Men, Cities and Transportation: Volume II Men, Cities and Transportation: A Study in New England History, 1820-1900, Volume II [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674368958, 9780674368941

Citation preview

STUDIES IN ECONOMIC HISTORY MEN, CITIES, AND TRANSPORTATION VOLUME II

Published, in cooperation with the Committee on Research in Economic History, Social Science Research Council

LONDON : GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

MEN CITIES AND TRANSPORTATION A Study in New England History

1820 — 1900

EDWARD CHASE KIRKLAND

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts 1948

COPYRIGHT,

X948

B Y T H E PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

PRINTED AT T H E HARVARD U N I V E R S I T Y PRINTING OFFICE CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,

U.S.A.

CONTENTS VOLUME

II

Monopoly XVI. XVII. XVIII.

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN N E W ENGLAND

I

" T H I S INFANT HERCULES"

32

T H E CONSOLIDATED

72

WATER TRANSPORTATION XIX. XX. XXI.

T H E RAILROAD AND THE COASTING TRADES

HI

T H E LONGER TRADES

149

SAIL, STEAM, AND M E N

186

CONSOLIDATION AND CONTROL XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV.

T H E RAILROAD COMMISSIONS

230

RATES AND SERVICES

268

STOCKS, BONDS, AND PROMOTERS

307

T H E SAFETY MOVEMENT AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

350

RAILROAD WORKERS XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII.

MEN

398

CORPORATE STRUCTURE AND GOVERNMENT

42 5

MASTERS

452

APPENDIX

477

INDEX

481

ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME II

facing p.

20

facing p.

21

facing p.

100

facing p.

101

facing p.

101

facing p.

144

Sailing Vessels at a Coal Pocket on the Mystic River (Peabody Museum)

facing p.

144

The Peak of Wooden Construction

facing p.

145

A Quartet of New Hampshire Titans Onslow Stearns, Charles Doe, Frank Jones, William E. Chandler.

The Consolidated William D. Bishop, President. Henry L. Goodwin, Critic (George Goodwin). The New London Bridge, 1889 (Scientific American). This steel bridge was 1,423 feet long. Its draw span was 503 feet and its two through spans 310.

The Consolidated Charles P. Clark (Mrs. Charles H. Blatchford). Interior of the Train Shed, South Station.

Metropolis, Museum)

1854, Fall River Line

(Peabody

Tonnage, 2,108. Dimensions, 3 4 7 x 4 7 x 1 6 . Builder of hull, Samuel Sneeden, Greenpoint. Builder of engine, Novelty Works, New York.

General Whitney, 1873, (Peabody Museum)

Metropolitan

Line

Tonnage, 1,848. Dimensions, 227.4x40.5x18.2. Builder, John Roach, Chester, Pennsylvania.

George W. Wells, 1900 (Peabody Museum) Tonnage, 2,970. Dimensions, 319.3 χ 48.5 χ 23. Builder, Η. Μ. Bean, Camden, Maine.

Bristol, 1866-1867, Merchants Steam Ship Company, Fall River Line (Peabody Museum). Tonnage, 2,962.20. Dimensions, 360 χ 48 χ i6. Builder of hull, William H. Webb, New York. Builder of engine, John Roach, Etna Iron Works, New York. Interior. Exterior.

viii

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bow View of the Commonwealth (1854)

197

From a plate illustrating N. S. Russell, "On American River Steamers," Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects. This elevation, better than a side' view, shows the modeling of the hull, the importance of the guards, and the struts and stays of the wooden steamship.

Pilgrim, 1883, Museum)

Fall

River

Line

(Peabody facing p.

212

facing p.

212

facing p.

213

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Railroad Commissioner of Massachusetts (Boston Athenaeum)

facing p.

244

Regulators: Private and Public

facing p.

245

facing p.

356

facing p.

357

Tonnage, 3,483. Dimensions, 3 7 2 x 5 0 x 1 5 . 6 . Builder, John Roach and Company, Chester, Pennsylvania.

City 0f Lowell, 1893, Norwich Line (Peabody Museum) Tonnage, 2,975.04. Dimensions, Builder, Bath Iron Works.

336x66x17^.

Down Easters Portland, 1890 (Peabody Museum). Tonnage, 2,283.56. Dimensions, 280.9 χ 42.1 χ 15.5. Builder of hull, New England Shipbuilding Company, Bath. Builder of Engine, Portland Engine Company, Bath Iron Works. City of Bangor, 1894 (Peabody Museum). Tonnage, 1,661. Dimensions, 2 7 7 x 3 8 x 1 4 . 2 . Builder, James McKie, East Boston.

Albert Fink, Czar of the Trunk Lines; George M. Woodruff, Connecticut Commissioner; Asa W. Wildes, Maine Commissioner.

The "Fire Demon" The Revere Disaster, 1871 (Essex

Institute).

Harper's Weekly Comments on the Hartford Wreck (Harper's Illustrated Weekly).

William Mason {Railway and Locomotive torical Society)

His-

ILLUSTRATIONS

ix

Improved Couplers

373

The Miller Coupler and Platform (Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary). The Janney, MCB, Car Coupler (Railroad Gazette).

Consolidation Locomotive (2-8-0), New Haven Railroad

facing p.

380

facing p.

381

facing p.

390

facing p.

391

Cylinders, 2 1 x 2 6 " , Drivers, 51", Weight, 78 tons, Rhode Island Locomotive Works.

Atlantic Passenger Locomotive cord and Montreal Railroad

(4-4-2),

Con-

Cylinders, 1 9 x 2 4 " , Drivers, 70", Weight, 64 tons, Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1895.

Mogul Freight Locomotive (2-6-0), New England Railroad Cylinders, 20 χ 26", Drivers, 62", Weight, 66j4 tons, Rhode Island Locomotive Works.

Stations by Η. H. Richardson Chestnut Hill Holyoke

MAPS VOLUME

II

Consolidation in Southern New England New England's Connections with the South

33 177

MEN, CITIES, AND TRANSPORTATION

XVI MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND "If our state is only useful as a mere colony for foreign railroads and their managers to run through and plunder the people and get all the privileges and franchises they demand, then, it should be confessed, that it was not only a mistake but a misfortune that it was separated from Massachusetts in 1679." — Denis F . O'Conner, A r g u m e n t . . . in the [New Hampshire] House of Representatives, Sept. 14, 1887, p. 3. I From the beginning railroad consolidation had characterized the railroad history of New England. In the forties there were twenty instances of the process; in the next decade, twenty-eight. Railroads had acquired branches or parallel lines to dominate territory they felt was logically theirs or end-to-end railroads had joined together to form longer or through routes. This consolidation movement, stayed by the Civil War, gained momentum once the conflict was over, for the decade of the seventies rolled up nearly three times as many acquisitions of one railroad by another as had the previous one. When railroad report after report was disclosing grosses never before equaled in the enterprise's history and chronicling an unprecedented prosperity, roads acquired or leased each other with the gay, careless certainty that the future would provide. Stockholders ratified such measures without scrutiny and investors were willing to provide the required finances. Though by the nineties the number of consolidations declined to pre-war levels, a mere enumeration lost real significance after

2

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

188ο. 1 Now the mileage of merged roads was what counted. The lease of the Boston and Lowell to the Boston and Maine in 1887, a single merger, united lines totaling 891 and 609 miles, respectively; as such it was far more meaningful than the joint operating contract between the Boston and Lowell and the Nashua and Lowell thirty years earlier when the first route was only 26 miles long and the latter 14. 2 Finally, by the end of the century two systems apportioned nearly all New England between them — the Boston and Maine and the New York, New Haven and Hartford. A certain irony characterized this outcome for the name of neither perpetuated the great through routes whose ambitious planning and construction marked so vividly the transportation history of New England. Nominally the Boston and Maine had been started as a branch railroad. B y the fifties it had grown large enough to carry the suburban traffic of the clustered cities and towns north of Boston, and, beyond their periphery, to tap the manufacturing cities of the Merrimack area and to share over connections Boston's commerce with Maine and the extra-New England West. In Massachusetts, Essex and Middlesex counties were the center of its influence; in New Hampshire it seemed likely to annex as its own the portion of the state lying between the Merrimack and the boundary of Maine. Like the early Boston and Lowell it was an adjunct to manufacturing. Discontented stockholders, comparing the acreage of its terminals and the extent of its freight business with those of other Boston roads, charged the company with pursuing a do-nothing policy. Such criticisms were beside the point; the road did not aspire to a comparable role.3 Besides it confronted in its own area the persistent competition of a traditional rival, the Eastern. The latter road at the moment was largely the possession of Samuel Hooper, a Boston merchant and 1 George P. Baker, Jr., The Formation of the New England Railroad Systems, A Study of Railroad Combination in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), pp. 251, 253. 2 Henry V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1888 (New York: Η. V. and H. W. Poor, n.d.), pp. 8, 14. 'The Boston and Maine Railroad·. A Statement Showing the Result of Its Management for the Last Ten Years. April, 1866 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1866).

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN

NEW

ENGLAND

3

capitalist united through marriage or business experience with some of the greatest Boston tycoons of the era. Although never the Eastern's president, Hooper chose those who occupied that office and formulated their policies. If another influence governed the Board, it was that exerted by Boston's largest bank, the Merchants' National, in which Hooper was also a director.4 Both the Boston and Maine and the Eastern shared in the prosperity which the Civil War initiated. For the first year or two of that conflict the prostration of the cotton industry brought depression to the area served by the Boston and Maine, and the Eastern sought consolation for its losses in the reflection that its territory had contributed more men "to the public service, since the war began, including both the army and the navy . . . in proportion even to the comparatively dense population, than from any other part of the Commonwealth or of the country. . . . The same causes which have operated to diminish our revenue, have, on the other hand, contributed to the defence of our common country." 5 Soon, however, reports assumed a brighter hue. The carriage of recruits, troops, and material furnished traffic, and a rise in rates at least kept abreast of the disturbing increase in costs. In 1869 the Eastern chanted, "Our business has increased one hundred per cent in six years; and it is three times as great as it was in 1861." It paid dividends of 8 per cent.® The Boston and Maine, with published paeans somewhat more restrained, paid io. 7 In truth the latter road's position was fundamentally the * Charles W. Felt, The Eastern Railroad of Massachusetts: Its Blunders, Mismanagement & Corruption (Liverpool: Miss J . Green, 1 8 7 3 ) , pp. 1 5 - 1 6 ; Dictionary of American Biography (New Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1 9 2 8 - 1 9 3 6 ) , I X , 203204; Report of the Committee on Railroads on Matters Relating to the Eastern Railroad. April, 1876, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1876, no. 169, appendix, pp. 1 8 3 - 1 8 4 , 536. 5 The Twenty-seventh Report of the Eastern Railroad Company, for Six Months Ending Nov. 30th, 1861 (Boston: Henry W . Dutton & Son, 1862), p. 7; Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Sept. 10, 1862 (Boston: Henry W. Dutton, 1 8 6 2 ) , pp. 3 - 4 . ' The Thirty-fifth Report of the Eastern Railroad, for the Year Ending November 30, 1869 (Boston: Henry W. Dutton & Son, 1869), p. 4 ; Joseph G. Martin, A Century of Finance. Martin's History of the Boston Stock and Money Markets, One Hundred Years. From January, 1798 to January, 1898 (Boston: Joseph G . Martin, 1898), p. 149. 7 Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1866 (Boston: Henry W. Dutton & Son, 1866), pp. 3 - 4 , 1 9 ;

4

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

sounder. Though its capitalization and floating debt were approximately those of the Eastern, it had no funded debt while that of the Eastern was $3,037,40ο.8 Whatever their relative advantages, both were anxious to avoid an excessive competition and at the end of the sixties were operating under an uneasy truce by which the presidents of each road set the prevailing rates at designated competitive points. The arrangement, "founded on principles of justice," was shattered by doings in the State of Maine. 9 II The rivalry for the commerce and travel of this down-East province the Boston and Maine and the Eastern had earlier reconciled by a joint lease of the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth, a road which extended the Massachusetts routes from the MaineNew Hampshire state line to the commercial center of Portland. In 1870 the directors of the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth overturned this peaceful arrangement with the announcement that six months later they would abrogate their contract with the Boston and Maine and with the Eastern railroads. The given motive for this decision was the desire to run their own road and the belief that such emancipated operation would yield at least 8 per cent upon their capital in lieu of the 6 received under the lease of 1847. 10 These were noble and profitable sentiments. They were also disingenuous. In reality the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth was willing to meet the pains and penalties of abrogating its lease because it had the assurance that it could dispose of its property more advantageously than to its present lessees. No one accused Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Sept. n, 1867 (Boston: Henry W . D u t t o n & Son, 1867), pp. 5, 23; Martin, A Century of Finance, p. 149. 8 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, appendix, pp. 22, 61. 'Report . . . of the Boston and Maine Railroad . . . 1867, p. 1 2 ; Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1876, no. 169, appendix, pp. 434-43S· 10 Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Sept. 14, 1870 (Boston: Henry W . D u t t o n & Son, 1870), pp. 8 - 9 ; Thirty-first Annual Report of the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth Railroad Company, for the Year Ending May 31, 1871. Presented at Their Annual Meeting in Kittery, Me. June 5th, 1871 (Portsmouth: Journal Steam B o o k and Job Printing Office, 1 8 7 1 ) , pp. 7-8.

MONOPOLY

IN NORTHERN

NEW ENGLAND

5

the Boston and Maine of exciting this vision. Some thought the Eastern to be the puppet master in the performance and in truth the managers of that enterprise were at the moment, in Charles Francis Adams' sarcastic phrase, "thoroughly captivated by that ignis fatuus of railroad managers, — the idea that an enormous and most remunerative traffic existed in a pent-up condition somewhere, not far from the furthest present limit of the road, which only required to be tapped, as it were, — to have the barrier in its way broken through, — to pour out an unending flow of traffic, at once doubling, or perhaps, trebling receipts." 1 1 On the whole, however, solicitations from the Maine Central stirred the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth to its restless derogation of past arrangements. The Maine Central, it will be recalled, was formed in 1862 by the consolidation of the two railroads which connected Portland and Bangor by way of Lewiston and Waterville. This route, a broad-gauge one, reached Portland over the tracks of the Grand Trunk and transferred its passengers and commodities to the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth over a break in gauge and under other conditions of physical connection which on occasion amounted to embargo. On the other hand, its rival, the Kennebec and Portland, which ran from Waterville down the Kennebec and thence along the coast to Portland, was a standard-gauge railroad which enjoyed a direct connection with the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth and usually the favors of the Boston roads. 12 Furthermore, at the moment the captain of the Kennebec and Portland was Richard D. Rice, a justice of the Supreme Court turned railroad man. He had recently put the enterprise through a reorganization which had strengthened the road's finances, antagonized "Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board 0f Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, p. 41. u Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees, Manager and Superintendent, and Treasurer, to the Mortgage Bondholders of the Kennebec and Portland R. R. Company. Presented October 28, 1863 at Brunswick (Augusta: Pi'ke & Chick, 1863), PP· 3~4i 8; Report of the Directors to the Stockholders of the Maine Central Railroad Company. Presented at the Annual Meeting in Waterville, June 24, 1863 (Bangor: Samuel S. Smith, 1863), pp. 5 - 7 ; Report of the Directors to the Stockholders of the Maine Central Railroad Company. Presented at the Annual Meeting in Waterville, June 28, 1865 (Bangor: Samuel S. Smith, 1865), pp. 4-7.

6

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

former stockholders, and raised such puzzles over Rice's personal and fiduciary integrity that the Supreme Court in Maine gave him and his associates only a tempered exoneration.13 Anyway the title of the property was theirs. Anticipating the outcome, in 1870 they leased their road to the Maine Central under arrangements which gave them a practical control of the consolidated enterprise. The Maine Central was to reach Portland over its own tracks rather than those of the Grand Trunk, change its entire gauge to standard, issue 17,166 shares of its own stock, a controlling interest, to the stockholders of the Portland and Kennebec, and place on its board of directors four representatives from the directorate of its rival. 14 Richard D. Rice became president of the Maine Central. Though these arrangements judges and legislatures later pronounced to be permissible, the consolidation defied a pervasive popular dread of railroad monopoly and set aflame once more the state's desire to possess a railroad system independent of Boston and Massachusetts. 15 To many a veteran of Maine's railroad wars the most distasteful feature of Rice's consolidation was not the consolidation itself but the agreement to change the lines to a standard gauge. This was a surrender to the Boston interest. A mass meeting of protest at Portland lasted for days. As the hall rang with invective and abuse, John A. Poor and others charged that the lease was a breach of faith with the Grand Trunk and a blow at the prosperity of Portland and Bangor. 16 Both roads between Portland and Bangor, now united, turned to their Boston connections. Communication with that city by steamer was unsatisfactory. The boat line, in thralldom to the 13 Sixth Annual Report . . . of the Kennebec and Portland . . . 1863, pp. 5, 1 2 ; Kennebec & Portland Railroad Company, in equity v. Portland & Kennebec Railroad Company and Others, 59 Maine, 5 1 . " E d m u n d F . Webb, The Railroad Laws of Maine, Containing All the Public and Private Acts and Resolves Relating to Railroads in Said State, with References to Decisions of Supreme Judicial Court, also a Digest of the Decisions of the Courts of Said State on the Subject of Railroads, and Copies of All Mortgages, Deeds of Trust, Leases and Contracts, Made by Said Railroads (Portland: Dresser, McLellan & Co., 1 8 7 5 ) , pp. 423-428. 15 Portland Press, J a n u a r y 7, 1 7 , February 1 1 , 18, March 25, October 7, N o v e m ber 16, 19, 1870, J a n u a r y 10, 22, 1872. M Portland Press, M a y 24, 25, 26, 27, J u n e 9, September 8, 1870.

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN

NEW

ENGLAND

7

Grand Trunk, charged excessive rates and charged them "at pleasure." The rail connection to Boston, the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth, was used by its masters, the Boston and Maine and the Eastern, to manipulate in their favor the rates on down-East business. These evil discriminations were imposed by a railroad "held and managed by Corporations out of this State, who manifest no sympathy with our interests, but seem disposed so to manage the Road as shall make it contribute the utmost income possible to the foreign lessees." 1 7 The obvious remedy was for the Maine Central to lease the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth, to play the Eastern against the Boston and Maine, and thus to "bring the point of competition up to Berwick" — the junction with the lower roads at the Maine-New Hampshire state line. 18 Since the lower roads would not tolerate this maneuver, the three parties began a spirited competition for the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth. Though, the Maine Central offered a 5 percent annual rental in gold, it was not enough. The Boston and Maine and the Eastern continued the contest. The latter won. The price was staggering. The Eastern assumed the $100,000 penalty for the broken contract, the payments to the Boston and Maine for improvements on the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth, and an annual rental of 10 per cent, $150,000, upon the capital stock of the latter road. 19 Since a considerable portion of its passenger and freight receipts was jeopardized by this defeat, the Boston and Maine sought from the Maine legislature a charter for a road of its own from the state line to Portland and, after "railroad kings" with their skillful attorneys converged upon Augusta, won legislative life for its parallel line.20 B y March 1873 17 Report of the Directors to the Stockholders of the Maine Central Railroad Company. Presented at the Annual Meeting in Waterville, February 28, 1866 (Bangor: Samuel S. Smith, 1866), pp. 4 - 5 ; Report of the Directors to the Stockholders of the Maine Central Railroad Company. Presented at the Annual Meeting in Waterville, February 27, 1867 (Bangor: Smith & Hill, 1 8 6 7 ) , pp. 5-6, 1 3 - 1 4 ; Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees, Manager and Superintendent, and Treasurer to the Mortgage Holders of the Kennebec and Portland R. R. Company. Presented October 28, 1863 at Brunswick (August: Pike & Chick, 1 8 6 3 ) , p. 8. 18 Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1876, no. 169, appendix, p. 3 0 1 . 19 The Forty-first Annual Report of the Eastern Railroad Company, for the Year Ending Nov. 30, 187s (Boston: Rand, A v e r y & Company, 1876), pp. 1 5 - 1 6 . 20 Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders.

8

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

freight and passenger trains were running over the new route to Portland. 21 The real beneficiary of a competition which had strained the credit of the Eastern and the Boston and Maine was the Maine Central, for at their own expense the first two roads had come to Portland and were suing desperately for its favor. Again the Eastern won the contest — partly through the extravagance of its offers and partly because the Eastern Railroad purchased a dominant stockownership in the Maine Central. More accurately phrased, directors and large shareholders in the Eastern were moved as individuals to make these purchases to forestall a menacing dalliance between the Maine Central and the Boston and Maine or to secure the modification of burdensome contracts. Reiterated testimony asserted that this inner group on the Eastern was fired by a desire to make an "investment." In this group were Samuel Hooper, President Lothrop, son-in-law and "mouthpiece of Hooper," 22 and Lothrop's successor, President Wooldredge. Secrecy hid their operations. It enabled their agents in Maine to buy Maine Central stock from the unwary without running up the price. It enabled them to secure the funds for their purchases from John B. Parker, to whom "as trustee" they transferred their purchases and who in his role as treasurer of the Eastern forthwith loaned money to himself "as trustee" to finance the transaction. Reports to legislature and stockholders buried these financial maneuvers in the silent grave of "property account" and in the books of the treasurer as "loans to trustee." To reveal them "would have defeated the whole project." Eventually in M a y 1875 the directors of the Eastern, somewhat belatedly and worriedly, authorized their railroad to own the stock acquired by its agents. In this fashion the Eastern Railroad acquired 15,274 shares in Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1866 (Boston: Henry W. Dutton & Son, 1866), pp. 2 4 - 2 7 ; Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1872 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 2 ) , pp. 4 - 5 ; Portland Press, J a n u a r y 30, February 6, 1 8 7 1 . 21 Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Dec. 10, 1873 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 3 ) , p. 5. Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1876, no. 169, pp. 37, 306.

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN

NEW

ENGLAND

9

the Maine Central and placed representatives on its board of directors. Traffic flow followed ownership. Before 1871 threequarters of the freight and passengers from Portland to Boston came over the Boston and Maine; after that date three-quarters of the freight and four-fifths of the passengers came over the Eastern. 23 All this was to the good, — if costs were nothing. There indeed was the rub. The Eastern paid for the Maine Central stock which it took from the ring just under $80 a share. Whether officials of the Eastern enriched themselves in the process was debatable; an investigating committee of the Massachusetts legislature exonerated them. Those fortunate enough to own Maine Central stock and be privy to what was going on certainly made money. The outstanding beneficiary was the president of the Maine Central, Richard D. Rice. He sold his 1,600 shares at $100 when others were getting from $60 to $62. The Eastern ring thought this bonanza justified by Rice's "services." Meanwhile the judge resigned his presidency on the Maine Central and with his gains joined the select group, headed by J . Gregory Smith, which was promoting the Northern Pacific Railway. 24 Though the Eastern at a cost had extended its controlled lines to Bangor, the Boston and Maine was not daunted. It hinted a further extension of its own line along the coast of Maine, compelled the Maine Central by an injunction to exchange goods and traffic at a small station near Portland, and sought a connection with the Grand Trunk. In physical terms, the last task required the laying of a few rails between the tracks of the two roads along Commercial Street in Portland; unfortunately this link had to cross rails controlled for at least part of the day by the Eastern. The attempt to lay this cross-frog unloosed a railroad war of mingled farce and melodrama. As the Boston and Maine collected one hundred ruffians to protect the maneuver and rival locomotives were run to the critical spot, reporters and Portland loungers 23 Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, pp. 42-44; The Forty-first Annual Report of the Eastern . . . 187$, pp. 1 6 - 1 9 ; Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1876, no. 169, appendix, pp. 6-38, 135-136. I 67· 24 Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1876, no. 169, appendix, pp. 8-10, 19-23, 173-178, 262-295, 301, 306-308, 457-460, 532-534·

10

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

gathered to witness the prospective carnage. Buttressed by an injunction, workers put the controversial frog in place and a brass band suddenly appeared to furnish triumphal music. 25

In the

following year, 1 8 7 4 , more perfect connections enabled the Boston and Maine to run trains into the Grand Trunk station, the Grand T r u n k

changed its track to the standard gauge, and a

short branch of five miles connected it with the industrial center of Lewiston-Auburn, hitherto served by the Maine Central. T h e annual report of

the Boston and Maine unctuously declared,

" T h u s are the people of the State of Maine' gradually ridding themselves of Report."

26

the monopoly referred to in our last

Annual

In truth, after 1 8 7 4 the Boston and Maine had the

Eastern on the run. T h e struggle for the Maine traffic proved to be a decisive factor in the history of these two roads, rivals since the forties. T h e Boston and Maine, the less injured, paid heavily for avoiding disaster. Its extension to Portland, costing roughly $4,000,000, compelled an increase in the capitalization of the road and the incurring of a bonded debt; this explained partly the reduction of annual dividends from 1 0 to 8 per cent. T h e Eastern and its allies fared much worse.

T h e overreaching Portland, Saco and

Portsmouth was compelled once more to accept an annual rental of only 6 per cent and this rental was an obligation upon an ailing road. 27 A s for the Eastern itself it spent directly for its Maine Central

stock $ 1 , 2 2 0 , 5 3 8

down-East

and then, bemused b y the vision of

traffic and importuned by its Maine

connections,

purchased for $ 2 , 5 1 8 , 0 0 0 Charlestown lands for more ample terminal facilities. T h e price was larger than even the dreamers of the Eastern anticipated, for two properties originally purchased as adjacent were eventually discovered to be separate and the connecting land brought an exorbitant figure. Other liabilities of the road arose from the same careless zeal for expansion. Directors 25 Report . . . of the Boston & Maine Railroad.... Dec. 10, 1873, p. 6; Portland Press, J u l y 19, 23, 24, 29, August 8, 25, 27, September 1 3 , 17, 18, 23, 1873. 29 Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Dec. g, 1874, PP- 7 - 8 · 27 Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, pp. 48-49.

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN

NEW ENGLAND

II

guaranteed worthless securities of potential feeders, paid extraordinary prices for rails, and so managed a station quarrel in Lynn as to buy a station site assessed for $4,500 at a price of $216,000, build a new station thereon at a cost of $55,000, repair the old station at a cost of $130,000, and finally abrogate a contract to stop at the new station for a penalty price of $100,000 and tear down the edifice to sell for junk at $1,500! Between 1871 and 1876 the capitalization of the road was increased by the issue of 7,356 shares and the interest bearing debt mounted from $4,762,561 to $14,859,648. In 1875 the road went bankrupt.28 As usual some professed to believe that this case history of "railroad mismanagement" disclosed no individual dishonesty. In reply counsel for the reform element on the railroad derisively summarized the presumed "mistakes" and concluded that a mere "mistake in judgement" could hardly explain them. "To the question once triumphantly asked, as if to silence the ages: 'If the righteous shall scarcely be saved, where! shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?' it may with equal confidence be answered — 'In the direction of the Eastern Railroad.' " 2 9 Responsible bankers now took the chastened railroad in hand. The Massachusetts legislature of 1876 passed a relief act, authorizing the railroad to issue certificates of indebtedness to be exchanged for its vast and varied obligations. These new securities, prescribing 3 ^ per-cent interest for the first three years, 4^2 for the next three, and 6 per cent thereafter, effected at once an immediate saving in interest charges. A directorate of nine members, six elected by the creditors and three by the stockholders, was to manage the road until the indebtedness had been reduced to $10,000,000; then the stockholders could repossess themselves of the property.30 Actually this arrangement transferred control to the Barings, large holders of bonds, and to Samuel C. Lawrence, an influential stockholder.31 These interests had 28 Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1869, no. 169, pp. 5 - 7 , appendix, pp. 64-67; The Forty-first Annual Report of the Eastern . . . 1875, pp. 1 9 - 2 2 , 34-46. 28 Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1869, no. 169, appendix, pp. 5 3 9 - 5 4 1 . 30 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1876, pp. 236-248; The Forty-first Annual Report of the Eastern . . . 187;, pp. 5 2 - 5 3 . " P o r t l a n d Press, J a n u a r y 1 7 , 1 8 8 1 , November 1 5 , 20, December 1 1 , 1882.

12

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

always favored harmony with the Boston and Maine. In 1877 pooling arrangements between the two roads were extended to the business at all competing points; and the Eastern, although it still carried the larger proportion of Maine Central business, paid the Boston and Maine heavily for the privilege.32 Seven years later, after the passage of enabling legislation in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and after the inevitable law suit, the Boston and Maine leased the Eastern. The agreement pooled the earnings of the two roads. After the Boston and Maine had paid operating expenses, rentals, and the interest on bonds and other debts for both roads, the surplus of net earnings was so divided that the Boston and Maine retained the first $630,000 and might pay eventually to the Eastern sums aggregating $436,000; this division gave the Boston and Maine approximately 10 per cent upon its capitalization and the Eastern a contingent return of 6.33 In 1890 amalgamation superseded the lease. To facilitate the purchase, the Massachusetts General Court permitted the Boston and Maine to increase its capitalization up to an amount equal to the aggregate of the stock in the concerns to be absorbed. In the new company shareholders of the Boston and Maine received $114.68 for each $100 of stock; shareholders in the Eastern received $83.2 8.34 On the whole this was a happy outcome for the stockholders of the Eastern: their securities had had a long history of low market prices and dividend-less years. " P o r t l a n d Press, December 28, 1880, April 1 7 , 1882. ** Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 18S0, pp. 1 5 7 - 1 5 8 ; Willard P . Phillips, Trustee v. Eastern Railroad Company & Others, 138 Massachusetts, 1 2 2 ; J o n a s H. French, Argument of Hon. Jonas H. French. Delivered at Concord, Ν. H., July 24, 1883, before the Railroad Committee of the New Hampshire Legislature, upon the Lease of the Eastern Railroad to the Boston and Maine Railroad (Boston: Franklin Press, Rand, Avery & Company, 1 8 8 3 ) , pp. 1 0 - 1 4 ; Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, Part I I , pp. 419-423. * Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1888, pp. 2 0 1 - 2 0 3 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1890, pp. 1 5 4 - 1 5 7 ; Henry V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1891 (New Y o r k : Η. V . & H. W. Poor, n.d.), p. 6 1 ; Arthur Pound and Samuel T . Moore, eds., More They Told Barron. Conversations and Revelations of an American Pepys in Wall Street ( N e w Y o r k : Harper & Brothers, 1 9 3 1 ) , pp. I l l — 1 1 2 .

MONOPOLY

IN NORTHERN

NEW

ENGLAND

13

III Meanwhile the Boston and Maine had turned from Maine to New Hampshire. It had always been, of course, a New Hampshire road and had participated in the railroad strategies and wars of the Granite State. Still, throughout the sixties and seventies the Boston and Lowell had led the consolidation movement in that state. This dowager road had secured the charter for the Great Northern Railroad, fought the Concord for the possession of the Northern and of the Boston, Concord and Montreal, and finally in 1887 turned with discouragement to lease its property to the Boston and Maine. In itself a large corporation, the latter was after 1887 even more powerful. Through its acquisition of the Boston and Lowell it secured an alliance with another monster corporation, the Amoskeag textile corporation of Manchester, traditionally associated with the Boston and Lowell. The Boston and Maine also included on its board of directors a newer group of capitalists once associated with the Eastern. The chieftain of these redoubtable recruits was Frank Jones of Portsmouth. Once a farm boy, then a hardware peddler, he finally attained eminence as the owner of Portsmouth's de luxe hostelries and as one of the greatest brewers in New England. Among his followers were James P. Cook, banker-broker of Salem, George W . Armstrong of the Armstrong Transfer Express Company, and Charles Sinclair, brewer and, more to the point in hand, the husband of Jones' only daughter. Jones, Cook, and Sinclair were all partners in Jones, Cook & Company, a Boston firm "interested in several kinds of enterprises." 35 After 1889 this group was in open control of the Boston and Maine, for Jones and Sinclair sold their brewery interests to English investors for the sum of $6,300,000 and apparently used some of the money to acquire a 35 Testimony Introduced before the Railroad Committee, of the New Hampshire Legislature in Favor of the "Atherton Bill," and in Opposition to the "Hazen Bill" ( C o n c o r d : Ν . H . Democratic Press C o m p a n y , n.d.), pp. 6 2 - 6 4 ; Dictionary of American Biography, X , 1 6 8 - 1 6 9 ; D . H . H u r d , ed., History of Rockingham and Strafford Counties, New Hampshire, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J . W . L e w i s & C o . , 1882), p p . 108-110.

MEN, CITIES, AND

14

TRANSPORTATION

block of Boston and Maine stock estimated at 20,000 to 26,000 shares. Jones became president of the railroad.36 For some years before this apotheosis, a series of railroad forays demonstrated the Jonesian concepts and methods of railroad operations. In the early eighties, for instance, they had marked the Worcester, Nashua and Rochester Railroad for their own. This road, forming a portion of the line between Portland and Worcester, paid only 3 per-cent dividends; its stock sold for low prices. In 1884 Sinclair, Jones, Cook, and Armstrong became directors and enlarged their stockholdings at regrettably increasing prices. They then leased the road to the Boston and Maine at a $ l / 2 percent rental, divided among themselves as a stock dividend the 4,805 shares of stock in the Worcester's treasury, and saw the securities for which they had paid no more than $100 increase in value to $120 or $i30. 3 7 As Sinclair observed, " I bought the stock, and intended to hold it until I could realize a handsome profit, and then sell it." 38 The Massachusetts Railroad Commission ten years later took a somewhat less debonair view of the proceedings and condemned the stock-watering as "obnoxious." 39 Next this trained crew turned to the Manchester and Lawrence, a line which the Concord Railroad held captive by various illegal devices. Jones, Sinclair, and their fellow partisans borrowed money, made purchases, and in fact exhibited talents so persuasive as to acquire from two of the Concord gang their holdings in the Manchester and Lawrence. To one Concord stockholder, not thus suborned, it seemed as if "in the history of nations, parties, and corporations, I don't believe you could find anything worse in positive duplicity and treachery." 40 In June 1887 the Manchester and Lawrence was leased to the Boston and Maine. Though Jones, 86 Concord Independent Statesman, February 12, 1 8 8 1 ; Portland Press, March i , October 1 3 , 1893. 3 * Testimony . . . in Favor of the "Atherton Bill," pp. 63-85, 1 3 0 - 1 3 8 ; Testimony of Ex-Mayor Stoddard and General Passenger Agent Flanders in Support of the "Hazen Bill" before the Railroad Committee of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. June Session, 1887 (Concord: Republican Press Association, 1887),

PP· 3-2J. 38

Testimony . . . in Favor of the "Atherton Bill," p. 78. Massachusetts Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1896, pp. 1 4 4 - 1 4 9 . " H a r r y Bingham, Closing Argument of Hon. Harry Bingham before the Rail30

MONOPOLY

IN NORTHERN

NEW ENGLAND

15

Sinclair, Cook, and Armstrong had had to spend $225 a share for their Manchester and Lawrence holdings, the lease guaranteed them a 10 per-cent dividend on the par value of the stock and if the stock were resold other profits were anticipated. 41 Gains from an "investment," however, were not the only purpose of the lease. It was a flanking movement in the grand battle against the Concord in which the simultaneous lease of the Boston and Lowell by the Boston and Maine was the master stroke. IV To even the dullest editorial observer, therefore, 1887 promised a great railroad war. Neutrals and partisans, buyers and sellers, legislators from farm and factory town, railroad kings and attendant lobbyists — all converged upon Concord. While the Concord Railroad held open house in Room 13 of the Eagle Hotel opposite the capitol, farmers and politicians who wanted to "talk railroad" with Frank Jones or solicit a pass from the Boston and Maine found that corporation installed in a suite at the Phenix.42 The number of legal brethren in the city was "enough for a campmeeting." Under the circumstances the solons were certain to be treated generously. As C. S. Mellen, a divisional superintendent of the Boston and Maine, informed his enemy, the Concord, " M y judgment is against any agreement whatever changing the manner of issuing legislative passes in New Hampshire this coming summer. I do not feel with the legislation we must both necessarily have, that we can afford to pursue any different course with the members of the New Hampshire legislature from what we have pursued with regard to members in Massachusetts." 43 Forthwith road. Committee of the New Hampshire Legislature, Wednesday, -August 10, 1887 ( C o n c o r d : Ν . H . D e m o c r a t i c Press C o m p a n y , 1887), p. 22. 41 Testimony . . . in Favor of the "Atherton Bill," p p . 86-90, 1 3 8 - 1 4 0 ; Testimony Offered in Support of the "Hazen Bill" before the Railroad Committee of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. June Session, 1887 ( C o n c o r d : R e p u b lican Press Association, 1887), pp. 147-150. 12 State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1887. Proceedings and Testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the House, in the Investigation of Charges of Bribery of Members of the Legislature, pp. 73-74, 101-103. ** Testimony Taken on Behalf of the Plaintiffs, in the Action-at-Law, Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad v. Boston & Maine Railroad, in Jan'y, Feb'y, March & April, 1888 [Consolidated Case, I I ] p. 107.

l6

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

the Boston and Maine and the Boston and Lowell sponsored the Hazen bill; the Concord fathered the Atherton. Though both proposed statutes professed to be the logical fulfillment of the general railroad law of 1883, actually each, forewarned by the decisions of Justice Doe and his colleagues, sought legal validation for acts past or prospective and offered the state or the legislature a prize if it passed the desired legislation. Thus the Hazen bill, since the highest court had dissolved the lease of the Northern to the Boston and Lowell for its callousness to minority stockholders, enacted legal decrees by which a railroad could purchase the securities of shareowners dissenting from a lease. Since the Boston and Lowell had been challenged as a foreign corporation, a section declared that "railroad corporations created by the laws of other States shall have all the rights and privileges, as regards connecting roads, . . . of corporations created by this State." Finally, "this act and the act to which this is an amendment shall be construed as authorizing the leasing of the Northern Railroad and the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad by the Boston & Lowell Railroad." Then came promises. All railroads in the state, except those engaged solely in summer business, should issue mileage books for five hundred miles at two cents a mile, certain main lines were to charge fares of two cents a mile and no railroad more than three for local rates. Fares and freights existing on August 1 , 1887, could not be increased without the consent of the legislature. 44 For its part the rival Atherton bill authorized the Concord to lease the Northern for 6 per cent upon the latter's capital stock and to unite with the Boston, Concord and Montreal. 48 The syndicate from the Concord who had invested in the latter railroad was sure that the merging of the two enterprises would bring the immense resources of the Concord to bear upon the languishing securities of the Boston, Concord and Montreal. This was a recompense earned by the syndicate's own heroism as well as by the enduring loyalty of original investors and their descendants in 44 Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad. Commissioners New Hampshire, 1888, pp. 1 0 - 1 6 . "Ibid·., pp. 1 7 - 2 2 .

of the State of

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND

17

this unhappy enterprise, for "no more graceful act could be done than to let some of these old heroes and veterans feel a little dividend in their hands before they die."

46

Under the masquerade

of generalities several provisions were directed against the Boston and L o w e l l - B o s t o n and Maine, for the courts were to construe the leasing provisions of the railroad law of 1883 " a s authorizing only the leasing or union of roads which physically connect and form a continuous and direct line"; and unless the legislature so authorized, "no railroad of this State shall unite with or be leased to or operated b y any railroad that is wholly without the State." T h e n came the promises. T h e Atherton bill arranged for extinguishing the claims of

stockholders objecting to lease or

consolidation and promised mileage books, two-and-a-half-cent fares on main lines, and a maximum three-cent local fare. A s a bonus the Concord and Montreal, the merger permitted b y the act, was to construct railroads into northern N e w Hampshire and build promised branches elsewhere. 47 T h e s e details of promise and performance must not obscure the real objective in the railroad war of 1887 — the control of the Concord Railroad. Those in possession worked to retain their position, at least

until

they could capitulate on profitable terms.

Their enemies, if not attacking the main fortress of the Concord outright, were maneuvering to make that surrender inevitable. T h o u g h commercial considerations played a part in these competing campaigns, the financial motive was the more important. T h e Concord was a prize. W i t h its strategic position, excellent roadbed and equipment, its small operating expenses, it had been enabled to p a y regularly its 10 per-cent dividends and enrich its property through the reinvestment of earnings. T h e possibilities of stock jobbery were fascinating. T h e Boston Traveler

declared

that a 100 per-cent stock dividend was perfectly feasible. 4 8 N o " B i n g h a m , Closing Argument of Hon. Harry Bingham, p. 4; Edgar Aldrich, Argument of Hon. Edgar Aldrich, before the Railroad Committee of the House of Representatives, July 5, 1887 (Concord: Republican Press Association, 1887), pp. 30-32. " Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1888, pp. 22-26. 18 The New Hampshire Republican Senatorial Caucus of 1889. Letter of Senator Chandler, p. 34.

l8

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

wonder New Hampshire and Massachusetts capitalists were contending for the prize of this "golden goose in New Hampshire." 49 "This Concord Railroad is a bonanza. It is a bright and shining star of the first magnitude among all the railroads in this country." 60 To the railroad reformers of New Hampshire, if such could be isolated from those in the interest of the railroads, it seemed as if these gains should go to the state rather than to speculators. 51 From June until November, through seemingly endless hearings, debates, and investigations the legislators sought to fashion policy. They got little help from partisan loyalties. Frank Jones of the Boston and Maine and members of the Concord ring were alike Democrats. Republicans were in both corporations. 52 Nor could the solons weigh tangible advantages of the here and now. Though the Concord was promising to wrest northern New Hampshire from the "primeval forest," its rivals reduced fares and freights and built extensions. 53 So the issue graduated to the level of ideals. One was the preservation of the state's independence, adroitly identified by the Concord Railroad with its own. The Boston and Maine was a foreigner. Less than one-third of its stockholders lived in New Hampshire; less than one-fifth of its stock was held there. Though incorporated in New Hampshire, 49 Stilson Hutchins, Argument of Hon. Stilson Hutchins, before the Railroad Committee of the House of Representatives, August 3, 1887 (Concord: Ν . H. Democratic Press Company, n.d.), p. 1 5 . M Bingham, Closing Argument of Hon. Harry Bingham, p. 8. 51 Samuel C . Eastman, Speech of Hon. Samuel C. Eastman, before the Railroad Committee of the House of Representatives, August 2, 1887, pp. 5 - 2 1 , 24-34, T y p e written Copy, Dartmouth College L i b r a r y ; The New Hampshire Republican Senatorial Caucus of 1889. Letter of Senator Chandler in Further Reply to the Charges Made Against Him in That Caucus (Concord: Republican Press Association, 1890), pp. 24-27. 53 I r a Colby, The Railroad Question. Speech 0f Hon. Ira Colby, Representative from Claremont, in the House of Representatives in Favor of the Hazen Bill, September 21, 1887 (Concord: Republican Press Association, 1887), p. 3 5 ; The New Hampshire Republican Senatorial Caucus of 1889. Letter of Senator Chandler, pp. 11-21. M Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1888, p. 3 0 ; George F . Page, Argument of George F. Page, on Behalf of the Business Interests of New Hampshire before the Railroad Committee of the New Hampshire Legislature, 1887, in Favor of the Passage of House Bill No. 28 (Concord: Republican Press Association, 1887), pp. 1 6 - 1 8 ; Testimony . . . in Support of the "Hazen Bill," pp. 49-50.

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN

NEW

ENGLAND

19

"the Boston and Maine keep house down in Massachusetts. There is where it lives; there is where the kitchen utensils are." 54 To such generalities were added specifications. Passengers who broke a leg would have their damage suits transferred to the United States courts, since the Boston and Maine was a foreign corporation, and if exceptions were once taken and the cause carried to the Supreme Court "you die before your case is decided." 55 When shippers with grievances traveled to Boston rather than to Concord for redress, "you are told by an usher to step into a small room and take your seat and wait your turn. You wait, and wait, and wait, and it is growing late, and you cannot approach the man or have an opportunity to see him." 56 Clearly the Atherton bill should be entitled as it was: "An Act to secure to the State of New Hampshire the control of its Railroads." T o the argument for provinciality was added the traditional appeal against an impersonal concentration of corporate power. Many representatives from farms or from factory cities, spokesmen for the anti-monopoly feeling of earlier decades or for the contemporary Knights of Labor, responded sympathetically. 57 Unhappily — since the Atherton bill was thoroughly dishonest. The case for the Hazen bill accorded with state policy and with economic actuality. Whatever its specific purpose, the bill sought to continue the policy of consolidation and regulation adopted four, years earlier. With many a citation from the works of Charles Francis Adams and Arthur T . Hadley, legislators and railroad counsel proved the folly of an enforced competition. The result M Speech of Charles F. Stone of Laconia, September i , 1887, Newspaper Clipping, Dartmouth College L i b r a r y ; William M . Chase, Opening Argument of William M. Chase before the Railroad Committees of New Hampshire Legislature, Thursday, June 23, 1887 (n.p., n.d.)> p. 1 2 . 55 Chase, Opening Argument, pp. 1 1 - 1 2 . m D a v i d Cross, Closing Argument of Hon. David Cross, before the Railroad Committee, of the New Hampshire Legislature, Tuesday, August p, 1887, in favor of the "Atherton Bill," and in opposition to the "Hazen Bill" (Concord: Ν . H. Democratic Press Company, 1887), p. 18. 67 Minority Report on the Hazen and Atherton Bills by a Minority of the Committee on Railroads (n.p., n.d.), pp. 4 - 5 ; Denis F. O'Conner, Argument of Denis F. O'Conner, in the House of Representatives, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 1887 (Concord: Ν . H. Democratic Press Company, 1 8 8 7 ) ; Speech of Daniel J . Murphy of M a n chester in Opposition to the Hazen Bill, September 20, 1887, Newspaper Clipping, Dartmouth College Library.

20

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

was discrimination, uncertainty, chaos, and eventually consolidation. T h e vital question was the geographical scale of consolidation. Obviously in the nation of the eighties it was silly to cut a railroad system down to state lines. National growth required long hauls; four-fifths of N e w Hampshire commerce was interstate. In the last analysis, New Hampshire could not afford short, fragmentary lines or a state system. " Y o u cannot expect to compete with the prairies of the west in raising corn. Y o u must bring your grains from the great northwest down over these roads. Y o u must bring your merchandise from Boston up along these lines. T h e thing for N e w Hampshire to do is to develop her waterpower, develop her manufactories. . . . It is a vital matter to these manufactories whether they can save a few mills on a yard of cotton or on a pound of freight or not." 58 New Hampshire must welcome foreign enterprise, foreign capital. A t long last the legislature passed the Hazen bill with comfortable majorities. 59 Governor Sawyer at once returned it with a message which, without discussing the policy at issue, vetoed the bill because both sides had been "equally guilty" of attempting to bribe legislators and equally unsuccessful in influencing the legislative fate of both measures. T o preserve the honor and good name of the legislature and the state, the gubernatorial interposi.tion was necessary. 60 T o exonerate legislators and veto a bill because both sides had tempted them was certainly a singular bit of reasoning. Perhaps the governor's information on the premises was more complete than he acknowledged, perhaps he merely wished to await the outcome of legislative investigations into the doings of the session. From this committee scrutiny, four reports emerged. All agreed that bribes had been offered to several mem68 C o l b y , Speech of Hon. Ira Colby, . . . September 21, 1887, pp. 30, 3 6 ; Report from the Committee on Railroads, House 0} Representatives, August 24, 1887 (n.p., n.d.), p p . 1 - 4 ; Aldrich, Argument of Hon. Edgar Aldrich . . . July 5, 1887, pp. 2 2 - 2 5 ; J a m e s F. Briggs, The Railroad Question. Speech of Hon. James F. Briggs, before the Railroad Committee of the House of Representatives, July 20, 1887 ( C o n c o r d : Republican Press Association, 1887), pp. 3 - 6 . "Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1887, pp. 715—717; Journal of the Honorable Senate of the State of New Hampshire, June Session, 1887, p. 398. °° Journal of the House . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1887, pp. 781-783.

Jtrank Jones

William E. Chandler

A QUARTET OF N E W H A M P S H I R E TITANS

William D. Bishop President

Henry L. Goodwin Critic

The New London Bridge (1889) T H E CONSOLIDATED

MONOPOLY IN NORTHERN

NEW ENGLAND

21

bers of the legislature; wherever two people could get together — in a stable, barn, broker's office or water closet — money was offered for influence or votes. In every instance, however, the colleagues of the investigators rejected temptation. Of more general interest was the picture of a lobby swollen by local postmasters and United States marshals who owed their appointments to Frank Jones, of a press whose editorials were written in the railroad offices, of a pass system so lavish that legislators not only traveled to and from home free but took wives, families, and friends on journeys to beaches, the White Mountains, or county fairs. Passes were issued to destinations as distant as Montreal, Chicago, and St. Louis. 6 1 For such human weakness Jones had his explanation, " M e n are a good deal like hogs: they don't like to be driven, but you throw them down a little corn, and you can call them most anywhere. T h a t is all there is to it. I supposed such a politician as you are would know that without asking me." 82 In view of the revelations, the legislature was moved to enact a stringent act limiting railroad expenditures for legislation and inflicting heavy penalties for offering and taking bribes. 63 This measure was the sole statutory fruit of the railroad war of 1887. V Superficially the Concord seemed the victor in the engagement. The bill which its rival had sought had not become law and soon thereafter the Supreme Court, brushing aside all circumlocutions and pretenses, ordered the Boston and Lowell and Boston and Maine to cease managing the Boston, Concord and Montreal and "•Ibid., pp. 899-906; State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1887. Proceedings and Testimony before the Special Committee of the Senate Appointed September 6, 1887 to Investigate the Matter of the Alleged Attempted Bribery of Hon. Oliver D. Sawyer (n.p., n.d.); Senate Bribery Investigating Committee, Majority Report (n.p., n.d.); Ibid., Minority Report (n.p., n.d.); State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1887. Proceedings and Testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the House, in the Investigation of Charges of Bribery of Members of the Legislature (n.p., n.d.). 62 Proceedings and Testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the House,

p. 258. 68

Laws

490-491.

of the State of New

Hampshire,

Passed June Session, 1887,

pp. 483-484,

22

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

to return it to the corporation whose controlling stockholders were the syndicate from the Concord.64 The Boston and Maine, nonetheless, had the stronger position. Through its lease of the Boston and Lowell and Manchester and Lawrence it dominated the Concord's outlets to the south. On the north it was allied with the Canadian Pacific; it leased the Connecticut and Passumpsic; it threatened through its access to the Portland and Ogdensburg to open an alternate route to Canada, entirely independent of the Concord; and it formed with the Northern a one-year operating contract from which legal ingenuity sought to strip every vestige of a lease.65 The Boston and Maine possessed the implements, in the words of its general manager, "to entirely demoralize the rates of the Concord both ways." 66 Occasionally it demonstrated the ability. Furthermore Jones, Sinclair, and their friends bought stock in the Boston, Concord and Montreal and in the Concord and threatened to wrap around these minority holdings the legal cloak which the judges of New Hampshire were so keen to preserve untorn 67 They even drew some consolation from adverse decisions. The judgment by which the Court returned the Boston, Concord and Montreal to independent life sarcastically demolished the contention of the Concord that the railroad laws of the state did not permit the Boston and Lowell to lease New Hampshire railroads: "The act discloses no purpose to withhold from non-residents the privilege of bringing their money into this jurisdiction, and devoting it to public use." 68 " B o s t o n , Concord & Montreal Railroad v. Boston & Lowell Railroad. Same v. Boston & Maine Railroad and Boston & Lowell Railroad, 65 New Hampshire, 445> 449"Testimony . . . in the Action-at-Law, Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad vs. Boston & Lowell Railroad Corporation [Consolidated Case, I ] , pp. 91-92, 1 1 3 ; [Consolidated Case I I ] , p. 2 2 3 ; Springfield Daily Republican, M a y 28, September i , 1889. M State of New Hampshire. Supreme Court. Manchester & Lawrence Railroad v. Concord Railroad Corporation [Testimony and Proceedings before Referees], I I , 1 2 3 ; Application of Charles Sinclair and Others for an Injunction against the Boston, Concord and Montreal, Newspaper Clipping, Dartmouth College Library. m State of New Hampshire. Supreme Court. December Law Term, 1888. Boston, Concord , 6 3 1 632. "Seventh Annual Report to the Stockholders of the New York and New England Railroad Company, Made at the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 1882 (Boston: R a n d , A v e r y , & Company, 1 8 8 2 ) , p. 2. 48 Springfield Daily Republican, November 24, 30, December x, 7, 1 8 8 1 ; Commercial and Financial Chronicle, X X X I I I ( 1 8 8 1 ) , 588, 634. "Sixth Annual Report . . . of the New York and New England . . . 1881, pp. 1 2 , 1 4 - 1 5 ; Seventh Annual Report . . . of the New York and New England . . . 1882, pp. 8 - 1 1 ; Η . V . Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1884 ( N e w Y o r k : Η. V. & H. W. Poor, n.d.), pp. 68-69.

54

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

the Erie were opened, it so happened, at a moment when through rates were convulsed by competition between the trunk lines and, once they were restored to remunerative levels, the Fink organization apportioned trunk-line shipments over the New York and New England.70 Though the independent connection with New York was provided by the New York City and Northern running from Brewster's to the northern terminal of the Metropolitan Elevated Railway near the end of Eighth Avenue, Gould, Field, and Sage, all busy extending and consolidating the elevated system, preferred to keep the route in cold storage.71 Expansion cost money. Within three years, September 1880 and September 1883, the funded debt of the road nearly doubled, the Car Trust added extra charges, principal and interest, of approximately $200,000 a year, and the net income, once sufficient to meet fixed charges and more, would have had to double to meet the interest on the bonds.72 The only solution was to lease the property to some other road and thus instill some worth into its securities. General James H. Wilson, in accord with the traditions of the road, thought the Erie should be this benefactor. In the summer of 1883, Hugh J . Jewett, President of the New York, Lake Erie and Western and also director in the New York and New England, proposed a lease by which the former road operated the latter and guaranteed its fixed charges.73 Such a suggestion at once antagonized the Boston opposition. This group was led by C. P. Clark, who had returned from his European sojourns to become second vice-president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford in 1882, 74 and by Francis L. and ,0

Springfield Daily Republican, March 6, 1882. Sixth Annual Report . . . of the New York and New England . . . 1881, p. 1 2 ; Poor, Manual of the Railroads . . . 1884, p. 157. 72 Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, Part I I , pp. 1 6 7 - 1 7 4 ; Massachusetts Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1884, Part I I , pp. 198-207. 7a Eighth Annual Report to the Stockholders of the New York and New England Railroad Company, Made at the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 1883 (Boston: Cashman, Keating & Company, n.d.), pp. 2 9 - 3 1 . ™ Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. Co. to Be Submitted at Their Annual Meeting in the City of New Haven, on Wednesday, January 10th, 1883 ( N e w Haven: L . S. Punderson, 1 8 8 3 ) , p. 2. 71

"THIS INFANT

HERCULES"

SS

Henry L. Higginson, partners in the firm of Lee, Higginson and Company. To them the folly of a hard and fast alliance with the Erie was clear. Though the connection was valuable for local traffic and a future coal trade, to compete for Western traffic via the Erie was to descend into the maelstrom of trunk-line competition. A lease to the Erie would repel the Pennsylvania Railroad, over which the New York and New England had valuable access to the Middle Atlantic states and the South; it would further antagonize the Boston and Albany with which the New York and New England was already competing in the New York-Boston passenger business. Moreover, this western business did not pay. Analysis demonstrated that while the New York and New England carried 50,000,000 tons of local freight one mile, 50,000,000 tons of coal and Pennsylvania freight one mile, and 50,000,000 tons of Erie freight one mile, it received for the the last only $350,000 compared with $1,350,000 and $400,000 for the other two classifications. If a lease of the New York and New England were to be executed, Clark and his banking supporters, the Higginsons, thought the New York, New Haven and Hartford or the Boston and Albany would be the better lessees.75 The Erie had never saved the New York and New England; it had little promise of doing so now. Actually in 1884 the Erie had already defaulted on certain interest and rental payments.76 V Meanwhile in 1883 F. L. Higginson and Clark boldly announced their intention of defeating the existing management. They solicited proxies and won the support of Field and Sage — Gould was extricating himself from the enterprise — by an "unqualified pledge" of Clark's "loyalty and fidelity to the interests of the New York & New England Railroad Company and its stockholders." 77 75 Massachusetts House Documents, 1888, no. 438, pp. 198-200, 262-266; Clippings in C. P. Clark Scrapbook, in private possession; Hartford Courant, January 24, 1881. ™ Η. V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1888 (New York: Η. V. & H. W. Poor, n.d.), p. 218. "Massachusetts House Documents, 1886, no. 438, pp. 529, 652-653.

56

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

At the annual meeting of December n , 1883, the perennial representatives of the Delaware and Hudson and Erie left the directorate, James H. Wilson vacated the presidency, and Clark took the position.78 In spite of victory, the latter's heart was heavy. Although he hated to leave the New Haven, " I t seemed to be my duty to return and repay to the property what it had done for me when I was a young man, when it gave me confidence and position as a railroad manager." 79 The events of the next two weeks furthered his depression. T o meet the interest payments on bonds as they became due within the new year and to handle the floating debt of $1,300,000 — $600,000 of which might be called at any moment — was impossible. Danger lurked at every hand. Creditors began pressing for payments and seeking attachments, while the defeated management might return to power by using the second mortgage bonds, of which they held a majority, to secure the appointment of a friendly receiver. 80 The Clark-Higginson group shrewdly forestalled such possibilities. On December 25, the directors authorized the president to call special meetings at any time and place; on December 31st, Clark summoned such a meeting at Hartford; at this meeting by a vote of five to two the board resolved upon a receivership. The participants late in the evening adjourned to the home of Judge Nathaniel Shipman of the Federal District Court of Connecticut, and there the majority spokesman informed the learned justice that one Henry Brassey of England, the owner of five second mortgage bonds and a client of Lee, Higginson & Company, fearful that the road might default the interest On such obligations thirty-two days hence, petitioned for receivership. The disclosures of the road's financial position so impressed Justice Shipman that he granted the prayer and appointed Charles ** Ninth Annual Report to the Stockholders of the New York and New England Railroad Company, Made at the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1884 (Boston: Cashman, Keating & Co., n.d.), p. 2; H a r t f o r d Courant, March 8, 1884. " M a s s a c h u s e t t s House Documents, 1886, no. 438, p. 234. 80 Ninth Annual Report to the Stockholders of the New York and New England Railroad Company. Made at the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1884 (Boston: Cashman, Keating & Co., n.d.), pp. 5 - 8 ; Brassey v. N e w Y o r k & N e w England R a i l road Company and Others, 19 Federal Reporter, 664; N e w Y o r k Times, J a n u a r y 2, 1884.

"THIS

INFANT

HERCULES"

57

P. Clark, who resigned the road's presidency, as sole receiver.81 For a month or two the outwitted rivals declared the "midnight receivership" both collusive and unnecessary, and demanded its termination or its modification through the appointment of a coreceiver. They protested in vain, partly because the representative of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, itself a large owner of the second mortgage bonds, supported the Clark coup d'itat.82 Two years of receivership followed. Once again the policy of the road was directed toward the polestar of harmony with the Pennsylvania and the New Haven. The latter Clark was particularly anxious to conciliate, for he wanted to increase the New England's passenger service over the New York run and the assent of the New Haven was necessary. After a long correspondence, in which George Watrous, the president of the New Haven, was the austere pedant and Clark the humorous suppliant, the latter won passenger trains leaving New York and Boston at three in the afternoon. 83 Both proved to be immensely popular and profitable. For the rest Clark sought to cut the deficit by economies. Although he succeeded in reducing costs of labor, repairs, and construction, fixed charges were more intractable. Though rentals were reduced, interest charges increased and the unfunded debt between September 30, 1883, and September 30, 1885, mounted from $1,621,822 to $2,203,384.84 Still, by the late summer of 1885 Clark and Higginson hoped to terminate the receivership advantageously. The floating debt they planned to discharge by inducing the creditors to accept preferred stock or by raising cash through its sale.85 Then the road might 81 Massachusetts House Documents, 1886, no. 438, pp. 139, 652; Hartford Couranl, January 2, March 8, 1884. 84 Massachusetts House Documents, 1886, no. 438, pp. 672-673; Hartford Courant, February 11, 1884, March 8, 1884; 19 Federal Reporter, 667; Clipping, February 19, 1884, Clark Scrapbook. 83Report of Hearings . . . to Investigate . . . the New York, New Haven and Hartford . . . [1893], pp. 268-279. 84 Massachusetts Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1884, Part II, pp. 198-201; Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, Part II, pp. 192194. 85 Tenth Annual Report of the Stockholders of the New York and New England Railroad Company, Made at the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 188s (Boston: Cashman, Keating & Co., n.d.), pp. 10-12.

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

be leased to the New Haven. From such an instrument the common stockholders could expect nothing; the twenty million capitalization had never paid a dividend. The preferred stockholders, however, might expect a return upon their securities and the bondowners, since the lease would certainly guarantee the interest on their holdings, might see their bonds rise to the level of $136, if current prices for the debentures of the New Haven were a test.86 Even if a lease did not materialize, a rising market promised the resale of the new and old securities with profit. As F. L. Higginson philosophically wrote to Russell Sage, "Is it not curious to see how wild people get at such short notice over stocks in general?" 87 Whether Massachusetts, the owner of 1,842 second mortgage bonds, was ever explicitly and wholly informed of these aspirations or possibilities was never clarified. On the contrary, events and exhortation encouraged the officers of the Commonwealth to cling fast to the current dogma that railroad investments were an unsuitable security for the funds of the state. In April, 1885, the failure of the bonds to meet their interest disturbed the governor and the treasurer and raised the twin spectres of eventual foreclosure by the state and of its involvement in railroad operation. In his conversations with officials Clark dwelt upon this unpleasant prospect. Finally in September a committee of the council, after an examination of the state portfolio, recommended the sale of the New York and New England bonds because of their uncertain value. In this fashion the block of bonds marched to market. Prospective purchasers scented profit if the price charged by the state were low enough.88 A "group of gentlemen" — including F. L. Higginson, W. T. Hart, and C. P. Clark — after a failure to negotiate a private sale at 55 — reconciled themselves to public bidding. As large shareholders, Russell Sage and Cyrus W. Field also wished to participate in the operation. To the Boston "gentlemen" the latter's inclusion seemed dangerous. The bonds should be sold only to those who were not "hostile" to the receivership, only to, those above "Massachusetts House Documents, 1886, no. 438, pp. 262-266, 562.

"Ibid., p. 146. x

Ibid.,

pp. 1 1 6 , 2 6 9 - 2 7 0 , 6 7 4 - 6 7 5 , 677-680, 7 1 9 - 7 2 3 .

"THIS INFANT

HERCULES"

59

speculative profits and interested in the welfare of the corporation and of the Commonwealth! Though the evidence for their unfitness was, to say the least, ambiguous, Sage and Field did not meet these requirements. The state officials concerned in the sale — the governor, the treasurer, and the attorney-general — all needed instruction in these fundamental realities. 89 Henry L . Higginson, as a "citizen," for his firm was no longer interested in the road's securities and he was not privy to the financial operations of his brother, trotted to the state house with an injudicious confidence of Field, "What you want to do is, to go up and buy those bonds at the State House as cheap as you can," and confided it to Governor George D. Robinson and Treasurer Daniel A. Gleason. 90 All three were fellow Harvard men. Clark by his assiduous and candid friendliness had likewise endeared himself to Treasurer Gleason and convinced the attorney-general that Cyrus Field was a serpent tempter and that the "group of gentlemen" from Boston were "entitled to make some money in an honest w a y . " 9 1 Finally in November, when the governor and council had decided to sell the state's holdings, they called Clark in for advice. After a discussion of technicalities, he eloquently carried the argument to a higher plane of moral considerations. The state had an obligation to consider the welfare of the stockholders who had subscribed three years before in order that the state might have second mortgage bonds rather than common stock. However odd a gloss this theory was upon the transaction in question, Clark concluded that it would be the height of dishonor to let "the bonds go into hands adverse to the interests of stockholders. . . . Now may it please your Excellency and gentlemen of the Council, . . . I beg of you that so far as you properly may, to see to it that these bonds reach no hands that will taint the honor of Massachusetts." 92 Auguries favorable to the Bostonians surrounded the call for bids. The final paragraph of the announcement stated, " I n addi"Ibid.,

862-872.

pp. 117, 248-254, 270-273, inclosure 330-33i> 353-3S5, 368, 532, 534,

"Ibid., pp. 683-685, 723-72S. n Ibid., pp. 930-933. 02 Ibid., pp. 237-240; Seventh Annual Report . . . of the New York and New England . . . 1882, pp. 15-16.

6o

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

tion to the general interest of the public in the prosperity of the railroad, the Commonwealth has a pecuniary interest in lands whose value is liable to be affected by the condition of the road, and the right is distinctly reserved to reject any or all bids as the Governor and Council, in their discretion, may judge the public interest to require." 93 This generalization was directed against Field and Sage. 94 In order, furthermore, to avoid unpleasant complications, only a week was granted for the submission of bids and the advertisement was sent only to Boston financial houses and inserted only in the Boston press. Treasurer Gleason adopted this procedure because the governor and council gave "the impression they thought a distinctively New Y o r k bid was not desirable." 95 Then the stratagem turned sour. Four days before bids closed, Field learned of the maneuvers of his Boston associates. T h e mails were crammed with letters, the wires with telegrams. Field and Sage stated their case to Clark in simple terms, " W e want to be assured by you that we can jointly receive five hundred thousand dollars of the second mortgage bonds, to be bought b y the syndicate and our just proportion of preferred stock. . . . W e want our interests protected in any purchase of second mortgage bonds or preferred stock, and unless so advised will send a representative to Boston tonight to protect our interests." 96 Under the circumstances Clark's replies could be neither "perfectly frank and perfectly fair," as he claimed they were, nor convincing. Early on the morning of the day when bids were to be submitted, Field informed his partner, " M r . Sage, we have been sold; they won't let us into the Boston syndicate." 97 A t once they headed a syndicate of their own to bid for all the bonds. F . L . Higginson submitted two bids for the "group of gentlemen." 9 8 T h a t afternoon came the climax. T h e governor and council, with the treasurer in attendance, opened the envelopes. T h e Boston syndicate offered to pay 85 a bond and for each 10 bonds to Massachusetts House Documents, 1886, no. 438, p. 11. Ibid., p. 118. "Ibid., pp. 737-738, 788-789. "Ibid., "Ibid., pp. 20-22, 32-33, 289-292, 550. mIbid., pp. 33, 158, 550-551, 738-741. 93 w

pp. 21, 546-549·

"THIS

INFANT

HERCULES'

6l

subscribe to 28 shares of preferred stock, or to pay 83 a bond and for each 10 bonds to subscribe to 30 shares of preferred stock. The Field-Sage offer was 95 for each bond. For a moment Massachusetts officialdom was stunned. Surely the righteous should have the bonds, but surely the state could hardly sacrifice for the sake of a "group of gentlemen" $ 1 0 0 a bond. Surely the public would regard an acceptance of the lower bid as peculiar. Decision was postponed until a council meeting the following evening. In the interval and in the meeting the path of policy grew clearer. On the one hand, additional evidence of the sinister designs of the New York bidders accumulated." On the other hand, the state officers learned that the "group of gentlemen" would pay more. Henry L. Higginson, still professing a curious ignorance of his brother's plans, wrote a note to the governor urging the acceptance of the Clark bid in the best interests of the road. " M a y I suggest that you, if right, should offer the bonds to the Clark party at a price satisfactory to you, and give them a day or two to see the men interested. I rather guess that they will rise to the occasion; but let me add that they will not ask and don't want my advice in the matter; and I don't know their ideas in the premises. You will pardon me for offering this letter unasked, and will regard it as private, — the talk of one old college mate to another." 1 0 0 The governor asked F . L . Higginson if he would not pay more. He replied, "Governor, if you want a horse and offer· $ 1 0 0 for it; if you want it you are not going to swear that you won't pay $ 1 0 1 for it." 1 0 1 The parable was apt. In the evening session the governor and council rejected all bids, and then passed a resolution for private sale to bona fide parties with the understanding that the Boston syndicate would offer 90 and purchase 23 shares of preferred stock for each bond. In brief the expense to the syndicate remained the same as in their previous bids; the railroad, which it was protecting, received less, and the state more. But the state still received $94,402 less than if the Field-Sage bid had been accepted. 102 "Ibid., pp. 2SS-2S8, 415, 424. 428· 432-435. 742-747.

100

101

Ibid., p. 768.

Ibid., p. 213.

1M

Ibid., pp. 34-35. m , 214, 708-712, 748-767·

62

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Money, however, should not obscure the moralities. A s a lowly member of the governor's council explained: " I knew by the financial reports of Wall Street, and all the papers that Mr. Field and Mr. Sage are 'on the street,' as it is called in New Y o r k . W e often read in the papers that they have done this and that to certain stocks. Now, I am ignorant of stock brokerage; I don't know anything about it. But I got the impression that it was safer for the State of Massachusetts and for the creditors of the road to put it into the hands of those who are interested in the State of Massachusetts. . . . W e knew Mr. Clark; we knew M r . Higginson to be Massachusetts men owning property in Massachusetts." 103 In other words this was a defeat of Wall Street by State Street; of Cyrus Field, who held directorships in countless companies and was worth $50,000,000 by the "little men" of Massachusetts; of speculative New Yorkers b y the "Saints of Boston," to use the derisive phrase of Field's counsel. 104 A few years later in a confidential conversation, one of the "Saints" gave a more realistic recollection of the transaction: " I went into a joint deal with Clark to buy those state bonds at 55, and we had to pay 87^2 for them because we did not give Field something to keep him still." 100 According to the rules of the game, as interpreted b y the "Saints," the vanquished should have retired from the engagement with as little fuss as possible. If Russell Sage alone had been involved, no doubt these proprieties would have prevailed. He was not one "to talk very much," observed Henry Higginson with approval, and his sense of honor was rarely outraged as long as loans paid interest. In addition the "Saints" soothed his injured feelings by providing him with fifty of the bonds because they were sorry "he felt unkind, he having behaved very well otherwise. He had been very pleasant; he had accepted the whole situation." 106 Cyrus W . Field, however, was not reasonable. T h e associate of some of the shadiest robber barons of the era and perfectly willing to make money by their speculations, he still cherished an inner 1 278-279.

ΐθ8

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

1892 it began the issue of 4 per-cent debentures, convertible into stock in 1903; and their total by 1900 amounted to $16,397,200. 130 This attempt to avoid increasing the capital stock, upon which dividends of 1 0 per cent had become traditional, could not forestall a reduction to an 8 per-cent dividend in 1894. 1 3 1 This catastrophe required explanation. Though official utterances inferred that the industrial depression was the cause, explanations actually lay elsewhere. Between 1886 and 1900, while gross receipts from operations had multiplied approximately five times, operating expenses had multiplied nearly six, interest on bonds, its own and guaranteed bonds, ten, and rentals twentyfive times. 132 The nature of this achievement occasioned a somewhat muted debate, in which the participants were not always talking about the same thing. Clark was gratified that stock issues, without fixed interest burdens, had financed so much of this expansion. 133 The Springfield Republican felt the cost would have been less if the stock had been sold in the market at the much higher prices then quoted rather than offered to the existing holders at par. Upbraiding the Connecticut legislature for permitting this largess, it declared, "Such consideration for the widow and orphan was never before seen, we believe, in an American legislative body." 1 3 4 From a somewhat different angle, Mellen, once an insider, wrote to the president of the New· Haven in 1900: " B u t then, you know, the New Haven has always been prone to underestimate the value of a competitor, and as a result of delay, in very many instances, has paid a tremendous price, when, with very little effort, the competition could have been stopped in its inception and with very little expenditure. The road has been 130

Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, igoi, Part I V , p. 1 7 0 ; Twenty-second Annual Report . . . of the New York, New Haven and Hartford . . . 1893, pp. 4, 3 0 - 3 1 . Twenty-third Year. General Statement of the Affairs of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, for the Year Ending June 30, 1894 (New Y o r k : William H. Clark, 1894), p. 6. 132 1886. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 224, 225, 227; Connecticut 1900. 48th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners, pp. 269, 2 7 1 , 278, 279. 189 Boston Herald, November 1 3 , 1899; Pound and Moore, eds., More They Told Barron, p. 1 3 7 . 134 Springfield Daily Republican, February 2 1 , March 8, 1893.

TEE

CONSOLIDATED

109

extremely fortunate in being so rich it could afford to pay the prices it has for its acquisitions, but is there not a limit beyond which even a property like the New Haven can go?" 1 3 5 In the nineties, as the New Haven grew, financial or railroad potentates from New York appeared more and more frequently as its agents or as formulators of its policy. As death, removing one Connecticut stalwart after another, cleared the way, noted New Yorkers other than Vanderbilts came on the directorate; Chauncey M. Depew in 1885, William Rockefeller in 1887, and J . P. Morgan in 1891. 1 3 6 Perhaps control of the road was drifting to New York City. Even if a shift thither could be demonstrated, few seriously contended that such a development threatened New England's or Boston's interests, though occasionally the old assertions were made. Thus Moorfield Storey, whom the New York and New England retained in 1893 as counsel in the diversion quarrel, interpreted the crisis: "The question is then whether certain New York capitalists, interested in the prosperity of that city, shall control all the routes upon which the prosperity of a rival city depends." 1 3 7 Actually Storey was rattling dead bones. American railroads, now national in scope, were no longer in the service of mere urban rivalries. Nor was it at all clear that New Yorkers were yet in the position to make the important decisions for the Consolidated. To be sure, perhaps because of his banking association with the Vanderbilts who had always been investors in the road, or perhaps because the expansion of the New Haven poured forth that torrent of securities that delighted the investment banker, Morgan had become interested in the road and frequently acted as its underwriter. Still the majority of the directorate hailed from Connecticut, and Massachusetts had as many representatives as New York. Of the capitalization at the turn of the century, Connect185

Massachusetts House Documents, 1 9 1 6 , no. 1900, p. 264. Fifteenth Annual Report . . . of the New York, New Haven & Hartford . . . 1886, p. 2 ; Seventeenth Annual Report . . . of the New York, New Haven & Hartford . . . 1888, p. 2 ; Twenty-first Annual Report . . . of the New York, New Haven and Hartford . . . 1892, p. 2. 137 Report of Hearing . . . to Investigate . . . the New York, New Haven and Hartford . . . [ 1 8 9 3 ] , p. 702. 1M

110

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

icut security holders owned approximately a fourth and those from Massachusetts over a third; relatively their combined holdings were slightly larger than in 1886. 1 3 8 New England held the helm. In 1899 when the directors met to select a successor to'C. P. Clark, they chose John M. Hall, Connecticut-born, Yale graduate, and a Willimantic lawyer, who had resigned a Connecticut judgeship to become a vice-president of the Consolidated and was now the presidential choice of Clark and his Connecticut allies. 139 When the New Yorkers objected and sought delay, the Connecticut men retorted, "Gentlemen, just as you like, but Hall is the man." 1 4 0 They were right. The New Haven was still in the preMorgan era. 138 1886. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 229; Connecticut igoo. 48th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners, pp. 103, 262-263; Massachusetts Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1887, p. 200; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, p. 3 2 1 . 139 Boston Herald, November 1 3 , 1899. 140 Pound and Moore, eds., More They Told Barron, p. 150.

XIX THE RAILROAD AND THE COASTING TRADES On the old Fall River Line, On the old Fall River Line, I fell for Susie's line of talk And Susie fell for mine. Then we fell in with a parson And he tied us tight as twine. But I wish 'Oh Lord,' I fell over-board On the old Fall River Line. I Soon or late the railroad conquered New England's interior waterways. Canals capitulated with dispatch. The Boston and Lowell choked the Middlesex, the Providence and Worcester supplanted the Blackstone, and the Canal road put the always feeble Farmington out of misery. Nor was New England's great central waterway, the Connecticut, long able to resist the new master of transportation. In 1839 when the Western reached Springfield, goods once carried by river and coastal trade to eastern Massachusetts went overland to the Boston market, and the Hartford and New Haven, never frozen in winter, encroached with its direct route upon the angular water-borne traffic between the two cities. Within the next fourteen years, roads from Boston had crossed northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire to the upper Connecticut, connected Boston with Wells River — once the farthest

112

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

north for steamboat navigation — and paralleled the river from Hartford to Barnet. 1 Though for a while travel by steamer and freight carriage by tows persisted between Springfield and Hartford, the advent of the railroad blighted the water-borne trades on the upper river. 2 T h e Connecticut River Railroad, after prudently purchasing the largest of the freight lines between Greenfield and Hartford, at once found the river traffic paying tribute to the superiority of rails, and the Connecticut and Passumpsic, from White River north, declared in 1851 that its cars were carrying lumber and masts and that the rafting trade on the rivers had been largely given up. 3 After the Civil War those given either to reminiscence or agitation hoped to revive the river commerce at least as far north as Holyoke. In their minds the national government should build the wing dams, necessary to scour a channel through the bars and shoals for ten miles above Hartford, and reconstruct the five-mile canal around Enfield Falls. Its narrow locks were in poor repair, its banks were caving in, and its channel was choked with eel grass. T h e required sums were too large; the prospective advantages too small. 4 Connecticut River commerce was confined to the reach below Hartford. A s such it was assimilated into the transportation history of Long Island Sound. In quite a different category was Lake Champlain, N e w England's only "inland sea," though perhaps the latter phrase was a misnomer for a body of water connected with the Hudson by canal and with Montreal and even Ottawa by the canals and river nav1 Henry V. Poor, History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America, Exhibiting Their Progress, Cost, Revenues, Expenditures & Present Condition (New Y o r k : John H. Schultz & Co., i860), pp. 43, 52, 62, 72, 80, 158, 160, 197. a W . DeLoss Love, "The Navigation of the Connecticut River," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, New Series, X V (1904), 427-432. 8 Second Annual Report of the Directors to the Stockholders of the Connecticut River Rail Road. June 2, 1847 (n.p., n.d.), pp. 4 - 5 ; Thelma M . Kistler, The Rise of the Railroads in the Connecticut River Valley, pp. 187-188; Sixth Annual Report of the Directors of the Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Rail-Road Company, July, I8;I (Newbury: L. J. Mclndoe, n.d.), pp. 6, 8. ' R e p o r t of the Chief of Army Engineers, 1871, House Executive Documents, 42 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 1, Part 2 (s.n. 1504), pp. 760-768; Survey of the Connecticut River Transmitted by the Secretary of War, House Executive Documents, 45 Cong., 2 Sess., n o . i o i (s.n. 1809).

