Business & Finance: Anna’s Man

During the twelve years of Republican rule no railroad executive was more popular in Washington than Daniel (“Uncle Dan”) Willard of Baltimore & Ohio. Over his line Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover rode on most of their trips and often in “Uncle Dan’s” own private car. The White House door was constantly swinging open to him for Presidential conferences on railroad problems. His name, as spokesman for his industry, could be found on practically every list of tycoons picked by the President to do this or that public job. The country had every reason to believe that grey-haired old Dan Willard, with the confidence of Labor and his mildly liberal views, was the stanchest pillar in a quaking railroad world.

But the best of pillars outlive their usefulness and have to be replaced. Mr. Willard, now 73, does not call as often as he once did at the White House. President Roosevelt does his railroad talking now with men like Carl Gray of Union Pacific and Federal Transportation Coordinator Eastman. Lawyer-Lobbyist Robert Virgil Fletcher of the Association of Railway Executives has so far failed to draw any aces from the New Deal for his employers. Therefore the carriers of the U. S. have long felt the need for a fulltime Washington spokesman, a man of power, prestige and personality who would be authorized to strike and strike hard in their behalf. Last week in Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel they picked their new leader—John Jeremiah Pelley, 56, president of New York, New Haven & Hartford.

Before the railroads could name their spokesman, however, they had to create a job for him. The two leading trade bodies were the American Railway Association, which compiles the weekly figures on car loadings, and the Association of Railway Executives, which represents railroad management. Neither association was strong enough to hold the proud & jealous rail systems of the country together on long-range policies. So last week the 150 Class I railroads voted to merge the two associations as the Association of American Railroads. Its platform:

“In order to promote trade and commerce in the public interest, further improve railroad service, and maintain the integrity and credit of the industry, rail-road companies of the U. S. do hereby establish an authoritative national organization which shall be adequately qualified and empowered in every lawful way to accomplish these ends where concert of policy and action are required.”

A board of 14 directors—five from the East, three from the South, six from the West—was elected. When Mr. Pelley resigns his $37,000-a-year position with the New Haven, and moves into his Washington headquarters, he will certainly be paid no less by the new association. His most important job will be to fight for or against the transportation legislation which is sure to be a major Congressional issue next winter. Speaking for the first time in his new capacity, Mr. Pelley left no doubt last week about his militant conception of AAR: “The railroads recognize the need for a forceful, independent organization to act [as] a general staff for the railroads as a whole.”

Chief-of-Staff Pelley has as much experience as any man can acquire in 35 years of railroading. A breezy, beefy six-footer, he got his start, after a brief turn at the University of Illinois, as a temporary assistant to the station agent in his home town of Anna, Ill. After his summer in the Anna station he got a regular job with the Illinois Central and his long tramp up the winding track of railroading began. By 1926 he went to Savannah as president of Illinois Central’s biggest subsidiary, Central of Georgia.

Railroader Pelley likes parties, yet never smokes or drinks. He believes in letting his subordinates do the work, likes to get away from his office early in the afternoon. His passion for telephoning is proverbial: he will call up his officers and employes at any time of the day or night, not on business but just to ask them how they are. Newshawks like him because he practically writes their interviews with remarks like this: “Get me right. I’m not going to talk bullish. Nothing like that. I can’t see myself sitting on a pink cloud right now. But people are overdoing this pessimism business.”