Michael Sol wrote:
> Overton skims over the decision to go after the Q by Morgan and Hill not
> stating clearly that Milwaukee Road was the definite first choice and
> that the Burlington was really the runner up until Milwaukee was
> unavailable.
>
> Overton leaves out entirely any reference to the blistering and
> disappointed critique that Hill wrote about the Q after its acquisition
> and his tour of the property, and what a shambles he found it in from
> top to bottom.
>
> Hill had a long-time familiarity with the Milwaukee. His first job was
> there. Hill preferred to send GN's passenger trains over the Milwaukee
> between the Twin Cities and Chicago. He often stopped by in Milwaukee to
> visit Alexander Mitchell or S.S.Merrill in the old days. He tried to get
> Milwaukee Road's Albert Earling to be president of the Northern Pacific
> after the Morgan takeover.
>
> Hill's letter after his inspection of the Burlington, however, describes
> a furious Hill, finding a Burlington "with worse grades on the prairies
> than the GN has in the mountains." Hill thought the accounting was
> terrible, and sent in GN accountants to completely revise the books. Far
> from "well managed" Hill described a mess. It could have been just
> vintage Hill, but for Overton, objective? He left out the damning letter
> or any mention of it entirely. Historically significant? Well, you'd think.
>
> But Overton exercised a judgment to leave out Hill's blistering
> assessment. It simply did not fit the narrative.
>
> Even the Burlington Strike of 1888, an unmitigated disaster for both
> unions and railroad management generally, creating a hostility that
> would last for generations, was portrayed by Overton as a positive
> result for the workers, because of the beneficence of management, a
> beneficence that Overton always managed to find.
>
> Other commentaries on the strike, however, found in the ruthless
> crushing of
> the railroad union movement as an overall dividing event between
> management and employees, evolving into ever more ruthless
> confrontations and finally the bloody Pullman strike. It damaged labor
> relations for the entire industry.
>
> Overton does not comment on that, and avoids the "moral judgment" that
> he condemns in his
> preface. Is that selective portrayal of company management and the
> cursory treatment of the strike objective then? Has the reader realized
> that this was an important, even seminal, event in American labor
> history?
>
> No. The historian in that case did not assist in the interpretation of
> the larger context of facts. He clearly exercised a judgment, and that
> was a judgment by the excising and rejection of selected facts and
> published historical examination by other historians that tended to
> portray the Burlington and its management in unfavorable light. Overton
> leaves us, instead, with the conclusion that "management felt that the
> financial sacrifice had been a sound investment" [p, 213] and that "the
> cause of the workingman was" in spite of their crushing defeat and loss
> of jobs, "advanced in several ways." [p. 214]. A very controversial
> conclusion, indeed, a moral judgment, rejected by labor writers on the
> topic.
>
> There is much to be found in Overton's book. It is a remarkable
> compilation even if kind of dull read. But, objective? No.
>
> best regards, Michael Sol
>
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