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

" 3

igation constructed or improved by Canadian enterprise and funds. These works made Lake Champlain a link in a long waterway extending from the heart of the Canadian forest to the commercial metropolis of North America.5 Though there was some trade between these extremities, the carriage of bulk cargoes a part of the way still traversed magnificent distances. From Champlain's high and rugged New York hinterland, practically a wilderness,6 iron ore was distributed not only to the furnaces and forges along the lake but to the iron and steel centers of Albany and Troy and for mixture with ores at other refining centers, some as far distant as Pittsburgh. After the Champlain iron masters discarded charcoal technique there was a back flow of coal to the lake ports and then, to the delight of coal merchants, to the expanding market for both anthracite and bituminous in Canada.7 Lumber, however, was the bulk cargo par excellence. As the forests crashed down, the source of cargoes shifted. B y the midforties lumbering crossed the lake from Vermont into New York and moved over the international boundary into Canada. In the fifties American and Canadian enterprisers of foresight opened a trade by canal, river, and lake from Ottawa.8 Since an international regulation excluded barges of Canadian registry from the Champlain Canal and since the prism of the canal, narrower and 5 George P. deT. Glazebrook, A History of Transportation in Canada (New Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1 9 3 8 ) , pp. 78-81, 87-88; Arthur R . M . Lower, The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest. A History of the Lumber Trade between Canada and the United States ( N e w Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1 9 3 8 ) , p. 96. " R e p o r t of I. D. Andrews on the Trade and Commerce of the British North American Colonies, and upon the Trade of the Great Lakes and Rivers, Senate Executive Documents, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 42 (s.n. 6 5 1 ) , p. 61. 7 Hearings by the Subcommittee on the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, Report of the Special Committee of the New York Assembly on Railroads [Hepburn Committee], V, 30-32, 5 3 - 5 5 , 1 5 5 ; Arthur J . Weise, Troy's One Hundred Years. 17891889. ( T r o y : William H. Young, 1 8 9 1 ) , pp. 264-271. ' H e n r y Rolfe, " T h e Lumber Trade," The Vermont Historical Gazetteer: A Magazine Embracing a History of Each Town, Civil, Ecclesiastical, Biographical and Military. Edited by Abby Maria Hemenway, I (1868), 5 1 8 ; Lower, The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest, pp. 93-99, 1 0 8 - 1 1 5 ; Charles S. Sargent, Report on the Forest of North America, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, I X , 5 0 1 - 5 0 3 ; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X I V ( 1 8 5 1 ) , 82; J a m e s E . Defebaugh, History of the Lumber Industry of America (Chicago: The American Lumberman, 1907), I I 1 7 1 - 1 7 3 , 3 1 8 - 3 2 0 .

χ 14

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

shallower than those of its northern connections, prevented the passage of the larger bulk carriers, the chief southern terminus of this last and greatest lumber commerce was Burlington. B y this time, furthermore, Burlington luckily had the railroads to distribute lumber to N e w England and beyond.

A s one of the city's

lumber merchants wrote: Little did the projectors of our rail roads dream that within ten years after the completion of their roads, almost every available space on their grounds at Burlington would be lumbered up with boards and plank on their destined voyage to Europe, South America, California, and the far off isles of the Pacific, but such is the fact. The lumber is brought here from the mills on the Ottawa and St. Lawrence and their tributaries without sorting, and is here sorted to meet the requirements of the different markets. If a ship at Boston, bound to Australia, needs a cargo of lumber, it is put into the cars at the planing mill, carried to Boston and unloaded direct from the cars to the vessel. If one for the West Indies calls for a load, it can be supplied with a cargo of rough boards with the same facility and dispatch. Every demand for pine lumber or any of its manufactures, whether rough, dressed, tongued and grooved, made into doors, sash blinds or boxes, or even houses, ready made, can be furnished to order upon short notice.9 In the fifties the Burlington market, in addition to shipments for foreign countries, supplied southern N e w England and even sent some to Maine, the " P i n e T r e e State"; it believed itself the third lumber market of the nation. 1 0 In the carriage of bulk as well as of other products, transhipments eroded profits when they did not forbid traffic entirely. Although as early as 1823 the sloop Gleaner had shown one w a y to avoid transfers, it was not until 1841 that H a r r y Bradley and T i m o t h y Follett of Burlington established the first line of "long boats," a phrase applied not to the vessels' hulls but to the method * Rolfe, "The Lumber Trade," p. 519; Defebaugh, History of the Lumber Industry, II, 166, 170. 10 Communication of George W. Brega on the Trade with the British Provinces, House Executive Documents, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 240 (.s.n. 134), pp. 6-8; Thomas H. Canfield, "Discovery, Navigation and Navigators of Lake Champlain," The Vermont Historical Gazetteer: A Magazine Embracing a History of Each Town, Civil, Ecclesiastical, Biographical and Military. Edited by Abby Maria Hemenway, I (1868), 685; Sargent, Report on the Forests of North America, p. 499.

THE RAILROAD AND THE COASTING TRADES

II5

of operating them. T h e s e two pioneers simply employed canal boats to sail with a sloop rig along Champlain, unship their rig at Whitehall for the journey b y horse or mule power along the canal to A l b a n y or T r o y , and then join the tows down the Hudson River. Such "long boats" contrasted with "short boats" making only part of the journey. 1 1 A decade later the "long boats," discarding sails and rigging entirely, moved in slow security of tows of twenty or thirty boats lashed abreast and astern of a small steam vessel. A s the age of sail thus faded out, canal boats and barges became the freight carriers on the lake. 1 2 B y the eighties, for the trip south of Champlain, canal boats were carrying 250 tons and drawing six feet of water. These vessels, however, were pigmies beside the immense barges in the

Ottawa-Burlington

trade which singly often carried 240,000 Μ of boards to Burlington and in tows sometimes scaled 3,000,000 M . 1 3 Steamboats on L a k e Champlain had begun speeding passenger traffic along its length when land connections at the poles of navigation were only stage-coach lines.

Soon the Champlain Canal

brought the packet canal-boat to Whitehall and the railroads from St. Johns to Montreal introduced the iron horse. B y then, 1836, the Champlain Transportation Company owned every steamboat on the lake, had acquired its own yards and base at Shelburne Harbor, and bought peace from its most persistent rival for eight years. W h e n this period of grace expired, there was a last glorious outburst of competition. Rates for the lake journey were cut from $4.50 to 50 cents; runners for the rival routes carried their misrepresentations and assault at Whitehall to new levels of indignity; and one challenger informed the public that common folk could travel more at ease on his vessel than on the rival

Burling-

ton, u Canfield, "Discovery, Navigation and Navigators of Lake Champlain," pp. 683-684. a Ibid., pp. 684-685; Testimony before the Railroad Committee on Bridging Lake Champlain, New Y o r k Senate Documents, 1850, no. 13, p. 3; Report and Testimony of the Committee on Railroads on Bridging Lake Champlain, New Y o r k Assembly Documents, 1851, no. 20, pp. 59, 72. 13 Henry Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry oj the United States. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, VIII, 225; Defebaugh, History oj the Lumber Industry, II, 166.

Ii6

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Her decks are scrubbed with so much care T h a t cowhide boots can't come it there. If you cannot make your money rattle, Y o u must go forward with the cattle. 1 4 When this troubadour sold out after three years, monopoly was re-established. It was never shattered, no matter who owned it — the Hudson River steamboat men led b y Daniel D r e w or the Delaware and Hudson which in 1871 leased the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, which in turn controlled through stockownership the Champlain Transportation Company.

Meanwhile, over the

years, the boats of the monopoly became faster, larger, more luxurious. Its first steel vessel, smaller than many of its predecessors, the Chateaugay,

was not built until 1888; early in the twentieth

century the company launched the Ticonderoga

and the

Vermont,

the last of 1,195 tons' displacement, whose withdrawal in the nineteen thirties left the lake to small pleasure boats and ferries. 1 5 Railroads, meanwhile, encircled the lake. B y 1852 it was possible to follow an all-rail route from N e w Y o r k to Montreal b y using the Hudson River Railroad and the many roads connecting A l b a n y and T r o y with the Vermont system. N o through route along the western shore existed, however, until the seventies when the Delaware and Hudson, an aggressive newcomer, took existing "country roads" and built the essential links between them.1® T h e railroads soon displayed their ability to capture a portion of the lake's commerce. First to go were the more valuable freights and the passengers.

In the mid-fifties Bradley and Follett deserted

their "long boats" for railroads, as the latter demonstrated their capacity to carry hardware, country produce, and merchandise; and twenty years later the Delaware and Hudson, certainly in " F r a n c i s B. C. Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation in New England," Essex Institute Historical Collections, L V I (1920), 191-192; Canfield, "Discovery, Navigation and Navigators of Lake Champlain," pp. 696-698. 11 Canfield, "Discovery, Navigation and Navigators of Lake Champlain," pp. 699-701; Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," pp. 194; Champlain Transportation Company, The Steamboats of Lake Champlain, 1809-1930 (Press of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, 1930), pp. 143, 145. 10 Hearings by the Subcommittee on the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. Report of the Special Committee of the New York Assembly on Railroads [Hepburn Committee], V, 99-100.

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

117

the best position to know, had shortened its steamboat run from Whitehall and Rouse's Point to Ticonderoga and Plattsburg. 17 Though they did not conquer lumber, the railroads eventually won the carriage of iron and coal. Perhaps they would not have had this measure of success if the State of New York could have run the Champlain Canal with flexibility and resourcefulness. Unhappily it was compelled to manage the waterway, as it did others, by constitutional amendment; no other device sufficed to override sectional interests and to prevent the corruption of officials entrusted with the maintenance and improvement of these once noble state works. 18 Although under the circumstances repairs and reconstruction could be neither ample, thorough, nor timely, tonnage on the canal after the mid-sixties annually held to over a million and reached its peak in 1890. Then the decline set in. 19 In spite of the canal's considerable commercial success, financial loss was the rule. B y 1882 when tolls were abandoned the canal had failed to meet the costs of its construction, management, and repair by $4,126,978; by 1898 operations and repairs accumulated an additional deficit of $i,580,303. 2 0 Yet the actual or. potential competition of the canal had forced a lower rate structure upon its railroad rivals. II In the water-borne trades of New England's coastal areas — the down-East trade between Boston and Maine and the Maritimes, the commerce pouring between New York and the ports of south17 Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Steam Marine, 1852, Senate Executive Documents, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 42 (s.n. 619), p. 1 9 ; Canfield, "Discovery, Navigation and Navigators of Lake Champlain," pp. 683-684. 311 Alexander C. Flick, Samuel Jones Tilden, A Study in Political Sagacity (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1939), pp. 265-267, 2 7 2 - 2 7 3 ; DeAlva S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909), II, 107-109, 183-184, III, 182-184, 3 2 1 - 3 2 3 ; Charles Z. Lincoln, The Constitutional History of New York from the Beginning of the Colonial Period to the Year 1905; Showing the Origin, Development, and Judicial Construction of the Constitution (Rochester: The Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, 1906), pp. 1 6 5 - 1 7 4 , 596-655. u Joseph Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . Submitted May 6, 1885, appendix, pp. 413, 438-439; Report of the Committee on Canals, New York Assembly Documents, 1900, no. 79, pp. 163-165. " N e w York Assembly Documents, 1900, no. 79, pp. 1 5 1 - 1 5 3 .

Il8

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

ern New England as far east as New Bedford, the long trades between New England and the cities stretching down the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from Philadelphia to Galveston — here the nineteenth-century railroad had only tempered triumphs. Even in Boston's marine backyard, that stretch of water between Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, the railroad put an end only to the age of sail, and then not until after the Civil War. Between i860 and 1870 the twenty packet lines to ports in Boston's neighborhood halved in number; fifteen years later only Newburyport and Rockport sent vessels in significant numbers to Boston. 21 "George, the railroad is a c u s s ! " exclaimed an idle longshoreman of Provincetown. 22 Steamboat travel and commerce lived somewhat longer. Though Salem people and Salem goods did not come Boston-ward over salt water, Nahant, a few miles away at the end of a spit of sand and rock, supported, with the exception of a single year, a steamboat of its own from 1822 to 1900. From Gloucester after 1859 the Boston and Gloucester Steamboat Company ran a regular steamboat, surviving on freight in the winter and fattening through the summer on travelers at 50 cents a trip. 23 A similar commuting service had developed somewhat earlier to towns along the southern shore of Boston's outer harbor; and in the seventies the steamboats serving them ran during the summer season three round trips a day and charged a fare of 10 cents. To ports on Cape Cod, which as long as geography prevails will be nearer Boston by water and air than by land, steam lines commenced service in 1848 and for years made a living from a prosaic freight and passenger commerce. But after the Civil War they began to flaunt the carnival characteristics of the excursion trade. 24 As "Damrell V. Moore and George Coolidge, The Boston Almanac for the Year i860 (Boston: Brown, Taggard, & Chase, n.d.), p. 234; The Boston Almanac for the Year 1870 (Boston: n.d.), pp. 1 3 8 - 1 3 9 ; Boston Commercial and Shipping List, January, July, 1885. " Henry C. Kittredge, Cape Cod: Its People and Their History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930), p. 236. 23 Francis B . C . Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation in New England," Essex Institute Historical Collections, L V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 1 2 - 1 7 , 22-24; Boston Shipping List, July 28, i860. 24 Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," pp. 1 1 5 - 1 2 3 ; Boston Shipping List, July 2, 1870.

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

HQ

such the route to Provincetown survives, carrying pious folk on historic pilgrimages and the less sober on a flight from respectability. Beyond Boston's tributary waters lay the down East of Maine and the Maritimes. Here peculiar conditions conspired to perpetuate the coastal trade. A serrated and a rocky coast gave little encouragement to a shore-line railroad. The first attempt east of Portland proceeded directly to Bath and left aside the headlands and islands of Casco Bay; the next link, the Knox and Lincoln to Rockland, touched some ports, slighted others, and had only one straight stretch as long as a mile. Its extension to Bangor was so unpromising that restless ports ran lines inland to the interior Maine Central. Only by 1880 did a railroad approach Mount Desert and by the end of the century extend along the coast to the Quoddy ports.23 Railroad construction in the Maritimes had a similar history. Though by the seventies some seacoast places were connected with the rail systems of Maine or Quebec, it was not until the early nineties or later that most Nova Scotian ports were integrated into a land-transportation system.26 The sea and its coast, moreover, produced a whole array of staple products. Water transport was the easiest and the cheapest way of assembling and carrying them to market. There was the great lime industry of Camden, Thomaston, and Rockland; if its product was not the answer to a world's need, as a State of Maine bureau implied, it at least ministered to the northeastern United States. There were the granite quarries of the Kennebec and the Penobscot and a score of islands, after the Civil War turning out building and monument stones and paving blocks under the auspices of big business.27 There were the pineries of Maine which 25

Supra, I, 487-488. Glazebrook, A History of Transportation in Canada, pp. 1 5 4 - 1 6 0 , 2 0 3 - 2 1 5 ; S. A. Saunders, The Economic History of the Maritime Provinces. A Study Prepared for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Ottawa: 1 9 3 9 ) , pp. 1 4 - 1 5 ; Oscar D . Skelton, The Railway Builders: A Chronicle of Overland Highways (Toronto: Glasgow, B r o o k & Company, 1 9 1 6 ) , pp. 67-69, 1 0 2 - 1 0 8 . " Third Annual Report of the Bureau oj Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 188(1, pp. 9-28, 5 9 - 6 5 ; Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1892, pp. 205-206; Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of x

120

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

floated down to the lumber ports at the head of river navigation the logs which whole batteries of sawmills converted into the plank and boards of a domestic and foreign commerce. 28 There were the ice fields of the Kennebec and the Penobscot — not to mention an array of fresh water ponds — to which the big ice companies of New Y o r k , Philadelphia, and Washington moved after the Civil War and from which in the great ice craze of 1890 over 3,000,000 tons were harvested and stored. 29 Though some of these products, lumber for instance, tied the Maritimes into the same commerce, fish was the common denominator of all down East. There were dried fish and after 1880 fresh fish, menhaden in the guise of fish oil and guano, canned lobster and fresh lobster packed in barrels of ice or crawling in salt water wells in the vessel's hold, herring as bait for other fish or food for the masses or masquerading as sardines. 30 Nova Scotia had a specialty, the bituminous coal shipped from Pictou or Sydney to the smithies, forges, puddling furnaces, and gas works of New England. 3 1 Since a goodly portion of this down-East trade hailed from ports beyond our national boundary, trade between the Maritimes and N e w England was governed b y the commercial and navigation policies of Great Britain, of the separate provinces and later the Dominion of Canada, and of the United States. With so many interests at work, policy was neither consistent nor simple; in genMaine. 1899. p p . 2 5 - 3 1 ; Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1902, p p . 7 - 5 1 . 28 G e o r g e S. W a s s o n , Sailing Days on the Penobscot. The River and Bay As They Were in the Old Days ( S a l e m : M a r i n e R e s e a r c h S o c i e t y , 1932), p p . 3 0 - 3 9 ; R i c h a r d G . W o o d , A History of Lumbering in Maine, 1820-1861. ( O r o n o : U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1935). "Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1891, p p . 1 6 1 - 1 8 0 ; Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1901, p p . 1 9 - 2 1 ; H e n r y H a l l , The Ice Industry of the United States, with a Brief Sketch of Its History and Estimates of Production in the Different States, T e n t h C e n s u s of t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s , 1880, X X , 2—5, 2 1 - 2 3 . 30 G e o r g e B . G o o d e a n d O t h e r s , T h e F i s h e r i e s a n d F i s h i n g I n d u s t r i e s of t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s , Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 47 C o n g . , 1 Sess., n o . 124, P a r t 3 (s.n. 1999), p p . 8, 12, 1 7 - 1 8 , 3 1 , 36, 3 9 - 4 1 , 52—53, 83-89, P a r t 5 (s.n. 2001), p p . 364-365, 432, 435-436, 4 3 9 - 4 4 2 , 455-458, 4 7 3 - 4 7 5 , 4 8 2 , 484-485, 4 8 9 - 4 9 8 , P a r t 6 ( s . n . 2002), p p . 658-659, 669-670, 680-691. 31 R e p o r t of E l i a s Η . D e r b y o n R e c i p r o c i t y w i t h C a n a d a , 1867, Senate Executive Documents, 39 C o n g . , 2 Sess., n o . 30 ( s . n . 1 2 7 7 ) , p p . 5, 17, 47.

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

121

eral it was also more irritating than important. Great Britain's restrictive and preferential imperial system, by which she had sought to relate the Maritimes with her needs and those of her other colonies, progressively gave way as in 1830 she admitted American vessels to the trade with the British North American colonies, and in 1849 repealed the preferences and exclusions of her navigation acts. 32 Some years later when Canada had the power to shape her own commercial policy, the reciprocity treaty of 1854 with the United States put on the free list the raw materials and supplies of both countries. 33 Though New England congressional feeling was divided when the American government terminated this arrangement in 1866, the Boston Board of Trade frankly bewailed the move as a regressive step defying the natural law under which fish and the products of farm, quarry, and mine came to the city. 34 Some of the more dismal of these mercantile anticipations were avoided as the provisions of the Washington Treaty of 1872 arranged a settlement of the fisheries issues which actually permitted for over a decade the continued free entrance of Canadian fish. Tariff or no, Canadian coal could no longer compete with American bituminous from the new mines in Pennsylvania and Virginia nor lumber from the Maritimes with that from the southern United States and from the pineries of Ontario. 36 32 Gerald S. Graham, Sea Power and British North America 1783-1820. A Study in British Colonial Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), pp. 36-73, 9 5 - 1 1 1 , 179-231, 247-263, 275-278; Vernon G. Setser, The Commercial Reciprocity Policy of the United States 1774-182Q (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937), pp. 226-241. " Donald C. Masters, The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. Its History, Its Relation to British Colonial and Foreign Policy and to the Development of Canadian Fiscal Autonomy (London: Longmans Green and Co., n.d.), pp. 86-89. " United States Tariff Commission, Reciprocity and Commercial Treaties, pp. 72-75; Boston Board of Trade. 1865. Eleventh Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the nth January, 1865 (Boston: T. R. Marvin & Son, 1865), pp. 42-43, 56-62. "Testimony Taken by the Select Committee on Relations with Canada, Senate Reports, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 1530, Part 1 (s.n. 2712), pp. 599-605, 650-651, 659665; S. A. Saunders, "The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854: A Regional' Study," The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, I I (1936), 47-50; United States Tariff Commission, Reciprocity and Commercial Treaties, p. 94.

122

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

III Of this down-East commerce sailing vessels always carried a part. Let the figures of arrivals at Boston, incomplete though they may be, speak for themselves. In July, 1845 — during the summer months water-borne trade was at the flood — there were 169 arrivals of sailing vessels from Maine, 161 from the Maritimes, and for the same month in i860, 389 from Maine, 250 from the Maritimes. With the Civil War this sailing commerce began a slow decline. B y 1885, the last year for which the Shipping List is available, July arrivals from Maine were 290 and those from the Maritimes 124. Better than such totals, the figures for individual ports revealed the variety and importance of the trade. In July, i860, according to the Boston Shipping List, vessels arrived from no less than fifty-seven Maine ports and on a single summer day vessels from twenty trooped into Boston. From all this herding multiplicity, Bangor and Calais emerged as the chief communicants by sail with Boston. In the Maritimes it was the ports along the Bay of Fundy, whether in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, that set out by sail for Boston. As the statistician questing east and north from Yarmouth left Cape Sable behind, the sailing trade of Boston fell away. Halifax was less important than St. John; Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island were comparatively trivial. To this generalization, however, there was one shattering exception — the coal trade of Nova Scotia. In spite of wind, weather, and distance, an immense fleet plied between Boston and the coal ports down East. In the summer shipping season between one-fifth and onequarter of the sailing vessel arrivals from Nova Scotia came from Pictou alone.36 Though such shipments were important, they were dirty, and Hawthorne, the customhouse clerk, found their measurement an onerous obligation: "I am convinced that Christian's burden consisted of coal; and no wonder he felt much relieved, when it fell off and rolled into the sepulchre. His load, however, at the utmost, could not have been more than a few bushels, " B o s t o n Shipping List and Prices Current, July, 1845; Boston Shipping List, July, i860; Boston Shipping List, July, 1870; Boston Commercial and Shipping List, July, 1885.

THE RAILROAD

AND

THE COASTING

TRADES

123

whereas mine was exactly one hundred and thirty-five chaldrons and seven tubs." 37 With the decline of this coal trade after the Civil War, the fishing ports of Nova Scotia were the chief communicants by sail with Massachusetts. 38 Frequently the sailing vessels in the down-East trade designated themselves "packets." The phrase was loosely used to describe boats sailing at fixed times between stated termini or often only a vessel that followed a prescribed route with some flexibility in sailing times. Thus, while a Boston-Bangor packet line of six schooners had regular sailings on Wednesday and Saturday, the Boston-Brunswick packet sauntered down the coast, putting into some port every night. 39 Though the first of the packets dated from the eighteenth century, their era was really the middle years of the nineteenth. The Boston Almanac of i860 listed twenty packet lines to down-East ports clustered about Casco Bay, the Kennebec River, the Penobscot, or Quoddy. T e n years later the number was almost the same. 40 Then decline set in. In 1871 the list was down somewhat, and in 1872 the Boston Almanac and Business Directory ceased to publish it at all. 41 Whether by packet line or individual vessel, the sailing trade carried until the Civil War an assorted cargo. Such carriers brought down to Maine and the B a y of Fundy the heavy freight for grocers and other merchants — boots, shoes, hats, meat, flour, and Yankee notions — and returned a hotch-potch of country produce and lumber products. Some ports provided a limited but regular commerce. The great textile factories of Biddeford-Saco in i860 kept four schooners busy transporting "domestics" to Boston, 42 and from Pembroke, Maine, iron works, importing to this 37 Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from the American Note-Books (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896), p. 220. 88 Boston Commercial and Shipping List, July, 1885. 88 Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 63; Brunswick (Maine) Telegraph, January 15, 1886. " M o o r e & Coolidge, The Boston Almanac for . . . i860, p. 294; The Boston Almanac for . . . 1870, pp. 138-139. 41 The Boston Almanac for the Year 1871 (Boston: n.d.), p. 218. 42 Boston Shipping List and Prices Current, January 5, 1850; Senate Reports, 51 Cong., ι Sess., no. 1530, Part 1, p. 680.

124

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

remote Maine community all its raw materials, sent back to Boston bars, nails, rivets, and bundles of iron. 43 After the railroad had captured the commerce in general merchandise, the bulk trades kept the sailing vessels alive. T h e quarry owners and lime dealers of Rockland relied upon the sea; schooners piled so high with hay bales that the helmsman could not see over them carried prime Eastern hay to the hungry horses of lower New England; and the Bangor lumber trade and the coal ports of Nova Scotia dispatched their seasonal cargoes by boat to the settled communities of Massachusetts and Boston. 44 Unhappily the tonnage totals and the rates of transportation for this sail-borne traffic lie buried with the dead memories of shippers, consignees, carriers, or in hoarded account books. Only coal freights received publicity. Early in the 1850's they averaged $2.75 per chaldron, Boston measure of 2,940 pounds; in the late eighties they were between $1.65 and $2.00 a ton. 45 Whatever the cargo, the sharp touch of winter congealed the sailing trade. In 1845 arrivals of sailing vessels at Boston from Maine and the Maritimes in January were 32 per cent of those in July; in 1885 the proportion was only 8 per cent. 46 Though clearly one of the earliest effects of the steamboat and the railroad was to heighten the always marked disparity between winter and summer sailings, the coasting trade had always hibernated. Ice closed some ports, like that of Bangor, and the coal trade shipped its metropolitan supplies in summer. Winter navigation was dangerous and uncomfortable. If they sailed at all during that season, coasting captains took as much time as possible. One lumber carrier from Maine used 101 days to reach a port in northern Massachusetts and, if she were like others, probably burned a part of the cargo to keep warm en route. Other skippers planned to "lay up" for the winter in some quiet, deep salt-water cove where, though " B o s t o n Shipping List, J a n u a r y , J u l y , i860; B o s t o n Shipping List, J a n u a r y , 1870. " Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 3 1 ; B o s t o n Shipping List, J a n u a r y 22, 26, 1870. aSenate Executive Documents, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 112, p. 564; Senate Reports, 51 Cong., ι Sess., no. 1530, P a r t 1, pp. 616, 651. " B o s t o n Shipping List and Prices Current, J a n u a r y , J u l y , 1845; B o s t o n Commercial and Shipping List, J a n u a r y , J u l y , 1885.

THE RAILROAD

AND

THE COASTING

TRADES

12$

the rain and snow might damage deck and topsides, no hard, thick, grinding ice pulled caulking from seams or injured the sheathing. 47 IV B y the earlier forties the pattern of the steamboat navigation beween Boston and Maine was fairly forecast. One route ran to Portland. Here the dominant steamboat dynasty of the Porters had formed the Cumberland Steam Navigation Company and built the first vessels specifically for the run. In 1845 they had a successor in the Portland Steam Packet Company, a $100,000 corporation created by Portland capitalists and Captain J. B. Coyle, an engineer on the earlier line. Throughout most of the century Coyle was the leading figure in the Portland steamboat trade. Certainly the company was the dominant one, partly because it became the ally of the Grand Trunk. As the latter completed its line to Canada and laid tracks along the Portland waterfront, the Portland Steam Packet Company, engaging to forward the railroad's passengers and freight, placed large new steamers, appropriately christened the Atlantic, St. Lawrence, Lewiston, and Montreal, upon its run, advertised itself as a route to Quebec and Montreal from Boston, and carried to Boston for an interval 10,000 barrels of western flour a week. 48 A t Bangor and the lower landings along the Penobscot the Sanfords were the steamboat dynasty. T h e first of the family, Captain Menemon Sanford, came to the Maine coast from the competitive cockpit of Long Island Sound to experiment with both the Kennebec and the Penobscot routes. B y the forties, however, the latter had become Sanford's first concern 49 After one of his pilots had evolved the "outside route" from Bangor to Boston, as distinguished from the "inside route" hugging the coast, his vessels left Cape Ann and boldly sailed direct " b y the time and courses" to Monhegan Island where they turned once more toward the land. 60 " Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, pp. 77-82. " B r a d l e e , "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 187, 190; Portland Press, November 9, 1863. " B r a d l e e , "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 272. " M o r r i s o n , History 0} American Steam Navigation, p. 396; John M . Richard-

126

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

In 1845 the Sanfords established the Sanford Independent Line. The family name, though not always its control, was perpetuated until 1882 when the Boston and Bangor Steamboat Company reincarnated a title once employed by earlier pliers of this route. 51 Between the Penobscot and Portland lay the Kennebec with its river ports of Bath, Gardiner, Hallowell, and Augusta. Early steamboats from Boston continued on to the Kennebec from Portland, or its ports were integrated into costal lines that ran farther down East. In 1842 when the railroads reached Portland, the Boston and Maine and the Eastern united to extend their lines by a steamboat service from Portland to the Kennebec. From this position of inferiority the Sanfords rescued the region. T h e y seem to have run their vessels in a "direct line" to Boston, and well before the Civil War local capital from Bath and Gardiner financed the same sort of enterprise. In the sixties the Kennebec Steamboat Company became the custodian of the route. 52 Such systematic sovereignty of the routes to Maine did not result without a preliminary struggle. Competition was intense and complicated, for vessels on the Boston-Portland route could easily be sent farther on to Bath or to Bangor; the outside route between Boston and Bangor faced the joint rivalry of the routes from Boston to Portland and Portland to Bangor and occasionally the operators of Portland-Bangor boats would be moved by a gust of independence to send them to Boston. Time tables and sailing arrangements were often so capricious as to suggest that boat owners sought to skim by a single vessel the cream from every traffic on the coast. In any case, such competitive engagements conventionally led to a multiplication of sailings, an increase in steamboat luxury, a rise in speed — "dangerous racing" in the eyes of rivals — and a lowering of fares. T h e years between 1842 and the Civil War carried competition to its giddiest and most unprofitable extent. In 1842 the Teleson, Steamboat Lore of the Penobscot. An Informal Story o) Steamboating in Maine's Penobscot Region (Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print Shop, 1941), p. 8. 6 1 Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V I , 119-120; History of the Boston & Bangor Steamboat Co. Formerly Known as Sanford's Independent Line (1823-1882) (Boston: T . R. Marvin & Son, 1882), pp. 5, 13. " B r a d l e e , "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 257-263.

TEE

RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

127

graph defied the established routes from Boston to Bangor and Portland. The regular fare between Boston and Portland, $2.00 without meals, now became a regular $1.00 fare except every other day when it sank to 50 cents, for the Telegraph was then on the route.53 At the end of the season the "old line" absorbed the intruder and the fares snapped back to $2.oo. 54 The establishment of a railroad steamboat line between Bath and Portland introduced the competitive scramble to the Kennebec area. New companies were formed; old companies went bankrupt. Toward the end of the fifties fares to Boston sank to 25 cents and finally τ2τ/2 cents. " I t is said that during the considerable time" the former fare "prevailed nearly the entire population of the Kennebec valley visited the metropolis of New England." 55 Meanwhile the railroads and Sanford had been trying out their powers on the Bangor-Boston run. Fares which had once been $6.00 or $7.00 sank in the early fifties to $3.00, not including food. This was the rate on Sanford's direct line to Boston; his rivals charged $2.00 by steamboat from Bangor to Portland and a dollar railroad fare from Portland to Boston, although the regular rail fare for this distance was $4.00.58 Occasionally the rate situation was so chaotic that steamboat companies simply advertised their rates as "low" or announced they would carry freight "at lowest rates." At the same time the multiplication of sailings was marked. During the summer months in 1846 the Portland Steam Packet Company managed three sailings a week both from Boston and Portland; a decade later it had five.57 Ecstatic reminiscences of these pre-Civil-War years always refer to them as "the golden age" or the "palmy days" of steamboat navigation. Though during the Civil War the national government by charter or purchase transferred a good share of the down-East steamers to the blockade of the southern coast or to the carriage "* Portland Eastern Argus, May 18, 30, June 3, August 1, 1842. Ibid., September 28, 1842. K Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 260. M Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 264-266; Bangor City Directory and State Register. 1851 (Bangor: David Bugbee, 1 8 5 1 ) , p. 50. "The Portland Reference Book and City Directory for 1846 (Portland: Thurston, Fenley & Co., 1846), p. 102; The Portland Directory and Reference Book for 1856-7 (Portland: Brown Thurston, 1856), p. 7. u

128

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

of troops through its warmer waters, this martial interlude did no permanent harm to the down-East lines. T h e routes to Portland, the Kennebec, and to Bangor and other Penobscot River ports not only survived; they expanded. T h e y were joined, too, by subsidiary steamboat lines from the Maine ports to offshore islands or ports farther east and by a through line between Boston, Portland, and the Maritimes. In i860 the International Steamship Company superseded the experimental runs to Quoddy or the B a y of Fundy financed by railroad or local capital. For this more systematic and enduring newcomer the Portland Board of Trade had the original conception and Portland capital partly provided funds. In actual operation the International based its vessels upon Boston and stopped them at Portland on the way to or from Eastport and St. John. 58 As for Halifax, the Cunarders had given a steamboat service with Boston; later the steamboat line between Boston and Prince Edward Island put in to Halifax; and finally the route had lines of its own. Nova Scotians, meanwhile, had promoted a steam line between Yarmouth and Boston. All these routes competed with one another, for by stage coach and road, by subsidiary steamboat or by railroad, it was possible for passengers and freight to continue from the port of debarkation of one line to that of another. 59 A s the decades passed, competition between steamboat lines and between steamboat lines and railroads was quieted by agreement. Thus, in the late seventies, after the attempt by the Boston and Maine and the Eastern to capture the commerce of Maine, the railroads between Boston and Portland and the Portland Steam Packet Company established a scale of rates designed to give the water route the heavier freights, rates which would have been much higher if it had not been for the latent competition M Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V I , 128-134; Portland Press, February 19, 1864, January 11, 1887; History of the Work of the Board of Trade of Portland, Maine. What It Has Originated and Accomplished Since Its Organization; Constitution and By Laws, Original and Present Membership (Portland: Ford & Rich, 1887), pp. 19, 40. 6 e Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V I , 137-144, 177-179; The Portland Business Directory and Business Man's Guide for the Year 1868 (Portland: B. Thurston & Co., 1868), p. 104.

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

12 g

of the steamboat connection.60 Steamboat enterprises themselves were often loosely connected through common stockownership and control. In 1885, for instance, J . B. Coyle held important offices in the Portland Steam Packet Company, the International, the Nova Scotia Steamship Company, and a company operating between Portland and New York. 6 1 The trend was clear. In 1902 the Eastern Steamship Company, a Maine corporation, acquired the Portland, Kennebec and Penobscot lines as well as the International. A decade later the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad had a minority holding in the Eastern Steamship Company. 62 Although some of the lines were primarily freight carriers, most of them carried both passengers and goods. In the latter business they could not compete with sailing vessels for ice, stone, lime, and lumber, but they soon appropriated the general freight and the country produce which had been the mainstay of the packets. Manifests of the Portland steamers chronicled peas, potatoes, eggs, butter, starch, wool, leather, barrels or hogsheads of molasses, corn, and flour. Those from the Maritimes read much the same with somewhat more emphasis, at least until 1885, upon salmon, herring, pickled mackerel, dried codfish, clams, boxes of lobsters. Flour was an important back cargo from Portland or Boston. 63 Rates, like those of the packets, are unknown. When they were advertised, they were always "the lowest," a condition perhaps explaining J . B. Coyle's gloomy admission that the freight business made money only three months a year. 64 In the passenger traffic, the steamboats could compete with the railroads, partly because they made ports unreached by rail and partly because on the overnight journeys down East the steamboat could offer comfort, cheapness, and, comparatively speaking, a satisfactory speed. 00

Portland Press, April 8, 1 5 , M a y 30, 1887, December 10, 1888. The Portland Directory and Reference Book, jor 1885 (Portland: B . Thurston & Co., 1 8 8 5 ) , p. 649. "Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water in the United States, Part I V , pp. 67, 74, 8 1 - 8 2 . " B o s t o n Shipping List, J a n u a r y 14, i860; Boston Commercial and Shipping List, J u l y 3, 1880, J a n u a r y 10, J u l y 1 , 8, 1 5 , 1885. M Portland Press, February 6, 1880. 61

130

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

So the steamboat assisted the steady drift of the down-East population to Massachusetts, its metropolis, and its satellite industrial cities. Though he might come by railroad, the small-town or country youth who shyly came to Boston to make his w a y or fortune usually stumbled off the Bangor or the Portland boat. From the Maritimes the boat lines were the easiest means of emigration. While the Grand Trunk, the Boston and Maine, and the Boston and Lowell were peopling the interior of N e w England with French Canadians, the steamboat was carrying N o v a Scotians, N e w Brunswickians, and Prince Edward Islanders to the coastal areas. 65 A s a human back cargo, the tourists came in their season and in droves, for by the eighties the resort trade of Maine and N o v a Scotia was big business, and vacationers from N e w England, N e w York, the West, and from "all around" responded to the region's lure. T h e resultant steamboat business was "immense."

In a single summer week of 1 8 9 1 the Kennebec boats

brought

1,800 passengers

from Boston. 68

They

could

come

cheaply. Though the year following its inauguration, 1 8 2 4 , the Portland-Boston steamboat charged $ 5 . 0 0 and extra for meals, competition by 1 8 3 7 had forced the fare down to $ 3 . 0 0 and " f o u n d , " ten years later, in the flurry of a rate war, the charge had sunk to a dollar with an additional quarter for meals. 67 After the Civil W a r , cabin fare was $ 2 . 0 0 ; obscurity shrouds the additional fee for the comfort and privacy of a stateroom. 68 Seasons affected steam as they did sail.

Winter slowed it.

Boats which made fresh-water ports like those on the Kennebec entirely ceased operations; and those to Bangor spaced their voy65 Saunders, Economic History of the Maritime Provinces, pp. 1 4 - 1 5 ; Statistics of the Population of the United States at the Tenth Census (June 1, 1880), Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, I, 492; Abstract of the Census of Massachusetts, i860, from the Eighth U. S. Census, pp. 122, 1 2 5 ; Census of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1905. Prepared under the Direction of the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, pp. lxvii, Ixxiv, lxxv. M Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V I , 1 3 8 ; Senate Reports, 51 Cong., ι Sess., no. 1530, P a r t I (s.n. 2 7 1 2 ) , p. 686; Brunswick Telegraph, August 6, 1 8 9 1 . " B r a d l e e , "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 1 2 8 ; The Portland Directory; Containing the Names of the Inhabitants, Their Occupations, Places of Business, and Dwelling Houses, and the City Register (Portland: A. Shirley, 1 8 3 7 ) , p. 1 0 5 ; The Portland Reference Book and City Directory for 1846, p. 102. 68 Portland Directory and Reference Book . . . for 1866-7, Ρ- I08·

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

131

ages infrequently and made a lower destination on the Penobscot. As soon as the ice was out at Bangor, the Boston steamer was the first arrival, decked with flags and "the tone of her whistle welcome music to the cheering crowd assembled on the wharves." 69 As for the provinces, the International in 1875 sent'a boat thither once a week in January, February, and March, twice a week in the spring and fall months, and three times a week in July, August, and September: fifteen years later the differences, though less sharp, still existed. The Boston-Portland boat, by now a daily service, observed Sunday as a holiday during its winter operations. 70 Occasionally the steamboat companies gave glimpses of the extent of their business. Celebrating in 1863 twenty years of navigation history, the Portland Steam Packet Company boasted that over the two decades it had carried 1,400,000 passengers and 2,500,000 tons of freight. 71 In 1880 the United States census surveyed the whole field somewhat more dispassionately. In that year the number of passengers between Boston and Maine ports was 1 1 3 , 5 0 0 , and between Boston and the Maritimes, with the exception of Newfoundland, approximately 45,000. The movement of freight — unhappily the tonnage brought to Massachusetts was not stated — north to the ports of Maine was 188,500 tons and to the ports in the Dominion of Canada 100,000 tons. 72 At the end of the century the Portland Press announced the steamboat traffic was still growing. 73 V Long Island Sound was New York's down East — with a difference. Along its New England shoreline clustered a group of ports — Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, New London, Norwich, ® Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 88. ™ Portland Directory and Reference Book with a Business Directory Attached for 1875 (Portland: B. Thurston and Company, 1875), p. 1 4 ; Portland Directory and Reference Book for 1890 (Portland: Brown Thurston Company, 1890), p. 762. 71 Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," L V , 193. 72 T . C. Purdy, Report on Steam Navigation in the United States, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, IV, 34. 73 Portland Press, July 28, 1900.

132

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

and Stonington — generally more populous and busy than the harbor towns along the coast of Maine, and N e w York's Maritime Provinces had Providence, Fall River, Newport, and N e w Bedford to surpass by far the tiny villages of the B a y of Fundy or the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Though by 1835 the traffic by sloop or schooner between these places and New Y o r k was large, the steamboats had already triumphed. From the Hudson they had spread easily and early to these waters; they traversed in the Sound a protected waterway nearly a hundred miles long, while to reach Narragansett or Buzzards B a y they ventured across a gap of danger much narrower than the exposed distances in the Gulf of Maine. Nor were railroad lines successful competitors. N o t until 1850 was the first rail connection, the inland one b y way of Springfield, secured between Boston and New Y o r k . T h e end-to-end roads eventually forming the Shore Line were interrupted by objectionable ferries until 1870 at the Connecticut and until 1889 at the Thames. Had these gaps been closed earlier, the steamboat routes would still have survived. Until the nineties, when the fastest trains began to cover the Boston-New Y o r k run in five hours and forty minutes, business men and other travelers preferred the Sound lines, for they could have a full day for business or pleasure in either the New Y o r k or New England metropolis without the loss of daylight hours and without the discomforts of a Pullman sleeper which Lucius Tuttle, a vice-president of the New Haven, contemporaneously described as "only a relief from being obliged to sit up. I never saw any sleeping-cars yet that were comfortable." 74 T o many of these ports of southern New England, steamboats had come for at least a decade before the arrival of the railroad, but many, even when railroad connections were established, were too inconveniently situated to serve as points of interchange in the flow of travelers and commerce between Boston and New Y o r k . Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford, for instance, were too far west for this purpose. T h e local and through business of "Massachusetts Report of Hearings before the Joint Standing Committee on Railroads. Under the Order for Said Committee to Investigate the Conduct of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company [1893], p. 406.

THE RAILROAD AND THE COASTING

TRADES

133

steamboats using these ports came from the railroads following the valleys of the Connecticut, the N a u g a t u c k , and the Housatonic into western and northern N e w England or even eastern N e w York.

For a time in the forties, N e w Y o r k C i t y communicated

with A l b a n y during the winter b y a boat line to Bridgeport and b y the Housatonic and the Western railroads. 7 5

Of the ports

farther east, N o r w i c h and Providence had steamboats to N e w Y o r k before the days of the railroad. With its advent, however, a host of new ports arose. W h e n N e w Y o r k capitalists b y means of the N e w Y o r k , Providence and Boston virtually extended the Boston and Providence to Stonington, they started this serene old Connecticut seaport upon its long career as a transfer point in the commerce and travel of Long Island Sound. 78 In the forties when Boston and Fall River were connected b y rail, the Bordens, the Fall River industrialists and investors in the Fall River Railroad, built the Bay State and commenced in 1847 the historic Fall River line to N e w Y o r k . 7 7

Their steam-

boats, their city, their industrial holdings, and their privilege, according to their complaints, were jeopardized in the sixties when the railroad was extended to N e w p o r t and a new steamboat line thence exchanged passengers with N e w Y o r k without benefit to Fall River. 7 8

Meanwhile a spur road was run south from the

Boston and Providence to Bristol, Rhode Island, where trains 75Disturnell's Railroad, Steamboat, and Telegraph Book; Being a Guide Through the Middle, Northern, and Eastern States, and Canada ( N e w Y o r k : J . Disturnell, J a n u a r y , 1849), p. 28. " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, p. 282; Annual Reports 0} the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. 1833 to 1874. Published by Order of the Directors. (Westerly, R . I.: G . B . & J . H . Utter, 1874) 1838, pp. 12, 13. 77 Second Annual Report of the Directors of the Fall River Railroad Company to the Stockholders, January, 1848 (Fall R i v e r : H e n r y P r a t t , 1848), pp. 6 - 7 ; Ninth Annual Report of the Old Colony Rail-Road Corporation to the Stockholders. January, 1853 ( B o s t o n : C r o c k e r and Brewster, 1853), p. 3 5 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 184g, pp. 29-30. ™ Argument of Hon. Josiah G. Abbott, before the Joint Committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts on Railways and Canals, in Favor of the Extension of the Old Colony and Fall River Railroad to Newport, R. I., March 13, 1861 ( B o s t o n : Geo. C . R a n d & A v e r y , 1 8 6 1 ) , pp. 3 0 - 3 4 ; R e p o r t of the M i n o r i t y of the J o i n t Standing C o m m i t t e e on R a i l w a y s on the Proposed Extension to N e w p o r t , M a s s a chusetts Senate Documents, i860, no. 130, pp. 7 - 8 ; R e p o r t of the C o m m i t t e e on R a i l r o a d s on the Proposed Extension to N e w p o r t , Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1861, no. 118, pp. 1 1 - 1 3 , 16.

134

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

connected in 1867 with the Narragansett Steamship Company, a promotion of that tarnished Boston-New York buccaneer, James Fisk, Jr. 79 Finally in the seventies, after twenty years of prosaic contentment with a line of freight propellers to New York, New Bedford had a brief fling at the Sound passenger traffic, when a consolidation of various railroads seemed to promise an immense traffic with interior and northern New England and to justify opening "the harbor of New Bedford, which is one of the best on the Atlantic Coast" to vessels with elegant staterooms as well as with cargo space.80 Though some of these ports lay along protected waters, there was no protection anywhere for steamboat operators. Competition ruled the waves. Sometimes it took the form of a struggle between lines at a single port. At New Haven, for instance, the New Haven Steamboat Company which had inaugurated service in 1822 became on the completion of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad the latter's connection with New York. It was also allied with the Connecticut River Steamboat Company of Hartford which had understandings with the same railroad. Indeed Chester W. Chapin, the Springfield boatman and rising railroad executive, was interested in all three enterprises. In this setting it was inevitable that the New Haven Steamboat Company should become a pawn in the quarrels between the Hartford and New Haven and the New York and New Haven. 81 Though the ™ Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 295-296; Report of the Board of Directors of the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation, for the Year Ending November 30, 1867, Presented at the Annual Meeting, January 8th, 1868 (Boston: J . H . Eastburn, 1868), pp. 5, 6. 80 Twentieth Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston, Clinton & Fitchburg Railroad Company, to the Stockholders, for the Twelve Months Ending Sept. 30, 1873 (Fitchburg: Reveille Steam Printing Works, 1 8 7 3 ) , pp. 8-9. 81 Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury on Steam Engines, House Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 21 (s.n. 3 4 5 ) , pp. 7 1 - 7 3 ; Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the Hartford and New Haven RailRoad Company (New Haven: Babcock & Wildman, 1 8 4 1 ) , p· 5 ; Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the Hartford and New Haven Rail Road Company (Hartford: Case, T i f f a n y & B u m h a m , 1846), p. 8 ; Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the Hartford & New Haven R. R. Co. (Hartford: Case, L o c k w o o d & Company, 1 8 5 7 ) , pp. 4 - 7 ; Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Board of Directors, to the Stockholders of the Hartford and New Haven R. R. Co. (Hartford: Case, L o c k wood & Company, 1 8 6 2 ) , p. 8; Report of the Committee on Railroads on Matters

THE RAILROAD

AND

THE COASTING

TRADES

135

union of the two roads in the seventies terminated this brand of competition, the Canal road when it resumed warfare with the Consolidated, and the New Haven and Derby when it threatened to become a link by a "parallel," both had steamboats on the N e w York-New Haven run. 82 A t Hartford this sort of competition was soon over. T h e Connecticut River Steamboat Company, chartered in 1823, was the pioneer. Within fifteen years it had to meet the competition of the Sanfords and of Commodore Vanderbilt and his redoubtable brother Jake, who rather relished the sound of paddle boxes as they splintered in some close-order competitive maneuver. Eventually, however, the Connecticut River Steamboat Company survived these challenges. Its descendants were still operating at the close of the century. 83 Providence had the most vivid and colorful competitive era. Immediately upon its arrival at Narragansett B a y in 1835, the Boston and Providence opened its wharves and ran its boat train solely for the benefit of an allied steamboat company, the Boston and New Y o r k Transportation Company. 84 Against this favored corporation Commodore Vanderbilt, committed to the Sound after his Hudson River foes had purchased his withdrawal from that river in 1833, ran his crack boat, the Lexington,85 T h e loudest and severest opposition came, however, from John W . Richmond and other Providence capitalists. T h e y not only established a boat line but built the Seekonk Railroad to connect with the Boston and Providence in the hope that this connection would enable them to run their own trains to Boston and place them on terms of equality with their rivals. T h e resulting doings on land, as we have seen, were bizarre enough; the attendant marine activities Relating to the Boston & Albany Railroad, Massachusetts House Documents, 1876, no. 355, appendix II, 66-68; Resolves and Private Laws of the State of Connecticut, from the Year 1789 to the Year 1836, pp. 1 1 1 5 - 1 1 1 7 . " F r e d E. Dayton, Steamboat Days (New Y o r k : Frederick A. Stokes, 1925), pp. 112-114. "Ibid., pp. 120-122, 126-129, 133-137, 141-153; Wheaton J. Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt. An Epic of the Steam Age (New Y o r k : A . A. Knopf, 1942), pp. 55, 63, 70; Resolves and Private Laws of the State of Connecticut, from the Year 178g to the Year 1836, II, 1108-1109. " R e p o r t on the Petition for a Branch Railroad in Seekonk, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1836, no. 89, pp. 10-19, 41-47. 85 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt, pp. 63-66.

136

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

attained the level of fantasy. Rates were slashed again and again until finally when passengers went on board boats they hardly knew what fares they would pay, what routes they would sail, or what destinations they would reach. When the interlopers ran the Kingston on "blank days," days without sailings, between New Y o r k and Stonington or Providence, the monopoly told the Providence to follow her. On one occasion the Kingston had few passengers, the Providence about one hundred. When the former discovered she was being followed, she suddenly turned back to New Y o r k , passed the Battery, ran down to Staten Island, and then changed her course to the Jersey shore, and finally in the early evening returned to her place of departure. T h e Providence promptly docked a few hundred feet away. A group of passengers, strangely exasperated by this excursion, now contracted with the Kingston to run to Providence for a lump sum. On the Providence, which set sail in pursuit, some passengers paid $6.00 and some nothing as the purser would not accept the one-dollar advertised rate. 86 A f t e r surveying these and other shenanigans, a member of the Massachusetts legislature concluded that competition on the Sound "has assumed a wild and adventurous character, subversive rather than productive of public good." 87 In the forties the selection of Stonington as the eastern terminus of many of the lines once running to Providence abated the competition at the latter port. Its steamboat business, however, remained important enough to occasion renewed competitive flurries in the fifties and sixties when the Commercial Steamboat Company, projected as a freight line to New York, elected to invade the passenger field.88 M To the Public. History of Passing Events and Some Detail of the Proceedings of the Proprietors of the Steam-Boat Kingston and also of the Transportation Company (n.p., n.d.), pp. 3-4, 6-8; supra, I, 276-279. 67 Report on the Petition of the Seekonk Branch Railroad, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1838, no. 98, p. 13. " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 290-291; Charles H. D o w , History of Steam Navigation between New York and Providence from 1792 to 1887 (New Y o r k : 'Wm. Turner & Co., n.d.), pp. 18-22.

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

137

VI More devastating and more significant than the wars between competitors at any single port were the greater struggles between the various routes which led through Norwich-New London, Stonington, Providence or Fall River to Boston and New York. This was trunk-line warfare. It was waged with the conventional methods, faster, larger, and more luxurious vessels — cloying superlatives indeed almost concealing the evolution of marine architect u r e — and lower fares. The contestants sought to detect and publicize their more fundamental advantages. Thus the lines from Norwich and Stonington entered the Sound where it was still protected by Long Island and they did not have to round Point Judith, a cape as dangerous as Hatteras, since the unpredictable tides and currents from Narragansett Sound, Long Island Sound, and the ocean meeting there might produce either a calm or a melee. In fact the route from Norwich or Stonington was so safe that "prudent persons" could confidently omit insurance on their freights. "With perhaps one exception, there has been no loss of goods for thirty years, in the regular packets between Norwich and New Y o r k , " announced the directors of the Norwich and Worcester. 89 These officials were hard put to it, however, to explain their superiority to the Stonington route which was just as safe as their own and which had reached the Sound three years earlier and over a slightly shorter route. "If one route or the other were to be selected," the partisans of the Norwich line announced, "it would not be on account of the difference of one or two miles in a distance of more than two hundred miles, but other considerations — the accommodations on the route — the superior scenery or pleasantness of the country &c, would be the operating motives." 90 Unhappily since Norwich lay well to the west of Stonington, passengers on the former's steamboats had to turn out of their berths in the dark morning hours for the transfer to the " Fourth Annual Report of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1840, no. 18, p. 43. °° Worcester & Norwich Rail-Road Company, 1835 (n.p., n.d.), p. 33.

138

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Boston train. If they changed at a later hour, the train could not arrive as early as the boat trains from competing ports. In this respect vessels to Providence and Fall River, although they had to round "Pint J u d y , " could follow a more civilized schedule. Providence and Fall River, moreover, were large manufacturing and commercial cities with an extensive traffic of their own, and both benefited from a much quoted "law of transportation" — the rail-boat line will best succeed that has the longer share of its route by water, the cheaper method of transportation. 91 Both cities were practically the same distance from New York. Inevitably the early era of these boat-rail lines, the forties and early fifties, was one of turbulent competition. With equal inevitability the disturbers of the peace or the victims of war sought harmony and stability. Agreements, however, did not last long. A treaty in 1849 between the Fall River, Stonington, and Norwich lines set first-class passenger fares at $5.00 in the winter and $4.00 in the summer and arranged for the "stocking" of freight receipts, after a deduction for expenses, in the proportion of 3 4 ^ per cent to the Stonington and the Fall River and 3 1 per cent to the Norwich. This arrangement lasted only a year. 92 Oral understandings or partial agreements for freight or passengers then revealed the progressive deterioration of harmony, and later spasm after spasm shook the rate structure. Freights once 6 cents the cubic foot and, for weight goods, $4.00 to $5.00 a ton, were halved; by subterfuges or outright cuts the through passenger fare between New York and Boston sank from the regular rate of $4.00 to $i.5o. 9 3 Finally in the spring of 1853 the chastened and tired warriors once again set fair rates and established percentages for the division of all earnings. This agreement endured. 94 " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, p. 300; Massachusetts Report of Hearings . . . to Investigate the Conduct of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, . . . [ 1 8 9 3 ] p. 516. " Fourth Annual Report of the Directors of the Fall River Rail Road Co. to the Stockholders, January, 1850 (Fall R i v e r : Monitor Press, 1 8 5 0 ) , pp. 1 6 - 1 7 ; Seventh Annual Report of the Directors of the Fall River Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, January, 1853 (Fall R i v e r : Monitor Press, 1 8 5 3 ) , pp. 1 0 - 1 1 , 1 3 . M Seventh Annual Report . . . of the Fall River Railroad . . . 1850, pp. 9 - 1 6 . " Eighth Annual Report of the Directors of the Fall River Railroad Company, to the Stockholders, January, 1854 ( f a l l R i v e r : Henry Pratt, 1 8 5 4 ) , pp. 9 - 1 0 ; Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, p. 29g.

THE RAILROAD AND THE COASTING TRADES

139

In the post-Civil-War years, highly competitive as they were for all forms of transportation, a changing pattern of new challengers upset these stable arrangements. Fire and other reversals swept the Stonington route from the Sound in 1867. 95 Jim Fisk and his Boston allies invaded it. Purchasing two boats, the Providence and the Bristol, in course of construction for the Stonington route, they ran them instead to Bristol and the new railroad connection with the Boston and Providence Railroad. To this Narragansett Steamship Company Fisk applied his gift for colorful but tasteless showmanship. Not content with the luxurious appointments of his boats and the lavishness of their cuisine, he became an "admiral," attired himself and his employees in gaudy uniforms, and turned the hitherto prosaic boat departure at New York into a municipal fiesta.96 The Newport-New York line, itself another newcomer, particularly felt this rivalry. The competitive disorder broadened when the Stonington resumed sailings in 1868. The customary fare of $5.00 was reduced to $3.00 and then to $i.oo. 97 All felt the strain. The Stonington received lower dividends from its boat lines and smaller returns on its rail business as passengers deserted the Shore Line for the boats; the Old Colony had to make loans to its boat connection to preserve the latter's solvency and loyalty; and on the Boston and Providence passengers between Boston and Providence rode on tickets between Boston and New York since the latter were cheaper.98 Forecasting a return 85 Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Prov. & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending August 31st, 1867 (Westerly: G . B . & J . H . Utter, 1 8 6 7 ) , p. 6. " J a m e s F . Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Roosevelt Administration (New Y o r k : The Macmillan Company, 1 9 2 8 ) , V I , 359; Roger W. McAdam, Salts of the Sound (Brattleboro: Stephen Daye Press, 1 9 3 9 ) , pp. 72-75. " Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Prov. & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending August 31st, 1868 (Westerly: G . B . & J. H . Utter, 1868), pp. 6-7. 88 Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 1877 (Westerly: G . B . and J . H. Utter, 1 8 7 7 ) , pp. 3, 8 ; Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 187g (Westerly: G. B . & J . H. Utter, 1 8 7 9 ) , p. 3 ; Report of the Board of Directors of the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation, for the Year Ending November 30, 1868, Presented at the Annual Meeting, January 13th, 1869 (Boston:

140

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

to the $5.00 fare, an agreement of 1869 restored conventional patterns. The N e w p o r t - N e w Y o r k line went out of existence. Fisk, in company with Jay Gould, abandoned Bristol, sailed his vessels to Newport and Fall River, entered into a contract with the Old Colony Railroad, and further developed his taste for blatant magnificence. T h e Boston and Providence, after its flirtation with the Bristol line, returned to its historic alliance with the Stonington Railroad and its steamboats. A t least some earnings were "stocked."99 A t the end of the seventies war flared anew. Although new entrants at Bridgeport, New Haven, and New Bedford undermined the competitive equilibrium, the Fall River, Stonington, and Norwich lines were the major contestants. T h e y gave noble reasons for joining the struggle. T h e Stonington consolidated with a freight line to Providence to prevent "the possibility of a ruinous competition by a first class line of steamers running direct to Providence." 100 When this consolidated route inaugurated a passenger service, the alarmed Fall River line decided upon an experiment at lower fares "in the belief that lower rates might possibly transfer to the Sound boats a sufficient amount of travel to sustain the increased number." 101 Somewhat belatedly, without bothering with self-justification, the Norwich line joined the fracas. Freight rates, the first to fall, shortly declined to two-fifths of those formerly maintained by agreement; later, passenger fares sank to the J . H . Eastburn, 1869), p. 4 ; Eighth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony and Newport Railway Company to the Stockholders. November, 1871 ( B o s t o n : R a n d , A v e r y & Co., 1 8 7 1 ) , pp. 4 - 5 . mAnnual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending August 31st, 1869 ( W e s t e r l y : G . B . & J . H . U t t e r , 1869), p p . 6 - 7 ; Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending August 31st, 1870 ( W e s t e r l y : G . B . & J . H . Utter, 1870), p. 2; Eighth Annual Report . . . of the Old Colony and Newport . . . 1871, pp. 4 - 5 · 100 Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending August 31st, 187s ( W e s t e r l y : G . B . & J . H . U t t e r , 1 8 7 5 ) , p. 8. 101 Fifteenth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. November, 1878 ( B o s t o n : Getchell Brothers, 1 8 7 8 ) , p . 1 1 ; Annual Report . . . of the Board of Directors of the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation, for the Year Ending September 30, 1877. Presented at the Annual Meeting, November 21, 1877 ( B o s t o n : J a m e s F . C o t t e r & C o . , 1 8 7 7 ) , p. 8.

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

141

conventional competitive minimum of $i.oo. 1 0 2 With through fares so much lower than local ones, travelers from Stonington to Boston proffering through tickets from New York to Boston were arrested unless riding on the boat train; on other routes, boat trains with locked doors and guards passed through local stations at high rates of speed to discourage the unauthorized descent of thrifty passengers using through tickets for local destinations; and at Newport in " a touching picture of mercantile gallantry, or the inconsistent foolishness of 'opposition' methods," steamboat officials prevented the debarkation of passengers who thought a $ 1 . 5 0 ticket for Providence should carry them to Newport to which the fare was $2.io. 1 0 3 Finally in January, 1 8 8 1 , an agreement between the Sound lines and the railroads brought permanent peace. It set a $3.00 winter and a $4.00 summer passenger fare between Boston and New York and restored freight rates with great particularity: both were on " a fair and equitable basis." Between the Stonington and Fall River there was a special arrangement for a "division of the 'through passenger business' accruing to both." 1 0 4 Expressing gratification over the outcome, the Fall River line announced that, although the business over its lines had diminished, the results were more satisfactory. 105 The Shore Line and the New York, Providence and Boston increased their passenger earnings the year after the agreement 28 and 24 per cent, respectively. 106 The gradual absorption of the Sound railboat lines into the New Haven's monopoly prevented any recurrence of the dangerous, damaging decades of the sixties and seventies. 1M

Annual Report . . . of the New York, Providence & Boston . . . 1877, p. 8 ; Annual Report . . . of the New York, Providence & Boston . . . 187g, p. 8. 103 H a r t f o r d Courant, February 10, 1879, J u n e 14, 1880. 104 Report of the Senate Select Committee on Interstate Commerce [Cullom Committee], Senate Reports, 49 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 46, P a r t 2 (s.n. 2 3 3 7 ) , pp. 426-428; Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 1881 (Westerly: G . B . & J . H . Utter, 1 8 8 1 ) , p. 10. 101 Eighteenth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Company to the Stockholders. November, 1881 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 8 1 ) , p. 8. 10 °1882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the

142

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

VII These competitive contests usually spurred the members of a line — railroads and steamboats — to appraise anew the details of their mutual business relationships. Originally a contract bound the two together. Such documents set a period for their duration, sometimes laid down a rate schedule, and provided for the interchange of goods and passengers between boats and trains, often on a preferential or exclusive basis. Finally these contracts arranged for the division of receipts between their signatories. 107 Over the " f a i r portion" for each there was deep disagreement. Writing in 1840, William G. McNeill, engineer of the N e w York, Providence and Boston Railroad Company, thought a customary and just percentage for the boats should be approximately 50 per cent of the gross receipts. Actually the steamboat connection of his line received 70. 1 0 8 A sampling of contracts over the decades shows, however, that the railroad, even when it and the steamboats were controlled by the same management, tended to receive approximately a third of the joint returns. 109

In part, this dis-

crepancy reflected the longer mileage generally covered by the steamers;

110

originally it was also an evidence of their superior

bargaining position. A railroad track was anchored; it could not State of Connecticut, to Which Are Added Statistical Tables Compiled from the Annual Returns for z88i of the Railroad Companies of this State, p. 19. 107 Statement by the Boston and Providence Rail Road Corporation in Explanation of Their Proceedings in Relation to the Steam Boats (Boston: J o h n H . Eastburn, 1 8 3 8 ) , pp. 6 - 7 ; E d w a r d Harris, Considerations for the Stockholders of the Providence & Worcester Railroad Co. (Woonsocket: S. S. Foss, 1 8 6 1 ) , pp. 5-6, 8; Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1836, no. 89, pp. 42-47. 108 Annual Report Submitted at the Meeting of the Stockholders of the New York, Providence and Boston Railroad Company Convened in the City of Providence, R. /., September 29th, 1840 by Wm. Gibbs McNeill (New Y o r k : W. H. Thomas, 1840), pp. 1 1 - 1 3 , 18. 109 Harris, Considerations, p. 6; Mr. Harris Reviewed. Being an Examination of His "Further Considerations for the Stockholders of the Providence and Worcester Railroad." By a Rhode Islander (Providence: Alfred Anthony, 1864), p. 7 ; Records of the Old Colony Steamboat Company, Ms., H a r v a r d Business School Library, nos. 268, 269; Records of the Old Colony and Newport Railroad, Ms., H a r v a r d Business School Library, B o x 6; Second Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony and Newport Railway Company to the Stockholders, July, 1865 (Boston: Geo. C. R a n d & A v e r y , 1 8 6 5 ) , p. 6. 110 Annual Report . . . of the New York, Providence and Boston . . . 1840, pp. 1 2 - 1 5 .

THE RAILROAD AND THE COASTING TRADES

143

change its route. A steamboat company, if it did not fancy the proposed terms or elected to escape from ungenerous ones, could threaten to send its vessels elsewhere. One answer to the quest for certainty and stability was the long contract; in the sixties they ran for ten, rather than for the earlier five y e a r s . 1 1 1 Another was for the same individuals to reconcile two masters by investing in the securities of both steamboat and railroad corporations and by sitting on their directorates. In addition to the early example of the Boston and Providence and its boat connection, the Bordens demonstrated the relationship on the Fall River Railroad and the B a y State Steamboat Company, as did Chester W. Chapin by his interrelated interests in the Connecticut Valley and on the Sound, and Commodore Vanderbilt who added to steamboating directorships at one time or another in the Long Island Railroad, the Hartford and New Haven, and the New Y o r k , Providence and Boston. 1 1 2 Upon a still closer tie, the ownership of the securities in the steamboat corporation by a railroad, legislatures were at first inclined to look askance. In one of the earliest instances when a railroad received specific permission to do so, the charter of the Norwich and Worcester in 1839, the directors were in no hurry to avail themselves of i t 1 1 3 and, when they did, abruptly terminated the arrangement in 1848 " a s disastrous to the Company." 1 1 4 Faulty business judgment and a marine disaster, rather than general considerations, explained this decision. 1 1 5 As the years passed, the trend toward the ownership of steamboat companies by the railroads became irresistible. The Norwich and Worcester, instructed by the withdrawal of boat connections during the negotiation for a contract, subscribed in i860 to the Norwich and N e w Y o r k Transportation Company. 1 1 6 The Housatonic and the Naugatuck owned securities in the Bridgeport m

Eighth Annual Report . . . of the Old Colony and Newport . . . 1871, p. 5. Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt, p. 185. F i f t h Annual R e p o r t of the Norwich a n d Worcester Railroad, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1841, no. 17, p. 43. 111 Report of Directors to the Stockholders of the Norwich and Worcester Rail Road Company, July, 1849 (Norwich: J o h n W . Stedman, 1849), P· 3· 115 Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt, p. 74. 116 Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 330-333. 112

113

144

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

117

Steamboat Company. The Stonington Railroad, after the disastrous experience of having no boat connection, secured in 1867 a charter for a steamboat concern and over the years made progressively greater purchases of its securities. 118 Then in 1874 Massachusetts incorporated the Old Colony Steamboat Company with a capitalization of $1,200,000 and permitted the Old Colony Railroad to subscribe to its stock; the new corporation bought out Fisk and Gould. 119 As a result of this evolution, when railroads leased other railroads they acquired steamboat lines at the same time. Here was another device for centralization of control and the abatement of competition. The final expositor of this method was, of course, the New York, New Haven and Hartford. In the nineties, as it advanced eastward into New England, the Consolidated through its lease of the New York, Providence and Boston captured steamboat lines to Stonington and Providence and through its lease of the Old Colony the lines to Fall River and New Bedford. B y its later control of the New York and New England, it inherited the lease of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad which owned a steamboat connection at Allyn's Point below Norwich. Where the leased railroads did not own all the stock in their steamboat allies, the New Haven sought to make good the deficiency. Between 1900 and 1906 it also purchased the Bridgeport Steamboat Company, the New Haven Steamboat Company, and the Hartford and New York Transportation Company. These and other enterprises it pitched into the New England Navigation Company, all of whose stock it owned. In 1900 out of the monopoly's total earnings, 9 per cent or $3,985,700 was provided by its steamship lines. 120 m Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Housatonic Railroad Company to the Stockholders, at Their Annual Meeting, February, i860 (Bridgeport: Standard Office Print, 1866), pp. 4 - 5 ; Private and Special Laws of the State of Connecticut, V , 578. 118 Annual Report . . . of the New York, Prov. & Boston . . . 1867, pp. 7 - 8 ; Annual Report . . . of the New York, Providence & Boston . . . 1875, p. 8. Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1874, PP· 61, 98-99; Eleventh Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, November, 1874 (Boston: Addison C. Getchell,

1 8 7 4 ) , P. 8. Report of the Public Service Commission Relative to Capital Expenditures, Investments and Existing Contingent Liabilities of the N e w Y o r k , N e w Haven

George W. Wells

(1900)

Sailing Vessels at a Coal Pocket on the Mystic River

Interior

ΜΊΟΜΜι I

fefs?

BRISTOL

Bristol (1866-1867), Merchants Steam Ship Company Fall River Line

THE PEAK OF WOODEN CONSTRUCTION

THE RAILROAD

AND THE COASTING

TRADES

145

These Sound lines carried freight. Some of them, like the early line to New Bedford, were established for that purpose; at other ports, like Hartford, New London, and Providence, the freight lines prospered after the withdrawal or diminution of the passenger business. Enterprises as large as those of the Old Colony Steamboat Company built special vessels to carry freight, and even palatial passenger ships made space for commodities. 121 Charles Dickens, taking boat for New Haven on the New York in the forties, noted that the vessel's enclosed main deck was "filled with casks and goods, like any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses." 1 2 2 F i f t y years later the Priscilla of the Fall River line had storage space for 800 tons of cargo. 123 Land facilities had to be on a similar scale and the New York, Providence and Boston had at Stonington an immense yard, the pride of veteran railroad men, for the interchange of freight and passengers. 124 Since this movement of goods was not in foreign trade, customhouses and ship reporters have left no detailed record of its character. The scattered evidence of way bills and consignment sheets shows it to have been a commerce of general merchandise: metal products, textiles, leather, cotton, and provisions. 125 The steamboat-rail lines carried such products not only because of cheap rates but because their deliveries were prompt and because the location of the docks in New York City gave an accessibility to dealers, merchants, and suppliers which the railroad terminals did not provide. 126 While some routes because of their disadvantageous situation, like the Norwich and Worcester, eventually came to rely upon freights for their greater returns, others depended upon passenand Hartford Railroad Company, Massachusetts House Documents, 1916, no. 1900, pp. 2 6 1 - 2 7 4 ; Twenty-ninth Year. General Statement of the Affairs of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, for the Year Ending June 30, ι goo (New York: William H. Clark, 1900), p. 4. 111 Dayton, Steamboat Days, pp. 1 5 2 - 1 5 3 , 192-194, 2 1 0 - 2 1 1 . 128 Charles Dickens, American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveler (Philadelphia: Τ . B. Peterson & Brothers, n.d.), p. 104. 123 Dayton, Steamboat Days, p. 212. 124 McAdam, Salts of the Sound, p. 89. 125 Records of the Narragansett Steamship Company, Ms., Harvard Business School Library, nos. 212, 213, 214. Senate Reports, 49 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 46, Part 2, pp. 428-429; Massachusetts House Documents, 1916, no. 1900, pp. 267-268.

146

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

gers. In July, 1875, a month favorable to passenger traffic, the two boats of the Fall River line grossed $38,733 from freight and $50,275 from passengers. 127 One strand was the regular travel between Boston and N e w Y o r k . T h e tourists and vacationers were another. T h e y flooded New England. In the twenties a New Y o r k paper observed, " I t is now become fashionable to make Rhode Island a summer resort. Especially in the South, Rhode Island is preferred." 128 Newport was on its w a y to rival Saratoga and Niagara Falls as a watering place. More remote in location and later to develop were the White Mountains and the Maine coast, to both of which the Sound steamers were the first step for pleasurebound Americans. Indeed the Sound liners, since they were without peer for a honeymoon, often substituted for mountains or watering places. In M a y , accordingly, the northward movement over the Fall River route began; in late August and early September it came rushing back. T h e vessels were built to carry it. The Bristol and Providence listed a capacity of 840 passengers, the Priscilla, 1,500. Apparently actual passenger lists did not usually attain these maximums. On their best days in August, 1875, the Providence carried 731 and the Bristol 640 persons. 129 T h e boats retained the loyal patronage of travelers primarily because of lowered fares and shortened times. On the N e w York-Providence line, for instance, the vessels in the twenties charged $10.00; during the mid-century, unless the rate structure were upset by competitive flurries, the rate averaged $5.00; after 1881 it fell to $3.00, exclusive, of course, of stateroom or meals. These were first-class fares. 130 For the Boston-New Y o r k run in 1875 the Old Colony, when the first-class fare was $5.00, was charging $4.00 for m Records of the Old Colony Steamboat Company, Ms., Harvard Business School Library, Box 6, nos. 268, 269. 128 McAdam, Salts of the Sound, pp. 33, 76. 128 Records of the Old Colony Steamboat Company, Ms., Harvard Business School Library, Box 6; Bradlee, "American Sound and Coasting Steamers," p. 144; Roger W. McAdam, The Old Fall River Line. Being An Account of the World Renowned Steamship Line with Comments on Romantic Events and Personages during Its Ninety Years of Daily Service (Brattleboro: Stephen Daye Press, 1937), PP- 46, 73· 130 Dow, History of Steam Navigation, p. 7; Robert G. Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860 (New Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939), p. 156.

THE RAILROAD

AND

THE COASTING

TRADES

147

"exchange or deck fare" and a $3.00 fare for immigrants. Although one could go to Newport on deck, no immigrant fare was quoted to that gilded terminal. 131 Meanwhile times had come down. In the twenties steamboat trips between Providence and New York might be as long as twenty-seven hours, as short as eighteen. The Metropolis, the queen boat on the Fall River route in the fifties, averaged, it is said, ten hours; the Providence, an old boat, in the summer of 1892 had actual running times much nearer eleven. 132 Safety was also a factor. When collision, fire, shoal or rock brought fatality to a Sound steamer, traffic fell off and annual reports, even for routes untouched by the disaster, sadly chronicled the decline of passenger earnings. Passengers responded, to weather more sensitively than a barometer. In the nineties Lucius Tuttle was observing, " A stormy night will send the boat business onto the trains; a pleasant night will take a large portion of the train business onto the boats." 133 Beyond the day were the seasons which, in southern New England as down East, governed the traffic of the waterways. In winter, lines reduced their sailings and put on their smaller and older vessels. They looked to the months of spring and fall as the ones for freight; to summer as the passenger peak. On the Fall River line in 1875 February brought a passenger income of only $3,097; on Washington's Birthday only thirteen paid fares sailed from New York on the Newport. On the other hand, in both June and August, total fares were over $40,000; in July they were just over $5o,ooo.134 Total figures for the traffic along the southern New England coast are infrequent and not comparable. The census of 1880 gave one of the few glimpses. In that year on the Sound, steamboats 131 Records of the Old Colony Steamboat Company, Ms., Harvard Business School Library, Box 6. 132 D o w , History of Steam Navigation, p. 7; Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, p. 316; Captain's Log, Steamer Providence, March 1892-August, 1894, Ms., Old Colony Steamboat Company Records, Harvard Business School Library. 133 Massachusetts Report of Hearings . . . to Investigate the Conduct of the New York, New Haven and Hartford . . . [1893], p. 368. 1:14 Records of the Old Colony Steamboat Company, Ms., Harvard Business School Library, Box 6.

148

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

carried 1,470,235 tons of freight and 937,358 passengers. 135 In 1881 the general freight agent of the New York and New England made a comparison with railroad traffic. The all-rail routes between Boston and New York carried 201,450 passengers; the Norwich, Stonington, and Fall River boat lines 244,135. For the same run the New York, New Haven and Hartford carried 66,774 tons of freight, the three Sound lines 195,135 tons.136 No comparable later figures exist. In 1905 the vessels of the Fall River line were said to carry 300,000 passengers annually. 137 Certainly the determination of the Consolidated to bring within its fold the Long Island steamers and their connecting lines paid a tribute to their enduring performance as New England carriers. 135 Purdy, Report on Steam Navigation, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, IV, 34^ Hartford Courant, February 22, 1882. 187 McAdam, Salts 0} the Sound, p. 150.

