George M. Pullman
The Pullman Porter
The Town of Pullman
1893 World’s Fair Pullman Exhibit
1894—Great Pullman Strike
“Pullman Company employing more than 10,400 porters is among the largest, if not the largest, employer of colored people in this country. To the efficient porter Pullman service has meant economic advancement of a nature to give significance to freedom. Considering the class of work, the porter is one of the best paid working men in the country, with an income much larger than that of the average United States workman.”—The Pullman Company
George Pullman took advantage of recently freed slave labour by initially not paying his porters and instead expecting them to live off tips, with attendants often on duty for 24 hours or more at a time and forbidden from sleeping. Yet for all the patronizing racism porter jobs were highly sought after and porters frequently recommended their relatives and passed down through families, with sons following fathers into the job.
Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1882
“Tipping” Pullman Porters.
To the Editor of The Chicago Tribune.
CHICAGO, Feb.24.–Will you kindly allow an unimportant member of the great people to trespass on your columns for a moment that in the extensive field of your circulation I may succeed in the agitation of an important question to travelers on the palace-ears in this country namely: that of “tipping” as at present practiced? For a great corporation like the Pullman Palace-Car whose headquarters are in this city, and whose princely revenue is well known- to the public generally compels its colored porters to do their work at a salary that means starvation to themselves, to say nothing of a family, and trusts to the kind-hearted traveling public to pay them the balance of their rightful wages after having paid to the company a sum equal to 4 per day for a hotel, thereby increasing the already large dividends on stock $300,000 annually.
Would it not be more in keeping with American dignity for the Pullman Company and other palace-car owners to pay their porters themselves? If they refuse to do so. let the traveling public force them into it by uniformly refusing to tip under any circumstances after paying a large fee for the privilege of being served in good style on their cars. By giving prominence to the above a movement may in time be started that will greatly benefit the porters themselves and remove a stench from the nostrils of the traveling public. —PALACE-CAR TRAVELER.
Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1887
Sleeping-car porters are believed in some quarters to be the most rapacious of all the tip-seeking class. For a decade the car-porter has been the object of the wrath of the traveling public, the sport of the newspaper paragraphers, the possessor of the dislike of all traveling women, who never give tips, and has been regarded in a kind of haphazard way as embodying all the evils of mendicancy supplemented by the skill of Dick Turpinism. Sleeping-car porters have also been known as “robbers of the road,” and each and every one is supposed to hav a goodly amount of Government bonds stowed away for a rainy day.
A very intelligent colored man came into The Tribune office yesterday. He said: -“I want to say a word for the sleeping-car porter. I see lots of paragraphs going about in the papers I pick up in the car, and it seems everybody is down on the porter because he expects 25 cents for a night’s attendance and boot-blacking. Will you let me say my say?”
“Most certainly,” said a Tribune man, “and be glad to do it. We have been waiting for a story from your side. Now is your opportunity.”
The colored man is perhaps 35 years of age and has been a sleeping-car porter for twelve years. He says he has gotten through with the business and now proposes to do something else for a livelihood. “I have read jokes about the class I once belonged to till I’m tired. Now, I want to give the other side. Will you listen to that?”
“With pleasure.”
“Weil, now, I want the traveling public to understand that the car-porter is the worst treated of the laboring class of people. Persons who travel constantly understand this well and are our sympathizers, and help us out, but the great bulk of people think we are a shoal of sharks. It is not true, sir. The sleeping-car porters are for the most part a deserving class and ought to have more favorable recognition. What I want to say first, sir,” said the colored man as he drew his chair up closer—what do you think of a rich corporation paying their men but an average of $15 a month! Some men get a little more, some get less, but the average is about $15. Out of that we are supposed to live on the road, support families if we have them, buy uniforms, pay fines, and work on an average eighteen hours a day.”
“O, but you are supposed to help this out by your tips.”
“That is just what I want to talk about. Do you think a great corporation, boasting its millions or more surplus, ought to force us servants to get their support from the public on tips?”
The argument was unanswerable.
