I then set out to learn what kind of a toy railway it was that had come into my charge.”
HIGH-PRICED MEN ARE IN DEMAND.
Mr. Vreeland was asked the secret of successfully managing a street-railway system of this sort.
“High-priced men,” he unhesitatingly replied. “High-priced men, and one-man power in all departments. Ten-thousand-dollar-a-year men are what I want—one of these rather than five two-thousand-dollar-a-year men.”
“I began at the bottom and worked up. I think that is always the way for a young man to do, as soon as he has decided upon his career. I was fitted for the railroad business, and it didn’t take me long to decide just what I wanted to be. I think much of my progress was due to my early beginning. I think an early beginning means a great deal in after life.
“I have always been glad that I chose the business I did. I have never had any reason to regret having done so. Of course, when I was very young, I had discontented moments, like almost every other youth, but I overcame them, and stayed with the railroad. I believe that everyone should overcome those passing fancies, instead of yielding to them. Too many young fellows, just starting out, go from one thing to another, never satisfied, and consequently never making any progress. I think the faculty for ‘sticking’ is one of the most valuable a young man can have. When an employer hires a man, he likes to feel that he won’t be wasting his time in teaching him the business. He likes to feel that the man will remain with him, and be a real help, instead of leaving at the first opportunity.”
The rest of the history is well known to the people of New York, and to experts in street railroading throughout the country. The “Whitney syndicate,” so-called, was then in possession of a few only out of some twenty or more street railway properties in New York City, the Broadway line, however, being one of these, and by far the most valuable. With the immense financial resources of Messrs. Whitney, Widener, Elkins, and their associates, nearly all the other properties were added to the original lines owned by the syndicate, and with the magnificent organizing and executive ability of Mr. Vreeland, there has been built up in New York a street railway system which, while including less than two hundred and fifty miles of track, is actually carrying more than one-half as many passengers each year as are being carried by all the steam railroads of the United States together.
XIV
A Factory Boy’s Purpose to Improve Labor Makes Him a Great Leader.
“TO reduce the burdens of the overworked and find employment for the workless workers,” as expressed in his own words, is the life-work of Samuel Gompers. This single aim has been the wellspring of the manifold activities, excitements, vicissitudes, and achievements of a remarkable career. Nearly forty years ago, when Samuel Gompers, a boy of ten, worked fourteen hours a day in a shop in London, the hardships of the workingman made an impression on his childish mind, and this impression, and vague ideas that followed it, were the beginnings of his life purpose—a purpose that kept growing and strengthening during twenty-six years at the cigarmaker’s bench, and finally raised him to the position of foremost representative in America of the interests of labor.
Being president of the American Federation of Labor, whose headquarters are in Washington, Mr. Gompers now lives in that city, but not long ago he was in New York as one of the distinguished speakers before a great mass meeting. The following night, in an obscure hall on the “eastside” where a number of his old friends and fellow-workers in the cigarmaker’s trade had gathered to discuss their common interests, I had my interview with him.
LOOKS LIKE EDWIN FORREST.
“He’s not here yet,” I was informed on my arrival; “but come in and wait. When he comes, anybody will point out Sam to you.” The room filled rapidly, and at length there appeared in the doorway a small man with a great head, covered with a luxuriant growth of very black hair. His short, robust figure, his high forehead, deep-set eyes, heavy mustache and short imperial made him look strikingly like some of the portraits of Edwin Forrest. He came in alone and attracted no special attention, but I knew intuitively that it was Samuel Gompers. With such easy and cordial salutations as “Hello, Jack!” “How are you, Herman?” and “Glad to see you, Mac!” he began to greet his old friends, and they responded in the same spirit, almost invariably addressing him as “Sam.” This did not imply a lack of dignity on his part, for these were his old shopmates—men who had for years worked with him at the same benches. They recognized each other as fellow-workmen, with no difference between them, and, indeed, the only difference was that Sam Gompers had thought much and seen much in his mental vision as he sat at the mechanical work of cutting and rolling tobacco leaves, while the others had seen only their own environment and machine-like toil. But this difference has made one a leading citizen of the Republic, while his mates have remained humble cigarmakers, looking to Mr. Gompers as their champion and friend.
“It was just at such meetings as you see here to-night,” Mr. Gompers said to me later in the evening, “that I began to try to do something in behalf of the workingmen. Even when a small boy in London, and working pretty hard for the child I was, I used to attend some of the gatherings of workingmen, and I remember how I was stirred by the excitement and enthusiasm when the question of recognizing the Confederate States was before the government and there were great meetings of the working classes to show the feeling of British workmen against slavery of any sort. I had already vaguely begun to feel that there was more than one kind of slavery, and that the workingmen who had protested so vigorously against slaves in America could hardly call themselves free men. I knew little of the matter; I only knew that my own life was hard, while that of many other children was easy.”
HE WORKED IN A FACTORY AT TEN.
“When I was ten, I had been put in a factory to learn shoemaking, but a few months afterward was apprenticed to a man in my father’s trade—that of a cigarmaker. I went to school at night, but it was a very meagre foundation for an education that I got this way, and I have been trying ever since to make up for it by reading and study. My lack of early opportunity to learn and develop normally, with schooling and much recreation, as a boy should, has always been a great drawback to me, but it has made me zealous in the cause of keeping the children of the workers out of the workshops and giving them a fair education. College training is not necessary for success in any but scholastic pursuits, but boys must certainly know the rudiments.”
THE LATER ARISTOCRACY.
“Times were bad in London when I was a child there. Gangs of workmen used to parade the streets, singing mournfully, ‘We have no work to do!’ This condition led my father to immigrate to this country, in 1863, when I was thirteen. I continued my trade of cigarmaker in New York, and joined the ‘Cigarmakers’ International Union’ when it was organized, in 1864. It now has thirty thousand members, but mine is the longest continued membership; my due card
