commercial struggle are based entirely on what freight service has
done or will accomplish for them, and during conferences with their
purchasing and traffic assistants, concrete equipment needs are dealt
with daily but the vital usefulness of each empty car as a retainer
and carrier are thought of only in an abstract way, yet they are as
essential as the “G.T.R.” or three daily meals. Not until such time
as the advent of an industrial calamity that will destroy them all,
leaving coal man, merchant and bacon baron stranded high and dry,
will shippers unanimously appreciate their individual worth, and not
until then will cease the desire of corporate interests to haul their
valuable loads along this or that favored highway of steel. Not a
pulley in manufacture could turn without their direct aid, meagre would
be the housewives’ meals and pelts again be their children’s portion if
the wheels refused to whirr: then indeed, would Mademoiselle Susanna
Vere de Vere understand the sudden death of Pullman palaces from
commercial paralysis.
A tortuous string of seventy freight cars in motion is not what you
would designate as a “harmonious whole” in appearance. They remind you
of a herd of elephants with baggy pants traveling trunk to tail, nor
do these incongruous, ill-at-ease assortments of traffic _proletariat_
pick their company. The tall and the short, the lame, the halt and
the blind they have always with them, and if a trig, shiny aristocrat
once, costing approximately $1,200 to $1,500, (but to-day twice as
much) that should be on his owner’s tracks, strays into line with this
perambulating Coxey’s Army he soon gets the spots knocked off him,
like a “rookie” enlisted with the regulars. They all receive awful
treatment, they are side tracked, snubbed and roughly handled and
though doctored, patched, likewise overburdened, they return more good
for evil by feeding mice and men and machinery than any other medium.
The funniest feature about these democratic go-betweens is that a loose
jointed, squatty old party, rocking from side to side with the load in
his protruding stomach and hardly able to keep step with the tribe, may
have his “innards” stuffed with silks and satins to bedeck some slavish
goddess of fashion who never appreciates what ship brought the feathers
and finery to port--and such is human nature.
However, the officials of every railroad company from the president,
traffic manager and “G.F.A.”, down the ladder to the journal oilers,
make recompense, court the freight cars and strive mightily for the
privilege of transporting their variegated contents and these are
the men who make them make millions. It is a game with far reaching
ramifications, a contest of competitors where brains and dispatch,
service, sentiment and cold figures diversify the play. Some times it
is as uncertain and exciting as draw poker with a brazen bluff cropping
up, but the line that can deliver the goods usually scores and gathers
in the ducats. The nets are out every hour of the twenty-four and they
are out at every important geographical centre on the continent, making
the sport in variety and complexion, more devoid of monotony than most
mundane pursuits.
Traffic men seek every commodity from a carload of lemonade straws to
a shipment of zinc dust from Japan for the Porcupine Mines, they talk
on every topic from tunnel clearances to the effect of the Budget,
and have interviewed specimens of the _genus homo_ as yet uncharted
by the phrenologists. They study tact and diplomacy, but few have
equalled the art of a Manitoba farmer whom it has been said, kept
himself in coal for the winter by making faces at the passing “C.P.R.”
firemen and engineers. Customers’ wishes, siding accommodation,
enclosures, cartage, part lots, classification, temperature, icing and
a thousand other conditions influence the movement. Among freight men
resourcefulness is an ever present adjunct in devising ways and means
to enlist adherence, placate the public, overcome delay and get around
an obstacle, recalling the expedient of a new shedman who was puzzled
as to how he could load in the “way” car a piece of crated machinery
too large for the door. He resorted to the alternative of removing the
casing, then easily transferring the unwieldly consignment inside and
after recrating, left the later problem to the man who would deliver
the goods.
“Work well begun is half done” saith the old saw, and the sage was
right. Starting on a few calls some pleasant morning with the outside
atmosphere exhilarating, if your initial visit happens on one of those
considerate, business gentlemen who can devote three to thirty minutes
of his time to your mission, and concluding the X.Y.Z. road might be
worse, promises a share of the traffic he has offering, you usually
approach the balance of the day’s duties with optimism. Experiences
multiply, but this feeling will probably carry you past the resentful
individual who holds a little stock of your Company and refuses
business because his security is temporarily dropping and it will
likewise help to cement acquaintance with the cautious man who would
like to but fears his couple of cars would be held up or lost should
Canada and the United States drift into war. Emboldened to continue the
good work, you harken to the complaints of one of your local agents,
both officious and secretive--who sends all his correspondence in under
separate cover and wonders why it don’t receive prompt attention when
the chief is away. If diminuitive this representative might become
a detriment and antagonize trade and his running mate is the agent
appointed by the operating department who proves a thorn in the flesh
of the Division Freight Agent by snarling, rat-terrier, dictatorial
demeanor until the shipping body in unanimous resolution declare “that
agent cannot leave quick enough to suit me”. Hot on the heels of the
visiting “D.F.A.”, who is supposed by many to always have an easy time,
bobs up an obsequious Hebrew at the period of great car shortage, with
a tale of woe about a man coming upon him just as he was loading a few
bales and shouting “Here, what are you doing with my car?” It developed
that the blusterer could not procure a car himself and bethought him to
pounce on the inoffensive rag man and purloin the coveted empty box car.
