Crane's neck
From: FCGAMST@aol.com
If you are interested in Western (and Espee) RR history, perhaps the attached is of interest. The attachment is about the RRers' tale of "the crane with the broken neck," the fabled punishment for taking part in the Great Pullman Strike and Boycott of Eugene V. Debs, in 1894.
/FRED/
1884
Courtesy Fred C. Gamst.
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 4:35 PM
5 Comments:
I wrote [B] several years ago as part of my ongoing book MS [A]. Today, I was informed by [C]. /FRED/
[A] White Ribbons and Red Blood in the Golden State: The National Pullman Strike and Boycott and Its Eruption in California
1 Introduction to the Red, the White, and the Gold 1-5
2 America’s Evolving Corporate Property and Its Protective Court Injunction 6-8
3 The Deployment of Armed Forces to Protect Capital’s Unhindered UseofItsPropertyinSeekingPrivateGain8-14
4 Background Economic Issues and the Resultant Pullman Reactions 15-18
-- The Industrial Relations of the Era of the Pullman Action 15-23
-- America’s “Tramp Problem” 23-25
5 The Uniquely Strategic Position of the Railroads in the Nation's and California's Economy 25-28
6 The Genesis of the Pullman Action as It Concerned California 28
-- George Mortimer Pullman and His Passenger Car Company 28-30
-- Eugene Victor Debs and His Industrial Railroad Union 30-35
-- The General Managers' Association and Its Power 35-37
--The Cleveland Administration and Its Selective Intervention 37-39
7 Railroad and Other Unionism in California
8 A Conflagration Spreading to California 40-43
9 Blazes in California and Along Its Access Routes 43-46
10 The Place of the Railroads and Agriculture in the California Economy 46-
-- The Agrarian Railroads
-- The Settlers and Their Yankee Transformation of California
-- The Sequence of Farmworkers
11 Working on the California Railroad
12 "Preventing a Wheel from Turning on the Southern Pacific Road" 46-50
13 The Military and Naval Deployments Against California's Pullman Action 51-58
14 Californian Losers and Winners 58-61
15 Epilogue 61-76
Glossary
Notes 77-113
Bibliography
Index
[B] What about the railroaders who "hit the bricks" on the Espee and other properties"? As on most other railroads, the SP refused further employment to those actively participating in the Pullman action and then blacklisted them across North America. Superintendent Fillmore of the SP said he would not re-employ strikers and if they took other employment, he would attempt to drive them out of California. To an extent, the SP would reinstate a selected employee. However, reinstatement came only if he would sign a "yellow dog" contract, bargained individually with the all-powerful company, agreeing that as a condition of employment he would not join a labor union. Ideally, the State of California had the blacklisting legally ended in 1896. Union leaders although continuing their strong antagonism to Debs, nevertheless, strongly condemned the blacklisting.
A symbolic legacy in the lore of the Pullman action was the heated accusation of, "the crane with the broken neck." Until a few decades ago, railroaders discussed the tale of "the crane with the broken neck." Allegedly, those participating in the Pullman action, "back in '94," often received a standard bland service letter from a railroad, but with a hidden, blacklisting watermark in the paper, consisting of a bent-neck crane. Allegedly, by this concealed stigma, a railroad would deny a Pullman activist employment in his trade. The applicant never knew he "carried in his own hands" the reason for his rejection. This bitter, once often-repeated tale has no verification and could be partially mythic. Some of the oldest railroaders, hiring out ca. 1905, with whom I discussed this matter, thought a vindictive railroad would have special paper produced solely for punishing striking "rails." Others more judiciously said that the matter might have some basis in fact but that the crane's neck on a bland service letter merely had a position other than straight up and, thus, carried no secret message.
Nevertheless, the recounting of this tale as Gospel speaks volumes for the sentiments of the abjectly defeated ARUers and their adherents. Never once did I hear someone say, "I just don't believe it." The earliest published allegation of the crane with the broken neck, in this account with its head missing, is from the ARU in 1894. This could well be the genesis of the accusation.
In California according to Bacon, the SP's employees received the sympathy of more than just the working class. Bacon noted such support also included farmers with rotting produce, ordinary men kept from their daily work, businessmen with prosperity imperiled by the freight blockage, professional men who were upstanding and logical, manufacturers without transport and thus threatened with ruin, and many other persons having no direct link to organized labor. Sparked by farmers having anti-SP grievances and general resentment of the great SP power, in the fall 1894 elections, the Populist movement strengthened in California. Scores of candidates won county offices, San Franciscans elected reformer Adolph Sutro mayor, and both major parties became influenced by Populist ideas.
[C] Posted by: "Steve Thorning" thorning@sentex.net stevethorning
Fri Sep 7, 2007 4:22 pm (PST)
I believe the solution to the puzzle of the "broken neck" watermark was published in the old Railroad Magazine, March 1951, p. 138, in the "On the Spot" column of then editor Henry Comstock. I dug the issue out and quote as follows:
__________
CRANE WITH BROKEN NECK
"You may recall the story of the watermark crane with a broken neck as it appeared in Railroad Magazine some time ago and later in Freeman Hubbard's book Railroad Avenue," writes Charles E. Fisher, president of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, 20 Wilde Road, Waban 68, Mass.