“But,” he continued the ex-porter, “that is not all. Even the meagre salary they promise you is usually kept back in the guise of fines, shortages, and so on. In the first place, a porter is supposed to be with his car as long as it is ‘on wheels,’ so to speak—that is, as long as it is in motion. Most of the work is of course at night. Ihe porter must be up and wide awake at all hours. If a spotter, and there are plenty of them on the road, catches him napping it is a $5 fine one-third of his month salary. If a spotter again re-reports him he is discharged and ail his salary due is taken. Smaller fines are imposed. ranging from a cent to $1, which often eat up the whole month’s pay. The most frequent sources of fine is the linen of the car. If a towel is missing the poor porter is charged half a dollar. Now we know how often ladies have to use extra linen. They don’t stop to think, but take it. The porter is charged 50 cents tor every piece missing. If a wisp-broom gets lost it means half a dollar fine. Soap they don’t charge us for, which is a wonder. The buffet-car porters are charged twice the retail price for every glass or piece of crockery they break, for every napkin that gets lost, and for every ounce of provisions not accounted for as calculated on the narrowest basis.”
“Then there does not seem to be much the car-porterage profession except it be from tips.”
There is mighty little in that, the way the thing is running. The public have got a little mad at the meanness of the car companies, and a good many more 10-cent pieces get into our hands than quarters. A. good many people scowl when the Wisp-broom approaches, and as for ladies—well, they never give us anything. They think we are paid good salaries and ought to be content with that.”
“What is about the average income of the car-porter, taking his salary free from fines and his tips.”
“It will run from $45 to $75 to a month. But I want to say that his salary ought not to count, for in seven cases out of ten the salary is eaten up by fines and shortages. But the income depends upon the run. The best run is between Chicago and St. Louis. A porter can on that run, if he is lucky on fines and hasn’t too many towels and napkins to account for, make $75 a month. But that’s the only run in the country of its kind.”
“What makes it so valuable?”
“It’s short—it’s simply all night The cars are always full and every passenger is good for a quarter, or a dime at least.”
“How are the long runs don’t they pay the best? Say the New York limited—isn’t that pretty good?”
“Bless you, no. The limited on all the roads is the worst that is sent out. It is supposed to be the best for tips, considering the class of travel, so the companies only pay $12 or so a month on that train, but you don’t get it. You see there’s only one night out. Now you can’t get more’n a quarter for a one-night run, I don’t care how rich and liberal the traveler is; and then you’ve always got to discount the ladies. As I sa’d before, ladies never pay anything. We can brush tne nap off their cloaks, but they don’t see the point. Lots of times I’ve brushed till I’ve got tired and the only reward was a request to get the baby a glass of ice-water or a demand to carry out that dead lunch-hamper. I don’t go much on iadies as passengers.”
“But you think St. Louis is the best run?”
“Yes. St. Paul comes next on ordinary trains, but the first train, no! You see, the ordinary trains stops oftener, get on more passengers, and the quarter is nimbler. Those trains are worth about $60 month, including salary, if it is not taken from you.”
“How are the very long runs, like those to the Pacific coasts”
“They’re no good as a regular thing. It was reported once that the bonanza silver people were giving the boys $5 gold-pieces and the wages were cut from $20 down to $15 a month. The boys were not getting any such money. Once in a while when John Mackay or Senator Jones came over the porter got a couple of gold pieces, but it was no regular thing. Fifty cents is about the average on the run from Omaha to Ogden; you can’t get more than that—or at least can’t count on it. That whole run ain’t worth more than $50 a month.”
The colored man then spoke of another thing. “We are compelled to go to a tailor who has a contract with the company. We have to pay him $25 for such blue suits as you travelers see us wear. There isn’t another tailor in Chicago that would not make them up of better material and shapelier cut for $2O. We have to pay $2.25 for our caps, and those we are compelled to take from the storehouse. I lost mine once and had to get a new one. I had it made at a Clark street place for just $1, and it was a prettier and better cap than the storehouse can produce. Our winter suits we have to pay $30 for from the company’s tailor, just $7.50 more than we can get them for elsewhere of better material and better made.