XX THE LONGER

TRADES

"I remember perfectly well clear back when the Boston & Albany first started, when it was said that it was useless to contend against a Cape Cod captain, who owned his sloop, and carried cod fish and mackerel one way and flour the other; that no road across the country could contend against water transportation."— Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1870, no. 133, p. 504 I In their moments of irritation and despair some Boston merchants talked as if the coasting trade to New Y o r k and beyond was a positive disadvantage to them. Though the water-borne commerce with the former city was the largest single coastal trade Boston had, it was, nonetheless, a drain. As for Philadelphia, Baltimore, and cities of the South as far west as New Orleans and Galveston, though their trade with Boston was extensive, its size, importance, and promise were its chief defects, since New Y o r k seemed likely to engross it. 1 New Y o r k , it must never be forgotten, was the deadly commercial foe of the Massachusetts metropolis. Still no record survives, in spite of such sentiments, of a Bostonian proposal to ignore the coastal commerce to the south and west of the city. On the contrary, every effort was made to secure a larger participation in it. Such endeavors did not involve the promotion and building of railroads to the desired goals. Instead, they focused upon improved methods of marine transpor1

Boston Shipping List and Prices Current, January, July, 1850.

150

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

tation, for the coastal trade survived and even prospered no matter how rapidly the railroad mileage mounted. Indeed, for decades the construction of railroads enhanced the well-being of coastwise commerce. In the first part of the nineteenth century the ports with which Boston traded had been served by natural waterways. The contribution of the Mississippi River to New Orleans needs no re-emphasis. Then came the canal era. The Pennsylvania canal system, state and private, the Chesapeake and Ohio along the Potomac, the James and Kanawha — Richmond's bid for the West —and the Dismal Swamp Canal enabled their ports to bring new areas or new supplies into subjection. These artificial channels were not a challenge to the north-south direction of coastwise traffic; they were generally east-west routes essentially subsidiary to it. Even when the railroad age arrived in the forties there was no abrupt revolution, for the new rail lines served the same function as their predecessors. They made Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah more important; they even enabled the more southerly of these ports to invade areas once dependent upon Mobile and New Orleans and to divert their commerce eastward to the Atlantic coast. Only the construction of north and south railroad lines could really jeopardize the Atlantic coasting trades. Such roads need not parallel the shoreline. Railroads built northward to the Ohio River, for instance, might bring a commerce once directed to the Gulf northward to the southern edge of trunk-line territory whence the powerful, crowded, and competing through routes with their low rates would carry it cheaply overland to Boston. The threat to the Atlantic coasting trade of railroads east of the mountains was more obvious. They were genuine parallels. It was not sufficient, however, to build railroads. Critical rivers like the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the Ohio had to be crossed by immense bridges; through freight lines had to harmonize the provincial aims of short lines and stimulate a long commerce by low rates and efficient service; the diverse gauges of southern railroads had to be changed to the standard pattern; and finally consolidation had to form effective through routes. All these varied changes came later than in the east-west routes. Their effects were really

THE LONGER

TRADES

not fully apparent until the close of the century. 2 Even then the railroad enjoyed an uneven triumph, for the coasting trade continued to carry many of the bulky commodities which had always been its mainstay. The fisheries sent their pickled and salted products as far south as the plantations and farms of Dixie, but their first shipment of fresh fish, that of 1850, went only as far as New York. 3 The lumber trade from Maine, — sometimes two hundred and fifty vessels crammed the Penobscot and Kenduskeag "stream" at Bangor — scattered pine and spruce as far afield as Galveston, New Orleans, and Baltimore, but found in New York City its largest market outside of New England. 4 Even before the Civil War, Albany, drawing timbers and boards through the Erie and the Champlain canals, was the predominant New York purveyor, and after the war a booming lumber industry, when loggers fell upon the wide evergreen belt of yellow pine stretching from the Potomac to the Brazos, supplied the South and invaded northern markets as well. If New York continued to patronize Maine, it was primarily for spruce, a cheap wood and useful for purposes such as piling, which could not be met by other importations.® The quarry industries of New England had a wider and a more enduring market. T o New York and Boston, as well as southern destinations, the lime industry of Maine sent its products.® In the eighties its "patent kilns" were burning and barreling 1,800,000 casks of lime a year and giving employment to two huge navies. One, a nondescript flotilla of "St. John wood-boats" and decrepit coasters, brought cordwood to Rockland and Thomaston; a second, in the eighties 275 vessels strong, carried away the prod* Howard D . Dozier, A History of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920), pp. 84, 91-94, 116-119, 124, 138-139. ' Harold A. Innis, The Cod Fisheries. The History of an International Economy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), p. 330. * George S. Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot. The River and Bay as They Were in the Old Days (Salem: Marine Research Society, 1932), pp. 30-33; Richard G. Wood, A History of Lumbering in Maine 1820-1861 (Orono: University Press, 193S), pp. 213-225. " M o n t h l y Summary of Commerce and Finance, House Documents, 56 Cong., ι Sess., no. 15, Part 5 (s.n. 4129), p. 1157. 8 Grant E. Finch and George F. Howe, "The Lime Industry at Rockland, Maine," Economic Geography, V I (1936), 390.

152

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

uct. The first aroused the contempt of sailors, the second their fears, for if water found a way into the hold of a lime carrier a fire might result. The only treatment was to starve the blaze of air by sealing every opening from a crack to a hatchway and then wait. A lime schooner in this inflamed condition was a "marine pariah." 7 At the close of the century outside capital consolidated and once again modernized the industry. The use of coal erased the coasting trade in cordwood, and safer steel barges, steam towed, transported 15,000 casks of lime at a stroke and brought back a cargo of the new fuel. 8 Though building stone was less volatile than lime, it had a market and could pay the rates of water-borne commerce. From quarries stretched along the lower Connecticut at Portland came brownstone, a coarse, colorful, and easily worked stone which architects made more widely popular after the mid-century. Although shipments went by rail, sailing vessels maneuvered to the very edge of the Portland quarries and carried the stone, without transhipment, to the yards or works along New York's waterfront where the material was shaped for the builders. 9 The sidewalks of New York were lined with brownstone fronts. Granite, if not more respectable, was more substantial. The stone furnished construction material — usually quarried on special contract — monuments, and paving blocks. The last were standardized after the Civil War in the smaller shapes of the Boston block and the New York block. As the decades passed, quarries opened along the coast line. First were the Quincy deposits, site of the Granite Railroad and the suppliers not only for Boston's monuments and buildings but for government buildings in New York City, navy 7 Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, pp. 1 9 5 - 2 0 4 ; Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1889, pp. 62-64» Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1899, pp. 26-30. 8 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1902, pp. 63-67; J o h n M . Richardson, Steamboat Lore of the Penobscot. An Informal Story of Steamboating in Maine's Penobscot Region (Augusta: Kennebec Journal, 1 9 4 1 ) , p. 1 1 8 . " D a v i d D. Field, A Statistical Account of the County of Middlesex, in Connecticut (Middletown: Clark & L y m a n , 1 8 1 9 ) , p. 58; Report of Testimony at the Hearings upon the Petition of the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad Co., for State Aid, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1870, no. 1 3 3 , pp. 543-544.

THE LONGER

TRADES

153

yards in Virginia, and the customhouse in N e w Orleans. B y some legerdemain Yankees succeeded in stowing and securing in a sailing vessel's hold pieces as heavy as forty tons. 10 Then Rockport on Cape Ann was found to have granite along its shoreline; and once artificial harbors with breakwaters, docks, and little gravity railroads were constructed, a brisk trade began with Boston and ports farther on. 11 Finally the industry moved to Maine. With its predecessors it shipped to St. Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and developed in N e w Y o r k City the greatest market outside of New England. 1 2 Cargoes traveled in fishing schooners, deemed too old even for lumber coasting or for carrying cordwood to the lime kilns, or in specialized and skillfully modeled craft like the Rockport stone sloops. 13 Finally there was ice. Tudor's early experiments had borne fruit. Just before the Civil War, in reminiscent mood he chronicled the American ports to which Boston shipped the output of her ice industry: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, Georgetown, Richmond, Wilmington, New Bern, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Pensacola, Apalachicola, K e y West, Galveston, Indianola, and New Orleans, at the last of which a "servile rebellion might be more feared if deprived of the 50,000 tons of ice they receive annually from Boston than from other hardship that could be imposed upon the black population." 14 What matter if passengers disliked sail10 William S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy with a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook ( Q u i n c y : Green & Prescott, 1878), pp. 5 0 1 - 5 1 4 ; Twentyninth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, Merchants Exchange, Including a Commercial Review of Fifty Years ( B o s t o n : 1883), pp. 22-23. 1 1 C y r u s M . T r a c y and others, Standard History of Essex County, Massachusetts, Embracing a History of the County from Its First Settlement to the Present Time, with a History and Description of Its Towns and Cities ( B o s t o n : C. F . J e w ett & C o m p a n y , 1878), pp. 351, 354. 13 Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1892, pp. 205-206; D u a n e H . H u r d , ed., History of Essex County, Massachusetts with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J . W . L e w i s & Co., 1888), I I , 1380-1382. 1 3 W a s s o n , Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 1 3 1 ; H o w a r d I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships ( N e w Y o r k : W . W . N o r t o n & C o m p a n y , 1 9 3 5 ) , pp. 300-301.

" Boston Board of Trade. 1857. Presented to the Board at the Annual t o n : George C . R a n d & A v e r y , 1 8 5 7 ) , Merchants' Magazine and Commercial

Third Annual Report of the Government, Meeting, on the 21st of January, 1857 ( B o s pp. 79-82; " I c e : and the Ice T r a d e , " Hunt's Review, X X X I I I ( 1 8 5 5 ) , 1 7 0 - 1 7 1 , 1 7 3 - 1 7 4 .

1.54

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

ing in vessels loaded with ice and shipowners dreaded a decay hastened by the melting and steaming of such cargoes, the ice shippers paid good rates and loaded and unloaded the vessels without charge. 15 With the close of the Civil War the ice industry moved to Maine. A f t e r safely housing their annual harvests—in the eighties and nineties over a million tons—the Maine ice men would sanguinely calculate the number of vessels required to carry their product to the brewers, meat packers, provision shippers, icecream venders, and the thousands of ice wagons delivering their product to domestic users. 16 Quite apart from colorful over-estimates, the actuality on the Kennebec was dazzling enough. T h e shipping season from M a y to November was a season of animation. Along the shore were the immense ice houses, "models of convenience, neat in appearance, tastily painted or whitewashed. When the river is full of vessels, going and coming together with many and large powerful tugs, pleasure boats and the Boston steamer, few more pleasant and lively places can be found." 1 7 Beneath this picturesqueness lay the solid fact that often seventy-five vessels were loading at a time; that twenty a day—three vessels could carry a thousand tons of ice—were "needed"; that fifteen steam tugs were kept busy towing the ships, barks, and schooners up the river from the sea to the loading "runs." 18 Maine in 1880 shipped 2,000 cargoes of ice and the charter list of the Boston Shipping List was in midsummer largely a chronicle of schooners chartered for the ice trade. T h e y sailed to New Y o r k , Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, and N e w Orleans. From these southern cities the precious cargo " B o s t o n Shipping List and Prices Current, January 5, 1850; Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 25. M L . C. Ballard, "Maine Ice Industry," Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1891, pp. 161-166; Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1901, pp. 19-21; Henry Hall, The Ice Industry of the United States with a Brief Sketch of Its History and Estimates of Production in the Different States, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, X X I , 5; Portland Press, February 9, 1880, June 6, 1896. " P o r t l a n d Press, December 11, 1885. "Ibid., December 28, 1881, June 16, 1890, March 14, 1892.

THE LONGER

TRADES

155

was sent inland by railroad or river navigation. 19 But in the late nineties the competition of artificial ice commenced to melt the boast of an earlier decade, " A f t e r all the country can't get along without Maine." 20 Rates for these bulk products, depending as they did upon many factors, varied sharply. In 1910 a sea captain recollected carrying lime from Rockland to N e w Y o r k for 10 cents a barrel, at another time for 52 cents, and on an average for 20 cents. Once a consignee at Norwich, Connecticut, paid $2.25 a barrel for lime delivered in the dead of winter whereas the normal price was $1.00. " T h e rigors of winter were not alone responsible for the sudden elevation of lime prices. A fog mull lasting a week or more would be the means of stalling a whole fleet of vessels in Rockland harbor, and the depleted markets of Boston arid New Y o r k would be fairly thirsting for lime when the first cargo hove in sight." 2 1 Data for rates on ice shipments are somewhat more substantial. From Boston to Washington in 1863 the freight per ton of ice varied from $2.50 to $5.00, the average was $3.00; rates from Maine were about 30 per cent higher. 22 In July, 1870, rates from Kennebec to New Y o r k were $1.50 a ton, to Philadelphia $1.25 to $1.50, to Baltimore and Washington $1.25, to Norfolk $1.50. Ten years later they were 50 cents to $1.30 for N e w Y o r k , $1.00 to $1.25 for Philadelphia, $1.00 to $1.75 for Savannah, and $2.00 to $2.75 for New Orleans. In the mid-eighties they had sunk to 70 cents, 65 cents, and 50 cents for the mid-Atlantic ports; the last figure was "terribly low." 23 " B o s t o n Commercial and Shipping List, July, 1880; Hall, The Ice Industry of the United States, pp. 22-23, 35. 20 Portland Press, March 18, 1885, April 25, 1896, August 5, 1899. 21 Robert Miller, "The N e w Y o r k Coastwise Trade, 1865-1915," p. 94, Ms., Thesis, Princeton University Library. 22 Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Senate Reports, 38 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 142, Part 3 (s.n. 1214), Ice Contracts, pp. 12, 84, 97. 28 Boston Shipping List, July, 1870; Boston Commercial and Shipping List, July, 1880, July, 1885; Portland Press, September 28, 1886; Brunswick Telegraph, December 5, 1884; Hall, Ice Industry of the United States, pp. 21-22.

156

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

II Fortunately for the continued prosperity of the coasting trade, the Atlantic ports south of New England possessed the bulk cargoes with which to make a return for the lumber, stone, and ice of the north. To be sure the decades wrought changes in their relative importance. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the great provision trades in flour, wheat, and corn had been waterborne. In spite of the Western Railroad and others, less than half of Boston's flour receipts at the end of the fifties came by rail, and, as for corn, schooners from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York came trooping into Boston harbor their holds crammed with 2,000 to 7,000 bushels, sailing packets filled out their cargoes with the grain and steamers occasionally carried it. 24 In these trades the five years after 1865 began and almost completed a revolution, for in 1870 three-fifths of Boston's flour and corn arrived by rail. 25 Though the Civil-War interruptions of a north-south commerce, the westward movement of grain-growing regions, and the attendant displacement of flour milling were partial explanations of the change, the major causes were the completion of the trunk-line railroads, their effective campaign for the transport of western produce, and the successful integration of the New England railroad network with these western connections. Trade from the smaller grain ports of Virginia, like Fredericksburg, disappeared; Boston's standing at Nejv Orleans, a port which in 1849 shipped her 3 2 3 , 3 1 8 barrels of flour, was further shaken; 26 and the substantial trades from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York lost this traditional reliance. 27 While such a decline could not be reversed, new bulk traffics, 24 Boston Board of Trade, i860. Sixth Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 20th January, i860 (Boston: Wright & Potter, i860), pp. 62-63; Boston Shipping List, J a n u a r y , J u l y , i860. 25 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. cli. Ά Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X I (1849), 666. 27 Joseph Nimmo, J r . , First Annual Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . for 1876, House Executive Documents, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 46, Part 2 (s.n. 1 7 6 1 ) , pp. 1 0 3 - 1 0 4 ; Charles B . Kuhlmann, The Development of the Flour-Milling Industry in the United States with Special Reference to the Industry in Minneapolis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929), pp. 38-54, 73-93.

THE LONGER

TRADES

157

northbound, might compensate for it. Happily the southern forest provided some substitute. Before the Civil War New England shipbuilders had imported the naval stores of tar, pitch, turpentine, and rosin from North Carolina—arrivals at Boston from Wilmington in 1854 numbered 1 1 1 vessels—and, along with other Yankees, brought northward ship timbers and other varieties of lumber from the Southern States. 28 When the South emerged after Appomattox as the great lumber center of the nation, timber products from the Maine and Canadian forests could still undersell yellow pine throughout most of New England. Consequently in 1905 coastal shipments of southern timber to New Y o r k were four and a half times those to Boston and the shipping rate between Brunswick, Georgia, and New Y o r k was the base rate for the whole Atlantic seaboard. 29 Still the lumber schooners, first from Norfolk, Wilmington, and Charleston, and then, as the industry moved quickly to new areas of exploitation, from Brunswick, Savannah, and the ports of Florida, brought their immense cargoes to Boston, to the ports of Connecticut, and to Bath and other shipbuilding towns in Maine. 30 Though such commerce had long been wedded to water transportation, by 1905 approximately half the lumber shipments to New England from Virginia and the Carolinas came by rail. 31 In 1836 the promoters of the Housatonic Railroad were persuasively announcing, " T h e use of anthracite coal for domestic fuel, and also for manufacturing purposes, is already quite extensive in many places along the route, at the enormous expense of fifteen dollars per ton. Whereas, more than two fifths of that sum may be avoided by means of the Bridgeport Rail Road. T o what extent this saving may increase the use of that article in the Hou28 Report of the Joint Committee of i860 upon the Proposed Canal to Unite Barnstable and Buzzards Bays, Massachusetts Public Documents, 1864, no. 41, p. 81. Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water in the United States, Part II, pp. 37, 55. 30Ibid., Part II, pp. 35, 38; William F- Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . Submitted December 20, 1886, House Executive Documents, 49 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 7, Part 2 (s.n. 2476), p. 307. 31 Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part II, p. 38.

158

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

satonic Valley, tongue cannot tell, nor imagination portray." 32 This prophetic statement even then had more than rhapsody to support it. New England had already overcome her preliminary suspicion of anthracite and Boston was importing coastwise 70,000 to 80,000 tons. 33 In 1850, the latter's coal importations from elsewhere in this country were 289,571 tons34 and by 1900 the black torrent had swelled to 4,708,247 tons of all varieties and from all sources. 35 Unfortunately the totals of the trade for New England as a whole are not known. In the early seventies the Massachusetts Railroad Commission, discussing the rail transportation of coal, "comparatively a new question for New England," concluded, " I t is probably safe to say that 3,000,000 tons of coal are yearly brought from without into New England." 36 At this time Boston's imports were 931,821 tons. 37 If the same proportion were maintained three decades later, New England's consumption would have been a little over 12,000,000 tons. Though such totals would surely have daunted the tongue and imagination of the promoters of the Housatonic, the latter had anticipated the course of coal utilization. In domestic heating anthracite displaced cordwood even in the rural regions of northern New England, and manufacturing, once dependent upon water wheels and turbines, relied increasingly upon steam for power. 38 Cheap coal was the cornerstone of New England prosperity. Cheap transportation helped to make coal cheap. In the thirties Boston's imports of domestic coal were anthracite, and as late as 1900 receipts at Boston were still 2,000,000 " Report of Engineers and Statement of Commissioners, Relative to the Housatonic Rail Road (n.p., 1836), p. 15. 83 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, V I (1842), 475; "Coal T r a d e of Pennsylvania," Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, V I I I (1843), 549· " B o s t o n Shipping List and Prices Current, J a n u a r y 1, 1851; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X V I (1852), 750. *Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce in the Year Ending December 31, 1900 (Boston: B. Wilkins, 1901), p. 226. M Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. clxv. ** Eighteenth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, for the Year Ending January 10, 1872 (Boston: Barker, Cotter & Co., 1872), p. 106. M Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p p . clvi-clxiii.

THE

LONGER

TRADES

159

bituminous. 39

tons to 2,700,000 of A t the outset Philadelphia had been Boston's and New England's chief supplier. The coal canals had connected the anthracite fields with the Delaware; and later the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, a transportation miracle at everything but earning consecutive dividends, built the first coal railroad with favorable down grades from the mines, and at Port Richmond near Philadelphia erected great docks where fifty-five vessels could load at once with coal cascaded into their holds through chutes from the cars. 40 This early railroad enterprise meant much to N e w Englanders. T h e y invested in its securities, utilized its operations as an example in many a polemic on cheap rates, and contributed David A. Neal of Salem as an expert on railroad problems to straighten out its financial difficulties. 41 A f t e r i860, however, Philadelphia's primacy as an anthracite shipper was challenged by New Y o r k . Within two decades new railroads had by construction, ownership, or lease penetrated the anthracite enclave of northeastern Pennsylvania, superseded the coal canals crossing New Jersey, and established yards and wharves—"coal ports"—along the Hudson or the Jersey shore. Even the Philadelphia and Reading, to the chagrin of Philadelphia and its own directors, was compelled to establish Port Reading in the N e w Y o r k area. 42 New Y o r k soon demonstrated its superiority as an anthracite shipper to southern New England. Its immense flotillas of towed barges went ahead to fill *·Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce . . . 1900, p . 226. 40Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia & Reading Rail Road Co. to the Stockholders. January 12, 1846 ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : I s a a c M . M o s s , 1846), p p . 32-33; M a s s a c h u s e t t s Senate Reports, 1870, n o . 133, p . 310. 41Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road Company, and Also the Report of David A. Neal. September, 184g ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : C r a i g & Y o u n g , 1849), PP· 4~SJ J o s e p h G. M a r t i n , A Century of Finance. Martin's History of the Boston Stock and Money Markets, One Hundred Years. From January, ijg8 to January, i8g8 ( B o s t o n : J . G . M a r t i n , 1898), p p . 147, 149; D a v i d A . N e a l , A u t o b i o g r a p h y of D a v i d A u g u s t u s N e a l of S a l e m , p p . 82-83, M s . , T y p e w r i t t e n C o p y , Essex I n s t i t u t e . " R e p o r t of t h e S e n a t e Select C o m m i t t e e on I n t e r s t a t e C o m m e r c e (CuTlom C o m m i t t e e ) , Senate Reports, 49 C o n g . , 1 Sess., n o . 46, P a r t 2 (s.n. 2357), p p . 5 1 6 5 1 7 ; R e p o r t o n t h e Alleged C o a l C o m b i n a t i o n , House Reports, 52 C o n g . , 2 Sess., n o . 2278 (s.n. 3140), p . 1; J u l i u s I . B o g e n , The Anthracite Railroads. A Study in American Railroad Enterprise ( N e w Y o r k : R o n a l d Press, 1927), p p . 56, 91-93. 121-124, 1 5 1 - 1 6 4 .

ι6θ

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the voracious coal pockets of Bridgeport and New Haven and lesser places even farther east. 43 Though north of Cape Cod its position was less overwhelming, shipments from the New Y o r k area to Boston in 1900 were 1,187,741 tons to Philadelphia's 818,138. 44 Meanwhile the construction of canals and of railroads from the Atlantic ports had tapped new supplies of bituminous coal, and at a single stroke created a commerce which was to overwhelm the coal trade from the Maritimes to New England and elevate bituminous as a rival to anthracite. The mid-century began this overturn, for in 1850 the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal reached the rich Cumberland deposits and spurred its rail competitor, the Baltimore and Ohio, to develop a coal trade. The directors of the latter enterprise, writing they were "fully convinced, that the Cumberland Coal must be brought into fair competition with anthracite, and the different varieties of bituminous coals, now held at lower rates in the Eastern markets, before any decided increase can be expected to take place in the measure of consumption," reduced their freight rates and enlarged their shipping facilities at Baltimore. 45 A t the very moment the directors were making this announcement of policy, the Boston Shipping List and Prices Current was noting, " T h e few cargoes of Cumberland semi-bituminous coal received during the year, have given good satisfaction. It is considered a superior article for steam and manufacturing purposes and for smiths' use, and equal to English Cannel for domestic purposes . . . and the coming season our market will no doubt be liberally supplied. T h e imports from the Provinces are less than last year. . . . The imports from Great Britain have been less than last year." 46 Seven years later the Pennsylvania Railroad joined the fray as its directors announced they were experia Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States. January, 1903, House Documents, 57 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 15, Part 7 (s.n. 4480), pp. 20762077. " Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce . . . ipoo, pp. 224, 226. 45 Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the President & Directors to the Stockholders of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1851), pp. 6-7. " B o s t o n Shipping List and Prices Current, January 1, 1851.

THE LONGER

TRADES

161

menting with bituminous coal carriage and taking measures to make that experiment a success.47 B y i860, therefore, Philadelphia was a bituminous as well as an anthracite shipper, Baltimore had become a coal port for New England, and from Alexandria, a sleepy Potomac town awakened for the moment by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, thirty-five schooners and five barges arrived at Boston in the month of July. 4 8 Twenty years later these ports, great and small, and their attendant railroads, were menaced by Newport News and Norfolk, for by the eighties the one had consolidated and extended the Chesapeake and Ohio and the other, the Norfolk and Western into the bituminous fields of Virginia and West Virginia. These deposits were rich, as analysts soon demonstrated, and since they were located on the eastern slopes of the Appalachians—another example of the "thoughtfulness" of Providence—their output could be coasted down the favorable grades to the long dingy piers on the waterfronts of Newport News and Norfolk. That the Norfolk and Western decorated its first carload of coal from the Pocahontas with bunting and that Norfolk citizens greeted it with a salute of guns was understandable. 49 Such joyful faith was justified. In 1900 Newport News and Norfolk together shipped 920,008 tons of bituminous to Boston; Baltimore's shipments were 5 5 8 , 1 1 8 , Philadelphia's 477,70ο. 50 Boston, however, was not the only New England terminus for this coal traffic. Destinations were strung along the coast from Calais, Maine, to Greenwich, Connecticut; and New York alone in 1902 shipped to 301 different places, most of them in New England. Yet a few ports stood out—Bangor, Portland, Portsmouth, " Tenth Annual Report of the Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Company, to the Stockholders. February 2d, 1857 (Philadelphia: Crissy & Markley, 1 8 5 7 ) , p. 7. " B o s t o n Shipping List, J u l y , i860. " T h o m a s J . Wertenbaker, Norfolk: Historic Southern Port (Durham: Duke University Press, 1 9 3 1 ) , pp. 305, 3 0 8 - 3 1 0 ; Henry V . Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1884 (New Y o r k : Η . V . and H. W. Poor, n.d.), pp. 3843 8 5 ; United States Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States, 1883, pp. 58-60, 82-85. 60 Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce . . . igoo, p. 225.

162

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Salem, Boston, New Bedford, Fall River, Providence, Norwich, New London, New Haven, and Bridgeport. Though some stood guard over rivers or estuaries along which were situated other markets accessible by water, all were termini for the railroads which carried this essential cargo to other stations. The roads, which carried inland by 1900 a quarter of Boston's coal receipts, were the giants of the New England railroad world. 51 Others, like the Salem and Lowell, the Old Colony, the Providence and Worcester, Norwich and Worcester, Naugatuck, and Housatonic, found in coal a mainstay of their traffic, whether they had originally been conceived as coal roads or had their earlier dream of serving as connection between a manufacturing city and an entrepot seaport warped into this more prosaic and dusty destiny. 52 Ill The rates for coal transport were compounded of a freight from the mines to a seaport, of a freight by schooner, collier, or barge in coastwise service, and often of a second railroad rate from a New England seaport to an interior city or town. The first of these, charged by the great coal roads of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, was low; the last, levied by some New England railroad, was on a ton per mile basis comparatively high. The New England hauls, however, were short ones and the railroads involved saw to it that the rates would be low enough to forestall the transport of coal from the mines by all-rail routes. 63 61 House Documents, 57 Cong., 2 Sess., no. i s , Part 7 (s.n. 4480), pp. 2075-2076; Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber oj Commerce . . . 1900, p. 226. "Ninth Annual Report of the Directors 0} the Old Colony Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. November, 1872 (Boston: Getchell Brothers, 1 8 7 2 ) , p. 9; Thirteenth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. November, 1876 (Boston: Getchell Brothers, 1876), p. 5 ; Facts and Estimates Relative to the Business on the Route of the Contemplated Providence and Worcester Rail Road (Providence: Knowles & Vose, 1844), pp. 4 - 5 ; Ninth Annual Report of the Directors of the Providence & Worcester Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. For the Year Ending November 30, 1853 (Providence: A. C r a w f o r d Greene, 1 8 5 4 ) , p. 1 0 ; Thirty-ninth Annual Report of the Directors of the Providence & Worcester R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for Twelve Months Ending September 30, 1883 (Providence: J . A. & R . A. Reid, n.d.), p. 10. " M a s s a c h u s e t t s First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 3 8 - 4 0 ; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clx-clxiv; Ninth Annual Report to

THE LONGER TRADES

163

Freights charged by the water link were highly unstable. Within twelve months those between N e w Y o r k and Boston swung from a maximum of $ 1 . 5 0 to a minimum of 50 cents; between Philadelphia and Boston from $ 2 . 1 0 to 65 cents. 54 One year they might be 100 per cent higher than they were the previous year. 5 5 The abundance or scarcity of carriers apparently was the chief explanation for such vacillations. Be Within this shifting framework certain tendencies were, however, at work. Coal freights varied according to distance. Down-East receivers, like Bangor and Portland, paid somewhat more than Boston, and the ports of southern N e w England enjoyed a differential over Boston. Fairly considerable at mid-century, it had narrowed by 1 9 0 1 to 1 0 - 3 0 cents a ton on shipments from Philadelphia and 1 0 cents a ton on those from N e w Y o r k . Some blamed the tardy growth of the textile centers north of Boston on this handicap. 57 Finally there was a general tendency for rates on water-borne coal to decline. The "average freight" charged by the Philadelphia and Reading colliers plying from Philadelphia to New England gives an informative series; this rate had to meet sailing vessel costs. I t declined from $2.62 in 1872 to 91 1 / 8 cents a ton in 1878; this unpleasantly low rate sank further to 81 cents in 1884 and snapped back in 1889, the last year for which these figures are available, to $ 1 . 0 2 2 / 1 0 . 5 8 Other figures show that in the early nineties, before the the Stockholders of the New York and New England Railroad Company, Made at the Annual Meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1884 (Boston: Cashman, Keating & Co., n.d.), pp. 2 9 - 3 1 . " U n i t e d States Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States. Calendar Year 1900, p. 330. ™ Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road Company to the Stockholders, January 9, 1854 (Philadelphia: Moss and Brother, 1 8 5 4 ) , p. 1 1 . M United States Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States . . . 1900, p. 329. " H e a r i n g s before the Committee on Harbors and Public Lands on the Cape Cod Canal, 1892, X I I I , 7-23. Ms., Typewritten, Massachusetts State Library. "Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co., to the Stockholders. January 11, 187s (Philadelphia: Helfenstein, Lewis & Greene, 1 8 7 5 ) , p. 22; Report of the Receivers of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. of the Operations for the Year Ending November 30th, 1881 (Philadelphia: J . B . Lippincott & Co., 1 8 8 2 ) , p. 65; Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. to the Stockholders,

164

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

crash, carrier rates from New Y o r k to Boston sank as low as 35 and 40 cents and from Philadelphia and Baltimore to 50.59 In spite of low rates, water carriage had many disadvantages. Though the transfer of coal from railroad to vessel and often once again from vessel to railroad might be expedited by efficient docks and apparatus, every handling meant a tonnage loss estimated by some as high as 5 per cent. 60 Far more important were the costs accumulated by a traffic necessarily seasonal and irregular. Since New England had to import its coal supply in the customary shipping season from April to December, storage space at the mines, at the coal ports, and at the markets had to be proportionately enlarged. Even then it could not cope with the irregularities of transport. When winds and freight rates were favorable or New England dealers and consumers made large purchases of coal at low prices, a spate of vessels tumbled into Port Reading or Norfolk and taxed unmercifully the loading space, the coal piles, and even the coal trains straining to bring down a supply. Sometimes famine followed feast. 61 In New England a glut of vessels and coal would fasten upon Salem or Somerset in the Taunton River or Allyn's Point. While men and engines worked frantically to unload coal and trains sought to carry inland a surplus which could not be stored at tidewater and deliver it to consignees whose coal yards in turn were inadequate, sailing vessels, crammed with cargo, anchored off shore and demurrage charges accumulated. 62 In the late sixties the latter were so crushing that the manager of one Lowell factory purchased his coal in New Y o r k rather than Philadelphia. January 12th, 188s, for the Year Ending November 30th, 1884 (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1885), p. 70; Report of the President and Managers to the Stockholders of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company for the Year Ending November 30, 1889 (Philadelphia: Dando Printing and Publishing Company, 1890), p. 21. m United States Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States. Calendar Year 1891, p. 186. 60 Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1870, no. 133, p. 309. 61 Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. January 12, 1874 (Philadelphia: Helfenstein, Lewis & Greene, 1874), pp. 18-19. ω Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. xxxii-xxxiii, ccxxiii-ccxxvii; Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, pp. 106-108.

THE LONGER

TRADES

165

Vessels from the former "have no demurrage clause in their bills of lading, and the risk of delay falls upon them. Of course this risk is considered in the rate of freight paid; but we prefer to pay it rather than run the chance of the enormous demurrage charged by some of the vessels from Philadelphia. In several cases in the last three years, the loss to the vessels bringing coal has been so great that I have made them an allowance of their actual expenses after a week's delay." 63 Some felt the solution to these difficulties was the technical improvement of water transport. The undependable schooner, the mainstay of the coal trade, must go. In this direction, as in others, the Philadelphia and Reading undertook to pioneer. In the late sixties it put into service between Port Richmond and New England two steam colliers of about 600 tons and christened them with a poisonous, competitive snarl Rattlesnake and Centipede.64 Over the years the railroad increased its collier fleet to fourteen. The largest vessels carried 1,650 tons of coal, equivalent to the cargoes of four medium-size schooners, and each vessel made three voyages to a schooner's one. If the annual reports of the Reading were to be believed, these colliers earned money. 65 They also accumulated incidental advantages. B y the regularity of their sailings the company secured an indirect saving through the increased car service and decreased cost of shipping coal at Port Richmond; they were an insurance against a scarcity of vessels and an effective weapon against shipping embargoes; they moved coal twelve months a year. 68 When it introduced the colliers, the Philadelphia and Reading also purchased terminals and yards in New England to "eliminate the middleman" and "bring coal direct to 63 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. ccxliv. 64 Report of the President and Managers of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. January 10, 1870 (Philadelphia: T h e Leisenring Steam Printing House, 1870), pp. 17, 23. eB H e n r y Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States, T e n t h Census of the United States, 1880, V I I I , 1 1 2 ; Report . . . of the Philadelphia & Reading . . . 1881, p. 67; Report of the Operations of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. for the Year Ending November 30th, 1893 (n.p., n . d . ) , pp. 3 6 - 3 7 . 06 Report . . . of the Philadelphia & Reading . . . 1874, pp. 1 8 - 1 9 ; Report of the Philadelphia & Reading . . . 1875, p. 23.

. . .

l66

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the consumer," and to ensure regularity of unloading. 67 B y the nineties, however, losses, repairs, and retirement depleted the number of steam carriers, and the railroad made no replacements. It was finding barges more useful. Centipede and Rattlesnake were stripped down to this new type of carrier. 68 T h e barges in the New England coal traffic were of two sorts. One was blood brother to the old canal barge. T h e y were blunt ended, strengthened by one or two cross partitions, and virtually undecked. Lashed together in immense rafts around a tug, such tows by the end of the eighties were carrying 27,000 tons of coal apiece. Though barge traffic of this sort could sail Long Island Sound, it could not travel beyond menacing Point Judith or round Cape Cod on the "outside route." 69 In the early seventies, however, larger barges, towed by a steam tug, were running to Narragansett B a y and displacing their schooner competitors, and by the next decade, in the longer and more exposed trades, seagoing barges made still further inroads upon sail. 70 T h e Philadelphia and Reading acquired its own fleet of barges as did the other coal roads. T h e coal traffic to New England was so great, however, that it relied upon vessels owned by outsiders as well. The competition in the carriage of coal was severe. 71 Nor did barges or steam colliers during the nineteenth century succeed in eliminating the schooner coal carrier. 72 "Report . . . of the Philadelphia & Reading . . . 1874, pp. 18-19; Boston Board of Trade, Boston and the West. How to Connect Their Industries and Interests. February, 1875 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1875), p. 27. 98 Report . . . of the Philadelphia & Reading . . . 1893, p. 37; Report of the Operations of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co., for the Year Ending November 30th, 1894 (n.p., n.d.), pp. 1 3 - 1 4 ; Report of the Operations of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. for the Year Ending November 30th, 1895 (n.p., n.d.), p. 4 1 ; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I, p. 145. " H a l l , Report on the Ship-Building Industry, p. 114. mIbid., p. 112; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I, pp. 145-146. 71 Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 500-501; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I V , pp. 29-37. " J o h n G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, 1789-1914. An Economic History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), PP. 555-5561564-565.

THE LONGER

TRADES

167

While water transportation was quickened, regularized, and cheapened by steam collier and coal barge, railroad commissions and officials were debating the feasibility of all-rail transport between the mines and New England. Obviously most bituminous fields were too remote to excite even the visionaries with this possibility. On the other hand, the anthracite deposits of northeastern Pennsylvania were only 375 miles away, as a glance at the map would reveal, and if New England railroads with their western connections could bring wheat from Chicago, New England railroads with southwestern connections ought to bring coal from the Pennsylvania river valleys. Like the steam colliers, the railroads could operate the year round. The Massachusetts railroad commissioners in 1872 announced that "not only will all the interior towns of the State, at a very early date, receive their coal supply direct from the mines . . . but the Commissioners entertain no doubt that Lowell, Boston, and Providence will do the same." 73 This prophecy was only partially fulfilled. Though the roads of northern and western New England developed an all-rail coal traffic for their areas, the great railroads of southern New England did not. The Boston and Albany furnished some Berkshire depots with all-rail coal, but it was cheaper to supply its eastern stations, like Worcester, with coal brought from Boston. 74 The New York, New Haven and Hartford preferred to carry coal inland from the ports of southern New England or from the Harlem River than to share the sacrifices of low rates by an all-rail route from the mines. 75 The same profitable preference finally converted the managers of the New York and New England who for decades had pictured their enterprise, were it completed to the Hudson, as a great coal railroad. 76 In 1884 Charles P. Clark, the road's receiver and once an ardent apostle of the coal traffic, an78 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clxv-clxvi. ™ Tenth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. December 1, i8g6, p. 75; Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 5 0 1 ; Report of the Committee on Railroads on the N e w Y o r k and New England R a i l road, Massachusetts House Documents, 1878, no. 276, pp. 1 3 0 - 1 3 2 . ™ Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 553. '"Report to the Stockholders of the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad Company, September 20, 1864 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Company, 1864), pp.

l68

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

nounced the road could bring all-rail coal profitably into Connecticut as far as Hartford, but at Hartford water-borne coal hogged the market and east of Hartford at competitive points it was more profitable to bring the coal by water to Boston, Providence, and Norwich and then inland by rail. 77 In the nineties after the Poughkeepsie Bridge was opened and the Philadelphia and Reading under McLeod's leadership utilized it for his invasion of New England, a stream of all-rail coal poured across the Hudson—1,012,1 1 6 tons in a year. With the collapse of McLeod's schemes, this traffic fell away and at century's end only a small portion of New England's coal came by rail. 78

IV Of the great staples, cotton had a unique transportation history. Before the Civil War it had been the great mainstay of the sailing traffic between New England and the southern ports. Though the commerce was important to Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and Apalachicola, it reached its apogee at New Orleans. Gangs armed with powerful cotton screws jammed the holds so tight with bales that sometimes the decks buckled upwards; shipments of cotton from New Orleans to New England were over three times those of any other cotton port; and cotton helped to explain the fact that ship arrivals at Boston from New Orleans were greater than those from any other port below Baltimore. 79 But after Appomattox, first the steamship and then the railroad became the great cotton carriers. 2 0 - 2 1 ; Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1870, no. 133, pp. 59, 308-310, 526-528; Massachusetts House Documents, 1878, no. 276, pp. 126-128. " Ninth Annual Report . . . of the New York and New England . . . 1884, pp. 2 9 - 3 1 . ™ Report of the Public Service Commission Relative to the Capital Expenditures, Investments and Existing Contingent Liabilities of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, Massachusetts House Documents, 1916, no. 1900, pp. 1 3 0 - 1 3 1 , 135, 1 4 1 . " B o s t o n Shipping List and Prices Current, January, July, 1850, January 1, 1 8 5 1 ; Boston Board of Trade. 1861. Seventh Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 16th January, 1861 (Boston: T. R. Marvin & Son, 1 8 6 1 ) , pp. 66-67; John D. Whidden, Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days. From Forecastle to Quarter-Deck (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1 9 1 2 ) , pp. 96-97.

THE LONGER

169

TRADES

T h e same historical sequence governed the general merchandise trade. Boston esteemed the latter of fundamental importance, for in this fashion she distributed to domestic ports the provisions collected b y her own import t r a d e — s u g a r and molasses from the West Indies, tea from the Orient, coffee from around the w o r l d — and the manufactured articles, particularly boots and shoes and textiles, which N e w England factories were now pouring forth. If cotton supported the sailing vessel which operated on charter or in search of its own cargoes, the merchandise trade nourished the packet lines. T h e latter organizations, tracing back their ancestry to the thirties, had b y i860 four lines to N e w Y o r k , four to Baltimore, three to Philadelphia and to Charleston, and two each to Savannah, Mobile, and N e w Orleans. T h e r e were packet lines to Virginia ports, a few now almost forgotten. Some of these lines to the larger ports had semi-weekly sailings on Wednesday and Saturday. 8 0 Their business was impressive. A "single packet, the President,

which sailed from Boston during the current month of

August [1850] for N e w Orleans took 15,651 packages, principally boots, shoes and other domestic goods, consigned to 332 different consignees, and valued at $390,000," wrote Ε . H . Derby. 8 1

Man-

ifests to N e w Orleans were often six feet long. 82 B u t the most important packet traffic was that between Boston and N e w Y o r k . A catalogue of their cargoes would be an enumeration of America's productive capacity. i860 brought

A single packet, the James

to Boston

Lawrence,

100 barrels liquor, 440 boxes

in fire

crackers, 35 barrels currants, 50 cases sardines, 100 casks sulphur, 50 boxes potash, 25 barrels sugar, 7 cases citron, 40 casks bleaching powder, 100 boxes tin plate, 3 tierces honey, 72 sacks mustard seed, 20 kegs white lead, 5 kegs essence, and 9 casks oil. 83 T h e N e w Y o r k - B o s t o n packets, as we have seen, also carried bulk cargoes on occasion. A f t e r Appomattox the steamship 80 Damrell V. Moore and George Coolidge, The Boston Almanac for the Year 1S60 (Boston: Brown, Taggard & Chase, n.d.), p. 234; Twenty-ninth Annual Report 0f the Boston Board of Trade, pp. 27-28. 81 Elias Η. Derby, "City of Boston," Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X I I I (1850), 491. " Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, p. 28. 83 Boston Shipping List, January 14, i860.

170

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

and to a less extent the railroad deprived the sailing trade of its general merchandise cargoes. Though steamboat lines had appeared in Long Island Sound and in the down-East trades by the twenties, Boston did not attain similar connections with American ports to her south and west until the decade of the fifties. Though it would have seemed logical to apply this improvement first of all to the route between New York and Boston, for all such commerce had to round Cape Cod, face the delays of its passage or the dangers of its navigation, and pay the marine insurance rates and the accumulated wages and shipping expenses involved in such a voyage, Bostonians seemed sure that their traffic with New York could take care of itself—perhaps all too well. 84 In the fifties the city was more concerned with rivaling New York than communicating with it. Accordingly they looked with more favor on Philadelphia and Baltimore. Such lines would not only give Boston a share in the commerce of the Middle Atlantic states but also the railroads of the latter region would afford a connection with the great West superior to Boston's own rail lines—for the fifties was the period of her disillusionment with the Boston and Worcester-Western and the Vermont Central. The Boston Board of Trade in a panegyric of the former routes pointed out that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad guaranteed delivery within six days to Wheeling and the Pennsylvania within the same time to Pittsburgh. From Wheeling and Pittsburgh it was possible to reach Cincinnati in two days by boats charging the low river rates of only ι ο to 40 cents a hundred pounds. 85 New Englanders, however, were not wholly responsible for the application of steam to the Baltimore and the Philadelphia routes. On the latter line they did provide leadership. In 1852 Phineas Sprague, a Boston merchant, and his young relative, Henry Winsor, who had been dispatched to Philadelphia with this end in view, inaugurated a steamboat enterprise which twenty years 84

Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1870, no. 1 3 3 , pp. 3 9 1 - 3 9 2 , 399. "Boston Board of Trade. i8;6. Second Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 16th of January, 1856 (Boston: M o o r e & Crosby, 1 8 5 6 ) , pp. 1 4 - 1 ? .

THE LONGER TRADES

later, with Henry Winsor as president, was incorporated as the Boston and Philadelphia Steamship Company.86 On the other hand, in 1852 a group of Baltimoreans, led by Benjamin Deford, one of the largest tanners in the United States, a promoter and investor in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a director in four banks, an insurance company, and other corporations, secured from the Maryland legislature a charter for the Merchants' and Miners' Transportation Company.87 After two years of indecision the Baltimore group enlisted Joseph Whitney as their Boston ally. Whitney was a shoe manufacturer and merchant and an extensive shipper of boots and shoes to the Southern states.88 When the Merchants' and Miners' at the very end of 1854 dispatched its first vessel, the Joseph Whitney, to Boston, it inaugurated a line built upon shoe leather.89 B y the end of the decade the boats, as they entered or left Chesapeake Bay, stopped at Norfolk, eventually a terminus as important as the original one. B y running its vessels without insurance and fortunately escaping accident, the line had been "moderately profitable." 90 While the Civil War with its requisitions and charters gravely interfered with the operation of these two lines,91 it indirectly aided the establishment of a steamboat line between Boston and New York. When the government released some vessels in 1864, a group of Bostonians bought them and opened the new service. Among the pioneers were Peter Butler, a hardware dealer with a 88 J o h n T . Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia. 1609-1884 (Philadelphia: L . H. Everts & Co., 1884), I I I , 2 1 7 0 - 2 1 7 1 . 87 Laws Made and Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland, . . . 1852, Chapter 1 5 3 ; J o h n T . Scharf, History oj Baltimore City and County from the Earliest Period to the Present Day·. Including Biographical Sketches of Their Representative Men (Philadelphia: Louis H . Everts, 1 8 8 1 ) , pp. 403-404. 88 Joseph C. Whitney, " M e m o i r of Henry Austin Whitney, A . M . " , New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, X L V ( 1 8 9 1 ) , 176, 1 8 2 ; Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, pp. 3 5 - 3 6 . 89 J o h n H. Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation (New Y o r k : W. F . Sametz & Co., 1903), p. 402; Tales of the Coast and a Brief History of the Merchants & Miners Transportation Company (Baltimore: Merchants and Miners Transportation Company, 1 9 2 7 ) , pp. 39-40. " Boston Board of Trade. 1861. Seventh Annual Report, p. 46. S1 Boston Board of Trade. 1862. Eighth Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 1$ January, 1862 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 6 2 ) , pp. 48-49.

172

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

large western business, Oakes Ames, shovel manufacturer and railroad capitalist, and James S. Whitney. 9 2 T h e last was the real manager of the enterprise. He started life as a small textile manufacturer in western Massachusetts and continued it as a blend of politics and business. He was a general in the militia, superintendent of the Springfield Armory, collector for the port of Boston, and a Boston business man. 93 In 1866 Whitney with various Boston merchants and railroad men chartered the Metropolitan Steamship Company of Boston with a capital of $100,ooo. 94 In the next decade the line became the Erie Railroad's freight connection with N e w England; by century's end it was the Boston and Maine's connection with N e w York. 9 5 A s carriers between Boston and the West these steamboat lines soon proved comparatively disappointing. It was not their fault that in the fifties the harbors of Baltimore and Philadelphia were frozen in winter or the Ohio River was closed b y low water for three or four months. " T h e Ohio River is," wrote the Boston Board of Trade, "unfortunately getting to be no river at all for a great part of the y e a r . " 96 N o r were the steamboats responsible for the development of the trunk lines, their N e w England connections, and the series of agreements which after the late seventies reduced to a minimum the use of these steamships as communications with the West. Enough business remained, however, to yield dividends and to encourage the multiplication of both vessels and sailings. m Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, Merchants Exchange, January i, 1881 (Boston: James F. Cotter & Co., 1881), p. 46; The New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, X L I X (1895), 463. M The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New Y o r k : James T . White & Company, 1898), X , 154-155; Josiah G. Holland, History of Western Massachusetts. The Counties of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire (Springfield: Samuel Bowles and Company, 1855), II, 351. " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 294, 403; Twentyseventh Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, . . . 1881, p. 46; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part IV, p. 67. "Proceedings of the Special Committee on Railroads, Appointed under a Resolution of the Assembly to Investigate Alleged Abuses in the Management of Railroads Chartered by the State of New York [Hepburn Committee], I, 426, II, 1490; Η. V . Poor, Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States. Thirty Third Annual Number, IQOO (New Y o r k : Η. V. & H. W . Poor, n.d.), p. 14; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I V , p. 67. "Boston Board of Trade. 1857. Third Annual Report, pp. 22-23.

THE LONGER

TRADES

173

Of the three routes, the Merchants' and Miners' was the only one to cultivate a passenger traffic by an appeal to convenience and luxury in appointments. Primarily it was, like the line to Philadelphia, a freight carrier. Northbound the vessels of both brought flour, corn, leather, iron products, whiskey, soap, glassware, peanuts, oil, and occasionally exotic commodities, like coffee. Boston sent back boots and shoes, cotton textiles, provisions, hardware, and machinery. 97 T h e manifests for the coasting trade between Boston and N e w Y o r k were less revealing. Happily the national government remedied the deficiency by occasional analyses of its character. Thus in the first nine months of 1902 coastwise shipments from N e w Y o r k to Boston included canned goods and coffee, cigars and tobacco, whiskey in barrels and liquor in packages, molasses and sugar, oats and rice, 52,258 packages of tea, 61,570 packages of fruit, 68,0x8 packages of leather, 180,292 bales of cotton, 18,440 tons of wool, and 108,958 tons of unclassified freight. 98 Little wonder that the Interstate Commerce Commission found the Metropolitan Steamship Company did the largest part of the carrying trade of the Boston grocers. 99 Boston made returns as she had to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk. 1 0 0 T o N e w England as a whole New Y o r k ' s coastwise shipments were twice those of N e w England's to her. T h e total of both, 978,860 tons in 1902, was impressive. T w o years earlier, however, the Boston and Albany had transported between Boston and Albany 1,279,577 tons. 101 V

The arguments which in the fifties led Bostonians to advocate the establishment of steamboat lines in her coastal trades did not "Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 419-420; Boston Shipping List, January 18, 21, July 14, i860, January 1, July 2, 1870. " M o n t h l y Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States. October, 1902, House Documents, 57 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 15, Part 4 (s.n. 4479), pp. 10471048. "" W. S. King & Company v. The New Y o r k , New Haven & Hartford Railroad et al., 4 Interstate Commerce Commission, 257. 100 House Documents, 57 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 15, Part 4 (s.n. 4479), pp. 10471048. 101 House Documents, 57 Cong., 2 Sess·, no. i s , part 7 (s.n. 4480), p. 2075; Thirty-third Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston & Albany Railroad Company to the Stockholders (Boston: Rand Avery Supply Company, 1900), p. 22.

MEN,

174

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

stop at the Chesapeake. Beyond lay the immense agricultural region of the South, the producer of cotton for New England mills and the consumer of her textiles, shoes and notions. In the years of the late fifties New Orleans alone sometimes provided Boston with one-quarter of her flour supply, with half of her imports of cotton, and with more hides than Buenos Aires. 102 Y e t into this treasured preserve N e w Y o r k had encroached in the forties and fifties with her steam vessels, while Boston had no line south of Baltimore. 103 A whole train of evils ramified from this condition. It partly accounted for the injurious establishment at New Y o r k of the branch houses selling cotton goods, with the resulting decline of Boston as a marketplace. T h e city was losing customers in the South and West. "It is utterly idle, to suppose that buyers of the best credit will continue to come to Boston, when we confess our inferiority to New York, by the gratuitous carriage of merchandise to that city, for shipment thence to our Southern ports, in steam-vessels."104 As usual the tardy rectification of this situation was ascribed to apathy. Merchants refused to come forward with funds and solicitors in vain sought substitute contributions from retired capitalists and owners of real estate. 105 Clearly a steamboat line to the South had to be a semi-public enterprise like the Western Railroad. It ran into the same obstacles. What was to be the southern terminus? Although there was an assumption that it would be New Orleans, partisans argued the superior merits of Savannah and Charleston. Where were the vessels to be built? Civic spirit demanded that the contract be given to a local firm even while the 103 William F. Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . Submitted January 30, 1888, House Executive Documents, 50 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 6, P a r t 2 (s.n. 2552), pp. 286-287; Boston Board of Trade. 1S5S. Fourth Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 20th January, 1858 ( B o s t o n : George C . R a n d & A v e r y , 1858), pp. 1 3 1 , 135, 1 3 7 138. 103

M o r r i s o n , History

of American

Steam Navigation,

pp. 437-441, 444-446, 448-

45°, 452-456. 101 Steam Communication between Boston and New Orleans. Appeal of the Board of Trade, to the Retired Capitalists and the Owners of Real Estate (Boston: James French, i 8 6 0 ) , p. 6. 108 Ibid.; Boston Board of Trade. 1858. Fourth Annual Report, pp. 1 5 - 1 6 .

THE

LONGER

TRADES

175

Bostonians were generally admitting that the boat builders of Philadelphia and N e w Y o r k could turn out a vessel at a lower price. 106 Finally in 1859 the Board of Trade secured a Massachusetts charter for the Boston and Southern Steam-ship Company, solicited funds successfully, and awarded a contract for two iron vessels to Harrison Loring of South Boston. 107 In June and July, i860, two magnificent vessels, the South Carolina and the Massachusetts, entered the Charleston service. " T h e patronage of those engaged in the trade is solicited in behalf of this effort to establish a regular and reliable facility of communication, the necessity of which has so long been apparent, as an indispensable means of promoting the business interests of N e w England and the Southern States . . . P. S. Insurance by this line can be effected at about H A L F T H E R A T E S B Y S A I L I N G V E S S E L S . " 108 The current of enthusiasm for steamship lines accomplished at the same time the incorporation of the Union Steamship Company, A. A. Lawrence, president, for a line to N e w Orleans. For this second enterprise Harrison Loring undertook the construction of two larger vessels, the Mississippi and the Merrimac.109 In i860 the Merchants' and Miners' was also trying Savannah with a single vessel, the Joseph Whitney, and Captain Nickerson was running the City of New York regularly to Norfolk, City Point, and Richmond. 1 1 0 T h e Civil War naturally swept away these recently established southern lines. Ports fell into the hands of the Confederacy and the Federal government bought the best of the vessels, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Merrimac, to suppress Boston Board of Trade. 1858. Fourth Annual Report, pp. 88-96; Twentyseventh Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade . . . 1881, p. 40. 107 Boston Board of Trade. 1861. Seventh Annual Report, pp. 47-48; Private and Special Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the Years, 1854 . . . '59, Χ, ^ - ^ S · 108 Boston Shipping List, July 4, i860. 109 Boston Board of Trade. 1861. Seventh Annual Report, pp. 48-49; Boston Board of Trade. 1862. Eighth Annual Report, pp. 50-51; Private and Special Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the Years, 1854 • • • ' 591 X> 908-909. 110 Boston Shipping List, July 4, 14, i860; Boston Board of Trade. 1862. Eighth Annual Report, p. 48.

176

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

what the Boston Board of Trade called "the present unhallowed rebellion against a Government so mild, so gentle, as never to have roughly, unjustly touched the hair of a cotton planter's head." 1 1 1 After the War, as Andrew Johnson threw open the coastal trade with the South, Bostonians at once responded as if normalcy had returned. A packet steamer sailed for Savannah, a weekly steamship service commenced to New Orleans, and a Boston and Charleston line of steamers resumed operations. Most were short-lived enterprises. 112 The only line to survive, that to Savannah, did so under different management. At that port it was closely allied with the Central of Georgia Railway. Later the Clyde Steamship Company inaugurated a service between Fall River and Philadelphia; the Old Colony Railroad connected the line with Boston; and other steamships under the ownership of the Clydes connected with Southern ports. "Dangers of navigation and Cape Cod avoided. Low insurance," stated the advertisements. 113 In the nineties the Clyde Company opened a service from Boston itself to Charleston, Brunswick, and Jacksonville, but only by way of New York. 1 1 4 A mere enumeration of direct lines blurred the actualities of traffic interchange at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Savannah with other steamers going south. The area below the Potomac and the Ohio and between the Atlantic and the Mississippi the Interstate Commerce Commission soon discovered was unique. "The chief difference" between this and other regions "will be found in the fact that the territory in question is substantially surrounded by the ocean and the mighty rivers which bound it on the North and West, while it is penetrated to a considerable extent by other navigable streams; and in the further fact that the traffic is relatively small in amount. . . . In addition to these elements of diversity it is characteristic of this m Boston Board of Trade. 1862. Eighth Annual Report, pp. 4 8 - 5 1 ; Boston Board of Trade. 1864. Tenth Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 13th January, 1864 (Boston: T . R . Marvin & Son, 1864), p. 9. 112 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, January 1, 1878 (Boston: James F . Cotter, 1878), p. 2 1 . 118 Boston Commercial and Shipping List, J a n u a r y 3, 1880. ut Clearances at Boston 1900, Ms., Boston Customhouse.

[ 177 ]

i78

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

section that many lines exist over which traffic to or from distant markets may be taken in either direction, with equal facility." 1 1 5 Thus, like other coastal cities, Boston might draw its supplies from this region, from as far west as Vicksburg and Memphis, either by all-rail routes or by the railroads leading to Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah and the steamboat lines which ran northward from them. It could make its returns in either fashion. As The Boston and Southern Steamship Company for Charleston advertised in i860: " T H E Y W I L L F O R M A C O N N E C T I N G L I N E W I T H T H E SOUTH C A R O L I N A R A I L R O A D and goods will be forwarded to all ports in the Southern and Southwestern parts of the country, by that and connecting roads, at through rates of freight, relatively as low as by any other steam line whatever." 1 1 6 In common with other coastal cities, Boston as supplier faced competition from the growing industry of the Middle West. Chicago and other cities could ship southward along the Mississippi and after 1869 southeastward to the southern Atlantic coast, for in that year the Louisville and Nashville and Atlantic and Western established the Green Line, a famous through freight route, from Louisville to Atlanta. The railroad bridge across the Ohio at the former place gave a connection with trunk-line territory. 117 Not only did Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have to find their way successfully through this labyrinth; the east-west railroads in the South and the coasting steamboat lines associated with them had to meet the protean menace. They had to cope with possible all-rail routes paralleling the coast; they had to direct the trade of the whole South eastward to their ports before it turned north; and they had to abate their struggles with each other, for competition, like that contemporaneously shaking the trunk-line territory in us I n the Matter of the Tariffs and Classifications of the Atlanta and West Point Railroad Company and Other Companies, 3 Interstate Commerce Commission, 24. ue Boston Shipping List, July 4, i860. " ' J o s e p h Nimmo, Jr., Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . July i, 1881, House Executive Documents, 46 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 7, part 2 (s.n. 1966), appendix, p. 168; William F. Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . December 20, 1886, House Executive Documents, 49 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 7, part 2 (s.n. 2476), pp. 680-681.

THE LONGER

TRADES

179

the late sixties and early seventies, would at once make their own light traffics a profitless business. So it was the southern railroads which showed harassed railroads everywhere the w a y to harmony and prosperity. In 1875, after unsatisfactory experimentation with the convention system and the committee system, they established the Southern R a i l w a y and Steamship Association and appointed as its first general commissioner, Albert Fink. Fink was the real creator of the modern Louisville and Nashville Railroad and within a year he was to head an organization of railroads in the trunk-line territory and to apply there the experience acquired in the South. A t the A t lanta convention which established the former Association, the lines plying to Boston were represented, and the Boston and Savannah Steamship Company signed the agreement there drawn up.

T h e Merchants' and Miners', distinctly interested in the

southern trade after the establishment of a branch line from Baltimore to Savannah, attended the first convention and many later conferences, and signed agreements. 1 1 8 In 1900 its president described the metaphysics of its peculiar situation. Unlike other steamship lines, it was not railroad owned; "it is entirely independent of any and all other companies." Y e t its rates were set b y agreements — a "natural growth" — among the railroads and steamship lines. 1 1 9 T h e rate structure of the Southern R a i l w a y and Steamship Association, coupled with an apportionment of territory and traffic, determined the routes of commerce between Boston and the South and even its extent. T h a t structure was not struck off at any given moment b y the hand or brain of men; it was an accretion from competitive forays and a series of arbitrations — in short, the result of the historical process. Beneath its shifting details were certain general principles.

T h e steamships set their

m Nimmo, First Annual Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . June 30, 1876, appendix, pp. 1 1 - 1 9 ; Agreements and Rules of the Southern Railway and Steamship Association Adopted in Convention at Atlanta, Ga., September 17, and October 13, 187s, as Revised Nov. 9, 1875 (Atlanta: James P. Harrison & Co., 1875), p. 10; Circular Letters of the Southern Railway and Steamship Association (n.p., n.d.), II, 737-738, X I X , 1686, 1704. m Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 418, 443.

ι8θ

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

freights, "locals" as they were denominated, to take from sailing vessgls such cargoes as they wanted and could afford to carry. T h e steamships and their connecting southern railroads then set a joint rate between their northern ports and southern trading centers that was somewhat less than the all-rail route for the same distance. 120 This "water differential" in 1889, for instance, was 2 cents a hundred pounds for some lettered classifications covering the bulk commodities and 8 cents a hundred pounds on articles in class i. 1 2 1 Since the Association also apportioned the business among the various routes and enforced its decisions by financial penalties, some traffics became traditionally all-rail; the steamship-rail routes took others. Finally the Association attempted to divide between the northeast and the northwest the business of supplying the South. 122 A s its president declared in 1888, " A t the formation of this Association, and continuance up to the present time, the theory has been maintained that there was a practical division of the business between the East and the West; that the East was to be allowed to supply the manufactured products required in this territory, and that the West was to be allowed to supply the Western produce." 123 It was comparatively easy to apply this principle when the economies of the northeast and northwest were markedly different. Hay, grain, flour, liquor, and livestock from the northwest were generally sent all-rail to the southeast; shoes, textiles, and "notions," typical of the region east of Pittsburgh, were started south by the coastal routes; goods produced in both these areas, like stoves and carriages, had equal rates to southern ports. T h e expansion of middle-western manufacturing; the demand of Chicago, 356 miles nearer Atlanta than was Boston, that she should have lower rates to the South; and the agitation of such routes as the 120 Ibid., I X , 418-420, 444-445, 663-665; Circular Letters way and Steamship Association, I, Circular Letter no. 5. m

Circular

Letters

of the Southern

Railway

&• Steamship

of the Southern Association,

RailXXIII,

573· 122 Circular Letters of the Southern Railway and Steamship Association, I V , appendix, pp. 3 - 7 ; Southern Railway and Steamship Association, Arbitration Proceedings, 1883-1888, pp. 873, 881, 884, 891, 914. 123 Southern Railway and Steamship Association, Arbitration Proceedings, 18831888, Joseph M . B r o w n to Arbitrators, M a r c h 17, 1888.

THE LONGER TRADES

181

Green Line — all jeopardized the original intentions of the Association. For one reason or another this discontent secured little tangible satisfaction. 124 Within this over-all framework Boston occupied a position comparable to hers in trunk-line territory. Rates on her shipments to the South were in general after 1873 the same as those from New York and Philadelphia and over the years these common rates declined. To Atlanta, for instance, Boston freights varied in 1869 from $2.33 a hundred pounds on first-class to $ 1 . 2 0 on fifth. In 1884 they ranged from $ 1 . 1 4 on first-class to 49 cents on sixth. This level, though shattered by occasional rate wars, lasted out the century. 125 On northbound goods, however, Boston paid a differential above New York and Philadelphia. On cotton from Atlanta, for instance, this differential was 35 cents a hundred pounds in 1869; the Southern Railway and Steamship Association cut the figure in 1876 to 10 cents; by 1888 it was reduced to 5. Meanwhile the over-all cotton rates from Atlanta to Boston had fallen from $ 1 . 7 5 to 71 cents a hundred pounds. 126 In the latter year most great producing centers in New England paid 2 cents more. 127 VI Though the friction of disagreement and violation slowed the harmonious operation of the Association and the Interstate Commerce Act handicapped it, 128 though all-rail traffic made great m Freight Bureau of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce v. The Cincinnati, N e w Orleans and Texas Pacific R a i l w a y Company et al., Chicago Freight Bureau v. The Louisville, N e w Albany and Chicago R a i l w a y Company et al., 6 Interstate Commerce Commission, 195; Tenth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. December 1, 1896, pp. 3 0 - 3 1 ; Eleventh Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. December 6, 18(17, PP· 9-16; Circular Letters of the Southern Railway & Steamship Association, X X I I I , 4 - 3 . Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . December 20, 1886, p. 3 5 4 ; Eighth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. December 1, 1894, p. 2 1 ; Fourth Section Violations in the Southeast, 30 Interstate Commerce Commission, 303. 128 Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . December 20, 1886, p. 352, attached table; Circular Letters of the Southern Railway Sr Steamship Association, X X I I I , 85. m Circular Letters of the Southern Railway & Steamship Association, Χ Χ Ι Π ,

"3-125. 128

The Chamber of Commerce of Chattanooga v. The Southern R a i l w a y Com-

I&2

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

inroads and the West shipped more things in greater quantities to southern markets, the "eastern business," for thus the Association described the commerce between northern ports and southern centers, continued to nourish the steamboat lines. Boston sent southward the commodities which had originally inspired her board of trade to advocate the establishment of steam lines to ports below Baltimore — textiles, boots and shoes, groceries, crockery, hardware, provisions, furniture. Her share in this business was not as great as New York's; her totals in 1889 were about a third those of her chief rival. But Boston took comfort from shipments greater than those from Baltimore and nearly equal to those from Philadelphia, cities both much nearer the South than she. 129 Back from the South the coastal steamers brought a good share of the products once transported by sail — rice, naval stores, and tobacco. With the railroads they created trades which sailing vessels with their irregularity and slowness could never master, for example the truck-garden business of Norfolk and points south and the citrus fruit industry of Florida. 1 3 0 Finally the steamboats took over the transportation of cotton. The compressor, more expensive and more powerful than the gin and press, squeezed the former plantation bale into half its size and made for larger cargoes. 131 Through bills of lading from southern interior markets speeded the unbroken flow of the commodity. The deliberate policy of the Southern Railway and Steamship Associapany et al., 1 0 Interstate Commerce Commission, 1 1 9 ; T h e Charlotte Shippers' Association v. The Southern Railway Company, 1 1 Interstate Commerce Commission, III. Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . December zo, 1886, pp. 699-702; Circular Letters of the Southern Railway & Steamship Association, X X I I I , 556—557. 130 B o s t o n Shipping List, J u l y 4, 14, i860; Wertenbaker, Norfolk, pp. 3 1 3 - 3 1 5 ; The Railroad Commission of Florida v. The Savannah, Florida & Western R a i l w a y Company et al., 5 Interstate Commerce Commission, 1 3 ; In the Matter of Alleged Unlawful Charges f o r Transportation of Vegetables from Shipping Points in Florida, 8 Interstate Commerce Commission, 5 9 1 ; Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . December 20, 1886, p. 4 3 1 ; Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 420; Rupert B . Vance, Human Geography of the South. A Study in Regional Resources and Human Adequacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1 9 3 2 ) , pp. 229-230. 181 Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States, p. 64.

THE LONGER

TRADES

183

tion set rates to win for the railroads and their affiliated steamships the most important single commodity of the area. Success was the result. As late as 1909 the commissioner of corporations was declaring, "Cotton moved coastwise is carried for the most part by the regular lines of steamers from the southern ports." 132 The day when sailing vessels brought to Boston all her cotton was long since over. As far as Boston was concerned, the change involved a thorough rearrangement of the cotton-trade pattern. Whereas at midcentury she had imported chiefly by water from New Orleans and the Gulf, by the eighties she drew her cotton from the Atlantic ports of the South, first Norfolk and secondly Savannah. The railroads of the latter cities brought thither cotton from markets as remote as Memphis and Nashville, from the fields of Arkansas, and, nearer at hand, from the plantations and farms of Georgia and the Carolinas where cotton cultivation had been rejuvenated after the Civil War.133 But Boston's cotton trade with the South remained inferior to New York's and she herself often imported, where water carriage was involved, more cotton from New York than from any southern port.134 Though some of these New York shipments came by way of Providence and Fall River, the Metropolitan Steamship Company carried most of them around Cape Cod. The vessels of this outside line had their holds as crammed with cotton as if they had cleared from Dixie, and the General Whitney built cribs to prevent its deckload of bales from shifting.135 Providence and Fall River were other New England textile centers importing their cotton coastwise from the South or from New York City.136 Meanwhile the all-rail movement of cotton to New England 132 Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part II, p. 40. 133 Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . June 30, 1876, appendix, p. 176; Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . December 20, 1886, pp. 93-97; Wertenbaker, Norfolk, pp. 298303; Boston Shipping List and Prices Current, January 1 , 1851. m Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, . . . 1881, P- 99· 131 Boston Shipping List, January 29, 1870. Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part II, p. 41.

I84

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

had begun. In the fifties it was only a premonitory trickle; after the Civil War it grew to full tide. To the flood Georgia and the Carolinas at first made no contribution, "no record having yet been made," said a report on internal commerce in 1876, "of cotton crossing the Potomac River." 1 3 7 Rather the all-rail movement to New England resulted from the extension of railroads or through freight lines from cities above the Ohio River into Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama; and then from the bridging of the Mississippi at St. Louis by James B. Eads in 1874, the construction of railroads into the cotton areas of Arkansas and Texas, and the emergence of St. Louis as a cotton gateway. 138 These lines diverted the tide of cotton from the Gulf ports and even from those of the Atlantic coast. B y the mid-eighties an all-rail transport also began east of the mountains. 139 Though the overland route struck many as unnatural, the Civil War had shattered former marketing arrangements through factors at southern ports and created interior markets to which buyers for northern mills repaired directly. The telegraph gave to the new marketing arrangements the necessary flexibility and quickness of response, through bills of lading were introduced, the carriage of cotton by rail directly to the factory siding avoided transfers and payments of commissions and brought regularity and dependability of supply, cotton compressors enabled a box car to carry nearly twice as many bales as formerly, and the railroads in the West found cotton a good back cargo for the empty cars in which they shipped grain southward through the long season from fall to spring. All-rail rates to interior mills were as low as by rail-water-rail to the same points. 140 B y 1898-1899, 40 per m Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . June 30, 1876, pp. 1 4 1 - 1 4 2 ; Boston Board of Trade. 1859. Fifth Annual Report, p. 144. 138 Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . June 30, 1876, appendix, pp. 158, 176-179; Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States . . . July 1, 1881, pp. 187-189, appendix, pp. 33, 5 1 - 5 2 ; Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . for the Fiscal Year 1881-82, pp. 53-54; Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-1936), V, 588. Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . Submitted May 6, 188s, p. 79. 110 Planters' Compress Company v. Cleveland, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad Company, 1 1 Interstate Commerce Commission, 385; Nimmo, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States, . . . June 30, 1876, appendix, pp. 33-34; The

THE LONGER

TRADES

cent of the crop moving to American markets outside of the South went overland. 141 The resulting repercussions were immense. At New Orleans they helped to explain her declining coasting trade with New England. In Massachusetts they accounted for the declining estate of Boston as cotton entrepot. Cotton now went directly to the mills without bothering with Boston. 142 In so far as she continued her old function as cotton marketer, Boston had to rely upon the railroad. In 1880 the Boston and Albany brought to Boston more cotton than she received by water from New York; the Fitchburg brought more than she imported from Norfolk. 143 From New York to Savannah Boston's steamship lines had been, as we have seen, affiliated or integrated with connecting railroads. Early in the twentieth century the process hastened to a final consummation. Charles W. Morse, the Bath plunger in ice, shipbuilding, and shipping combines, bought the Metropolitan Steamship Company in 1907 and made it a part of his Consolidated Steamship Lines. When the latter sprawling concern fell to pieces, the Metropolitan between New York and Boston and the Eastern Steamship Corporation, controlling the lines down East, were still united. Likewise in 1907 the New York, New Haven and Hartford, far from sated by its absorption of the Sound lines, secured through a subsidiary a substantial interest in the Merchants' and Miners' Transportation Company and in the Boston and Philadelphia Steamship Company, and eventually amalgamated the two. The railroad had a large minority holding in the Eastern Steamship Company. 144 From these universal interrelationships, a later retreat set in. New Orleans Cotton Exchange v. The Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway Company et al., 2 Interstate Commerce Commission, 383; Matth'ew B . Hammond, The Cotton Industry. An Essay in American Economic History (New Y o r k : The Macmillan Company, 1897), pp. 294-300. l u Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States, House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 15, Part 7 (s.n. 3942), p. 2567. 112 The New Orleans Cotton Exchange v. The Illinois Central Railroad et al., 3 Interstate Commerce Commission, 534; Switzler, Report on the Internal Commerce 0} the United States . . . January 30, 18S8, p. 288. 113 Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, . . . 1881, P· 99· lu Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part IV, pp. 22-24, 66-74·

XXI SAIL, STEAM, A N D MEN "After a night's rest, we rose early, and in good time went down to the wharf, and on board the packet New York, for New York. This was the first American steamboat of any size that I had seen; and certainly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat than a huge floating-bath. I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I left as a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size; run away from home; and set up in foreign parts as a steamer." Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures from Italy, pp. 66-67. I Where sailing vessels were in question, the nineteenth century witnessed the final triumph of the schooner in the coastal trades. A t Boston, for instance, its predominance on the list of arrivals had been marked as early as 1835; by mid-century the number of its entrances, 4,351, was over five times that of its nearest rival, the brig, and almost thirty times that of full-rigged ships; and jn 1900 there entered Boston coastwise only three ships, five barks, nine brigantines, three brigs, while the schooner arrivals totaled 2,666. 1 Such a trend certainly demonstrated the schooner's many advantages as a cargo carrier. Though with the wind she might 1 Boston Shipping List, January, 1851; Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce for the Year Ending December 31, 1900, Containing the Charter, By-Laws, and Trade Rules of the Association (Boston: B. Wilkins Company, 1901), pp. 172-173·

SAIL, STEAM, AND

MEN

187

not be as safe or as fast as a square-rigged vessel, when sailing against the wind she could point more sharply into it, since she could haul her booms more closely to the line of her course and did not have so extensive a superstructure and rigging to catch the breeze. Her sails could be shifted far more quickly, a quality peculiarly useful in the narrow waters through which so much of this coasting trade passed. Furthermore her rigging was simpler. To set a main topsail on a square-rigged ship required the simultaneous handling of eleven different lines; on each mast of a schooner the running gear for the principal sail was reduced to three lines. On square-rigged vessels there was a great deal of hard and dangerous labor aloft; on schooners, the mainsails were raised and lowered from the decks and this easier operation was further expedited by the steam winches and capstans introduced on the larger vessels of this type. Again, simpler rigs were easier to maintain, as well as to operate. Schooners, therefore, did not require crews either as large or as highly trained as those on square-rigged vessels. Three-masted schooners went to sea with four or five men in the forecastle; in the great schooners, built at the turn of the century with a tonnage rivaling that of the much glamorized clippers, the crew was from 25 to 55 per cent less than for comparable square-rigged vessels and one-half that of steam vessels. 2 The success of the schooner was due also to the skill with which American designers shaped the vessel to its tasks. They realized that to carry large cargoes with dispatch they must lengthen the hold; they learned from experience that costs did not increase proportionately with size. But a large hold required a larger sail area and two-masted schooners might soon have sails and spars so heavy as to make them man-killers and erase their 'Winthrop L. Marvin, The American Merchant Marine, Its History and Romance from 1620 to 1902 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902), pp. 356, 365-366, 370; Report of the Committee on Merchant Marine on American Merchant Marine in Foreign Trade, House Reports, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 1210 (s.n. 2810), pp. 166-167; Hearings before the Merchant Marine Commission on the American Merchant Marine and Commerce, Senate Reports, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 2755 (s.n. 4757), p. 396; John G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, 1789-1914. An Economic History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), pp. 549-5SI, 554·

l88

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

labor advantages. The Oliver Ames, built in 1866, with a gross tonnage of 456 tons was about as far as such vessels could go.8 The clear escape from such a dilemma was a third mast; its installation cut down the size of the sails and gears on the other masts and cleared the way for a larger vessel. Over the exact origin of this innovation controversy rages, for among other things New Englanders are unwilling to admit that they may perhaps have derived the idea from the three-masted schooners on the Great Lakes; "canal boats under sail" could teach salt-water men nothing. In the 1830's, however, Maine builders had launched a few three-masted schooners with topsails on the foretopmast.4 Once the habit of the two-master had been shaken, the momentum carried them along to mast after mast. In 1880, the William L. White, registered at 996 tons, and capable of carrying 1,450 tons of anthracite, had a fourth mast. Her sail area, 5,017 yards of canvas, was so well divided and cut that five men, two mates, and a captain could handle her.5 Eight years later a Waldoboro builder launched the Governor Ames, 1,788 tons. She soon demonstrated that five-masters were economical and dissipated the conservative fear that "it was time to call a halt in the building of these immense coal schooners. It may be well to ascertain how they will stand the strain of so heavy a cargo." 6 Finally in 1900 with a pride and jubilation that sang of state achievement and tempted providence, a Camden shipbuilder launched the George W. Wells, a schooner of 2,970 tons capable of carrying 5,000 tons of coal, and a Bath yard the Eleanor A. Percy of 3,401. Both were six-masters. The latter, "the largest schooner rigged wooden vessel ever built" up to that time, had wire rigging, her masts were 184 feet tall, and her cabins were "elegant apartments [of] pol* Marvin, The American Merchant Marine, p. 364. ' H o w a r d I. Chapelle, The History of American Sailing Ships (New Y o r k : W . W. Norton & Company, 1935), pp. 258-259, 261; Marvin, The American Merchant Marine, pp. 364-365; George S. Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot. The River and Bay as They Were in the Old Days (Salem: Marine Research Society, 1932), pp. 40-4Ϊ. ' Henry Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry of the United States. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, V I I I , 94. "Brunswick Telegraph, August 27, 1886; Marvin, American Merchant Marine, P· 37°.

