United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Bankers and others who organized combinations were given returns that seemed as extravagant as the prices paid to railroad construction companies; the issues of the stock of corporations were bought and sold by their own officers for speculative purposes; and stock-watering was as common as in railroading.
Where Burke had meant to serve a man of high influence, Edward Gilder, by railroading the bride of the magnate's son to prison, he had succeeded only in making the trouble of that merchant prince vastly worse in the ending of the affair by arresting the son for the capital crime of murder. The situation was, in very truth, intolerable.
During this period of folly, it was not good railroading to get goods from their shipping point to their destination by the most direct line possible, but to keep them on the road as long as possible, send them around the longest way, give as many connecting lines as possible a piece of the profit, and let the public stand the resulting loss of time and money.
In the West, however, he had a wide reputation for sound sense, and, as chairman of the general committee of adjustment of the Rock Island system, he had made a deep impression on his union and his employers. Born in Ainsworth, Iowa, in 1860, Stone had received a high school education and had begun his railroading career as fireman on the Rock Island when he was nineteen years old.
Any detail of railroading that is not troublesome cannot honorably be described as continental. The tickets were round-trip ones to Melbourne, and clear to Adelaide in South Australia, and then all the way back to Sydney.
Remember there are aged parents; two brothers living one railroading in Spokane Falls, the other clerking in Washington, D.C. Don't mention the Universalists there's be'n two in the fam'ly; nor insanity there's be'n one o' them. The girl in the corner is the one that the remains has be'n keeping comp'ny with. If you can make some genteel allusions to her, it'll be much appreciated by his folks."
Of course, the Cortlandts might do more for you than they would for me, and you might be able to hang on." "Then this would seem to end our fine hopes, eh?" "Rather!" Runnels broke out, bitterly. "I've worked like a nigger, Kirk, and I deserve promotion if anybody ever did. This other fellow is a dub he has proven that. Why, I've forgotten more railroading than he'll ever know.
Any kind of a job, no matter what, just so it was real railroading, and so a fellow could line up with everybody else when the pay car came along, and look forward to being something some day. Toddles, with time, of course, grew older, up to about seventeen or so, but he didn't grow any bigger not enough to make it noticeable!
The man he addressed turned impatiently to the questioner: "That's all you know about railroading. Don't you understand that this suit we have lost will be the entering wedge for hundreds of others. The very existence of the road may be at stake. And between you and me," he added in a lower key, "with Judge Rossmore on the bench we never stood much show.
Then speculate on the changes that have been wrought in the course of the short time since Manhattan Island was purchased from the Indians by Pete Minuts for a few blankets and beads amounting in value to $24.00. Then board the Pennsylvania Limited, whose trains are the acme of modern railroading and go to Washington, the nation's capital city. Walk along Pennsylvania avenue and note its beauty.
Word Of The Day