lowed, eager to cast their fortunes in the raw, uncharted
lands. The track construction gang, the forerunner of today's
maintenance of way crew, traveled in the vanguard of this
conquering army, laboriously fashioning the right of way from
earth and rock, blasting tunnels, laying track, erecting bridges,
building trestles. Gradually they pushed the frontiers aside
and spanned the continent by rail.

As the railroads established lines in all parts of the conti-
nent, maintenance of way crews became more an occupying
army than a vanguard. They settled down along the right of
ways to maintain the railroads' tracks, bridges, and structures
and to raise their families. And as they became established
members of their communities, they began to understand the
need for collective action to protect and promote their mutual
welfare as railroad workers. It was out of this first aware-
ness that their organization, the Brotherhood of Maintenance
of Way Employes, was born. And it is to trace the growth
and development of that organization that this book is being
written.

The writing of a book of this nature requires many de-
cisions. The condensation within several hundred pages of the
records of some sixty-eight years is in itself a task of no small
magnitude. It means a constant choice between material to be
included and that to be omitted, of persons to be named or left
unnamed. It has not been possible, therefore, to give credit
to all the individual officers and members who have contrib-
uted so much to the progress of the Brotherhood, nor to re-
count in detail all the happenings of these sixty-eight eventful
years. A sincere effort has been made, however, to beam the
spotlight of retrospection on the mileposts that have marked
the growth of the Brotherhood and on the leaders who have
made that growth possible.

Although it is difficult at times to keep personal opinion
from intruding, one goal in writing this book has been to keep
it as objective and as factual as possible.

Much of the material for the early history of the Brother-
hood has been taken from the pages of the "Advance Advo-
cate", the first official organ of the Brotherhood. Grand Chief
John T. Wilson, founder of the Brotherhood, and those who
assisted him in preparing the "Advocate" for publication wrote
for the present and not for posterity. Minus the services of

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