ve
Engineers. He was persistent and insistent in his inquiries of all who
could give him information as to the philosophy upon which this body based
its organization. He was greatly interested in the personality of Mr.
Arthur, and of others who assisted Arthur in the creation of the
brotherhood.

Later, when he had become a member of the New York Legislature, he was
present at a State convention held in Utica. He was one of a considerable
number of delegates and politicians who went from Albany to Utica on a
cold and stormy winter afternoon. The train made its way against the
winter tempest with some difficulty. When it rolled into the station at
Utica, Roosevelt parted for a moment from his associates, and they saw him
making his way, with characteristic quick and decisive steps, to the
engine. Reaching up, he grasped the hands of the engineer and the fireman,
and gave them a hearty word of thanks, in which he conveyed his sense of
what they were as men and skilled artisans, and of what they had done that
afternoon.

Many have thought that President Roosevelt's custom of shaking hands with
the locomotive engineer and the fireman at the end of a journey was of
recent adoption, but he began it as long ago as the time when he entered
public life. Possibly, and it may be unconsciously to himself, in this
kindly courtesy he reflected his sense of the intellectual and economic
triumph which characterizes the perfecting of the organization of the
Locomotive Engineers.

His Interest In Labor's Battles.

A year before Roosevelt was candidate for mayor of New York, he being then
in his twenty-eighth year, there broke out the dangerous agitation that
has passed into history as the Missouri Pacific strike. The details of
this affair were eagerly sought by Roosevelt. He would stop whatever work
he had in hand in order to gather from any one who was well informed not
merely the incidents of the strike, but the characteristics of the leader
of the strikers, Martin Irons, and of his associates.

At that time, Roosevelt spoke with emphasis in deploring the acts of
violence which the greatly inflamed employees committed. He looked upon
the destruction of life and of property as not merely criminal in itself,
but as sure, if persisted in, to do harm to all labor organizations. But
he seemed to be attracted by the skill and energy, the personal force, the
power of discipline and of leadership, which had enabled a railway
mechanic