“But,” continued the colored man, “there are other petty exactions. These come from the porter’s responsibility for the company linen and other property. It has become a rule that porters at terminal stations and also en route must clean their spittoons, buffets, and silver inside of the cars. It takes from two to three hours to do this work. If the porter stops to do it he will have but little time to rest and be at home with his family. There is but one of two things left to do he must lose his rest or must hire some one to do the work for him. The companies make it a point to have a man or two around whom the porter can pay to do the work if he can employ him. Usually the porter can get lamps cleaned for 25 cents, his spittoons for 35 cents, and his silver for half a dollar, but the buffet the porter must clean himself. The porters who run into New York, Jersey City and Philadelphia have to pay more than these rates. In Jersey City unless the porter wants to wait from one to three hours to his soiled linen for clean he has to pay pay a man whom the companies keep around 35 cents of his hard-earned money. Porters running into the Union Depot in Chicago have to pay from 15 to 25 cents to have the company’s linen taken from their cars to the linen-room. There is no way to get around paying this money, for the trains do not remain in the depot long enough for the porter to carry the linen himself. These are some the indirect ways in which the much-abused and ill-used porters are defrauded of their paltry pittance.”
“Are all companies alike in these exactions?”
“Yes.”
“How about the roads that run their own cars, like the Wisconsin Central, Milwaukee Lake Shore, and others They usually pay $40 or 45 a month, and don’t expect us to take tips. But. dear the colored me!” exclaimed the colored man, “there’s mighty few of those roads now. I know several instances where a sleeping-car company put its cars on roads that had before employed their own and who were paying good wages. This company at once cut the porters down to $15 a month, and laid ‘forage on the public.'”
“And so you have been doing it?”
“What else is there to do, when you have a family and are compelled to support yourself on the road?”
To this question there seems to be no reply, unless one can be furnished by the sleeping-car companies.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1887
Chicago Tribune, July 16, 1899
Sleeping car porters not only look much alike, after the manner of their race, but they do their work alike. Ingenuity, originality, and unique tricks of service are not encouraged within the limits of a sleeping car of any of the companies, and the reason for it all is that the porters are graduates of the same college.
This college has branches in every division office of the Pullman and Wagner companies and at the home offices of the few railroad lines which operate their own cars. The curriculum of each is alike the instructors are much the same, and the requirements for graduation in each branch are identical. There are half a dozen branches of this college in Chicago, and during school hours these are crowded with eager, dusky students.
Organized by Pullman
The schools were first organized by the Pullman company in an informal way at the beginning of its service to instruct the men in a new trade. They have grown and been perfected since until the division chief of each company, who has charge of the men upon that road, conducts a school in connection with his office.
The schools are usually located in the depots. The equipment is but a bare room in which a complete sleeping car berth is set up, with curtains, cushions, and all, just as they are in the cars. After an applicant has been accepted and assigned to duty be reports at the division offices and is conducted to the schoolroom. Here, under the tutelage of one of the old porters, he is instructed in the various arts. He is shown the proper and only method of making up a berth. Then how to convert it back to a section. how the curtains are folded, where the pillows are placed, how the cushions are utilized, and all of the mysteries of the craft.
He is then given a copy of the regulations of the company governing the service and must become letter perfect in these; he is informed that he must sweep the car just so many times during a trip; that the temperature must be kept at a certain point during the winter; that the lights must be turned out under certain conditions; that passengers are not allowed to do this and that. In, addition he must, on some of the runs, understand the tariffs and ticket systems so that in addition to his duties as porter he may act as conductor.
If his run is on a buffet car he must understand the cooking and serving of the articles on the menu. The fact that he may not wear his white jacket outside the train is also impressed upon him, as are the hundred other details which make up the service required of him.
After a course In the schoolroom, if he shows himself to be a competent and promising man, he is assigned to a run. but he Is not yet free from the trammels of the schoolroom. He is required to report at stated intervals, averaging about once in two months, to receive further instruction and show that he has not forgotten what was taught him. Besides that, the new rules, new devices, and new improvements in the service are explained to the old men at these times, and the superintendents take this means to keep in touch with the men.
