Mr. A. J. County,

      Boys of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  We are all “Boys”.  You have had your hard days and your hard nights, but we are all in this great public service because the greatest dependence of the whole Nation is upon daily transportation service.  The job of the railroad man, on the surface, looks as though it were easy, but underneath as you and I know it, we get some hard knocks, and still we like the job.  This fact may be what brought me over from Ireland 33 years ago and brought us together in this service to find opportunities to better ourselves.  I have found railroading an interesting job since I was a lad of 13 years of age.  I had spent a couple of years before that on the farm.  I did not like the farm and the farm did not like me, and we are both the better on account of my separating from the farm.  The best thing I could get was a job at $1.25 a week, working on the railroad in the Stores Department.

      The work of railroading was not more picturesque in Ireland than in America.  The men in the shops left Kingsbridge Terminus, Dublin, at 6:00 A. M. and arrived at the works—4 miles away—at ten minutes past six; called at the pay office and received their checks.  They went into the shop or stores and hung up their checks and generally waited around until the Foreman came on the job to allow the work, give out blue prints, patterns, and outline the work of the day.  Life goes very much slower there.  I was in the Stores Department and had a great deal of fun as well as hard work while I was there.  The men worked from 6:15 A. M. to 8:15 A. M. them went out and got breakfast.  They got back around 9:00 A. M.  Many lived in Company houses, which were grouped near the works.  The Company’s lunch rooms were close by.  About three quarters of an hour for meals was plenty of time to eat and get back to work.  Many of us came from the City of Dublin; some used the lunch rooms.  It was not very poetic for the men to get up at 6:00 in the morning and work two hours on an empty stomach.  The Foreman rolled in after the men so the boys amused themselves by playing checkers or occasionally a game of cards if the foremen were dilatory.

      After a while we got a new Works Manager who was an early riser, and interested in the output.  Cold mornings made the Foreman and workmen hold on to the bed clothes, and even after breakfast some were slow.   One morning the Works Manager came in a little earlier than the Foreman and the boys were engaged in a friendly game.  The machinery was moving, but nothing else.  He did not say very much; he didn’t need to say very much, as all caught on very quickly.  Punctuality was the rule.  Lunch time saw us on the way to the workmen’s lunch rooms, and in the Summer time some of us preferred a light lunch and a trip to the near-by athletic grounds.  At night we went home on the workmen’s train at 5:10 P. M., arrived at Dublin about 10 minutes later and were unloaded at the platform and found our way home.  I got to know a great deal about practical railroading, for I was like every boy; I liked to run around through the various shops and to run the little yard engine every chance I had.  I was friendly with the fireman and engineer.  I got close to the fellows working the stationary engines and was always in the warm boiler rooms for part of the lunch hour and on wet days.

      During my rounds of the various shops I saw a great deal which would affect the company’s income or loss, measured in the treatment of men, the allocation of work, the coaling and watering of engines, the use of supplies, etc., which would influence its accounts, but it did not bother me a cent at that time.  We youngsters had to go to night school to make us better railroaders and slowly I came to appreciate its value.  Here in America it was my job after some experience to protect and increase the Company’s income, and when that is not done it includes protection of the payroll.  I have been in America since I was nineteen, and so long now that I have almost forgotten when I came over but I still keep in touch with some of the old chaps of my younger days.

      As I see it, the chief contact of any workman with his Company is through his Foreman.  Since I have been in America I have noted that the men who succeeded have endeavored to do a little more and a little better work than the fellows around them.  Although not now in the ranks, I have kept in contact with the men who are doing the work, and I feel that each one of us who succeeds must be willing to work harder and longer than the other fellows, to rise step by step until we reach the higher rank and better pay.

      There is a great difference between railroad conditions in America and in Ireland and England.  Wages are vastly greater.  Rates of pay are better.  The door of opportunity is open wider.  You can look at the men at the head of your Company and see their greater authority and responsibility, but nevertheless their jobs require the same loyalty and the same persistency of purpose as does yours.  You men come here to discuss these railroad questions among yourselves and see where you are going.  That is most helpful.  You are the kind of men who kept this railroad going in 1922 and helped to keep the United States free from suffering from cold, maintained the food supply and kept many men at work in the industries.  Except for your transportation service many industries would have shut down, and many would have lost their jobs.  By this you did the right this for yourselves and our Country.  We are here to get the best pay and turn out the best job in this business of transportation.  Only by loyalty and good work can we maintain the payroll.