SAIL, STEAM, AND

MEN

ished mahogany and quartered oak." Her tonnage and measurements, 323.5 χ 50 χ 24.8, made her larger than any of Donald McKay's square-rigged clippers with the exception of his Great Republic.7 Such schooners were fast. Fifty-two hours were sometimes enough for a passage with full cargo from Newport News to Boston.8 The many high masts with their tall sails sometimes dwarfed the equally important evolution of the hull. To construct ships of such length, capable of carrying heavy cargoes, required hulls of immense strength. Diverging from the English practice of trussing their vessels from frame to frame with iron braces, American builders relied upon heavy timbering. To the keelson, the long timber brace above the keel and inside the frames, was added a sister keelson and in the six-masters a whole family of sisters. The Eleanor A. Percy had a seven-tier keelson, braced with a sheet of steel, and the keelson of the George W. Wells, 13J/2 feet high, extended to the beams of the lower deck. The vessel's ceiling, that is, the boarding inside the frames, was extraordinarily heavy. Even before the five-masters, the ceiling at the turn of the bilge was a strip of squared logs ten or twelve inches thick.9 This massiveness did not solve everything. The huge schooners sprang leaks and were kept afloat only by their powerful pumps. Decay set in early and accident disclosed their tenderness.10 Since they were bulk carriers, the schooner hulls were not sharp or V-shaped in cross section; they were comparatively flat-bottomed. The large, strong timbered vessels had enough weight to keep them down in the water and to prevent them from sliding sidewise when sailing to windward. To enable lighter schooners, ' Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, 1900, pp. 5 1 - 5 2 , 5 6 - 5 7 ; Bureau of Navigation, Treasury Department, Thirty-third Annual List of the Merchant Vessels of the United States . . . for the Year Ending June jo, igoi, pp. 50, 73; Samuel E . Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts 1783-1860 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1 9 2 1 ) , pp. 3 6 1 - 3 6 3 . * Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries, p. 555. * Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, p. 67; Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics . . . of Maine, 1900, pp. 52, 57. 10 Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, pp. 207-209.

190

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

lacking this advantage, to hold their course steady under similar circumstances, builders installed a centerboard which the vessel, when it left shoal waters, lowered through a slot cut in the keel or beside it. This device, first used by schooners in the river trades, was now applied to very large vessels; the Governor Ames, a five-master, had a centerboard 35 feet long which dropped 14 feet. In the accompanying controversy between naval architects over the seaworthiness of centerboard schooners, one advocate of centerboards emphasized the strength given to the vessel by the centerboard box and the blended benefits of sailing shoal waters and holding a course in the wind. He concluded, " T h e deep centerboarders . . . were probably the most satisfactory coasting schooners ever built." 1 1 On the other hand, the centerboard increased the cost of construction and preempted valuable cargo space. T h e great schooners, in spite of the delight their size inspires, did not engross New England's coasting trade. T h e schooner fleet was of all sizes. In 1900, for instance, the Maine yards built thirty-six "small schooners" and sloops and thirty-one threemasters or more. Vessels in the latter classification ranged in size from the giant Eleanor A. Percy to the W. R. Perkins of 143 tons. Their average net tonnage was 1,21s. 1 2 the same year the schooners entering Boston harbor from the South had an average gross tonnage of 584, while the average for those entering from the East was 115. 1 3 The first figure, although it is not as large as the typical three-master, reflects the participation of the great schooners in the longer trades; the second figure represents the continuance of the decentralized small-scale traffics generally characteristic of N e w England's down East. " C h a p e l l e , History of American Sailing Ships, pp. 259-260, 263, 270-272; W . P. Stephens, "The Centerboard — Its Influence on Design, Its Value, and Its Proper Use," Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, I I I (1895), 19-22. 13Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics . . . of Maine, 1900, p. 47. 13 Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce . . . 1900, p. 171.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

191

II Within New England itself, New Englanders could build and buy the wooden vessels for their coasting trades. The region's shipbuilding industry, as old as colonial days, almost as early as Plymouth Rock, was favored at least until the end of the fifties by the availability of its raw materials, the trained skills of craftsmen and designers, and the comfortable continuance of an occupation long mastered. The industry was a dispersed one. Connecticut towns, particularly along the river from Saybrook to Hartford, Cape Cod and the South Shore ports, places north of Boston and along the Merrimack, a hundred ports in New Hampshire and in Maine — all these built the sloops and the small schooners which were the coasters of the pre-Civil-War era. For the longer trades, particularly those to the cotton entrepots, New Englanders constructed larger vessels, barques and ships. A voyage to the South was an ocean voyage and the bulky, light cargoes of cotton required a specialized type, the cotton ship. Such carriers must be able to navigate the shoal waters of the Mississippi below New Orleans and, if they could be fashioned to avoid the higher registry charges upon large vessels, it was all to the good. The result was a deep flat-bottomed hold that bulged at the water line and then narrowed into the deck with slanting top sides. Builders at East Boston, Kennebunk, and Bath were skillful designers of such "kettle bottoms." Hardly objects of swift beauty, these powerful, commodious, bluff-bowed carriers, with other types in the same business, constituted in 1852 55 per cent of the nation's tonnage enrolled for the coastwise trade. 14 After the Civil War the New England shipbuilding industry was no longer a regional but a state industry. Connecticut built barges, Rhode Island fashioned yachts, and Massachusetts sank into such oblivion that a commentator observed in 1880, " I t is in Massachusetts, taking the state as a whole, that the decay of American ship-building is most apparent." 1 5 Capitalists put their funds into " Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 64-66; Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, January 1, 1878 (Boston: James F. Cotter & Co., 1878), pp. 19-20; Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries, p. 265. " H a l l , Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 1 1 2 , 1 1 3 .

192

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

railroads and industry; ship carpenters scattered to the factories. 18 But Maine, which had seized leadership in shipbuilding before the Civil War, remained. Though her original resources of white pine and oak did not prove as unlimited as boosters had boasted, Maine builders discovered that for most purposes spruce, birch, and maple were "just as good" and that they could import from elsewhere the specialized lumber they needed. B y 1900 the state was drawing from Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, and even Ohio, the oak for frames, from the pineries of Michigan and Oregon the sticks for main masts, from Georgia and Florida the hard, durable pitch pine for planking, ceiling, and keelsons, and from N e w Brunswick the odd, wry shapes of hackmatack for knees. 17 T h e George W. Wells alone required 550 tons of white oak, 1,000,000 feet of hard, and 100,000 feet of white pine. 18 Although railroads by the twentieth century played a large role, the coasting trade had usually brought Maine-ward these piles of lumber. Indeed the builders of Bath, who had turned southward for timbers as early as 1838, often dispatched their vessels on a maiden voyage to a southern port with lower decks unplanked; these unfinished carriers brought back cargoes of yellow pine to build more vessels to send on more such errands. 19 T h e use of inferior woods joined with the larger size of wooden vessels to shorten the life of New England sailing craft. The dwindling resources of Maine and the necessity of timber importations increased the prices of ship lumber. 20 Maine, nonetheless, retained her industry, for her builders could pay lower wages than elsewhere. In the seaport towns artiIbid., p. 108. "Ibid., pp. 99, 102. " M o n t h l y Summary of Commerce and Finance. July 1900, House Documents, 56 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 15 (s.n. 4129), p. 1397. " H e n r y W . Owen, The Edward Clarence Plummer History of Bath Maine (Bath: The Times Company, 1936), p. 189; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water in the United States, Part II, p. 38; Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, p. : 6 i . " Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 207; Report on the Causes of Reduction of American Tonnage, House Reports, 41 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 28 (s.n. 1436), pp. 108, 140; George W. Rice, The Shipping Days of Old Boothbay from the Revolution to the World War with Mention of Adjacent Towns (Portland: Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1938), pp. 70-71. 18

SAIL, STEAM, AND MEN

193

sans and workers were experienced in the craft and, unlike Massachusetts, the easy alternative of factory employment was not close at hand. Indeed the undifferentiated economy of this primitive New England state cushioned the frequent depressions of this most vacillating of industries for at such moments shipyard workers turned naturally to farming and fishing. Finally, the costs and risks of the occupation were often devolved upon workers and sub-contractors. The former were sometimes paid lump sums proportioned to the price the vessel brought, and at Bath carpenters, joiners, calkers supplied their own tools. Specialized tasks, blacksmithing, sailmaking, and blockmaking were let to contractors who provided the expensive equipment required, hired the workers, and received for their responsibilities only a few dollars more per day than the wage earners under them. 21 After the boom of the seventies the shipbuilding industry exhibited a tendency toward rapid concentration within Maine itself. Though at many a cove or shingly beach fishermen continued to put together their own boats, and at ports with a small yard and a few skilled workmen small vessels, generally for neighborhood ownership, slid down the ways, commercial shipbuilding had largely retreated to Waldoboro, the five Penobscot towns of Thomaston, Rockland, Belfast, Camden, and Bucksport, and to Bath. This was the picture at the century's end. 22 Of these centers Bath was the most important. Christened "the principal ship-building town of the United States," she built in the eighties, the most prosperous decade for wooden shipbuilding, 346 vessels — 245 were schooners — of an aggregate tonnage of 233,398. 23 Her yards bordered the safe, deep waters of the lower Kennebec; her builders had been enterprising enough to introduce the limited machinery used in the industry — derricks, the bevel saw, the bolt cutters — and they organized their large labor " Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 96, 1 0 3 ; Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1889, pp. 79-91, IOO-IOI. "Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics . . . of Maine, 1900, p. 46. 23 Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 1 0 1 - 1 0 3 ; Owen, History of Bath, p. 244; Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine. 1896, p. 104.

194

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

force, about 2,000 workers, efficiently. She also had at hand the foundries and later the machine shops to manufacture the engines, pumps, capstans, and winches which were the necessary equipment for large schooners. The capital for this innovation and expansion came not only from the profitable sale of ships but also from their operation, for at Bath there was a long tradition for the union of the two functions. Before the Civil War the famous families of the town built and ran vessels in the cotton trade; after the Civil War the ice trade of the Kennebec facilitated a continuation, though on a more limited scale, of the same practice.24 Among the nation's owners of large sailing fleets in 1907 were the Bath shipbuilding firms, Percy and Small and Arthur Sewall and Company. The former partnership owned ten vessels, all but two of which were schooners of over 1,500 tons. 25 The advantages of joining shipbuilding and ship ownership were stated by one of these gentry, " T h e y could not afford to buy ships, and therefore they built them. They could not afford to pay another man to build ships for them, and therefore they built them for themselves." 26 Clearly such brusquely stated economies were not decisive, since a more usual method of ownership was for the shipbuilder or shipmerchant to own a share in the vessel, perhaps one-half, while his relatives and friends provided the rest of the capital. Or the traditional ship shares — sixteenths, thirtyseconds, and sixty-fourths — might be widely distributed among "all the parish. Sometimes the joiner has an interest; sometimes the calker, the blacksmith, the farmer, and the trader" and, it might be added, widows, orphans, and retired sea-captains. Such a vessel was "loaded down with shares." 27 Throughout the late nineteenth century, however, the trend was away from these methods of ownership and management and toward the assembling of large fleets under managing owners or shipping houses. Such firms, partnerships or corporations, collected their capital from their own resources or from the sale of 21

Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 101, 102. Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I, pp. 208, 209. M House Reports, 41 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 28, p. 1 1 5 . "Ibid., pp. 145-146. 25

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

shares, placed orders with shipbuilders, employed the crew and officers — dispensing incidentally with ownership participation b y masters — secured charters for the vessels under their control, and recompensed themselves either as owners or by broker's commissions from other owners. Their fleets might number thirty to fifty vessels. 28

Vessel ownership by the producers of the cargo

they carried, though there were illustrations in the quarrying and lime trade, was comparatively rare. 29 Though data are not available to demonstrate the comparative earning efficiency of various methods of ownership, sailing vessels in the coasting trade were in 1 8 8 9 earning profits. In the Portland district from Eastport to Portsmouth they netted $ 2 , 5 4 8 , 9 7 5

on a gross business of

$9,846,292 and in the Boston district, which included Rhode Island, $ 1 , 7 9 3 , 2 8 7 on a business of $ 7 , 0 2 3 , 6 6 8 .

T h e net earnings

in both districts were approximately 1 8 per cent on the valuation of their enrolled sailing vessels. 30

Ill " T h e general impression which an English shipbuilder receives from his first view of an American river steamer, must always be startling. H e is only conscious of beholding a large white moving house, two black chimneys, a network of iron rods and stays, and a queer-looking wabbling lever in the centre of the object, and he only discovers, after some examination and study, that this phenomenon is a river steamboat, the result of years of experience, and a striking example of the best possible application 28

H u t c h i n s , The American

Maritime

Industries,

p p . 549, 5 5 3 ; House

Reports,

41 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 28, p. 129; House Reports, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 1210, p. 166; Senate Reports, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 2755, p. 526. 28 Sixteenth Annual Report oj the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, J902, p . 2 7 ; C y r u s M . T r a c y a n d Others, Standard History of Essex County, Massachusetts. Embracing a History of the County from Its First Settlement to the Present Time, with a History and Description of Its Towns and

Cities (Boston: C. F. Jewett & Company, 1878), p. 354; D. H. Hurd, ed., History of Essex

County,

Massachusetts,

with Biographical

Sketches

of Many

of Its

Pio-

neers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J . W. Lewis & Co., 1888), II, 1380, 1382. 80 H e n r y C . A d a m s , Report on Transportation Business in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Part II. — Transportation by Water, p p . 1 6 , 3 7 .

196

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

of means to end." 31 So observed N . S. Russell, an English engineer who had visited this country and who in this passage was instructing his countrymen and his colleagues in the engineering features of America. While the generalized description here quoted applied well enough to steamboats on the western waters, plans of the Long Island Sound steamer, Commonwealth, illustrated his article and his appreciative narrative of her details was as true for the down-East coastal steamers of N e w England as for those of the Hudson River and Long Island Sound. 32 Like the sailing vessel, these coasting steamers had to conform to the discipline of shallow harbors and of land-locked and open waters; unlike the sailing vessel, they had generally to meet the demand for mass transportation of passengers who were taught to insist upon speed and luxury. T o meet these varied conditions American builders built a hull with a flat bottom and a keel projecting only a few inches below it; the hulls were long in proportion to their beam. This underbody was so skillfully modeled that the perpendicular cut-water at the acute-angled bow hardly disturbed the water, — "twelve inches in front of their bows it is a perfectly smooth and untroubled surface" — and the lines of the run were so fine that "there is little or no commotion at the stern." 33 On these eastern steamboats, builders covered the paddle wheels at the side with houses to prevent the splashing of the vessel and almost at once protected wheels and their houses by heavy guards, which tapered off from this extreme width toward stem and stern. A deck, supported by cross beams and struts, was then built to the edge of the guards. T h e resulting lozenge-shaped platform formed the main deck. B y widening the vessel these architectural innovations increased the usable space. 34 In the sixties Russell noted that guards broadened a vessel of 36 feet to one of 70 and, on the " N o r m a n S. Russell, "On American River Steamers," Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, I I (1861), 106. "Ibid., p. 126, plates I X , Χ , X I . " D a v i d Stevenson, Sketch of the Civil Engineering of North America (London: John Weale, 1859), pp. 77-78, 90. " H . W. Dickinson, Robert Fulton. Engineer and Artist. His Life and Works (London, John Lane, 1913), pp. 3 I 4 - 3 i S ·

Bow View of the Commonwealth (1854) Norwich Stonington Lines

[ 197 ]

198

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Commonwealth, built for the Fall River line, in 1906-1908, the beam of 55 feet was increased at each side by 19 feet 8 inches through the overhang of the guards. Builders and operators soon detected additional advantages. Freight stored on the ampler deck did not have to be lowered or raised from the hold; boilers placed in an "unnatural" position on the guards were thought in case of explosion less likely to injure the passengers; and the broad superstructure rising above the widened base of the main deck gave space for a double row of cabins and the spacious saloons and parlors demanded by the American public. 35 T h a t guards with cabins built above them could hardly double as life savers in collision or explosions is a contradiction hard to assimilate. These long, shallow vessels with their high superstructures were of wooden construction. Among other things, the rapidity of their technical advance made it folly to construct too durable a vessel. " A few years ago I asked the builders of steamboats for the North River why they made their vessels so fragile. T h e y announced that, as it was, the boats would perhaps last too long because the art of steam navigation was making daily progress. As a matter of fact the vessels, which steamed at 8 or 9 miles an hour, could no longer a short time afterwards sustain competition with others whose construction allowed them to make 12 to 15." 36 Though such steamers were "contemptibly flimsy," they had to be strong enough to support the heavy weight of boilers and engines and rigid enough to keep the parts of the machinery in line. T o the problem of reconciling lightness with strength, Robert L. Stevens, New Jerseyite, son of a distinguished inventor and in his own right one of the greatest of American steamboat engineers, supplied a solution in 1827 by his North America. He placed lengthwise, within the guards, two wooden trusses somewhat reminiscent of the bridge trusses of the era. These hog frames, often protruding from the superstructure of the vessel and sometimes higher than it, gave the necessary stiffness to the boat. T h e y also "Russell, "On American River Steamers," pp. 107-108; Warren T . Berry and J. H. Gardner, "The Steamer Commonwealth," Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, X V I (1908), 231. M George W. Pierson, Tocqueville and Beaumont in America (New Y o r k : Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 645.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

199

served as anchorages for the iron struts which helped support the heavy guards. The masts, stepped in the multiple keelsons, were also anchorages for a network of cables and braces to the guards, the bow and the stern. The engine was mounted on the broad base of a wooden pyramid the apex of which provided the central bearing for the walking beam. An American steamboat was an aggregate of nicely balanced tensions. 37 As the years passed the coastal steamer added stories. Though the men's cabin, "as long as the Burlington Arcade," remained in the hold, the ladies' cabin moved up to the main deck to the rear of the enclosed space housing the boilers and engines, the fuel bunkers, and the freight. Above was the saloon or promenade deck. Between its open areas at bow and stern were the staterooms where passengers could sleep in privacy and comfort. 38 Staterooms, which appeared on Long Island steamboats in the twenties, made their way even on this sophisticated thoroughfare with slowness, for a cabin berth gave cheapness and sociability. 39 As late as 1855 when the Commonwealth was placed upon the N e w Y o r k - A l l y n ' s Point run, her 125 staterooms excited notice as "an unusual number," and the majority of her passengers evidently preferred the common cabins, for the vessel had "the most comfortable sleeping arrangements for the repose of six hundred passengers." 40 T h e staterooms surrounded the stateroom hall or saloon of which the length and magnificence were symbols of whether the vessel had reached the "acme of perfection." In the Commonwealth the furniture was "substantial and rich and includes many pieces of original design." 41 Above the saloon deck was the hurricane deck. On it were the pilot house, perhaps some " R u s s e l l , "On American River Steamers," pp. 110-114; Robert H. Thurston, A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine (New Y o r k : D. Appleton and Company, 1902), p. 273; Stevenson, Sketch of the Civil Engineering, pp. 77-78. 38 Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures from Italy (London: M a c millan and Company, 1893), p. 67; Russell, "On American River Steamers," pp. 107-108; Stevenson, Sketch of the Civil Engineering, pp. 77-78. "" Francis B. C. Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation in New England," Essex Institute Historical Collections, L V (1919), 186-187. 40 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X X I I (1855), 771— 772. aIbid., 771-772.

200

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

additional cabins for crew or passengers, and a promenade. Such was the "ne plus ultra" of the fifties.42 The steamers after the Civil War soon outmoded this earlier magnificence. Much larger, they made it possible to double the length of the saloon deck and raise the hurricane deck so as to insert beneath it another tier of staterooms, reached on the inside from a gallery. This was the gallery deck. Saloons now gloried in a domed skylight. The dining room left the hold, occupied the space of the ladies' cabin on the main deck, or moved to higher levels. 43 Gas, which had been installed for illumination on the Atlantic in 1846, was joined by electricity in the early eighties on Long Island Sound and soon after on the routes down-East. 44 Even in a primitive day toilet facilities had been better than on land. Passengers on the Atlantic, for instance, could enjoy "warm or cold, fresh or salt water, shower or plunge baths." 45 B y century's end there was running water in the staterooms. Since traveling was more than movement, furniture and silver maker, carpenter and drapery designer, decorator and architect were summoned to provide an environment of splendor as an escape from humdrum living. The Fall River's Puritan in 1889 certainly belied her frugal name. "There are capacious gangways, grand and imposing staircases, heavy with brass and mahogany, lofty cornices, and ceilings supported by tasteful pilasters, the tapering columns of which, in relief, flank exquisitely tinted paneling throughout the length of her grand and minor saloons. And over all this artistic work and exuberant coloring, the incandescent electric light sheds its soft rays." 46 Wooden steam vessels constantly grew larger. T h e construction in 1816 of the Chancellor Livingston, which sailed at one time or another routes on the Sound, down East, and along the Hudson, put a term to the early experimental period of steamboating. She had a gross tonnage of 496 and measured 157 χ Russell, "On American River Steamers," p. 108. " " T h e Steamer Pilgrim," Scientific American, XLVIII (1883), 402. 44Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X V (1846), 324; "The Steamer Pilgrim," p. 402. 45Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X V (1846), 324. " " T h e New Steel Steamer Puritan," Scientific American, L X (1889), 388. 42

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

201

33' 6 " χ 10' 3". She amazed contemporaries accustomed to merchantmen two hundred tons lighter. 47 F i f t y years later the Bristol and Providence, vessels eventually placed on the Fall River line, were of 2,962 gross tonnage, a figure which the great schooners did not attain for three decades, and measured 360 χ 48 χ ιό. 4 8 Though vessels of iron had greater buoyancy and durability and more cargo space in proportion to their size, and were less vulnerable in wreck or fire, the cheapness of wooden construction retarded the adoption of the superior material. Nonetheless experimentation with iron began. In 1844 the Bangor, "the first iron-hull steam vessel in the United States built for coasting service," was launched for the Boston-Bangor route. 49 Small, only 212 gross tons, she demonstrated one of the advantages of iron, for after she caught fire on her second voyage and was beached and gutted, she was repaired and placed again in operation. T w o years later the government bought her for use in the Mexican War. 5 0 She had no immediate successor. Through the fifties, shipyards instead of building all-iron vessels usually experimented with modifications of the conventional wooden hull. T h e "queenly" and "most remarkable" Metropolis, placed upon the Fall River run in 1855 — "undoubtedly the largest boat now running" — patterned her construction after the contemporary Collins Line trans-Atlantic steamers. Diagonal iron braces made a lattice work between her wooden frames, and the braced ship timbers were carried to the level of the saloon deck. T h e Metropolis dispensed with the hog frame. 51 Harrison Loring in building the Massachusetts and South Carolina for the Boston-Charleston route and the Merrimac and Mississippi for the Boston-New " M a r v i n , The American Merchant Marine, p. 361; John H. Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation (New Y o r k : W. F. Sametz & Co., 1903), p. 42. " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, p. 308; F. B. C. Bradlee, "Old American Sound and Coasting Steamers," International Marine Engineering, XVII (1912), 144. " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, p. 395. " A n n u a l Report of the Commissioner of Navigation for the Fiscal Y e a r Ended June 30, 1899, House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, Part 1 (s.n. 3940), p. 219; Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," pp. 266-269. 51 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X X I I (1855), 382383, X X X I I I (1855), 243.

202

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Orleans run provided another variant in large vessels, for all four were composites with iron hulls and upper works of wood. 52 Generally the long trades pushing south from New England along an exposed shore were the first to adopt iron vessels. In 1859 and i860 the Merchants' and Miners' bought two iron ships, a few years later the first colliers of the Philadelphia and Reading were iron, and the Metropolitan line in 1873 placed the General Whitney, an iron vessel, on its route around Cape Cod. 53 Toward the end of that decade, as the iron industry of the nation lowered prices on iron plate, the shorter routes contracted for iron vessels. On Long Island Sound the Fall River line, as usual, assumed the credit of pioneering. Although the City of Lawrence had been built of iron for the New London route as early as 1867, the Fall River's Pilgrim of 1882 succeeded in annexing the soubriquet of the "Iron Monarch of the Sound" and persuading contemporaries that she was an innovator. Before the decade was out, her sister ship, the Puritan, was a steel vessel. 54 T h e change to metal hulls came more slowly in the down-East runs. A s late as the midnineties the Portland Steam Packet Company commissioned practically twin boats, the Portland and the Bay State, wooden vessels of 2,211 tons. 55 After the loss of the Portland with all on board in the famous northeast gale of 1898, the company replaced it with a steel-hull propeller. These iron or steel vessels were larger than the largest of their wooden predecessors. The gross tonnage of the City of Lowell, on the Stonington route, was 2,975, of the Governor Dingley for Portland 3,826, and of the Priscilla, the Fall River leviathan of 1894, 5,292. 56 EHouse Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, Part 1, pp. 217-218; Boston Board of Trade. 1862. Eighth Annual Report of the Government, Presented to the Board at the Annual Meeting, on the 15th January, 1862 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1862), pp. 49-50. 53House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, Part 1, pp. 219, 220; Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, p. 403. 54House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, Part 1, p. 220; "The Steamer Pilgrim," p. 402; "The New Steel Steamer Puritan," p. 388; Roger W . McAdam, The Old Fall River Line Being An Account of the World Renowned Steamship Line with Comments on Romantic Events and Persons During Its Ninety Years of Daily Service (Brattleboro: Stephen Daye Press, 1937), p. 59. K Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," p. 194. " Thirty-third Annual List of Merchant Vessels . . . 1901, pp. 222, 246, 292.

SAIL,

STEAM,

AND

MEN

203

Although the Bangor had added to her iron hull a new means of propulsion, the propeller, the larger iron steamers of a later day did not at once follow her example. Their continued devotion to the paddle wheel was not due so much to the tradition of the Clermont as to the continued evolution of the device itself. Its prime defect, that the paddles or buckets slapped the stream as they entered it and lifted water as they left, was partially met by increasing the diameter of the wheel and thus enabling the paddles to enter and leave the water in an approximately vertical position. While the Clermont had wheels four feet in diameter, the Pilgrim had wheels of forty-one. 57 In order to obviate a series of blows as the buckets dipped, R. L . Stevens, a pioneer here as elsewhere, arranged that the wheel be "sawn into three parts in planes perpendicular to its axis. Each of the two additional wheels that are thus formed, is then moved back until their paddles divide the intervals of the paddles on the original wheel into three equal parts. In this form the shock of each paddle is diminished to one-third of what it is in the usual shape of the wheel; they are separated by less intervals of time, and hence approach more nearly to a constant resistance." 68 Stevens also perfected a feathering paddle wheel whereby the buckets, instead of being rigidly attached to the radial spokes of the wheel, were each mounted upon an independent axis, and each was so rocked b y rods from an eccentric on the paddle wheel shaft as to enter and leave the water vertically. Wheels of this variety were smaller and driven more rapidly. 59 Vessels driven b y paddle wheels, said their advocates, could be swiftly maneuvered and quickly stopped in crowded waters and, coupled with inclined engines, run with an absence of vibration delighting their passengers. So closely interlocked with the evolution of the hull were paddle wheels that the discarding of the latter would mean profound modifications of the wide-sweeping guards, with their superstructure of cabins, and the deepening of " H a l l , Report on the Ship-Building Industry, p. 147; "The Steamer Pilgrim," p. 402. 88 Stevenson, Sketch of the Civil Engineering, pp. 83-84. " T h u r s t o n , A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, p. 271; Berry and Gardner, "The Steamer Commonwealth," p. 233.

204

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the shallow holds characteristic of the coasting vessels. Such considerations continued to dictate architectural policy on the Fall River line as late as the twentieth century. 60 On most other routes the propeller had triumphed. It had the immense theoretical advantage of operating in a stream of water already set in motion by the vessel and thus harnessing to the vessel's progress some of the energy otherwise dissipated; these advantages were by midcentury made plain, if not by the first inventors, b y improvers, engine builders, and partisans of the screw. 61 T h e propeller's advance into the N e w England coasting trades is described later in connection with the new engines with which its adoption was closely interlocked. IV Of the power plant of American river and coastal steamboats, N . S. Russell commented in 1861, " T h e American steamboat engine has long been a subject of wonder to the English engineer. It is ugly, straggling, and inconvenient-looking; its incompactness, want of snugness, and economy of room make it the reverse of everything we think good in a steamboat engine." On familiarity and examination Russell was finally satisfied "that it is cheaper in construction, lighter in weight, more economical in management, less costly in repair, more durable, and better suited for high speed, than any of our engines would be." 62 The object of this sweeping encomium was the single-cylinder condensing engine with a long stroke, employing steam at low pressures. When Russell wrote, engines of this type had powered New England coasting vessels for over thirty years; they were to maintain their primacy for twenty more. 63 In shallow coasting vessels these power plants were not in the hold but were assembled on the " L e t t e r of J. W. Miller, Vice-President of the New England Navigation Company, New York Times, July 13, 1908; Berry and Gardner, "The Steamer Commonwealth," pp. 231, 244-246. " Charles H. Cramp, "Evolution of Screw Propulsion in the United States," Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, X V I I I (1910), 55; Thurston, A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 292-298. "Russell, "On American River Steamers," p. 114. 68 Charles H. Fitch, Report on Marine Engines and Steam Vessels in the United States Merchant Service, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, X X I I , 23, 25, So.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

205

main deck. There were the boilers and the cylinder. In shallow vessels also it was easier to transmit a long stroke from the cylinder to the paddle wheel through vertical, rather than horizontal arrangements. A connecting rod from the piston led to the walking beam above the deck and a rod from the other end of the beam ran to a crank on the paddle-wheel shaft. " T h e walking beam engine," wrote Russell, was "the only one which imposes no restraint on the engineer with regard to length of stroke or character of wheel." 64 Though in its material, shape, and size the walking beam had its own evolution, the evolution of the boilers and cylinders was more important. Since neither scientific knowledge about the behavior of steam nor practical skill in its management was much advanced in the early nineteenth century, a considerable period of experimentation was required to determine the proper construction and operation of boilers. It was a period of hazard. Though boiler makers early realized they could raise more steam by increasing the boiler's surface by a flue, which carried through the boiler itself the heated air and gases from the rear of the furnace to a chimney at its front, they had little knowledge of the proper shape or süpport for the flues. Such were often grotesquely formed and inadequately braced. 65 When iron boilers, particularly those using salt water, accumulated thick deposits which diminished the efficiency of the boiler and exposed the metal to weakening from the fire, builders hit upon copper, which was less subject to corrosion, and owners and public pressures compelled its adoption in spite of the greater expense. Primitive gauges and safety valves subject to disrepair and rust, water pumps which failed to keep boilers full since they ran only when the engine did, engineers who didn't know that a flow from trial cocks measured only "foaming" water and not the actual level in the boiler — all these contributed additional hazards. 66 Providentially the steam pressure on the New England boats was generally low. On the Sound routes the aver" Russell, "On American River Steamers," p. 114. Fitch, Report on Marine Engines, p. 51. " L e t t e r from the Secretary of the Treasury Transmitting Information on Steam Engines, House Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 21 (s.n. 34s), pp. 78-80, 426-434, 469-470· 65

206

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

age pressure in 1824-1828 was seven pounds; by 1834-1838 it was eighteen. In their low pressures the eastern steamboats followed the Fulton pattern. Comparatively speaking such engines were economical of fuel and vibrationless. 67 Low pressures, however, did not prevent the boilers of New England steamboats from exploding, and the detonations from similar catastrophes in New Y o r k harbor and along the Hudson were close enough to stir pity, fear, and questions in N e w England. A cluster of such disasters began in 1827 when a flue in the boiler of the Oliver Ellsworth on the N e w York-Hartford run collapsed and three people were scalded to death. The next year the high-pressure engine of the Barnet, a steamer built for the upper Connecticut, exploded while she was passing through Long Island Sound; one death resulted. In 1830 the boiler of the United States, New York-New Haven, blew up as the vessel passed Blackwell's Island and nine lost their lives. 68 T h e climax came on October 9, 1833. T h e New England, en route from N e w Y o r k to Hartford, was working its way up the Connecticut River. Within a few seconds after debarking a passenger at a way stop, "both boilers were torn asunder at the same instant, and portions of the flues and shell were thrown in different directions," some on shore. " T h e boilers were on the guards, and so tremendous was the concussion, that the guard-beams, planks, braces, and knees were taken off close to the hull, leaving the boat almost a wreck." Fifteen people were killed; ten were injured. 69 Since the builders had placed the boilers on the guards, a presumably safe location, and the Connecticut River Steamboat Company, already chastened by the explosion on the Oliver Ellsworth, had insisted that the New England's boilers should be of copper, the owners of the shattered vessel were genuinely bewildered by their misfortune. T o investigate its causes, they appointed a board of five distinguished members, headed by Benjamin Silliman, "Professor Chemistry, &c., Y a l e College." 70 Contemporaneously a commit67 Memorial' of a N u m b e r of Citizens of N e w Y o r k , Senate Documents, 26 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 113 ( s . n . 3 7 7 ) , pp. 4 - 6 . 08 House Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 21, p p . 7 1 - 7 3 , 399, 403,

40S.

M

Ibid.,

pp. 76, 403.

m

Ibid.,

p p . 455, 4 7 i -

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

207

tee of the Franklin Institute was investigating the "truth or falsity of the various causes assigned for the explosions of steamboilers." 7 1 The reports of both committees dissipated the notions that explosions were due to the sudden generation of extreme pressures, the formation of gases in the boiler, or to the admixture of cold water into superheated steam. Rather the gradual accumulation of a high pressure which the safety valve, often out of repair, failed to relieve was the usual cause of boiler explosions. Curiously shaped flues, copper, less strong than iron when heated, the careless overheating of the boilers at low water levels, the failure to blow through the cocks the encrusted deposits—all these reduced the strength of boilers to a point where they could not withstand the pressures for which they were theoretically built. 72 Such explantations naturally did not satisfy simplifiers like the collector of customs at Fall River who in response to a question on the "most general causes" of boiler explosions replied: "Answer. The use of ardent spirits on board steamboats, and the negligence of the engineer in letting the water get too low in the boiler: which causes the steam to rise in the same proportion as the water gets low." 73 T o such minds sleep often joined drink as a cause of negligence in engineers. With the air cleared of notions, construction and practice became standardized. Steamboat owners discarded copper boilers for iron ones. For awkward flues machine shops substituted the return multi-tubular boiler compounded of a series of cylindrical tubes, securely braced in the wrought-iron boiler heads. 74 Rather than building boilers too large, their number was increased. Though the standard form was a battery of two boilers "set right and left," the Metropolis of the fifties had four; the " " R e p o r t of Experiments Made by the Committee of the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania, on the Explosion of Steam-Boilers," Journal of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, X V I I (1836), 1. 72 House Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 21, pp. 466-471; "Report of Experiments Made by the Committee of the Franklin Institute," Journal of the Franklin Institute, X V I I (1836), 1-20, 73-92, 145-164, 217-233, 289-298, X V I I I (1836), 217-232, 289-306, 361-375. nHouse Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 21, p. 56. ™ Fitch, Report on Marine Engines, pp. 50-51; Thurston, A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 275-276.

208

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Pilgrim in the early eighties had twelve in "nests" of three each athwartship; and the Puritan, later in the same decade, had eight boilers. T h e apparatus was still designed for low pressures. T h e "full working pressure" on the Metropolis was twenty-five pounds; immediately after the Civil W a r the Bristol and the Providence had the same maximum; the census of 1880 observed of the large coastal vessels of N e w England that the pressures seldom went above thirty pounds; the Pilgrim, three years later, had a maximum of fifty.75 Like their land brethren, the locomotives, the steamboats first used pine wood for fuel. Since twenty-five to thirty cords were consumed on a voyage of 145 miles, wood piles were everywhere — i n the engine room and on the guards and the decks. 78 When this marine woodyard was still insufficient, as on the run to Providence, the steamboats picked up a wood sloop at Fisher's Island and took on their fuel without losing way. 7 7 Once again R. L . Stevens pointed the way of escape. A s early as 1818 he fitted a vessel to burn anthracite and less than a decade later he provided the North America with the essential forced blast. 78 Lengthening the stacks also aided the draft, made the fires hotter—and helped to wear out the boilers. 79 B y the mid-thirties even the remote down-East runs were trying coal. Since the new fuel occupied less space than wood, the vessel had more room for passengers and cargo. Furthermore improvements in engines and boilers continually effected new economies in the use of coal. In the best marine steam plants in 1840 six pounds of coal per hour per horsepower was the average consumption. In i860 the figure was four. 80 Although in the New England merchant marine the explosion of boilers was not followed by the burning of the vessel to the water's " Fitch, Report on Marine Engines, p. 50; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X X I I I (1855), 243; "The Steamer Pilgrim," p. 402; "The New Steel Steamer Puritan," p. 388. " F r a n c i s Anthony Chevalier de Gerstner, "Letters from the United States of North America on Internal Improvements," Journal of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, X X V I I (1841), 76-77. " R o b e r t G. Albion, The Rise of New York Port 1815-1860 (New Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939), p. 159. " T h u r s t o n , A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 272-273. "Russell, "On American River Steamers," p. 118. " F i t c h , Report on Marine Engines, p. 43.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

209

MEN

edge, the material of wooden vessels invited conflagration and their construction plan aided it. Since the housing for the boilers and engines at the center of the boat ran unbroken from the main to the top deck, it served as a flue for the flames. Theoretically a fire partition walled off this dangerous area from the rest of the vessel unless, as on the United States, it was largely made of boards three-quarters of an inch thick and pierced by two doors almost always kept open. 81 The deck was often floored close to the stacks and the cargo piled in juxtaposition to them. The stacks were frequently heated to a glow by the forced draft used in burning coal. The Gulf of Maine pioneered in blazing disasters. In 1825 on the steam brig New York, eight miles off Petit Manan, some passengers "discovered a glimmering light oozing around the larboard funnel or chimney." When they did not find any fire-fighting equipment except a single bucket or any engineer or fireman on duty, they prudently took to the boats. Ten years later the Royal Tar, en route from St. John to Portland with a large passenger list, the menagerie of a traveling circus, and a heavy deck load of timber, caught fire in the engine room while the enginemen were watching the feeding of the animals. The fire pump was in the room that was aflame, and all but two boats had been left behind because of the loaded deck. Forty lost their lives. 82 Supremacy in the matter of fires then passed to Long Island Sound. On January 13,1840, the Lexington, about fifty miles from New York en route to Stonington, caught fire in the early evening. Her pilot, Captain Manchester, later testified, " I saw the upper deck on fire all around the smoke-pipe and blazing up two or three feet, perhaps, above the promenade deck; the flame seemed to be a thin sheet. . . . The blaze seemed to follow up the smoke-pipe, and was all around it." 83 The cotton bales, the boat's chief cargo, were at once aflame. Officers turned the Lexington, blazing in the darkness, toward Long Island four miles away, but although the '

nHouse

. _

Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 21, pp. 72-73. "Ibid., pp. 21-23, 404. 83 Report of the Committee on Commerce, Senate Reports, 26 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 241 (s.n. 358), p. 16.

210

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

engine kept working for several minutes, the tiller ropes had burned through and accurate progress was impossible. passengers and crew.

Panic gripped

Boats were launched and sunk.

People

jumped overboard into icy waters. T h e exact number of fatalities was unknown; perhaps it was one hundred and fifty. Of the four survivors, some had floated a w a y on cotton bales. T h e coroner's investigation of this historic N e w England disaster ascribed the outbreak of the fire to "the intense heat of the smoke-pipe, or some sparks from the space between the smoke-pipe and steam-chamber." T h e Lexington,

designed to use coal with the aid of blowers,

was on this voyage burning wood and the smoke-pipe had become red hot. 84 In later years the provision of

fire-fighting

apparatus

and the sealing of boiler room and engine shaft with metal partitions and fire doors reduced the incidence of this particular form of steamboat accident. V Since N e w England steamboats relied upon low pressures, they attained large horsepowers and fast speed b y the size of their engines. F r o m the boilers the steam entered first one and then the other end of a single vertical cylinder; as soon as the piston head had traversed half the cylinder's length, the Stevens or Sickles cutoff shut off the steam and its "expansibility" completed the stroke. Through the exhaust valves the steam rushed into another cylinder where it was suddenly condensed b y a jet of water; the whole operation created a vacuum on the side of the piston opposite to that upon which the steam was pressing. 85 A l l this apparatus was on an immense scale. In the fifties the cylinder of the

Metropolis

was 105 inches in diameter and the piston had a twelve-foot stroke. T o celebrate the technical achievement in casting and machining so large a piece, a horse and buggy was driven through it, one hundred and five men stood in it at one time, and twenty-two had dinner within it.8® N e a r l y twenty-five years later the cylinder of the "•Ibid., pp. 15-25. " T h u r s t o n , A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 276-277, 379-381; Fitch, Report on Marine Engines, pp. 38, 45. 88Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X X I I I (1855), 243.

SAIL, STEAM, AND MEN

211

Pilgrim, "up to this time, the largest ever cast," had a diameter of xxo inches and a stroke of 14 feet. 87 This was about as far as the giantism of single-cylinder condensing engines went. Already innovations and technical improvements had cleared the w a y for proportionately lighter, more compact, and more powerful engines. Immediately after the Civil War the huge jet condenser was displaced by the surface condenser, an arrangement of tubes set in cold water, by which, since it was a closed system, distilled water could be used over and over in the boilers, and the formation of boiler scale, which took place at twenty-five pounds of pressure, was avoided. Boilers could stand higher pressures, and higher pressures meant lighter engines. 88 The surface condenser was coupled not only with the traditional single-cylindered engine but also with the compound engine. T h e latter squeezed more power from the steam by leading it from a high-pressure to a low-pressure cylinder; great economies in the use of fuel resulted. Since such savings were less important on short coastal runs, the compound engine spread slowly to N e w England waters. Though its principles were understood decades earlier, only 4 per cent of the coasting steamers of 1,000 tons or over in 1880 were equipped with it. 89 Soon thereafter change got under way. The Fall River line, for instance, installed their first compound engine in a freight vessel in 1882; provided the Puritan, in 1889, w ^ h a compound vertical-beam engine having a high-pressure cylinder 75 inches in diameter with a 9-foot piston stroke and a low-pressure cylinder n o inches in diameter with a 14-foot stroke; and equipped the Plymouth, in 1890, with a triple-expansion engine. In the last boat the engine was no longer vertical but inclined. T h e deeper holds of the nineties permitted the engine to be set below the paddlewheel shafts, and the piston stroke, working at an angle, operated upon that shaft directly. Such inclined engines, long used on ferry "The Steamer Pilgrim," p. 402. Fitch, Report on Marine Engines, pp. 43-45; Thurston, A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 300-301, 396-397; William H. King, Lessons and Practical Notes on Steam, the Steam Engine, Propellers, etc., etc., for Young Marine Engineers, Students, and Others (New Y o r k : D. Van Nostrand, 1862), pp. 141-145. 89 Fitch Report on Marine Engines, p. 23; Thurston, A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 282-283. 87

88

212

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

boats, no longer cluttered the upper decks or divided saloons with shafts, and they operated with less vibration. 90 Propeller propulsion required a still different type of p o w e r — smaller, faster engines, running at high pressures and placed directly over the shafts to which they were geared with a short stroke. 91 Since neither engine nor fuel required much vessel space, they were peculiarly suited for freight vessels and such indeed was their first important employment along the New England coast. In the forties propellers carried freight between Hartford and New Y o r k and between Portland and Boston. 92 B y the end of the fifties the Commercial Steamboat Company of Providence had eight propellers in a daily freight service to New Y o r k and in i860 the Boston Shipping List carried the notice: " N e w Propeller Line between Boston and N e w Y o r k , via Fairhaven and New Bedford. The Rotary Steam Navigation Company's N e w and Powerful Screw Steamers, Dawn and Daylight. . . . Freight in all cases as low as by other Propellers and delivered with promptness and despatch." 93 In Boston's long trades, primarily freight carriage, propellers made an almost instantaneous entry. In the sixties the Boston and Philadelphia line, the Metropolitan, the Merchants' and Miners' and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad — all put propellers on their lines from New England. 94 Their adoption by vessels in the passenger business really waited upon the nineties when most of the lines on the Sound and down East bought vessels with single or twin propellers turned by power plants describable only in a polysyllabic engineering vernacular. Thus the power plant on the City of Lowell with pressures of 165 and a stroke of 3 feet consisted of "two independent sets of vertical inverted direct acting triple expansion engines, driving twin screws." 95 On the " M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 320-322; "The New Steel Steamer Puritan," p. 388. " T h u r s t o n , A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 299-300, 395-396. 82 Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," p. 189; Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 353, 356. " B o s t o n Shipping List, July 7, i860; Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 290-291. " F r e d E. Dayton, Steamboat Days (New Y o r k : Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1925), pp. 317-318; House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, Part 1, p. 219. " Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the

Pilgrim

(1883), Fall River Line

City of Lowell ( 1 8 9 3 ) , Norwich Line

Portland

(1890)

City oj Bangor

(1894)

DOWN EASTERS

SAIL, STEAM,

AND MEN

213

Sound, however, the Fall River line disdained the trend and on the down-East runs the side-wheelers persisted. T h e ill-fated Portland used paddle wheels and the wooden leviathans about whose ability to navigate the Penobscot to Bangor there was some speculation were driven in the same fashion. 96 T h e shift to screws did not necessarily mean faster speeds. These by the fifties on New England coasting steamers occasionally averaged twenty miles an hour; "such Steamboat sailing has rarely been equalled, and almost comes up to railroad speed," observed Hunt's Merchants' Magazine?1 B y then the rattling crawling vessels of the experimental decades of steamboating had been superseded; afterwards there was comparatively little reduction of times on record runs. Furthermore the propeller had to share with the surface condenser and compound engine the credit for the startling economies in the use of coal. T h e i860 figure of four pounds of coal per horsepower per hour was halved twenty years later and better records even then were in prospect. 98 T o the wider use of screw propulsion, however, can be ascribed in large measure the final evolution of the coasting steamer's hull. With the paddle wheels gone, the towering, bulky wheel houses went also, and the wide overhang of the guards became a partial anachronism. On the City 0} Lowell, launched in 1894, the guards extended only 10 feet, 9 inches, beyond the hull and the bow was full rather than razor sharp. T h a t the lessons learned from yacht designing fashioned the lines and proportions of the City of Lowell showed the distance traveled since the early decades of the coasting trade. 99 Vessels of this type built of iron or steel were more seaworthy than their predecessors. On the wooden side-wheelers State of Maine. 1896, pp. 1 2 1 - 1 2 2 ; M o r r i s o n , History of American Steam Navigation, pp. 302, 346, 3S3, 393, 399· " J o h n M . Richardson, Steamboat Lore of the Penobscot. An Informal Story of Steamboating in Maine's Penobscot Region ( A u g u s t a : Kennebec Journal Print Shop, 1 9 4 1 ) , pp. 1 7 - 1 8 . wHunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review, X X X I I I ( 1 8 5 5 ) , 243244. 118 Fitch, Report on Marine Engines, p. 43. m Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics . . . of Maine. 1896, p. 1 1 8 ; J . E . Denton, " P e r f o r m a n c e of the T w i n - S c r e w Steamer City of Lowell," Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, I I I ( 1 8 9 5 ) , 197-1981 214.

214

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

storm waves, beating the underside of the guards or pummeling the inside of paddleboxes, sometimes broke through and poured into the light superstructure. High gales keeled such vessels over until one paddle wheel was out of water. T h e unenclosed decks, with their many gangways leading to hold or saloon, gave entrance to the driving seas. There were narrow escapes aplenty. Officers avoided disaster by shifting cargo to keep the paddle wheels in the water, by heading into the wind and running for the nearest port. Sometimes the vessel limped in with the coal bunkers flooded and freight and furniture burned to keep up steam. T h e captain of the Boston-Bangor steamer once sketched his difficulties. "She is only fit for smooth water, and my greatest care is not to get caught out with her on the first part of this route. If I do, it means getting in out of the wet at the first chance, and favoring her in every way, shape or manner. Once let a sea strike with full force under these infernal sponsons and it would start off the whole top hamper." 100 The great gale of November 26-27, 1898, when the wind at Highland Light registered ninety miles an hour before the gauge was carried away, strewed the waters and beaches of N e w England with wreckage. T h a t was "the night the Portland went down." It is impossible to reconstruct with precision the tortured voyage and final catastrophe of this wooden side-wheeler. The loss of everyone on board, 176 lives, was New England's greatest steamboat tragedy. 1 0 1 Although no consolation to the dead or to the living who remembered them, the disaster spurred the transition to the seagoing steamer in the New England coasting trades. VI Towering sails packed glamor, the tang of soft coal smoke sent admirers of coasting steamers into ecstasy, but no aficionado ever sang of tugboats, barges, and tows. Nonetheless these prosaic newcomers to coasting transportation prospered. In 1900 barges and Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, pp. 65-67. Thomas H . Eames, "The Wreck of the Steamer 'Portland'," New England Quarterly, X I I I (1940), 191-206; Bradlee, "Some Account of Steam Navigation," pp. 194-199· 100 101

SAIL, STEAM, AND

MEN

tugs formed one-half of the arrivals at Boston harbor, and the gross tonnage of barges, 2,784,368, although much less than that of steamers, was nearly three times that of schooners. 102 Such achievement had been largely the work of three decades, for in the seventies the feasibility of regular towing over long distances finally caught hold. Tugs discarded their role as harbor and river auxiliaries and became seagoing power plants. They towed canal barges, or schooner barges, the latter a cut-down vessel with shortened masts, a few sails, and a tiny crew, or the large unrigged barges, completely decked and built of wood or metal for this specialized transport. Whatever its form, the operation of barges was a hazardous livelihood. In heavy weather lines parted or were cut and the emasculated tow, without strength to save itself, often foundered or dashed to pieces on reef or shore. 103 The economies of towing were, however, irresistible. The initial investment, particularly if second-hand vessels were used, was low. The reduction in crews and in the number of officers in relation to men pared labor costs. The barges, with almost the flexibility of freight cars, could be detached at ports along the route, unloaded, and picked up on a later voyage. " T h e y think we run on rails, with a block-signal system to keep the tracks clear," complained a captain. 104 Although tows were slow, the turn-around in loading and unloading was expeditious, for wide hatchways let the steam scoops into every corner. 105 In the eighties freights by coal barges from Philadelphia to Boston were ten cents a ton less than on sailing vessels and steamers. 108 But, except among the keepers of balance sheets, tows aroused little enthusiasm. " I n the bald blue daylight that hangs above open water the utilitarian character of the craft was uncompromisingly revealed,—the scarred decks smeared with coal-tar, the bulwarks, hatches, and deck1M Fifteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce . . . 1900, p. 1 7 1 · 103 Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, p. 149; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I, pp. 145, 147-148; Thurston, A History . . . of the Steam-Engine, pp. 402-403. 104 W. J . Aylward, "Our Coastwise Caravans," Harper's Monthly Magazine, C X I X (1909), 404. 106 Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, loe Part I, pp. 146-147. The Engineering and Mining Journal, August 2, 9, 1884.

2I6

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

houses an iron-ore red and dun snuffy brown; while over a l l — house, decks, rails, sails, masts, and even the scant rigging—the smutty touch of her sable cargo. . . . The whole effect was quite as forlornly ugly and forsaken as a railroad yard on a hot Sunday afternoon." 107 Seamen of the old coasting trade expressed their contempt for these lubberly craft, built in a ribbon and cut off at convenient intervals, and yards which had grown famous fashioning clippers and great schooners turned to the construction of these newcomers with almost an apology. VII Steamboating challenged the government, which in the days of sail had once fulfilled its proper sphere by providing lighthouses or buoys and drawing up rules for rights of way, to prevent the recurrence of disasters like those of the New England and the Lexington or the more numerous tragedies on the western waters where explosions, burnings, and wrecks were the order of the day. There were some who said the government should leave the problem alone. Clearly "a just and generous rivalry" among steamboats would adequately protect passengers, for self-interest induced owners to have safe boats and boilers and to employ competent officers and men. As for reckless employees, self-preservation, since they were in a position of danger, would compel masters, pilots, and engineers to prudence and carefulness. T o this case a Senate Committee in 1840 replied with a different analysis of self-interest. Steamboat proprietors, "generally assorted individuals," no more than other men overlook matters of economy and profit; they operate, not at first hand, but through agents who "may be presumed sometimes to regard the amount of dividends as affording the best evidence of their good management. . . . As to engineers, they are familiar with danger and become insensible to it. If ignorant of their duties, or are of reckless character, little confidence can be reposed in their regard for their own personal safety." 108 The argument was somewhat academic for Congress Aylward, "Our Coastwise Caravans," p. 397. Senate Documents, 26 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 241, p. 1 ; Cong., 2 Sess., no. 113, p. 2. 107 1M

Senate Documents,

26

217

SAIL, STEAM, AND MEN had already enacted legislation.

T h e statute of 1838, the

first

regulatory enactment for steamboats, provided in each district an inspector of boats and machinery to determine whether they were safe and fit for use. Fees were his recompense. T h e act contained specifications for lifeboats and

fire-fighting

apparatus, declared

officers, convicted of negligence or misconduct in connection with an accident, were guilty of manslaughter, and facilitated damage suits against owners b y asserting a boiler explosion was prima facie evidence of negligence. 109 T h o u g h steamboat proprietors felt the act's great defect was the last penalty since it had " a direct tendency to deter men of prudence, capacity, and property from further connexion" with the business, 1 1 0 the real failing of the statute was its overall timidity. Its standards of safety were so loosely phrased as to be incapable of precise application; some requirements, for example, that the safety valve should be open when a boat was not in motion, were unenforceable; inspectors were often incompetent and always insufficiently paid for a thorough performance of their duty. W h e n the coroner's investigation of the Lexington

disaster put one in-

spector on the stand, he admitted he simply looked at the hull and machinery "with m y e y e s " and inquired the boat's age. " W e never condemned any boat." Badgered b y questions, he finally blurted out, " H o w much do y o u suppose I am to do for five dollars?"

111

A second regulatory act in 1852 marked a great advance. I t provided one inspector for hulls and another for boilers; boilers were to be given a hydrostatic test, the only effective one, and their permissible pressures were proportioned to the results; all iron used in the construction of boilers was to be inspected and stamped; and the inspectors were to examine and license pilots and engineers, giving due weight in the latter to "character, habits of life, knowledge, and experience," for there were those who claimed the defects of engineers were not those of ignorance but of morals.

10®

The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, V, 304-306. Documents, 26 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 113, p. 2; Report of the Committee on Commerce on the Security of Lives of Passengers, House Reports, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 9 (s.n.964), pp. 1-2. mSenate Documents, 26 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 241, pp. 22-23. u°Senate

2l8

MEN, CITIES, AND TRANSPORTATION

The provisions about negligence and misconduct were modified. 1 1 2 Thereafter, though a few still felt " a n y law for regulating steamboats was an unjustifiable violation of human liberty," the principle of regulation was generally accepted and the debaters considered the proper degree of interference with the competitive process. 1 1 3 Further legislation was largely a matter of refinements. Thus an act of 1 8 7 1 required captains and chief mates, as well as pilots and engineers, to secure licenses, and included many specific details on fire prevention, boiler pressures, and water-tight bulkheads. 1 1 4 But no Acts of Congress could dispel fog, lighten darkness, quiet a gale, or instill in all masters or pilots prudence, foresight, and judgment. While legislation diminished the number of boiler explosions and reduced the hazards of fire at sea, it was powerless to prevent vessels from going ashore, sailing in storms beyond their strength, or colliding with each other. 1 1 5 When accidents occurred under the most favorable circumstances, in still weather and with assistance at hand, passengers gave way to panic, ill-trained crews did not know how to launch lifeboats, and, when boats were launched, they had no oars, no locks, and no plugs for the rain holes. At least such was the sequence of events when the Stonington and Narragansett collided on the Sound one calm foggy night in June, ι 8 8 ο . 1 1 β A f t e r an uproar in press and pulpit, an investigation revealed several infractions of regulations and both captains lost their licenses. M a r k Twain suggested that steamers carry a conspicuous sign, " I n case of disaster, do not waste precious time in meddling with the life-boats—they are out of order." 1 1 7 In this as in other disasters, like that of the Portland, it is difficult to tell where human frailty left off and " a n act of G o d " began. 112 The Statutes at Large and Treaties of the United States of America. From December i, 1851, to March 3, 1855, X , 6 1 - 7 5 . ^ Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances, for 1854, House Executive Documents, 33 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 3 (s.n. 780), p. 406; Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances, for 1855, House Executive Documents, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 10 (s.n.846), p. 423. 114 The Statutes at Large and Proclamations of the United States of America, from December 1869, to March 1871, X V I , 440-460. 115 House Executive Documents, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 10, pp. 427, 460-461. Hartford Courant, June 14, 1880; Springfield Daily Republican, June 14, 15, 117 July 20, September 25, 1880. Hartford Courant, July 28, 1880.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

219

VIII In spite of government regulation of details, the building of steamboats more largely reflected the needs of the trade, the specifications of their owners, and the technical level of their day. Such shipbuilding was a different business than that of building sailing vessels for, though builders of the latter could adapt their yards, techniques, and imaginations to the construction of a steamboat's hull, to manufacture its machinery required quite different skills and a different plant. Machine shops, forges, or establishments generically known as iron works, therefore, furnished the boilers and engines. When the Secretary of the Treasury in 1838 issued his famous report on steam engines, every N e w England steamboat enrolled there bore witness to this dual parentage. T h e same document, while it noted some dispersed construction of steamboats and the manufacture of their works within N e w England, also revealed that the family tree of most New England vessels stemmed from N e w Y o r k City. 1 1 8 A quarter of a century later the circumstances had not greatly altered. N e w Englanders repaired to N e w Y o r k not only because her yards and iron works made her the greatest steamship building center along the Atlantic coast but also because owners of vessels on Long Island Sound turned naturally to this metropolitan market and even some who developed the down-East lines had supplied their earlier needs from the same source. 119 The advent of the iron ship, however, marked a terminus to New Y o r k leadership. The Bangor II of 1844, for instance, was built by the Botts, Harlan and Hollingsworth Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Though this firm down to 1872 seemed almost to possess a monopoly of N e w England construction, 120 other builders at Chester, Camden, and Philadelphia soon had a part of the business. T h e Delaware River had superseded New Y o r k because of its nearness to coal and iron and because of the adaptability of its builders. B y the end of the cen118 House Executive Documents, 25 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 21, pp. 19, 26, 36, 53, 58, 60, 64, 67, 69, 81, 87, 95-97. 119 Albion, Rise of New York Port, pp. 148-151, 288-292. " " H a l l , Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 209-213; House Documents, 56 Cong., ι Sess., no. 14, Part 1, pp. 217, 210-221.

220

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

tury a single works was turning out the whole vessel from stem to stern and from piston to condenser. The capital investment in these new firms might run to a million dollars, in contrast with the few hundred needed for undertaking the construction of a wooden vessel. 121 Although the building of steamboats moved farther and farther from their coast, New Englanders tried earnestly to bring it back. Boston was the first center of the effort. In 1853 the Massachusetts legislature incorporated the Atlantic Works "for the purpose of manufacturing machinery in all its branches" 122 and within a few years it was constructing marine engines at its works in East Boston. Meanwhile Harrison Loring, who had once built in Cuba engines for sugar mills, erected a plant for this purpose in Boston and then enlarged his iron works at City Point in order to build ships.123 The Boston Shipping List of January i860 contained a card which revealed the variety of his industrial talents and the evolution of his enterprise. He built "Iron Steamships, Stationary and Marine Engines and Boilers, Sugar Mills, Pumps, Presses, Shafting, and all kinds of Mill Gearings. Also, Loring's Improved, Revolving, Bleaching Boiler for Paper Mills, and Carpenter & Hersey's Patent Rotary Pump. . . . [He] is prepared to contract for Building I R O N SAILING VESSELS A N D I R O N S T E A M SHIPS, fitting them for sea in the most thorough and workmanlike manner, on favorable terms." 124 After a brief spurt with the Massachusetts, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Merrimac, he relapsed to the manufacture of stationary engines. The Atlantic Works, however, built the William Lawrence in 1869 for the Merchants' and Miners' and for years continued to furnish the engines 121 Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States (New Y o r k : McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1929), II, 317-327; Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 161, 202-209. m Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, for the Years 1852-1853, p. 525. 123 Hall, Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. 200-201; J. L . Bishop, A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to i860 (Philadelphia: Edward Y o u n g & Co., 1868), III, 282-283; William H. Sumner, A History of East Boston; with Biographical Sketches of Its Early Proprietors (Boston: J. E. Tilton and Company, 1858), pp. 532, 696. 121 Boston Shipping List, January 4, i860.

221

SAIL, STEAM, AND MEN

for down-East wooden steamers built in the E a s t Boston yards. 1 2 5 Meanwhile the more foresighted leaders and citizens of Bath awoke to the insecure position of their shipbuilding industry. Though its yards might produce wooden ships, the city had no shops for manufacturing engines and no builders with iron or steel hulls.

pioneering

T h e first defect a citizens' subscrip-

tion of $100,000 for an iron works did something to correct.

The

second was remedied b y T h o m a s W . H y d e , a Bowdoin graduate, Civil W a r hero, railroad director, and Maine politician. T o his foundry, casting iron parts for sailing ships, he added a shop for making windlasses and capstans; then he purchased the engine works already mentioned and provided yards where five vessels could be set up at once. Long since he had christened his combined enterprises the B a t h Iron W o r k s . T h e r e he manufactured the engines for wooden hulls built b y other concerns and at his own works, and turned out yachts and war vessels of iron and steel.

In 1894 he completed the City oj Lowell,

"the first steel

passenger steamship to be constructed in N e w E n g l a n d " and "the largest steamer ever built in M a i n e . "

H e r owner, the Norwich

line, had secured her predecessors from Harlan and Hollingsworth. 1 2 6 T h i s newest vessel proved to be only an isolated challenge to an industry already strongly established along the Delaware. T h o u g h the original cost of steamboats was much greater than for sailing vessels, there were several conspicuous cases where individuals—Vanderbilt and Sanford, for instance—were their sole owners. M o r e customary, even in the pioneering years, was corporate ownership. O n one occasion a single boat gave its name to a corporation, T h e Chancellor Livingston Steam-boat

Company

chartered in Rhode Island in 182 7. 127 T h e corporation had the * * H a l l , Report on the Ship-Building Industry, pp. Boston and Bangor Steamship Company. Formerly Known Line, (1823-1882) (Boston: T . R . M a r v i n & Son, 1882), 128 Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial of Maine. I8Q6, p p . 1 0 5 - 1 1 0 , i l 8 .

2 0 0 - 2 0 1 ; History of the as Sanford's Independent pp. 20-21. and Labor Statistics . . .

" " A c t s of R h o d e I s l a n d , M a y Session, 1827, p p . 5 1 - 5 3 ; Resolves and Private Laws of the State of Connecticut, from the Year 178g to the Year 1836, p p . 1 1 0 6 1 1 2 8 ; Business C o r p o r a t i o n s I n c o r p o r a t e d b y Special A c t s a n d O r g a n i z e d u n d e r G e n e r a l L a w s , M a i n e Public Documents, 1892, n o . 9.

222

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

advantage of collecting a large capital from several investors, and on Long Island Sound the interrelationship between steamboats and railroads transferred the pattern of incorporation from land to salt water and demanded a flexible device for binding together rail and boat enterprises through interlocking directors or stockownership. B y the end of the century the corporation left small craft to individual owners. In the Boston district in 1899 the valuation of sixty-six vessels carrying passengers and freight and owned by corporations was twenty-two times that of the fifteen owned by individuals. Such corporations did not put their vessels up for charter; they ran them in lines. As for the steamboat's poor relation, the tug and its barges, individuals owned them and put them up for hire, but corporations, like the lime consolidation of Rockland and the coal companies of Philadelphia and New York, owned the tows transporting the products they produced and marketed. 128 Since the securities of steamboat corporations were usually held by small groups of investors, the stock was not listed on the exchanges and data on earnings are infrequent. A stroke of good fortune might yield almost fabulous returns. For instance, the Merchants' and Miners', during the Civil War when the government took over the company's vessels on lavish terms, aggregated dividends of 3 1 4 y i per cent. 129 As steady earners the Fall River boats were famous, for through the seventies and early eighties they usually paid 8 per cent, often io. 1 3 0 Famine might follow feast. The Stonington through the storms of the seventies apparently paid "regularly its 1 2 % " — p r o b a b l y an average, for some 128 Adams, Report on Transportation Business . . . Eleventh Census: 1890. Part II.— Transportation by Water, p. 2 1 ; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part I, pp. 1 5 7 - 1 6 0 , 253-255. 128 Dayton, Steamboat Days, p. 328. 130 Twelfth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. November, 187s (Boston: Getchell Brothers, 1 8 7 5 ) , p. 7 ; Twentieth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Company to the Stockholders. November, 1883 (Boston: R a n d Avery Supply Co., 1 8 8 3 ) , pp. 9 - 1 0 ; Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Company to the Stockholders. November 22, 1887 (Boston: R a n d A v e r y Supply Co., 1887), pp. 6 - 7 ; Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony Railroad Company to the Stockholders. September 27, 1892 (Boston: R a n d Avery Supply Co., 1 8 9 2 ) , p. 8.

SAIL, STEAM, AND

MEN

223

years it paid more—and then, following the loss of two vessels, it paid nothing for five years. 1 3 1 On a basis of a wider sampling the coasting steamers of the Boston district in 1889 netted 19 per cent on their valuation. 132 Still, in an industry characterized by vicissitudes, fire, accidents, and damage suits swept away profits and even equities. Comforting postponements of depreciation charges concealed the real status of returns. In 1900 the president of the Merchants' and Miners' declared that steamboat operations had not yet attained the stability, soundness, and responsibility of railroad business methods. 133 IX The new methods of marine transportation altered the patterns of organizing labor. Though a sailing coaster could get along with a captain, first mate, cook, and four or five seamen, the side-wheelers and propellers entering Boston in 1890 had crews of twentyfive to thirty men. 134 Individual steamboats had a larger complement; the City of Lowell shipped a crew of 107. 1 3 5 These crews were specialists. Just below the captain in the steamboat hierarchy was the first engineer; mates were jostled by pursers, second and third engineers, and stewards; and coal passers, firemen, watchmen, oilers, watertenders, waiters, deckhands, and porters dwarfed the number of able-bodied seamen. Even women went 131 H a r t f o r d Courant, J u n e 14, 1880; Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 1877 (Westerly: G. B . & J . H . Utter, 1 8 7 7 ) , pp. 3, 71 Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 1878 (Westerly: G . B . & J . H . Utter, 1878), pp. 3, 5 ; Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence and Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 1881 (Westerly: G . B . & J . H . Utter, 1 8 8 1 ) , p. 9; Annual Report of the Directors of the New York, Providence & Boston R. R. Co. to the Stockholders, for the Year Ending September 30, 1884 (Westerly: G. B . & J . H. Utter, 1884), p. 10. 13S Adams, Report on Transportation Business . . . Eleventh Census: 1890. Part II.— Transportation by Water, pp. 2 1 , 3 7 . ™ Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 447. m Domestic Entrances, J a n u a r y , February, August 1890, Domestic Clearances, February, September 1900, Ms., Boston Customhouse Records, Boston Customhouse. 135 Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics . . . of Maine. 1896, p. 1 2 1 .

224

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

to sea as chambermaids and stewardesses. 1 3 6 Whether on sailing vessel or steamboat, the old marine skills were no longer necessary. Schooner rigs and auxiliary steam power were less exacting than ships where sails had to be furled aloft in storm or gale. On the steamers the traditional salt was not only an anachronism; he might be a nuisance. " O f course, on modern steamers," testified the president of the Merchants' and Miners', "there is really very little sea work. I t is scraping and keeping things clean and handling lines, and all that; and the old-time able seaman has no place on a modern steamboat, or any other steamboat, in f a c t . "

137

In the coasting trade as in the foreign trade it had been traditional for the boys of N e w England seaports to start at the bottom. T h e first step was ship's cook. " I n the spring of 1830," C. E. Ranlett, a fourteen-year-old in a little Penobscot town, found work "upon the Fair

Trader,

a topsail schooner of about one

hundred tons. T h e r e were four of us, the captain, two hands, and myself, the cook. Although I did not hold myself out as a chef, I was quite able to prepare the food in vogue upon this little craft, for our menu was fish and potatoes for breakfast, fish and potatoes for dinner, and hashed fish and potatoes for supper. F o r bread we had unsifted cornmeal mixed with water and baked in an iron baker at the little fire-place in the steerage. . . . T h e schooner was engaged in carrying cordwood from places on Penobscot B a y to Boston, Lynn, and Salem. M y wages were three dollars per round t r i p — e a c h trip occupying about a month."

138

L i k e hundreds of

others, Ranlett won the favor of neighbors, saved money, bought a share in vessels entrusted to him b y friends, and became master of a coaster. A n d like hundreds of others he went on to that final apotheosis, a seagoing ship c a p t a i n , 1 3 9 for along the coastline there was an unacknowledged scale of values. Fishing ranked below coasting, coasting in turn was inferior to deep-sea navigation. A d a m s , Report on Transportation Business . . . Eleventh Census: i8go. Part Transportation by Water, pp. 39-42. 137 Report oj the Industrial Commission, I X , 450. 138 Charles E . Ranlett, Master Mariner of Maine Being the Reminiscences 0) Charles Everett Ranlett, 1816-1917, as Told to His Son Frederick Jordan Ranlett ( P o r t l a n d : S o u t h w o r t h - A n t h o e n s e n Press, 1942), p p . 1 2 - 1 3 . 136

II.—

1,8

Ibid.,

pp. 13-23.

SAIL, STEAM, AND

MEN

225

Where the steamboat fitted into the scheme was a matter of feeling. At least at the outset it was compelled to depend for its officers upon those trained under sail. After steamboating became of age it was, of course, possible for young men to start as quartermasters or deckhands and work up within the industry itself to captain, pilot, or mate, but sail still remained the preferred school. 140 In the golden youth of the American merchant marine the seacoast towns and ports had furnished the recruits for American crews. As ownership of fleets became concentrated and lines clustered at fewer seaports and as other employments became more attractive to freeborn Americans, resort was had, though to a much less extent than in the foreign trade, to the wanderers, tramps, professional ne'er-do-wells, and the sailors of every nation "on the beach" of some urban waterfront. Some were provided by the shipping agents or crimps, whose vicious system of boarding houses, saloons, and wage advances reformers and legislation tried so desperately to control or outwit. 141 T o man the big coasters to Florida and Norfolk, the vessels at Boston, Bath, and Portland had to resort to such debased devices. On the other hand, the short voyages of the coasting trade did not require the outfits provided by the crimps nor did they involve a long separation from home and from civilian existence. Since the coastal steamers ran on a regular schedule, employment on them resembled an industrial operation rather than seafaring. In the coasting trades protected against alien competition, wages were higher than in the foreign 110 Report of the Industrial Commission, I X , 450; M c A d a m , The Old Fall River Line, pp. 166, 170, 172, 174. 141 Revised Statutes oj the United States, Passed at the First Session 0) the Fortythird Congress, 1873-74, PP· 881-896; The Statutes at Large and Proclamations oj the United States of America from March 1871 to March 1873, X V I I , 262-280; The Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from December, 1883, to March, 1885, X X I I I , 53-60; R e p o r t of the Commissioner of Navigation, 1895, House Documents, 54 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 28, p a r t 1 (s.n. 3400), pp. 27-28, 3 0 - 3 4 ; House Reports, 47 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 1827 (s.n. 2 1 5 9 ) , appendix, pp. 34-35, 59; Hearings before the Committee on M e r c h a n t M a r i n e and Fisheries, House Miscellaneous Documents, 53 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 206 (s.n.3229), p. 6; R e p o r t of the M e r c h a n t Marine Commission, Senate Reports, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 2755 (SJI. 4757). PP· 285, 368, 4 5 0 - 4 5 1 ; House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, p a r t 2, pp. 63-65, 73.

2 26

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

trades and food probably somewhat better. Consequently the coasting trade perpetuated into a later age the employment relationships of an earlier era. The steamboats hired their workers at first hand and sailing vessels all along the coast relied upon neighborhood arrangements to recruit their small crews. 142 Since a good part of coasting was a seasonal occupation it interlocked with other livelihoods. On Cape Cod, farmers and carpenters swearing off from their land-tied occupations, took to the sea in their own ships and peddled goods along the Sound. 143 The captains and crews of the Maine lumber coasters were more amphibious. They took to salt water when farming was dull but, when July came, they tied up their schooners and made hay on their northern meadows. They were the "cowyard tars" of many a down-East pleasantry. 144 Perhaps when vessel and master had both grown old, the latter decided to turn farmer for good. In seacoast town after seacoast town the folk tale was told of the retired captain who bought a pair of steers who would "turn their yoke." He described his experience: " I don't know, Mr. Small, I yoked the steers and put the old mare on ahead and went out to plow in the after field. I went around the piece of ground two or three times and I thought I would give 'em a little rest. They stood still a few minutes and something happened, the first thing I knew the larboard ox was on the starboard side, and the starboard ox was on the larboard side and the old mare was foul in the rigging and we were going to hell stern foremost." 1 4 5 Though the law specified that the higher merchant-marine officers must be Americans, no legal restriction enforced a native crew. It was just as well. The superior attractiveness of other occupations was tempting Americans away from employment at sea, and Scandinavians, Portuguese, Irish, and men from the Maritimes were filtering into the coasting trades. 146 In truth the work 112 Senate Reports, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 2755, I, 365, 374; Report of the Industrial Commission, I X , 4 1 3 - 4 1 4 . Henry C. Kittredge, Shipmasters of Cape Cod (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1 9 3 5 ) , p. 25. "*Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, p. 53. 145 Rice, The Shipping Days of Old Boothbay, p. 301. "" Report of the Industrial Commission, I X , 450; The Census of Massachusetts: 1885, II, 1467; House Documents, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 14, Part 2, p. 50.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND

MEN

227

was not well paid. In 1900 able seamen both in sail and steam were getting at Boston $25 or $30 a month and found. First mates on sailing vessels received $35 to $45, on steamboats $70; first engineers received $ i i o . 1 4 7 Men were crowded into uncomfortable and nasty forecastles. Firemen and coal passers sweat in the stifling heat of the engine room. In the absence of a legal load line, lumber coasters were loaded down until decks were awash and schooner barges were so heavy with coal as to be practically helpless in a seaway if a storm tore them loose from their tug. Hardship and danger were the lot of those who worked the coasting trade of N e w England. 148 Perhaps it was the sailor's fault! As one captain observed, " I t is right in the hands of the men themselves, Senator. If the crew when they ship—and they ship before the commissioner—know that four men are sufficient for that vessel, then they are willing to go. T h e y are free agents. T h e y need not go on board a ship if they consider her undermanned. But they accept a certain amount of wages for certain work." 149 X Through all its changes and handicaps the coasting trade survived. There were times, when in spite of the ingenuity of builders and the availability of commodities suited for water transportation, the downhearted felt that the railroad, pressing its advantages, would give the coaster the coup de grace. In 1871 the Boston Board of Trade was in the mood to believe that "it is not to be expected that the coastwise business in the United States will ever again be as flourishing as formerly, because the competition of the railways with it is becoming more severe year by year, and Boston must bear its share of the general decline." 150 But the " ' A n n u a l Report of the Commissioner of Navigation, 1900, House Documents, 56 Cong., ι Sess., no. 14 (s.n. 4128), pp. 90-91. 148 Wasson, Sailing Days on the Penobscot, pp. 68-69; Report in Relation to Marine Hospitals, Senate Executive Documents, 31 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 14 (s.n. 589), pp. 19-20; House Miscellaneous Documents, S3 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 206, pp. 1 4 - 1 5 ; Hearings before the Merchant Marine Commission, Senate Reports, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 2755 (s.n.4759), III, 1703-1706. "" Senate Reports, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., no. 2755,1, 396. "" Seventeenth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, for the Year Ending January 11, 1871 (Boston: Barber, Cotter & Co., 1871), p. 21.