When you observe a porter who looks especially neat and trim, with a clean and new uniform, manners a trifle awkward, and the idea of deference a little overdrawn, It is a safe guess that he is a newly graduated student of a sleeping car school, launched out upon the sea of life from the halls of learning, where he has been taught how to handle bedclothes and look after a car and its ten or twenty passengers.
Inter Ocean, July 14, 1900
Far out on the prairies, in the depths of the Rockies, beside, the mixed -drinks Mississippi, and in the greenwood retreats to the north, this morning, a glad word is being passed from mouth to mouth by the dusky porters of the Pullman ears. The colored wearers of natty blue uniforms and white caps are calling one to the other, as long trains halt paralleled at sidings, that the government at Washington has decided to allow porters’ tips in the expense accounts of United States employes traveling by rail. For many years the brisk wielders of the broom and the shoe brush have been as loath to see a government employe in a berth as to see a deadhead.
“It wuh suh as losin’ a’ policy that them guv’men’ fellers wouldn’t give up no quahtah, when a feller bresh ’em down. Dey wuz bad as the bigem-bugs wot goes on passes. Nevah seed eithah one on ’em get gen’rous.” So an oldish knight pf the Pullman summed up the situation. He added: “Ev’ry man wot travel on the sleepahs be glad dat sew rule. Now we git wot’s comin to us foh ouh ahduos labahs.”
The government had never until yesterday allowed a tip in a traveling-expense bill. Then the comptroller, after worrying four months over a contract nurse’s bill for 50 cents for a fee after a trip from Chicago to San Francisco, allowed the item. The contract nurse had in the meantime asked, begged, and even prayed that the remainder of his expense account be allowed without the 50 cents.
His answer was a chilling statement that the whole bill must wait decision as to the disputed Item.
The government decision not only over-joyed the porters, but it caused some comment in the great wholesale houses, for each of which dozens of drummers are nightly on the road. Some of them allow tips; some do not. With them the totality of the fees is hundreds of dollars a year, but with the government the sum will be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Inter Ocean, August 14, 1903
PORTERS TO REFUSE “TIPS.”
Pullman Employes Decide to Abandon Taking of Cash Gifts.
Don’t offer a tip to the Pullman porter who assiduously plies his whiskbroom on your clothing near the end of your trip. It won’t do. In no other way could you offer him a more deadly insult.
The spirit of organisation has struck the colored employes of the Pullman company. Now that the public has declined to pay extra money for service, the porters have decided to do away with it altogether. They have organised a union for that purpose. The men gathered at the Keystone hotel, 3022 State street, where a number of them live when not on the road gathering shekels from the public. They decided that business was so bad that they will discourage even the acceptance of nickel tips. Incidentally, the union members will look to the Pullman company to make up in wages what they will lose by shutting out the donations of a generous public.
Chicago Defender, December 31, 1910
In the contention of a plea recently made by the Pullman porters there seems to be much actual truthfulness of foundation. They spend many days from home and often in places where they are obliged to go hungry. They live on a salary of less they any laboring man but have families and children to support which expenses must be met by the incidental tips from public traveler, however uncertain. The plea then has been justifiable and if the executives of the company could see into the homes of some of the poor porters who have large families it could readily be seen, that the situation is imperative. The public has hitherto thought that Pullman porters set a salary that would support a family but each day has so remotely revealed the fact that they do not make enough to keep a large family in bread until public sentiment and exposure of the true condition of their servitude has made them blushingly sensitive and ashamed of their job.
There is much that a porter has to endure as he has to be gifted in rendering good service. The traveling public must know that these men work 24 hours a day and that a rich railroad company should no longe try to elect their services for practically nothing. There centention is for $45.00 per month and $50 for men who have been in service over 5 years. This plea which is a just one should be immediately recognized.
