shape of the dread demon of demoralization.

  First it was Hank Brodrick, who misread his orders and piled two freightsin a mountain of wreckage in the deep cut between Long Pine and Argenta.Next it was an overworked night man who lost his head and cranked a switchover in front of the west-bound Flyer, laying the 1020 on her side in theditch, with the postal and the baggage-car neatly telescoped on top tohold her down.

  Two days later it was Patsy Callahan; and though he escaped with his lifeand his job, it was a close call. He was chasing a time freight with thefast mail, and the freight was taking the siding at Delhi to let him pass.One of the red tail-lights of the freight had gone out, and Callahanmistook the other for the target lamp of the second switch. He had time toyell at his fireman, to fling himself upon the throttle-bar and to set theairbrake before he began to turn Irish handsprings down the embankment;but the wrecking crew camped two whole days at Delhi gathering up thedebris.

  It was well on in the summer, when the two divisions, east and west, werestrewn with wreckage and the pit tracks in the shops and shop yard werefilled to overflowing with crippled engines, that the insurrectionariesbegan to gather in their respective labor groups to discuss the growinghazards of railroading on the Trans-Western.

  The outcome was a protest from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,addressed to the receiver in the name of the organization, setting forthin plain terms the grievance of the members, and charging it bluntly tobad management. This was followed immediately by similar complaints fromthe trainmen, the telegraphers, and the firemen; all praying for relieffrom the incubus of incompetent leadership. Not to be behind these, camethe Amalgamated Machinists, demanding an increase of pay for night workand overtime; and last, but not least, an intimation went forth from theFederative Council of all these labor unions hinting at possible politicalconsequences and the alienation of the labor vote if the abuses were notcorrected.

  "What d'ye calc'late the major will do about it?" said Brodrick, in theroundhouse conclave held daily by the trainmen who were hung up or offduty. "Will he listen to reason and give us a sure-enough railroad man ortwo at the top?"

  "Not in _ein_ t'ousand year," quoth "Dutch" Tischer, Callahan's alternateon the fast mail. "Haf you not de _Arkoos_ been reading? It is boloticsfrom der beginning to der ent; mit der governor _vorwaerts_."

  "Then I am tellin' you-all right now there's goin' to be a heap o'trouble," drawled "Pike County" Griggs, the oldest engineer on the line."The shopmen are b'ilin'; and if the major puts on that blanket cut inwages he's talkin' about----"

  "'If'," broke in Callahan, with fine scorn. "'Tis slaping on yer injuriesye are, Misther Griggs. The notice is out; 'twas posted in the shops thisday."

  "Then that settles it," said Griggs, gloomily. "When does it take hold?"

  "The first day av the month to come. An' they're telling me it catcheseverybody, down to the missinger b'ys in the of'ces."

  Griggs got upon his feet, yawning and stretching before he dropped backinto his corner of the wooden settle.

  "You lissen at me: if that's the fact, I'm tellin' you-all that everywheel on this blame', hoodooed railroad is goin' to stop turnin' at twelveo'clock on the night before that notice takes hold."

  An oil-begrimed wiper crawled from under the 1031, spat at the dope-bucketand flung his bunch of waste therein.

  "Gur-r-r! Let 'em stop," he rasped. "The dope's bad, and the waste's bad;and the old man has cut out the 'lectrics and put us back on _them_,"kicking a small jacket lamp to the bottom of an empty stall. "Give 's achaw o' yer smokin' plug, Mr. Callahan," and he held out his hand.

  Callahan emptied the hot ashes from his black pipe into the open palm.

  "'Tis what ye get f'r yer impidunce, an' f'r layin' tongue to ould manDurgan, ye scut. 'Tis none av his doin's--the dhirty oil an' the chapewaste an' the jacket lamps. It's ay-conomy, me son; an' the other name f'rthat is a rayceiver."

  "Is Durgan with us?" asked Brodrick.

  "He's wit' himself, as a master-mechanic shu'd be," said Callahan. "So'sM'Tosh. But nayther wan n'r t'other av thim'll take a thrain out whin thestrike's on. They're both Loring min."

  At the mention of Loring's name Griggs looked up from the stick he waswhittling.

  "No prospects o' the Boston folks getting the road back again, I reckon,"he remarked tentatively.

