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such risks and still benefit from close friendships with the
men on the road. Once when Mother was pregnant, she
craved celery. There was none in Paducah where they were
living, so Dad called on his friends to rush a supply from
New Orleans. An engineer started the celery up, carrying
it from New Orleans to McComb, Mississippi; another
took it to Jackson, Mississippi, and so on until, still fresh,
the celery reached Paducah.
Dad's risks were mainly economic, for he soon became
active in the free trade union movement. He hadn't been
in the labor movement in England. As an American, he
came to admire the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs, one of
the most dedicated and inspired figures in our history.
Debs, then head of the American Railway Union, was a
symbol, an emotion, a touch of hope for the American
workingman, and for years Dad, whether he voted the
ticket or not, was a Socialist in ourlook if not in name.
The railroad strike of 1894 nudged Dad into the ranks of
organized labor. He was, at the time, working in Mound
City, Illinois, as a roundhouse foreman. At first the strike
posed no dilemma for him. He was supporting a family
and was content to do his own work and avoid any involvements,
despite his sympathy for the workers. Labor disputes
in those days were often wild and raw and violent.
Management frequently shipped in strikebrakers, and
goons beat up strikers. Unionists replied in kind, slugging
strikebrakers and destroying property. Men on both sides
were shot, maimed, cut, and worked over with fists and
clubs, making any labor-management fight truly a war.