      The Pennsylvania Railroad System represents an investment of about two and one quarter billion dollars.  Approximately one-eighth of the transportation handled in the whole Country was handled by the Pennsylvania Railroad System.  Last year we took in about 700 million dollars.  Where does it go?  We get it from tons of freight hauled, averaging 1-1/10 cents for hauling a ton of freight one mile, and about 2-1/8 cents for hauling passenger a mile.  Hauling the mail and express traffic also helped us.  So much for the income.  It is part of my job to see that we get every penny coming to us, and to follow up the pennies which come in through all the agents and from other railroads.  You would be surprised how many million dollars come in during the year, and cases are few and far between where we do not get it all on account of a man going wrong.  On the larger part people are pretty square.

      What becomes of this revenue?  The first obligation is to meet the payroll.  We like to be well paid.  We must use every bit of economy and every bit of output to meet this payroll.  Half of every dollar which came in during 1922 went to meet the payroll.  The payroll has the first claim on the dollars of the Railroad Company.  We had materials, fuel, train and other expenses to pay, and for all of these purposes we distributed our dollars as I will indicate.

      This is a slender margin for credit.  I want you to note the small number of cents it required—10 cents in all—to pay the investors their interest and dividends.  We who work for the company got 55 cents.

      The way that your job can help maintain this payroll and give the stockholder and bondholder his fair return is to keep right after the expenditures in your department. That is the story I came to tell you tonight.

      You have these responsibilities on your back.  You can either waste or save the revenues of the Company.  You collectively can save more than I can.  Through you the workmen will judge the company and its management.  Your temperament and interest in the men determine their attitude in a great way.  Whatever the facts of expenditures are, I must swear to them and see that the accounts are properly kept.  I can be put in jail if false information is given and that is more than they can do to you.

      I have the pride of a Pennsylvania Railroad man in saying that it is known as the strongest Company in this Country, but this last year we have not been up to that standard.  We both know that some of it is due to the conditions during 1922, and after all we are still behind.  The expenses for our material and our wages have been more than on some of the railroads to the North and too the South of us.  When this comes about and when business falls off, we have to put men back to the ranks, and even lay them off.  This is not agreeable, but we have to do our duty fairly to them and to the Company.  You and I must keep the Pennsylvania Railroad where it has always been—the Standard Railroad of the world, with no men getting better pay and its owners getting regular dividends as they have done for 75 years.

      We have another duty too.  We have to be everlastingly proud of these railroad positions we hold.  This is a service to each other, and we have in our different capacities the duty to see that the Railroad Company is well spoken of, that we speak well of each other and stick up for each other, as we do in the other activities of life.  We have to stick up for the railroad and for the reputation of our Management so that we get a fair show wherever we are.  In association with our men and our dealings with the public, we should put the Pennsylvania Railroad first where it has always been.  This is very easy for the men to do if they are right out for the Railroad, right out for the supervisory men on the job, and right out for each other.  This will put a stop to the practice of political damage to the Company which hurts us.  When we are called to Washington to protect the rates, the valuation and the payroll, I find opposing us very often the union representatives of railroad men whom we are trying to protect by asking for fair rates and a fair return.  It is up to you to see that we get a square deal with the politicians, and still remain loyal to our Country and to our own interests.  In this way we will put the railroad where it was before, gain public respect, and get free from hurtful laws, and as railroad men we will be looked up to as our predecessors were in the past.  In union, guided by reason, loyalty and intelligence, there is great strength.

      My chief aim, is that when I think of you, to know that you are thinking of me and those associated with me, who have come up through the ranks.  We have all stood all kinds of trouble, eaten the same grub, sang the same songs, and kept the Pennsylvania family together, but occasionally when hard knocks come we must keep on with patience and loyalty, and if we do this we will have the respect of the people from one end of the line to the other.  We will have the pride of the Pennsylvania Railroad in our hearts, and put her back where she was before; the Standard Railroad of the World; because she has wise men who lead her, good men to work for her and a loyal self-respecting organization to make money for her, and a road and equipment of which we are all proud.

      With these homely greetings, I bring you from the management, the best wishes for Christmas and a prosperous New Year, with work enough and pay enough for us all.