The story, according to oldtimers who took part in the American Railway Union strike of 1894, commonly called the Pullman strike, is that a broken-necked crane watermark was used on their service letters as a secret blackball system to prevent strikers from getting other rail jobs, So, thousands of railroad men were forced to become boomers with fake names, or take up other kinds of work.
Fisher has checked on the story by writing to Eaton, Crane & Pike, paper manufacturers. They admitted having used variations of the crane watermark for many years but had no record of one with a broken neck. Checking still further, he found two samples of crane watermarks, dated 1892, which are reproduced here. The one showing the bird erect came from a Pullman Palace Car Company letter. The crane bending down as if to feed came from a Richmond & Danville R.R. letter.
"Here are two different watermarks of this bird, dated the same year, on the same type of paper," says Fisher. "I'm wondering if the watermark on the R&D letter is not the one in question, having the meaning implied on a service letter but meaningless on a straight business letter. The Crane company should know their watermarks. They should know if they made one with a broken neck.
Hubbard, who has studied this subject, is inclined to agree with Fisher's theory that the watermark used in blackballing Pullman strikers was actually the crane with a bent neck. It is easy to see how boomers could have interpreted that bend as a break, thus giving rise to the legend.
On the other hand, assuming the legend were true, you could hardly blame a paper company for not wanting to preserve or exhibit evidence of a vicious blackball system.
___________
Fisher supplied illustrations of the two watermarks, which I could scan and post in the photos section if anyone is interested.
It would seem that railway officials simply secured supplies of a stock item from the Crane Paper Company. It would seem extremely unlikely that the company would make a special watermark die for a very small quantity of paper to use exclusively for service letters for blackballed workers.
Steve Thorning
Eldora, On Canada
From: fcgamst@aol.com
Ever since I hired out in May 1955, I found the tale of the crane's neck fascinating. Some old, old heads would argue heatedly about it. ("Why you silly ... don't you think that's exactly the kind of discipline the Company would hand out?") Today, younger "rails" have not been socialized with our lingo and have never heard about the crane. The below were my thoughts on the crane, from my still uncompleted MS, White Ribbons and Red Blood in the Golden State: The National Pullman Strike and Boycott and Its Eruption in California. Matters of contemporary RR ops and technology occupy me full time. Will I live long enough to complete the Pullman MS? /FRED/ **
What about the railroaders who "hit the bricks" on the Espee and other properties"? As on most other railroads, the SP refused further employment to those actively participating in the Pullman action and then blacklisted them across North America. Superintendent Fillmore of the SP said he would not re-employ strikers and if they took other employment, he would attempt to drive them out of California. To an extent, the SP would reinstate a selected employee. However, reinstatement came only if he would sign a "yellow dog" contract, bargained individually with the all-powerful company, agreeing that as a condition of employment he would not join a labor union. Ideally, the State of California had the blacklisting legally ended in 1896.[i] Union leaders although continuing their strong antagonism to Debs, nevertheless, strongly condemned the blacklisting.[ii] A symbolic legacy in the lore of the Pullman action was the heated accusation of, "the crane with the broken neck." Until a few decades ago, railroaders discussed the tale of "the crane with the broken neck." Allegedly, those participating in the Pullman action, "back in '94," often received a standard bland service letter from a railroad, but with a hidden, blacklisting watermark in the paper, consisting of a bent-neck crane. Allegedly, by this concealed stigma, a railroad would deny a Pullman activist employment in his trade. The applicant never knew he "carried in his own hands" the reason for his rejection. This bitter, once often- repeated tale has no verification and could be partially mythic.[iii] Some of the oldest railroaders, hiring out ca. 1905, with whom I discussed this matter, thought a vindictive railroad would have special paper produced solely for punishing striking "rails." Others more judiciously said that the matter might have some basis in fact but that the crane's neck on a bland service letter merely had a position other than straight up and, thus, carried no secret message. Nevertheless, the recounting of this tale as Gospel speaks volumes for the sentiments of the abjectly defeated ARUers and their adherents. Never once did I hear someone say, "I just don't believe it." The earliest published allegation of the crane with the broken neck, in this account with its head missing, is from the ARU in 1894. This could well be the genesis of the accusation.[iv] In California according to Bacon, the SP's employees received the sympathy of more than just the working class. Bacon noted such support also included farmers with rotting produce, ordinary men kept from their daily work, businessmen with prosperity imperiled by the freight blockage, professional men who were upstanding, manufacturers without transport and thus threatened with ruin, and many other persons having no direct link to organized labor. Sparked by farmers having anti-SP grievances and general resentment of the great SP power, in the fall 1894 elections, the Populist movement strengthened in California. Scores of candidates won county offices, San Franciscans elected reformer Adolph Sutro mayor, and both major parties became influenced by Populist ideas.[v]
_______________
[i] Henry J. Fletcher, "The Railway War," Atlantic Monthly 74 (1894): 537. "Fillmore's Blacklist," RT, Nov. 1, p. 1. Social commentators attacked blacklisting: William J. Strong, "Blacklisiting: The New Slavery," The Arena 21 (1899): 273-92; Cross (n. 133 above), pp. 200-1; California Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventh Biennial Report, 1895-96, p. 150-52.
