Life On The Mississippi, Part 3. - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for the
world--not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, he
yells--I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night--it
never made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not for
anything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish
comfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but he
would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those
dreadful war-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect for
anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny." And he kept a
fiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the
cat, and so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where that man--and
his family--was. And reckless. There never was anything like it. Now
you may believe it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought
my boat a-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a
rattling head of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at
that! My officers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir, while he
was a-tearing right down through those snags, and I a-shaking in my
shoes and praying, I wish I may never speak again if he didn't pucker up
his mouth and go to WHISTLING! Yes, sir; whistling "Buffalo gals, can't
you come out tonight, can't you come out to-night, can't you come out
to-night;" and doing it as calmly as if we were attending a funeral and
weren't related to the corpse. And when I remonstrated with him about
it, he smiled down on me as if I was his child, and told me to run in
the house and try to be good, and not be meddling with my superiors!'
Once a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out of work and
as usual out of money. He laid steady siege to Stephen, who was in a
very 'close place,' and finally persuaded him to hire with him at one
hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just half wages, the captain
agreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of all
the guild upon the poor fellow. But the boat was not more than a day
out of New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was
boasting of his exploit, and that all the officers had been told.
Stephen winced, but said nothing. About the middle of the afternoon the
captain stepped out on the hurricane deck, cast his eye around, and
looked a good deal surprised. He glanced inquiringly aloft at Stephen,
but Stephen was whistling placidly, and attending to business. The
captain stood around a while in evident discomfort, and once or twice
seemed about to make a suggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught
him to avoid that sort of rashness, and so he managed to hold his peace.
He chafed and puzzled a few minutes longer, then retired to his
apartments. But soon he was out again, and apparently more perplexed
than ever. Presently he ventured to remark, with deference--
'Pretty good stage of the river now, ain't it, sir?'
'Well, I should say so! Bank-full IS a pretty liberal stage.'
'Seems to be a good deal of current here.'
'Good deal don't describe it! It's worse than a mill-race.'
'Isn't it easier in toward shore than it is out here in the middle?'
'Yes, I reckon it is; but a body can't be too careful with a steamboat.
It's pretty safe out here; can't strike any bottom here, you can depend
on that.'
The captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he would
probably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day he
appeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing up the
middle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi,
and whistling the same placid tune. This thing was becoming serious. In
by the shore was a slower boat clipping along in the easy water and
gaining steadily; she began to make for an island chute; Stephen stuck
to the middle of the river. Speech was WRUNG from the captain.
He said--
'Mr. W----, don't that chute cut off a good deal of distance?'
'I think it does, but I don't know.'
'Don't know! Well, isn't there water enough in it now to go through?'
'I expect there is, but I am not certain.'
'Upon my word this is odd! Why, those pilots on that boat yonder are
going to try it. Do you mean to say that you don't know as much as they
do?'
'THEY! Why, THEY are two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pilots! But don't you
be uneasy; I know as much as any man can afford to know for a hundred
and twenty-five!'
The captain surrendered.
Five minutes later Stephen was bowling through the chute and showing the
rival boat a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of heels.
Chapter 15 The Pilots' Monopoly
ONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott,' my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawling
carefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, and
everybody holding his breath. The captain, a nervous, apprehensive man,
kept still as long as he could, but finally broke down and shouted from
the hurricane deck--
'For gracious' sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam! She'll
never raise the reef on this headway!'
For all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would have
supposed that no remark had been made. But five minutes later, when the
danger was past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into a
consuming fury, and gave the captain the most admirable cursing I ever
listened to. No bloodshed ensued; but that was because the captain's
cause was weak; for ordinarily he was not a man to take correction
quietly.
Having now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting,
and likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the
fraternity of steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a few
words about an organization which the pilots once formed for the
protection of their guild. It was curious and noteworthy in this, that
it was perhaps the compactest, the completest, and the strongest
commercial organization ever formed among men.