Fortified by an agreement with an anxious fresh fruit buyer, whereby he
is guaranteed forty refrigerator cars in return for their haul homeward
a few hundred miles, a call is made on a canned salmon distributor.
This is his acknowledgment to your opening salute. “Who told you I had
a car of salmon? I have no salmon and am not thinking of fish just
now--this isn’t Friday”. However, he proved amenable to reason and
issued a routing order.
A Grand Trunk Railway commercial agent related to me recently the
following outline of a verbal castigation administered to himself by
a mourner who must have been wearing indigo spectacles: “The idea of
giving business to ‘U.M.C.’ lines, we’ll have no truck or trade with
them. It is very indiscreet of you to dare to try; when you can compete
on an equal basis with the ‘C.P.R.’ then come in”. A well intentioned,
but premature overture earned one young general agent, new to his
territory, an undeserved rebuke in response to his civil enquiries:
“Well, I guess I hav’nt anything to say to you to-day”.
“I came in primarily to ask you to take luncheon with me, would you
join me at one o’clock?”
“No, I had my lunch at the proper hour” came the quick rejoinder.
Fortunately, the balance of the day was spent among “white men” of whom
there are 95 per cent. naturally inclined to transact business with
reason and decency, and their broad guage tendency seems to expand in
proportion to the magnitude and responsibility of their undertakings.
Another gentleman occasioned a good deal of laughter telling on himself
the story of taking his new chief on an introductory tour and being
embarrassed to learn that the first manufacturer they called on had
been dead for a year, and the second one, whom our friend knew to some
extent, asking him what his name was. It takes time to talk away or
live down these little incidents. Now and then a modest shipper with
about one car a year traveling in your direction, will unblushingly
suggest that he be loaned one of your annual passes for a little trip
down to New York, and I recall hearing of a wallet of transportation,
in the wrong hands, being lost in the railway yards near Rochester.
A number of the boys remember certain shippers who have had an
insatiable longing for some substantial token in reciprocity for
the traffic they could control, with a leaning towards a variety of
household furnishings and what-nots.
Patronage lists and their influence, if operative the wrong way,
are often the invention of the evil one and nullify the efforts
of a conscientious worker, otherwise in good standing with all
parties. One day Billy A----, General Freight Agent of the Canadian
Pacific Railway, called with a traveling representative on a certain
undesignated Canadian biscuit factory: out came the list with the
statement of the egregious young manager that “Your road is not using
our product on its diners.”
“Well,” promptly responded the truthful William, “It may be they are
not good enough”.
To elaborate further, a contractor erecting a building in a distant
city for a firm doing a large outfitting and general selling business,
routed twelve carloads of structural steel that he required, via the
“P.D.Q.R.” A wide awake, aggressive competitor coveted the haul of the
material and meant to have it. They promptly placed an $80,000 order
for hotel requisites with the outfitting firm and the latter, feeling
the pressure where it was intended to be felt, capitulated, assuaged
the contractor’s rising ire in a monetary but lesser degree, which, of
course, jilted the expectations of the “P.D.Q.R.”
A competing line with heavy purchasing appropriations has been known
to often frustrate genuine tonnage hopes by wiring that the name of a
shipper interested in a transaction, be removed from their patronage
lists unless he immediately saw the error of his ways and banished
consideration for a rival route or an M.P., in Victoria, B.C.,
we’ll say, may exert some influence he may have and busy himself by
telegraphing to forward specific public works supplies from the east
this way or that.
The staff of a district freight department may do considerable
preparatory work regarding, for instance, the movement of Australian
and New Zealand wool for Europe to find their plans upset by a
necessary war-time embargo affecting the transport of sheep skins and
crossbred wool through this port or that country.
The _bete noir_ of all railroad men is the shifty, unprincipled person
who deceives you with a misleading yarn and means to do something
else. A sample of this method of operating is outlined in the case
following, and concerns a carload of pianos going from an Ontario town
to Vancouver, B.C. Knowing his man, the consignee had telegraphed and
also written the shippers “Route our car now loading ‘N.C.O. & B.R.R.’:
under no circumstances deviate, pay no attention to other instructions,
this is final.” To dull the watchfulness of the interested railways,
Ananias declared the shipment would be held pending the arrival
from elsewhere of an enclosure of four pianos, meanwhile laboring
secretly to dispatch the complete shipment in the _interim_ contrary
to instructions. Temporarily balked in his fell purpose, to disarm
suspicion when interrogated, he actually ordered placed on his siding a
suitable car as a screen or camouflage, but pursued his original plan.
