In the following July this union
was extended to include all the lines in the State. In November
of the same year a call to conductors on all the roads in the
United States and the British Provinces was issued to meet at
Columbus, Ohio, in December, to organize a general brotherhood.
Ten years later the union adopted its present name. It has an
ample insurance fund* based upon the principle that policies are
not matured but members arriving at the age of seventy years are
relieved from further payments. About thirty members are thus
annually retired. At Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the national
headquarters, the order publishes The Railway Conductor, a
journal which aims not only at the solidarity of the membership
but at increasing their practical efficiency.
* In 1919 the total amount of outstanding insurance was somewhat
over $90,000,000.
The conductors are a conservative and carefully selected group of
men. Each must pass through a long term of apprenticeship and
must possess ability and personality. The order has been
carefully and skillfully led and in recent years has had but few
differences with the railways which have not been amicably
settled. Edgar E. Clark was chosen president in 1890 and served
until 1906, when he became a member of the Interstate Commerce
Commission. He was born in 1856, received a public school
education, and studied for some time in an academy at Lima, New
York. At the age of seventeen, he began railroading and served as
conductor on the Northern Pacific and other Western lines.
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