The Daily Worker, September 18, 1925
The Pullman Porter
An effort is now being made to unionize the slaves of the Pullman Sleeping Oar company, who make the bunks, and in other ways attend to the discomfort of those who are obliged to perform aero batic feats in their involuntary contributions to the estate Os George Pullman, the chief beneficiary of which is former governor Lowden of Illinois. No other set of slaves are more in need of organization than the Pullman porters. The company has a organization on the and plan but it even violates the agreements entered into by its own tools. And this is not strange. Only when the workers have power will the bosses listen to them or abide by their agreements.
Before a Pullman porter is considered entitled to his meager monthly salary of something like $65.00, he must have covered 11,000 miles in that month. He is not paid for work done in preparing sleepers before starting time. There are many other grievances which an organized body could force the company to redress. Singly the porters are helpless and entirely at the mercy of the employers. There is one pitfall the porters must avoid.
It is depending on the for salvation. A letter sent out by Philip Randolph, general organizer of the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters, expresses the hope that when the is advised of the inhuman conditions under which the porters work, that it will rise in its wrath and smite the company. This is dangerous nonsense. The porters must depend on their own collective strength, in co-operation with all other categories of railroad workers and with the workers in general. Only in unity with their own class can they find strength. This bunk must be spurned.
California Eagle, October 2, 1925
The greatest mass meeting ever held of, for and by; Negro working men was staged in the spacious an beautiful auditorium of the Imperial Lodge of Elks, 160 West 129th Street, New York City, on. Tuesday evening, August 25th under the auspices of A. Philip Randolph, well-known editor of The Messenger, brilliant orator and forceful-advocate of labor unionism. The meeting had been widely advertised by publicity in the metropolitan press and by thousands of leaflets distributed among the porters in the New York District. Only the most optimistic had anticipated an attendance of more than 50 or 75, but by 8:30 there were nearly four hundred earnest and determined porters in the hall, and by nine o’clock there was not a vacant chair. An actual count at ten oclock, when the meeting was at its height revealed a total attendance of 480.
Promptly at 8:30, Mr. Randolph, as chairman, launched into careful and forceful; exposition of the aims and objects of the union to be formed; the wrongs, insults and indignities inflicted upon the porters and the intelligent methods of getting justice, humane treatment and American standard working conditions and wages from the Pullman Company. The editor of the Messenger was in his finest form -and for over an hour he held the mass of porters spell bound, except when wild applause from the enthusiastic punctuated his remarks. This happened on numerous occasions he referred to the need for “rights, not stripes,” the farce of the Pullman Porters Benevolent Association, the joke of the Employment Representation Plan and other fly-paper schemes of the powerful corporation for robbing and insulting its unorganized workers. At the conclusion of his remarks, a five minute demonstration ensued. Cheering, whistling, yelling, stamping of feet—every possible method of signifying their approval of what Randolph had said. When Randolph called for authority to begin organization work, it was given with zest and enthusiasm and hundreds of eager hands reached for the crisp new application blanks being passed out. It was soon evident that many porters had come to the meeting prepared to join the new Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, for scores of men eagerly paid their initiation fees before leaving the halL
W. J. Orr, special organizer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in New York City, assured the assembled porters that the railway unions were behind them and would help them in their fight. He was given an ovation. Frank Crosswaith, the forceful and eloquent Executive Secretary of the Trade Union Committee for organizing Negro Workers, followed him with an address that thrilled the vast audience.
Gales of laughter swept the audience again and again during the droll remarks of George S. Schuyler, the noted Negro saturist on the staffs of The Messenger and the Pittsburgh Courier, whose clever quips and jokes at the expense of the Pullman Company were hugely appreciated. The porters apparently enjoyed the presentation of their struggle in the lighter vein. Following Mr. Schuyler, came Mr. Ross D. Brown, the nationally known Negro orator of Indianapolis and Chicago, who entertained the men with his brilliant delivery. Other speakers who were well received were S. C. Grain, field agent of the new union, and Roy Lankester, former secretary of the Grievance Committee of the New York. District in the Employee Representation Plan and former secretary of the local P. B. B. A.
