Word: whitneys
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...bodied, grim-faced men sat in their green-walled hotel suites in Washington and listened as the President rawhided them over the radio. Alexander Fell Whitney's lips were taut, his eyes were on the ceiling. He said not one word. Alvanley Johnston grunted only once, mumbling "Yes, sir," when Harry Truman held himself up as "a friend of labor...
...were "these two men?" Even their names were barely known to the country at large. Was Alexander Whitney any relation to the Whitneys? Who was this man Johnston? The people (and the President) hardly knew how to pronounce his first name...
They looked exactly like what they are: oldtime railroad hands who had prospered after their retirement from hard labor. Alexander Fell Whitney is an affable man who asks almost everybody on second meeting to "Call me Al." He is square-shouldered and peppery, a handsome, wavy-haired oldster (73) with a keen eye for his well-tailored clothes and his role as an "Important Man." Alvanley Johnston stepped down from the cab of a locomotive and into a rumpled blue suit about 40 years ago. At 71, his blue eyes still have the engineer's squint, his round face...
Neither is subtle, complex or daring. Whitney is a well-read man who likes to lace his speeches with literary allusions. Johnston (nobody calls him Al) is a plain, blunt man who almost never makes a speech, puts on a front of gruff irascibility...
...brotherhoods, forged in the fires and blood of the 1877 rail strikes (see cut), now are rich, conservative, and strictly disciplined. Whitney and Johnston typify the transition. Each is a proud, rugged individualist who rules his tight little empire with strong hands, who has settled himself at the top of his union heap by keeping a strong thumb on the opposition...