William Samuel Carter

Background

William Samuel Carter was born on August 11, 1859 in Austin, Texas, United States; the son of Samuel Miles and Margaret Frances (Oliphant) Carter.

Education

As a youth William was studious; though most of his time until his twenty-first year was spent as a cowboy, he employed his leisure in reading, and he was enabled to get some primary schooling in Williamson County and two years of instruction in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

Career

Carter's introduction to railroading, with which he was to be connected for many years, occurred in 1879, when he was put in charge of a wooden tramway for hauling lumber and thus became "superintendent of seven mules, a few drivers and seven miles of track. " In the same year he got a job as a fireman on an old woodburning locomotive on what is now a part of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway. Except for an intermission of three years he worked successively as a baggageman, fireman, and engineer on various railroads until September 1894. In October he became editor of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine, a place he retained until Jan. 1, 1904, when he became general secretary and treasurer of the Brotherhood. Five years later he became its president. He attracted general attention in 1913 by refusing to call a strike that had been voted by his union after prolonged negotiations and by appealing to the government and public for support on the ground that the railway managers were trying to embarrass President Wilson in the furtherance of the executive's industrial policy. As a sequence of his action negotiations were reopened, and a revised wage scale was adopted. In February 1918, he was appointed director of the Division of Labor of the United States Railway Administration, an office he held until March 15, 1920, continuing during the time as the nominal head of his union and afterward resuming active service. On June 30, 1922, he retired from the presidency and was made manager of the newly-created research department of the Brotherhood. He moved from Cleveland, which had been his home for many years, to Washington, where he began the organization of his department. Some months later his health failed. On February 24, 1923, he was taken for treatment to the Church Home and Infirmary, at Baltimore, where three weeks later he died. His funeral, largely attended by trade-union and government officials, was held in Washington.

Achievements

• As general secretary and treasurer he was an innovator of many improvements in the technique of union management, while as president, during a period in which the most important wage movements in the history of the Brotherhood took place, he showed a skill, tact, and patience in negotiations which usually brought success.

Personality

Carter was a man of high character, and, in his special field, of exceptional abilities. As the editor of the journal of his union, though without previous experience, he developed a marked capacity, bringing it to a high state of excellence, and winning for it a general recognition. His service in the government's railway administration has been highly praised by his colleagues. He had the confidence of the rank and file of his union to an extent few labor leaders have attained, and it seems not to have been disturbed by the high regard he won from the employers with whom he dealt. He was democratic and unassuming in manner, generous in disposition, and, though often in controversy, is said to have borne no resentments.

Connections

Carter was twice married: on December 26, 1880, to Evelyn Gorsuch of Austin, who died June 22, 1892, and on November 27, 1902, to Julia I. Cross of Peoria, Illinois, who survived him.

Father:

Samuel Miles Carter

Mother:

Margaret Frances (Oliphant) Carter

1st wife:

Evelyn Gorsuch

2nd wife:

Julia I. Cross

References

• Brotherhood Of Locomotive Firemen And Enginemen's Magazine, Volume 73