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Daniel Willard Rides The Line By Edward Hungerford Hard Cover 1938
Daniel Willard Rides The Line By Edward Hungerford 301 Pages Hard Cover Copyright 1938.
Daniel Willard, who has been for more than twenty-five years the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, is first and foremost a railroader, but be is also a fascinating, many-sided personality and a man of unbounded energy and vitality. To do him justice within the covers of a single hook is no slight task. However, it has been accomplished here in as colorful and interesting a biography as any in recent years. Edward Hungerford, the author, is himself a prominent figure in railroading, and he has been a friend of "Uncle Dan" Willard and been closely associated with him for a number of years. Mr. Hunger-ford's history of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and his work as director of the Centennial celebration of the B. & 0, have given him an unusual insight into the man who controls this great corporation, the man who has always spent as much time riding the line in his traveling office as seated at his desk in Baltimore.
The book begins with Daniel Willard's boyhood on a Vermont farm, and describes how he made his way through such schooling as was available to a farm boy of limited resources seventy years ago. With consummate artistry Mr. Hungerford recreates from Willard's boyhood reminiscences the background for one of the most spectacular careers American business has ever fostered.
Daniel Willard first became a railroader with the old Connecticut and Passumpsic in Vermont, and from then on the reader follows his career with ever increasing admiration. From section hand, he graduated to a donkey engine for a construction gang. Then he became a fireman and finally an engineer. Mr. Hungerford tells in thrilling detail of his first and nearly fatal accident on the line, and paints a grand picture of railroad life in that far off day. He then presents the reasons for Willard's first move to the "Soo," which was to prove so important to his later advancement. Daniel Willard went to the "Soo" in Northern .Minnesota when it was still in its infancy; and there he gained much of the experience which carried hint to the top, experience which included everything from making emergency repairs on a locomotive to selling tickets at a wayside station. From this point on Daniel Willard's rise made railroad history. He left the "Soo" to go with the Baltimore and Ohio; then with the Erie; then the Burlington; and finally to take on the job of president of the Baltimore and Ohio - a position which he has maintained with inspiration, justice, human sympathy, and understanding for more than a quarter of a century.
Mr. Hungerford never digresses far from the main theme, but in the course of Daniel Willard Rides the Line he gives the reader fascinating glimpses of what went on behind the scenes in American railroading during the past forty years. The characters and personalities of famous old locomotives are treated with the same care as the men in Daniel Willard's life. The part that Daniel Willard has played in the great labor disputes and in the framing of railroad legislation is given just prominence, and there are endless anecdotes illustrating the dry humor of this man who still remembers the Vermont farm.
When the reader has finished Daniel Willard Rides the Line he feels that he has really known "Uncle Dan." If he had spent a quiet evening with Mr. Willard in his home in Baltimore, he could know no more of Mr. Willard's broad culture, his tastes in reading and art, his shrewd judgments of men, or of his views on labor or education the latter gathered from his active participation in the affairs of Johns Hopkins University, as president of its board of trustees. Whenever possible Mr. Hungerford has quoted Daniel Willard in his own words. The result is an inspiring biography of one of the finest products of the grand old American spirit.
"Daniel Willard Rides the Line" has been illustrated with a number of photographs from Mr. Willards long and exciting career.
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