d. At twenty-four he became an
engineer. In this capacity he spent the following nineteen years on the
Rock Island road and then accepted the chieftainship of the Brotherhood.

Stone followed the general policy of his predecessor, and brought to his
tasks the energy of youth and the optimism of the West. When he assumed
the leadership, the cost of living was rising rapidly and he addressed
himself to the adjustment of wages. He divided the country into three
sections in which conditions were similar. He began in the Western
section, as he was most familiar with that field, and asked all the
general managers of that section to meet the Brotherhood for a wage
conference. The roads did not accept his invitation until it was
reenforced by the threat of a Western strike. The conference was
a memorable one. For nearly three weeks the grand officers of the
Brotherhood wrangled and wrought with the managers of the Western roads,
who yielded ground slowly, a few pennies' increase at a time, until a
satisfactory wage scale was reached. Similarly the Southern section
was conquered by the inexorable hard sense and perseverance of this new
chieftain.

The dispute with the fifty-two leading roads in the so-called Eastern
District, east of the Mississippi and north of the Norfolk and Western
Railroad, came to a head in 1912. The engineers demanded that their
wages should be "standardized" on a basis that one hundred miles or
less, or ten hours or less, constitute a day's work; that is, the
inequalities among the different roads should be leveled and similar
service on the various roads be similarly rewarded. They also asked
that their wages be made equal to the wages on the Western roads and
presented several minor demands. All the roads concerned flatly refused
to grant the demand for a standardized and increased wage, on the ground
that it would involve an increased expenditure of $7,000,000 a year.
This amount could be made up only by increased rates, which the
Interstate Commerce Commission must sanction, or by decreased dividends,
which would bring a real hardship to thousands of stockholders.

The unions were fully prepared for a strike which would paralyze the
essential traffic supplying approximately 38,000,000 people. Through the
agency of Judge Knapp of the United States Commerce Court and Dr. Neill
of the United States Department of Labor, and under the authority of the
Erdman Act, there was appointed a board of arbitrati