228

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

record of coastwise arrivals at Boston over the decades refuted such prophecies. In 1840 arrivals were 4,336; in i860 they were 8,892. Though these were the figures for the pre-railroad years, the totals for the last decade of the century when the locomotive was omnipotent showed an increase of coastwise arrivals from 9,022 in 1890 to 10,436 in 1900. Since the average size of steamboats and sailing vessels constantly increased, mere figures of arrivals did not reveal the whole trend. In 1900 the gross tonnage arriving coastwise at Boston was 8,244,86ο. 151 No other port in New England surpassed it. Left behind was Portland, whose raucous ambitions had once been so insistently pushed, and Bangor was behind Portland. Portsmouth and Newburyport, nearer at hand, were ports of yesterday. South of Cape Cod lay Providence, New England's second port. It had steamboats to New York and in the longer trades. It enumerated more arrivals and departures in 1900 than Boston. Its tonnage was less than Boston's and Boston imported both more cotton and coal. Of the ports on the Sound neither New Haven nor Bridgeport, though both had an immense water traffic in coal, lumber, and miscellaneous merchandise largely with New York, had figures comparable with Boston's. 152 And there at the end of Long Island Sound towered New York, Boston's ancient foe. As early as the 1820's Bostonians, fearing their rival's advantages, did not propose to discard their own natu151

1840 1850 i860 1870 1880 1890 1900

Total Coastwise Arrivals at Boston Totals

Ships

Barks

Brigs

5,97» 8,892 6,060 9,264 9,022 10,436

147 76 10

417 27S S3 99

857 46S 287

4,336

5

91

Schooners

4.351 7,184 4,537 7,254

Sloops

Steamers

71 80 2 130

135 807 1,171

Barges

Tugs

1,659

2,666 2,187 3 S 3 Boston Commercial and Shipping List, January, 1 8 8 1 ; Boston Shipping List and Prices Current, January, 1 8 5 1 ; Boston Shipping List, January, i860; Boston Shipping List, January, 1870; Fijteenth Annual Report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce . . . 1900, p. 1 7 1 . 152 Annual1 Report of the Chief of Engineers, War Department, House Documents, 57 Cong., ι Sess., no. 2 (s.n. 4280), pp. 999, 1008-1009, 1044, 1065, 1 1 3 2 , 1 1 7 2 - 1 1 7 3 , 1 1 7 9 ; Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on Transportation by Water, Part II, pp. 5 7 - 6 1 ; Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, I X , 413.

SAIL, STEAM,

AND MEN

229

ral protection. " T h e risk is in doubling Cape Cod and the Shoals, and the length of the passage thereby created in our intercourse with the south and west, give to New Y o r k an advantage over us; but then by means of this barrier between us and the southward, we ought to be benefitted by retaining to ourselves all the eastern trade. Boston is in consequence their natural mart. We want, therefore, no Buzzard's Bay Canal, for eastern vessels to slip through to the great Commercial Emporium." 153 Like most forecasts, even this gloomy one was not fulfilled. Though New York's sailing vessels invaded Quoddy and the Maritimes, her steamboat lines down East could not match Boston's and the latter city, though surpassed in certain bulk trades, retained her hold on the passenger business and the distribution of general merchandise. Though N e w York's enterprising precedence in establishing steamboat lines to the Atlantic and the Gulf ports of the South made Boston inferior along the coast from Charleston to Galveston and even compelled her to trade with this region through New York, coal gave her so secure a priority in the coastwise trade with Philadelphia and Baltimore that New York's position looked trivial and enabled Boston at Norfolk to keep abreast of her Hudson River competitor. 154 While such data were measures of competitive accomplishment, the huge totals exchanged between New Y o r k and Boston remained the largest item in the coastal trade of each city and demonstrated that commerce flourished best between prosperous participants. 155 Albion, Rise of New York Port, p. 130. Albion, Rise of New York Port, pp. 130-134, 396-397; Robert G. Albion, Square-Riggers on Schedule. The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938), pp. 253-256; Adams, Report on Transportation Business . . . Eleventh Census. 1890. Part II,— Transportation by Water, pp. 34-35. 151 Adams, Report on Transportation Business . . . Eleventh Census. 1890. Part II. — Transportation by Water, p. 34. 113

XXII T H E RAILROAD COMMISSIONS "Here's the Massachusetts Railroad Commission. In the first year oj their official life, they know a hell of a lot of things. . . . Charles Francis Adams was a pretty good railroad commissioner, but when he got to be a practical railroad president he found things were not altogether as he had expected. . . . Some of those old reports of Adams' railroad commission would be very funny reading now."—C. P. Clark, quoted in Arthur Pound and S. T . Moore, eds., More T h e y Told Barron, p. 137. I

After the Civil War the Adams brothers, Henry and Charles Francis, Jr., returned to Massachusetts. Both were young, both had careers to make. Though Henry Adams chose the press and Charles F. Adams, Jr., chose the railroads, the first step for both was the preliminary creation of an expert reputation. Henry's ambition went unrealized, one more disillusioning episode in a lifelong education. His brother fared better. 1 In less than three years he had written his noted A Chapter of Erie and published a series of magazine articles into which, though they purportedly surveyed the general field of railroad law and practice, Massachusetts and her railroad system intruded like a death's head. 2 Occasionally, 1 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, An Autobiography (Boston and New Y o r k : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918), pp. 240-241; Charles F. Adams, Jr., Charles Francis Adams, 1835-1915- An Autobiography (Boston and New Y o r k : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916), pp. 169-172. 2 Charles F. Adams, Jr., "The Railroad System," North American Review, CIV

THE RAILROAD

231

COMMISSIONS

it must be admitted, the young author wrote prosaically, but in 1868 two articles daring to compare to Boston's disadvantage her commercial achievement with that of upstart Chicago, sounded at last a characteristically self-assured and ironic tone. Amidst the analysis of Boston's decline the author searched for and found a remedy: " W h a t Boston needs, then, what for thirty years she has futilely striven for, what she must have if she means to succeed is a System." T h a t " S y s t e m " must be based upon "order and science."

3

H o w could such a result come about amidst the strife of

private interests and in a democracy where legislators and committees were always changing? Great Britain in her "boards," the United States with her commissioner of revenue, even Boston, whose harbor commissioners at last diagnosed the ailments of the past and prescribed cures, had discovered a device for bringing continuity and expertness to the solution of such political and economic problems. 4 W i t h tact A d a m s went no further. In 1869 Massachusetts established a railroad commission.

A d a m s was

appointed one of its members. Decades later in his Autobiography

A d a m s implied that the

commission was created as a response to his personal search for congenial employment.

" I had worked m y problem successfully

out in two years and nine months; a very creditable consummation." While this assertion may be dismissed as a bit of disarming, though misleading whimsy, further misconceptions in this and other A d a m s ' narratives were more fundamental.

Before 1869

Massachusetts had a "wholly unregulated railroad system"; in that year when she turned to a commission, the instrument was an "experiment," " a makeshift," " a flagrant legislative guess."

5

Of Mas-

sachusetts itself these assertions were not true. T h e earliest charters had regulated the roads to which they were granted; for forty years the legislators had passed general railroad statutes of wide (1867), 476-511; ibid., "Boston," North American Review, CVI (1868), 1-25, 55759.1; ibid., "Railroad Legislation," American Law Review,

II (1867-1868),

25-46;

ibid., "Railroad Inflation," North American Review, CVIII (1869), 130-164. 'Adams, "Boston," pp. 15, 18. 'Ibid., pp. 15-19. 557-558, 590-591· 5

Adams, Autobiography,

p. 172; Charles F. Adams, Jr., Railroads:

and Problems (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1878), p. 138.

Their Origin

232

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

application; and had on occasion established commissions to deal with aspects of railroad development—the Board of Internal Improvements of the twenties was the earliest and most significant— or even more frequently authorized the courts to do so. Finally Adams completely ignored Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine, which in that order were the first states of the Union to establish railroad commissions or to attempt an equivalent with a railroad commissioner. Three of these experiments dated from the fifties, the commission of New Hampshire from the forties, and that of Rhode Island from ι839· β The discovery of new principles governing the relations between state and railroad does not explain the appearance of the commissions. Although individual railroad managers and investors sometimes asserted that the railroad was in the same business and legal category as a factory, that the state ought to refrain from interfering with railroad management, and that the public in the face of railroad evils was quite competent of taking care of itself, their chatter was wishful and instinctive; it was neither representative of dominant thinking nor in accord with New England practice. Though there were natural differences of opinion over the expediency of specific measures and the proper extent of general regulation, bench and bar recognized railroads to be public corporations and legislators usually proceeded on that assumption. Thus it was not new conceptions of public and private rights that explained the New England railroad commissions; it was the breakdown of existing government instruments for regulation. B y the fifties it was apparent that governors, attorneygenerals, legislatures and their committees, judges, and county commissioners were not able to deal continuously, expertly, and successfully with a powerful, expanding, novel railroad interest. The formulation of controls and the supervision of their operation within the admitted area of regulation required both experience and continued attention. Elective bodies with changing personnel • R e p o r t of the Select Committee on Interstate Commerce (Cullom Report), 49 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 46, (s.n. 2 3 5 6 ) , Part 1, p. 6 5 ; Acts Passed at the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, June Session, 1839, PP- 2 3 - 2 4 .

Senate Reports,

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

233

and in session only a few months a year could provide neither. Nonetheless specific grievances or mishaps were always required to reveal the inadequacy of existing policy or administrative methods and to spur the establishment of a railroad commission. Though commissions once in being rapidly acquired new duties and functions, the specific original justification for their existence often continued for decades to color their interests and direct their activities. From the beginning the New England commissions had distinctive personalities. Like individuals, they could not escape inheritance. One group of commissions stemmed from the necessity of imposing upon rival and warring railroads convenient connections and reasonable joint fares, freights, and services. Thus the first railroad commission in New England, that of Rhode Island, was established in 1839 when the Boston and Providence was favoring its associated steamboat connection between Providence and New York and the rival steamboat owners were retaliating with every weapon at their command. According to its enabling act, the commission was to investigate the transactions and proceedings of the state's railroad corporations in order "to secure to all its citizens and inhabitants . . . the full and equal privileges of the transportation of persons and property at all times, that may be granted either directly or indirectly by any such corporation to the citizens of any other state or states. . . . And to enquire into any contract, understanding or agreement, by which any railroad company shall attempt to transfer, or give to any steamboat company or any steamboat, any favor or preference over any other such company or boat." 7 Nearly twenty years later, in 1858, the Maine legislature, badgered beyond endurance by the continual disputes between the two roads from Portland to Bangor over junctions, river crossings, parallel lines, passenger fares, timetables, and train meetings, passed "an act to secure the safety and convenience of travelers on railroads." The bill created a railroad commission. Though they were given other powers, the chief duty of the commissioners was to concentrate upon "rates of 1 Acts Passed at the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, June Session, 1 8 3 9 , pp. 2 3 - 2 4 .

234

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

speed, time tables, the terms and times of connection and junction or crossing, and the rates at which passengers and merchandise, coming from one road are transported to another." 8 Though the evidence is less clear, the Vermont commissioner partially falls into the same category. In this state the legislature preferred to a commission — the result of "extreme and odious legislation" — a single official. New state officers with salaries were regarded "in all cases, an evil." 9 The office came into being in 1855, halfway through a decade when the Vermont Central and Rutland and Burlington were quarreling over the connections with Canada and with each other, and the commissioner's first reports traced at length his vain attempts to compose such issues. 10 A practical and ideological conflict over the right of a railroad to take private land by eminent domain, led to'the establishment of the New Hampshire Railroad Commission. Four years after the state compelled new roads to purchase their right of way without this privilege, the railroad partisans secured in 1844 the passage of "An Act to render railroad corporations public in certain cases and constituting a board of railroad commissioners." This "ingenious contrivance," 1 1 as it was characterized by a later commission, prescribed an elaborate ritual. First the railroads put on the garments of a public corporation. Then they requested a state board of three commissioners to lay out and examine the proposed route. The commissioners held hearings. If they found the road served the "public good," they were to so inform the governor and council; the latter in turn were to hold hearings and determine the public value of the road; if their decision were in the affirmative, they were to so inform the railroad commissioners, who with the aid of road commissioners in the counties 'Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1858, pp. 44-46. " Report of the Committee on Roads on a Bill Relating to Railroads, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, October Session. 1855, PP650-654. 10 The Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont at the October Session, 1855, pp. 25-29; Third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont, to the General Assembly, 1858, pp. 1 0 - 1 3 ; Fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont to the General Assembly, 185g, pp. 4 - 7 , 9. u Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, i8yg, pp. 2 1 - 2 4 .

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

235

were to assess the damages sustained by land owners "in the same way and manner as road commissioners in the several counties are now by law required to do." 1 2 The ancestry of the railroad commission in New Hampshire was obvious. Connecticut's commission represented a third motive for establishing such a body — railroad safety. Tentative legislation in 1850, by which the General Assembly was to appoint three commissioners on each railroad in the state to inspect the road at least twice a year, 1 3 proved its complete inadequacy three years later when a train on the New York and New Haven plunged through the open draw at Norwalk, one of the great disasters in New England railroad history. The tragedy hurried the state to pass that very year "an act to prevent injuries and the destruction of life upon railroads, and by railroad trains." It established a commission of three members and, with the assistance of later acts, gave the commissioners an ample domain of power. They were to inspect the railroads at least twice a year, investigate accidents, and by advice or direction determine the conditions under which railroads could cross each other, the speeds of trains, the number of trackmen and switchmen, and the use of signals. For trains at high speeds on dangerous roads they might recommend " a look-out upon the engine, distinct from the engine-man, and the collector, whose duty it shall be at the approach of danger, to sound the whistle, which shall be affixed to the engine in close proximity to his seat, and which shall be so constructed that the sound can not be mistaken for that of the engineer's; on the alarm of which every brakeman shall immediately down brakes and stop the train." Finally they could make exceptions to the statutory requirement that trains come to a full stop before they resumed speed and crossed drawbridges. In formulating their recommendations and orders to the railroads, the commission was to have a "due regard to the character and income of the road" and was to consider not only the "public safety and convenience" 13 Laws of the State of New Hampshire Passed November Session, 1844, pp. 121-126. 13 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, May Session, i8jo, pp. 66-67.

236

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

but also "the safety of the operatives." 14 The last was a unique provision. By the mid-sixties the pattern of power for the New England railroad commissions, though not necessarily for each board, authorized them to participate in the taking of land for rights of way and in the ratification of leases and business agreements, empowered an extensive intervention in railroad affairs where matters of safety and railroad connections were concerned, in every instance enjoined the duty of discovering whether the roads were obeying the provisions of their charters and the railroad laws, and implemented this injunction with the right of calling for papers and records, interrogating officials, and receiving and scrutinizing the annual railroad reports which most states had previously required or which they now inaugurated.18 In Connecticut, with somewhat larger vision, the commissioners were to make a report "of the general conduct and condition of all the railroads within the State . . . making such suggestions for legislation, as the public interest shall seem to require." 1 6 As for administrative details, a considerable diversity characterized the manner of choosing commissioners. In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont the legislature selected these officials and in Maine the governor and council made the appointment. New Hampshire had deserted the latter method in 1851 for direct election by the people. In every state but Rhode Island and Vermont, where it was one, the term was three years. 17 In matters 11 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly oj the State of Connecticut, May Session, 1853, PP· 1 3 2 - 1 4 0 ; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, at the Special Session, October 1861, and May Session, 1862, p. 18. 15 Public Acts . . . 0/ Connecticut, . . . 1853, pp. 136, 1 3 9 ; Public Laws of the State of Maine, i860, pp. 1 4 8 - 1 5 0 ; Laws . . . of New Hampshire . . . November Session, 1844, p. 1 2 6 ; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1850, p. 928; Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, J u n e Session, 1839, Ρ- 24T i Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont, . . . i8;s, pp. 27-28. 16 Public Acts . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1853, p. 139. 17 Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1851, p. 1067; Public Acts . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1853, p. 1 3 5 ; Public Laws . . . of Maine, 1858, p. 44; Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, June Session, 1839, P· 2 3 ; The Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the October Session, i8;6, p. 30.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

237

of wages and salaries, variety of detail did not conceal a uniformity of principle. Though regulation was for the public good, the state usually was not to finance it. Maine was quite explicit: " B u t in no case shall the state be responsible to the commissioners for any service which they may render by virtue of this act." 1 8 Whether commissioners received a $1,000 salary, soon cut in half, as in Vermont, or were rewarded on the "per diem" basis, or were paid what they could get, the railroads with the aid of other petitioners generally bore the expense in such proportions as the ingenuity of legislators or revenue officers could devise. 19 II Then came Massachusetts. Here an accumulation of vexatious problems paved the way for experiment. Throughout the sixties, amid an incessant din over the inadequacies of the Boston and· Worcester and the Western railroads, committees and commissions had bickered, investigated, recommended, and finally squeezed the offenders into a merger. On the Hoosac route scandal and disagreement had reached such proportions as on occasion to dwarf in political importance the Civil War, and the decision to build the tunnel with the state's funds simply postponed troubles. On a third route to the West the dubious adventurers of the Boston, Hartford and Erie were mulcting the Commonwealth of millions. All the noise and movement could not quiet the suspicion that none of these enterprises was the scientific method of reaching the West, stimulating foreign commerce, and reviving Boston's commercial life. In any case, with the state so heavily involved, railroad corporations continually requested favors from the General Court, railroad officers and counsel haunted the state house, and the railroad lobby was so hard driven as to be a victim of occupational fatigue and carelessness. Political purists were 18

Public Laws . . . of Maine, 1858, p. 46. Public Acts . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1853, pp. 140, 146; Laws . . . of New Hampshire . . . November Session, 1844, P· I 2 6 ; Acts Passed b y the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, J u n e Session, 1839, p. 24; Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont, . . . 1855, pp. 26, 28-29; The Acts and, Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont at the October Session, 1858, p. S9· 18

238

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

offended. 20 The legislature, confused by problems grown too many and too hard, and perhaps hurt by popular suspicion, found escape by unloading its perplexities upon a commission. Perhaps one of these saviors might be Charles Francis Adams, Jr., that bright young man whose articles had probed for the first principles underlying the railroad business and had expressed a faith in "System." On June 15, 1869, Massachusetts established her railroad commission. T h e governor, with the advice and consent of the council, was to appoint three "competent" commissioners serving three-year overlapping terms. A s for salaries, they were to be $4,000 apiece and the railroads were to pay them. Though the act required no detailed physical inspection as in some other New England states, the Massachusetts commission was to supervise and examine railroad operations "with reference to the security and accommodation of the public" and was to investigate accidents and complaints. The responsibilities of earlier commissioners for the terms of railroad connections, the joint use of depots, and the expenditure of state monies appropriated to assist various railroads, were transferred to the new board. Like their colleagues elsewhere in New England, they were to determine whether railroads fulfilled their charter obligations and obeyed the laws. T h e act had two novelties. One was a provision, reminiscent of Connecticut but much more embracing, enjoining the commission in its annual report to make suggestions on general railroad policy for the state and to discuss the railroad system "in its bearing upon the business and prosperity of the Commonwealth." Another section authorized the commissioners, whenever it was necessary "to promote the security, convenience, and accommodation of the public," to recommend repairs, additions to rolling stock, additions or changes of stations, or any change in passenger or freight rates. These recommendations they were to transmit to the corporation and publish in their annual report. 21 20 Springfield Daily Republican, March i , 2, M a y 7, 20, June 11, 1869; Boston Journal, M a y 15, 18, 28, June 9; 1869. 21 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1869, pp. 699-703.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

239

Here was a most generous grant of powers. Here was no specific grant of power. The findings of the commission were not orders; they were not transmitted to the state's attorneys in the several counties, to the Supreme Judicial Court, to the secretary of state, or to the governor. In short the commission could not summon the machinery of law enforcement. It could only recommend. Such methods could succeed at first hand only if the commissioners persuaded the railroad kings to give heed to the public considerations implicit in their business. If conversion by persuasion proved impossible, the legislature must be willing to enact the board's general or particular recommendations into law, or, if legislators proved obdurate, public opinion must compel action. In a much quoted phrase Adams later wrote, " T h e board of commissioners was set up as a sort of lens by means of which the otherwise scattered rays of public opinion could be concentrated to a focus and brought to bear upon a given point." 22 The commission was to operate through the channels of "Reason, Publicity, and Patience." 23 In the last analysis, the success of such a recommendatory commission depended upon the wisdom and daring of the commissioners. The law gave them an immense latitude of discretionary power; if they seized high ground and held it, they could compel genuine regulation. In July, 1869, the governor appointed Adams to the commission. T h e good news reached him as he was enjoying other triumphs, among them the publication of A Chapter of Erie. " T h a t Fourth of July, 1869, was, distinctly, one of my life's red-letter days. It stands out in memory as such. The preliminary struggle at last was over; the way was open before me. A t last I had worked myself into my proper position and an environment natural to me." 24 He was only thirty-four. Although within the next thirty years Massachusetts made desirable alterations in the structure and functioning of her railroad commission, the fundamentals in matters of appointment, salaries, and personnel had been so soundly conceived in 1869 Adams, Railroads: Their Origin and Problems, p. 138. Adams, Autobiography, p. 176. "Ibid., p. 21. 22

240

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

that the administrative development of other N e w England commissions in this period was largely an attempt to copy Massachusetts practices and achieve her standards. T o this generalization there was a fractional exception. In 1868 Rhode Island peremptorily abolished her railroad commission; 25 after a moratorium of four years, she substituted a railroad commissioner, a shrunken shadow of the better means of control. 26 This unhappy official with limited powers and small salary kept records in a book purchased with his own funds; secured, in lieu of an office, desk space in other governmental agencies; and when later he attended the convention of state commissioners, assembled on invitation from the Interstate Commerce Commission, hastened to inform the state legislature there were at such gatherings "no excursions, receptions, banquets, collations or junketings of any nature." 27 T o balance this instance of administrative retrogression, Vermont in 1886 substituted for her commissioner a railroad commission of three men. 28 Among the many defects of the first system, discontinuity and capriciousness were sovereign. It might place in office, as it did in the late fifties, George P. Marsh, Dartmouth graduate, lawyer, diplomat, and one of the most eminent savants of his generation 29 During his interlude as railroad commissioner, he penned some curious and delightful paragraphs on Vermont's virgin "commercial morality" with incidental strictures on the mores of her railroad managers. 30 Or the commissioner 25Acts and Resolves Passed at the January Session of the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1868, p. 137. M The General Statutes of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1872, pp. 317, 320. 27 State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, Made to the General Assembly at Its May Session, A.D. 1885, p. 3 ; State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, Made to the General Assembly at Its January Sesnon, 1890, p. 3; Rhode Island Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, Made to the General Assembly, at Its January Session, 1891, p. 23. 28 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Ninth Biennial Session, 1886, pp. 17-22. 29 Dictionary of American Biography (New Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-1936), X I I , 297-298. 30 Third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner . . . of Vermont, . . . 1858, pp. 3-9.

TEE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

241

might be a political supernumerary like Wayne Bailey, who in the eighties joined to his duties as railroad regulator those of register of probate for Rutland County, justice of the peace, and assistant doorkeeper of the House of Delegates. 31 After thirty years of this experience, the governor, ascribing the industrial and agricultural stagnation of the state to excessive railroad charges and discrimination, proposed a commission — with substantial powers — as a remedy for the situation. The Central Vermont, the railroad and political arbiter of the state, was convinced apparently that it had to make some concessions to popular feeling and hoped that even a commission would not reverse the state's hallowed, kindly, and cherishing policy toward railroads. 32 B y century's end, therefore, every state except Rhode Island had a three-man railroad commission. With the exception of Vermont where it was two, the term of commissioners was for three years. In the methods of appointment there was now uniformity. In every case popular or legislative election had given place to selection by the governor with the advice and consent of senate or council. 33 This improvement, it was thought, would raise the calibre of commission personnel. Political considerations regnant in legislative or popular elections would fall away. Thus in the late sixties and seventies one candidate was proposed for the Connecticut commission because he was a "good soldier in the war, and a good civil officer and staunch Republican since," and another because he came from Middlesex County "that did splendidly for the Republicans last year." 34 Finally wholesome changes in salary schedules did something to enlist and reward competent commissioners. No state could 31

Railroad Gazette, X I I I ( 1 8 8 1 ) , 7. Journal 0} the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, Biennial Session, 1882, pp. 3 4 - 3 5 ; Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, Biennial Session, 1884, p. 22. 83 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year, 1874, p. 225; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1869, pp. 699-700; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1883, p. 78; Acts and Resolves Passed by . . . the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, at the January Session, 188g, p. 227; Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont . . . 1886, p. 17. " H a r t f o r d Courant, June 15, 1869, M a y 1 3 , 1870. 82

242

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

imitate Massachusetts with its original salaries of $4,000; such unattainable sums simply stirred the envy or incredulity of other commissioners. Salaries, however, were raised — Rhode Island's commissioner received $500 in 1874 and $2,500 in 1900 — and except in Vermont the per-diem wage or such informal payments gave way to an annual stipend. 35 In many jurisdictions pay had been fixed at levels which assumed the commissioners would have other sources of support. At least they frequently complained that their official duties were so exacting and onerous as to leave no time " f o r rest or private affairs" or for a supplementary income.36 Under such circumstances railroad regulation was a part-time or ill-done job. Even more disadvantageous was the continuance of the system by which railroads — with perhaps the addition of other petitioners — met the expenses of the commission through fees or payments in proportion to their mileage or gross receipts. 37 As the New Hampshire commissioners once pointed out, they were "pensioners," a "coterie of licensed officials with leave to beg of the corporations the means of providing for an important department in the executive administration of the affairs of the Commonwealth." 38 The only states to modify this dependence were Vermont, which incidental to the establishment of its commission in 1886 and the inauguration of a more thorough system of railroad taxation, paid the salaries of its commissioners, and Massachusetts, which in 1895 at last met the same charges from the "ordinary revenue" of the Common85 Public Acts . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1874, p. 225; Acts and Resolves of the Sixty-fourth Legislature of the State of Maine. 1889, p. 276; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1869, p. 702; Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, pp. 78-79; Acts and Resolves of the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. January Session, 1874, p. 1 4 8 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the January Session, 1900, p. 5 5 ; Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont . . . 1886, pp. 2 1 - 2 2 . 36

Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine. 1887, pp. 7 - 8 ; 1884. Thirty-first Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Connecticut, to Which Are Added Statistical Tables Compiled from the Annual Returns for 1883 of the Railroad Companies of This State, p. 49. 37 Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, 1887, pp. 8-9. 88 Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1881, p. 20.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

243

39

wealth. This step was commended as upholding the dignity of the state and assuring the impartiality of the commissioners.40 Ill As for the qualifications for commissioners, a majority of the states thought it sufficient to ensure an elementary impartiality and integrity by forbidding railroad commissioners to accept fees from railroads or to be officers, employees, or stockholders in any railroad at the time of their appointment. 41 In more affirmative vein Connecticut in 1877 prescribed that her commission consist of a lawyer and a civil engineer, both of whom should have had ten years' practice, and one "good practical business man"; 4 2 and Maine at one time or another required a man experienced in the construction and management of railroads, a lawyer, and an engineer.43 Even where statutory formulas of this sort were not enacted, appointments followed a vague general pattern. Commissions usually included some one versed in trade, manufacturing, marketing, or commercial operations; lawyers, frequently identical with politicians; civil engineers, and railroad men.44 In the last category General Butler, when governor of Massachusetts, departed from the conventional by the appointment of Everett A. Stevens, a locomotive engineer on the Fitchburg Railroad. Though it was natural, in view of Butler's character, to believe he esteemed Stevens' membership in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and in the Grand Army of 88 Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont, . . . 1886, pp. 2 1 - 2 2 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1895, pp. 43, 47. 40 Railroad Gazette, X X V I I (1895), 152. a Public Acts . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1853, p. 1 3 9 ; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, May Session, 1865, p. 99; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1869, p. 703; Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . November Session, 1844, p. 1 2 6 ; Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont, . . . October Session, 1855, p. 26; The Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the October Session, 1856, p. 30. 42 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut in the Year, 1877, p. 233; Hartford Courant, March 2, 1877. 48 Public Laws . . . of Maine, i860, p. 1 4 8 ; Acts and Resolves . . . of Maine, 1889, p. 275. " W i l l i a m A. Crafts, "The Second Decade of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission," Railroad Gazette, X X V (1893), 5 5 1 - 5 5 2 ; Railroad Gazette, X X I I (1890), 847, X X V I I I (1896), 870.

244

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the Republic as highly useful qualifications for the office, Butler's successor continued the habit that he set. 45 In an age when a railroad commissioner's job was part time, it proved difficult to appoint a practical railroad man who was not at the same moment employed by a railroad or otherwise interested in one. States escaped from this dilemma according to their fashion. Since Maine placed no restriction upon this type of appointment, the presence on its commission during the early eighties of John F. Anderson who was at the same time chief engineer of the Portland and Ogdensburg raised no questions as to whether a separation of functions presumably incompatible should take place. 46 In Massachusetts, an abode of restless reformers, such blended loyalties aroused sharp reaction. Within two years after the establishment of the commission, legislature and press were in a ferment over Edward Appleton, who, while commissioner, accepted fees from railroads for engineering advice. Though not dismissed, he was not reappointed. 47 Five years later a lesser storm blew about Albert D. Briggs, who in his innocence thought he might remain a business man and railroad-bridge contractor while serving as railroad commissioner. 48 Though Briggs, whom Adams esteemed highly as a colleague, was reappointed, the General Court instructed on the premises specifically forbade the railroad commissioners from making business contracts with railroad corporations or receiving presents from them. 49 Beneath the trinity of railroad commissioners were the minor " C r a f t s , " T h e Second D e c a d e , " p. 552; Railroad Gazette, X V (1883), 453, X X V I I ( 1 8 9 5 ) , 485, 506. Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine. 1882, p. 56; H e n r y V . P o o r , Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1882 ( N e w Y o r k : Η . V. and H . W . P o o r , 1882), p. 10. " R e p o r t of the C o m m i t t e e on R a i l w a y s to W h o m w a s R e c o m m i t t e d the Bill to Authorize the Boston, Barre and Gardner R a i l r o a d t o Extend, Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1871, no. 277, pp. 2 - 2 4 ; Springfield Daily Republican, M a y 4, J u l y 6, 12, 1871. " R e p o r t of the C o m m i t t e e on Railroads on Albert D . Briggs, Massachusetts House Documents, 1876, no. 324, pp. 2-4, appendix, 2 - 6 ; H a r t f o r d Courant, F e b r u a r y 16, M a r c h 25, April 8, 1876; B o s t o n Journal, M a r c h 14, 1876. " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1876, p. 194.

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. Railroad Commissioner of Massachusetts

Albert Fink Czar of the Trunk Lines

REGULATORS: PRIVATE AND PUBLIC

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

245

employees. Some commissions started without any assistance and ended with a clerk and little more. Others acquired a tiny bureaucracy, if the phrase can be applied to those unprotected by civil service rules. The Massachusetts commission, the paladin of New England, was blessed. Gradually it was able to employ a trained accountant, an expert on bridges, and three full-time inspectors of rails and equipment.50 Easily the most important member of its personnel was the clerk, William A. Crafts. Appointed in the first year of the commission's life, he served until retirement in 1903.51 Ten years earlier in a review of the commission's development, he had written, "With the exception of one brief episode in its history the appointments to the Commission have been entirely independent of political considerations and free from the taint of the spoils system." 62 These matters of personnel were not trivialities, for the achievements of the commissions were largely achievements of dominant chairmen. In Maine the commission was synonymous with A. W. Wildes, of Skowhegan, a down-East Fra Elbert Hubbard in appearance and literary style. His tour of service from 1861 to 1894 was the longest of any New England commissioner.53 In Connecticut the governor, following the reorganization of the commission in 1874, appointed George M. Woodruff; the next year he began a reign as chairman not terminated until 1897.54 A pillar of Connecticut righteousness, the scion of a long line of lawyers, a Yale and Harvard Law School graduate, a Congregational deacon, and a bank president, it could not be said of him, as of his predecessor, that he as little understood railroads as KRailroad Gazette, X I I I (1881), 199; William A . Crafts, "The Second Decade of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission," Railroad Gazette, X X V (1893), 582; Railroad Gazette, X X V I (1894), 704. 61 Railroad Gazette, X V (1883), 502, X V I (1884), 116; Massachusetts Thirtyfifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1904, p. 221. K Crafts, " T h e Second Decade," p. 551. ® Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine . . . Decisions and Rules of the Board Made During the Year, 1894, pp. Si 48. " Twenty-second Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut for 187s, P· 29; Hartford Courant, June 18, 26, 1874; Railroad Gazette, X X I X (1897), 248.

246

MEN, CITIES, AND

"the transit of Venus."

55

TRANSPORTATION

He soon demonstrated so much ability

that the Hartford Courant

seriously proposed the reduction of

the board to Woodruff, with the consequent saving of $6,000 a year in the salaries of his colleagues. 58 In Massachusetts, though Adams' first associates were two older, " v e r y ordinary men," they let him write the reports. He assumed the chairmanship in 1 8 7 2 .

When the commission had

completed its first ten years, Adams resigned. 57 Under his leadership the Massachusetts board had won the confidence of the public, the respect of the railroads, and a national reputation. Since it was difficult to discover another combination of Solon and Aristides, the Springfield Republican

naturally looked coolly

upon Adams' successor, Judge Thomas Russell, late minister to Venezuela, but really from Plymouth, Harvard College, and Boston. He lacked the judicial qualities; he was "too flexible a politician."

58

weakness.

The work of the commission under Russell's chair-

The editors were mistaking wit and breeding for

manship took a somewhat greater administrative trend than under Adams. Though there were fewer discussions of the "general railroad problem" and more practical solutions for local issues, the annual reports did not follow the practice of Venezuelan politicians, whose "main idea," as Russell observed, "is to tell polite falsehoods in words of six syllables." 5 9 comprehensive and candid. field Republican,

T h e y remained both

Russell converted even the Spring-

which declared his death in 1887 to be a loss to

the Commonwealth. 60

The last of this distinguished succession

was George G. Crocker, a lawyer, a Republican party worker, no crusader, and a man "with wealth enough to be independent of anything but political ambition." K

61

His father, Uriel Crocker, had

Dwight C. Kilbourn, The Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1709-1909 (Litchfield: D. C. Kilbourn, 1909), pp. 304-305; Hartford Courant, May 18, 1874. "Hartford Courant, January 10, February 20, 1877. "'Adams, Autobiography, p. 173; Springfield Daily Republican, June 9, 1879. 58 Springfield, Daily Republican, June 9, 1879 " T . R. Ybarra, Young Man of Caracas (New York: Ives Washburn, 1941), p. 1 1 ; Railroad Gazette, X I I (1880), 50-51; Crafts, "The Second Decade," p. 552. Springfield Daily Republican, February 20, 1887. β Ibid., February 15, 1887.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

247

been partner in a printing business, president of the Franklin Savings Bank, and one of the great railroad capitalists of his generation. 82 In 1892, under political pressure, George G. Crocker resigned. 63 The establishment of commissions did not supersede other instruments of control. The process simply introduced a new element, occasionally a minor one, into the cluster of regulatory agencies. At one extreme was Vermont, where apparently the legislators had decided upon at least a dual system of regulation, if not a triple one. First there were the traditional commissioners who appraised the value of the land taken by the railroads and special commissioners, appointed by the Supreme and County Courts, to settle disputes about farm crossings, fences, cattle guards, and the terms of connections between railroads. In addition to commissioners of these varieties there was the Supreme Court which upon petition determined what stations were required and what should be abandoned, and likewise upon petition could alter or lower railroad rates. Finally came the railroad commissioners entrusted with jurisdiction over railroad connections and rates but without power to enforce their findings until "the Supreme Court, sitting as a court of equity" should compel compliance "if upon hearing and legal proof, in the judgment of said supreme court, such recommendations are just and reasonable." 64 Such adjudication took a year. The judiciary as a system of regulation had every apparent superiority. It possessed at first hand powers of regulation, direction, and control; it could summon witnesses and punish them for contempt; it took its own evidence; it did not have to appeal to another department of government to enforce its conclusions. Under these circumstances the railroad commissioners were confined to routine matters of inspection, report, and occasional hearings for complain" The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (James T . White & Company, 1898), X I , 457-458. m Railroad Gazette, X X I I I (1891), 468, 487, 500; Springfield Daily Republican, October 14, 1891, January 1 , 1892; Boston Journal, July 9, 1891, January 12, 1892. "Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont, . . . 1886, pp. 2 0 - 2 1 ; Eighth Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, 1900 to June 30th, 1902, pp. 25-31.

248

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

ants who preferred the commission because it used comparatively informal procedures and professed sympathy. 65 "Almost every intelligent man" dreaded an appeal to the courts, "especially when he has a corporation for a defendant." 66 At the other extreme stood Massachusetts. Here, though the judiciary had a veto in the regulatory process, it was not an alternative to the railroad commission. The real issue was the apportionment of functions between the legislature and the board. In a sense the recommendatory character of the Massachusetts commission prevented a sharp decision on the matter. On the one hand the board bombarded the General Court with suggestions; on the other hand the latter referred question after question to the commission for investigation and advice. As this reciprocity went on, the legislature, though it necessarily retained determination of general policy, transferred duty after duty to the commission with power to act. Between 1880 and 1892 William A. Crafts enumerated at least nineteen importance instances of this process, including the approval of various technical devices, determination of the public exigency of new roads, and participation in the elimination of grade crossings. 67 Shortly after he made the count in 1894, the legislature made commission assent a prerequisite to the amount of all issues of stocks and bonds and to the terms of every lease, purchase, and sale, whether authorized by special or general legislation. 68 Still the legislature possessed and exercised power. Between 1874 and 1905 the General Court passed as great a bulk of general railroad legislation as in the forty years before 1874, when a compendium, assembled by the railroad commission, enclosed the statutory results of an era largely pre-commission in character. 69 " The Vermont Statutes, 1894, Including the Public Acts of 18(14, with the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitutions of the United States, and the State of Vermont, pp. 695, 696; Acts and Resolves . . . of Vermont, . . . 1886, pp. 1 7 - 2 2 . M Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1881, p. 2 1 . 67 Crafts, " T h e Second Decade," p. 5 5 1 . 1,8 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1894, PP· 617, 631. "" Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year

1874, pp. 347-406·

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

249

IV T o the shipper, farmer, merchant, manufacturer, and the average citizen the heart of the railroad problem was not connections, technical improvements, service, stations, or finance but rates, their general level and the relations among them. A t least that was true outside New England. A t the very moment when Massachusetts was establishing her railroad commission, the Granger crusade was gathering in the West and under its banners angry, embattled farmers were compelling state legislatures either at first hand or through the agency of commissions to set maximum railroad rates. Illinois, in particular, took the lead in the passage of explicit and efficient legislation. The New England states did not follow this pattern. This failure was not due to the absence of Grangers. In northern New England the organization, once started, flourished and gained influence. Nor was the failure due to the absence of other varieties of agitation. T h e national antirailroad ferment of the seventies, of which the Grangers were but one and the best remembered aspect, was at work in N e w England, as the Cheap Freight Associations, the construction of railroads at state and municipal expense, and the activity of such railroad reformers as Josiah Quincy and Henry L . Goodwin demonstrated. Thorough measures of the Granger type, however, had little appeal to southern New England, a highly industrialized region the output of which, unlike the grain of the West, was valuable enough to stand the cost of transportation, and a region of individual and institutional investors in railroad securities. Connecticut best exemplified the expected reaction to the Granger stimulus. T h e Hartford Courant in its most severe tone invited Grangers to consider the justice of legislation compelling them to sell their farm products at cost of production. 70 In the Connecticut legislature when the Illinois law was mentioned, one solon dismissed the issue with the calm assertion, "Connecticut is competent to manage its own affairs." 7 1 Somewhat later the ConnecHartford Courant, April 13, 1874. " H a r t f o r d Courant, July 7, 1870. 70

2 50

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

ticut commission, not content merely to point out it had never been given any authority over rates and tariffs, went on to rejoice at its own lack of jurisdiction in matters "which constitute so large a part of the duties and occupy so much of the attention of our fellow commissioners in the South and West." 72 In Massachusetts the commission though interfering in the rate-making process frequently and energetically by homily and persuasion, drummed a constant theme. " I t is unnecessary to say that, on steam railroads we have no power, and we have no desire to have power, to fix rates." 73 Nonetheless in Massachusetts the Granger alternative received competent examination because of Adams' willingness to analyze even those phenomena which made him impatient. In his writing on the subject before he became commissioner and before the Granger cases materialized, he felt certain the state could effectively regulate rates. While a maximum rate law for all roads was probably unwise, it was perfectly feasible for commissions or other experts to negotiate with individual roads a maximum rate schedule for the roads in question. 74 Apparently his doubts about the former policy soon evaporated, for the first annual report of the Massachusetts commission sponsored a bill for a general maximum. 75 A few years later Massachusetts heard Adams condemn both devices. Though a change of opinion did not abate the positiveness of the young commissioner, administrative experience and deeper study carried him to the opposite pole of his earlier beliefs. The regulation of railroad rates by legislature or commission was not in accord with American principles, justly suspicious of governmental interference and of government force. What is more, regulation was impractical. 76 ra

1882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 3. Massachusetts Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1884, p. 151. n Adams, "Railroad Legislation," pp. 41-45. "Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 58-63, 121-122. ™ Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. lvii-lix; Massachusetts Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 187g, p. 29.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

251

Such a policy might serve in France, where the state had chosen public operation from the beginning and had recruited a skilled civil service. On the other hand, the Illinois act of 1873 permitting the commissioners to establish specific rates, presumptively reasonable, for different roads, Adams felt abruptly revolutionized the basis of the Illinois railroad system and had no trained functionaries to administer it. 77 T h e statute, a "crude and apparently unconscious" attempt to imitate France, "is very open to criticism," he wrote. "Though it leaves room for the use of a certain degree of discretion to meet the requirements of individual lines," and "does not seek to impose one hard inflexible rule upon all . . . in many respects it is most unskillfully drawn and reveals, on the part of those who framed it, not only a great lack of familiarity with the important interests they undertook to regulate, but also a noticeable disregard of somewhat obvious economical principles. . . . It is, for instance, difficult to believe that many provisions of the Illinois law could have stood the test of a Massachusetts committee-hearing." 78 This sounded like self-satisfaction. Actually Adams always maintained that the Grangers had real grievances and saluted with enthusiasm the Supreme Court's ratification of the regulatory principles underlying their legislation, though he pointed out the judicial decision did not settle the economic question involved. 79 It was left for Adams' successor to exalt the Massachusetts system over those "where the rights of the people are talked about more, and understood less, than here." 80 Northern New England was a rural region where farmers suffered like their Western brethren under discriminations and high local freights. Still the official abuse of the Grangers was more extravagant here than in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Vermont commissioner declared the Granger legislation de77 Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, pp. 51-58. nIbid., pp. 55, 57. n Massachusetts Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 187s, PP· 34-3580 Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January 1885, p. 51.

2 52

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

stroyed the harmony of interests between railroad and public, weakened confidence in the wisdom of legislators, and discouraged railroad investments. 81 In New Hampshire the board recurrently expressed a doubt if the people were competent to run a railroad, and in Maine the commission deplored compulsory rate making as likely to diminish the yield upon railroad investments and discourage the construction of railroads. 82 After scolding, "If these Grangers or others who ever thought, or were liable to make use of the roads, had contributed in money sufficient for their construction, they might without doubt, have been built at one-third, or perhaps fifty per cent less than they cost," 83 the Maine board turned to the more congenial theme of controlling hackmen who made a noisy nuisance of themselves at stations! 84 Northern New England failed to embrace the Granger creed in expected fashion because it was still seeking to expand its railroad network and hesitated to frighten investment by restrictive legislation.85 The northern railroads, furthermore, were not prosperous enterprises; most were bankrupt or on the edge of insolvency; they did not invite depredations or inspire envy; they were, to use the phrase of the Maine commission, " a dead lion." 86 Though outsiders had furnished capital for their construction, these absentee owners were no more remote than Boston and local investments along the line had always been considerable. Furthermore the management was always close at hand. "Vermont is fortunate in having her railroads operated by her citizens, men of liberality and public spirit; deeply interested in whatever relates to the prosperity and welfare of the State," the governor somewhat unc81 BUnnial Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont, for 1875-76, pp. 1 7 - 2 0 . " Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1880, pp. 4 - 5 ; Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1880, p. 1 2 ; Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year 1874, pp. 1 6 - 2 3 . 83 Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1874, p. 1 7 . 84 Ibid., pp. 2 3 - 2 4 . 86 Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New-Hampshire, June Session, 1867, p. 40. "Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year 187s, PP. 4 0 - 4 1 ·

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

tuously observed. 87 Finally northern New England was a settled agricultural community, few farmers were tenants, many were lenders. Debtor psychology did not corrode therefore that identity of interest between the railroad and public upon which commissioners so often insisted. Appropriately enough New Hampshire, where all these factors were not operative, where the Concord grew fat on its riches, and where powerful alien corporations like the Boston and Lowell and Boston and Maine struggled for railroad mastery, enacted the closest replica of Granger legislation. An act of 1883 declared, " I t shall be the duty of said board to fix tables of maximum charges for the transportation of passengers and freights upon the several railroads operating within this state." 8 8 Nonetheless in New England, though rarely adopted, Grangerism proved handy. When railroads defied the regulatory efforts of commission and legislature and abuses flourished, editors, officials, agitators, and politicians opened the closet door just wide enough to reveal the Granger bogeyman within.89 Few wanted to let him out. V Though the New England states did not go Granger, a unity in repulsion did not mean that the section had a unity in railroad policy. Necessarily policy was a state and not a regional matter. This searching defect, for such it was, greatly complicated and weakened the effective regulation of the New England roads. Still there were forces staying the drift toward separatism. One was the immense prestige of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission and of Adams. The reports of the board, as well as the other writings of its chairman, were widely read and frequently quoted, sometimes without acknowledgement. Other states envied the salaried affluence and work facilities of the Massachusetts commission and used them as a standard for desired legislation.90 In other respects Massachusetts legislation was widely " Journal of the House of Representatives . . . of Vermont, . . . 1882, p. 35. 88 Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, p. 79. 89 Hartford Courant, March 3 1 , 1880. 80 Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1887, p. 9.

2 54

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

admired and copied. Even in Connecticut, with a great railroad system of its own, commentators detected "the long spoon" of Adams in legislation. 91 When Connecticut debated a long-andshort haul law in the early eighties, the statute was known as the "Massachusetts L a w , " amendments to it were designed to incorporate the interpretation given by the Massachusetts board, and a legislator read to his colleagues a letter of exegesis from Thomas Russell. 92 The Connecticut commission, jealous of its independence and reputation, discussed the same topics as the Massachusetts board in much the same way and joined the movement, initiated by Massachusetts, for a regional system of railroad accounts. The influence of Massachusetts precedents in northern New England was overwhelming. When the Vermont board embarked in 1886 upon its career, the commissioners announced their charter was in most respects patterned after the Massachusetts Railroad Commission, and their recommendatory powers, though nominally more sweeping, were "nearly identical" with those of Massachusetts. 93 In New Hampshire the Massachusetts influence was at once apparent. In 1874 the commissioners of the former state in an annual report, breaking sharply with an undistinguished past, revealed they had read the Massachusetts reports among others and derived interests and self-respect from their southern neighbor.94 A few years later they were writing, New Hampshire "is large in her respect for sister states; she would emulate their example in all laudable things, and has no desire that her state lines should be fenced up with selfishness and cold formality." 9 5 They were also participating in the movement for regional returns, and sitting jointly with the Massachusetts board in the adjudication of an express case. 96 When New Hampshire in 1883 " H a r t f o r d Courant, J u l y 10, 1875. " H a r t f o r d Courant, February 2 1 , 1883, J a n u a r y 25, March 14, 27, 1884. 93 First Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont. December 1, 1886 to June 30, 1888, p. 7. w Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1874, pp. 4-8. M Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. June Session, 187s, p. 10. m Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

255

established a board with powers like those of Illinois, the commissioners decided to use their "discretion." They saw at once that the drastic remedies spawned by the Granger agitation in the West were not needed in an old state where railroads were managed upon sound principles and that the attempt to apply such remedies would defeat the purposes of the law. Accordingly, while acting under a statute resembling Illinois', they followed the policy of Massachusetts! 97 This metamorphosis delighted the Commercial and Financial Chronicle,98 The actualities of railroad operation and management between 1870 and 1900 also convinced commissioners that a regional, perhaps a national, system of control was necessary. Regulations for automatic couplers and brakes, steam heating and safer lighting, for instance, clearly had to be New England-wide to avoid injustice and absurdity. 99 In the light of experience, the day dreams of separate state systems evaporated. In i860 her board was writing, "Connecticut is so situated that she must be traversed by the immense crowds who radiate from the commercial emporium of the country eastward to our northern New England states and the Canadas. It has been the policy of our people to afford this class of travel all needful facilities by the opening of routes and otherwise." 100 Thirty years later the New Hampshire commission remarked, "All our roads were feeders of others located in other states. They gathered the business of the state, picking it up here and there, little by little, and delivering it in bulk to the roads having terminals in Boston and other cities, which were at once the bases of our supplies and the markets for our products." 101 These were the utterances of commissions, and the commisNew Hampshire, 1877, PP· 4-8; Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1884, p. 45. " Forty -ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1893, pp. 9-12. 08 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, LVIII (1^94), 658-660. m First Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont . . . 1888, p. 32. 100 Seventh Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for i860, p. 12. 101 Forty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1893, p. 8.

256

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

sions, on the whole, were in the van of those who recognized the unified character of the New England railroad system. Popular and legislative acceptance of this concept was more tardy. Speaking roughly, Rhode Island discarded particularism by the Civil War. In Vermont, however much the Smiths might manipulate the symbols of a convenient provincialism, it was taken as a matter of course by the sixties that her rail lines derived importance from Canadian and Massachusetts connections. Connecticut, after a brief flurry with town-aided roads, surrendered distinction in the seventies. So did Maine when she permitted a standard gauge for her characteristic system. New Hampshire remained blind to the press of events until the legislation of 1883 cleared the way for consolidations. Four years later all but 63 out of the 1,025 miles of railroad mileage in the state was owned by six corporations, not one of which was solely a New Hampshire corporation. The tracks of all but one system traversed parts of three states. 102 VI Railroad consolidation and control by commission in one sense were rival forces shaping the railroad world after the Civil W a r ; in another sense they interacted upon one another. T h e contours of control adapted themselves to the shape of the object controlled. Both the law and the administrative functions of railroad regulation depended upon whether they were designed to police a structure of competitive or of monopoly railroads. T h e most fundamental problem confronting citizens, molders of opinion, legislators, governors, and commissioners was, therefore, the determination of whether consolidation was desirable and, if it were, the formulation of policy to deal with it. None of the commissions came into being when this question had been settled; most had been created when the advantages of competition and evils of monopoly were largely taken for granted. " T h e tendency to consolidation," dogmatized the Connecticut commission in 1869, "which in almost every instance is prompted by personal or sel102 Forty-third Annual Report New Hampshire, 1887, p. 5.

of the Railroad

Commissioners

of the State of

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

257

fish motives on the part of the chief managers, is a great evil." 1 0 3 This fundamental issue was raised specifically in the debate whether it was not better for railroad corporations, as far as possible, to come into being by a general law rather than by a special enactment. As long as the state cherished, even vestigially, the notion of a planned railroad system, as long as railroads sought the grant of privileges or the perpetuation of advantages already won, the preference for special legislation persisted. The alternative concept—free trade in railroads—asserted that every one should be able to secure a railroad charter by meeting certain minimum requirements of subscription and expenditure. Though the arguments in favor of this new departure originally stressed the advantages of abolishing privilege, the weakening of the lobby, the simplification and uniformity of railroad law, the removal of temptations to official dishonesty and logrolling, 104 agitation increasingly coupled general incorporation with the perpetuation of the competitive order. The first was the prerequisite for the second. Accordingly, the first general railroad incorporation act in New England, that of Connecticut, was passed in 1 8 7 1 at the very moment the New York and New Haven and the Hartford and New Haven were vouchsafed the privilege of union. 105 The intent was clear. As architects of consolidation sadly announced, the general railroad law would allow capitalists from outside to come in and "parallel with roads the children of our creation which we have promised to foster and protect." 1 0 8 The next year, 1872, Massachusetts and Vermont joined the procession, the former after considerable prodding by the railroad commissioners. 107 In Maine year after year a general railroad law came before the legislature; year after year it was defeated. 108 Legislators, lob103 Sixteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1869, p. 8. 104 Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the State Convention, Assembled May 4th, 1853, to Revise and Amend the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I I , 1 2 2 - 1 2 5 , 2 7 2 > H I , 50-54, 63-72, 1 6 8 - 1 7 0 . 105 Supra, I I , 73-77. " " H a r t f o r d Courant, July 7, 1 8 7 1 . 107 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1872, pp. 40-45. Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Second Biennial Session, 1872, pp. 22-30. 108 Portland Press, February 28, 1 8 7 1 , February 28, 1872, January 9, 1874.

258

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

byists, and railroads preferred to maintain the helter-skelter of special enactments and their resulting prerogatives. "The first business of the legislature will be railroads, the second railroads, and the third railroads, and consolidation, investigation, and charters will provide opportunities for corruption." 109 Finally, in 1875 a constitutional amendment, that "corporations shall be formed under general laws, and shall not be created by special acts of the Legislature e x c e p t . . . in cases where the objects of the corporation cannot otherwise be attained," compelled a change in method. 110 The last state to fall in line was New Hampshire. Fittingly enough the embracing legislation of 1883 joined together in the revolution, of state policy the re-creation of the railroad commission, the authorization of consolidation, and a general incorporation law. 1 1 1 As in Connecticut twelve years earlier, the benefits of the last would check the dangers of the second. The free trade system in railroads was based upon the postulates that "the willingness to build was the best proof of exigency; that capitalists would not risk their money unless the public needs called for a road, and that an unnecessary and unprofitable railroad was a thing impossible, at least in this community." 1 1 2 Experience in the seventies revealed no deep flaw in this reasoning. Adams blandly announced that the general incorporation law had a "soothing and quieting influence." 1 1 3 In the eighties the deluge of railroad incorporation began to raise questions. The Connecticut commission, smothered by the responsibility of approving parallel after parallel, gasped that it should have power to decide if the public exigency would not better be served by a single such enterprise. 114 In Massachusetts the railroad commissioners were Ibid., J a n u a r y 3, 1872. Fourth Revision. The Revised Statutes oj the State of Maine, Passed August 29, 1883, and Taking Effect January 1, 1884, p. 44; Portland Press, J a n u a r y 27, 1876. m Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, pp. 7 0 - 8 1 . 133 Massachusetts Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1884, p. 30. 113 Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1S73, p. 20. u * 1884. Thirty-first Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 5 - 7 . 110

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

now,dwelling upon the "practical mischief" of the general law. The three roads proposed for Nantasket Beach would destroy each other and the beach itself, and the four elevated roads seeking to cross Boston "from end to end and side by side" would have injured property values more than "the bombardment of our city." 1 1 5 The protection of landholders, investors, and businessmen required that someone be given the authority to license construction only of roads serving the public need. 116 Though such an appeal reintroduced the idea of selectivity, planning, and thus theoretical limits upon competition, a partial reversal of policy took place. Connecticut was sufficiently afraid of the Consolidated to stand pat, but the Massachusetts General Court in 1882 permitted the commission to determine the public need of the proposed road. 1 1 7 The commissioners applied the criteria of industrial advantage, financial soundness, earning capacity, and unnecessary competition to a fair number of proposals. 118 Most were very small scale. The same held true throughout New England, for very few miles were built under the general incorporation laws. The limitations placed upon free incorporation reflected a shift in official opinion—and popular as well—upon the larger issues of competition and consolidation. Though the question of their relative value had been debated in New England from the beginning of the railroad age, the two decades from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies had furnished a demonstration of the fruits likely to result from competition on a large and universal scale. The rate wars of this era have been discussed elsewhere. 119 To the tumult 115 Massachusetts Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1882, p. 26. 119 Massachusetts Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1880, pp. 4 1 - 4 8 ; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 46-58. 117 H a r t f o r d Courant, February 6, 1885; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1882, pp. 208-209. 118 Massachusetts Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1887, pp. 1 0 5 - 1 1 1 ; Massachusetts Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 188g, pp. 257-264; Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1891, pp. 208-214. ue Supra, I, 501-S09.

200

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

and confusion, the New England commissions reacted pragmatically. Though his ideas had been frequently foreshadowed, Adams provided a systematic diagnosis of the situation and suggested a scientific treatment. With the long perspective afforded by a study of European experience, his pioneer magazine articles asserted that theory and practice alike proved the absurdity of a free trade in railroads. Competition was bad for the railroads and bad for the community. Discrimination and instability of rates, inferior service, and the final combination of all to rob the community: these were the results of competition. Railroads were a monopoly. The law of gravitation and combination was at work upon them. 120 Adams was fond of quoting George Stephenson, "the sagacious father of locomotion by steam," that "where combination was possible, competition was impossible." 1 2 1 Monopoly, nonetheless, was a menace unless restrained. One alternative was government ownership and operation. Adams was sure, however, that in the America of his day, with rings in politics and in business, such a policy was inadmissible. Government ownership was "mischief." The other choice was some form of regulation, though here Adams did not forecast the future with complete precision. 122 After 1869 the annual reports of the Massachusetts commission rehearsed and enlarged these views. To be sure there was a moment's aberration when the specific problem of the Hoosac Tunnel pulled Adams from his orbit. 123 With that issue settled on principles other than the government ownership and operation he then advocated, Adams returned in the report of 1874 to the correct line. It may now be taken as very generally conceded that railroads are, and from the very nature of things must always remain practical monopolies,—and that the operation of the law of competition as affecting supply and demand can exercise a very limited control over 120 Adams, "The Railroad System," pp. 498-503; ibid., "Railroad Inflation," pp. 1 5 1 - 1 5 8 ; ibid., "Railway Problems in 1869," North American Review, C X (1870), pp. 132-138. 121 Adams, "Railroad Inflation," p. 150. 122 Adams, "The Railroad System," pp. 507-511; ibid., "Railroad Inflation," pp. 159-164; ibid., "Railway Problems in 1869," pp. 146-150. 123 Supra, I, 416-417; Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. lix-lxx.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

261

them, and that even this limited control is rather of a disturbing than of an equalizing character. The supply of competing roads is not and cannot be indefinite; nor does the increase in their number tend to diminish the cost of transportation; nor, when unprofitable in one place, can they be moved to another; nor can any excess of capital invested in them be released at will and otherwise used; nor can they be made to feel the influence of competition, equally at all points which they serve. 124 Consolidation was inevitable. It was also desirable. T h e larger concerns employed abler officers, introduced better systems of operation, and were more easily held accountable. T h e y must, however, be held to account. Since government ownership was impractical and the Granger legislation, for all its achievements, was based on a wrong principle, Adams preferred in the "political evolution governing transportation" the stage represented by homo sapiens, the Massachusetts Railroad Commission. 125 Such sentiments were echoed elsewhere in New England. In Connecticut Woodruff and Goodwin, the lion and the lamb, spoke the same language. T h e former, writing for the state's commission, proved by the conventional arguments that the "building of competing railroads had not proved a s u c c e s s . . . . A well built, well maintained, well-equipped, and well managed road, subject to legislative authority, wisely exercised . . . is to be a part solution of the railroad problem." 126 And Goodwin or one of his clan proved that railroads were inevitably a monopoly and consolidation was desirable. 127 In Maine, where a vociferous press bayed against monopoly, the commissioners ventured to ask whether consolidation "might not better subserve the public safety at all points, life, limb, and treasure." 128 T h e New Hampshire commissioners' va124 Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, p. 48. Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clxx-clxxiv, clsxvii-clxxix; Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, pp. 79-80; Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, pp. 48-50. 128 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1877, pp. 3-4, 7. 1 2 7 "Railways and the State," New Englander, X X X (1871), pp. 3-4. 128 Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year 1873, pp. 12-15. /

202

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

ciliated — not unexpectedly. As time passed, however, even the Granite State joined the chorus chanting that only strong corporations, buttressed with financial resources, could provide the services and rates that patrons demanded, only strong railroads could be fair to investors, only strong roads benefited the community. 129 Thus the New England commissioners recapitulated the arguments of railroad owners and operators and the insights of railroad economists from Albert Fink to Arthur Twining Hadley. State legislation synchronized roughly with these revelations of the true nature of railroad economy. Specific enactments permitting leases, operating contracts, interlocking stockownership, and mergers followed pressures rather than principles; even legislation, general in character, was often enacted to meet a particular situation. Be that as it may, Vermont did not repeal her generous pre-Civil-War law permitting leases and contracts. Though under Adams' ministrations Massachusetts passed general lease laws, she hedged them with restrictions. 130 Finally, in the nineties the railroad commission had to assent to all leases, purchases and consolidations. 131 Connecticut in 1869 permitted connecting or intersecting roads to lease each other but not to merge or consolidate their stock. 132 For years only the metaphysical bent of Justice Doe could give consistency to New Hampshire's enactments on the subject. At last the Colby Act of 1883 practically removed legislative censorship from leases and operating contracts. It required for a consolidation a preliminary determination by the Supreme Court as to whether the proposal served the public good. 133 129 Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New-Hampshire, June Session, 1861, pp. 5 3 - 5 5 ; Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New-Hampshire, June Session, 1866, Appendix to the Journal of House of Representatives, p. 544; Thirty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1883, pp. 4-6. 1M Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1867, p. 694; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1872, pp. 1 3 1 - 1 3 2 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1873, p. 870; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1880, p. 158. 131 Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1894, PP· 6 3 1 - 6 3 2 . 132 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, 1866 to 1871 Inclusive, p. 3 0 1 . Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, pp. 74-76; Northern Railroad v.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

On the whole these acts permitted Adams' natural law of gravitation and combination to work. B y the eighties and nineties, therefore, the commissions were able to compare results with their earlier prognosis. There was no disagreement. Competition was an evil. Consolidation had improved roadbeds and rolling stock, built better stations and bridges, banished inconvenient connections, lowered rates, and paid returns upon high-class securities and upon stock in roads that had previously never declared a dividend. 134 Fittingly enough the Massachusetts commission in 1899 summarized history: " I t seems to be safe to conclude that within certain limits consolidation may be beneficial to the public. There can be no question that there is also a limit beyond which consolidation ought not to go." 1 3 5 What was it? The legislature had already permitted the union of roads with terminals in Boston, once explicitly forbidden, and in 1900 was to allow further inroads on that earlier policy. As for the limits hinted by the commission, silence. VII Perhaps precision by state commissions was unnecessary, for the realization that the railroad should be regulated on a national scale was, in the early eighties, a growing conviction. On the whole the feeling was stronger in the region's northern districts. In 1882 the governor of Vermont was declaring that only national legislation could touch the "great national and continental system, controlled by immense and consolidated wealth, a system in which the Vermont roads are as a drop in the bucket, a link in a chain," 1 3 8 Concord Railroad and Others, 50 New Hampshire, 1 6 6 ; Burke and Others v. Concord Railroad and Others, 61 New Hampshire, 160. 134 1887. Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 7 - 8 ; Massachusetts Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1893, pp. 4 - 5 ; Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1889, pp. 1 0 - 1 1 , 1 4 ; Forty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1893, P· 20 J First Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont, . . . 1888, pp. 26-27. 135 Massachusetts Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1899, p. 1 5 . 130 Journal of the House of Representatives . . . of Vermont, . . . 1882, p. 36.

264

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

and two years later the New Hampshire commission prophesied with complete assurance that national legislation could not be long delayed. 137 In Massachusetts where an able commission had tasted a measure of administrative success, the thought of national legislation was upsetting. " T o bring all inter-state railroads under the control of the Federal government. . . would be a grievous injury to all railroad business; a special injury to the railroads of Massachusetts; and a great danger to Republican government." 1 3 8 It would inaugurate a centralization of control, sectional alignments against the interest of minority states, and a constant enlargement of regulation, for power feeds on itself. 139 Provincial and shortsighted as much of its opposition was, the Massachusetts board weakened on national interference when the Supreme Court of the United States in the mid-eighties handed down decisions hamstringing state regulation and pointing mutely to the necessity of national regulation. As the national Congress debated in 1886-1887 the proposed Interstate Commerce Act, preponderant New England opinion in House and Senate opposed the bill in its final form. Though no New Englander argued against national regulation on the ground of principle, particular provisions inspired dissent. Samuel Hoar, senator from Massachusetts and within a few months a director of the Boston and Albany, led the attack upon the long-and-short haul clause, which he predicted would compel the railroads to raise through rates on western produce, a heavier blow to New England's export trade and manufacturing economy than to New York's, where the New York Central was an intrastate road. The senator also feared the prohibition of rebates might outlaw the export differential which placed Boston in foreign commerce on an equality with New York City. 1 4 0 Orville Piatt, senator from Connecticut, was more Olympian in tone and interest. With considerw Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1884, p. 18. 138 Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, p. 41. 139 Massachusetts Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1882, pp. 35-43. 110 Congressional Record, 49 Cong., 2 Sess., X V I I I , Part I, pp. 634-641.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

265

able insight, he argued for the regulation but not prohibition of pooling. A partial restraint of trade was advantageous for the railroads and for the community.

T h e alternatives were a ruinous

competition, responsible in large measure for the discrimination against which the act was aimed, or a consolidation of railroad capital into a gigantic monopoly. H e quoted approvingly Adams' dictum that Congress should penalize the violation of pooling rather than its practice. 1 4 1 On the acceptance of the conference bill, four N e w England senators, two from Maine, one from Connecticut, and one from Vermont voted in favor. 1 4 2 Only the last, Senator Edmunds, questioned the dire results feared b y his N e w England colleagues. 1 4 3 T h r e e years later a select Senate committee investigating, among other things, the impact of the bill upon N e w England, unearthed individuals who claimed that the Interstate Commerce Act, " a miserable abortion," was injuring their businesses and ruining Boston and N e w England. 1 4 4 T h e railroad commissions, with the possible exception of Maine's, did not join this strident chorus. T h e decisions of the commission had already demonstrated the groundlessness of Hoar's arguments, while the immense talent of the commission, particularly of its chairman Judge Cooley, reassured when it did not dazzle N e w Englanders.

Good will be-

tween the Interstate Commerce Commission and the state commissions was furthered b y the annual joint conferences at once arranged b y the former, b y the comparatively broad field of action still left to the state boards, and b y the wider realization that the regulation of railroads was necessarily undertaken b y a national body. 1 4 5 laIbid.,

pp. 170-171, 359-365, 393-396· 143 Ibid., pp. 644-646. Ibid., pp. 666, 881. 141 Testimony Taken by the Select Committee on Relations with Canada, Senate Reports, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., no. 1530, Part I (s.n.2712), pp. 481-483. 564-565, 57ΐ· la 1S88. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 61; iSgi. 39th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 33, 36; Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine . . . Decisions of the Board Made During the Year 1891, pp. 9-10, 12-13; Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1887, pp. 25-28; Second Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, 1888, to June 30th, 1890, pp. 38-45. 112

266

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Since the Federal judiciary and Congress blocked or deflected the course upon which the state commissions of New England had already embarked, the New England system of recommendatory commissions had had at most but eighteen years to demonstrate its fitness for coping with the railroad problems of the region. A final judgment on their success is complicated by the wide differences in the achievements of the various commissions. Maine's board was sycophantic and regarded railroad regulation as a spectator sport in which not principle but winning was alone important. New Hampshire's commission had few good years and Vermont's, aware of its own inadequacies, modestly hoped it had been "useful in certain ways." 146 Rhode Island's commission is not worth the bother of analysis. Connecticut's board, though provincial, was distinguished for its concern with safety and railroad equipment. It could not hope to rival Massachusetts', for the latter was in New England without a peer. Nor is it safe in search of appraisal to take too literally the assertions of commissioners that railroads always listened courteously to their requests and put them into practice, or that legislatures hearkened to every suggestion of the board. The commissioners being human usually tempered their recommendations to what could rather than to what ought to be accomplished. 147 Only the more detailed examinations of rates, finances, and technical change — to follow in later chapters — can reveal adequately the contributions of the New England railroad commissions. Still, for preliminary generalization we can do worse than turn to Charles F. Adams, Jr. On the eve of his valedictory to the Massachusetts board, he saluted the correctness of the principle upon which it was based. Though deriding the fashion by which the board came into being, Adams declared, " H a d it not been a fla146 Eighth Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont, . . 1002, p. 27. 147 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clxxviii-clxxix; Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 188s, p. So; First Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont . . . 1888, pp. 7 - 9 ; Eighth Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont, . . . 1902, pp. 25-26.

THE RAILROAD

COMMISSIONS

267

grant legislative guess, it would have been an inspiration." 148 Thirty-four years later in his Autobiography he was still certain that "the success of the Board was pronounced and generally recognized." 149 But he also knew that the nation had turned away from his policy of "Reason, Publicity, and Patience" to "a StrongArm Policy." The "Deer Peepul" demanded it. 150 But change was not improvement. " A s to the so-called transportation abuses, if any real progress to more satisfactory conditions has been made, a knowledge of the fact has not reached me." 1 5 1 " ' A d a m s , Railroads: Their Origin and Problems, 148 Adams, Autobiography, p. 174. 150 Ibid., pp. 174-175· ™Ibid., p. 176.

p. 138.

XXIII RATES A N D SERVICES "What the public wants is to ride for nothing and have a lunch thrown in."—C. P. Clark, quoted in Hartford Courant, January 9, 1879. I Fundamental in determining the rates on New England railroads was the economic structure of the region. In this respect the fifteen years between 1850 and 1865 marked a turning point. The interests of southern New England were no longer focused primarily upon foreign commerce, they turned to manufacturing and the distribution of its products in domestic märkets. N o columns of figures for exports and imports and value of manufactured products are necessary to demonstrate this shift of concern. Contemporary estimates of the needs best served by her transportation system are more succinct evidence. In the eighteen twenties when the Massachusetts Board of Internal Improvements discussed the necessity of an avenue to the West, it thought of commerce as present actuality, of manufacturing as potentiality. F i f t y years later, when the Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners sought to fulfill its duty of evaluating the relationship between the railroad system and "the business and prosperity of the Commonwealth," it whole-heartedly identified the state's welfare not with foreign commerce and maritime operations but with industry. 1 1 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 27, 38; Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Connecticut, for 1876, to Which Are Added Statistical Tables Compiled from the Annual Returns for 187s of the Railroad Companies in This

RATES AND

SERVICES

269

Industry depended upon transportation. "Almost every article, however, which enters into the industries of Massachusetts has to be brought within her limits from a distance. . . . Her food is, then, brought from the North-West; her wool and her leather from South America, Texas, California, and the central States; her cotton from the South, her ores from the Adirondacks; her coal from Pennsylvania, her copper from Superior. . . . Massachusetts is thus merely an artificial point of meeting for all kinds and descriptions of raw materials, which is here worked up and then sent abroad again to find a consumer." 2 And this manufacturing was not concentrated in a half-dozen industrial cities; it was widely dispersed throughout southern New England. The Berkshires had industries as well as the Merrimac Valley; eastern Connecticut as well as New Haven and Bridgeport. The largest densely settled area in the United States was in New England. In order to develop their enterprises Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island required low rates on the through traffics which brought their raw materials, equality of rates between places within New England, and rapidity and certainty in the distribution and exchange of finished products. The interests of northern New England were somewhat different. Though low rates on coal, copper, iron ore, or cotton menaced none of her essential occupations, low rates on food supplies from the West were only another burden upon her farmers. Of what advantage, asked the New Hampshire commissioners, were low through rates if they furnished a means " b y which the Western farmer and mechanic can send his products to New England to compete with a man living upon the line who pays as much to get his agricultural products to a market as does a man a thousand miles away." Clearly it would be wise to lower local rates and raise through ones. "While a barrel of flour may cost a trifle more in New Hampshire, our butter, beef, and potatoes will bring an increased profit to the raiser by means of its costing less to place State. Together with the Annual Returns of Said Companies for 187; and the Revised Returns for 1874, PP- 24-25. * Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, p. xxxix.

270

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

them in market." 3 Vermont echoed the sentiment.4 When such speculations, in spite of their attractive air of abstract juctice, did not reverse the course of rate making, the only escape for northern New England seemed to copy the industrial development of its southern half. The rate structure that benefited Massachusetts would then benefit upper New England. In more direct fashion the changed character of New England's railroad network also fashioned the rate structure of the section. The original New England roads had been projected as short and independent enterprises. Though by the Civil War, longer routes —the Vermont Central, the Western, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence—had been constructed and, through lease, business contract, or alliance railroad owners and managers had begun the creation of systems, the network as a whole still consisted of numerous independent units. In i860 fifty-three railroad corporations in Massachusetts made annual reports of their doings to the General Court; about half were leased railroads; of the independent roads, the largest operated about 10 per cent of the state's mileage.* Though fifteen years later, after a period of rapid railroad growth, there were sixty-three railroad corporations filing reports, the big eight, those with terminals in Boston, operated two-thirds of the state's mileage. 6 At century's end, before the engulfing consolidations of 1900, the big eight had shrunk to the big four; they operated just over two thousand miles of road. The remaining seven independent companies operated 105. The railroad commission commented, "Four trunk-line companies . . . do substantially the whole railroad business of Massachusetts and of central and southern New England." 7 That this was no isolated phenomenon New Hampshire demonstrated. B y mid-1900 the Boston and ' Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1880, pp. 1 1 , 13. 4 Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, Biennial Session, 1882, pp. 35-36. s Returns of the Railroad Corporations in Massachusetts, i860, Massachusetts Public Documents, 1861, no. 46, folded abstract, p. 3. " Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, p. 2, Part II, pp. 21, 50, 61, 72, 1 1 6 , 135, 244, 274. 7 Massachusetts Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1899, Ρ· τ4·

RATES

AND

SERVICES

271

Maine had control of all but 52 miles of the 1 , 1 7 4 miles of steam railroad in that state.8 Such consolidation not only curtailed competition; it also brought together under centralized direction scattered enterprises hitherto pursuing relatively independent policies. The effect upon the rate structure was immediate and immense. The influence of the state railroad commissions upon rates was both less palpable and more indirect than that of consolidation, for paradoxically where such boards had some nominal control over rates the power was rarely exercised. In New Hampshire, for instance, where statute gave the commissioners the power to determine rates, they decided, instead, to imitate Massachusetts. On the other hand, the Massachusetts commission, which possessed no legal authority on the premises and openly deplored rate regulation by the state as crude and damaging and likely to violate all sound rules by effecting " a separation between the ownership of a railroad and its management," 8 greatly influenced the rate structure by its investigations, recommendations, and pronouncements. Indeed, all state commissions were given to lectures, and warnings, directed now against the railroads, now against the legislators, and now against the people. In spite of variations in tone or emphasis, common themes ran through all these outgivings. Rates must be remunerative, they must not impoverish the railroads. In this respect the commissions were reiterating the original policy of the New England states, where early railroad charters permitted the legislature to reduce fares and freights only when the railroad's net earnings reached a maximum percentage. Rates must bear some relation to costs. Thus the railroad practice of charging what the traffic could bear was as reprehensible as the popular demand that rates should be low irrespective of railroad returns. While the railroad mileage was still growing, the possibility of earnings was essential to tempt capital into the desired railroad expansion. When railroad construction was stabil8 Fifty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, igoo, p. be. 9 Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, p. 63.

272

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

ized, a regular and ample return upon the investment was a prerequisite to improvements and to better service. Financially strong railroads nourished the community. 10 Such were the guiding stars of policy. These generalizations did not answer the old question baldly stated early in New England's railroad history and debated over the years: should railroads seek high profits on limited business or low profits on a multitude of transactions? Adams, who had tentatively explored these questions in the late sixties, 11 lost no time in aligning the Massachusetts commission with the latter policy. " I t is a perfectly well-established fact in railroad economy, that where a community is industrially in an elastic condition, ready at once to respond to any remission of burdens or improved appliances, a reduction of railroad charges within certain limits does not necessarily involve any loss of net profits to the corporations making it. T h e increase of business and consequent multiplication of reduced profits more than compensates for the smaller return from each transaction." 12 If railroads shrank from the invitation to do more work for the same amount of return, they were informed that as public enterprises it was their duty to display "the constant exercise of ingenuity" and endure "a sacrifice of ease." 13 Even in Maine the commission approved this doctrine, though, with characteristic complacency, it relied upon railroad managers to recognize of themselves the proper principles. 14 10 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. l i v - l v i ; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commisssioners. January, τ goo, p. 48; Second Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, 18SS, to June 30th, I8QO, pp. 42-44. 11

Charles F. Adams, Jr., " T h e Railroad System," North

American

(1867), 497-49912 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad January, 1872, p. ccxx. 13 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad January, 1873, p. liv. u Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, 1877, p. 4.

