| Given the later appearance of a Marx train, it is interesting that a C&NW hopper shows up given that C&NW was a company with an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan for those who aren't as familiar with business and labor law) since that was one thing that Karl Marx's writings influenced, at least indirectly - the more moderate unions became an acceptable alternative to communism which the railroads having had a poor history of labor relations (see, e.g. the railroad strike of 1877 which began against the B&O in Martinsburg West Virginia and spread often becoming a general strike in much of Pennsylvania and the Pullman Strike in 1894 (I believe). Few Americans realize how close the United States came to having workers overthrow the government in the 1877 strike - if military reconstruction had not previously ended with the Republicans selling out their southern supporters (which were mainly Southern blacks at the time) in the stolen election of 1876 (which was eerily similar to the 2000 election right down to being decided in Florida) the U.S. may have lacked the troops to violently supress the general strike. Anyway, while law is my profession, labor and industrial history is my passion so I could talk all day about that. Anyway, here is the end of the empties. |