For a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month;
but curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business increased,
the wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to discover the
reason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made.' It was nice to have
a 'cub,' a steersman, to do all the hard work for a couple of years,
gratis, while his master sat on a high bench and smoked; all pilots and
captains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By and by it came
to pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman. When a
steersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory to any
two pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for him by
signing an application directed to the United States Inspector. Nothing
further was needed; usually no questions were asked, no proofs of
capacity required.
Very well, this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to undermine
the wages, in order to get berths. Too late--apparently--the knights of
the tiller perceived their mistake. Plainly, something had to be done,
and quickly; but what was to be the needful thing. A close
organization. Nothing else would answer. To compass this seemed an
impossibility; so it was talked, and talked, and then dropped. It was
too likely to ruin whoever ventured to move in the matter. But at last
about a dozen of the boldest--and some of them the best--pilots on the
river launched themselves into the enterprise and took all the chances.
They got a special charter from the legislature, with large powers,
under the name of the Pilots' Benevolent Association; elected their
officers, completed their organization, contributed capital, put
'association' wages up to two hundred and fifty dollars at once--and
then retired to their homes, for they were promptly discharged from
employment. But there were two or three unnoticed trifles in their by-
laws which had the seeds of propagation in them. For instance, all idle
members of the association, in good standing, were entitled to a pension
of twenty-five dollars per month. This began to bring in one straggler
after another from the ranks of the new-fledged pilots, in the dull
(summer) season. Better have twenty-five dollars than starve; the
initiation fee was only twelve dollars, and no dues required from the
unemployed.
Also, the widows of deceased members in good standing could draw twenty-
five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of their children.
Also, the said deceased would be buried at the association's expense.
These things resurrected all the superannuated and forgotten pilots in
the Mississippi Valley. They came from farms, they came from interior
villages, they came from everywhere. They came on crutches, on drays,
in ambulances,--any way, so they got there. They paid in their twelve
dollars, and straightway began to draw out twenty-five dollars a month,
and calculate their burial bills.
By and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-class
ones, were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots out of
it and laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river.
Everybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent.
of their wages, every month, into the treasury for the support of the
association, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed, and no
one would employ them. Everybody was derisively grateful to the
association for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way and
leaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving; and
everybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for a result
which naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as the
busy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figure of one
hundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty-five, and in some
cases to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun to enlarge upon the
fact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men not
one of whom received a particle of benefit from it. Some of the jokers
used to call at the association rooms and have a good time chaffing the
members and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen for a
trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like.
However, the association was content; or at least it gave no sign to the
contrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was 'out of luck,' and
added him to its list; and these later additions were very valuable, for
they were good pilots; the incompetent ones had all been absorbed
before. As business freshened, wages climbed gradually up to two
hundred and fifty dollars--the association figure--and became firmly
fixed there; and still without benefiting a member of that body, for no
member was hired. The hilarity at the association's expense burst all
bounds, now. There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to
put up with.
However, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached,
business doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois and
Upper Mississippi River boats came pouring down to take a chance in the
New Orleans trade. All of a sudden pilots were in great demand, and
were correspondingly scarce. The time for revenge was come. It was a
bitter pill to have to accept association pilots at last, yet captains
and owners agreed that there was no other way. But none of these
outcasts offered! So there was a still bitterer pill to be swallowed:
they must be sought out and asked for their services. Captain ---- was
the first man who found it necessary to take the dose, and he had been
the loudest derider of the organization. He hunted up one of the best of
the association pilots and said--
'Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while, so
I'll give in with as good a grace as I can. I've come to hire you; get
your trunk aboard right away. I want to leave at twelve o'clock.'
'I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot?'
'I've got I. S----. Why?'
'I can't go with him. He don't belong to the association.'
'What!'
'It's so.'
'Do you mean to tell me that you won't turn a wheel with one of the very
best and oldest pilots on the river because he don't belong to your
association?'
'Yes, I do.'
'Well, if this isn't putting on airs! I supposed I was doing you a
benevolence; but I begin to think that I am the party that wants a favor
done. Are you acting under a law of the concern?'
'Yes.'
'Show it to me.'
So they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretary soon
satisfied the captain, who said--
'Well, what am I to do? I have hired Mr. S---- for the entire season.'
