The Armies of Labor [41]
force in 1918 was $12,486,397.50. The total claims paid up to 1918 were $1,624,537.61; and during 1918, $241,780.08.
The technical side of engine driving is emphasized by the "Locomotive Engineers' Journal" which goes to every member, and in discussions in the stated meetings of the Brotherhood. Intellectual and social interests are maintained also by lecture courses, study clubs, and women's auxiliaries. Attendance upon the lodge meetings has been made compulsory with the intention of insuring the order from falling prey to a designing minority--a condition which has proved the cause of the downfall of more than one labor union.
The Brotherhood of Engineers is virtually a large and prosperous business concern: Its management has been enterprising and provident; its treasury is full; its insurance policies aggregate many millions; it owns a modern skyscraper in Cleveland which cost $1,250,000 and which yields a substantial revenue besides housing the Brotherhood offices.
The engineers have, indeed, succeeded in forming a real Brotherhood--a "feudal" brotherhood an opposing lawyer once called them--reestablishing the medieval guild-paternalism so that each member is responsible for every other and all are responsible for each. They therefore merge themselves through self-discipline into a powerful unity for enforcing their demands and fulfilling their obligations.
The supreme authority of the Brotherhood is the Convention, which is composed of delegates from the local subdivisions. In the interim between conventions, the authorized leader of the organization is the Grand Chief Engineer, whose decrees are final unless reversed by the Convention. This authority places a heavy responsibility upon him, but the Brotherhood has been singularly fortunate in its choice of chiefs. Since 1873 there have been only two. The first of these was P. M. Arthur, a sturdy Scot, born in 1831 and brought to America in boyhood. He learned the blacksmith and machinist trades but soon took to railroading, in which he rose rapidly from the humblest place to the position of engineer on the New York Central lines. He became one of the charter members of the Brotherhood in 1863 and was active in its affairs from the first. In 1873 the union became involved in a bitter dispute with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Arthur, whose prompt and energetic action had already designated him as the natural leader of the Brotherhood, was elected to the chieftainship. For thirty years he maintained his prestige and became a national figure in the labor world. He died suddenly at Winnipeg in 1903 while speaking at the dinner which closed the general convention of the Brotherhood.
When P.M. Arthur joined the engineers' union, the condition of locomotive engineers was unsatisfactory. Wages were unstable; working conditions were hard and, in the freight service, intolerable. For the first decade of the existence of the Brotherhood, strike after strike took place in the effort to establish the right of organizing and the principle of the collective contract. Arthur became head of the order at the beginning of the period of great financial depression which followed the first Civil War boom and which for six years threatened wages in all trades. But Arthur succeeded, by shrewd and careful bargaining, in keeping the pay of engineers from slipping down and in some instances he even advanced them. Gradually strikes became more and more infrequent; and the railways learned to rely upon his integrity, and the engineers to respect his skill as a negotiator. He proved to the first that he was not a labor agitator and to the others that he was not a visionary.
Year by year, Arthur accumulated prestige and power for his union by practical methods and by being content with a step at a time. This success, however, cost him the enmity of virtually all the other trades unionists. To them the men of his order were aristocrats, and he was lord over the aristocrats. He is said to have "had rare skill in formulating reasonable demands, and by consistently putting moderate
The technical side of engine driving is emphasized by the "Locomotive Engineers' Journal" which goes to every member, and in discussions in the stated meetings of the Brotherhood. Intellectual and social interests are maintained also by lecture courses, study clubs, and women's auxiliaries. Attendance upon the lodge meetings has been made compulsory with the intention of insuring the order from falling prey to a designing minority--a condition which has proved the cause of the downfall of more than one labor union.
The Brotherhood of Engineers is virtually a large and prosperous business concern: Its management has been enterprising and provident; its treasury is full; its insurance policies aggregate many millions; it owns a modern skyscraper in Cleveland which cost $1,250,000 and which yields a substantial revenue besides housing the Brotherhood offices.
The engineers have, indeed, succeeded in forming a real Brotherhood--a "feudal" brotherhood an opposing lawyer once called them--reestablishing the medieval guild-paternalism so that each member is responsible for every other and all are responsible for each. They therefore merge themselves through self-discipline into a powerful unity for enforcing their demands and fulfilling their obligations.
The supreme authority of the Brotherhood is the Convention, which is composed of delegates from the local subdivisions. In the interim between conventions, the authorized leader of the organization is the Grand Chief Engineer, whose decrees are final unless reversed by the Convention. This authority places a heavy responsibility upon him, but the Brotherhood has been singularly fortunate in its choice of chiefs. Since 1873 there have been only two. The first of these was P. M. Arthur, a sturdy Scot, born in 1831 and brought to America in boyhood. He learned the blacksmith and machinist trades but soon took to railroading, in which he rose rapidly from the humblest place to the position of engineer on the New York Central lines. He became one of the charter members of the Brotherhood in 1863 and was active in its affairs from the first. In 1873 the union became involved in a bitter dispute with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Arthur, whose prompt and energetic action had already designated him as the natural leader of the Brotherhood, was elected to the chieftainship. For thirty years he maintained his prestige and became a national figure in the labor world. He died suddenly at Winnipeg in 1903 while speaking at the dinner which closed the general convention of the Brotherhood.
When P.M. Arthur joined the engineers' union, the condition of locomotive engineers was unsatisfactory. Wages were unstable; working conditions were hard and, in the freight service, intolerable. For the first decade of the existence of the Brotherhood, strike after strike took place in the effort to establish the right of organizing and the principle of the collective contract. Arthur became head of the order at the beginning of the period of great financial depression which followed the first Civil War boom and which for six years threatened wages in all trades. But Arthur succeeded, by shrewd and careful bargaining, in keeping the pay of engineers from slipping down and in some instances he even advanced them. Gradually strikes became more and more infrequent; and the railways learned to rely upon his integrity, and the engineers to respect his skill as a negotiator. He proved to the first that he was not a labor agitator and to the others that he was not a visionary.
Year by year, Arthur accumulated prestige and power for his union by practical methods and by being content with a step at a time. This success, however, cost him the enmity of virtually all the other trades unionists. To them the men of his order were aristocrats, and he was lord over the aristocrats. He is said to have "had rare skill in formulating reasonable demands, and by consistently putting moderate