Not until repeatedly disciplined by the head office did this factory
manager desist and finally unload the forbidden car and obey orders.
Such an employee is a stumbling block to progressive business.
[Illustration: GEORGE TOOTLE]
Disappointments and neck and neck finishes are frequent, but variety is
the spice and fascinating magnet in railroading life and when shrewd
manufacturers repudiate narrowness by distributing the plums among a
number, “We fell on their necks with loud cries”, as handsome Jack
McGuire of the “C.P.R.” would say. These incidents are reminiscent
of a whiskey traveler who alleges he interviewed at Chicago the
superintendent of dining cars for a well known railroad. To quote
his own words “I paid proper attention to my personal appearance,
wore my Persian lamb-skin coat and anticipated an order”. Contrary
to expectations, however, the interview fell flat, no contract was
made and for years after, this crestfallen liquor man went out
of his way to divert his company’s shipments away from that line
via other channels, to the discomfiture of railway men in no way
responsible and notwithstanding the fact that the offending Dining Car
Superintendent stoutly contended it was not his road but another that
was unappreciative or stocked with rye. Speaking of the commissariat
department, George Tootle, the widely known dining car waiter on the
G.T.R.’s famous International Limited train, who thinks lunch counters
breed nervousness and indigestion, relates observing at Chicago the
following:--
A “hayseedy” looking man with field mice jumping out of his whiskers,
walked up to the lunch counter, seated himself on a stool, placed his
bright-colored carpet bag on the next stool and partook of a hearty
lunch. He passed the young man a $1 bill to take out the price of
his lunch, 50 cents, and was surprised when the youth said: “Not any
change, sir; your carpet bag occupied a seat, and we must collect for
that.”
The old man looked dazed for a second only, and then replied:
“All right, my boy”, and opening the bag, exclaimed, “Old carpet bag, I
have paid for your lunch and you shall have it.”
Quicker than a flash he threw in a mince pie, a plate of doughnuts and
several sandwiches, and departed amid the shouts of everyone in the
station.
One does not mind unintentionally stumbling on a hasty eruption in
temper of a decent chap who has just found five of his letters opened
by intent or on the part of a careless firm with a similar name, but
we would rather not be granted an audience with an apple exporter who
fathers four hundred barrels of fruit lying on the dock at Halifax
ready for a ship’s hold at the psychological moment when an inspector
condemns the lot because the centres are filled with undersized apples.
Tenacity of purpose and “Never say die”--which compel results--are
well exemplified by a happening that came to my notice some years ago,
involving two cars of shoes which were routed and definitely promised
to one trans-continental line. A rival corporation sent a city
solicitor after them without securing the footwear. The city freight
agent then essayed the task with like success. Undaunted the “D.F.A.”
was the next to try, but the shipper remaining firm stuck to his guns
when the fourth application was made in the person of the freight
traffic manager. The news spread and on Wednesday evening of that week,
when the gentleman who shewed such valor in defending his citadel of
shoe leather, to the accompaniment of the silent prayers of the party
of the first part, called at the president’s residence to visit his
daughter, the _denouement_ hung fire no longer. A word, under such
circumstances from the high official proved sufficient and the loser
then understood the quotation, “An idol but with feet of clay.”
An active traveling agent and irresistible business getter told me once
of a prominent London firm promising him a carload if he would remain
absent for six months, of another who suggested “Sell some goods for us
and we will favor your route,” while the third--an old ‘Q’ employee who
claimed the ‘Q’ was a large family--looking at his watch, said “Wait
twenty minutes.” Waiting twenty minutes is a nerve-racking ordeal that
also affects a gentleman’s prestige and a better method of procedure
would be to pre-arrange a meeting out of deference to the demands
on busy people’s time. It is awkward, after traveling some distance
for the purpose, to find on meeting the member of Messrs. Frett &
Growl Limited, that he will not meet your eye, will not shew signs of
animation, but with head down apparently saving his breath for a long
distance race, terminates the interview in melancholy with “No!”
There was a traffic official in an eastern metropolis some years ago,
representing a fine railroad but kept in the chair by other people’s
financial power, who was notorious for that stealthy, furtive habit of
fumbling with his papers without looking up, as though fearful his eyes
would convict him of his sins against men.
In the category of queer ones could be listed the eccentric who
accosted a friend of mine, now doing trustworthy executive work for the
government railways, with “What, you here again?”
“Just for three minutes, Sir, to place a routing order!” “You won’t
be here a minute, I’m too busy. I can’t be bothered by you and your
routing order; it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.” With people
like this unmuzzled and at large, can you wonder at the increase in
crime.