'I will provide for you,' said the secretary. 'I will detail a pilot to
go with you, and he shall be on board at twelve o'clock.'
'But if I discharge S----, he will come on me for the whole season's
wages.'
'Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S----, captain. We
cannot meddle in your private affairs.'
The captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end he had to discharge
S----, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an association pilot
in his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other way now. Every
day, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day some outraged captain
discharged a non-association pet, with tears and profanity, and
installed a hated association man in his berth. In a very little while,
idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty, brisk as business
was, and much as their services were desired. The laugh was shifting to
the other side of their mouths most palpably. These victims, together
with the captains and owners, presently ceased to laugh altogether, and
began to rage about the revenge they would take when the passing
business 'spurt' was over.
Soon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of boats
that had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was not very
long-lived. For this reason: It was a rigid rule of the association that
its members should never, under any circumstances whatever, give
information about the channel to any 'outsider.' By this time about
half the boats had none but association pilots, and the other half had
none but outsiders. At the first glance one would suppose that when it
came to forbidding information about the river these two parties could
play equally at that game; but this was not so. At every good-sized town
from one end of the river to the other, there was a 'wharf-boat' to land
at, instead of a wharf or a pier. Freight was stored in it for
transportation; waiting passengers slept in its cabins. Upon each of
these wharf-boats the association's officers placed a strong box
fastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service but
one--the United States mail service. It was the letter-bag lock, a
sacred governmental thing. By dint of much beseeching the government had
been persuaded to allow the association to use this lock. Every
association man carried a key which would open these boxes. That key, or
rather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was asked
for river information by a stranger--for the success of the St. Louis
and New Orleans association had now bred tolerably thriving branches in
a dozen neighboring steamboat trades--was the association man's sign and
diploma of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing
a similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed, his
question was politely ignored. From the association's secretary each
member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed like
a billhead, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns; a bill-head
worded something like this--
STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC.
JOHN SMITH MASTER
PILOTS, JOHN JONES AND THOMAS BROWN.
+ ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +
| CROSSINGS. | SOUNDINGS. | MARKS. | REMARKS. |
+ ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +
These blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyage progressed, and
deposited in the several wharf-boat boxes. For instance, as soon as the
first crossing, out from St. Louis, was completed, the items would be
entered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings, thus--
'St. Louis. Nine and a half (feet). Stern on court-house, head on dead
cottonwood above wood-yard, until you raise the first reef, then pull up
square.' Then under head of Remarks: 'Go just outside the wrecks; this
is important. New snag just where you straighten down; go above it.'
The pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding to it
the details of every crossing all the way down from St. Louis) took out
and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound steamers)
concerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himself
thoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boat
again so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boat
into trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his
aid.
Imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve
or thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day!
The pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoal
place once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch
it for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to
run it. His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old. If
the reports in the last box chanced to leave any misgivings on his mind
concerning a treacherous crossing, he had his remedy; he blew his steam-
whistle in a peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching; the
signal was answered in a peculiar way if that boat's pilots were
association men; and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all
uncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to the
inquirer by word of mouth and in minute detail.
The first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St. Louis was
to take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors and
hang it up there,--after which he was free to visit his family. In these
parlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing changes in the
channel, and the moment there was a fresh arrival, everybody stopped
talking till this witness had told the newest news and settled the
latest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can 'sink the shop,' sometimes, and
interest themselves in other matters. Not so with a pilot; he must
devote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else; for it
would be small gain to be perfect one day and imperfect the next. He has
no time or words to waste if he would keep 'posted.'
But the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to meet
and exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but chance and
unsatisfactory ways of getting news. The consequence was that a man
sometimes had to run five hundred miles of river on information that was
a week or ten days old. At a fair stage of the river that might have
answered; but when the dead low water came it was destructive.
Now came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began to
ground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble, whereas
accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association men.
Wherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished exclusively
with outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly independent of
the association and free to comfort themselves with brag and laughter,
began to feel pretty uncomfortable. Still, they made a show of keeping
up the brag, until one black day when every captain of the lot was
formally ordered to immediately discharge his outsiders and take
association pilots in their stead. And who was it that had the dashing
presumption to do that? Alas, it came from a power behind the throne
that was greater than the throne itself. It was the underwriters!
It was no time to 'swap knives.' Every outsider had to take his trunk
ashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was collusion
between the association and the underwriters, but this was not so. The
latter had come to comprehend the excellence of the 'report' system of
the association and the safety it secured, and so they had made their
decision among themselves and upon plain business principles.
There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp of the
outsiders now. But no matter, there was but one course for them to
pursue, and they pursued it. They came forward in couples and groups,
and proffered their twelve dollars and asked for membership. They were
surprised to learn that several new by-laws had been long ago added. For
instance, the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars; that sum
must be tendered, and also ten per cent. of the wages which the
applicant had received each and every month since the founding of the
association. In many cases this amounted to three or four hundred
dollars. Still, the association would not entertain the application
until the money was present. Even then a single adverse vote killed the
application. Every member had to vote 'Yes' or 'No' in person and before
witnesses; so it took weeks to decide a candidacy, because many pilots
were so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant sinners scraped
their savings together, and one by one, by our tedious voting process,
they were added to the fold. A time came, at last, when only about ten
remained outside. They said they would starve before they would apply.
They remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could venture
to employ them.
By and by the association published the fact that upon a certain date
the wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month. All the
branch associations had grown strong, now, and the Red River one had
advanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month. Reluctantly the ten
outsiders yielded, in view of these things, and made application. There
was another new by-law, by this time, which required them to pay dues
not only on all the wages they had received since the association was
born, but also on what they would have received if they had continued at
work up to the time of their application, instead of going off to pout
in idleness. It turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them, but
it was accomplished at last. The most virulent sinner of this batch had
stayed out and allowed 'dues' to accumulate against him so long that he
had to send in six hundred and twenty-five dollars with his application.
The association had a good bank account now, and was very strong. There
was no longer an outsider. A by-law was added forbidding the reception
of any more cubs or apprentices for five years; after which time a
limited number would be taken, not by individuals, but by the
association, upon these terms: the applicant must not be less than
eighteen years old, and of respectable family and good character; he
must pass an examination as to education, pay a thousand dollars in
advance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice, and must remain
under the commands of the association until a great part of the
membership (more than half, I think) should be willing to sign his
application for a pilot's license.
All previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from their
masters and adopted by the association. The president and secretary
detailed them for service on one boat or another, as they chose, and
changed them from boat to boat according to certain rules. If a pilot
could show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance, one of
the cubs would be ordered to go with him.
The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association's financial
resources. The association attended its own funerals in state, and paid
for them. When occasion demanded, it sent members down the river upon
searches for the bodies of brethren lost by steamboat accidents; a
search of this kind sometimes cost a thousand dollars.
The association procured a charter and went into the insurance business,
also. It not only insured the lives of its members, but took risks on
steamboats.
The organization seemed indestructible. It was the tightest monopoly in
the world. By the United States law, no man could become a pilot unless
two duly licensed pilots signed his application; and now there was
nobody outside of the association competent to sign. Consequently the
making of pilots was at an end. Every year some would die and others
become incapacitated by age and infirmity; there would be no new ones to
take their places. In time, the association could put wages up to any
figure it chose; and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry
the thing too far and provoke the national government into amending the
licensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit, since there
would be no help for it.
The owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay between the
association and absolute power; and at last this one was removed.
Incredible as it may seem, the owners and captains deliberately did it
themselves. When the pilots' association announced, months beforehand,
that on the first day of September, 1861, wages would be advanced to
five hundred dollars per month, the owners and captains instantly put
freights up a few cents, and explained to the farmers along the river
the necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burdensome rate
of wages about to be established. It was a rather slender argument, but
the farmers did not seem to detect it. It looked reasonable to them that
to add five cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable under the
circumstances, overlooking the fact that this advance on a cargo of
forty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to cover the
new wages.