Review,

CIV

Commissioners. Commissioners. for the

Year

RATES

AND SERVICES

273

II In general, therefore, the railroads were to set the rates for a railroad business which in New England continued to exhibit distinctively regional characteristics. At first it had been primarily a passenger business as it was elsewhere; but long after freight had become more important in the nation, passengers remained the mainstay of the New England roads. As late as 1900 the revenue from passengers constituted roughly 45 per cent of the total earnings on New England roads; for the Middle Atlantic states it was not much over a quarter. 15 Like all averages these concealed interesting variations. There were differences between states. In Massachusetts, for instance, as late as the mid-nineties, passenger revenue equaled or exceeded that from freight. 16 There were immense differences between railroads. On the one hand, the Fitchburg, after the opening of the Hoosac Tunnel, was principally a freight railroad; at the other extreme, the Old Colony depended upon passenger traffic; while the Boston and Albany balanced the two businesses on an equal basis. 17 In spite of the persistent importance of the passenger, freight revenues were the expanding factor in New England's railroad economy. This larger business was carried at progressively lower rates. The average freight rate per ton mile for the seven chief roads in Massachusetts in 1861 was 3.8 cents; stated in currency, it rose during the Civil War to a high point of 4.6 cents in 1865, and then began an almost uninterrupted descent to a low of 1 . 1 8 in 1899. The next year the figure was 1.22 cents. 18 Such averages blunted 15 Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States for the Year Ending June 30, 1 goo. Prepared by the Statistician to the Commission, pp. 338-339. 16 Massachusetts Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1895, P· 296. 17 Massachusetts Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1893, p. 200. 18 Massachusetts Average Freight Rates Per T o n Per Mile in Cents. * 1861 3.8 1885 ι .59 * 1865 4.6 1890 1.4s * 1870 3.9 1895 1.28 1875 2.45 I9OO 1.22 1880 1.84 * Seven Roads only

274

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the distinctions between through and local freights. In the first category were those rates with the West already discussed. Charges of this sort had fallen so low that the Massachusetts commission marveled, New England farmers thought them devastating, and Boston merchants mustered complaints not over rate levels but port differentials. If this had not been the situation, New England could have done little about it. T h e fas' freight lines and great trunk roads were outside of her area, remote from legislative or commission interference. Local freights, those on goods carried by a single road, were in a different category. For one thing, since the competitive factors driving down through rates did not operate with the same intensity in the narrower field, local rates declined less rapidly than through ones. 19 For another, since local rates were largely a regional matter, state action could shape them, if such a policy seemed desirable. Generalizations about local rates and correction of abuses, if such existed, seemed at one time impossible because the local rate structure was disorderly and unsystematic in the extreme. The Massachusetts Railroad Commission in 1870 found local freights on the Fitchburg averaged twice those on the Boston and Providence. 20 Nor was this the most startling discrepancy. Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, p. x l v ; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, p. 24. 19 Massachusetts Average Freight Rates per T o n per Mile in Cents. Local Boston and A l b a n y Boston and Maine Fitchburg N e w Y o r k and N e w England N e w Y o r k , N e w Haven and Hartford * F o r the year 1873 ** F ° r

1872 2.87 2.85 6.8

1900 1.262 2.184 2.380 2.401** 5-7 2.364 3-8* the year 1899

Through 1872 ι-54 "•04 4-5 3-0 2-3

1900 .581 •973 .660 •785** 1.076

Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, p. 206; Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, p. 212; Massachusetts Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, i8gg, p. 270; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, igoi, pp. 312, 316, 320. 20 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners January, I87Q, p. 71.

RATES

AND

SERVICES

275

" I t will be noticed," wrote the board, "that for the transportation of the same articles for equal distances on the several roads, charges range through a difference of 300 per cent." 21 Indeed the very lack of uniformity raised the presumption that some local freight rates must be wrong. Gradually the case against the whole structure acquired specifications. That local charges were excessive was one indictment. In large measure the proof for this assertion rested upon the immense discrepancy between through and local charges; if railroads could carry grain for a few mills a mile from Chicago, why should they charge much more on grain from Boston to Worcester. Railroad men and analysts both advanced valid explanations. Certain overhead charges — loading, unloading, storing, and demurrage — were common to all freight carriage whatever the distance; naturally they pro-rated to a smaller sum per mile for through traffic. Short hauls with their delays, turn-arounds, and pulling of empty cars, were less economic than long ones, for railroad freights earned money only when they were in motion.22 In spite of the patience, clarity, and frequency of such dissertations on railroad economy, New Englanders of common mold were convinced that railroads in practice simply recouped losses on one traffic by gains from another. Specifically, local freight rates were high because through freights were carried at a low rate or at a loss. Railroad men admitted as much. 23 The reaction to this axiomatic procedure varied according to the economic interests of the localities involved. In industrial New England, low through rates were of such general benefit that higher local rates could be borne philosophically. At least the Massachusetts Railroad Commission replied coldly to one protest that local coal freights were too high: " T h e fact is, . . . so long as the present system of railroad competition continues, rates must a^d will vary. The business community which enjoys 21

Ibid.., p. 65. Ibid., p. 66 note; Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report 0/ the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 72-73. 23 "The Cost of Transportation: Report of the New England Association of Railway Superintendents, at the November Meeting, 1874," Railroad World, I (1875), 412-413. 22

276

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the advantage of low through rates will have to accept the burden of relatively, if not absolutely, high local rates. If the companies are compelled to reduce every thing pari passu, they would have to go out of the freighting business." 24 On the other hand, New England farmers were much less Olympian; and the commissioners of northern N e w England were less certain that competition, working for the survival of the fittest, was a blessing. T o their minds the principles underlying the structure of local freights were unjust, the resulting rates excessive. 25 The most systematic effort to reduce local freight rates by governmental intervention was, however, in Massachusetts. T h e movement sought no general reduction; perhaps none was necessary, certainly none was feasible. Instead the railroad commission focused on a single product — coal. Here was a bulky commodity which was not transported at low through rates. Instead cheap water transportation brought anthracite and bituminous to New England's periphery whence railroads carried it inland at local rates to industrial and other consumers. Coal, furthermore, was essential to N e w England's economy. Though her industries had originally been based upon waterpower, such resources through deforestation and the draining of marshlands were jeopardized by freshet and drought and, in any case, were inadequate for further expansion. Unless rail rates on coal were low, N e w England industry would drift to the New England seaboard where it could unload its fuel directly from sailing vessel, collier, or barge. 26 The prospect was alarming. A s the New Hampshire commission, which with Connecticut joined Massachusetts in the hue and cry, 27 observed, "With but a single seaport, this state cannot hope to reap the advantage of this tendency, if advantage 21 Massachusetts Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 187g, p. 382. 25 Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1880, pp. 1 1 - 1 3 ; Second Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont, . . . 1890, pp. 44-45. "Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 38-41; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clvi-clxvi. 27 Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1876, pp. 25-26.

RATES AND

277

SERVICES

it is, but it will accrue almost wholly to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut."

28

Indeed there was some doubt as to

whether the gravitational pull of cheap coal would cease at N e w England's doorstep. N e w England's industry might move to the West and the South. 2 9 T h e Massachusetts Railroad Commission determined to do something about the fuel and power crisis. It attempted to persuade the railroads to a reformation of their coal rates. A t first it stuck to the realities of comparisons and calculations. A t the very least N e w England roads could halve their charges, ease the tax on power and heat b y 100 per cent, and still make money. 3 0 Later, however,

the commissioners

pyrean of general social welfare.

took

flight

into the

em-

Instead of small reductions,

now here and now there, they urged in 1873 a general reduction of 50 per cent in coal freights; such a decisive step would have profound industrial results. Besides, the railroads ought to carry coal at cost, perhaps even at less than cost. 3 1 In this fashion they would create along their lines more prosperous industrial communities from which they would garner a harvest of dividends. And in the successful production of that harvest, a cheap and reliable source of power is the prime essential. It is, in fact, to the manufacturer all that manure is to the agriculturist, and it has seemed to the Commissioners, and during the last year they have repeatedly urged on railroad officials, that it was as bad economy for them to insist upon receiving large profits from the carriage of coal along the lines of their roads as it would be for a farmer to insist upon being handsomely paid for the cartage of every load of manure which he spread upon his fields. In the one case as in the other, the carrier should look for his reward in the increased production of his territory, — i t is the crop he seeks for and not his pay as a carter.32 W h e n persuasion failed to accomplish its sweeping objectives, the commission had to march prosaically toward Utopia "through "Forty-first Annual Report New Hampshire, 188;, p. 28. ® Ibid., pp. 28-29.

of

the

Railroad

Commissioners

30 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad January, 1870, pp. 39, 40, 69; Massachusetts Third Annual Report Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clxiii-clxiv.

" M a s s a c h u s e t t s Third Annual Report January, 1872, pp. cliv-clvi, clix, ccxxi.

of the Board

of the

State

of

Commissioners. of the Board of

of Railroad Commissioners. 83 Ibid., pp. clviii-clix.

278

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

decisions on the complaints of individual coal users. Though the commissioners often repeated their vague eloquence for a general reduction, they soon discovered the only basis for determining a reasonable coal rate was the comparative one. They could not resort to the coal roads of New York and Pennsylvania as a yardstick; those roads were doing a wholesale business in coal. The commissioners must also make allowances for the size of shipment in car and cargo lots, the bulk business of large terminals, the presence of keen and sometimes temporary rivalries. In the end, therefore, they compared one New England road to another.33 B y the close of the seventies they were rejoicing at the general decline of rates, though they had to admit coal freights had not fallen by the cataclysmic percentages which they had earlier recommended.34 B y the mid-eighties there had been further reductions on coal rates.35 On the whole, however, these changes were not due to exhortations of railroad commissions or journalists but to the competitive struggles in the coal trade and to pooling arrangements between New England railroads which served a common industrial center. 13 Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 6 4 - 7 7 ; Massachusetts Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1879, pp. 3 7 5 - 3 8 3 ; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 2 0 9 - 2 1 3 ; Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, pp. 1 2 8 - 1 3 3 ; Mjassachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, pp. 1 1 9 - 1 2 2 . 84 Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, p. 76. " Q u a n t i t y Coal Rates per T o n per Mile for Distances between 40 and 60 Miles. Roads 1869 1876 1884-1885 Boston to Worcester 4.09 2.05 1.8 Providence and Worcester 5.11 2.8 2.85 Fitchburg 5.60 4.0 2.8 Boston and Providence 3.65 3.1 2.34 Old Colony 4.23 3.1 3125

Massachusetts First Annttal Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, p. 7 1 ; Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, p. 7 1 ; Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, p. 1 3 4 ; Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, p. 1 2 1 ; Forty-first Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1885, p. 29.

RATES

AND SERVICES

279

III Though the refinements of lawyers and judges often dulled the antithesis, the question of reasonable or excessive rates was not the same as equal or discriminatory rates. When local freights were concerned, this latter "abuse" aroused more New England attention. For one thing the issue was so protean. One phase was the drawback or rebate on shipments, or, as the phrase went, "rates by special contract." This arrangement was pervasive. Governors of Vermont and Maine complained of it. 36 In N e w Hampshire, "it used to be said that the Great Falls & Conway and Boston, Concord & Montreal roads were partners in every saw-mill and boarding-house on their lines, which was measurably true, for it was their custom to give to whomever would locate such an establishment within their territory nominal rates for the transportation of material and supplies." 37 A s for the law compelling an equality of rates, it "has been constantly broken by universal consent." 38 In Massachusetts, where such matters received more publicity than elsewhere, the Boston and Albany gave rebates to favored millers; the Housatonic, on one pretext or another, granted rebates to favored merchants; and railroads throughout the state rebated coal because of competition or to build up their communities. Indeed at some competitive points all coal was carried by special contract. 39 Only in Connecticut did a unique situation apparently prevail: "Owing in part to our geographical and commercial situation competition has not been as sharp as to lead producers and middlemen to seek discriminaJournal of the House of Representatives of the State of Vermont, . . . 1882, p. 35,• Address of Governor Dingley to the Legislature of the State of Maine. January 8, 1874, Maine Public Documents, 1874, Part I, no. 4, p. 34. 37 Forty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 18Q3, p. 42. 88 Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1887, p. 24. " Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, PP· 65-67; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 198-209, 214-216; Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, p. 36.

28ο

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

tions or cry out against them when made." 40 Other evidence did not support this quasi-sanctimonious observation. 41 That such arrangements were often justifiable even the most ardent apostles of equalitarianism had to admit. In the railroad world, as elsewhere, there were differences between a wholesale and a retail trade and the railroads could do the former, the business of big shippers, more cheaply than the latter. As to where the arbitrary line between categories should be drawn, railroad analysts and officers had long drawn a distinction between a fully loaded and partially loaded car and, more recently, for certain bulk commodities like coal, they admitted a further rate reduction on cargo lots of at least one hundred tons.42 Less widely accepted was the dogma that rebates were justifiable for developmental purposes, that they would stimulate undeveloped areas and scatter industries through the unfruitful countryside. Though railroads found it comfortable to subscribe to this doctrine and the New Hampshire commission endorsed its apparent benefits, the Massachusetts board tartly commented it was injudicious to entrust so great a power of economic life and death to a corporation.43 With the exception of such modifications and deviations, the concept of equality was irresistible. Some states stated the doctrine in statute. Thus New Hampshire, as early as 1853, required railroads to post their rates and stipulated that such rates and tolls "shall be the same for all persons, and for the like descriptions of freight." 44 Other states were content to rely upon the common law of carriers for the attainment of equality. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, however, had disclosed 40 1882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p . 3 . " H a r t f o r d Courant, M a r c h 1 1 , 1 8 8 5 . " M a s s a c h u s e t t s Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, p . 2 1 2 ; M a s s a c h u s e t t s Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1882, p p . 1 0 0 - 1 0 1 . 48 Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1884, pp. 1 3 - 1 5 ; Forty-third Annual Report of the Raüroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1887, pp. 1 9 - 2 5 ; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, p p . 2 0 2 - 2 0 3 . " Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed November Session, 1852, p. 1214.

RATES

AND

SERVICES

281

the frailty of this bulwark by their decision of 1859 which announced, as we have seen, that rates must be reasonable but "if for special reasons, in isolated cases, the carrier sees fit to stipulate for the carriage of goods or merchandise of any class for individuals for a certain time or in certain quantities for less compensation than what is the usual, necessary and reasonable rate, he may undoubtedly do so without thereby entitling all other persons and parties to the same advantage and relief." Nor did the railroad have to reveal the reasons for its preferences. 45 A few years later the Massachusetts General Court passed a bill by which railroad corporations were to give "to all persons or companies reasonable and equal terms, facilities, and accommodations" for themselves, their agents, and their merchandise. 46 This statute of 1867 the commission for thirteen years interpreted as prohibiting rate discriminations except between wholesale and retail railroad transactions. 47 In 1880 the Supreme Judicial Court abruptly shattered these innocent assumptions. In Spofford v. Boston and Maine Railroad, the learned justices declared the act of 1867 formulated no new test of discrimination but simply reiterated the language and the judicial dicta of 1859! 4 8 Staggered by the decision, " a surprise to lawyers," 49 the board proceeded to write and the General Court to pass in 1882 without dissent a bill without ambiguities. " N o railroad corporation shall discriminate in charges for the transportation of freight against or in favor of any person, firm or corporation . . . or demand or grant terms more or less favorable, than those demanded or accepted from any other person, firm or corporation for like service." 50 A storm broke. Some critics asserted the bill outlawed the traditional differences between rates for carload and β Fitchburg Railroad Company v. Addison Gage and Others, 78 Massachusetts, 393. 399· " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year,

1867, pp. 730-731. " Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad sioners. January, 1883, PP· 24-25. " A m o s L . Spofford v. Boston & Maine Railroads, 128 Massachusetts, " M a s s a c h u s e t t s Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad sioners. January, 1883, p. 25. K Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in 1882, pp. 7 2 - 7 3 .

Commis326. Commisthe Year

282

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

less than carload lots. Merchants began ordering from N e w Y o r k rather than Boston, for the goods thus came over lines untouched by Massachusetts legislation.

A few railroads applied the law

with a rigor that threatened the business of the Commonwealth. Hundreds of questions showered upon the board.

So Chairman

Russell, making his w a y to the state house, requested legislators to be "manly enough" to undo their "mistake"

51

and pass a

substitute statute: " N o railroad company shall in its charges for the transportation of freight . . . make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to or in favor of any person, firm or corporation or any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage."

52

If Massachusetts judges followed English

precedents, he assured his hearers this law, returning on its face to the act of 1 8 6 7 , would prevent discrimination between shippers or receivers within the same community. 83

F i v e years after this

tempest, the Interstate Commerce A c t prohibited rebates, drawbacks, and cognate devices in the transportation of goods "under substantially similar circumstances and conditions."

64

Though

this prohibition lacked effective enforcement until later years, clearly opinion on rebates had shifted. T h e N e w Hampshire Railroad Commission, once their speculative supporter, recanted in the nineties. While the doctrine of charging what the traffic would bear, the philosophy behind the rebate, had its usefulness, " i t could not be defended from a moral or legal point of view."

55

IV A second form of discrimination was that between localities. Communities served by competing railroads had lower rates than those served by a single line; frequently, as a result, there was a 61 Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, pp. 25, 28. 62 Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1882, p. 179. 53 Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, pp. 26, 27-28. 54 The Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from December, 1885, to March, 1887, and Recent Treaties, Postal Conventions, and Executive Proclamations, X X I V , 379-380. K Forty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1893, p. 43.

RATES AND

SERVICES

greater charge for a short than a long haul. This burden was hard enough to bear on shipments within New England itself; the competition between the trunk roads and the procedures of the through-freight lines produced a peculiarly intolerable form of this discrimination on imports from the West. On grain from Chicago for instance, Boston paid Boston rates; non-competing points along the line in New England but short of Boston paid Boston rates plus a large local charge, perhaps $20 a car, even though the grain was not carried through to Boston and brought back. Such practices menaced the industrial equilibrium of Massachusetts. Massachusetts manufacturing was historically decentralized and dispersed; if freights were low only at places with competing railroads, an inexorable gravitation would pull all enterprise to those favored centers. The decline of the village, the town, and the country was inevitable. The commission, however, had to confess it impossible to argue with companies that would follow so short-sighted a policy and unfeasible to do more than compel Boston rates for all stations on the road.56 Accordingly they introduced into the Massachusetts General Court an act, modeled after that of Michigan, prohibiting any railroad or connecting railroads from charging "for any shorter distance, any larger amount of toll or freight than is charged or collected for the carriage of similar quantities of the same class of goods over a longer distance upon the same road." The legislature modified this proposed paragraph by specifying that the freight must be shipped "from the original point of departure" and "in the same direction." 57 This long-and-short haul act of 1871 was the pioneer in New England. At place after place Boston rates on western traffic went into effect and on a somewhat wider scale than legislators had foreseen. Various roads not only applied Boston rates to stations on their own lines, but also to reach stations off their lines applied Boston rates there by rebating to shippers or receivers at such places the M Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. xviii-xx. 57 Ibid., p. cx; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1871, p. 720.

284

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

additional local freights charged by the connecting roads. This practice, christened "absorbing the arbitrary," won the commendations of the Massachusetts commissioners. 58 It did not appeal to Albert Fink's trunk-line association. Every effort on its part to abolish the practice or, as a substitute, to apportion the New England territory between roads, collapsed. 59 Perhaps this outcome justified Russell in believing the long-and-short haul act of the state was thoroughly enforced and universally obeyed. 60 T o this satisfied generalization, the coal cases on the commission's docket formed an exception. 61 N o state immediately imitated Massachusetts. In northern New England the situation was peculiar. A strict application of the Massachusetts law, so legislators believed, would bear with immense hardship upon roads whose chief livelihood was the through traffic. If local and through rates had to be proportioned to each other, disaster was at hand. When New Hampshire passed in 1879 a somewhat severer law than Massachusetts, she added the proviso that its prohibitions "shall not be construed as to affect the rights of any railroad . . . from establishing such rates on freights shipped over their lines from points outside of the state to points beyond the state as may seem for their best interests." 62 Three years later, when Vermont enacted the Massachusetts law of 1871, it added the New Hampshire exception. 63 In 1885 Connecticut finally joined the procession. Proponents of such legislation, rehearsing the Massachusetts arguments of an earlier decade, declared it was needed to prevent the depopula" H a r t f o r d Courant, F e b r u a r y 22, 1882; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1SS1, pp. 205-207. Proceedings of the Joint Executive Committee at 346 Broadway, New York, January 20, 21 and 22, 1S80 ( N e w Y o r k : Russell Brothers, 1880), pp. 6 - 7 ; Proceedings of the Joint Executive Committee at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, February 26th and 27th, 1880 ( C h i c a g o : R a n d , M c N a l l y & C o . , 1880), pp. 24-25. °° Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 188p. 49. 81 Ibid., pp. 1 4 3 - 1 4 5 ; Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, pp. 32-41. w Laws of the State of New Hampshire Passed June Session, 187g, p. 366; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1883, p. 77. 63 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Seventh Biennial Session, 1882, pp. 46-47.

RATES

AND SERVICES

285

tion and to preserve the local industries of small places, to assure the carriage of coal as between places at equitable rates, and to place Connecticut manufacturers on equal terms with their Massachusetts competitors who were shipping more cheaply to New York. 6 4 T o silence the agitation the railroad kings of Connecticut mobilized their heaviest battalions. C. P. Clark argued at one time that the Massachusetts bill was unnecessary,. for the railroads had learned their lesson and at another time that it was futile, for "no one ever regards it. It is never thought of. Rarely invoked. Local rates are not based upon it." 65 W . D. Bishop, conveniently emerging from retirement, declared "that the Almighty so constituted the earth that a vast majority of its inhabitants have been compelled to pay more for freight hauled a shorter distance than a small minority has been obliged to pay for freight hauled a longer distance." 66 Although railroad arguments were less cogent than usual, they sufficed to stall action in two terms of the legislature. Finally in 1885 the railroads withdrew their opposition and the bill which "the people wanted" was passed 6 7 — with reservations. Into the tried-and-true doctrine of Massachusetts law Connecticut substituted "kind" for "class" in the phrase "of like class and quality of freight," and inserted after "from the same point of departure" the words "and under similar circumstances." 68 The next year the state's railroad commission, always cold to the crusade, chronicled that no proceedings had begun under the act, "partly, perhaps, because of new regulations made b y the companies in consequence of the law, and more, probably, by reason of the modifications introduced into the law as passed, which many of the advocates of the principle claimed deprived the bill of all vital force." 69 While Connecticut imitated Massachusetts at a distance and " H a r t f o r d Courant, F e b r u a r y 21, 1883, M a r c h 10, 1 1 , 1885. Ibid., M a r c h 14, 1884. M Ibid., M a r c h 6, 1884. " Ibid., A p r i l 12, 19, 1883, M a r c h 27, April 4, 1884, April 3, 10, 1885. "Ibid., A p r i l 3, 1885; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year, 1885, p. 452. ® 1886. Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Connecticut, to Which Are Added Statistical Tables Compiled from the Annual Returns for 1885 of the Railroad Companies of This State, p. 27. M

286

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

with a difference, the Massachusetts commission was putting to final test the state's program for local freights and the effectiveness of its own recommendatory procedures. The enemy was a Connecticut railroad, the Housatonic, which ran inland over its own tracks or those of leased lines from Bridgeport to Pittsfield. This road was condemned for unreasonable rates on manufacturers' supplies and on coal, for personal rebates, and for a violation of the long-and-short haul clause by charging less for Pittsfield than for Lee, a station included within the "longer distance." The road refused to follow the board's recommendations.70 Forthwith the commissioners secured from the Massachusetts General Court the power to set local rates on the Housatonic between Massachusetts stations and maximum rates on freight brought into the state or shipped out of it over this road. 71 The Housatonic stood defiant. With conventional rodomontade, it characterized the commission's and the legislature's action as "arbitrary, communistic and unjust, discouraging to investors and menacing to capital," and contended the policy to be as applicable to " a paper mill because both stand on the same footing, — that it is an unjust interference with private property, and that it tends to destroy the rights of property." Somewhat more specifically, counsel for the Housatonic declared the measures of Massachusetts unconstitutional since Congress alone was given the power to regulate commerce between the states. 72 On the last point Russell and his colleagues had been relying upon Peik v. Chicago and Northwestern Railway whereby the Federal Supreme Court, in a decision written under Chief Justice Waite, sustained a Wisconsin law fixing rates on passengers and freights "taken up outside the State and brought within it, or taken up inside and carried without." 73 Just as the Housatonic case came to trial in Massachusetts, the Supreme Court in Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific 70

Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, pp. 3 1 - 3 7 . 71 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1885, p. 789. 72 Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, p. 38. 73 Ibid., pp. 4 1 - 4 2 ; Peik v. Chicago and North-western R a i l w a y Company, 94 United States, 164.

RATES

AND

SERVICES

287

Railway Company ν. Illinois reversed its earlier findings. The majority, declaring the court had never "consciously or deliberately" assented to the doctrine of Chief Justice Waite, found the regulation of interstate commerce an exclusive Federal matter.74 The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court applied this later discovery to the Housatonic embroglio.75 Instructed and hurried by the Wabash decision, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act. The long-and-short haul section of that act, as we have seen, filled many New Englanders with forebodings. Since it was "more elastic" than any New England statute, the results of its application could hardly be anticipated. Fortunately this clause did not raise through rates to the level of local ones, a possibility which had haunted New Englanders for years, nor put Boston at a disadvantage in the export trade. The Interstate Commerce Commission applied the act's prohibitions to the rate structures of a few northern New England roads.76 Also the act apparently induced the railroads to enlarge the number of stations to which Boston rates on western traffic applied.77 VI To regard the local freight structure solely from the angle of rates would be to forget it was also a service to be judged by the rapidity and responsibility of its operation. " I t is well known that time is of the essence of all contracts for the transportation of freights," wrote Adams in 1870. "Rapidity, certainty and accuracy are the three essentials of a perfected system." 78 These complicated matters had arisen in the fifties in the through traffic; the 74 Massachusetts Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1887, pp. 3 4 - 3 5 ; Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway v. Illinois, 1 1 8 United States, 557. 76 Commonwealth v. Housatonic Railroad Company, 143 Massachusetts, 264. 7β In the Matter of the Export Trade of Boston, 1 Interstate Commerce Commission, 24; The Boston and Albany Railroad Company v. the Boston and Lowell Railroad Company et al., and The Vermont State Grange v. The Boston and Lowell Railroad Company et al., 1 Interstate Commerce Commission, 158. 77 Proceedings and Circulars of the Joint Committee (Freight Department). 1887 (New York: Russell Brothers, 1888), pp. 47-50, 58-61. 78 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, p. 66.

288

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

fast freight lines had been the solution. In the local trades delays and tardiness had persisted unresolved. In the early seventies it often took between four days and a week to make deliveries of goods within Massachusetts and on shipments from Boston to central New York the time was often ten days. 79 As the railroads faltered and failed in this matter, perhaps the answer was to entrust the whole local freight business to the expresses which had made such a success of carrying parcels. Certainly New England possessed a unique system. Great companies operated over the chief routes: the Adams Express between New York and Boston, via Fall River, Providence, Stonington, and Norwich; the American Express on the Boston and Albany; the Eastern Express between Boston and Maine; and the United States and Canada from Boston to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Canada. In addition a multitude of local expresses—650 of them in the late sixties, 20 per cent of the entire licensed expresses of the United States—operated for the most part over New England's rails. They performed the conventional functions of expressmen: the collection, transportation, and delivery of packages and freights, the carriage of money, the cashing of notes, the doing of errands. The Civil War had greatly increased the business and functions of the expresses and there was a genuine likelihood that they would go on to assume the carriage of all freights the delivery of which was guaranteed within a certain time. 80 To many observers this possibility was crowded with disadvantages. As corporations the express companies were inferior to the railroads. Their stock was largely paper, their management secretive and despotic, their public irresponsibility vast. If they were not yet great owners of railroad securities, railroad officials owned ™Ibid., p. 73; Sixteenth Annual Report of the Boston Board of Trade, for the Year Ending January 12, 1870 (Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1870), pp. 59-71. 80 Forty-first Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1885, pp. 22-23; Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 72-73; Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, p. xxi; Alexander L . Stimson, History of the Express Business: Including the Origin of the Railway System in America, and the Relation of Both to the Increase of New Settlements and the Prosperity of Cities in the United States (New Y o r k : B a k e r & Godwin, 1881), pp. 49, S3. 55. 58-59. 73-74. 87-94. 37©.

RATES

AND

SERVICES

289

securities in the express companies, a relationship well designed to confuse interests and loyalties in the making of express contracts. 81 More concrete were the charges made against them as carriers. Though they might be speedy, they were neither safe, reliable, nor cheap. They were the joyous practitioners of "spilling and smashing." 82 To foreign observers and those acquainted with foreign precedents, the American express system was incomprehensible. In France and in England railroads carried both heavy and light freights. To introduce a similar system in this country would do away with this needless intermediary between the railroads and the public, this "machine within a machine, and a corporation within a corporation." The railroads should do the express business. They would do it more efficiently; they could be held to some responsibility. Such were the early arguments and the recommendations of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission and its echoes elsewhere in New England.83 While waiting for the express companies to disappear or to engross a greater share of the traffic, legislatures, commissions, and courts determined to secure an efficient express business through the enforcement of competition. Railroads were forbidden to make an exclusive contract with one express company; they must open their depots and trains to all expressmen upon reasonable and equal terms.84 Complications ensued. Express carts ringed the stations like a surf, expressmen and their goods crowded the platforms, the variations in the demands for express space in the cars were incalculable. The harassed railroads protested they should 81 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 67, 72; Charles F. Adams, J r . , "Railroad Problems in 1869," North American Review, C X ( 1 8 7 0 ) , 1 2 8 - 1 3 0 . 82 Springfield Daily Republican, J u n e 1 3 , 1865, February 28, 1866. 83 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, p. 67; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. xxii-xxiii; Seventeenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1870, pp. 1 4 - 1 5 . " M a s s a c h u s e t t s First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 1 0 1 - 1 0 6 ; Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, pp. 1 1 4 - 1 1 9 ; Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1884, pp. 4 3 - 5 9 ; New England Express Company v. Maine Central Railroad Company, 57 Maine, 1 8 8 ; McDuffee v. The Portland and Rochester Railroad, 52 New Hampshire, 430.

290

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

not be compelled to be common carriers of common carriers.85 Finally the United States Supreme Court came to their relief. In the Express Cases of 1886 the judges concluded that exclusive contracts between a railroad and an express company contributed to the convenience of the public. Railroad corporations were not obliged to do more as express carriers than to provide the public at large with reasonable accommodations; and they did not need to furnish to all independent express companies equal facilities, thought Mr. Justice Waite. 86 The dissent of Justice Miller described the contemporary practice in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. 87 Although the decision cleared the way for monopoly, it did not cause it. The great express companies had through purchase and railroad connivance begun the absorption of the local concerns. The Adams Express Company tightened its hold upon southern New England, and the American Express acquired the Eastern in 1879 and the United States and Canada in 1882.88 Benjamin P. Cheney, the pioneer builder of the last company, became one of the express titans of the nation.89 Local expresses persisted and, in so far as they operated within a single state, were untouched by Supreme Court dicta. In 1894 the one hundred members or more of the Expressmen's League of Massachusetts prevailed upon the General Court to reaffirm the compulsion upon the railroads to grant them equal and reasonable treatment and to extend a similar equality to such later companies as the Board of Railroad Commissioners found responsible and useful for the public welfare. Subject to these reservations, railroads might make exclusive contracts with express companies.90 A year later the Massachusetts board authorized a competitor to the American Express Company for the 85 Massachusetts Twenty-third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 18Q2, pp. 152-156. " E x p r e s s Cases, 117 United States, 1. w 117 United States, 29. 88 Stimson, History of the Express Business, pp. 90-91; Alvin F. Harlow, Old Waybills. The Romance of the Express Companies (New Y o r k and London: D . Appleton-Century, 1937), pp. 58-59· " Dictionary of American Biography (New Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 19281936), IV, 50-51. m Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1894, pp· 546-547·

RATES AND SERVICES

291

business between Lawrence and Boston. In connection with the hearing the board took occasion to describe the intent of the act of 1894. It did not aim to abolish local expresses, for a national or international organization "which undertakes at the same time. . . to conduct the local express business, may in some cases, for one reason or another, fail to transact the latter as promptly and satisfactorily as the local expressman, who is personally familiar with the people of the community to be served, who has intimate knowledge of their business and social customs and wants, and who gives his immediate and whole attention to their service." 91 Massachusetts' unique system of expresses stood a while longer. VII If one accepts Adams' conceit of railroad rates as a "tax," freight charges were indirect and passenger fares were direct taxation. Citizens paid the latter at first hand; every time they traveled they came into personal contact with a transportation impost. Consequently passenger fares aroused more popular interest than did freight rates. Like the freight rates, their averages generally declined. Again the best figures for illustration are from Massachusetts. In 1861 the level of passenger rates for seven selected roads was 2.61 cents a mile, by the end of the Civil War it had risen to 2.87 in currency. In 1870 the average for all Massachusetts roads stood at 2.7; in 1900 it was 1.7s. 92 But average fares 91 Massachusetts Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1896, pp. 1 3 2 - 1 3 8 . 92 Sample Massachusetts Passenger Fares Per Mile in Cents. Average Single All Fares Through Local Commutation Season 1861 2.61 186s 2.87 2.7 2.99* 1.02 1870 2.10* 2.62 2.20 0.99 I87S 2-3 1880 2.0s 1.94 0.91 2.4S 1885 1.88 2.02 Ι -95 0-95 1.82 2.06 1.932 1890 0.725 I-S44 1.988 0.637 1.78 1.871 1.151 189S 1900 0.625 1.836 1.168 I-7S 1-973 •1871 Figures from the Annual Reports of the Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners for the Years 1 8 7 1 , 1 8 7 2 , 1876, 1 8 8 1 , 1886, 1 8 9 1 , 1896, 1 9 0 1 .

292

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

were the fares nobody paid. They failed to reveal the complexity of the passenger-rate structure and the significant changes not for the whole but for its parts. One strand in this complex was the free pass, for, though railroads did not carry freight free, they did passengers. Practice on this score was, however, not uniform. Some railroads dispensed their favors prudently and kept a record of what they did; others displayed a "recklessness and carelessness" which shocked the Connecticut commissioners.93 A second element was the singletrip local fare for which charges were high and far from uniform. In the seventies, for instance, such rates were higher in northern than in southern New England; they varied from road to road over ioo per cent, and even on a single railroad the per-mile rate differed with the trip. Then there were the season tickets and the package or commutation tickets, both of which gave lower fares. 94 Though the operational justification for such abatements was controversial, the arguments that commuters' trains used poor equipment and ran slowly, that they built up communities which furnished a greater and a denser traffic, and that they carried wholesale purchasers of transportation, who as such deserved a rebate, prevailed. 95 Finally there were through passenger rates which, set by competition, were generally lower than the singletrip local fare. As in the case of freights, the earliest and easiest charge against passenger fares was that they were too high. There was sound justification for the belief. Rates had risen during the Civil War and afterward managers had shown little haste to reduce them. Consequently the seventies, as in the West, saw a battle for lower rates. It reached its fiercest in Massachusetts and Connecticut. 98 Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, pp. 9 7 - 1 1 3 ; Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 8 0 - 8 1 ; Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1876, pp. 3 2 - 3 3 , 5 2 - 7 1 . 94 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 4 7 - 5 7 ; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. xxxi, xxxix, cccxxxii-cccxxxiii. 05 Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 48, 5 7 - 5 8 ; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. clxviii-clxix, ccvi-ccviii.

RATES

AND

SERVICES

293

In the former Commonwealth the railroad commission sought to instruct the whirlwind. The people and the General Court were in a determined mood. In 1870 the latter issued a declaration of rights: the legislature or those appointed by it could revise and alter railroad rates, tolls, and charges, anything in the charters of railroad corporations to the contrary notwithstanding.96 In 1870, also, the railroad commission proposed to the legislature the passage of a law establishing a maximum of 3 cents a mile for passengers and arranging a hierarchy of reductions for commutation traffic.97 Adams must have lived to regret the former suggestion as a "crudity of youth," for in the next few years his commission decried loudly either a general maximum or maximums proportioned to the dividends or stock values of the different corporations. Legislation for a general maximum Adams thought ineffective, for it did not reach the great roads, and crude, for it did not make distinctions for railroad services, freight classifications, and roads favorably located or specializing in the carriage of either passengers or freight. The second method was unwise because of its complexities and because the poor roads were in effect compelled by competition to adopt the rate levels stipulated for the rich. Discriminating legislation was thus a short road to bankruptcy.98 Still the threat of legislation was a useful reinforcement to the commission's policy of rate reduction by persuasion — for Adams and his colleagues had started writing to the railroads. Their first communication tactfully referred to the public interest in lower fares, deplored the high levels of war-time rates, asserted railroad costs had fallen, advanced the favorite argument, proved by Massachusetts experience, that lowered rates would mean an increase in business without a decline in profits, and proposed "a heavy reduction of fares in the neighborhood of large cities" as "likely to " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1870, p. 2 3 7 . " M a s s a c h u s e t t s First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, p p . 1 2 1 - 1 2 2 . 68 M a s s a c h u s e t t s First Annual Report oj the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, p p . 5 8 - 6 1 ; M a s s a c h u s e t t s Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, pp. 5 3 - 6 4 .

294

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

stimulate short travel to an almost unlimited extent." 99 The commission closed with the promise of further inquiries and the publication in their next annual report of the railroads' replies. 100 Some answers, like that of the Boston and Albany, were purely factual. Other roads, like the Boston and Providence, which had not raised fares during the war, mustered a hurt tone. 101 The president of the Old Colony delivered a long homily upon the probability that lower fares would undermine the effectiveness of the railroad, felt self-interest would induce the railroads "to make their rates as favorable to the business on their lines as circumstances will allow," and tactfully deplored popular and legislative interference on the matter. 102 George Stark, manager of the Boston and Lowell and the Nashua and Lowell, was blunt. The railroad business was intricate, its operations must satisfy not only the public, given to jealousy and prejudice, but also must "reasonably remunerate the stockholders. . . . I have supposed that your honorable commission was created to, in some measure, stand between the railroad corporations and their patrons, and to hold that just balance which should prevent misapprehension both of facts and intentions, in the working management of the roads. I have not supposed, and do not now suppose, that the Commission intends to go outside of this high position, or to seriously attempt advising the trained and experienced managers of roads in this Commonwealth upon the details of their duty." 1 0 3 To Stark's conception of the commissioners' duty, the latter countered their magna carta of 1869. Circulars and queries continued. 104 Meanwhile Josiah Quincy swung into action. As a railroad man he was now in his fourth phase. Financier of the Old Colony and the Western, bankrupted savior of the Vermont Central, advocate of state ownership for the Boston and Worcester and the Western, he now became the apostle of cheap homes for workingmen. With M Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. ccxxi. 100 Ibid., pp. xxii, ccxix-ccxxii. 101 Ibid., pp. xxiv-xxvii, xliii-xliv. 102 Ibid., pp. lxxi-lxxiv. 103 Ibid., pp. xxxii-xxxv. 101 Ibid., pp. xxxviii-xxxix; Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, pp. 1 1 2 - 1 2 1 .

RATES

AND

SERVICES

295

many a reference to European patterns and innovators, particularly to "the greatest living statesman," Count Bismarck, and to the co-operative People's Banks of Germany which have done so much in "developing the manly character that is now astonishing the world by its military results," Quincy proposed to mitigate the distressful living conditions of Massachusetts workers by enabling them to build houses on cheap land in the country. Transportation at low rates must carry such householders to and from their places of work. 105 Inspired by Great Britain's "parliamentary trains" for workers, he induced the Massachusetts General Court in 1872 to arrange that on petition of at least two hundred people, "every railroad corporation . . . shall furnish each day a morning train in and an evening train out, or suitable cars attached to other trains, and reaching and leaving Boston at about six o'clock in the forenoon and afternoon . . . for distances not exceeding fifteen miles, and for such trains, they shall furnish yearly season tickets at a rate not exceeding three dollars per mile per year, good once a day each day for six days in a week, and quarterly tickets not exceeding one dollar per quarter per mile." 106 For this statute the Boston and Maine blamed Quincy, "who early conceived the idea of compelling railroad corporations to carry passengers at unremunerative rates" and also the railroad commissioners whose "adopted," if not "natural" child the act was. 107 The commissioners, disclaiming all varieties of paternity, sought to obtain a trial of these "statute" or "workmen's trains." Though the Eastern Railroad in 1872 inaugurated such service between Lynn and Boston, it substituted, for a zoning system of season tickets, twenty rides for a dollar like a horse-railroad ticket.108 105 J o s i a h Quincy, Moderate Houses for Moderate Means. An Argument for Cheap Trains as Essential to Independent Homes for the Working Classes; and an Address before the Quincy Homestead Association: Together with the Organization of the Quincy Homestead Association and the Requirements for Admission (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1 8 7 1 ) , pp. 3 - 1 3 . 10δ Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year, 1872, p. 3 1 8 ; Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, p. 38. 107 Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders, Wednesday, December 8, 1875 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 5 ) , pp. 7-8. 108 Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, pp. 39-49.

296

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Later the Old Colony agreed to run such trains for a trial p e r i o d 1 0 9 and the Boston and Maine was compelled to adopt the device although said the board — "the officers have throughout so acted as to create the impression that the success of the experiment was the thing they most feared."

110

B y the end of the seventies most rail-

roads had abandoned the experiment or reduced it to cars attached to regular trains. Interestingly enough, the workingmen's trains on the Eastern, which in patronage and in returns came closest to success, were undercut b y the "narrow gauge" between Boston and Lynn, while the one upon the Boston and Maine survived to the twentieth century. 1 1 1 B u t Josiah Quincy had set a principle, often referred to in later hearings over commutation fares, that people of modest means must be enabled to live in the countryside about Boston, and his act of 1872 b y implication gave a statutory radius of fifteen miles to the metropolitan suburban area. 1 1 2

Perhaps

these were sufficient achievements for a rates system which did not appeal to travelers because of the inconvenient hours at which the trains ran, the dirtiness of the equipment, and the slowness of the journey. Meanwhile the commission was declaring that its epistolary efforts for a wider reduction had borne fruit. In January, 1872, it estimated that reductions in local passenger and freight rates had effected within a year savings of $400,000 and $500,ooo. 1 1 3

For

the decade of the seventies as a whole the reduction in passenger fares was superficially impressive. A t its beginning the average passenger rate was 2.51 cents per mile, at its end 2.05 cents, a deMassachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, pp. 34-60. ™Ibid, p. 57· 111 Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, PP· 22-26; Massachusetts Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 187s, pp. 25-29; Massachusetts Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1878, pp. 33-36; Massachusetts Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1903, pp. 4-5. 113 Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, pp. 115-116; Massachusetts Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, i8gg, pp. 26-27. 113 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. xxiv. 108

RATES

AND

SERVICES

297

cline of 18.3 per cent. In the same period the price of gold in greenbacks declined 14.9. 114 Though the Connecticut commission approvingly quoted its Massachusetts colleague on the unfeasibility of rate regulation, it stopped imitation at that point. 1 1 5 It issued no circulars, for rates should not be lowered. Only half the railroads in the state were prosperous and all needed funds to overcome the arrears of replacement and rebuilding neglected during the war. 1 1 6 Since the commission did nothing, Henry L . Goodwin, with the assistance of the Hartford Courant, provided the leadership in the battle for lower fares. T h e proposed union of the New Y o r k and New Haven and the Hartford and New Haven occasioned the first engagement. Goodwin and his cohorts insisted that consolidation must be contingent upon "a large, peremptory, and immediate reduction of fares," perhaps to two-and-one-half cents a mile. T h e y were beaten. 117 Then they attempted to canalize the popular demand for lower fares, expressed in a large number of form petitions, into a general bill. N o railroad in the state was to charge more than four cents a mile. For those making a dividend of 8 per cent, three cents a mile was the maximum, for those making 10 per cent or more, two. 118 This proposal went the way of its predecessor. "If public companies, i.e., railroad corporations, gas companies, water companies, manufacturers, etc., are to be conducted b y private enterprise and private capital, they should be left in the hands of their managers until they abuse the public," said Senator H. C. Robinson, later counsel for the Consolidated. 119 Nevertheless the two roads, shortly after consolidation, made a reduction to pre-war rates between Hartford and New Haven and New York. 1 2 0 114 Wesley C. Mitchell, Gold, Prices, and Wages under the Greenback Standard. University of Calijornia Publications in Economics, I, (Berkeley: The University Press, 1908), p. 4. 115 Twentieth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1873, pp. 8-9. ue Ibid., p. 7; Twelfth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1865, pp. 4-6. 117 Hartford Courant, June 28, July 13, 14, 1871. ωIbid., July 19, 22, 1871. ωIbid., June 30, 1871. Ibia!., M a y 31, June 3, 1872.

298

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

For the next few years the issue of low fares ran unstressed beneath the many quarrels over watered stock and the accuracy of railroad accounts. In 1879 it emerged once more to the fore. Goodwin, attending the annual meeting of the New Haven as a stockholder, contributed to the usual uproar by two resolutions: "The directors are hereby authorized and directed to reduce the fares on this road," and "The directors spend no money on the legislature to defeat the reduction of fares." 1 2 1 Forthwith one hundred petitions were presented to the legislature and a bill limiting fares to three, two and a half, or two cents, depending upon the rate of return on capital actually paid in, was introduced. 122 More adroit hands than those of Goodwin directed its legislative course. The popular demand was now more clear-cut than earlier. Consequently a bargain was struck with the railroad. The bill was placed in reserve, but the directors of the New Haven were to explore possibilities. 123 Early in 1880 the latter announced a 10 percent reduction in all fares to New York from stations on the main and on the Shore line. The president was also authorized to reduce fares between neighboring stations 1 5 per cent if the need could be shown. 124 In 1880 the average local fare on the New Haven had declined to two and a half cents. 125 A concurrent drive for lower season and commutation fares on the Consolidated ran into the complication that legislative regulation on this score was within the jurisdiction of New York as well as of Connecticut. While suburban communities in both states united in complaining that the Consolidated was less enlightened than the Pennsylvania Railroad which was building up New Jersey as the dormitory of New York, each state was willing to take advantage of the other or feared the other was taking advantage of it. 126 Within New York the charter of the New Haven prescribed m

Ibid., January 9, 1879. Ibid., January 17, February 8, 20, 1879. 123 Ibid., March 20, 28, 1879, March 1, 1880. m Ibid., March 1, 1880. 125 Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, Part II, p. 180. ^Minority Report of the Committee on the Derby and State Line Railroad, Connecticut Legislative Documents, 1869, no. 22a, pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ; Papers Relating to the Reduction of Railroad Fares, Proposed to Be Made by the General Assembly w

RATES

AND

SERVICES

299

a three-cent-a-mile maximum; Connecticut men feared that the proposals at Albany to reduce this maximum would forestall any reduction on fares in Connecticut. On one occasion the governor of Connecticut actually requested the governor of New York to veto a bill lowering the fares on the New Haven to two cents a mile. 127 The best Connecticut could do was to take out insurance against possibilities of discrimination. In 1865 railroads were forbidden to discontinue commutation tickets or alter or modify their price relationship to way fares as such existed in J u l y of that year. 1 2 8 VIII Since it had won reductions, the general drive for lower fares in New England subsided after the seventies. Governmental action, aside from administrative details, was now directed against particular abuses or sought piecemeal improvements. One object of attack was the free-pass system. Though Charles Francis Adams had once declared the evil concerned the stockholders rather than the state, other railroad reformers claimed that under the deadhead system the ordinary citizen paid more because those eminent in politics or business paid nothing. 129 More powerful than this equalitarian argument in stirring action was the popular uneasiness lest free passes bias, when they did not corrupt, editors, governors, judges, and legislators. In spite of agitation against the practice, reformation was difficult. Railroads, many of which groaned under the exaction, feared to act independently lest rivals secure an advantage. 130 General courts and general assemblies in receipt of favors were loath to cut them off. A revealing of Connecticut, Connecticut Legislative Documents, 1872, no. 25, pp. 5 - 8 ; Hartford Courant, J u n e 28, 1 8 7 1 , February 16, March 4, 6, 1872. 127 Connecticut Legislative Documents, 1872, no. 25, pp. 2 - 5 . 128 Public Acts, Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, May Session, 1865, p. 92. 128 Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 5-6. 130 Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year *875, p. 49; Springfield Daily Republican, February 1 1 , 19, 2 1 , 1891, February 4, 1892.

300

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

example of legislative reluctance was provided when legislators, bending to popular pressures, proposed to make their passes an obligatory grant from the railroads; enjoying a right, they would not be corrupted by a favor. This proposal aroused popular scorn. 131 After years of agitation or legislative inertia, Connecticut in 1889 forbade railroads to issue tickets to the members of the legislature except upon the same terms and prices as to other travelers. 132 Three years later Massachusetts forbade free passes for the governor, lieutenant governor, council, judges, county commissioners, or members of the General Court. 1 3 3 These self-denying ordinances were belated. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Act, though authorizing free passes to the officers and employees of the road and the exchange of passes with officers and employees of other roads, contained a stringent prohibition of personal rebates. In 1891 William E . Chandler, the New Hampshire feudist, brought before the Interstate Commerce Commission a complaint against the Boston and Maine. B y its own admission the corporation gave free transportation to ten classes of travelers: "sick, necessitous, or indigent persons," proprietors of summer hotels and boarding houses, agents of ice and milk contractors, wives and families of employees, members of state railroad commissions and of railroad legislative committees, "higher officers" in the state government, some Federal officials, "gentlemen . . . long eminent in the public service," and those "whose good will is important to the Corporation." 1 8 4 The Interstate Commerce Commission, though it made no decision on the free passes to those having a business relationship with the road, declared the other passes a violation of the act. " I s it supposable that Congress intends in a provision of this character, purporting to protect people against inequality of treatment by carriers subject to the act, to give the m

Springfield Daily Republican, J a n u a r y 9, February 10, September 22, 1 8 9 1 . Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1889, pp. 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 . 133 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court 0} Massachusetts, in the Year 1892, pp. 56-57. 134 In the Matter of the Carriage of Persons Free or at Reduced Rates, by the Boston & Maine Railroad Company, 5 Interstate Commerce Commission, 72. 132

RATES AND

SERVICES

301

country a statute that creates and allows" a class distinction under which a governor rides free while a common laborer pays his fare? 1 3 5 In the nineties legislatures concocted other arrangements for reducing fares. One instrument was the commutation ticket. The railroad had democratized these arrangements. Season tickets, once confined to longer periods, were now sold for a month; package tickets could be bought for five and ten rides, though not at as cheap a rate as for fifty or one hundred. 136 Suburban riders were insistent that all roads sell a small number of package tickets at the minimum price. In spite of cautions from the railroad commission, 137 the General Court in 1900 declared that all railroads in the Boston suburban area should sell packages of 2 5 commutation tickets at minimum fares; the rate charged by such railroad company for season tickets or for tickets upon workingmen's trains, however, was not to be binding. 138 B y century's end suburban fares around Boston were among the lowest in the United States. 139 Legislators also detected the possibility of lower fares in an instrument which the railroads themselves had originated—the mileage book. In 1870 the Boston and Lowell sold a 1,000-mile book, perhaps restricted to travel between their terminals, for $20; a decade or so later the Boston and Maine adopted the device, and then issued a 500-mile book at two and a quarter cents a mile. 140 B y the mid-nineties the New York, New Haven and Hartford and the five through railroads around Boston had authorized similar ^S

Interstate Commerce Commission, 78. Massachusetts Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1895, PP· 1 2 8 - 1 2 9 . m Massachusetts Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1899, pp. 2 8 - 3 1 . ""Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1900, pp. 3 4 0 - 3 4 1 · Massachusetts Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1903, p. 4. 140 Report of the Directors of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, for the Year 1870, with Statements of Twelve Months Accounts to September 30, 1870 (Boston: Barker, Cotter & Co., 1 8 7 0 ) , p. 8; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, p. 50; Forty-eighth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1892, p. 10. m

302

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

arrangements. 141 They were very popular. Here was a suggestion to legislatures. At first the careless Vermonters simply ordered all the railroads in the state to issue mileage books but specified no price. In 1898, however, the maximum rate was set at two cents a mile.142 Meanwhile in 1892 the Massachusetts General Court compelled all railroads to issue 1,000-mile books at $20 and make these books good over all roads.143 Both acts came before the courts. In 1893 a majority of the Commonwealth's Supreme Judicial Court found the Massachusetts measure unconstitutional. Though the majority decision brushed aside the objections of railroad counsel that this was an illegal regulation of interstate commerce, that it was an unauthorized delegation of power to the railroad commissioners, and that it violated railroad charters and constitutions, it found the act unconstitutional on other counts. Since in effect it took property for public use, the statute must guarantee each railroad a sure compensation. The mileage book of another railroad was not such a guarantee; the issuing corporation might be unable to meet its debts.144 After an examination of contemporary financial relationships between railroads, Justices Knowlton and Holmes, the dissenters, characterized the objections of the majority "as theoretical and speculative rather than substantial or practical." 145 The Vermont act of 1898 was stayed by injunctions. Before the state judges gave final answer, the Supreme Court of the United States dealt with a Michigan law of the same character. A majority of the learned judges pictured themselves as champions of equality in rates. A mileage book was a discrimination, it was class legislation, it set a lower rate than the maximum already established by the legislature. B y the departure from this maxi1 4 1 Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners, 1901, p. 50. 143 Acts and Resolves Passed^by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Tenth Biennial Session, 1888, p. 62; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Fifteenth Biennial Session, i8g8, pp. 1,3 Acts 53-54. and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1892, p. 438.

' " A t t o r n e y General v. Old C o l o n y R a i l r o a d C o m p a n y , A t t o r n e y B o s t o n and A l b a n y R a i l r o a d C o m p a n y , 160 Massachusetts, 62. 1 4 5 1 6 0 Massachusetts, 94, 99.

General

v.

3°3

RATES AND SERVICES

mum rate in behalf of those " w h o m a y desire and are able to purchase tickets at what might be called wholesale rates . . . it thus invades the general right of a company to conduct and manage its own affairs, and compels it to give the use of its property for less than the general rate to those who come within the provisions of the statute, and to that extent it would seem that the statute takes the property of the company without due process of l a w . "

The

146

decision destroyed the Vermont statute. 1 4 7 Through the three decades after 1870, it must be remembered, the railroads themselves had the power to make rates. T h e y were not puppets in the hands of legislatures or commissions.

They

were the active initiators of rate policy. These railroads, it had been frequently prophesied, would, as a result of the consolidation process, be able to lower rates and make them more uniform.

To

a considerable extent these forecasts were realized. T h e Consolidated lowered fares in the early seventies and in the early eighties. In 1886 it again announced, " W e are led to the belief that this road can safely venture on a reduction of fares to two cents a mile on its M a i n Line, and two and one-half cents on both the Shore Line and Air Line Divisions."

148

In the same decade

the northern consolidators, the Boston and Lowell and the Boston and Maine, were revising downward the passenger fares of N e w Hampshire.

Both opened their acquired properties to their own

mileage books. 1 4 9 " I n our judgment," commented the N e w Hampshire commission, "passenger fares are now as low upon the roads making these great concessions as can reasonably be asked for or wisely granted at present."

150

Finally, though the courts killed

140 Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company v. Smith, 173 United States, 691. 147 Seventh Biennial Report of the Board oj Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, I8Q8 to June 30th, igoo, pp. 25-26. 148 Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. Co. to Be Submitted at Their Annual Meeting in the City of New Haven on Wednesday, December 15, 1886 (New Y o r k : William H. Clark, 1886), p. 9. 149 Forty-first Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 188p. 17; Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1888, pp. 51-52. 150 Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1888, p. 52.

304

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

laws for compulsory or interchangeable mileage books, the consolidation of railroads in large measure drew the sting from these decisions and made universal throughout New England a two-cent fare for those who could afford to buy wholesale travel. M a n y factors joined to explain the marked reduction in New England fares and freights after the Civil W a r : the return to a gold-based currency, the great competitive rate wars of the seventies and the skirmishes of later years, the consolidation of railroads, and the impact of the business cycle. On the last count the Massachusetts commission, observing in 1895 there was a panic once every ten years, concluded that rates fell during the years of depression and did not return to their former level when business revived. 151 Valid and informative as such explanations were, they did not gauge the effect of governmental action upon rates. Narrowly considered, legal compulsion played a trivial part in decreasing rates. On the other hand, the timing of reductions voluntarily made by the railroads leads straight to the conclusion that public pressure, whether threatened or embodied in unenforced legislation, voiced by commissions, or operating intangibly outside institutional channels was a continuing explanation of rate reductions. Railroads bowed to opinion or sought to win it for the future. Whatever Adams or Goodwin might say on the matter, railroad officials were chary of admitting that the likelihood of increased returns through increased business at lower fares either inspired their pricing policy or resulted from the rate reductions they had made. As a prelude to their slashes of 1886, the board of the Consolidated declared, " N o thinking person would ever question, viz., that, up to the point where increase in volume of traffic increases the cost of doing it, with equal or greater rapidity, the more business a railroad does the cheaper it can do it." The company is "now in good condition to test the question whether decrease of fare will always increase net passenger earnings." 1 5 2 When the 181 Massachusetts Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, i8gs, pp. 8-13. 16S Fifteenth Annual Report . . . of the New York, New Haven & Hartford . . . 1886, pp. 9-10.

RATES

AND

SERVICES

30S

balances were cast after the reductions of 1880 and 1886, it was discovered that business and earnings had alike increased. But the explanation was still elusive. On the whole the directors were inclined to give as much weight to an increase in general prosperity as to their rate policy. 153 The directors of the Boston and Albany who reduced fares in 1881 were also unwilling to dogmatize on the cause of their increased business. 154 In the seventies the same inconclusiveness had emerged from replies of the railroad managers to the circulars of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission. As to whether rate reductions stimulated railroad business, some officials avoided an answer, others like George Stark felt lower fares had been without results. 155 On the other hand, the Boston and Maine believed its local reductions had increased its income. 156 Onslow Stearns of the Old Colony was specific and sanguine. Rate reductions on his road had been followed by a noticeable increase in business. In 1 8 7 1 he was inclined to ascribe this increase to a general improvement of business; 1 5 7 a year later he consented to the summary, "On the road it has been found advantageous to reduce our rates, whenever business could thereby be stimulated. The immediate result has been to increase gross receipts, and, in a much less degree, the net earnings of the road. . . . If this increase in business continues, we propose to continue our policy of reducing rates and increasing accommodations to that point where our net earnings will be the 153 Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. to Be Submitted at Their Annual Meeting in the City of New Haven, on Wednesday, Jan. 12th, 1881 (New Y o r k ; Van Kleeck, Clark & Co., 1 8 8 1 ) , pp. 6 - 7 ; Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. Co. to Be Submitted at Their Annual Meeting in the City of New Haven, on Wednesday, December 21, 1887 (New Y o r k : William H. Clark, 1887), p. 7. 154 Thirteenth Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston and Albany Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, January, 1881 (Springfield: Powers Paper Company, 1 8 8 1 ) , p. 8. 115 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. xxvi, xxxi, xlvi. 156 Ibid., pp. xxxix-xl; Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1872 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 2 ) , p. 8. MT Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. lxxi.

306

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

greatest." 158 Admittedly these sample experiences were contradictory. But for the years as a whole from the Civil War to the century's end, such lowering of rates as took place in New England resulted in no financial disaster for the innovating roads. Indeed quite the contrary. 158 Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad ers. January, 1873, p. 1 1 5 .

Commission-

XXIV STOCKS, BONDS, AND PROMOTERS "Fully recognizing the nature and junctions of these corporations as being to a great extent oj a public character, and that they are bound in that character to the utmost vigilance and alacrity in promoting the public interest and convenience, I know oj no way in which these objects can be secured other than by making their revenues bear a proper proportion to their expenditures." — John H. Clifford, President of the Boston and Providence, quoted in Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. xliii. I Over the railroad business of New England the Civil War fell like a dark shadow. Trade and commerce slowed; great industries, such as cotton textiles, lacked raw material; and universal uncertainty disturbed every calculation. Railroad directors issued sad reports of business performance and business prospects. Then toward the close of 1862 a stir of life pulsed along the railroad network, twelve months later recovery was in full swing, by 1864 vitality was exuberant and unashamed. Railroad after railroad sang of its new affluence. On the Old Colony earnings increased enormously during the War and the directors in 1864 paid an extra dividend of 20 per cent. 1 The board of the Eastern, celebrating the end of its depression, declared the second half of 1 First Annual Report of the Directors of the Old Colony and Newport Railway Company to the Stockholders, July, 1864 (Boston: Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 1864), PP· S, 8.

308

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

1862 had been in a "high degree prosperous" and saw no reason to retract the description for later years. 2 The New York and New Haven bemoaned the "unfortunate National Troubles" depriving it of the southern business and pleasure travel and later declared total dividends of 12 per cent for χ863. 3 Prosperity flooded even the valleys and mountains of northern New England where enterprises, bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy, were struggling to keep alive. Though it was not general enough to rescue the Vermont Central from the court of chancery and the management of J . Gregory Smith, it changed the dirges, chanted for years by the New Hampshire commission, into a choral of hope. " T h e glowing anticipations of capitalists, when the railroad mania was at its highest point, may not, at present be fully realized, but to say the least, all reasonable expectations, in this respect will yet be gratified, and rail road stock for ever present, to the judgment of prudent men, the strongest claim for permanent investment." 4 Gone were the doubts, the indecisions, the searchings of the fifties. Once more railroads were a positive good. Everywhere the attitude toward further railroad building altered abruptly. From southern New England, where the authorities had once felt the network was sufficient since in Connecticut no locality was "over fourteen miles distant from these important highways," 5 to northern New England where ( railroad construction was still far from ample, all the states realized they were woefully unprovided with railroad facilities. For a village it was not enough to be within fourteen miles of a railroad, it must have one; for a city, several lines were necessary to capi1

The Twenty-eighth Report of the Eastern Railroad Company for the Year Ending November 30, 1862 (Boston: Henry W. Dutton and Son, 1 8 6 3 ) , p. 4. 8 Report of the Board of Directors to the Stockholders of the New York and New Haven Railroad Company. May 8th, 1862 (New Haven: Thomas J . Stafford, 1862), pp. 6 - 7 ; Joseph G. Martin, A Century of Finance. Martin's History of the Boston Stock and Money Markets, One Hundred Years. From January, 1798, to January, 1898, (Boston: Joseph G. Martin, 1898), p. 149. 4 Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1863, p. 39. 6 Seventh Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners, of the State of Connecticut, for 1861. Together with the Annual Reports of the Railroad Corporations in This State, for i860. To Which Is Added the Leading Statistics Prepared by the Commissioners, p. 5.

STOCKS,

BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

309

talize upon the beneficent effects of competition and to become a railroad center. W h e n this renaissance of an old creed failed to stir private investors given to prosaic calculations of returns, impatient communities fell with a shout upon the possibilities of tapping the finances of state, city or town to construct the essential avenues of modern life. Objections were swept aside as restraints upon the right of communities to do as they willed with their own or to seek their interests in their own w a y .

T h e feckless

habits of war finance, directed towards ends rather than costs, added contagion to the mood.

N e w England embarked upon a

second era of public assistance to railroads, so extravagant and so generous that the pre-war years in comparison were but a diminutive

forerunner.

In Connecticut the legislature, "inclined to smile upon the Iron Horse and give him free course over the State", 6 chartered a phalanx of new roads whose construction depended primarily upon financial assistance from the cities and towns they were to serve. Investments b y local capitalists and b y " W a l l Street" were supplementary. procedure. 7

Special enactments broadened or continued the

I n the other N e w England states, with the exception

of Rhode Island, the legislatures enacted general legislation to the same effect. T h e N e w England hill country took the lead.

In

1 8 6 4 N e w Hampshire authorized any town or city to subscribe to railroad securities an amount limited to 5 per cent of its grand list, the value of real and personal property as assessed for tax purposes. Two-thirds of the legal voters present at the meeting called for this purpose must vote in favor of the subscription and towns could raise the sum b y loan or taxes. 8

T h r e e years later

M a i n e followed suit with a similar enactment; 9 and in 1 8 7 2 V e r mont, a f t e r experimenting with a spate of

special

measures,

passed a statute permitting towns and cities to make subscriptions to railroads chartered under the general incorporation act if the "Hartford Courant, June 16, 1868. ''Private Acts and Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly of the State 0} Connecticut at the May Session, 1868, pp. 347-352, 366-373, 381-394, 403. 8 Laws of the State of New Hampshire. Passed June Session, 1864, p. 2849. ' Acts and Resolves Passed by the Forty-sixth Legislature of the State of Maine. 1867, pp. 68-69.

310

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

communities did not assume a liability over 8 per cent of their grand list and if a majority of taxpayers, "both of numbers and amount of grand list," signified their assent by signing a "suitable book." 1 0 Though Maine bestowed land grants, only in Massachusetts did the state assist railroads with money. In the late sixties the Commonwealth pledged millions to the Hoosac and to the Boston, Hartford and Erie and, as a result of legislative logrolling, elected to contribute $1,300,000 more to two enterprises aiming to thread the uplands and valleys of the Berkshires with the iron rail. 1 1 These appropriations failed to satisfy either the appetite or impatience of localities. So insistent was their craving for new roads that even the railroad commission found it expedient to bow to the popular will and write a bill authorizing a general system of "town aid" to replace the previous practice of special enactment. The commissioners sounded two precautions. " E v e r y town and every considerable village should be connected by rail with the railway system of the country, but when once so connected, any further development of the system through the construction of competing lines should be left to unaided enterprise." They also advocated a two-thirds affirmative majority lest landowners, particularly farmers, ill able to bear heavy taxes be compelled to underwrite the dreams and ambitions of others. 12 A general act of 1870, including the latter reservation, permitted a town of less than 12,000 to subscribe to railroads a total not over 5 per cent of its assessed valuation; a second act in 1874 allowed towns of less than 30,000 to subscribe only 2 per cent and towns with a valuation not exceeding $3,000,000 to subscribe an additional 3 per cent. 13 10 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Annual Session, 1868, pp. 276-298; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Second Biennial Session, 1872, pp. 74-77. 11 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1867, p. 716; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1868, p. 230. "Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, pp. 46-47. " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1870, p. 238; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1874, p. 167.

STOCKS,

BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

3"

The amount of town and municipal aid will remain unknown in total and in detail until some research worker has the patience and means to examine the records of every town. Available data, however, reveal its universality. In Rhode Island, Providence plunged heavily before the Civil War and lesser places continued the policy after it. 14 In Vermont the railroad commissioner observed in the seventies that many of the roads in the last few years would not have been built unless for the policy of town aid. 15 In New Hampshire — to enumerate some conspicuous municipal investors — Dover and Portsmouth subscribed $525,000 to the $800,000 capitalization of the road connecting them, and Nashua contributed $200,000 to the Nashua and Rochester. 16 In Connecticut by the mid-seventies, thirty-three towns had aided railroads. Hartford with $1,250,000 largely financed one road down the valley and another to the Hudson; New Haven contributed $925,000 to the securities of the New Haven and Derby and of the Air Line, and in Middletown, desperate for a railroad, a series of tormented town meetings strung over four years failed to penetrate the mysteries of railroad finance and subscribed $887,000 to the Air Line and $150,000 for the Connecticut Valley. 17 The total railroad debt of the towns was $5,56I,OOO.18 In 1877 the Connecticut Railroad Commission dryly observed, "None of the railroad companies incorporated in the past ten years, or since the system of 'town aid' was adopted, have earned the interest on their bonded debt, and all of the original companies still existing are in default of their interest." 19 Massachusetts towns by January 1871 had voted over the years $2,351,000 for railroad aid. The largest plunger was Spring" Supra, II, 34; Acts and Resolves Passed at the January Session of the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. 1870, pp. 219-220. M Biennial Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont, for 1873-4, P· 24· M Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1877, pp. 42, 46. " H a r t f o r d Courant, August 24, December 14, 1871, M a y 26, 187s; Middletown T o w n Records, IV, Ms., Middletown. " H a r t f o r d Courant, June 17, 1875. 18 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1877, P- 4·

312

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

field, which in 1869 voted $613,400 for two railroad concerns. 2 0 " I f Springfield votes against taking stock in the new railroads, she will give notice to H a r t f o r d , H o l y o k e , and N o r t h a m p t o n that she gives up the race for s u p r e m a c y . "

" W h a t Springfield is today,

she owes to her being a railroad center. vote,"

exhorted

the

Springfield

R e m e m b e r that and

Republican,21

Northampton,

Worcester, Athol, Barre, Pittsfield, and L e e — all subscribed in the thousands. 2 2

Railroads like the Massachusetts Central were

conceived as town roads.

The

financial

outcome w a s as dismal

as in Connecticut. T o w a r d the end of the decade when the M a s sachusetts Railroad Commission investigated the D u x b u r y & Cohasset, a railroad aided b y $225,000 of town funds and operated b y the Old C o l o n y , A d a m s used the former's history for a general homily. Indeed, one great difficulty in the way of arriving at any satisfactory results through this investigation is due to a deeply rooted, but wholly erroneous idea existing in the minds of a large portion of the inhabitants of Marshfield and Duxbury, that there is some peculiar and unusual hardship in their position. The Commissioners are wholly unable to see it. The position is one common to them with the State of Massachusetts and half the towns in it, and with nearly every municipality in America outside of the State which has contributed aid towards railroad construction. The towns interested in this case stood in great need of railroad facilities, just as the State thought it stood in need of the Hoosac Tunnel, or the towns in the centre of the State of the Massachusetts Central road. They contributed to build the road, and, when built, it proved less profitable than they had hoped. . . . They saw fit, with full consideration and with no solicitation from outside, in a time of high prices and general inflation, to embark in a railroad enterprise on insufficient capital and without the necessary equipment to enable them to operate their road economically This enterprise, like innumerable others entered into in the same way, proved a financial failure. In this there was nothing to occasion surprise; it would have been a far greater cause for surprise had it resulted otherwise. 23 80 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad January, 1871, pp. ix, lxxix-xcviii. 21 Springfield Daily Republican, M a y 15, 17, 1869. 22 Massachusetts Second Annml Report of the Board of Railroad January, 1S71, pp. xciii-xcvi. 28 Massachusetts Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad January, 1878, p. 124.

Commissioners.

Commissioners. Commissioners.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

313

II Such a candid scolding would have been unthinkable in earlier and more sanguine days. B y the later seventies, however, towns were tired of successive referenda voted in the midst of promotional fever, tired of railroad promoters with their insatiable demands on municipal credit, tired of the ambiguities and confusions of general aid laws, tired of losses. Responsive to the changed mood, the state governments grew cool toward town aid. Massachusetts, though she did not prohibit it, restricted town debts, no matter how accumulated, to 3 per cent of the assessed valuation. 24 In 1877 New Hampshire repealed the town-aid statute and forbade any town or city to assist with its finances corporations run for profit. 25 Connecticut marked her return to traditionally steady habits by a constitutional amendment prohibiting further town or municipal aid to railroad enterprises, 26 and Maine by a like measure limited the indebtedness of towns and cities to 5 per cent of their assessed valuation. 27 A decade later when many Connecticut communities staggered under the burden of interest charges and of refunding securities issued for railroad aid, a movement got under way to persuade the state to assume the town debts. From municipalities like Hartford which were solving their own problems rose the cry of "communism" and debt-free towns saw no reason to bail out communities seduced by railroad plungers. 28 In the twentieth century, however, the state finally proffered relief to its smaller, debt-ridden communities. 29 Only Vermont did not legally retreat. Her town-aid policy, however, aroused much bitterness and Vermonters had "Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1876, pp. 1 4 8 - 1 4 9 ; Springfield Daily Republican, April 1 22, 1875. 25 Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1877, pp. S i ~ S 2 · 26 The General Statutes of Connecticut, Revision of 1887; in Force January First, 1888: with the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Connecticut, pp. lx-lxi. 27 Fourth Revision. The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine, Passed August 29, 1883 and Taking Effect January 1, 1884, p. 53. M Hartford Courant, April 1 5 , 1882, February 3, 4, 1886. 29 The General Statutes of Connecticut. Revision of 1918 in Force July ist, 1918 with the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution "of the State of Connecticut, p. 189.

314

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

grown tired of being told that new railroad facilities alone would dissipate the difficulties of a static community.30 So the act remained on the statute book like an epitaph. It could have served for the whole of New England. No policy, public or private, produced so many useless railroads. The taxation system was another barometer of the changing popular attitude toward railroads. Perhaps the phrase "taxation system" is a misnomer, for, when Adams investigated in the seventies the tax arrangements throughout the nation, he found no general method or principle at work and in the old states, including New England, "hardly any features worthy of study or imitation." 3 1 Railroads were taxed upon rails and roadbeds, upon other real estate, or upon rolling stock and equipment. Stockholders paid taxes upon their securities as personal property and railroads paid franchise taxes proportioned to the value of their stock or the size of their income. Towns taxed, municipalities taxed, states taxed.32 A similar heterogeneity characterized the tax exemptions granted by many states to encourage railroad construction. Charters first conferred these favors. In Vermont, where most roads had some form of exemption, the charter of the Vermont Central sweepingly declared, "The stock, property and effects of said company shall be exempt from all taxes by or under the authority of the state." 33 The charter of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, though Maine authorized towns to tax the road on its real estate and the stockholders on their shares and permitted the state to appropriate earnings above io per cent, provided in 1845 that "no other tax . . . shall ever be levied or assessed on said corporation, or any of their privileges or franchises." 34 Sometimes the exemptions were generalized by law. Thus New Hampshire, which had levied a tax on railroad stock, in 1868 ex" Biennial Report of the Railroad Commissioner . . . of Vermont, for 1873-4, p. 24; Charles C. Dewey, Proposed Railroad Routes between Rutland and Woodstock. Reasons Why Rutland Should Not Be Mortgaged (n.p., n.d.) a 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 81, 85. "Ibid., pp. 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 , 1 2 3 , 1 2 5 - 1 2 6 . ** Acts and Resolves Passed by the Legislature of the State of Vermont, at Their October Session, 1843, p. 49. " Private and Special Laws of the State of Maine, 184s, p. 253.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

315

empted from taxes for ten years the capital of railroads thereafter constructed.35 In the seventies the states began a retreat from generosity. By taxing the railroads upon their stock values and later upon gross receipts, Maine brought on a war with the railroads that lasted for fifteen years. 36 To the latters' plea that such taxation violated their charters, Governor Dingley replied that even if the exemption existed, it was only temporary, it could not last for a quarter-century or forever, and in the exercise of this sovereign power one legislature could not bind succeeding legislatures.37 Considering the state and the speaker, these were extraordinary sentiments. In 1874 Vermont authorized the limited taxation of railroad real estate, although on new roads a ten-year exemption was granted "from the time regular trains for public traffic and accommodation shall have commenced running over the entire length of said road within this state." 3 8 Two years later the exemption period was halved.39 When these laws ran afoul of the Vermont courts, the state in 1882 specifically repealed the exemption of the Vermont Central and levied a franchise tax on the gross receipts of all railroads.40 These withdrawals of state favoritism generally weathered the charge of violating contracts, since very early in the railroad period most states had passed statutes permitting the alteration and amendment of all corporate charters. In the late eighties, however, franchise taxes collided with the power of the Federal government to regulate interstate commerce. Decisions of the Federal Supreme Court on this point were confusing. In 1891 a bench, dividing 5 to 4, upheld the constitution31 Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1868, p. 1 5 1 . "Acts and Resolves of the Fifty-third Legislature of the State of Maine. 1874, pp. 1 8 4 - 1 8 5 ; Acts and Resolves of the Fifty-ninth Legislature of the State of Maine. 1880, pp. 294-295; Portland Press, April 25, J u l y 25, 1874, February 8, 1875, J a n u a r y 5, 28, 1877, April 30, November 7, 1878, M a y 24, 1879, February 1 7 , 1880. 37 Address of Governor Dingley to the Legislature of the State of Maine. J a n u a r y 7, 1875, Maine Public Documents, 1875, no. 4, p. 1 3 . " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Third Biennial Session, 1874, pp. 1 6 - 1 8 . 89 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Fourth Biennial Session, 1876, pp. 85-86. " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Seventh Biennial Session, 1882, pp. 6, 2 3 - 2 4 ; Vermont and Canada Railroad Co., et al. v. Vermont Central Railroad Co., et al., 63 Vermont, 32.

3i6

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

ality of Maine's franchise tax in the decisive case of Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway Company. 41 Ill Although certain marginal railroads would never have been built without public aid, the expansion of the railroad network was fundamentally an achievement of private capital. In Connecticut during the decade of town aid, 1868-1877, town subscriptions accounted for roughly 60 per cent of the increase of railroad securities in the state; their percentage of the total capitalization in 1877 was only nine.42 In Massachusetts 1880 was a somewhat better vantage point for estimates. B y then the railroads which had borrowed from the Commonwealth in the pre-CivilWar period had discharged their indebtedness, though during the Civil War, when the Eastern was pressed for payments in gold, its officials squealed like repudiators. 43 In 1880 furthermore the experiment with the Boston, Hartford and Erie was over and the state was nearing the end of its contributions to the Hoosac. In these two enterprises the state had invested $17,738,996. It also owned $1,140,225 in the stock of the Boston and Albany, a continuation of its earlier investment in the Western. From available data I surmise town contributions would not exceed $3,000,000. The total of these various sums constituted roughly 12 per cent of the total indebtedness and stock of the railroads in the Commonwealth.44 Maine was a special instance, discussed in an earlier chapter. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island governmental assistance was small. Private capitalists took at first hand the great bulk of the new railroad securities. " 6 3 Vermont, 19, 29; Railroad Company v. Maine, 96 United States, 499; Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway Corporation, 142 United States, 2 1 7 . 12 Fifteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1868, p. 22; Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1878, p. 25. " The Twenty-eighth Report of the Eastern . . . 1862, pp. 1 - 2 ; A Brief Statement Relative to the Claim Made on the Eastern Railroad Company to Pay Its Indebtedness to the Commonwealth in Gold (n.p., n.d.). " Report of the Auditor of Accounts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the Year Ending December 31, 1880, pp. 32, 33, 2 7 3 ; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, p. 4.

STOCKS,

BONDS,

AND

PROMOTERS

T h e increase of securities was a deluge. Between 1859, a date for which H e n r y V . Poor provided statistics, and 1900, N e w England railroad shares and bonds increased from $140,513,260 to $500,724,511. 4 5

While both figures in themselves were impres-

sive, a relative increase of bonds to stock was the more startling phenomenon.