Another good acquaintance who was invited to an inner office to
unburden his mind and concisely recited the nature of his business
without molestation, was dumbfounded when finished to observe the
creature before him, without parley, touch a buzzer, summon a servitor
and request him to “Shew this gentleman out.” What would you rather do
than live with him? Some men’s physical boundaries and narrow-minded
outlook are so small and contemptible that if a mosquito laid out a
nine hole golf course on their torso he would be crowded for room.
A decade or so ago there dwelt in a town an hour’s ride east of
Toronto, an individual like a ruffled grouse who thought to slay his
interviewer summarily with “What you tell me goes in one ear and out
the other,” as he made a personally conducted tour to the door. Quickly
came the retort courteous: “I am not surprised Mr. ---- there is
nothing there to stop it.”
Now comes that robust type that would probably not wince when getting
it back in kind if his antagonist could fittingly measure up to his
standard in words and deeds. Picture the horned and forbidding monster,
swollen with pride of place, who greets the caller as though he were
going to swallow him whole and allow his gastric juice to do the rest:
“Well, your company has one H-- of a nerve to send you out here asking
me for business: you built a station, some big contracts were let,
but you were all looking out of the window when I wanted a slice,”
finishing with a _coup de grace_, “What have you got to say about
that?” His caller replied, “I guess our management took a leaf out of
your book; how much of your business have we handled in the past ten
years, tell me that? We learn to know who our friends are and when we
have some favors to place we don’t hurry with them on a platter to the
people who forget our route, but try to remember those who realize that
if we are lucky we run a train or two about once a week out west.” The
lengths to which some folks will go to make personal a neutral issue
is astonishing. A man who had been employed in Chicago by a firm that
could not prevail on the “C. & A.” to give them an order, came to
Canada to work for an Ontario industry and expressed his intention to
gratify that grudge by witholding shipments of the new employer from
the railway he had placed under the ban.
The book of boors will admit of one more entry, being a letter I
have permission to reproduce, which was addressed to one snob by a
conscientious and sensitive young agent who has since transferred his
energies to another channel.
Dear Sir--
The three sentences below--
“Who are you and what do you want?” “I would be ashamed
to be so unpatriotic as to work for Yankee employers.”
“I’ll give you fellows business only when I’m in a hole
and cannot do otherwise!”
form the subject of this communication and are exactly the text
and sense of part of two conversations which occurred between
you and myself--involuntarily on my part--and only because I
was acting on orders while in the capacity of an employee of a
“U.S.A.” railway seeking a share of the routing of the freight
traffic you purchased in the United States or shipped westward,
and which, unfortunately, you controlled.
No longer situated where behavior and language like yours has
opportunity to grievously test the patience of myself, (and
several others), permit me to allude to the impression you
create.
When people of your calibre, quite devoid of consideration and
_finesse_, receive a business proposition with a verbal attack
couched in the tone and vernacular of your moulding shop, they
are, no doubt, running true to form, but they take refuge
behind the assumption that there is no one to question their
attitude.
In doing so they indulge in a cowardly advantage over gentlemen
who, by the nature of their employment, from president down,
always have to remember the officials higher up; remember also,
that in giving free rein to their human resentment, they may
be rewarded with a letter of complaint, half true and half
garbled, sent in by some cad to an officer disloyal enough to
first believe the outsider.
Reflect on how disconcerted your son might feel were he to
experience the misfortune of meeting a sour tempered individual
like yourself when first coming in contact with the commercial
public. He could not do himself justice nor serve you well.
The proverb says “One cannot make a silken purse out of a sow’s
ear,” and although it is difficult to rebuild what the man in
the street characterizes as a “rough neck,” it is never too
late to mend.
The isolated class referred to are known by representatives
of all businesses and are tacitly ostracized when the army of
decent fellows is being discussed.
“_Please heed the handwriting on the wall_”
That man was “misfit” who should have been polishing apples for
a Greek--to quote Jack Rose, an original wit.
After bidding adieu to the friendly personage who has accepted a
mild cigar, but uncontented, megaphones to a couple of others at the
rear in this wise, “Here Jake and Eddie, get in on the cigars,” our
conversation in the “smoker” again reverted to pianos and things
harmonious and cheerful. Genial M. T. Case recounted how fire, while
in transit, ruined a carload of pianos when en route the west and the
firm’s western manager, a believer in long odds, filed a claim for
reimbursement, itemizing the instruments at $500 each. When the railway
company received the _billet doux_ they blinked and may have said
“For the love of Mike” or something less classical and affectionate.
However, as soon as the firms attention was drawn to the amount of the
claim the manager, with good judgment, clipped $200 off each piano and
a prompt settlement was arranged.