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Authored by Society president George Meiser IX |
P&R Plays Hardball
| Below is letter (in circular
form) which was sent to the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad
engineers on March27, 1877. The intent was clear: to break the
burgeoning union known as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. |
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Signing the letter
to the engineers was railroad General Manager John E. Wootten (at right)
who had earlier built a fine reputation for himself as a master of
machinery at the famous Reading shops. But few doubted that hard-nosed
attitude about the locomotive engineers' union began with the tough and
self-assured P&R president, Franklin B. Gowen. It was not likely that
Wootten disagreed materially with Gowen's stand. Nevertheless, it is
now a historical reality that the tough stand by the railroad led
eventually to the July rioting in the center city "Seventh Street
Cut" leading to ten deaths. And the anti-union stand taken by tile
P&R in March of 1877 was universal among all of the U.S. railroads.
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