In

the early

meant the issue of stock.

railroad

period

railroad

financing

T h e trend toward bonds had been

marked, however, in the fifties, and, when railroad construction and expansion was resumed after the Civil W a r , the reliance upon bonds was resumed also. T h e same factors as in the earlier period accounted for their usefulness and popularity. T h e y were a financial necessity when security purchasers grew doubtful of the soundness of the enterprise in question and when stocks had worn out their welcome. Consequently railroad corporations thrusting their lines through an undeveloped or comparatively unproductive country or attempting the commercially impossible spawned bonds. B y 1875 in the Green Mountain state the capitalization of the Central Vermont was $5,000,000, its bonds were $7,739,300. In Maine the European and North American had a funded debt not quite twice its capitalization, the Portland and Ogdensburg one 130 per cent greater, and the K n o x and Lincoln, a town-aid road, one 6^2 times its capital stock. 4 6 E v e n sounder enterprises felt the pinch as their directors and managers determined they had to build or expand and found that sales of stock would not raise the money to do so.

T h u s the

Eastern had to have its immense terminal in Boston and its yards along the M y s t i c ; the Boston and Maine had to push its extension from Berwick to Portland. T h e competitive pressures compelling these improvements at the same time undermined possibilities of dividends and filled promoters and purchasers with misgivings. T h e answer was bonds. A s the novelty of this form of

financing

" H e n r y V. Poor, History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America, Exhibiting Their Progress, Cost, Revenues, Expenditures & Present Condition (New Y o r k : J. H. Schultz & Co., i860), pp. 12, 40, 71, 93, 186, 194; Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States. Thirty-fourth Annual Number, igoi (New Y o r k : Η. V. & H. W. Poor, n.d.), p. vii. " H e n r y V . Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1876-77 (New Y o r k : Η. V. & H. W. Poor, 1876), p. xviii.

3l8

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

wore off, not necessity but fancied advantage led to its adoption. For one thing interest rates on this form of security almost continuously declined. Within twenty-five years after 1871 the average rate on the funded debt of Massachusetts railroads fell from 6.42 per cent to 4.77. 47 In the nineties the New York, New Haven and Hartford was issuing fifty-year bonds at 4 per cent.48 At the same time the dowager roads of southern New England were paying high dividends on their stock and the inviolability of these dividends was an article in the creed of managers and people. In these circumstances the roads preferred to hire their money the cheaper way through bonds. Frequently it seemed as if stock had become the senior security and bonds the junior one. In the post-war period as in the fifties, promoters, speculators, and railroad men created bonded indebtedness to build their roads in order that they might have in the common stock not the funds for construction but a plaything, an extra, a bonus, signifying nothing or everything. Only enough stock would be taken up to get the enterprise under way and to issue the bonds. The latter would provide the means of actual construction. The stock would go to the constructor or contractor — an individual, a company, or a ring — for work done on the road, estimated often carelessly, imaginatively, or dishonestly; or for franchises, rights, or other privileges in the possession of the promoters and traded in at inflated values. These stockowners would retain their holdings if dividend prospects were good or unload them in the market before the impossibility of dividends was visible to the unwary. 49 The Massachusetts Railroad Commission unmasked some of the more unrefined procedures of this sort. At one extreme was the projected Boston, Winthrop and Point Shirley Railroad Company, a small narrow gauge enterprise of the seventies. The president of this corporation was also the 47 Massachusetts Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1897, p. 10. 48 Twenty-sixth Year. General Statement of the Affairs of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, for the Year Ending June 30, 18(17 (New Y o r k : William H . Clark, 1 8 9 7 ) , p. 5. " Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 42-45.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND PROMOTERS

3*9

contractor for its construction and a subscriber to nearly all of its $100,000 capitalization. He paid for his stock with $25,000 in work done — a few bridges and detached pieces of track — and with $65,000 of fictitious values arbitrarily given to a contract with the town of Winthrop, obligating the latter to transfer to the president-contractor and largest stockholder a right of way for his road and a street railway. The aim of these devious maneuvers was to get a stock subscription so the bonds could be issued to build the road.50 At the other extreme was the New York and Boston Inland Railroad, a grandiose enterprise of the eighties which proposed to parallel the Consolidated. The amount of stock subscribed in Connecticut was $600,000; in New York, $200,000; and in Massachusetts $500,000. The New York Construction Company made the whole of the first two subscriptions and all but $7,500 of the last. Yet the capital of the New York Construction Company was only $36,000 and its treasury had contained about $30,000! 5 1 Lamentably the demise of this enterprise prevented a further unfoldment of financial procedures so piquantly hinted by these preliminaries. However useful to managers or profitable to speculators the new system of finance proved, there were plenty of critics to chronicle the disadvantages of bond issues. The Maine commission as early as i860 thought the cost of building railroads in that state, as elsewhere, had been greatly increased — perhaps doubled — by the fact that they were built on credit.52 Fittingly enough the Connecticut commission summarized the conservative view on bond issues. "It is generally considered to be better that our corporations should be solvent than insolvent; better that their property should be paid for than that they should owe for it. Dividends upon stock can vary in proportion to the business and prosperity of the companies, while a fixed interest charge which a company can now easily meet, it may not be able to meet when the rate of interest has increased, or when its earning "Ibid., pp. 1 2 9 - 1 3 2 . a Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, pp. 1 2 1 - 1 2 3 . " Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, i860, pp. 1 3 - 1 4 .

320

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

capacity has been impaired b y competition, loss of business, or reduction of rates to a non-paying basis."

53

T h e age that discovered the bond discovered also new uses for stock issues. In an article, " R a i l r o a d Inflation," Charles Francis A d a m s scrutinized in 1869 with prophetic insight contemporary pioneering in this direction. Acutely aware of the monetary disorders of his period, A d a m s christened the process he was describing "railroad inflation"; the words more accurately described the phenomena with which he was dealing than the phrase "stockwatering" which superseded his.

A s A d a m s pointed out, both

rich and poor railroads inflated their securities.

T h e former,

haunted b y the popular disapproval of large dividends and the clamor for the reduction of rates or restrained b y a legal maximum on earnings, ploughed their surpluses back into the enterprise and finally capitalized the increased value of their property b y the distribution of new securities. Occasionally on these stock dividends the recipients made a partial payment in cash to provide some new capital. 5 4 T h e moment of consolidation was often the moment chosen for the magic of increased capitalization. T h e Boston and Worcester and the Western were lines, wrote Adams, that had been very profitable. So much so that dividends of ten per cent per annum by no means depleted the treasury. The community and the legislature watched them with jealous eyes, and it thus became a delicate question how they could best convey their excessive gains from their own pockets to those of the stockholders. Stock-watering, here as in England, furnished a simple and effective means. A consolidation furnished the pretext, an adjournment of the legislature the occasion; instantly $2,000,000 disappeared out of the treasury and found its way in the form of stock into the pockets of the stockholders, and the business of Massachusetts and Boston was subjected to an additional tax of $200,000 per annum. The process not only depleted the inconveniently swollen treasury, but, by increasing in perpetuity the gross amount of stock in existence, it went to the root of the evil of excessive earnings, by increasing the number of recipients to whom the legal dividend must in future be paid. 55 M

1888. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners

P· 57·

" A d a m s , "Railroad Inflation," pp. 138-144.

. . . of

Connecticut,

™ I b i d p . 140.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND PROMOTERS

321

Not all commissioners at once joined Adams in his condemnation of such practices. In 1875 the Connecticut board, for instance, treated only with grudging disapproval the changing attitude toward stock-watering or the capitalization of earnings, a procedure quite common and once not generally condemned but which "is now almost universally denounced, and regarded as unjustifiable." 56 Poor and necessitous roads were guilty of quite a different variety of railroad inflation. Backed into a corner for one reason or another, they resorted not to the capitalization of gains but to the capitalization of losses. The New York and New Haven, as we have seen, worked the Schuyler defalcations into its capital structure. Other roads capitalized less spectacular losses or "operating expenses" which it was inconvenient or impossible to pay from gross income. A new directorate on the Eastern, attempting to untangle its affairs after the collapse of the early seventies, informed stockholders that the stock increases on the road had been used not only for extensions but for current expenses, interest, and dividends.57 In some instances stock had been issued without an equivalent money return to the corporation; in others the money received for the stock had not been invested in the property. Finally promoters—as we have seen— issued stock which represented either chicanery or hope for future dividends. As the history of national railroad regulation later demonstrated, the actual amount of security inflation could not be determined until the properties were physically appraised and the figures compared with capitalization and indebtedness. All assertions otherwise are highly conjectural. In 1869 Adams believed that the "actual outlay" upon Boston's four routes to the Hudson and the Great Lakes, completed or partially constructed, was "more than $80,000,000, which will be represented by over one hundred and twenty millions of stock and bonded indebtedness." With somber M Twenty-second, Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 187s, pp. 1 5 - 1 6 . 67 The Forty-first Annual Report of the Eastern Railroad Company, for the Year Ending Nov. jo, 1875 (Boston: Franklin Press: Rand, Avery & Company, 1876), PP. 37-38·

322

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

satisfaction he looked forward to bankruptcies and to the prospect that "from twenty-five to forty millions of paper trash will undoubtedly cease to exist." 58 Somewhat later a special committee of the Connecticut legislature concluded that the chief railroads of the state at the beginning of the decade, 1869-1870, had a capitalization of $16,878,900 of which $4,129,862 was watered capital. 59 This curiously precise figure revealed, however, about the same general percentage of watered stock as Adams' estimate for the Massachusetts through routes. If these samples were typical of railroads in states with dense population, developed industry, and large freight and passenger traffics, the capitalization of most railroads in northern New England was wringing wet. IV The charters of the early railroads regulated their financial procedures in rudimentary fashion. These specified the total capital, often within wide limits, and its division into shares of fixed value. There the matter usually stopped. But, as the decades passed, there was a mounting urgency for more thorough and more detailed control. The interests of security holders, actual and potential, required protection. As the maze of railroad finance grew more devious and the practitioners of its arts less scrupulous, the maxim of caveat emptor no longer assured justice, at least to those who purchased bonds. Landowners also required protection. They were angry when irresponsible promoters, endowed with the right of eminent domain, criss-crossed farm, village, and suburb with surveys, took land, and left behind from their unfinished enterprises a legacy of disfigurement and broken property values. Consumers of transportation required protection. Shippers and passengers should not be compelled to pay reasonable rates upon an investment which actually was less than it read on the books. Finally there were existing railroad enterprises which the state ought to cherish and guard against rivals without resources and bent "Adams, "Railroad Inflation," pp. 156-157. " Report of the Special Committee Appointed March 13, 1878, to Investigate the Alleged False Returns of Railroad Companies, Connecticut Public Documents, 1878, no. 22, p. 13.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

323

upon the blackmail derived from the construction of parallels. To some extent the railroads themselves were allies of the public in the desire for financial regulation. Legislatures embarked upon detailed regulation. As for bonds, most states from time to time specified they should be in denominations of not less than $100 and set the maximum period and the maximum interest for which they could be issued. B y the end of the century Vermont was permitting bonds to run for a hundred years and at an interest of not over 6 per cent; most states at the time of the Civil War had limited this form of indebtedness to twenty years.60 More fundamental was the attempt to restrict the proportion bonds bore to capitalization or costs of construction, and thus secure theoretically the partial construction of the road by stock issues. Connecticut substituted for her earlier insistence that bond issues must not exceed one-third the amount "actually expended upon the road" the requirement they must not be greater than half the cost of construction.61 This had been the Massachusetts requirement. Though New Hampshire followed the pattern,62 Maine and Vermont placed no legal limitation upon the bond totals. The necessities of their railroads rather than a devotion to the free market explained this choice. As a result of such legislation and historic railroad preferences and practices, the financial structure of New England railroads was unique. In 1900 bonds provided roughly only 40 per cent of the region's railroad securities; in the Middle Atlantic states the proportion was 5o. es As for stock, Massachusetts in the fifties had started a trend by insisting that roads could not undertake construction until "re°° The Acts and Resolves Passed by the Legislature of the State of Vermont, at the October Session, 1850, pp. 3 3 - 3 4 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State oj Vermont, at the Eleventh Biennial Session, 1890, p. 4 2 ; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, May Session, 1840, pp. 39-40; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1854, pp. 206-207; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1887, p. 747. Λ Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1882, p. 2 1 7 . M Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1883, p. 76. " Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States for the Year Ending June 30, 1900, pp. 5 2 - 5 3 .

324

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

sponsible parties" had subscribed to the whole stock named in the charter and "actually paid" into the road's treasury 20 per cent on each and every share. In 1 8 7 1 she closed a loophole by insisting that the capitalization be at least $15,000 a mile.64 Taking clue from this pattern, the states in their post-war general incorporation acts specified prerequisites for both incorporation and the initiation of construction. Instructed by the expose of practices on the Boston, Winthrop and Point Shirley, Massachusetts in 1878 changed her law to provide that the capitalization of standardgauge roads must represent at least 50 per cent of the estimated cost of construction. The sponsors secured a charter when they had paid in $1,000 a mile; they were permitted to build when they had subscribed to all the stock and paid in 2 5 per cent upon it. 65 Though in Vermont's law of 1872 the original capitalization had to be at least $10,000 a mile, the company secured its charter when subscriptions totaled $5,000 for each of the first twenty and $1,000 for every additional mile and when cash payments equaled 10 per cent of these figures.66 To stipulations of this character New Hampshire in 1883 added that no train should run over a road "until its paid-up capital stock shall be equal to at least one half its cost, including equipment." 67 These measures not only intended that stock issues should finance construction; they also intended that the stock issues should represent cash subscriptions. In pursuit of this second ideal the states had once thought it enough to prohibit the sale of stock for less than par. After the Civil War, however, Massachusetts became the real apostle of thorough. Her act of 1868, the year after the consolidation of the Boston and Worcester, declared, " N o railroad corporation . . . shall hereafter declare any stock dividend, or divide the proceeds of the sale of stock among its stockholders, nor shall such corporation create any additional stock, or issue certifi61 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1871, p. 667. 65 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1872, p. 4 1 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1874, pp. 1 5 5 - 1 5 6 , 172. 96 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly οj the State of Vermont, at the Second Biennial Session, 1872, p. 25. m Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, pp. 73-74.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

325

cates thereof to any person whatever unless the par value of the shares so issued is first paid in cash." 68 Though these terms sounded firm, they probably would not have prevented the acts of the Western. The Commonwealth did not stop there. It had once specified that corporations should offer their additional stock issues to stockholders at par. Now in 1 8 7 1 , a year of low-rate agitation in Massachusetts, railroad corporations whose stock was above par on the market were enjoined to sell their stock at public auction in Boston to the highest bidder and, to prevent mass sales from depressing values, no more than 2,000 shares could be offered in one day. 69 B y paying the whole value of the stock into the treasury of the corporation, the clear intent of this measure was to keep down the amount of dividend-bearing stock and thus to control the rate base of the road. It contradicted both the conventional creed that the stockholders were entitled to the market prices of securities enhanced in value by good management and the settled policy of Massachusetts that 10 per cent was a maximum earning upon the par value of the stock. As Adams pointed out, this measure reduced that maximum to an actual 7 or 8 per cent at the precise time when railroads required additional funds for expansion. 70 Nor was it to the taste of the railroads. The Boston and Albany, because of the law, elected to raise additional funds through borrowing by bonds rather than by the issue of stock. 71 In 1878 the General Court, though roads still had the option of auction sales, permitted directors to sell stock at par to stockholders. 72 Roads which elected the former method often collected handsome premiums. The Old Colony between 1880 and 1894 gained $3,193,837 M Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1868, pp. 227-228; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1894, pp. 374-375· " Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1870, p. 1 1 7 ; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1871, pp. 754—755. 70 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. xix-xx. 71 Fourth Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston and Albany Railroad Co. to the Stockholders. January, 1872 (Springfield: Samuel Bowles & Company, 1872), pp. 7 - 1 0 . n Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1878, pp. 58-59.

326

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

73

in this fashion. The latter date is significant—for then the Massachusetts legislature compelled railroads with stocks above par to sell them at the market value to their stockholders or to the highest bidder. 74 To complete the circle of control, some states sought to make all stock or bond issues or both dependent upon preliminary examination by some governmental body. In 1878 Connecticut, swinging away from sole legislative assent, declared that the railroad commissioners must share in the process. 75 Massachusetts in the nineties went further. In measures which summed up two decades of experimentation and experience, the previous consent of the railroad commissioners was required for all issues of stocks and bonds. The commission was to determine the amount of the issue and keep watch lest the funds be spent for unauthorized purposes. 76 Though New Hampshire followed suit, 77 the other states remained silent. The states meanwhile had faced the necessity of formulating a policy toward intercorporate stock ownership. Consolidation posed the question. As long as the dread of monopoly ruled men's minds, legislatures had given this privilege sparingly and then by special enactment. The general incorporation laws of the seventies continued the tradition by prohibiting any railroad from owning the securities of lines given life under their provisions. 78 At the same time other laws marked a retreat from this position. Massachusetts demonstrated the process. Excited by the boom psychology of the seventies, she first permitted a railroad to guarantee the bonds of a future connection, and in 1874 allowed railroads to aid the construction of branches and connections by taking their 73 Massachusetts Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1895, p. 15. 71 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1893, pp. 949-950; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1894, pp. 548549· 76 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut in the Year 1878, pp. 334-335· n Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1893, pp. 949-950; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1894, pp. 537-539, 616-617. 77 Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed January Session, 1897, pp. 19-20. 78 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1881, p. 2 1 7 ; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1872, p. 45.

STOCKS,

BONDS,

AND

PROMOTERS

327

stocks and bonds. Even railroads linked to the donor road by steamboat came within the charmed circle of the enactment. 79 In the eighties Connecticut and New Hampshire by general law allowed non-competing roads to amalgamate their stocks into a united corporation, 80 and Maine permitted roads, paying dividends, to hold the securities of branches and connections. 81 In the area of financial regulation law lagged behind railroad adroitness and practice. Corporation counsel, ingenious managers, speculative consolidators, and dishonest promoters found means for nominal compliance or frustrated policy by a resort to legal loopholes. T h e record is too long to repeat in extenso. Haupt's stock subscription to the T r o y and Greenfield showed how regulations for subscriptions and payments were artfully met. 82 When the Eastern collapsed, it had compiled a bonded indebtedness threefold its paid-in capital, although the Commonwealth had directed that the amount of bonds could not exceed the latter. But there were bonds and bonds! " A bond is, however, merely a note under seal. It was, therefore, only the amount of notes under seal, the issue of which by railroad corporations was limited by law. . . . Notes not under seal, payable at the same time and in the same manner as bonds, could be issued without restriction. Accordingly, having issued all the bonds—in themselves an extraordinary quantity—which general or special legislation authorized, the Eastern Railroad Company next proceeded to issue time notes to an almost equal amount." 83 In the attachments on the property, notes under seal had no priority over those not so ornamented. Seven years later the state, which thought it had forbidden stock dividends or the issue of stock unless stockholders paid for it in cash, was thrown into an uproar when the Boston and Albany exchanged ™ Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1870, p. 239; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1874, pp. 336-337. 80 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut in the Year 1883, pp. 267-269; Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, pp. 75-76. aActs and Resolves of the Sixty-second Legislature of the State of Maine. 1885, p. 250; Acts and Resolves of the Sixty-eighth Legislature of the State of Maine. 1897> P- 219· 82 Supra, I, 404. 83 Massachusetts Seventh ers. January, 1876, p. 52.

Annual

Report

of the Board

of Railroad

Commission-

328

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

bonds for the company stock held in the treasury of the Commonwealth and then distributed the stock to its shareholders without additional cash subscriptions. In the nineties the financial tactics of consolidation disclosed anew the shortcomings of legislative restraints. The hi-jacking operations on the Worcester, Nashua and Rochester and on the Connecticut River Railroad took place in Massachusetts, a state supposedly thorough and careful in phrasing legislation and alert to enforce it.84 In extenuation, it must be recalled that measures of this sort were experimental. The fruit of these years was to ripen later, not in the jurisdiction of the state commissions but under national regulation. V If a railroad corporation might be said to have the attributes of sovereignty, the issue of stocks and bonds was a power exercised in the domain of foreign affairs. B y the same conceit, the keeping of railroad accounts was a domestic issue. Actually, as with political governments, foreign and domestic problems were interrelated. Each had a repercussion upon the other; both had social implications. B y the end of the fifties, as we have seen, three decades of railroad experience had laid the foundations for a system of railroad accounting; well-to-do roads had adopted, for the day, sound methods of bookkeeping; and the more sanguine of railroad commissioners thought, "Experience in this, as well as in all other great industrial branches of business, has proved the best schoolmaster. Railroad management and economy in themselves, constitute a science which is now beginning to be well understood and appreciated." 85 Such optimism Adams soon demonstrated was premature. This new "science" was often mere empiricism, and financial necessity rather than order or system dictated railroadaccounting practices. In the formulation of a railroad-accounting science, nonetheless, the seventies witnessed an immense advance. Throughout the nation the hard grind of competition put a premium upon the anal84

Supra,

85

Report

P· 39-

I, 379-381, II, 49, 29-30. of

the Railroad

Commissioners

. . .

of

New-Hampshire

. . .

1863,

STOCKS, BONDS, AND PROMOTERS

329

ysis and understanding of costs, and the public hostility toward railroads compelled officials to examine, explain, and justify procedures. Undoubtedly the leaders in the new movement were Albert Fink and Μ . M . Kirkman. T h e former produced in two annual reports of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad an exposition on railroad costs which was widely reprinted and noted 8 6 and secured from the Railroad Gazette a commendation as "the fullest investigation into the cost of railroad transportation ever published in our country or language." 87 Marshall M . Kirkman, who climbed the railroad ladder from telegraph boy to high office on the Chicago and Northwestern, became interested in railroad finance, devised manuals of procedure, and "polemic and positive" spread the gospel of improved accounting methods. On its organization in 1888 he became the first president of the Association of American Railway Accounting Officers. 88 B y that time railway accounting and accountants, once the stepchildren of the railroads, were by their own admission approaching omniscience. " T h e duties of the railway accountant demand an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of railway affairs, greater than is necessary for the successful direction of any other particular branch of the service." 89 However much the practitioners of accounting science differed from one another on detail, they at least accumulated knowledge and formulated system. T h e y did not, however, have the power of compelling the railroads to adopt the new revelation. Their contributions lacked any other coercion than that of self-interest. In judging that self-interest, managers and owners were apt to disregard theories as to whether substitution of a steel for an iron rail was new construction and hence chargeable to construction account or a replacement and hence chargeable to operating costs. * Albert Fink, An Investigation into the Cost of Transportation on American Railroads, with Deductions for Its Cheapening (Louisville: John P. Morton and Company, 1874) ; Albert Fink, Cost of Railroad Transportation, Railroad Accounts, and Governmental Regidation of Railroad Tariffs (Louisville: John P. Morton and Company, 1875). 87Railroad Gazette, V I (1874), 203. 88 Railroad Gazette, X X I (1889), 722; First Report of the Association of American Railway Accounting Officers (Chicago: Charles N. Trivess, n.d.), p. 3. 88 First Report of the Association of American Railway Accounting Officers, p. 3.

33°

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Instead of listening to an abstract battle of books on this issue, they adopted the latter entry if they had ample resources, the former if they did not. B y imposing restrictions the state might eventually sweep a w a y this exercise of discretion. If it did not directly tell the railroads how to spend their money, b y prescribing accounts it could indirectily influence the dispersal among various items and thus shape the

financial

policy of the corporation.

T h o u g h such interference was at first diffident, it came early and for compelling reasons. T h e railroads must make annual reports to some state body. These reports were needed by the state as a basis for policy, b y investors trying to check upon the faithfulness and foresight of managers and officials, b y the users of railroads as a gauge for rates, and finally b y the managers who through comparative statistics hoped to transform rule-of-thumb methods and business sharpness into a true railroad science. Such came to be the rationale for the improvement of railroad returns.

There

was room for betterment. In spite of the refinements and elaborations made in such reports before the Civil W a r , railroads still neglected to fill in answers for all items and those who answered did so carelessly. For its five miles of road in Massachusetts, the H a r t f o r d and N e w H a v e n on one occasion gave the data for its entire sixty-two and these totals, listed in the grand total for the state, gravely distorted the larger figures. 90 A n investigation of the Connecticut returns in the mid-seventies wrung from the treasurer of the Canal road the admission he had through error entered the answers for Massachusetts in the blanks for Connecticut and managed to provide two different estimates of the surplus in a single year because he turned back to the wrong report. H i s confession, " W e haven't paid as much attention to these reports as we should," seems understatement. 9 1 N o wonder the Springfield Republican

observed: " T h e annual reports of the Connecticut Rail-

road Commissioners are made up on peculiar ethical and arithmetical values."

92

E v e n when directors, trustees, presidents, superintendents, and 00 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. lxxxvii-kxxviii. " H a r t f o r d Courant, June 30, July 8, 1875. M Springfield Daily Republican, July 10, 1875.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

331

treasurers displayed enough enlightenment, patience, and good will to cooperate, the accounting standards of the roads were so varied that, in the lack of uniform definition by the state, the figures were meaningless. This was true even of the most elementary statistics of operation. Thus the Massachusetts returns did not reveal the true mileage of the roads within the state. In determining the miles run by trains, the roads assigned different arbitrary figures for switching, gravel, and work trains; only the Boston and Providence had meters on its engines.93 The same arbitrary assignments distorted figures for commuters' rates. In calculations of the rate per mile on season tickets, one Connecticut corporation based estimates upon a certain number of trips per week, another road used a different basis, and in Massachusetts over a single decade, the roads increased, without notice to anyone, the arbitrary base of computation from twenty-four trips per month in 186 χ to fifty-two in 1871. 9 4 When simple matters were thus tangled, information on the more intricate and recondite matters of capitalization, debt, and costs was like a game of blindman's buff. When Adams examined the cost of operating the great railroads entering Boston, he discovered that the Old Colony and Newport in 1 8 7 1 reported $1.08 as its cost per train mile, while the Boston and Albany reported $1.42 and the Boston and Providence $1.67, or 55 per cent more than the Old Colony. "If in reply to the assertion, which has frequently been made, that these latter figures really represented the expenditures incurred in operating the roads named, the Commissioners were to assert that the managers of these latter roads must then operate them in an extravagant and wasteful manner, those gentlemen would most justly feel extremely indignant, and might well charge the Commissioners with a gross lack of familiarity with the subject." 95 It was all done with accounting. The dow88

Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, p. 29. " Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1876, pp. 5 2 - 7 0 ; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. Ixxxvii. 95 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp· lxxxix-xc.

332

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

ager roads had closed their construction accounts and charged betterments, extensions, and improvements to their operating accounts; roads, starved for traffic or mismanaged, had lower operating costs since their managers kept an open construction account and poured every possible expense, many of them illegitimate, into this great drain in order to make a good financial showing and justify the payment of dividends at the very moment when the unwary investor received the impression that the permanent value of his property was increasing. 96 There were questions of high policy involved in such procedures. Massachusetts led the movement to introduce honor and order into railroad accounting and railroad returns. Better, Adams led. In the end he made contributions to the science of management as great and as positive as those of Fink and Kirkman. In the years of his education as a railroad expert, he had plunged into the morass of stock-watering and costs of operation; as he picked his way through, he sensed the completely erroneous and deceptive character of railroad statistics. 97 He sensed something more important. As a remedy it was not enough to insist upon honest figures and a uniform definition of terms: fundamental was the imposition upon the railroads of a uniform system of accounting enforced by a thorough audit on the part of state authorities, aided by their experts. These proposals Adams first furthered by an adroit and moderate campaign. T h e legislature responded by compelling the railroads to file their returns with the commission rather than the secretary of state and by allowing the commissioners the discretion of specifying the items. 98 This done, Adams sounded full cry. In a characteristic maneuver, he belabored his opponents—the railroad accountants, who did not like to be disturbed and dreaded the prospect of hiring more clerks, and the supporters of the existing methods of railroad "* Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, pp. 18-20; Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, pp. 26-28. OT Charles F. Adams, Jr., "The Railroad System," North American Review, CIV (1867), 497-499; Adams, "Railroad Inflation," pp. 161-165. "Massachusetts First Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1870, p. 1 1 ; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1870, pp. 226-227.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

333

bookkeeping, who upheld a system inherited from manufacturing, the turnpikes, and small private copartnerships. Their preference for antiquated methods was "another evidence of the strong force of habit among men accustomed to simple and ancient ways." 9n Then he advanced particularities. Some roads had no officer responsible for the accounts, some hardly had accounts. The records of one small country road were " a few notes in a memorandum cash-book." 1 0 0 He was full of dark hints and ingenious pressures. Finally, after an attempt to reconcile the inexplicable contrasts between the accounting methods of different railroads, he announced, "As a result of their examinations, the Commissioners feel it incumbent upon them to warn those interested in railroad investments in Massachusetts that the books of the corporations are, in many cases, far from properly kept. It may be that the officers concerned are exceptionally honest, but this is certainly the only safeguard against fraud which the stockholders possess. If the banking business were conducted under the same looseness in accounts, defalcations would be even more frequent than they are now." 1 0 1 Adams had another objective than a desirable reformation of methodology. In his estimation the railroads by charging construction costs to operating expenses collected the money for improvements from the public rather than from investors and, when they later capitalized these improvements, the public had provided not only the principal but was now expected, if dividends were to be earned, to pay interest on its own contributions. An honest system of accounting by revealing these facts might compel railroads to raise additional funds through the sale of stock and reduce the " t a x " on transportation. 102 Adams felt it necessary to discover the reason why railroads did as they misguidedly w Massachusetts Sixth Annual Report of the Board of January, 1875, p. 11; Massachusetts Ninth Annual Report Commissioners. January, 1878, pp. 16-17, I 9 · 100 Massachusetts Ninth Annual Report of the Board of January, 1878, p. 20. 101 Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of January, 1874, pp. 15-16. 102 Massachusetts Sixth Annual Report of the Board of January, 187s, pp. 11-13.

Railroad Commissioners. of the Board of Railroad Railroad

Commissioners.

Railroad

Commissioners.

Railroad

Commissioners.

334

MEN, CITIES, AND TRANSPORTATION

did. In an article in The American Law Review in 1867 he selected as the culprit the Massachusetts law restricting earnings to 10 per cent. T o avoid that maximum the owners and managers of prosperous roads either spent their surplus for permanent improvements and later capitalized these improvements through a general stock inflation, or else looked upon an increase of business as an unpleasant dilemma. 103 Although this conception became a fixed idea with him, Adams later blamed the whole deplorable procedure upon the ingrained prejudices of Massachusetts businessmen and the Massachusetts public. 104 Certainly conservatively managed railroads were not impressed by this particular heresy of his. 1 0 5 Although his diatribes and energy never reversed the railroad policy of reinvestment, events brought his fight for uniform accounting to success. The spectacular debacle of the Eastern Railroad in 1 8 7 5 shocked Massachusetts. Adams was there to point the moral. In an exceedingly artful narrative he revealed how the railroad had worked at least $284,000 of its loss from the Revere accident into the construction account and also placed under the same heading a discount on the sale of its securities to the tune of $639,000. "Practically, therefore, judging by the books, the Revere disaster increased the value of that company's possessions b y $284,000, and the badness of its credit added another $639,000 to the amount in 1 8 7 4 - 1 8 7 5 . It would seem to be mere waste of time to dwell upon the preposterous character of such entries. I t is . . . as if a man who was so unfortunate as to have his barn burned to the ground were to get rid of his loss by charging it off into the cost of his house." 1 0 6 Though hinting that management might be willfully deceptive, he contrived to give the impression that it 103 Charles F. Adams, Jr., " R a i l r o a d Legislation," American Law Review, I I (1867-1868), 26-32, 36-39. 1M Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. xci-xcii. "" Eighth Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston and Albany Railroad Co. to the Stockholders, January, 1876 (Springfield: Clark W . B r y a n & C o m p a n y , 1876), p p . 6 - 7 ; Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders, Wednesday, December 10, 1879 (Boston: Alfred M u d g e & Son, 1879), PP- 4-5" " M a s s a c h u s e t t s Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, p. 34.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

335

might be only the innocent victim of an evil system of accounting. "Indeed, discretion and good judgment enter so largely into railroad accounting, that it has been in no way unusual for corporations to find themselves hopelessly bankrupt before those who managed their affairs were aware that they were in a position of danger." 1 0 7 VI The legislature melted. In 1876 it permitted the commission to prescribe a uniform system of accounts and to see, with the aid of an accountant, that the railroads followed the ordered system. 108 A committee of railroad accountants, appointed by the Massachusetts railroads, co-operated with the commissioners in the formulation of the compulsory system. It went into effect in 1876. 1 0 9 Perhaps the railroads might have resisted the innovation. The Eastern, however, in course of reorganization found it convenient and politic to open its books on the new plan. 1 1 0 Though the commission had to prod some railroads into conformity, others welcomed change. The directors of the Boston and Maine wrote in 1876 of the Massachusetts accounts, " I t is as perfect a system as can be devised, and is similar to that used by this road for the past fifteen years." 1 1 1 Whether opposed or flattered, the commission was sure that the reports once only "plausible" were now "intelligible." 1 1 2 Clearly their usefulness would be even greater if the other New England states adopted the Massachusetts system. In 1875 Charles Francis Adams wrote a letter to Goodwin urging the latter to keep fighting, for he was on the right track. 1 1 3 At K

" Ibid., pp. 27, 45-48. Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1876, pp. 1 5 6 - 1 5 7 . 109 Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, p. 1 2 . 110 Ibid., pp. 1 6 - 1 7 . 111 Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders, Wednesday, December 13, 1876 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 6 ) , p. 5. ^ Massachusetts Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1874, p. 1 5 ; Massachusetts Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1876, p. 35. 118 H a r t f o r d Courant, J u n e 23, 1876. 109

336

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

the moment the Connecticut crusader was engaged in the most fundamental and prolonged of his many struggles, one to reduce fares and freights by demonstrating that railroad securities were heavily watered and hence did not embody a real equity entitled to the earnings demanded for them. He hoped the annual returns to the state's commissioners would demonstrate the soundness of his thesis. Instead he discovered the railroads delayed their reports, left acres of queries unanswered, and, when they answered, did so incorrectly. Furthermore the schedule did not contain the items essential to the disclosure or understanding of stock inflation. 114 Goodwin attacked. Though he had his customary press support, he faced the calculated delays of the railroad committee, fought a legislature under the spell, if not the pay of the Consolidated, and received little assistance from a railroad commission which was willing to admit that the "returns in many instances have been grossly and inexcusably inaccurate" but was hostile to Goodwin's ultimate objective. 115 The whole agitation, chairman Woodruff of the commission informed a legislative committee, was designed to reduce earnings by legislative act to such a point that dividends could not be paid on the original cash investment. The C our ant reported him as saying: "This is wrong. . . . He did not think it to the interest of the public to have the blanks any more intelligible." 116 Goodwin, too, was weakened by his own limitations. He could not, like Adams, ascend to the serene universalism of first principles. He was a piecemeal fighter; he tilted at personalities. As a result he won only limited victories. For two years he induced the legislature to stigmatize as unsatisfactory the annual reports of the railroad commissioners and to return them for investigation, amplification, and correction.117 The legislature authorized the commissioners to add items to the schedules and forbade any railroad to plead as an excuse for fail114 Eighteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1871, p. 5; Hartford Courant, June 30, July 1, 8, 1875. "" Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1876, p. 34. lle Hartford Courant, July 22, 1875. U7 Hartford Courant, March 26, 1873, July 22, 1875, May 4, 1876.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

337

ure to answer that it did not keep its accounts in such a manner as would enable it to do so, 1 1 8 and the legislature and the commission so studded the schedule with questions on capitalization that the items grew from five in 1870 to nineteen in 1875. 1 1 9 This fuller stream of information was still muddy. B y construction officials reduced some of the questions to mere repetition and many of the railroads greeted the new interrogations with silence. 120 Thwarted in the seventies, Goodwin in the early eighties returned to the fray from a different direction. Instead of complaining that a considerable part of the stock in the Consolidated represented no actual investment, he now complained because its directors were investing immense surplus earnings in additions and improvements to their property. Funds for these purposes should be raised by new stock issues and not by high rates charged the public. Naturally the Consolidated had to juggle its reports to conceal actualities from the people. 121 The Adams case, for such this was, won no hearing in a state where the private corporation laws forbade any company to pay more than 10 per cent dividends until it had accumulated a reserve fund as large as 20 per cent. 122 Meanwhile heartened by its local success, the Massachusetts board in 1876 invited the commissioners of the other New England states and the state engineer of New York to a meeting in Boston. The conferees—Rhode Island did not attend—agreed to recommend to their respective legislatures the passage of an act adopting outright the Massachusetts system of accounts and returns or permitting the commissioners of the several states to inω Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1872, pp. 9 1 - 9 2 ; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1S74, p. 230. "" Eighteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1871, p. 5 7 ; Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1876, pp. 243-244. 120 H a r t f o r d Courant, J u n e 23, 29, 1876. 121 Argument of Wilbert Warren Perry before the Joint Standing Committee on Railroads, in Regard to the Suppressed and Concealed Earnings and Unauthorized Investments of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Co., Hartford, Conn., March 23, 1882 (n.p., n.d.), pp. 7-24. 123 Revision of 1875. The General Statutes of the State of Connecticut, with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of Connecticut, p. 280.

338

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

23

augurate it/ for "the Railroad Systems of the States represented . . . are connected with peculiar closeness, the road of a single corporation often running through the territory of several states." 1 2 4 Within two months Vermont had empowered its commissioner to apply both the Massachusetts schedule and the uniform system of accounts; within a year Maine ordered its commission to use the returns; and within eighteen months, to the horror of right thinkers, the Connecticut legislature arranged for the appointment of an independent commission to draw up an improved form different from and better than that of Massachusetts, and had adopted its recommendations. 125 The movement for regional harmony now became subordinate to one on a national scale. A conference of state railroad commissioners, meeting at Saratoga in 1879, recommended their states adopt the uniform schedule of returns presented to it by a committee of which the examiner from Massachusetts was secretary and Woodruff of Connecticut a member. 126 This advice had influence. Massachusetts made the necessary alterations in its schedule. 127 Vermont adopted the Saratoga blank. 128 When New Hampshire in recreating its commission in 1883 gave it authority to make railroads conform to a system both of returns and of accounting, the commission approved the Saratoga form. 129 Further m Massachusetts Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 1 2 - 1 5 . ul Ibid., p. 1 1 9 . 126 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1877, PP· 205-206; Public Acts . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1878, pp. 295299; H a r t f o r d Courant, March 1 3 , 1877, March 1 3 , 1878; Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1877, pp. 3 8 - 3 9 ; Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1878, pp. 3 8 - 4 1 . m Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 187g, pp. 1 7 - 1 8 ; 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 48-50; 1891. 39th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 3 3 - 3 4 . 127 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 49. 128 Biennial Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont, for 1881-82, p· 4. 129 Thirty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1881, pp. 1 7 - 1 8 ; Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1884, p. 2 2 ; Laws . . . of New Hampshire, . . . 1883, pp. 79, 81.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

339

development of this sort was stayed by the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Its systematic work in the field of railroad statistics and accounts finally conquered New England. 130 But its innovations, like those of the Saratoga convention, derived from the pattern set by the Massachusetts commission, the thoroughness of whose control over railroad accounting was unique in New England. VII However her roads were constructed or managed, New England retained the financial control of her railroad network. Foreign capital played a negligible part in the region. Though Massachusetts sold in Great Britain over $14,000,000 of her securities in aid of the Boston, Hartford and Erie and of the Hoosac, the securities were not railroad ones nor did that sale give the purchasers a part in railroad management.131 Occasionally alien corporations, like the Grand Trunk, secured control of New England roads; occasionally, like the Canadian Pacific in Maine, they constructed their own lines on this side of the international boundary. Nor was New England entirely successful in holding off the onslaught of American capitalists from New York and elsewhere. The Delaware and Hudson ruled the Rutland. New York capitalists invested largely in the New York and New England, the New York and New Haven, and the Hartford and New Haven, and to a smaller extent in the Norwich and Worcester, the Stonington, and the Boston and Providence. Eventually the capacious maw of the Consolidated swallowed them all. B y 1900, of the 9,405 stockholders in the New York, New Haven and Hartford, 6,748 hailed from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and of its $54,685,400 capitalization $33,157,800 was owned in these two New England states. 132 130 1889. 37th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 5—6; Forty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1891, pp. 3 - 4 ; Laws of the State of New Hampshire Passed June Session, 1889, pp. 7 1 - 7 2 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1889, p. 1016. 131 Report of the Auditor of Accounts . . . of Massachusetts . . . 1880, pp. 32,

33·

133

Massachusetts Thirty-second

Annual Report of the Board of Railroad

Com-

340

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Within the little railroad world of New England, Massachusetts retained financial dominance. By the end of the century her capitalists had a greater stake than those from Connecticut in the Consolidated.133 Down East, Maine investors owned less than a fourth of the capital of the Maine Central. 134 Though New Hampshire men controlled the Concord, that pearl of great profits, the Northern, the Boston, Concord and Montreal, and the Cheshire, to mention only a few, were financed from Massachusetts. 135 In Vermont stockownership by foreigners, Massachusetts men, had existed from the beginning.136 In the Massachusetts of the early seventies, native shareholders controlled the big eight around Boston—the Boston, Hartford and Erie was in receivership—and even roads pointed toward New York, like the Connecticut River Railroad. Nearly thirty years later, when the big consolidations were done, the Boston and Albany was a Massachusetts road—well over $21,500,000 of its $25,000,000 capital was held there; of the Fitchburg, Massachusetts men held seven-eighths of its capitalization; and of the Boston and Maine, they owned $14,210,600 of its $25,052,725 common and preferred stock. 137 In this peculiarly north of Boston enterprise, New Hampshire investors owned $2,921,200 and Maine $1,834,90ο. 138 The increase in capitalization and the course of consolidation made it extremely difficult to compile significant comparative figmissioners. January, igoi, p. 3 2 1 ; Connecticut 1900. 48th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners, p. 103. m Massachusetts Thirty-second, Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, p. 3 2 1 . 184 Forty-second Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine . . . 1900, pp. 220, 222. 135 Fifty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. 1900, pp. 43, 92; Supra, I , 1 6 7 - 1 6 8 . "· Third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont to the General Assembly, 1858, p. 4 ; Eighth Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, 1900 to June 30th, 1902, p. 22. 187 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cclxxxviii-cclxxxix, cccxviii-cccxix; Massachusetts, Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, pp. 3 1 0 , 313. 314, 317· w Forty-second Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine . . . 1900, p. 2 1 6 ; Fifty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1900, p. 22.

STOCKS,

BONDS,

AND PROMOTERS

341

ures on the dispersion of stock among individual investors. Nevertheless the figures for individual roads and for limited periods tend to demonstrate a slowly broadening base of holdings. Between 1872 and 1885, while the capitalization of the Boston and Albany increased not at all, the number of stockholders grew from 4,880 to 6,693. B y 1900 it was 8,531. In the same years, 1872-1885, the number of stockholders in the Connecticut River Railroad mounted from 684 to 925, while the capitalization rose from $1,700,000 to $2,370,000. On the other hand, the capitalization and the stock distribution on the Boston and Providence showed no appreciable change. 139 To the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, presumably making national comparisons, the stock of the New England roads was "very closely and tenaciously held." 140 Dispersion of ownership, it is obvious, could conceivably be coupled with a high degree of concentration in control. In the preCivil-War era the owners of twenty-five or more shares usually owned half the capital of New England roads and constituted, from enterprise to enterprise, between one-tenth and one-seventh of the total shareholders. Unhappily figures for the post-CivilWar period on this point are rare. However, an examination of the stock books of the Boston and Maine for 1899 shows that though owners of twenty-five shares or over still held nearly half the shares in the corporation, such owners now constituted approximately 18 per cent of the total shareholders. 141 After the Civil War institutional investors became increasingly important in railroad enterprises. For instance, savings banks which had generally been forbidden to invest their funds directly in railroad securities now received permission to do so—with precautions. Massachusetts in 1863 permitted savings banks to purchase the bonds of roads located within the state if such roads owned and operated their own property and had earned and paid Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cclxxxviii-cclxxxix, cccxviii-cccxix; Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 18S6, pp. 196, 200, 204; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, pp. 310, 313. 140Commercial and Financial Chronicle, X L I (1885), 63. 141 Boston and Maine Dividend Books, 1899, Ms., Boston and Maine Office Building, Boston.

342

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

dividends for two years previous to the bank's investment.142 Though later legislation broadened to permit investments in New England as well as certain extra-New England roads and in the bonds of leased lines and waived certain technicalities, Massachusetts requirements were generally esteemed severe.143 Originally more strict, Connecticut became somewhat more liberal than Massachusetts, for her act of 1880, requested by the banks when the investment outlet of government bonds dried up, permitted widespread investments in the bonds of railroads outside of New England.144 The other states ranged from Vermont which forbade savings banks to invest in the bonds and stocks of any railroad, through New Hampshire, which relaxed earlier prohibitions to allow banks to buy stocks in dividend-paying roads, 145 to Rhode Island where institutions for savings could invest "in such corporate stocks or bonds as they may deem safe and secure." 146 This had once been Maine's policy. She modified it earlier than did Rhode Island. On the whole, insurance companies were given more liberality. Although the various charter provisions, which were the original method of regulation, authorized a disturbing variety of proce142 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1863, p. 491. lis Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1881, p. 547; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1889, p. 1004; Acts and Resolves . . . of Massachusetts, . . . 1894, PP· 323-326. 144 Revision of 1875. The General Statutes . . . of Connecticut, p. 2 9 1 ; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut in the Year 1880, pp. 522-523; Hartford Courant, February 2 1 , 24, 1880. 145 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Eighth Biennial Session, 1884, pp. 3 8 - 3 9 ; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont at the Twenty-first Biennial Session, 1910, pp. 1 5 5 - 1 6 0 ; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1867, p. 2 7 1 ; The General Laws of the State of New Hampshire to Which Are Prefixed the Constitutions of the United States and State of New Hampshire [18781, pp. 405-406; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session 1881, p. 444· 14e Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, at the January Session, 1886, p. 1 5 1 ; General Laws of Rhode Island. Revision of 1909, I , 8 1 2 - 8 1 4 ; Acts and Resolves of the Forty-eighth Legislature of the State of Maine. 1869, p. 40; Acts and Resolves of the Fifty-first Legislature of the State of Maine. 1872, p. 46; Acts and Resolves of the Fifty-sixth Legislature of the State of Maine. 1877, P· 165.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

343

dures, a body of general legislation gradually accumulated. Massachusetts in 1845 permitted insurance companies of the Commonwealth to invest a proportion of their assets in the wholly-paid-in stock of any Massachusetts railroad company. Though in later decades more detailed specifications for such investments were formulated, the requirements were generally not so severe as those for investments by savings banks. 147 Somewhat earlier Connecticut, which claimed the sobriquet of the insurance state, permitted life insurance companies to invest in any corporate securities, except those of mining and manufacturing concerns, which paid dividends or interest in the three years previous to their purchase. 148 Under the aegis of favorable legislation and the stability of New England railroad securities which followed the depression of the seventies, institutional investments greatly increased. Savings banks became wholesale purchasers. By 1900 the big five in Massachusetts—the Suffolk Savings Bank for Seamen and Others, the Provident Institution for Savings in the Town of Boston, the Worcester County Institution for Savings, the Springfield Institution for Savings, and the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank—had investments in railroad bonds ranging from $6,168,864 for the first to $2,403,685 for the last. 149 Trust companies as a group had invested just over $7,000,000 in such securities.150 The large savings banks in Connecticut and Rhode Island, though their railroad bond portfolios ran into the millions, invested less intensively in New England railroads. 151 By insurance companies the first investments in railroad securities were largely in stock. In 1900 the urActs and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1845, pp. 418-419; The Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Enacted November 21, 1901, to Take Effect January 1, 1902, II, 1130, 1133· 148 Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1876, pp. 121-122; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1881, pp. 9-10; Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1889, pp. 55—56. ""Massachusetts Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of Savings Banks. 1900, Part I, pp. 52, 493, 561-563, 571, 673. ™Ibid., p. 735. 111 Rhode Island First Annual Report of the Bank Commissioner, Showing the Condition of State Banking Institutions as of June 30, 1908 Made to the General Assembly at Its January Session, 1909, passim; Connecticut Report of the Bank Commissioner to the Governor, December 31, 1900, passim.

344

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

life insurance companies, the variety with the largest resources— the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, the Aetna Life Insurance Company—owned immense quantities of both stocks and bonds. 152 Among the fire insurance companies, the Aetna Insurance Company of Hartford, the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and the Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company were the leaders. 163 Figures gave point to the development. In 1870 Massachusetts savings banks owned probably about one-tenth of the bonds of the Commonwealth's railroads; in 1898, a date preceding extra-New England purchases, they owned approximately a quarter of the funded indebtedness of the New England railroad system. 154 Single railroads told the story with variations. B y 1900 banks and insurance companies owned approximately a third of the bonded indebtedness of both the Boston and Albany and the Boston and Maine. Among the leased roads institutions owned five-eighths of the bonds of the Boston and Lowell and two-thirds of those of the Boston and Providence.185 Stock holdings by institutions were less impressive. Perhaps the New York, New Haven and Hartford was as good an illustration as any. In 1900 nine insurance companies and two banks in New England held 3.5 per cent of the New Haven's stock; if the four largest institutional holdings in New York were added, the figure was practically 9 per cent.156 Upon these securities, whether institutionally or individually ""Sixth Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioners of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, January i, 1861, pp. 16, 17-56, passim·, Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. January i, igoi, Part I I , pp. 37-40, 45-48, 59-60. 153 Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioner . . . of Massachusetts . . . 1901, Part I, pp. 105-106, 1 1 3 - 1 1 5 , 248-249. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Savings Banks, Including the Abstracts of Returns from the Savings Institutions in Massachusetts. 1870, p. 1 3 6 ; Twentythird Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of Savings Banks. 1898. Part I , p. 668; Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, Part II, folded table; Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States . . . 1901, p. vii. w Curtis G. Harraman, American Investments Classified. Handbook of Information for Bankers, Brokers, Bond Dealers and Investors (New Y o r k : C. G. Harraman, 1900), pp. 5 1 7 - 5 2 5 · M Ibid., pp. 640-641.

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

345

held, the depression of the seventies put a strain comparable in severity to that of the earlier railroad crisis of the fifties. From that first reversal the great railroad systems of Vermont had not by the seventies recovered. Now they were joined in financial disaster by the grandiose projects of Maine — the European and North American and the Portland and Ogdensburg. Even large enterprises in southern New England like the Boston, Hartford and Erie and the Eastern went under and stock in sturdy roads like the Boston and Lowell and the Portland, Saco and Portsmouth sank to 45 and 44, respectively. 157 The eighties witnessed a rebirth of prosperity and the financial storms of the nineties did not shatter it. 158 The collapse of the Philadelphia, Reading and New England was not one of an indigenous enterprise. Conversely, from Appomattox to the high tide of McKinley Republicanism, the stock of the Boston and Albany, the Boston and Providence, the Concord, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford never sold below par; that of the Boston and Maine sank below $100 for only three years in the late seventies. The stocks of these enterprises, moreover, often sold for extraordinary premiums. The Boston and Albany sold at $220, the Boston and Maine at $216, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford at $279 — all in 1889. The Boston and Providence brought $265 in 1888 and the Concord, a $50 stock, $165 in 1891. An army of other stocks, only slightly less favored, followed close behind.159 And then in the nineties, with their dividends guaranteed by certain rentals, the leased New England roads sat back content. Commentators found no difficulty in explaining the affluence of New England roads. The region was densely populated and industrially diversified, passengers and traffic did not shrink cataclysmically in times of depression. Its roads relied in large part upon a local business and not upon through traffic the rates of which competition was always lowering. Since they maintained their roadbeds and equipment at high levels, they could afford to 157

Martin, A Century of Finance, p. 150. Commercial and Financial Chronicle, L I (1890), 33, L V I I (1893), 84, L I X (1894), 8 1 1 , L X (1895), n o ; Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report of the Statistics of Railways . . . June 30, 1900, p. 59. " · Martin, A Century of Finance, pp. 1 4 8 - 1 5 1 , 154-155, 158. 158

346

MEN, CITIES,

economize in hard times.

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Their accumulated surpluses gave a

reserve for the "rainy d a y . " T h e management was conservative. 180 N e w England roads of this sort paid high dividends. In M a s sachusetts the railroad commission calculated the dividends of the state's railroads as a percentage upon their total capital stöckl n 1 8 7 2 - 1 8 7 3 on the eve of the great railroad panic, the figure was 6.34;

it shrank steadily during the depression to 4.30 in

1 8 7 9 ; thereafter with the single exception of 1 8 8 8 - 1 8 8 9 the figure fluctuated between 5.00 and 5.87 per cent. In 1900 the average was 5 . 7 8 . 1 6 1

These figures failed to illustrate the comfortable

dividend record of the state's roads. Probably the fairest measure of their prosperity was the percentage of dividend-paying mileage. B y this test roads operating 55 per cent of the mileage of Massachusetts paid in 1900 dividends between 6 and 8 per cent. 1 6 2 Outside Massachusetts the returns were not as golden.

Connecti-

cut paralleled the Commonwealth to some extent, but in northern N e w England drabness draped the dividend record.

Though a

few of Vermont's roads occasionally paid a modest dividend on some varieties of stock, the Rutland and the Central Vermont were generally "in hospital," to use the phrase of the Maine commission. 183 In Maine, at moments of railroad panic, the commissioners thought the entire capital might be a loss, and in N e w Hampshire the commission looking back from the prosperous eighties discovered that 25 per cent of the state's railroad capital had never yielded a return. 184 Still for N e w England as a whole in 1900, though roughly a fifth of the capital paid nothing, over 160 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, X L I (1885), 63-65, X L V I I (1888), 6, L X I (1895), i , 1 3 7 . 161 Dividends as Percentage of Total Capital Stock on Massachusetts Railroads 1872-1873 6.34 1889-1890 5.37 1895 S-87 1874-1875 5-97 1900 5.78 1879-1880 5.00 1884-1885 5.10 Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, p. 8; Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, i8gi, p. 55; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, igoi, p. 1 1 . Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, igoi, Part I, pp. 4, 3 1 1 , 319, Part I V , pp. 12, 44, 1 7 1 . 183 Martin, A Century of Finance, pp. 149, 1 5 2 - 1 5 3 , 1 5 6 - 1 5 7 . 1M Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year

STOCKS, BONDS, AND

PROMOTERS

347

a third returned f r o m 7 to 8 per-cent dividends.

Into this last

category fell the largest single block of N e w E n g l a n d ' s railroad capital. W e s t w a r d f r o m N e w E n g l a n d in trunk-line territory the largest chunks of capital fell under the rubric, "nothing p a i d . "

165

P e r h a p s because they felt their inferiority within the region, the northern N e w E n g l a n d states sang ever more loudly the psalm of the railroad. With m a n y a reference to f a r m , field, and f a c t o r y , it w a s said that the railroad created and supported their economic well-being. P e r h a p s even the stockholders shared this generalized satisfaction. " T h e men who h a v e furnished the means to build railroads in M a i n e , " declared the governor, " h a v e relied upon the indirect advantages they in common with others would receive rather than on a n y direct income f r o m the investment."

166

In

Vermont the recurrent theme w a s given an original twist b y R a i l road Commissioner George P . M a r s h . However we may regret the unfortunate pecuniary results of these enterprises to those who furnished the means for the construction of the roads, it cannot but be regarded as a circumstance eminently favorable to the independence, the impartiality, and the purity of our legislation in respect to them, that they have not built up among our citizens a body of wealthy railroad stockholders, large enough and powerful enough to exert an undue influence upon the proceedings of the L e g i s l a t u r e . . . . It is not less fortunate for the commercial morality of Vermont, that the shares and negotiable securities of the railroad companies, in most cases, possess not even sufficient prospective or contingent value to tempt the cupidity of the speculator. They do not even rise to the dignity of what are technically called "fancy stocks," having none of those elements of uncertainty—probability of loss and delusive promise of gain—which would render them fit objects for the operations of the stock-jobbing gambler. . . . It is for such reasons, that we, as a State and as individuals, have thus far escaped the enormous moral, political and financial evils to which the almost universal corruption of great private corporations has elsewhere given birth. 167 1876, p. 40; Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1887, p. 4. 165 Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report of the Statistics of Railways . . . June 30, igoo, p. 59. 1M Address of Governor Perham, to the Legislature of the State of Maine. J a n uary, 1 8 7 1 , Maine Public Documents, 1 8 7 0 - 1 8 7 1 , no. 2, p. 16. 167 Third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner . . . of Vermont, . . . 1858, pp. 3 - 5 ·

348

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

Years later the Connecticut commission sounded the same consolation. 168 But the nineties promised to fulfill the ancient prophecy that the meek should inherit the earth. The strong came to the former's rescue. In Vermont the Delaware and Hudson and the Boston and Maine breathed life into dead obligations. In Maine leases or agreements touched many worn securities with new magic. In Connecticut the commissioners revealed that nearly half the railroads in the state, paying dividends in the panic year of 1893, depended for them upon the Consolidated. 169 Contemporaneously the Massachusetts board was observing with curiosity that the dividends of leased roads were higher than those of operating ones. 170 New Hampshire jumped from gloom to glory. As the Boston and Maine consolidated the railroads of the state, unproductive stocks yielded dividends and stockholders received their full share of the advantages accruing from the great density of traffic upon the lines of the system in Massachusetts. Since stocks in the New Hampshire roads appreciated on the market, the original holders who retained ownership or those who bought later at low prices made fortunes and possessed securities which fluctuated "much less than . . . the obligations of the government." 1 7 1 Beneath the jubilation lay a sound truth, universal for all New England. In the field of finance, consolidation by effecting economies, by spreading risks, and by bringing the diversities of local and through traffic under a single management, encouraged a uniformity and stability of returns to investors. There was one catch. The safety and harmony of the structure depended upon the financial soundness of the leasing roads. T o many, including the New Hampshire commissioners, the insolvency of the lessees Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1878, p. 4. le ° 1893. 41st Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 10. im Massachusetts Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1898, p. 9. 171 Fifty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. 1898, pp. x x i - x x v .

STOCKS, BONDS, AND PROMOTERS

349

seemed "improbable." 1 7 2 But the Massachusetts board was expressing muted misgivings.173 In 1892 the Boston and Maine reduced its dividend from 9 per cent to 8; two years later from 8 to 6. In 1900 it compromised at 7 per cent. In 1893 the New York, New Haven and Hartford was still dividing its traditional 10 per cent; it dropped to 9 in 1894 and to 8 in 1895. There it stood when the new century began.174 No doubt there were many factors contributing to this alarming trend. The price of consolidation was one. Between 1884, before it absorbed the Eastern, and 1901, after it leased the Fitchburg, the rentals paid by the Boston and Maine multiplied about fifty-seven times from $90,000 to $5,194,000; its gross income ten, from $3,000,000 to $30,800,ooo. 175 Between 1885 and 1900 the rentals paid by the New York, New Haven and Hartford multiplied 10.5 times from $420,000 to $4,476,000; its gross income about 6.5 from $6,895,000 to $40,325,000."® Were these the savings and economies that the consolidators had promised? in

Ibid„ p. xxii. " * Massachusetts Thirtieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 189g, p. 9. 174 Martin, A Century of Finance, pp. 1 5 6 - 1 5 7 ; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, Part I, PP. 311» 319· lw Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, Part II, p. 38; Massachusetts Thirty-third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1902, Part I I , pp. 36-37. Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, Part II, p. 202; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, Part II, pp. 163164.

XXV THE SAFETY MOVEMENT A N D TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE "But it is the demand which calls forth the inventions — the invention never creates the necessity." — 1 8 8 2 . Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Connecticut, p. 37. I Although the Civil War had stayed railroad construction, with its end the building of new links began with a rush and by the end of the century New England's mileage attained a figure virtually double that of 1865. Both in time and in locality this increase was most unevenly distributed. T h e ten years after Appomattox deserved to rank with those between 1840 and 1850 as one of the great decades in New England railroad building for, with the hesitancies and irritations of the discouraged fifties discarded, 1,804 miles were added to the region's network. 1 Old as well as undeveloped states called the impulse toward expansion good. Connecticut's railroad commissioners who before the Civil State

Single Track Railroad Mileage in New England, 1860-1900 i860 1870 1880 1885* 1865 1890* 1895* '875

Me.

472

521

661 554

I poo*

786

980

1,013

I,«35

1,377

1,704

1,928

667

736

934

1,015

1,044

1,146

1,171

1,193

587

614

810

912

946

988

974

1,045

1,264

1,297

1,480

1,817

1,893

1,997

2,096

2,H3

2,111

I.

108

125

136

179

210

209

224

226

209

Conn.

601

631

742

918

954

975

1,006

1,008

1,025

3,660

3,834

4,494

5,638

5,997

6,309

6,840

7,199

7,512

Ν.

H.

Vt. Mass. R.

Total

* Fractional Miles omitted. Henry V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States, for 1871-1872, xxxii-xxxiii; ibid., 1881, p. lxxviii; ibid., 1891, p. xviii; ibid., igoi, p. vi.

pp.

THE

SAFETY

MOVEMENT

351

War found it "generally conceded" the state "has now all the Railroads needed for its business," announced in 1869, " I t is believed that in no State has the limit of their construction been even approximately reached." 2 Stability, however, was nearer than they thought. After the depression of the late seventies, southern New England added few miles to its network: "Railroad construction in this State has practically come to an end," wrote the Massachusetts commission in 1897. "Additional trunk roads are no longer seriously thought of. The building of supplementary branch and cross lines seems to have been given over to the street railway companies." 3 Even in the hinterland of New England construction slowed, except in Maine, in whose undeveloped north and east was concentrated 60 per cent of the region's new building between 1880 and 1900.4 Not stagnation but saturation halted the growth of New England's network. In proportion to their area the three southernmost states had a railroad mileage rarely equaled in this country or in the heavily populated and industrialized nations of western Europe.5 In the decades after the Civil War, the old charge, partially backed by proof, that New England roads were under-equipped, that they lacked sufficient motive power and cars, was no longer true. Figures for Massachusetts, since regional ones are unavailable, for the forty-year period after χ860, must serve as an index of progress. In i860 her chartered roads had 402 locomotives, 504 passenger cars, and 6,430 merchandise cars.® B y 1900 the number of locomotives was 2,102, of passenger cars 3,161, and 2 Seventh Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners, of the State of Connecticut, for 1861. Together with the Annual Reports of the Railroad Corporations in this State, for i860. To Which Is Added the Leading Statistics Prepared for the Commissioners, p. 5 ; Sixteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1869, p. 6. a Massachusetts Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1897, p. 9. 4 Supra, I I , 352, note. 'Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States for the Year Ending June 30, 1900, p. 1 2 ; Massachusetts Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1893, p. 4. * Returns of the Railroad Corporations in Massachusetts, i860, Massachusetts Public Documents, 1 8 6 1 , no. 46.

352

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

7

of freight cars 34,292. Though in the latter year, for New England as a whole, the totals of locomotives, passenger and freight cars were smaller than those for the other great railroad districts of the nation, the ratio between mileage and rolling stock revealed that for each 1,000 miles of road New England had more passenger locomotives and cars than any other region in the country and as many freight locomotives as the railroads of the Middle West. In the light of national arrangements for interchanging freight cars its inferiority in freight-car ownership was not particularly significant. 8 II More important than these numerical advances were the qualitative changes in roadbed, rails, rolling stock, and methods of operation. Of course, one impulse to these technological innovations was the search for economies in operation. Higher speeds, for instance, enabled each car and locomotive to cover a greater mileage per year, larger locomotives meant larger power plants, more efficient in the consumption of fuel and in the employment of labor, and larger freight cars carried a larger cargo without a proportionate increase in unprofitable dead weight. Telegraph dispatching, electric signaling, and interlocking switching and signaling devices forestalled the more expensive necessity of laying additional track or the enlargement of tunnels. Competition, however, often compelled technical changes which, in the narrower sense, did not save money. Railroad superintendents and their superiors were justly dubious about the savings flowing from Gothic stations, the baroque decoration of passenger cars, and the "excessive" speeds demanded by unreasonable travelers. 9 In addition to economies and competition, the safety movement shaped the directions and the objectives of technical ad* Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, p. 3 3 1 . 8 Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways . . . ipoo, p. 26. 'Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year 1874, p. 1 3 ; Tenth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont, to the General Assembly, October Session, 1865, pp. i o - n .

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

353

vance. Fatalities to individuals had occasioned protective legislation as early as the thirties; greater disasters and larger experience had by the fifties led to debates on safety in a Massachusetts constitutional convention and to the establishment in Connecticut of a railroad commission.10 After the Civil War the safety movement grew year by year in the scope of its sympathies and the intensity of its demands. Though the measures which it sponsored were frequently recommended to' the railroads on the ground they promoted a genuine economy, the fundamental impulse to the safety movement was a concern with individual and social security. Such a concern overrode pecuniary calculations. Journalists, reformers, and railroad commissions — the most vocal and most effective protagonists of the safety movement — generally based their case upon statistical evidence. Such data, as far as injuries were concerned, they occasionally had to admit were inconclusive, for laws requiring the reporting of injuries were loosely drawn, the definition of an injury varied widely, and railroad men and officials in applying such rules as did exist were frequently indifferent or careless. 11 Paradoxically, roads admittedly well run often inflicted more injuries than those that were not.12 Figures for fatalities, however, were more reliable. Death could not be concealed nor could compilers of statistics wave it aside with their systems of classification. In Massachusetts, whose returns on the subject were the most complete and consecutive, deaths during the decade 1861-1870 averaged approximately 87 a year, 13 for 1871-1880 142.6 a year, for 1881-1890 208.5, and ω Supra, I I , 2 3 5 - 2 3 6 ; Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the State Convention, Assembled May 4th, 1853, to Revise and Amend the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I I I , 86, 465-468. n Forty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1893, pp. 4 0 - 4 1 ; Biennial Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Vermont, for 1877-78, p. 1 0 ; 1S81. Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 22. " Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, pp. 1 8 - 1 9 ; 1884. Thirty-first Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 43-44. 18 Returns of the Railroad Corporations in Massachusetts, Massachusetts Public Documents, 1862, no. 4 1 , p. 3 ; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1863, no. 4 1 , p. h i ; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1864, no. 40, p. 369; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1865, no. 37, p. 329; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1866, no. 37, p. 3 1 3 ; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1867, no. 36, p. 3 1 3 ; Massachusetts

354

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

14

for 1891-1900 255. If these totals were broken down into categories, trespassers, those walking on the right of way or stealing rides, had the most numerous fatalities, employees and persons killed at grade crossings or stations followed in that order, and passengers were the most secure of all. 15 However they were arranged, figures always revealed that the New England railroads were slaughtering more with every decade. Actually, as the number of persons exposed to railroad hazards increased and the number of trains and the miles run mounted, a relative decline in fatalities occurred. In Massachusetts during the sixties there was a death for every 109,204 miles of distance traversed by trains; 16 for the seventies the ratio was 1 for 142,236; for the eighties 1 for 173,107; and in the last decade of the century 1 for 2 1 4 , 8 1 4 . " If public opinion paid little attention to these improving relationships within the state, comparisons with other regions and other countries might impress it. In the United States, the West and the South were the real places of railroad danger, but even the Middle Atlantic states, in the safer trunk-line territory, had relatively more fatalities than Massachusetts.18 Apparently this achievement gave little satisfaction to the statisticians of the Commonwealth or of New England. They much preferred to compare their records with those Public Documents, 1868, no. 37, p. 309; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1869, no. 36, p. 3 0 1 ; Massachusetts Public Documents, 1870, no. 37, p. 3 2 9 ; Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. cxxiv-cxxv. " Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 1 6 3 - 1 6 4 ; Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1891, pp. 249-250; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, pp. 1 4 5 - 1 4 6 · 16 Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways . . . 1900, p. 100. 18 Supra, I I , 353, note 1 3 . 17 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. cccv; Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, p. 1 7 1 ; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 9, 1 6 3 - 1 6 4 ; Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1891, pp. 57, 249-250; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, pp. 1 3 , 1 4 5 - 1 4 6 . u Interstate Commerce Commission, Thirteenth Annual Report of the Statistics of Railways . . . 1900, pp. 7 0 - 7 1 , 108-109.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

355

of European countries where there was a matured railroad system and the widespread illusion that in the United States there was a "well-known national disregard of human life." If Great Britain were the chosen yardstick, passenger travel in Massachusetts, it was found, was occasionally as safe and sometimes even safer. Fatalities to employees and to trespassers were, in contrast, inordinately large. 19 In reducing railroad fatalities to their proper proportion, the comparative process did not stop with Great Britain or Pennsylvania. The possibility of death on the cars or along the track must be compared with the possibility elsewhere. Charles Francis Adams easily demonstrated that murders in Boston and death by sunstroke in Massachusetts occurred more frequently than the killing of passengers from causes beyond their control, and the chances of dying by accident in Boston were 80 per cent greater than of being killed on a Massachusetts railroad.20 Such averages filled Adams with awe. "Taken even in its largest aggregate, the loss of life incident to the working of the railroad system is not excessive, nor is it out of proportion to what might reasonably be expected. . . . A practically irresistible force crashing through the busy hive of modern civilization at a wild rate of speed, going hither and thither, across highways and by-ways and along a path which is in itself a thoroughfare, — such an agency cannot be expected to work incessantly and yet never come in contact with the human frame." 2 1 Adams penned this Olympian observation when Massachusetts railroads were still chastened by the dreadful memory and heavy costs of the Revere disaster — for disasters were the great spur to technical improvement.22 Overriding dull annual averages and the unnoticed losses of piecemeal fatalities, they put horror, 19 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cvii-cviii, cxi-cxiv; Massachusetts Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1897, pp. 28-30; Charles F. Adams, J r . , Notes on Railroad Accidents (New Y o r k : G. P . Putnam's Sons, 1879), pp. 250-254, 256-259. 20 Ibid., pp. 243, 249; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. cxv note. 21 Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, p. 248. 23 Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. ci.

356

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

anger, and suffering into the service of the safety campaign. Emotions aside, disaster was also a laboratory which tested the effectiveness of railroad operation and its mechanical equipment. Whether instructed by statistics or outraged by specific incidents, human beings, as they always had, looked around for some one to blame, and the law, with its concepts of negligence and misconduct, seconded this habitual approach. In response to their inclinations and interests or their varied methods of analysis, some blamed the employees, some the managers, and still others the public. Admittedly there was evidence enough on which to censor the railroad workers. In large numbers they opposed accurate tests for color-blindness, preferred the hazards of primitive devices for coupling cars, and cut down the warning devices placed over the tracks near overpasses or covered bridges.23 To account for such misguided behavior was another matter. Some observers found an explanation in intemperance, others ascribed the indifference and irresponsibility of the workers to the "necessary" hazards of their occupation and to a familiarity with the risk which "causes them always to incur it even in the most unnecessary and foolhardy manner." 24 Still others felt the individualism of the American worker put him, usually with safety, beyond rule or system.25 Perhaps an analogy from the current Darwinism was the real explanation. The Hartford Courant declared that of course railroad workers were tough cases: "The fact is that the situation will kill off all but the tough cases at short notice." 26 " 1881. Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Railroad. Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 40-51; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cxxvii-cxxviii; Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, p. 65; Forty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1893, p. 34. " A d a m s , Notes on Railroad Accidents, p. 243; Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year 1871, pp. 32-33; Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1874, pp. 13-14, 28-31; Tenth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner . . . of Vermont, . . . 1865, pp. 9, 10; 1886. Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 22-23; Massachusetts, Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1877, pp. 116-119. " Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 159-160. " H a r t f o r d Courant, April 28, 1880.

The Revere Disaster ( 1 8 7 1 )

THE MODERN" ALTAR OF SACRIFICE-TIIE DEVOURING CAR STOVE.

Harper's Weekly Comments on the Hartford Wreck THE "FIRE DEMON"

William Mason

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

3 57

Critics with different antipathies explained New England railroad accidents by transferring the derogatory characteristics from workers to managers. It was the latter who were short-sighted, reckless, and indifferent to human injuries and losses. In addition they were guilty of greed, a "pinching illiberality of outlay." 2 7 Like most extravagant charges, these overshot the mark. If railroads had been managed by automatons of the balance sheet, officials might have ignored accidents to trespassers, illegally on railroad property, and to workers, who according to the law and its interpreters, currently accepted the hazards of their occupation and suffered injuries not through the fault of their employers but through the negligence of their fellow workers. But neither owners nor managers could ignore injuries to passengers who were legally entitled to collect damages. Major disasters might mean financial losses as high as $500,000 and bankruptcy; losses of individual and corporate reputation were incalculable. 28 Adams, who had a long and intimate acquaintance with Massachusetts railroad officials, discovered that it was not inhumanity crossed with profits that accounted for their opposition to technical changes. It was a sincere conviction that antiquated methods were superior. "Men of a certain type have protested and always will continue to protest that they have nothing to learn." 29 And, finally, the sovereign people regarded the private property of the railroad as their own. They used it as a thoroughfare. Thousands walked the tracks on pleasant days and lesser numbers traversed it on bicycles. 30 They used it for sleep. The wayward lay down on the rails or, if the weather were inclement, sought the covered bridges, utilized at all times for toilets. 31 At " Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, for the Year 1873, pp. 4 - 8 ; Springfield Daily Republican, October 2 1 , November 29, 1864; Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 1 4 1 , 268. " A d a m s , Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 1 4 1 , 267; Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, p. 2 1 . " Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 1 5 6 - 1 5 7 . 80 Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1891, pp. 6 - 7 ; Sixth Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30, 1896 to June 30, 1898, p. 10. " Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. cxxvi; Fifteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1868, pp. 7, 1 0 - n .

358

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

crossings and stations, men, women, and children all consulted their own time and convenience for getting on the track rather than the rules and regulations of the railroad.32 Finally, the trains were the people's, to catch when in motion and to leave — when still in motion — near one's home, one's business, or merely from excitement.33 Stenciling a gravestone on the inside of the car doors lent piquancy rather than deterrence to the unrestricted use of swaying open platforms. In short, a thorough safety movement seemed likely to be "opposed to the habits, and, indeed, to what may be considered the genius of the people." 34 Attempts to assign blame to a single group — workers, managers, or the people — all collapsed when accidents were subjected to intelligent appraisal. Every major tragedy resulted from multiple causes. This Adams clearly revealed when as railroad commissioner he had to report upon the famous Revere accident and when he translated a routine legal duty into a masterpiece of narrative. The railroad was the Eastern, the day August 26, 1871. For a week a heavy summer traffic had overburdened the tracks and equipment of the corporation; on the Saturday in question operations bordered on collapse. Train after train left late from the Boston terminal; paralysis, since telegraph dispatching was not in use, settled upon the line; when blocks were at last broken, employees lost track of the hazardous closeness with which one train followed another. In the early evening at the Revere station, the Portland express overtook a local and ploughed its locomotive into the rear car ahead. Overturned lamps, coals from the engine, and flying oil set the train afire. Twenty-nine persons were killed, fifty-seven injured. 35 When Adams later recapitulated the causes of this tragedy, he condemned the antiquated system of operation responsible for the original congestion of the road. This was management's fault. As Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, p. 166. " Massachusetts Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1887, p. 19. M Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, ι8γι, p. xiii. "Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. xcv-cv. ω

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

359

for the workers, some failed to issue warnings because "on the whole they were inclined to think that those most immediately concerned must know what they were about," and the conductor failed to consult his watch and to realize his train was running on the time of another. "Finally even when the disaster was imminent, when deficiency in organization and discipline had done its worst, the consequences might yet have been averted through the use of better appliances; had the one train been equipped with the Westinghouse brake, already largely in use in other sections of the country, it might and would have been stopped; or had the other train been provided with reflecting tail-lights in place of the dim hand-lanterns which glimmered on its rear platforms, it could hardly have failed to make its proximity known." 36 Naturally there was a wide divergence of opinion as to the proper procedure for coping with the emergency of accidents and the steady toll of individual injury and death. At one extreme were those who still relied upon the self-interest, good will, and intelligence of the railroad officials to provide remedies. In the eyes of many managers and railroad technicians regulation was a meddlesome hindrance to the process of mechanical improvement and railroad commissions occasionally advanced the theory that railroad officials were the most aware of the need for protecting life and the most capable of choosing the innovations to accomplish their object. 37 In a different category were those who persisted in regarding accidents in terms of human culpability. In their minds criminal legislation was the only requirement. The law and the courts should inflict severe pains and penalties upon negligent workers or heavily punish the higher-ups, those who in the Revere disaster were, in the words of Wendell Phillips, guilty of "deliberate murder." Such remedies proved delusive. 38 The 56

Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 1 5 3 - 1 5 5 . "Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1873, p. 1 4 ; Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1884, pp. 1 6 - 1 7 ; Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders, Wednesday, December 12, 1877 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 7 ) , p. 6 ; Report of the Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Convention of the Master Car-Builders' Association Held at Saratoga, New York, June 1 5 , 16 and 17, 1892 (Chicago: Henry 0 . Shephard Company, 1892), p. 7. 38

Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad

Commis-

300

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

t a s k of delineating a n effective sphere for legislation w a s f a r m o r e subtle a n d difficult than such simplifiers recognized. I n 1872 the M a s s a c h u s e t t s R a i l r o a d C o m m i s s i o n b e n t its b r o w over the b r o a d question of t h e o r y . T h e subjects of walking on track, grade-crossings, bridge-guards, brakes on freight cars, safety-switches, and car lighting, . . . are already provided for sufficiently. Certain other fruitful causes of accident, such as getting on or off cars in motion, falling from cars in motion, crossing track in front of locomotive, leaning from train in motion, derailments generally, crushing between cars in shifting and shackling, explosions, suicides, etc. . . . relate to matters obviously beyond the reach of legislation. It is difficult to see how any law could be framed to prevent their recurrence. . . . Enactments of more or less binding force might be passed in relation to train-brakes, car construction, car heating and lighting, tail-lights, signals, use of the telegraph, joists on bridges, and the uniforming of employes. As regards some of the less material of these, such as the lighting of cars, the use of more powerful tail-lights, joists on bridges, and the uniforming employes, it would not be difficult to frame laws which might be effectually put in force. As regards other and more really important matters, such as car construction, train-brakes, and car heating, legislation would be of very doubtful expediency. T h e general adoption of any improvement in these respects can only be the work of time, involving very considerable changes, effected only at great expense, in all the rolling stock in use. Meanwhile new and improved appliances are continually offering themselves for trial, and any legislation which should tend to exclude such from use would probably work more harm than good. 39 A c t u a l l y this p a r a g r a p h s t a t e d three criteria f o r legislation: the state m u s t r e g u l a t e w h a t it a l r e a d y r e g u l a t e s ;

it. m u s t not

c o m p e l the railroads to incur l a r g e expenses; it m u s t r a t i f y r a t h e r t h a n h a s t e n technical a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s .