[ii] For example, the BLE's Arthur: "Grand Chief P. M. Arthur's Address," LEJ 30 (1896): 509.
[iii] USSCR, p. 49; Lindsey (n. 4 above), p. 337; Freeman H. Hubbard, "The Crane with the Broken Neck," In Railroad Avenue (New York, 1945), pp. 172-202.
[iv] "The R.R. Blacklist: A Conspiracy of Railroad Managers to Starve Strikers," RT, Nov. 15, p. 1.
[v] Thomas R. Bacon, "The Railroad Strike in California," Yale Review 3 (1894): 244-5; David B. Griffiths, "Anti-Monopoly Movement in California, 1873-1898," Southern California Quarterly 52 (1970): 105-7.
[All newspaper dates are in 1894.]
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
Where can images of examples of these 19th century letters of reference showing both styles of the Crane watermark be found?
From: FCGAMST@aol.com
[Above], three crane watermarks ... I have never seen the kind of service letter in question (the tale of the crane). But it would have been an ordinary service letter with the common bent-neck crane of 1892 as a watermark. Such a document would prove nothing.
I exposit further on the subject:
No nationwide conspiracy remains secret, let alone across many decades. In an era before machine recordkeeping and numeric identifications, for sundry reasons a number of men "worked under a flag," i.e., had an assumed name and personal history. ("John Smith, from Somewhere, Maine, sir.") Rumors had it that some service letters were forgeries: any clerk could supply letterhead stationary. Moreover, local railroad officers had the power to hire and when shorthanded to meet operational and personal career goals would not question, "Where were you in the summer of 1894?"
/FRED/
From: fcgamst@aol.com
Subject: The Crane with the Broken Neck, Fable or Reality?
During the severe economic depression of 1894, destitute men walked the streets and rode the rails looking for work. The Democratic administration of President Grover Cleveland and Vice President Adlai Stevenson provided no relief and expected each citizen to display private initiative and enterprise. As Coxey's Army, of the unemployed, headed for the nation's capital (to be arrested for walking on the grass) and despondent men burned the resplendent white buildings of the Chicago World's Fair, unrest spread over the forty-four states.
In late June and July 1894, Eugene V. Debs and his industrial American Railway Union (ARU) mounted and lost decisively to the federal government what historians call the Great Pullman Strike and Boycott. Debs' action across the nation's railroads divided the house of labor, paralyzed freight, passenger, and mail service in the western U.S., saw the largest marshalling of troops since the Civil War, found many military actions such as the U.S. Marines landing at Espee's West Oakland terminal, and eventually left embittered railroaders and their families from coast to coast.
A symbolic legacy in the lore of the Pullman action was the heated accusation of, "the crane." Until several decades ago, railroaders discussed the tale of "the crane with the broken neck." Allegedly, railroaders participating in the Pullman action, "back in '94," often received a standard bland service letter from a railroad, but with a hidden, blacklisting watermark in the paper, consisting of a broken- or bent-neck crane, depending on the narrative. Supposedly, by this concealed stigma, a railroad would deny employment to a striker or boycotter. The applicant never knew he "carried in his own hands," old-old heads told me, the reason for his rejection. This bitter, once often-repeated account, has no verification and could be largely mythic, a dejected and despairing tale of the "rails."
Some of the oldest railroaders, hiring out ca. 1905, with whom I discussed this matter, thought a vindictive railroad would indeed have special paper immediately produced and distributed with secret instruction solely for punishing striking "rails." Additionally, in concert, all railroads would not accept a stigma-watermarked letter. Other veteran railroaders more judiciously said that the matter might have some slight basis in fact but that the crane's neck on a bland service letter merely had a position other than straight up and, thus, carried no secret message. No nationwide conspiracy remains secret, let alone across many decades. In an era before machine recordkeeping and numeric identifications, for various reasons some men "worked under a flag," i.e., had an assumed name and personal history. ("John Smith, from Somewhere, Maine, sir.") Rumors had it that some service letters were forgeries (a "fake clearance"): any clerk could supply letterhead stationary. Moreover, local railroad officers having the power to hire and when shorthanded to meet operational and personal career goals would not ask, "Where were you in the summer of 1894?"
The earliest published allegation of "the crane" is in an account featuring a missing head, from the ARU's Railway Times of November 15, 1894, page 1, as follows. Railroad companies demand "a clearance paper" explaining the cause of leaving the last railroad service. A railroad manager provides a good letter but condemning information is in "an ingenious watermark. The figure of a 'sand hill crane' is worked into the blank form [paper] of the clearance. When the head of the crane is missing the man will not be hired. ..." This could well be the undocumented origin of the accusation.
The past recounting of this tale as Gospel speaks volumes for the sentiments of the abjectly defeated ARU members and their adherents. Those who study myths hold that a myth has a reality of a kind among those who believe it. "The crane," fable or reality? You tell me.
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
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