Yankee Progress and Ingenuity
Edward S. French '06 Has Pioneered in Transportation In Giving New Service to New England
EDWARD S. FRENCH '06, newly elected to life membership on the Board of 1 Trustees, was presented, several years ago, with a gift which was a simple, direct recognition of his own career and the service he has given to New England.
A water bucket, looking like a longspouted teakettle, with two glasses in a rack at its base, was handed to him by an old railroad brakeman. It was not given to "Ned" French, railroad president, merely as a quaint memento of the 105-year old transportation line he directed. It was instead a high tribute to a man with iron in his blood. His grandfather was a general railroad superintendent; his father a onetime ticket agent; and he, as a boy of 13, had his first job on the old Boston and Concord line, carrying ice water in a bucket for the passengers.
Even before he graduated from Dartmouth, he had additional summer vacation experience as brakeman and baggageman, and after he received his degree from the College, he was hired as a clerk. Twentyfour years later, in 1930, a Yankee business entrepreneur whose versatile interests also included bank board memberships, a woolen mill and a hardware store, he was elected president of his greatest love, a railroad, the near-bankrupt and limping Boston and Maine.
In less than two years, however, the century-old line which had grown up and al most gone down with industrial New England, had succeeded to profitable rejuvenation. By the time Mr. French was elected Alumni Trustee of Dartmouth in 1934, the B. & M. was the liveliest concern of the region. Now, ten years under his direction, it has even lost the bogey of $100,000,000 worth of mortgages contracted by earlier directors.
In describing the spectacular solution of this grave problem, T. E. Murphy wrote in The Reader's Digest for July 1941 in an article "Yankee Ingenuity Makes a Rail
road Pay": "The most spectacular dividend from winning public friendship was paid a year ago.
"Like many other railroads, B & M had a hangover from the superoptimism of earlier operators who loaded it with debt. A $100,000,000 mortgage threatened inevitable receivership in 1941.
"French took his troubles to Jesse Jones, with figures to prove the railroad had fought, not only valiantly, but intelligently. Jones liked the story and the figures. He made a proposal: if the mortgage holders would take half in new mortgage bonds and half in bonds paying interest if and when earned, the RFC would immediately advance the cash to buy up $30,000,000 of the new mortgage bonds. The holder of a $1000 mortgage bond thus would get $300 cash, $200 in a new mortgage bond, $500 in a new bond not a mortgage.
"But bondholders would have to agree. The B & M set out to persuade them and got the pleasantest of surprises. New England, traditionally anti-railroad, wasn't hostile at all. 'You've been making a splendid uphill fight; we won't let you down,' was the typical response. Ninety-nine percent of the New England bondholders agreed to the proposal; for the whole country the score was 94 percent. It sets a new record in community-railroad cooperation. And it saved the railroad $3,000,000 a year.
"It was the highball for full speed ahead. More than a hundred steel coaches have been added to the passenger service. New, fast passenger trains from Washington and New York have been inaugurated. Costs are still being battered down and freight service improved.
"The 'Broken and Maimed' has become the 'Bustling and Modern.' The old B & M revived Yankee traditions of ingenuity and frugality mellowed them with genuine friendly desire to serve, and made it pay."
The B & M, by this amazingly successful (and difficult) financial move, by its new equipment, and its connective and recently coordinated, smartly conceived bus, truck and air affiliates—all obstinate sisters to the traditional railroad—has become an enviable national surprise, giving modern service equal to business profit.
And Ned French, who is a fishing companion and close friend of President Hopkins, explains the transformation:
"A railroad isn't just a mechanical thing. It's run by human beings, and it's subject to all the irregularities of human beings. That's what we're trying to make people understand, and I think everybody's a lot happier because of it. It's always been a cardinal principle of railroading that you can't successfully run a road through hostile territory. Conversely, the more good-will you have, the better."
This is a combination of horse and business sense typical of his success. Both employees and customers, with the same fervor, caught on to his happy perspective. Whenever any of them saw room for improvement, intelligent economy, increased revenue, or better, more personal service, they chanted with the president, "A hell of a way to run a railroad!" The challenge was accepted on all sides and it came to be a spur for greater personnel efficiency and customer interest.
His home, if not traveling or working in Boston, where he has an apartment, is in Springfield, Vt. His office in the Hub is unpretentious and his door is always open. He arrives for work around eight o'clock in the morning, frequently remains until after six. Half his time is taken with travel inspection and road business on the 1910 miles of his line.
Born in 1883, in Portland, Maine, he is now 57 years old. He left Maine at an early age and completed his high school training at Somerville. While he began his progress from railroad clerk to station manager, manager to superintendent, he and Mrs. French were raising a family of three girls, Janet, Elizabeth and Helen. His wife died in 1919. Their home was in Springfield, Vt., where the children were raised. (When Janet married, her father's trains tooted their whistles across the county!)
Not occupied exclusively with rail operation, Mr. French assumed other interests and positions of honor and distinction. At the time he succeeded to the presidency of the B & M, he was a director of the B & M. He was a director of the Association of American Railroads, the Union Mutual Life Insurance Co., the Rock of Ages Corporation, and the New England Public Service Corporation. In 1932, he became president of the Maine Central railroads and the Portland Terminal Company. Directorships with the National Life Insurance Company of Vermont and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston are other important positions. At present, he is chairman of the board of the Jones and Lamson Machine Co., machine tool defense industry of Springfield. He has served as president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Boston.
Always a Yankee, and a modern and progressive one, he was honored by the Boston Herald, in 1937, about the same time he was presented with the antique icewater bucket. The paper gave him its annual businessman's award for "honorable and meritorious service to the upbuilding of our community and New England."
PRESIDENT OF TWO RAILROADS AND LIFE TRUSTEE OF THE COLLEGE
