Nearly three years have since elapsed, and the events of the year 1888—with its strike of engineers on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy—seem to indicate that the relations of railroad employees to the railroad companies have undergone no material change since the year 1886, when the strike on the Missouri Pacific took place. The same unsatisfactory condition of affairs apparently continues. There is a deep-seated trouble somewhere.
No sufficient reason, therefore, exists for longer suppressing this paper. Provided the suggestions contained in it have any value at all, they may at least be accepted as contributions to a discussion which of itself has an importance that cannot be either denied or ignored.
The paper is printed as it was prepared. The figures and statistics contained in it have no application, therefore, to the present time; nor has it been thought worth while to change them, inasmuch as they have little or no bearing upon the argument. That is just as applicable to the state of affairs now as it was to that which existed then. The only difference is that the course of events during the three intervening years has demonstrated that the paper, if it does no good, will certainly do no harm.
Boston, February 4, 1889.
C. F. A.
[32] See "Railway Management," [page 151.]
[THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF RAILROAD MEN.]
By B. B. ADAMS, Jr.