T o the last point, the

c o m m i s s i o n in the n e x t d e c a d e g a v e dialectic refinement. s t a t u t o r y p r e s c r i p t i o n of technical their i n v e n t o r s , p a t e n t e e s ,

The

devices gave preference

and manufacturers,

to

provided

them

with a favored market, and might even confer a monopoly.

Such

sioners. January, 1883, p. 22; Massachusetts Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1884, p. 25; Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 141-143. " Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cxlii-cxliii.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

361

was contrary to the spirit of our laws.40 The Massachusetts commissioners like others were also quick to admit the inferiority of their own technical abilities as compared with those of managers and railroad engineers.41 But timidities were discarded; even general principles were brushed aside as ephemeral. By 1900 the New England states and the national government had passed statutes coping with some of the difficulties which three decades earlier the Massachusetts commission was certain were "obviously beyond the reach of legislation." Ill

Not legislation but the wishes of the public, the nature of American travel, and the imagination of builders shaped the American passenger coach. At the end of the Civil War it was still an illheated, ill-ventilated, ill-lighted uncomfortable wooden box set upon two four-wheel trucks. The center aisle, reversible seats, small-paned windows, flat or slightly arched roof, stack ventilat i o n — those were its standard and most obvious features. 42 Whether passengers demanded greater comfort and luxury or railroad officials initiated these features for competitive purposes was a matter of debate; in any case these were the goals sought.43 T o attain them American car builders and railroad managers usually chose to increase the size of their passenger coaches and thereby the weight of the wooden superstructure and the underframe of sills and timbering. T o carry the greater load, larger wheels of cast iron, larger journals, and eventually the six-wheel truck were all necessary.44 Since these changes were accompanied 40 Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad. Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 65-66. 41 Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, pp. 30-31; 1885. Thirty-second Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 33. 48 E. G. Young, "The Development of the American Railway Passenger Car," Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, X X X I I (1933), 60-63. "Springfield Daily Republican, February 3, 1882. 44 Report of the Proceedings of the Thirty-second Annual Convention of the Master Car Builders' Association Held at Saratoga, New York, June 15, 16 and 17, 1898 (Chicago: Henry 0 . Shepard, 1898), p. 3 1 ; Third Annual Report of the American Railway Master Mechanics' Association, in Convention at Philadelphia, Sept. 14th, 15th & 16th, 1870 (Chicago: D . A . Cashman, 1870), pp· 1 1 3 - 1 1 4 ; J. L . Ringwalt,

362

MEN, CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

by an alarming increase in dead weight, the technicians were turning to the use of iron truss rods and in the nineties to the more extensive utilization of steel for various shapes and for car wheels. Steel combined strength with comparative lightness, durability with safety. 45 Meanwhile the interior arrangements of the passenger car sought to satisfy the aesthetic and other needs of the traveler. While the "palace cars" were enriched with paneling in black walnut and red cedar, mirrors, Wilton carpets, and silver-plated spittoons, day coaches received two toilets instead of one, lavatories, and drinking water.48 But the baffling problem of ventilation remained comparatively unsolved. The addition of a clerestory to the car roof provided rows of small windows which could be opened to let out foul and worn air; windows lowered in the doors admitted fresh air. In the winter, even if overburdened trainmen gave continued attention to these devices, inequalities of temperature and drafts resulted. Summer traveling necessitated opened windows; open windows meant dirt and cinders. Meanwhile the experts in public health were discovering that passengers rapidly vitiated the air and thereby exposed themselves to unspecified and terrifying afflictions. The successful solution for all difficulties was clearly a car kept closed at all times and an internal pressure so maintained as to exclude smoke and dust. Though this analysis forecast the air-conditioning of a later day, inventors of that time failed to meet the situation, perhaps made insoluble by the intemperate individualism of the American passenger.47 In despair the Hartford Courant recommended the simple device of leaving some cars open and labeling them "cinders and smoke," closing others and labeling them "asphyxia." 4 8 Development of Transportation Systems in the United States (Philadelphia: Railway World Office, 1888), p. 337. " Y o u n g , "The Development of the American Railway Passenger Car," p. 60; "The Development of Passenger Cars," American Engineer and Railroad Journal, L X X V I (1902), 90. "Hartford Courant, February 10, 1868; Young, "The Development of the American Railway Passenger Car," p. 61. 47 Massachusetts Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1897, PP· 17-25. "Hartford Courant, August 9, 1881.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

363

A concern with comfort, some critics asserted, led the railroads to neglect safety; they spent money for gilt and ignored maiming and death. The charge was cant. Most technical advances made traveling both more easy and more secure. Coupling devices on passenger trains illustrated the twin accomplishment. Before the Civil War the loose link-and-pin couplings permitted a jolting, jerking, and oscillation of the cars which was exceedingly distasteful. In case of derailment the cars were thrown about in the utmost confusion. Furthermore, since American builders had turned out coaches with floors at different heights above the rail, cars in the same train, when an accident occurred, no longer came together at the place of greatest resistance, the heavily silled floor, but slid easily above or below their neighbors.49 In the mid-sixties Ezra Miller, an Eastern engineer employed in the Middle West, patented and successfully applied the Miller platform, as it was commonly called. Actually three elements were involved. The car platforms, heavily braced by long sills, were all at one level; the contact between each platform was buffers working against a compressed spring; as the cars were brought together the couplings, or hooks, attached to springs in tension, slid by each other and snapped into a union. The balanced pulls and pressures between cars tightened the train into a single piece. Theoretically, in case of accident, it no longer became a heap of twisted wreckage.50 At the time of the Revere disaster only one railroad in Massachusetts, the Boston and Providence, and few in New England were equipped with the new device. That disaster, however, effected a revolution. The Massachusetts commission, discarding tactful advice for a vigorous tone, prevailed upon railroad officials to join in a recommendation that future cars be built in a fashion to prevent telescoping.51 B y the end of the seventies Miller " A d a m s , Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 49-51. K Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. June Session, 1874, pp. 8-10; Appletons' Cyclopedia of Applied Mechanics: A Dictionary of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanical Arts (New Y o r k : D . Appleton and Company, 1889), II, 646-647; Dictionary of American Biography (New Y o r k : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-1936), X I I , 624. 1 1 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners.

364

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

platforms and buffers were in general use in Massachusetts and Connecticut; by the middle of the eighties elsewhere in New England.52 They eased the stopping and starting of trains; coupled with the Westinghouse air brake, they turned many a potential disaster into a mere shaking up; and by providing a continuous platform diminished the possibility of accident in passing from car to car. They could not, however, stay Americans from boarding or leaving trains in motion. To prevent the exercise of this right railroads provided platform gates. When trainmen displayed vagaries in their management and passengers exhibited their customary ingenuity in frustrating precautions taken for their own safety, the proposal was made to lock the gates while the train was moving. Such dictatorial interference with the rights of the individual was not to be thought of. 53 B y the end of the century, however, Pullman attached vestibules to his cars; their application to day coaches eventually solved this vexing problem.54 Meanwhile automatic couplers of a different design had superseded the Miller apparatus. Nearly every accident to passenger trains, unless it occurred in the daytime and in summer, ended in the burning of the train. Overturned lamps and common stoves, by which the cars were heated, scattered incendiaries among the wooden wreckage. Revere was not the first illustration of this hazard; in 1887 two bridge disasters pointed up this classic danger. The first, the Hartford bridge disaster, occurred on the cold, dark early morning of February 5th. As a northbound train on the Central Vermont approached the high bridge over the White River beyond White River Junction, a derailment precipitated three coaches to January, 1871, p. x i v ; Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cxxxi-cxxxv. " A d a m s , Notes on Railroad Accidents, pp. 1 5 7 - 1 5 8 ; Twenty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1876, p. 22; Fortieth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1884, p. 7. 18 Massachusetts Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1887, p. 7 3 ; Rhode Island Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, Made to the General Assembly, at Its January Session, ι8ς>2, pp. 1 4 - 1 5 . " Y o u n g , " T h e Development of the American R a i l w a y Passenger C a r , " p. 60; Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1888, p. 45.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

36s

the frozen river forty-three feet below. The crushed wreckage caught fire, the flames spread to the wooden bridge which fell blazing beside the burning train. The cars were all heated by coal stoves and lighted by lamps with "mineral sperm oil." Of the twenty-nine passengers who were killed many were burned to death.55 Five weeks later a local train on the Boston and Providence crashed through the Bussey bridge near Boston and six cars fell in a tangled mass upon the street below. The accident toll was twenty-three. Although the stoves started several fires, the arrival of fire apparatus prevented the suffocation or burning of any passengers. Such a "fortunate combination of circumstances" was hardly a reliable method of stopping the "fire demon." 56 Danger aside, candles and lamps gave neither a brilliant nor uniform light and the radiation from stoves did little more than ameliorate the hardships of cold-weather travel. Technical improvements, when they came, were bound to minister to both comfort and safety. Lighting proved the easier problem. Following the Revere disaster the Massachusetts commission and a committee of railroad officials agreed to recommend "the disuse on passenger trains of any illuminating substance other than candles or a fluid incapable of ignition at less than 300° Fahrenheit." 57 Overturned candles snuffed out; fluids with the above specifications were slow to ignite. This recommendation was soon enacted into law in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England. 58 While legislatures issued such prohibitions, many railroads experimented with gas from a reservoir or generator outside the car, and a few, notably K First Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont. December i, 1886 to June 30, 1888, pp. 91-100. "Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1888, pp. 90-112. " Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, pp. cxxxii, cxxxv. " Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1872, p. 218; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, at the January Session, 1881, p. 1 1 7 ; Acts and Resolves of the Sixty-fourth Legislature of the State of Maine, 1889, p. 244; Rhode Island Semi-annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, Made to the General Assembly at Its January Session, 1877, pp. 25-26; Rhode Island Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner Made to the General Assembly, at Its January Session, A.D. 1881, pp. 49-50.

366

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the Boston and Albany, tried electricity either generated by a dynamo in the baggage car or drawn from batteries. These electrical systems, however, were very expensive. 59 T o find a substitute for the dangerous and ineffective "common stove," as the legal vernacular described it, was a more complicated matter. Inventors and patentees were fertile with innovations. T h e y bolted stoves to the floor and furnished them with safety grates and safety doors so the burning coals could not get out. Others heated the cars with steam or hot water circulated from a furnace in each car and provided the furnace with water jackets to extinguish the fire in case of accident, or with a "flexible armor," or placed them in a safety compartment. When Pullman installed the Baker system of steam or hot water heat, he did much to popularize the last type of improvement. 60 Other experimenters had as their goal the use of steam from the locomotive. T h e steam either heated a hot water system in each car or was introduced directly into the car's radiators. Railroad officials mustered objections: the new method lowered the pressure of the locomotive, exposed the passengers, in case the engine were disconnected, to the possibility of freezing, failed to heat the cars when not in use, and by the likely rupture of the steam system at high pressure scalded or suffocated in a moment the occupants of an entire car. T h e more progressive roads, the Boston and Albany, the Connecticut River, and the Fitchburg soon refuted these arguments. A reducing valve on the engine sent low-pressure steam through the train and permanent steam installations at terminals warmed the cars before they were connected with the locomotive. 61 Since tiny technical defects were K Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1888, pp. 48-49; First Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont . . . 1888, pp. 41-42. Nineteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1872, p. 10; 1888. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 47-48; Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, . . . Decisions and Rules of the Board Made During the Year 1893, PP- 12—13; Rhode Island Report of the Railroad Commissioner, Made to the General Assembly at Its May Session, A.D. 1873, Ρ· Γ 4· "Massachusetts Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1889, pp. 7-18, 268-292; First Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont . . . 1888, pp. 28-41; Report of the Proceedings

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

367

still exaggerated and the diversity of roads and systems prevented that uniformity which would have spurred progress, these promising innovations in continuous heating had not, b y the mideighties, gone far in N e w England. 6 2 A t this moment occurred the H a r t f o r d bridge disaster.

Horror

swept N e w England and the E a s t ; journalists and commissions cried for action. " N e i t h e r the conservatism nor the false economy of railroad managers must be permitted to stand in the w a y . "

63

Though the N e w Y o r k legislature forbade after a certain date a n y system of individual car heaters, most N e w England states were content to outlaw the common stove and to declare that their railroad commissions must approve all other types of heaters. 64

F o u r years of inaction and vacillation ensued.

Commis-

sions resorted to the subtleties of official exegesis, legislatures forestalled decisive action b y the commissions, railroads

were

balky, and the great blizzard of M a r c h , 1 8 8 8 , when engines were detached from their cars in order to buck the drifts, contributed a specious cogency to the railroads' preferences for individual heaters. 6 5 A n accident in the Grand Central in 1 8 9 1 put a peremptory end to further stalling. I n the tunnel approaches to the of the Twenty-second Annual Convention of the Master Car-Builders' Association, Held at Alexandria Bay, Ν. Y., June 12th, 13th and 14th, 1888 (New York: Martin B. Brown, 1888), pp. 63, 66. ea 1887. Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 43-45; Forty-second Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1886, pp. 15-16. 83 Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1887, p. 1 5 ; Hartford Courant, February 24, 1887; Springfield Daily Republican, February 9, 1 1 , 1887. "Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1888, p. 64; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, at the January Session, 1890, pp. 215-216; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed June Session, 1887, p. 474; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, at the Tenth Biennial Session, 1888, pp. 61-62; Acts and Resolves . . . of Maine. 188g, pp. 243-244; Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1887, P· 980. 65 Massachusetts Twenty-first Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1889, pp. 3-7, 267-268; 1888. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 44-48; Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1888, pp. 46-47; Thirtyfirst Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, . . . Decisions of the Board Made During the Year. 1889, pp. 8-14.

368

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

terminal a New Haven local outward-bound overtook a train, empty except for sweepers and cleaners. As the locomotive crushed the rear car of the forward train the stove was overturned and set fire to the wreck. Six workers died of the burns.66 Forthwith the Massachusetts General Court prohibited the heating of passenger cars by stoves or furnaces kept within the car or suspended from it,67 and other states began to enforce existing legislation more stringently.88 The Grand Central holocaust also converted the New York, New Haven and Hartford. A road, which had trumpeted its disfavor for all methods of continuous steam heating and had ignored the efforts of both New York and Connecticut to introduce it,69 in a few months equipped all its passenger cars with the new system. For this achievement the Connecticut commission took no credit: "We have thought it preferable so far as our own State was concerned that this result should be attained by the voluntary action of the companies themselves, under the pressure of public sentiment, rather than by legislative enactment." 70 Be that as it may, railroad recalcitrance, commission inertia, ineffective and hypocritical legislation made the history of continuous steam heating one of the most discreditable episodes in the New England safety movement. IV Though the same tendencies were at work and the same issues involved, the evolution of the freight car and the freight train was comparatively prosaic. Naturally the rolling stock grew heavier and larger. At the end of the sixties the standard box car was carrying ten tons of paying freight. Though workers and officials expressed self-satisfaction at such an achievement, by " B o s t o n Herald, February 2 1 , 1 8 9 1 ; N e w Y o r k Times, February 27, 1 8 9 1 . "Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1891, pp. 822-823. **Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, . . . Decisions of the Board Made During the Year 1891, pp. 8-9. " N e w Y o r k Times, February 27, 1 8 9 1 ; 1888. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 44. m 1891. 39th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 1 1 .

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

369

1890 thirty tons was the standard cargo and ten years later cars of forty-ton capacity were not exceptional. 71 A s in the case of passenger equipment, these changes meant a longer and higher car, heavier underbodies, stronger and heavier trucks and axles, larger journals. Indeed the strains and pressures had become so great that steel was liberally substituted for wood and the sides of the car, once designed simply to contain its contents, were transformed into a truss to give it strength. Great economies resulted. P a y load increased more rapidly than dead weight, trains carried a greater tonnage without a proportionate multiplication of cars, maintenance and handling costs did not increase. 72 Hazards to workers did. A s cars grew higher the clearance beneath overpasses and the roofs of bridges shrank. Though legislation slowly raised the distance of such structures from fourteen to twenty-one feet above the tracks, overhead obstructions remained one of the most fruitful causes for accident. 73 There was no uniformity in the placing of hand-holds and grab-irons, in the provision of ladders, in the position and dimension of running boards, in the height of cars, and in the intervals between them. A t best these incalculable variations endangered the trainmen who, in response to the whistle, ran along the cars to their positions and braked the train to a stop with hand brakes. Danger accumulated when braking was done in snow and ice, rain and darkness. 74 Falling from the cars was another great cause of death among the workers. 7 5 71 Report of the Proceedings . . . of the Master Car Builders' Association . . . 1898, p. 3 1 ; The Third Annual Report of the American Railway Master Mechancis' Association, . . . 1870, pp. 113-114. " A . W. Sullivan, "The Standard Box Car," American Engineer and Railroad Journal, L X X V I (1902), 163; C. A. Seley, " M o d e m Car Design," American Engineer and Railroad Journal, L X X V I (1902), 174-175; 1888. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 10; Riingwalt, Development of Transportation Systems, pp. 336-337. "Massachusetts Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1872, p. cxxvii; Laws of the State of New Hampshire, Passed January Session, 1893, pp. 32-33. " Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1891, p. 42; 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 7. 71 Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, p. 18.

37°

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

Although coupling and uncoupling might be fatal, it was a more fruitful cause of injuries. A t the Civil War's end, freight trains still used the link-and-pin coupling. Some of its hazards were due to variations in design and to the differing heights of drawbars to which the couplings were attached. Others were inherent in the manual operations required. In theory it was not necessary to go between the cars to couple them; the worker could use a rod to guide the loose link into the aperture where the pin engaged it. In theory it was also possible to "pull the pin" without stepping over the rails. 76 Like all mechanisms, couplers were obstinate; like all workers, trainmen were masculine and impatient. In spite of theory they ventured between cars "where there is just about room enough for his soul to get out," and injured or crushed their fingers, hands, and arms on the couplers or the blocks and buffers at the ends of the cars. 77 Such circumstances made the callings of brakemen, switchmen, and yardmen the most hazardous in railroad employment. 78 Less pitiful were the operational losses to the railroads themselves. Without air brakes freight trains had to run slowly. With the excessive slack of link-and-pin couplings, their jerking and jolting broke couplings and trains, injured livestock, and shifted cargo. 79 Profit and humanity alike dictated changes. Unhappily improvement came slowly. Injuries to passengers were dramatic and poignant; death came to the unprepared and helpless. On the other hand, railroad commissions and the courts were prone until the end of the seventies to blame the worker's injuries on his own imprudence or that of his fellow servants and to believe that employees assumed the risks of a risky occupation. B y the eighties these conceptions began to lose their hold. T h e ™ Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, p. 65; Forty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1891, p. 34. " H a r t f o r d Courant, March 2, 1880. 18 Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, pp. 70-73; Massachusetts Twenty-third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1892, pp. 21-22. 78Forty-second Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1886, p. 15; Second Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, 1888, to June 30th, 1890, pp. 28-29.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

371

Connecticut commissioners asserted that the safety principles earlier applied to passengers should be extended to employees. 80 T h e Massachusetts commission likewise redirected its interests. Legislatures began to debate statutes placing the responsibility for injuries to workers upon the railroad companies; courts began to whittle away earlier doctrines. B y the nineties the central focus of the N e w England safety movement was the railroad man. With this shifting interest a mere technical concern with better braking apparatus and couplings became subordinate to human considerations. If they were installed on freights the gains for the worker would be immense, for ever since the earlier application of the Miller platform and the Westinghouse brake to passenger coaches, manual hazards upon such rolling stock were relatively infrequent. The tardy application of continuous braking, as it was called, to freight cars was not due entirely to managerial inertia or human willfulness. Such brakes were most effective in conjunction with the Miller platform, and freight trains did not have the latter improvement. T h e expense of installing the new brakes — about $1,000 for a three-car train with engine and tender — was tolerable for a short passenger train, staggering for a long freight. Finally, the continuous brake of the early seventies was not technically adapted to long trains. T h e Westinghouse brake, for instance, was the "straight brake." If the train were to be stopped, compressed air from a reservoir on the locomotive was sent along piping to brake cylinders on each car, the brakes were applied sequentially, car after car, and thus the tardily checked rear cars rammed the slowed cars in their path. Moreover the Westinghouse brake was not automatic. It did not set if the air connection was broken. 81 In 1872 Westinghouse began to eliminate these defects. In his 801882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 40. 81 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1877, p. 33; Massachusetts Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 187g, pp. 39-45; George F. Swain, "Special Report Relating to Brakes," Massachusetts Twenty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1891, pp. 137-139.

372

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

"automatic brake" of that year the pipe between the locomotive and the cars was kept filled with air under compression; on each car it connected with auxiliary reservoirs, likewise filled with air under compression; these reservoirs connected with the brake cylinders. The brakes were operated by reducing the air pressure in the main line and thus shifting a triple valve which established an immediate communication between the auxiliary reservoirs and the brake cylinders. On a fifty-car train the brakes began to slow the last car in eight rather than twenty-five seconds. Furthermore if the connection between the cars broke, the brakes were automatically applied. Later, after the famous Burlington brake trials of 1887, Westinghouse introduced additional refinements. On his experimental train of fifty empty freight cars, brakes began to act on the last car in five seconds and the train, running at the rate of forty miles an hour, could be stopped in a distance of about 400 feet. His was now a "quick-acting brake." 82 The cost of installation, moreover, had now fallen to $50 or $60 a car. At such prices it was time to "put an end to the human sacrifices due to the exposure of men upon the tops of freight cars." 83 But even in Massachusetts and Connecticut the railroad companies held off from adopting the continuous brake. Since the freight equipment of New England was collected through interchange with the nation's railroads, neither a single company nor a single state could handle the problem. It demanded national action. Experience convinced informed New Englanders that the same necessity existed in connection with automatic couplers. Baffled years had not brought about the elimination of the "death dealing link and pin." It was not the fault of inventors; they had secured literally thousands of patents for improved couplings. Of their contributions one type, widely adopted by the more progressive roads, was the automatic link and pin, in which the link, no longer drooping loose, slid into an aperture on the opposite coupling and then a pin or hook held it in place. Another type was 82

Swain, "Special Report Relating to Brakes," pp. 139-140, 146-148. Massachusetts Twentieth Annual Report of the Board oj Railroad sioners. January, 1889, pp. 24-25. 88

Commis-

The Janney (MCB) Coupler [373]

374

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

the vertical plane coupler. The Janney, the ultimate victor in this category, was a claw with a movable knuckle; when the couplers came together the knuckles curved into each other to form a bearing, then a spring snapped a lock plug into position. In uncoupling the plugs were raised by a rod and handle at the side of the car. The "close coupling" resulting from this arrangement was given a little slack through springs on the drawbars to which the couplers were attached.84 Although the diversity of coupling devices was confusing, some states took action. In 1882 Connecticut attempted a general coupling law. "We can imagine opposition to such a bill," wrote the Hartford Courant, "from just two sources — the railroads, which would object to the expense, and the undertakers, who would naturally look with quiet disapproval on what goes to curtail their legitimate industry." 85 The Connecticut measure required all new freight cars to be equipped "with couplers so arranged as to render the presence of any person between the ends of the cars unnecessary for the purpose of coupling the same." The railroad commissioners had to approve the couplings installed.86 Two years later, after a diapason from the railroad commission, the Massachusetts General Court compelled the railroads to install upon new freight cars only such automatic or safety couplings as the commission sanctioned after test and examination. The board gave its blessing to five types.87 Both measures accomplished little. Neither could be enforced against railroad corporations beyond their jurisdiction.88 " Railroad Gazette, X V I I ( 1 8 8 5 ) , 627-620, X I X ( 1 8 8 7 ) , 398-400; Report of the Proceedings of the Twentieth, Annual Convention of the Master Car-Builders' Association, Held at Niagara Falls, Ν. Y., June 8th, gth and 10th, 1886 (New Y o r k : Martin B . B r o w n , 1886), pp. 74-95. 85 1882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 36-42. "Public Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, in the Year 1882, pp. 1 4 8 - 1 4 9 . 87 Massachusetts Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1881, pp. 62-66; Massachusetts Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1884, pp. 1 8 - 2 1 ; Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, pp. 24-33· 88 1882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 4 1 - 4 2 ; 1886. Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commis-

THE SAFETY

375

MOVEMENT

Meanwhile the railroads were attempting to cure their own ills. After years of debate, vacillation, and furious partisanship, the Association of Master Car Builders in 1885 held at Buffalo a test for couplers and two years later, by a letter referendum, gave the accolade to the Janney type. They then proceeded to draw up "contour lines" for the device, recommend its adoption to their members and principals, and designate the improved coupler by the initials of their Association, the M C B . For a while the Master Car Builders shied from compulsive legislation in its behalf.89 Later they joined legislatures, state commissions, and the Interstate Commerce Commission in requesting a Congressional enactment to compel continuous braking and automatic couplers. In this strategy and agitation the Massachusetts commission and its chairman, George G. Crocker, played an influential part.90 Finally, in 1893 Congress declared that after January x, 1898 trains in interstate commerce must have a sufficient number of cars equipped with power brakes so "that the engineer on the locomotive drawing such train can control its speed without requiring brakemen to use the common hand brake for that purpose," and cars in interstate traffics must be "equipped with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars." 91 Though no devices were specified, this act cleared the way for the Westinghouse air brake and the Janney coupler. Although New England's roads generally met the deadline, for various reasons they joined in petitions to the Interstate Commerce Commission for postponements which ultimately extended sioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 2 2 - 2 3 ; Massachusetts Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1894, pp. 5 0 - 5 1 . 88 Report of the Proceedings . . . of the Master Car-Builders'1 Association, . . . 1886, p p . 7 4 - 7 8 ; Report of the Proceedings . . . of the Master Car-Builders' Association, . . . 1888, pp. 1 0 0 - 1 1 6 ; Report of the Proceedings . . . of the Master Car-Builders' Association . . . 1892, p. 7 ; Railroad Gazette X I X ( 1 8 8 7 ) , 398-400. 1889. 37th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 24; Massachusetts Twenty-first Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1890, pp. 1 3 0 - 1 3 6 ; Massachusetts Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1893, pp. 2 2 - 2 4 ; Fifth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. December 1, 1891, p p . 338-340. n Seventh Annual Report i, 1893, p p . 2 6 1 - 2 6 2 .

of the Interstate

Commerce

Commission.

December

376

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

the period of grace into the new century. 92 Meanwhile the state commissioners as well as the Interstate Commerce Commission concentrated upon the statistics of accidents, hoping that the technical changes under w a y would diminish the maiming and killing of railroad workers. N o certain answer rewarded their scrutiny. As a matter of fact the transition heightened the possibility of accident. It was more difficult, for instance, to couple a link and pin with the M C B coupler than it was with another of its own sort. 93 This realization, along with human inertia and a fear for their jobs, explained the unforeseen opposition of some employees' organizations to the introduction of the automatic coupler. 94 V

Though public opinion and legislation sought to quiet the whistle and safety valve, curtail the emission of sparks and smoke, and compel the use of power brakes upon locomotives, railroad officials, builders, and mechanics were otherwise left alone to develop the engine as they saw fit. T h e y provided the greater tractive force and the greater adhesion required for pulling heavier trains by enlarging the engines. Bigger cylinders, larger boilers, more and longer tubes, ampler fire-boxes, extended over the frame, the rear axle, or a trailing truck — all these increased the locomotive's tractive force. Since at the same time the locomotive necessarily grew heavier, an increase in adhesion, a function of the weight resting upon the rails through the driving wheels, resulted as well. 95 T o the uninitiated the visible evidence of these " 189g. 47th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 20-21; Massachusetts Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1898, pp. 32-40. M Massachusetts Thirty-first Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1900, pp. 30-32; Fifty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire. 1897, pp. xi-xii; Thirteenth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission. January 15, 1900, pp. 54-57. " 1891. 39th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 34-35; Forty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1891, pp. 32-36. 85 George L . Vose, Handbook of Railroad Construction; for the Use of American Engineers (Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe and Company, 1857), pp. 306-

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

377

changes was the size and tonnage of the engine. On road after road, between 1873 and 1897, the increase in the engines' weights was approximately 100 per cent. At the latter date tenders weighed more than the locomotives of the earlier one.96 Although American coal-carrying or Western roads were experimenting in the later decades of the nineteenth century with several types of locomotives with smaller and more numerous driving wheels — the Consolidations, 2-8-0, the Moguls, 2-6-0, and simple ten-wheelers, 4-6-0, — the New England railroads clung to the "American" type, 4-4-0, with a four-wheel lead truck and four drivers. The character of New England traffic was one explanation for this devotion to a traditional form. Such engines were economical of fuel and, since they traveled easily, were well suited to the ubiquitous passenger business of the region. While their large drivers with each rotation pushed the engine ahead, the accompanying movement of the reciprocating parts was relatively slow. For their freight traffics the New England roads simply refined or enlarged the American type, since "the engines in use on the roads in the State are not called upon to surmount such heavy grades or to do such arduous duty as in other parts of the country." 97 When the new models developed elsewhere were finally imported, they were at first applied to the hill regions of New England. Later they escaped from these specialized areas. New England roads also employed the Atlantic, 2-6-2, and the compound engine, utilizing, in its banks of two cylinders, both high and low pressure steam and effecting noticeable economies in 307; Angus Sinclair, Development of the Locomotive Engine (New Y o r k : Angus Sinclair Publishing Company, 1907), pp. 643-649. "Massachusetts Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, i8g8, pp. 18-20. 97 Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1888, p. 47; Zerah Colburn, Locomotive Engineering and the Mechanism of Railways; A Treatise on the Principles and Construction of the Locomotive Engine, Railway Carriages, and Railway Plant (London and Glasgow: William Collins, Sons and Company, 1871), p. 134; Railroad Gazette, Modern Locomotives. Illustrations, Specifications and Details of Typical American and European Steam and Electric Locomotives (New Y o r k : Railroad Gazette, 1897), p. 9; Report of the Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Convention of the American Railway Master Mechanics' Association. Held in the City of New York. May nth, 12th, and 13th, 1875 (Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin & Co., 1875), pp. 13-17.

378

MEN,

CITIES,

AND

TRANSPORTATION

coal.98 B y the nineties the engine rosters of New England roads began to exhibit a diversity which was lacking in the preceding, more standardized decades." Long since, of course, coal had triumphed as a railroad fuel. By 1870 most of the roads around Boston or elsewhere in southern New England relied primarily upon coal-burning locomotives; some, like the pioneering Providence and Worcester, had shifted completely to the new fuel. 100 Though roads in the interior found wood cheaper than coal, the frontier of the novel fuel moved quickly inland as its price fell more rapidly than that of its rival. 101 Savings in handling and convenience aided in cutting the comparable costs for a mile run.102 Except for side roads and limited uses, coal conquered even the wooded New England hinterland.103 In large measure New England continued to furnish the rolling stock for its roads. Railroad shops built cars and new merchant firms joined the ones established earlier by chaise makers and cotton-mill mechanics.104 At one of these pioneer works, the " R a i l r o a d Gazette, Modern Locomotives, pp. 8, 1 5 ; Bradlee Scrapbook, Essex Institute; Railroad Gazette, I X (1877), 7; Twentieth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1873, p. 33; Massachusetts Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1893, pp. 34-37; Report of the Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Annual Convention of the American Railway Master Mechanics' Association. Held at Saratoga, Ν. Y., June 20, 2i and 22, 1892 (New Y o r k : De Leeuw, Oppenheimer & Co., 1892), pp. 65-68. w Charles E. Fisher, "Locomotives of the N e w Haven Railroad," Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, X L (1936), 62-71, L I I (1940), 73-81; George P. Becker and Charles E. Fisher, "Boston and Albany Locomotives, 1832-1930," Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, X X I I (1930), 9-26. 100 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, Part II, pp. 7, 25, 32, 43, 65, 145, 154, 194, 233. 1011881. Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 90; Connecticut 1900. 48th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners, pp. 116-119. loa Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1873, pp. 47-49. 103 Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1887, p. 10. 104 Railroad Gazette, X V I (1884), 384; Charles W. Vaughan, The Illustrated Laconian. History and Industries of Laconia, Ν. H. Descriptive of the City and Its Manufacturing and Business Interests (Laconia: Louis B . Martin, 1899), pp. 29-31; Duane H. Hurd, ed., History of Merrimack and Belknap Counties (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1885), pp. 826-827; Duane H . Hurd, com-

THE

SAFETY

MOVEMENT

379

Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, the largest carbuilding enterprise in New England, seven hundred men turned out an annual product valued at $1,500,000 and made the whole car from truck to clerestory. 105 Though the descriptive literature of such enterprises lovingly lingered over the opulence of cars built for Pullman or for foreign potentates, their routine fare was freight and ordinary passenger cars. Nor was the market confined to New England. Railroads also built their own locomotives. After the Civil War the Boston and Albany shops under the direction of Wilson Eddy, was one of the most distinguished producers in New England. 106 The independent makers who had made their mark in an earlier period, Mason, the Taunton Locomotive Works, the Portland Locomotive Works, the Hinkley firm of Boston began to flicker out in the eighties and nineties.107 Two large producers survived long enough to enter the great consolidation of 1901, the American Locomotive Company. One was the Manchester Locomotive Works. Between 1864 when it re-entered the field and the extinction of its personality in the larger enterprise, it manufactured 1,793 locomotives.108 The other enterprise General Ambrose W. Burnside, a military figure if not a hero of the Civil War, created when he changed his Burnside Rifle Company into piler, History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J . W . Lewis & Co., 1889), I I , 1632-1633. 106 Alfred M . Copeland, ed., A History of Hampden County, Massachusetts ( T h e C e n t u r y Memorial Publishing C o m p a n y , 1902), I I , 266-267; Eugene C. Gardner and Others, Springfield Present and Prospective (Springfield: P o n d & Campbell,

1905), p p . 189-190.

J o h n W . Merrill, " E d d y Clocks," Bulletin Historical Society, I I (1921), 13-18. 106

107Railroad

Gazette,

XV

of the Railway and

(1883), 336, 341-342, X X I

Locomotive

(1889), 41, X X X

(1898),

395; Charles S. Given, " T h e Portland C o m p a n y , " Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, I X (1925), 6-19; Charles E . Fisher, "Locomotive Building at T a u n t o n , Massachusetts," Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, X V (1927), 19, 28; Charles E . Fisher, " T h e Hinkley Locomotive Works," Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, X X V (1931)1 7> 8 ; J o h n Loye, "Locomotives of the G r a n d T r u n k Railway," Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, X X V (1931), 13, 27. 108 Charles E . Fisher, "Locomotive Building at Manchester, N e w H a m p s h i r e , " Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, X X V I (1931), 9, 12, 14-iS.

380

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

the Rhode Island Locomotive Works. Though faltering financially in the late nineties, it lived to enter the same consolidation which engulfed its Manchester colleague. 109 Long since some of the larger New England roads had turned to the manufacturers of the Middle Atlantic states. The latter were greater innovators, possessed more modern plants, and accumulated larger reserves against a day of trouble. In the late nineteenth century the New England works were living on borrowed time. 110 Even as talented a builder as Mason confessed, " M y principal business has been making cotton machinery. . . . M y locomotive business is now the meanest part of it and always was. I took an interest in it and told my friends that I got up locomotives for fun, but that it was the most expensive fun I ever had. I make just enough money from my cotton machinery to make up the losses on locomotives." 1 1 1 VI Heavier rolling stock was certain to shatter the roadbed and tracks of the New England lines unless both were rebuilt and improved, for from every quarter came evidence of their flimsiness and imperfection. 112 When technical or financial resources were not available to make them better, the imaginative suggested a host of desperate alternatives: a limitation upon the weight of destructive locomotives and upon the length and speed of trains, and the withdrawal from the roads of "ponderous apartment cars . . . absurdly heavy," weighed down " b y useless and glaring ornamentation" and operated by an alien and irresponsible corporation. 113 Fortunately it was unnecessary to re109 Sinclair, Development of the Locomotive Engine, pp. 600-601; Railroad Gazette, X X V I I I (1896), 528, X X I X (1897), 838, X X X (1898), 242, 801, X X X I (1899), 213. 110 Sinclair, Development of the Locomotive Engine, pp. 197-198. 111 Ibid., p. 184. m R e p o r t of the Railroad Commissioners, Maine Senate Documents, 1865, no. 4, p. ι; Fourth Biennial Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of Vermont, June 30th, i8gz, to June 30th, 1SQ4, pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ; 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 4. 133 Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1873, pp. 8 - 9 ; Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Maine, . . . 1874, PP· S4~SS I First Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, of the State of Vermont, to the Gen-

0) >

ο

hJ e

Ό ei Ο

2 15 Μ Β α> ο •ΰ § Ο

ε

ο CJ ο ι-1 ^ 0) bß C 0> ΙΛ ΙΛ

ei Ρη C

ei

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

38I

sort to such negative improvisations. With varying degrees of dispatch, a reconstruction of the roads took place. T h e "mud roads," laid in dirt and clay, were raised with proper ballast. Since experts were far from agreement on the best material, roads still used the cheapest and most available. Fortunately, throughout N e w England, supplies either of sand, used in the seventies by the Boston and Albany and the Old Colony, or of gravel were widely dispersed and conveniently located. In spite of their tendency to erosion and to dust, these materials served well enough for drainage. 114 Early in the seventies the Pennsylvania — in Adams' words, "that superb organization, every detail of whose wonderful system is a fit subject for study to all interested in the operation of railroads," — devised a roadw a y peculiar to itself the principal feature of which was " a surface of broken stone ballast." 1 1 5 New England roads adopted the new ballast, the N e w England Roadmasters' Association ratified its benefits, 116 and in the nineties thorough reconstructions, like those of the New Y o r k , N e w Haven and Hartford, spread it on the main line. There was a simplification and standardization of the track structure. Though supplies of chestnut and oak, the woods best fitted for ties, were running low, methods of preservation made possible the use of substitutes. 117 Though in less progressive districts commissioners and railroad officials still brooded over the best form of chairs, expert judgment regarded them as unnecessary even at the joints and recommended the rails be spiked directly to the ties with only the mediation of the plate to prevent eral Assembly, 1856, p. 6; Biennial Report of the Railroad Commissioner . . . of Vermont, for 1871-72, p. 4. n * William M . Camp, Notes on Track. Construction and Maintenance (Chicago: W. M . Camp, 1904), pp. 141-156; William B. Parsons, Jr., Track, A Complete Manual of Maintenance of Way, According to the Latest and Best Practice of Leading American Railroads (New Y o r k : Engineering News Publishing Company, 1886), pp. 1 3 - 1 4 ; Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems, p. 297. 115 Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, p. 247. u ' Springfield Daily Republican, October 16, 1885. ' " P a r s o n s , Track, pp. 16, 18; Camp, Notes on Track, pp. 133-135; Fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner, of the State of Vermont, to the General Assembly, i860, p. m; Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1887, pp. 9-10.

382

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

the former's destruction. The joints were fastened with sufficient rigidity by "fish plates," an iron splint on each side of the rails. While debate still raged whether joints should be suspended between ties or supported by them,, it was finally recognized that the difference was academic. Rails were laid with "broken joints" by which the joint on one rail of the track was placed opposite the middle of the rail on the other. The oscillating motion of the cars, so much dreaded from this practice, struck some as less disagreeable and dangerous than the hopping one imparted by "square joints." 1 1 8 Steel rails from the Bessemer converter superseded iron. The parade of the former's virtues has become a platitude. Steel wore so much longer than iron that makers guaranteed their rails for twelve years. Under alternations of heat and severe cold they were less apt to crush or shatter, a crucial advantage in northern New England. 119 More important, however, was the superior uniformity and hence dependability of the steel rail. For there had been enduring iron rails, as New England railroad men often bore testimony. Carefully made iron rails, properly laid and ballasted, had lasted marvelously for twenty years; on the other hand, some iron rails had worn out in thirty days. 120 But relative price was the decisive factor. In 1863 when Americans turned to English steel works for rails, as they had earlier to her ironmasters, the price was $150 in gold a ton. Four years later the first American steel rails — for our metallurgists had by then mastered the techniques of production and harmonized their patent wars — 118 Vose, Handbook, pp. 282-284; Parsons, Track, pp. 25-28, 3 1 ; Camp, Notes on Track, pp. 1 6 4 - 1 6 9 , 1 7 1 - 1 7 2 ; Fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner . . . of Vermont, . . . i860, pp. 1 9 - 2 0 ; Seventh Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for i860, pp. 4-5. 119 Report of the Railroad Commissioners, Maine Senate Documents, 1866, no. 1 2 , p. 4 ; Fifteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1868, pp. 7 - 8 ; 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 3 1 ; Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Dec. 9, 1874 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 4 ) , P· I 0 · 120 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, . . . 1877, PP· 7 _ 8 i Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of New Hampshire, 1879, pp. 1 1 - 1 2 ; Manchester & Lawrence Railroad v. Concord Railroad Corporation. Record of Proceedings and Testimony before the Referees (Boston: H . G . Collins, 1 8 9 1 ) , I I , 1 1 9 .

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

383

were $160 in currency. Iron rails at Philadelphia cost roughly half this figure. B y 1872 when British rails were $108 in gold a ton and American $ 1 1 2 in currency, iron was only a third less than the latter sum. 121 On the delicate question of when to choose iron or steel, Abram Hewitt was currently writing the Massachusetts Railroad Commission that where iron would last twelve to fifteen years it was superior; on roads where denser traffic wore out the rails in three years, steel was the cheaper. 122 The secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association felt iron would be used on branches and on new roads until a business developed justifying the increased expense of steel rails. Contemporary New England practice conformed with these generalizations. The New York and New Haven, the leading experimenter in Connecticut, was laying steel head rails at points where "iron crushed out in a week," the Boston and Albany was ordering 1000 tons of steel for its main line, and the Boston and Maine was importing steel for critical places but laying its extension to Portland with an iron rail. 123 Then prices collapsed. Between 1873 and 1876 the average price of steel rails at the mills fell 50 per cent; in 1877 it broke for the first time below $50 a ton, in 1883 below $40, in 1885 below $30, and finally in 1897 below $20. The following year the average price for the American product was $17.62. Long before this date quotations for iron rail had lost their meaning and had been discontinued.124 Nor did these figures entirely reveal the low m Annual Report of the Secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association, to December 31, 1874 (Philadelphia: Chandler, 1 8 7 5 ) , pp. 42, 5 3 ; Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 187g, pp. 12-17. Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. Ixxviii-lxxx. 123 Fourteenth Annual Report of the General Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1867, pp. 9 - 1 0 ; Second Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston and Albany Railroad Co., to the Stockholders. January, 1870 (Springfield: Samuel Bowles & Company, 1870), p. 5 ; Report of the Directors of the Boston and Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Sept. g, 1868 (Boston: Henry W. Dutton & Son, 1868), p. 6; Report of the Directors of the Boston & Maine Railroad to the Stockholders. Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1872 (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1 8 7 2 ) , p. 5.

Annual Statistical Report of the American Iron and Steel Association, Containing Complete Statistics of the Iron and Steel and Related Industries of the

384

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

original cost of laying steel rail, since the iron it replaced could often be sold for a considerable sum. 1 2 5

Fortunately the N e w

England roads on the whole were in a financial position quickly to capitalize upon the recurrent bonanza of falling prices.

B y the

end of the seventies both Massachusetts and Connecticut had at least half the mileage of their main lines in steel; by 1 8 8 5 , after a flush period when even importations were resumed, the changeover in these states was virtually complete. Northern N e w E n g land was not far behind. 126 Meanwhile heavier equipment led to heavier rails. In the early seventies 6o-pound rails were a standard. 1 2 7

In the nineties the Boston and Albany substituted 95-

pound rails for the standard 7 2 , 1 2 8 and the N e w York,

New

Haven and Hartford changed from a 60 to a 74 or 78-pound rail and then to one of 100. With heavier rails, better ballasting, and more skillful handling of the joints, N e w England's best railroads were elastic enough not to pound the rolling stock to pieces and sturdy enough not to "deflect." After years of wear, rails were still smooth and not unduly worn at the ends. 129 United States . . . Presented to the Members, June 10, 1897 (Philadelphia: American Iron and Steel Association, 1897), pp. 72, 88; Annual Statistical Report of the American Iron and Steel Association, Containing Complete Statistics of the Iron and Steel Industries of the United States, . . . Presented to the Members, November 25, 1901 (Philadelphia: American Iron and Steel Association, 1901), p. 27. 120 Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of New Hampshire, 1887, p. 10. 126 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 3 1 ; 1886. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 5 ; Massachusetts Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1880, p. 1 3 ; Massachusetts Seventeenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1886, p. 1 4 ; First Biennial Report . . . of Railroad. Commissioners . . . of Vermont . . . 1888, p. 14. 127 Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, Part I I , pp. 30, 70, 80, 92, 143. 128 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston & Albany Railroad Company to the Stockholders (Boston: Rand Avery Supply Company, 1891), p. 7. m 1892. 40th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 1 9 ; 1893. 41st Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 18; 1894. 42d Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 19.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

385

VII Though the heavier weights and faster speeds of trains put new strains upon the railroad bridges of New England, the major hazards were still the old ones of fire and decay. B y the end of the Civil War, so universal were wooden railroad bridges that even in Massachusetts major roads had not a single foot of iron bridge and in the Commonwealth as a whole there were only 651 feet of iron compared with 100,000 of wood. 130 Nonetheless, during the sixties N e w England railroads definitely turned to the new material. Though the first "great bridge" which the Boston and Albany and its allies flung across the Hudson was a Howe truss of wood, they commenced immediately the construction of a second one of iron. 131 A t the same time the Hartford and New Haven, where it crossed the Connecticut above Hartford, built an iron b r i d g e — "the largest work of the kind yet erected in the country." The road imported from Great Britain the material and some of the workers to put it in place. It cost twice as much as a wooden bridge. For the higher first cost, the greater safety and durability of iron were repayment. 132 A s late as 1887 Professor Swain of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the bridge experts of N e w England, was writing, " I t is safe to say that no properly designed iron bridge has yet broken down, or been replaced, on account of its actually wearing out. Iron has as yet been used for bridges for too short a time to enable us to say what its life would be, under proper circumstances." 133 B y this date designers had used the new material in novel forms of trusses and, with appro130 Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1888, pp. 44-45. m Thirty-second Annual Report of the Directors of the Western Rail Road Corporation, to the Stockholders. January, 1867 (Springfield: Samuel Bowles & Company, 1867), p. 6; Second Annual Report . . . of the Boston and Albany . . . 1870, pp. 6, 7; Scientific American, X V I I (1867), 9-10; Report of the Joint Special Committee Investigating the Western Railroad, Massachusetts House Documents, 1866, no. 330, pp. 17-18.

^ T h e o d o r e G. Ellis, Description of the Iron Bridge over the Connecticut River on the Hartford & New Haven R. R. with a Brief History of Iron Bridges (Hartford: Brown & Gross, 1866), pp. 3, 14-35. 133 Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners.. January, 1888, p. 46.

386

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

priate modifications, substituted it for wood in girder bridges, trestles, and the truss and lattice forms of an earlier day. 134 In spite of the patent superiority of their material, railroads were frequently unwilling to adopt iron bridges, often designed in this country without a precise knowledge of the chemical and mechanical properties of their material. Furthermore the higher initial cost of iron bridges led new and untried projects to resort to wooden bridges as automatically as they did to clay ballast and iron rails. 135 Consequently the footage of wooden bridges did not decline as rapidly as that of iron ones increased. Still by the eighties new bridges in southern New England were almost always of iron and the replacement of wood by the new material was rapid. In northern New England the poorer roads were still propping up their old wooden structures.136 At the same time railroads began to use steel of which the safe working strength was 20 per cent greater than wrought iron and, following the example of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to build stone bridges. 137 By century's end, in Massachusetts the footage of permanent structures of metal and stone somewhat exceeded that of wooden bridges. 138 But a series of accidents in the country and in New England showed these technical advances did not prevent bridge accidents. Such disasters, "incomparably the worst to which travel by rail is exposed," 139 were likely to occur at drawbridges and, after the 114 H e n r y G. Tyrrell, History of Bridge Engineering (Chicago: Henry G. Tyrrell, 1 9 1 1 ) , pp. 1 5 1 - 2 0 1 , 365, 3 7 s ; Theodore Cooper, American Railroad Bridges (New Y o r k : Engineering News Publishing Company, n.d.), pp. 1 3 - 2 3 , 3 3 - 3 4 ; William E . Merrill, Iron Truss Bridges for Railroads. Methods of Calculating Strains, with a Comparison of the Most Prominent Truss Bridges, and New Formulas for Bridge Computations; Also the Economical Angles for Struts and Ties (New Y o r k : D . Van Nostrand, 1 8 7 0 ) . 135 Vose, Handbook, 1 9 2 ; Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Maine, i860, p. 5 ; Zerah Colburn, American Iron Bridges. Abstract of a Discussion upon a Paper Submitted [to the Institution of Civil Engineers, L o n d o n ] (New Y o r k : D . Van Nostrand, 1 8 6 7 ) , p. 3. Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1888, p. 4 5 ; Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1878, pp. 16, 1 8 ; Second Biennial Report . . . of Railroad Commissioners . . . of Vermont, . . . 1890, pp. 1 0 6 - 1 0 7 . 137 Tyrrell, History of Bridge Engineering, pp. 95-96. Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1901, p. 4 1 . Adams, Notes on Railroad Accidents, p. 99.

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

387

Norwalk tragedy of the fifties on the New York and New Haven, Connecticut and other states moved quickly to prescribe a full train stop before crossing draws. Though interlocking devices and signals made this injunction unnecessary, states were slow to repeal it. Under proper safeguards they simply permitted commissions to waive the requirement.140 A second cause of disaster—the Hartford, Vermont accident was the classic example—was derailment on bridge approaches or on the bridge itself. If the track were above the truss, the cars simply rolled overboard; if it crossed between the trusses, the derailed train shattered them and fell through. Experts realized the cure to be a bridge floor with long ties so securely fastened that they would not bunch; guard rails, laid either inside or outside the regular track; and heavy, high timbers along the floor's edge. The skillful persuasion and the minatory prophecy of severer measures by some New England commissions did something to diminish the flagrant disregard of these specifications.141 Finally, some accidents showed that both wood and iron bridges required a strict and frequent inspection. In 1878 came the Tariffville disaster in Connecticut. An excursion train returning from a Moody and Sankey revival fell through a Howe truss of blended wood and iron and thirteen persons were crushed to death or drowned. Belatedly the Connecticut commissioners were convinced it was not enough to tap iron parts with a hammer or sample wood with hatchet and bit brace. Since the defect might be "entirely out of sight," a knowledge of bridge design and of the elasticity and fatigue of metals was essential.142 Ten years later the Bussey bridge disaster led the Massachusetts commission to characterize the design of that iron truss as "nondescript," to point 110 Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1878, pp. 1 8 - 2 0 ; 1886. Thirty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . 0/ Connecticut, p. 1 7 . 141 Massachusetts Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1871, pp. x x v i - x x v i i ; Massachusetts Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1882, pp. 1 3 6 - 1 3 8 ; Massachusetts Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1893, PP· 3 2 - 3 3 . 3 7 - 4 0 . lt2 Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, for 1879, pp. 3 - 1 7 ; H a r t f o r d Courant, February 1 3 , 1878.

388

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

out it was manufactured and erected by an "agent" for a bridge company which did not exist, and inspected for the railroad by a machinist and not a civil engineer. Forthwith the legislature and commission compelled all railroads to submit strain sheets, bridge plans, and inspection reports; the commission employed an engineer to appraise these exhibits. Meanwhile the frightened railroads of the nation so jammed the bridge manufacturers with orders that the reconstruction of railroad bridges was delayed for months. 143 Undoubtedly both accident and legislation increased the awareness of the exactions placed on bridges by heavier rolling stock. VIII Although laws had little to do with the technical development of rail and roadbed or even bridge architecture, legislators, sensitive to the considerations of the safety movement, were compelled to determine general policy and detailed arrangements for grade crossings. At such places statistics of fatalities were shocking. In Massachusetts the number in the quinquennium, 1896-1900, was twice what it had been in 1873-1877. 1 4 4 It was futile to explain this increase by the larger number of crossings, for the latter were a matter of semantic and legal definition and nearly every census of them ran into resulting difficulties of classification. A denser highway traffic, more frequent and more rapid movements of trains, and the construction of two or more tracks which multiplied the opportunities for miscalculation and extended both the time and the distance traversed by those who sought to cross the rails ahead of the locomotive—these were more cogent explanations. 145 Before the Civil War public opinion and legislators, proceeding 143 Massachusetts Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board oj Railroad Commissioners. January, 1888, pp. 38-50, 9 0 - 1 1 2 . 144 Massachusetts Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1883, p. 84; Massachusetts Thirty-second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, igoi, p. 146. 145 Massachusetts Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1889, pp. 58-62, 64-66; 1886. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 3 6 - 3 7 .

THE SAFETY

MOVEMENT

389

on the assumption that individuals could save themselves, had arranged for the erection of warning boards and the sounding of bell and whistle. These precautions proved inadequate. Some, like the untrammeled blowing of whistles, developed evils of their own. The practice might delight railroad men and those remote from the railroad who thought it " a pleasant melody or a gratifying evidence of life and movement." 146 In congested areas, whistling frightened horses, caused accidents, distressed the ill, and unstrung the soundest nerves with its force and ferocity. Commissioners used their authority to abate the nuisance. 147 More effectively to protect the public, the railroads or legislation arranged to appoint crossing guards, armed with a flag or other symbol of authority, or to erect gates in charge of a keeper. Paradoxically, as the number of protected crossings increased, so did the number of accidents at them. Such crossings were precisely the ones with the heaviest traffic. Guards and gates were on duty but part of the day. Since protected crossings also interfered with the prescriptive right of American citizens to cross railroads at will, irritated drivers struck at guards and drove teams through lowered gates while impatient pedestrians, heeding no warnings, ducked under barriers. From every jurisdiction rose the observation "that time never seems of so much value as it does to men who have occasion to cross a track in the face of a coming train." 148 With American folkways what they were, reformers were soon driven to consider the feasibility of eliminating grade crossings. The expense took the breath away. In a fit of arithmetical daydreaming the Massachusetts commission in the eighties calculated the abolition of grade crossings in the populous cities and towns of the Commonwealth would cost $100,000,000, or 80 per cent of the Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire, 1887, pp. 1 5 - 1 7 . 147 1880. Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 3 3 - 3 4 ; 1882. Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, p. 1 1 ; Massachusetts Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1873, pp. 2 5 - 2 8 ; Massachusetts Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 187s, pp. 6 8 - 7 1 . 148 Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ; Massachusetts Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1889, pp. 64, 68-73.

39°

MEN, CITIES, AND

TRANSPORTATION

existing capital of the railroad companies.149 In New Hampshire the commission settled upon a sum equal to the capital stock of the state's railroads. "This is too much to ask the roads or the public to pay, even though it be distributed through a series of years so long that the work will be finished only when the descendant of the prolific foreigner has taken the place of the last thoroughbred Yankee, who has been run down and killed." 150 Only piecemeal abolition was feasible. An overload of statutes ensued. When the huge mass was reduced to system, it was found to operate on the following principles:—Crossings could be eliminated upon petitions, presented by town or city officials or by the railroads; the county commissioners apportioned the resulting expenses among towns, cities, counties or railroads in such fashion that the petitioners were convinced they paid the costs of eliminating a crossing! Few petitioned. As for new crossings, though railroad commissions might be given the power to grant or deny them, there was a systematic conspiracy to compel affirmative action. Growing towns refused to lay out new streets unless such crossed at grade. Promoters, with the connivance of stockholders and communities, refused to build new railroads unless public ways could cross at grade. Owners of stables disliked the strain upon horseflesh imposed by the ascent to an overhead bridge; property owners disliked the scenic disfigurement of a depressed way. For decades legislation sought more flexible and ingratiating arrangements. It extended the categories of petitioners, determined priorities in the bearing of expense or endowed new agencies with this delicate decision — all in vain. 151 Finally, at the end of the eighties, accomplishment came. To 148 Massachusetts Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1885, pp. 36-37. "" Forty-third Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of New Hampshire. 1887, p. 1 1 . 151 Massachusetts Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 1880, pp. 1 4 - 1 5 ; Massachusetts Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. January, 188g, pp. 7 5 - 8 5 ; 1886. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 6 - 8 ; 1887. Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 3 0 - 3 1 ; 1888. 36th Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners . . . of Connecticut, pp. 3 7 - 4 0 ; Twenty-first Annual Report of the Directors of the Boston and Albany Railroad Company to the Stockholders (Boston: R a n d Avery Supply Com-

Ο) > ο ο ο h-1 Ό Όcfl C Ο

ι—ι rt oj Ρί ο

Λ Ά

α

Th

ς) G > W ο * e 478-486, 498, 503, 518; II, Sff·, 14 Portland (I), I, 26 Portland (II), II, 202, 213, 214, 218 Portland and Ogdensburg R.R., I, 4808.; II, 22, 244, 317, 345 Portland and Rochester R.R., I, 479®. Portland Locomotive Works, I, 311; II. 379 Portland, Rutland, Oswego and Chicago R.R., I, 481 Portland, Saco and Portsmouth R.R., I, 194, 198, 199-200, 205-206, 215, 258; II, 4-7, 10, 345 Portland Steam Packet Company, II, 125, 127, 128-129, 131, 202

495

Portsmouth, I, 8, 25, 33, 94, 183, 198; II, 118, 161, 228, 311 Potomac River, I, 494; II, 150, 151, 184 Poughkeepsie, I, 27, 32 Poughkeepsie Bridge, II, 69, 97, 104, 168 Preble, William P., I, 208, 210 Prince Edward Island, II, 122, 128, 130 Prince, F. Η., II, 65-66, 69 Priscilla, II, 145, 146 Providence: canals, I, 81-84, 93-94; II, 167, 168 coastal trade, I, 12, 22-23, 46, 95; H. 132, 133. 135-136, 137. 138, 140, 145, 162, 183, 228 highways, I, 33, 39, 56, 57 railroads, I, 105-114, 116, 243ff., 256257. 276-279, 334; II, 32-34, 87, 99. 104, 3 " . 393 Providence, II, 139, 146, 147, 201, 208 Providence and Worcester R.R., I, 259251, 310; II, h i , 162, 378 Provincetown, I, 255; II, 118 Proxy voting, I, 234; II, 429-430 Public exigency, I, 267-269; II, 248259 Pullman, George, II, 29, 364, 366, 379 Puritan, II, 200, 202, 208, 211 Quarrying, trade in products of, I, 1213, 16, 84-85, 100, 229, 240; II, 119, 129, 151-153 Quebec (City), I, 204, 219, 489; II, 125 Quincy, I, 100, 392; II, 152 Quincy, Josiah, Jr., I, 103, 127, 128, 134. 155, 176-179. 24s, 253, 278, 322, 365«., 383, 386, 416; II, 74, 249, 294-295, 446, 462, 473 Railroad commissions. See individual states Railroad regulation. See railroad legislation of individual states Rails. See Track Rates: canal, I, 66, 68, 83 highway, I, 42-43, 46, 55-56, 57, 93, 94, 105-106 railroad, I, 139-147, 149, 152-153, 181, 344-359. 371-375, 399. 409. 431, 499-528; II, 91, 268-306 regulation of, I, 118, 126, 144, 234;

496

INDEX

Π, ι6, 17, 73ft., 79, 249-253, 2 7 1 272, 278-282, 283-285, 293-294, 295-297, 299, 300, 301-303 water, I, 19, 23, 27, 29, 3 1 ; II, 130, I38ff., 155, 163-164, 179-180, 181, 215 Rattlesnake, II, 165 Rebates, I, 43, 348-350, 353-357, 383· 516, 517-518, 525-526; II, 279282, 286-296 Reciprocity Treaty (1854), I, 189-190; II, 121 Reed, Edward Μ., II, 452-453, 467 Reed, Thomas Β., I, 482 Rensselaer and Saratoga R.R., I, 2 28ff.; II, 116 Reports: railroad, I, 282-284; II, 236, 330339. 427, 428 turnpike, I, 43-44 Revere disaster, II, 355, 358-359, 363, 365, 393, 401 Rhode Island: canals, I, 81-84; II, 111 coastal trade, I, 12, 22-24, 256; Π, i3iffrailroad commission, I, 275-276; II, 233, 236, 240, 242, 266, 337 railroad legislation, I, 270, 324, 326, 350, 354-357! Π, 342 railroad systems, I, 1 1 2 - 1 1 4 , 243, 245-247, 250-251, 284; II, 32ff., 103, 350 Rhode Island Locomotive Works, II, 380 Rice, Richard D., II, 9-10, 460, 461 Richardson, Henry Η., II, 392-393, 472 Richmond, I, 15-16, 19; II, 150, 153, 154, 175 Richmond, John W., I, 276-279; II, 135 Roadbed, I, 100-101, 115, 1 1 9 - 1 2 2 , 1 2 6 127, 136-137, 162-163, 165, 168, 186-187, 207, 260, 285-286, 296298, 395, 4741 Π, 381, 396 Roads. See Highways Robinson, George D., I, 425-426; II, 59-61 Robinson, Henry C., II, 93, 297, 462 Rochester, I, 479-480, 482 Rockefeller, William, II, 97-98, 109 Rockland, I, 487; II, 119, 124, 151, 155, 193 Rockport, Mass., II, 118, 153

Rogers, Thomas, I, 303-304, 3*3 Rouse's Point, I, 172-175, 183, 228; II, 117 Rumrill, James Α., I, 369, 376; II, 469 Russell, Thomas, II, 246, 282, 284, 286 Rutland, I, 167, 229-230, 390 Rutland and Burlington R.R., I, 166171, 173, 174, 180, 183, 185, 191, 228, 312, 322, 323, 332, 390, 391, 392-393 Rutland R.R., I, 438, 439, 443, 455; Π, 339, 346 Sackett's Harbor, I, 419, 420 Safety movement. See Accidents Sage, Russell, II, 53ft., 58ft., 64 Sailing vessels, I, 17-20; II, 122-125, 132, 1 5 1 - 1 6 5 , 168, 186-195 St. Albans, I, 31, 87-88, 169-170, 174, 189 St. John, Ν. Β., I, 219, 489; II, 122, 128 St. Johns, Que., I, 30, 438, 441; II, 115 St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain R.R., I, 460 St. Lawrence and Atlantic R.R., I, 208 St. Louis, I, 494, 501; II, 153, 184 Salaries, of railroad officers, II, 445446, 448 Salem, I, 8, 24-25, 33, 40, 41, 45, 46, 51, 55, 56, 57, 195-202, 268; II, 118, 162, 164 Salem and Lowell R.R., II, 162 Salisbury, Stephen, II, 461, 471 Sanford, Menemon, II, 125, 126, 127, 135, 221 Sanford Independent Line, II, 126 Sargent, Ignatius, II, 455, 459 Savannah, I, 16; II, 150, 1530., 168, 169, 174, 176, 178, 179, 183 Sawyer, Charles Η., II, 20-21 Schenectady, I, 228, 420, 421 Schooners, I, 18; II, 166, 186-190 Schuyler, George L., I, 259ft., 333 Schuyler, Robert, I, 25gff., 333 Searsport, I, 492 Season tickets. See Commutation fares Securities, stocks and bonds: canal, I, 62, 64, 82 railroad, I, 322-323, 326-333 Ι Π, 307347 regulation of, I, 328, 332; II, 248, 322-328

INDEX stage company, I, 52-53 turnpike, I, 41-45 Sedgwick, Theodore, I, 103, 104, 106, 1 0 9 - 1 1 0 , 1 6 4 - 1 6 5 , 365

Seekonk Branch R.R., I, 276-279; II, 135 Shanly, Walter and Francis, I, 413-415, 424

Shaw, Lemuel, I, 1 1 7 ; II, 419, 420 Shaw, Robert Gould, II, 470 Sheffield, Joseph Ε., I, 237-240, 259, 262; II, 85-86, 450-45 1 1 458, 462, 468, 4 7 1

Sherbrooke, I, 209 Sherburne, Henry C., I, 456 Sherman anti-trust act, I, 381-382, 522 Sherman, Jehaziel, I, 30 Shipbuilding, 219-221

I,

19-20;

II,

191-195,

Shipman, Nathaniel, II, 56, 57, 63 Shore Line R.R., I, 266; II, 81, 83, 90, 9 1 , 95, 96, 1 0 4 , 1 0 5 , 1 3 2 , 1 4 1

Silliman, Benjamin, I, 27, 3 1 , 68, 238, 399;

II,

206-207

Sinclair, Charles, II, 1 3 - 1 5 , 24, 29-30, 469

Smith, II, Smith, Smith, Smith, II, Smith,

E d w a r d C., I, 438, 441, 443; 469

George G., I, 436 John, I, 169, 176, 179; II, 469 J . Gregory, I, 179-180, 436ft.; 9, 460, 462, 468

135, 137, 141, 142, 2 3 5 , 2 3 7 , 265, 2 9 1 , 3 0 3 , 3 1 6 , 3 3 4 , 3 6 5 , 3 8 8 , 394, 398, 4 0 5 ; II, 29, 80, 92, 1 0 5 , H I , 1 1 2 , 311-312, 379 Stage-coaching, I, 50-58, 369,37i Stamford, I, 13, 22; II, 105 Standard time, II, 394-395 Stark, George, I, 184, 4468.; II, 294, 3 0 5 , 4 5 2 , 466 Stations, I, 2 3 1 , 294-296;

II,

106-107,

391-393 Steamboats: design, I I , 1 9 0 - 2 1 6 , 2 1 9 - 2 2 1

government regulation, II, 216-218 routes, I, 20-27, 63, 70, 73-75; II, 115-116, 118-119, 167, 170-183, 185

125-148,

164-

Stearns, Onslow, I, 452-453; II, 305306, 452, 466

Stephenson, George, I, 101, 303; II, 260 Stephenson, Robert, I, 123 Stevens, Everett Α., II, 243 Stevens, Robert L., I, 122; II, 198-199, 203, 208

Worthington C., I, 436, 4 4 1 4 4 2 ; II, 469 Smyth, Frederick, I, 451, 461; II, 458, 472

Snowplows, I, 3 1 3 - 3 1 4 South: coastal trade with, I, 1 5 - 1 7 ; II, 149157, 161, 168-170, 1 9 0 , 1 9 2 , 229

497

Spalding, Isaac, II, 457, 469 Speeds: railroad, I, 318-319, 337-338; Π , 396 sailing vessel, II, 189 steamboat, II, 213 Speyer and Company, II, 70-71 Sprague, Phineas, II, 170 Springfield, I, 33, 67, 68, 83, 109, i26ff.,

173-183,

185,

railroad connections with, II, 50-51, 183-185

South Berwick, I, 194; II, 7 South Braintree, I, 253, 254 South Carolina, II, 175, 201-202, 220 South Station, II, 106-107 Southern Railway and Steamship Association, I, 510; II, 179-182 Southern Vermont R.R., I, 393, 408, 4 1 5 , 4 2 1 , 4 2 2 , 427

Spalding, Edward Η., II, 459, 460, 469, 471

Stickney, Josiah, II, 456, 472 Stockton and Darlington R.R., I, 101 Stock. See securities Stockholders: legislation concerning, II, 428-431 powers and influence, II, 425-428, 432-434, 449 Stockownership: by directors, II, 434-435 d i s t r i b u t i o n , I , 4 4 - 4 5 , 78, 1 2 7 - 1 2 9 , 162, 167, 3 3 3 - 3 3 6 ; I I , 222, 3 3 9 - 3 4 1

institutional, I, 52, 74, 78, 82, 336; II, 341-344 interlocking, I, 272-273, 457, 458; II, 94-95,

102,

143-144,

326-327

Stockwatering: instances, I, 368, 379-381; II, 66, 76, 320-322, 334, 336-337

policy toward, II, 73, 94 Stonington, I, 246ff., 266; II, 1 3 1 , 133, 136, 137, 144, 145

INDEX

498

Stonington Line, II, 81, 99, 104, 137ft., 148, 202,

222-223

Stonington Road. See New York, Providence and Boston R . R . Storey, Moorfield, II, 67, 109 Strikes: on Boston and Maine (1877), I I , 401, 412,

468

Tariffville bridge disaster, II, 387 Taunton, I, 95, 108-109, 112, 24s, 3 i i f f . ; II, 379 Taxation, I, 41, 74, 78; II, 314-316 Telegraph dispatching, I , 316, 348; I I , 396

8 3 . 92»

132

Thames River, I, 243, 266, 290; I I , 81, Thayer, John Ε., I, 259; II, 465 Thayer, Nathaniel, II, 465, 471-472 Thomaston, II, 119, 151-152, 193 Thoreau, Henry D., I , 6iff., 314 Thurman, Allen G., I, 515-516, 520 Tourist trade, I, 480, 486; II, 130, 146147 Tower, William Α., I , 45off.; II, 457 Towne, Ithiel, I, 291 I,

100-101,

285-290, 384,

104,

315-316,

119-122, 369;

II,

210, 381-

396

Tredgold, Thomas, I, 102, 104, 122 Trolleys,

I, 382;

Troy,

18,

I,

168,

II,

27-28,

32,

85-90,

95-

189,

224-231,

295,

387,

II.

259-260,

286

Vanceboro, I, 474, 489 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, I, 20, 23, 237, 247. 372. 374. 375. 423. 497. 5 ° 9 ! II, 3 9 , 4 8 , 8 0 , 1 3 5 , 1 4 3 , 2 2 1 Vanderbilt, William Η., I, 374, 381, 4 1 9 , 4 2 2 , 4 3 0 , 4 3 9 , 4 9 8 ; II, 6 4 , 8 5 Vermont: canals, I, 61, 159 highways,

I, 34, 35-36, 38, 39,. 41

railroad commission, I, 281; II, 234, 236,

237,

24off.,

251-252,

247-248,

257,

227-231,

264,

210,

312,

284,

302,

408, 415, 422, 424,

427-428

Troy and Greenfield R.R., I , 325, 326, 378,

387-388,

419, 422, 423, 4 2 4 - 4 2 6 ;

395,

396-

II, 45,

316,

327. 339 Tuckerman, William S,, I, 337; I I , 448

266,

II,

309,

313-

284-285,

291,

436-

318,

322,

323,

332-

479.

480,

484,

500,

170,

241,

314, 315. 323, 342, 429 railroad systems, I, 159-161, 166-191, 447, Vermont Vermont Vermont

464-465; I I . 252-253. 3 " . 35° ( I ) , I, 30 ( I I I ) , I I , 116 and Canada R.R., I, 169-191, 4 3 6 , 4 3 7 . 4 4 0 . 4 6 5 ; II. 4 4 8 Vermont and Massachusetts R.R., I, 390-395. 398, 415-416, 424, 439; II, 4 4 9 Vermont Central R.R., I, 166-191, 209291,

333. 344. 391. 436-447. 450, 452, 464-465.

478,

515.

527;

II,

308,

314,

315,

29, 36,

71,

317,

346,

403, 406, 434, 445, 446,

1x6

254,

337, 338 railroad legislation, I, 326, 354;

"3.

Troy and Boston R.R., I , 229-231, 393,

363-364,

465

467

Union Steamship Company, I I , 175 United States, II, 206, 209 United States and Canada Express Company, I I , 288, 290

104-105 31,

394. 398, 419. 420. 433; 115,

462-463,

147,

Twining, Alexander C., I, 234-235, 237-

96, 98, 109, 134-13S. 137-138. 154. 157,

132,

238,

Sullivan, John L., I, 62-63 Sullivan R.R., I, 332, 438, 440-441; II, 3 6 Sumner, William Η., I, 195 Swift, William Η., I, 131; II, 468 Sydney, I, 11; II, 120

393ff.,

100-101,

Twichell, Ginery, I, 54, 371; II, 404,

413-417

on Grand Trunk, I I , 412-413 Sturgis, Jonathan, I, 259 Sturgis, William, I, 334; I I , 455, 459,

Track,

Tudor, Frederick, I, 16-17; I I , 153 Turnpikes, I, 36-48 Tuttle, Lucius C., II, 29, 91, 95-96,

364-365,

448

Vermont Iron and Car Company, I, 442 Victoria bridge, I, 213 Wages: on

railroads,

II,

403-409,

in shipbuilding, I, 195 on vessels, I , 229

4i2ff.,

416

INDEX Waite, Morrison R., II, 286, 287, 290 Waldoboro, II, 188, 193 Walker, Samuel Α., I I , 471 Walton, Eliakim P., I, 167, 168 Ware River R.R., I, 376-378 Washburn, E m o r y , I, 103, 128, 1 3 2 133; II, 38-39- 41 Washburne, Elihu Β., I, 515-516, 520 Washington County R.R., I, 488 Washington, D. C., II, 50, 95, 97, 120, iS3ff· Washington T r e a t y (1874), II, 1 2 1 Wason M a n u f a c t u r i n g Company, I, 3 0 3 ; I I , 379 Waterbury, II, 32, 35, 47, 49, 53, 90 Waterford, I, 27, 85, 86 Waterville, I, 2 1 5 - 2 1 7 ; I I , 5 Watrous, George Η., II, 57, 64, 77, 78, 8 1 , 95, 462

419-420

Wells River, I, 66-67, 68, 69, 75, 183, 435; II, i n West: N e w England commerce with, I, 9597, h i , 129, 1 4 9 - 1 5 7 , 1 5 8 - 1 6 1 , 1 8 6 1 9 1 , 214, 320-322, 362-364, 3 7 1 494-528; 1 7 2 , 237

430-431,

I I , 3 2 , 34, 55, 80,

170,

New England investments in, I, 239, 409, 420

West Alburg, I, 1 7 2 - 1 7 5 West P o i n t Military Academy, I, 1 2 1 , 1 3 1 , 1 6 3 , 235, 401; II, 52, 453, 454, 468

Western R.R., I, 1 2 5 - 1 5 7 , 159, 164, 165, 172, 173, 223-224, 260, 270, 307, 308,

395, 398, 400, 405, 409, 41S, 432, 448, 5 0 0 ; I I , 28, 92, i n , 1 3 3 , 1 5 6 , 1 7 0 , 1 7 4 , 237, 320, 3 2 5 , 435η., 444

Westinghouse, George, II, 364, 371-372 Whipple, Squire, I, 294 Whistler, George W., I, 1 3 1 , 306, 3 1 1 Whitehall, I, 30, 3 1 , 85, 88, 173, 227ft.; II, 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 White River, I, 164, 166 White River Junction, I, 169, 183, 319, 393, 435, 436, 4 5 5 1 I I , " 2 , 364 Whitney, H e n r y Α., II, 463, 466, 468, 471 Whitney, H e n r y Μ., II, 463 Whitney, J a m e s S., II, 172 Whitney, Joseph, II, 1 7 1 Wildes, Asa W., II, 245 Willimantic, II, 32, 34, 35, 47, 49, 50, 80, 8 1 , 83, 89, 96, 1 1 0

Webster, Daniel, I, 92, 130, 165-166 Weld, William F., II, 463, 471-472 Weiland Canal, I, 158-159, 187-188,

375, 388, 398, 419-423,

499

1 7 5 , 1 7 6 , 1 8 1 , i86ff., 2 3 1 , 237, 240, 253, 279-280, 2 9 1 , 298, 309, 3 1 0 , 3 1 2 - 3 1 3 ,

192, 257, 306318,

321, 325, 333-334, 335, 35*, 352, 3 5 7 , 3 6 3 - 3 6 8 , 3 7 2 , 388, 3 9 1 ,

393-

Wilmington, Del., II, 219-220 Wilmington, Ν . C., I, 1 6 ; I I , 153, 157 Wilson, J a m e s Η., I I , 52-56 Wilson's Point, II, 6sff., 97, 98 Winans, Ross, I, 301, 306, 309 Windsor, I, 438; II, 29 Winooski (Onion) River, I, 166-167 Winsor, Henry, II, 170-171 Wood, Nicholas, I, 102, 104 Woodruff, George Μ., I I , 245-246, 261, 336, 338 Wooldredge, J o h n , II, 8 Worcester, I, 33, 38, 49, 56, 57, 58, 8 1 84, 93-94, 109, " 4 - 1 1 9 , 125ft., 1 6 5 , 186, 235, 243, 248ft., 303, 334, 3 5 3 , 3 5 5 , 360, 362, 365, 3 6 6 - 3 6 7 , 388, 4 7 9 ; I I , 1 4 , 1 6 7 , 3 1 2

Worcester, Nashua and Rochester R.R., II, 1 4 , 328 Workmen's trains, II, 294-296 Wright, Benjamin, I, 76 Yale University, II, 85, n o , 245, 394, 468

Y a r m o u t h , I I , 128