lipping down and in some instances he
even advanced them. Gradually strikes became more and more infrequent;
and the railways learned to rely upon his integrity, and the engineers
to respect his skill as a negotiator. He proved to the first that he was
not a labor agitator and to the others that he was not a visionary.

Year by year, Arthur accumulated prestige and power for his union by
practical methods and by being content with a step at a time. This
success, however, cost him the enmity of virtually all the other trades
unionists. To them the men of his order were aristocrats, and he
was lord over the aristocrats. He is said to have "had rare skill in
formulating reasonable demands, and by consistently putting moderate
demands strongly instead of immoderate demands weakly he kept the good
will of railroad managers, while steadily obtaining better terms for his
men." In this practice, he could not succeed without the solid good will
of the members of the Brotherhood; and this good will was possible only
in an order which insisted upon that high standard of personal skill
and integrity essential to a first-class engineer. Arthur possessed a
genial, fatherly personality. His Scotch shrewdness was seen in his own
real estate investments, which formed the foundation of an independent
fortune. He lived in an imposing stone mansion in Cleveland; he was a
director in a leading bank; and he identified himself with the public
affairs of the city.

When Chief Arthur died, the Assistant Grand Chief Engineer, A.B.
Youngson, who would otherwise have assumed the leadership for the
unexpired term, was mortally ill and recommended the advisory board to
telegraph Warren S. Stone an offer of the chieftainship. Thus events
brought to the fore a man of marked executive talent who had hitherto
been unknown but who was to play a tremendous role in later labor
politics. Stone was little known east of the Mississippi. He had spent
most of his life on the Rock Island system, had visited the East only
once, and had attended but one meeting of the General Convention. In
the West, however, he had a wide reputation for sound sense, and, as
chairman of the general committee of adjustment of the Rock Island
system, he had made a deep impression on his union and his employers.
Born in Ainsworth, Iowa, in 1860, Stone had received a high school
education and had begun his railroading career as fireman on the Rock
Island when he was nineteen years ol