  "You should read dose _Arkoos_ newsbapers: den you should know somet'ingsalretty, ain'd it?" said Tischer.

  Brodrick laughed.

  "If you see it in the papers, it's so," he quoted. "What the _Argus_doesn't say would make a 'nough sight bigger book than what it does. ButI've been kind o' watchin' that man Kent. He's been hot after the major,right from the jump. You rec'lect what he said in them Civic League talkso' his: said these politicians had stole the road, hide, hair an' horns."

  "I'm onto him," said Callahan. "'Tis a bird he is. Oleson was telling me.The Scandehoovian was thryin' to get him down to Gaston the day theyray-ceivered us. Jarl says he wint a mile a minut', an' the little mannever turned a hair."

  "Is he here yet; or did he go back to God's country?" asked EngineerScott, leaning from the cab window of the 1031.

  "He's here; and so is Mr. Loring. They're stopping at the Clarendon," saidBrodrick.

  "Then they haven't quit," drawled Griggs; adding: "I wonder if they have aghost of a show against the politicals?"

  "Has annybody been to see 'em?" asked Callahan.

  "There's a notion for you, Scott," said Brodrick. Scott was the presidingofficer in the B. of L.E. local. "Get up a committee from the Federativeto go and ask Mr. Loring if there's any use in our tryin' to hold on."

  The wiper was killing time at a window which commanded a view of the upperyards, with the Union Passenger Station at the end of the three-milevista. Being a late comer in the field, the Trans-Western had scanty trackrights in the upper yard; its local headquarters were in the shops suburb,where the two division main lines proper began and ended, diverging, theone to the eastward and the other to the west.

  "Holy smut!" said the wiper. "See Dicky Dixon comin' out with the Flyer!How's that for ten miles an hour in the city limits?"

  It was a foot-note commentary on the way the service was going to pieces.Halkett, the "political" general superintendent, had called Dixon on thecarpet for not making time with his train. "If you're afraid to run, sayso, and we'll get a man that isn't," Halkett had said; and here was Dixoncoming down a bo
rrowed track in a busy yard at the speed which presupposesa ninety-pound rail and nothing in the way.

  The conclave had gathered at the wiper's window.

  "The dum fool!" said Brodrick. "If anything gets in front of him----"

  There was a suburb street-crossing three hundred yards townward from the"yard limits" telegraph office, which stood in the angle formed by thediverging tracks of the two divisions. Beyond the yard the street became acountry road, well traveled as the principal southern inlet to the city.When Dixon was within two train-lengths of the crossing, a farm wagonappeared, driven between the cut freight trains on the sidings directly inthe path of the Flyer. The men at the roundhouse window heard the crash ofthe splintering wagon above the roar of the train; and the wiper on thewindow seat yelped like a kicked dog and went sickly green under his maskof grime.

  "There it is again," said Scott, when Dixon had brought his train to astand two hundred yards beyond the "limits" office where he should havestopped for orders. "We're all hoodooed, the last one of us. I'll get thatcommittee together this afternoon and go and buzz Mr. Loring."

  Now it fell out that these things happened on a day when the tide ofretrieval was at its lowest ebb; the day, namely, in which Kent had toldLoring that he was undecided as to his moral right to use the evidenceagainst Bucks as a lever to pry the Trans-Western out of the grip of thejunto. It befell, also, that it was the day chosen by two other men, notmembers of the labor unions, in which to call upon the ex-manager; andLoring found M'Tosh, the train-master, and Durgan, the master-mechanic,waiting for him in the hotel corridor when he came in from a late luncheonat the Camelot Club.

  "Can you give us a few minutes, Mr. Loring?" asked M'Tosh, when Loring hadshaken hands with them, not as subordinates.

  "Surely. My time is not very valuable, just at present. Come in, and I'llsee if Mr. Kent has left me any cigars."

  "Humph!" said Durgan, when the ex-manager had gone into Kent's room torummage for the smoke offering. "And they give us the major in the placeof such a man as that!" with a jerk of his thumb toward the door of thebedroom.

  "Come off!" warned M'Tosh; "he'll hear you." And when Loring came backwith the cigars there was dry humor in his eye.

  "You mustn't let your loyalty to the old guard get you into trouble withthe receiver," he cautioned; and they both smiled.

