rn field, the pay of a brakeman was between
$1.50 and $2 a day in the freight service, $45 a month in the passenger
service, and $50 a month for yard service. In the Southern territory,
the wages were very much lower and in the Western about $5 per month
higher. The runs in the different sections of the country were not
equalized; there was no limit to the number of hours called a day's
work; overtime and preparatory time were not counted in; and there were
many complaints of arbitrary treatment of trainmen by their superiors.
Wilkinson set to work to remedy the wage situation first. Almost at once
he brought about the adoption of the principle of collective bargaining
for trainmen and yardmen. By 1895, when he relinquished his office, the
majority of the railways in the United States and Canada had working
agreements with their train and yard service men. Wages had been raised,
twelve hours or less and one hundred miles or less became recognized as
a daily measure of service, and overtime was paid extra.

The panic of 1893 hit the railway service very hard. There followed many
strikes engineered by the American Railway Union, a radical organization
which carried its ideas of violence so far that it wrecked not only
itself but brought the newer and conservative Brotherhoods to the
verge of ruin. It was during this period of strain that, in 1895, P.
H. Morrissey was chosen Grand Master of the Trainmen. With a varied
training in railroading, in insurance, and in labor organization work,
Morrissey was in many ways the antithesis of his predecessors who had,
in a powerful and brusque way, prepared the ground for his analytical
and judicial leadership. He was unusually well informed on all
matters pertaining to railroad operations, earnings, and conditions of
employment, and on general economic conditions. This knowledge, together
with his forcefulness, tact, parliamentary ability, and rare good
judgment, soon made him the spokesman of all the railway Brotherhoods in
their joint conferences and their leader before the public. He was not
afraid to take the unpopular side of a cause, cared nothing for mere
temporary advantages, and had the gift of inspiring confidence.

When Morrissey assumed the leadership of the Trainmen, their order had
lost 10,000 members in two years and was about $200,000 in debt. The
panic had produced unemployment and distrust, and the violent reprisals
of the American Railway Union had reaped a harves