  "The trouble hasn't waited for our bringing," said M'Tosh. "That is why weare here. Durgan has soured on his job, and I'm more than sick of mine.It's hell, Mr. Loring. I have been at it twenty years, and I never sawsuch crazy railroading in any one of them."

  "Bad management, you mean?"

  "Bad management at the top, and rotten demoralization at the bottom as anatural consequence. We can't be sure of getting a train out of the yardswithout accident. Dixon is as careful a man as ever stepped on an engine,and he smashed a farmer's wagon and killed the farmer this morning withintwo train-lengths of the shop junction."

  "Drunk?" inquired the ex-manager.

  "Never a drop; Dixon's a Prohibitionist, dyed in the wool. But just beforehe took his train, Halkett had him in the sweat-box, jacking him up fornot making his time. He came out red in the face, jumped on his engine,and yanked the Flyer down the yards forty miles an hour."

  "And what is your trouble, Durgan?" asked Loring.

  "Another side of the same thing. I wrote Major Guilford yesterday, tellinghim that six pit gangs, all the roundhouse 'emergencies' and two outdoorrepair squads couldn't begin to keep the cripples moving; and within aweek every one of the labor unions has kicked through its grievancecommittee. His reply is an order announcing a blanket cut in wages, to gointo effect the first of the month. That means a strike and a generaltie-up."

  Loring shook his head regretfully.

  "It hurts me," he admitted. "We had the best-handled piece of railroad inthe West, and I give the credit to the men that did the handling. And tohave it wrecked by a gang of incompetent salary-grabbers----"

  The two left-overs nodded.

  "That's just it, Mr. Loring," said M'Tosh. "And we're here to ask you ifit's worth while for us to stick to the wreck any longer. Are you folksdoing anything?"

  "We have been trying all legal means to break the grip of thecombination--yes."

  "And what are the prospects?" It was the master-mechanic who wanted toknow.

  "They are not very bright at present, I must confess. We have the entirepolitical ring to fight, and the odds are overwhelming."

  "You say you've been trying legal means'," M'Tosh put in. "Can't we downthem some other way? I believe you could safely count on the help of everyman in the service, barring the politicals."

  Loring smiled.

  "I don't say we should scruple to use force if there were any way to applyit. But the way doesn't offer."

  "I didn't know," said the train-master, rising to close the interview."But if the time ever comes, all you or Mr. Kent will have to do will beto pass the word. Maybe you can think of some way to use the strike. Ithasn't been declared yet, but you can bet on it to a dead moralcertainty."

  It was late in the afternoon of the same day that the Federative Councilsent its committee, chairmaned by Engineer Scott, to interview theex-general manager at his rooms in the Clarendon. Scott acted asspokesman, stating the case with admirable brevity and conciseness, andasking the same question as that propounded by the train-master, to wit,if there were any prospect of a return of the road to its formermanagement.

  Loring spoke more hopefully to the committee than he had to Durgan andM'Tosh. There had been a little more time for reflection, and there wasthe heartening which comes upon the heels of unsolicited help-tenderings,however futile. So he told the men that the stockholders were movingheaven and earth in the effort to recover their property; that until theroad should be actually sold under an order from the court, there wasalways room for hope. The committee might rest assured that no stone wouldbe left unturned; also that the good will of the rank and file would notbe forgotten in the day of restitution, if that day should ever dawn.

  When Loring was through, Engineer Scott did a thing no union man had everdone before: he asked an ex-general manager's advice touching theadvisability of a strike.

  "I can't say as to that," was the prompt reply. "You know your ownbusiness best--what it will cost, and what it may accomplish. But I'vebeen on the other side often enough to be able to tell you why moststrikes fail, if you care to know."

  A broad grin ran the gamut of the committee.

  "Tell us what to do, and we'll do it; Mr. Loring," said Scott, briefly.

  "First, then, have a definite object and one that will stand the test ofpublic opinion; in this case we'll say it is the maintenance of thepresent wage-scale and the removal of incompetent officers and men.Secondly, make your protest absolutely unanimous to a man. Thirdly, don'tgive the major time to fortify: keep your own counsels, and don't send inyour ultimatum until the final moment. And, lastly, shun violence as youwould a temptation of the devil."

  "Yon's a man," said Angus Duncan, the member from the AmalgamatedMachinists, when the committee was filing out through the hotel corridor.

  "Now you're shouting!" said Engineer Scott. "And you might say a man and abrother."