Veteran laborites claimed the meeting was one of the most enthusiastic ever held in the big city. A few of the Company’s spier and several old hat-in-hand porters, were there waiting to get information to carry back to the Pullman offices, of course. But they were severely castigated by every speaker. Nothing seems to be in the way of the porters building up the greatest union within the Pullman Company in a short time is up in the air.
Another meeting will be held in two weeks in New York City at a place to be announced.
Daily Worker, September 15, 1926
The goal of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as it appears on the official stationery is: wages, bettor hours, better working conditions, pay for overtime, pay for time, abolition of pay: for work when in charge, and manhood rights.
The Chicago Defender, November 19, 1927
THE PULLMAN PORTERS’ ORGANIZATION.
There has been considerable criticism pro and con the so-called attitude the Defender on the movement to organize the Pullman porters and maids. It is felt and asserted by some that the Defender is opposed to the porters’ efforts at organization. It is alleged that the Defender has not given proper space to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters’ side of the fight.
Whatever may be the merits of these charges, be it known by all whom it may concern that the Defender is a red-blooded four square Race paper, which is unequivocally committed to the policy of supporting all bona fide Race movements. Therefore, we wish definitely to register the fact that we back and favor the right of Pullman porters and maids to organize into a bona fide union of their own choosing, untrammeled by the Pullman company.
After a careful survey and review of the determined and lawful struggle of the Pullman porters, led by the brilliant Philip Randolph over a period of two years, the Defender herewith announces its determination fight; with the porters, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, for a living wage and better working conditions.
It is a notorious fact that $72.50 a month is entirely adequate to maintain a family according to decent American standards of living.
It is also indefensible for the Pullman company to allege that the meager wage is subsidized by tips. No porter can budget his home expenses on tips he has not received. Nor can any porter predict the amount of tips he will receive any month, since he may be deadheaded around the country at any time, in which event he receives no tips, because no one is on the car but himself. Besides, no porter can maintain his sense of self-respect who is who is required to beg the public for a handout in the form of tips. Any worker, regardless of race or color, who renders a fair day’s work is entitled to a fair day’s wage.
The Defender also regards the practice of the Pullman company requiring porters to work hours known as preparatory time without pay as a outrage which no fair-minded American can countenance. The porters and maids are entitled to the same regulation transportation work month of 240 hours as other railway employees enjoy, and pay as overtime for every hour over 240.
It is the hope of the Defender that the Pullman company, a national utility, will realize its obligation to meet in conference the porters’ own representatives as selected them without intimidation or coercian.
Porters are responsible fpr the rapid and tremendous growth of the Pullman company and are naturally deserving of a just consideration.
It is obviously unfair for the company to refuse to recognize and meet in conference the porters’ union but to recognize and deal with the conductors’ union. We cannot believe that the company will persist in this undemocratic and un-American attitude. According to the statement of Hon. Edwin P. Morrow, the Pullman company and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters were urged to arbitrate their dispute. The brotherhood agreed, but the company refused, but is now arbitrating the case with the conductors. On account of this attitude the porters’ union has been compelled to seek relief from the interstate commerce commission and the emergency board.
We feel that the Pullman company may salvage some of its lost public good will if it will accept the inevitable situation and recognize the brotherhood and proceed to writing an agreement on wages, rules and working conditions, for the employee representation plan or company union will continue be the source of endless discontent among the porters, which can only result in demoralizing the morale of the men qand thereby lower the standard of working efficiency. Satisfied workers mean higher standards of work.
The Defender, therefore, takes the side of the porters’ fight to organize for their rights as other workers have done and we bid them Godspeed.
The Daily Worker, June 12, 1928
Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping-Car Porters ‘George’
Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1916
WE acknowledge receipt, from Mr. George Ade, of a card certifying that we are a member in good standing of the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George. The officers of the society, of which George Washington is patron saint, are: George Dewey, Hon. George V. English Representative; George Ade, Poet Laureate; George M. Reynolds, Hon. Treasurer.
New York Correspondence Pittsburg Dispatch, July 8, 1916
GEORGES ARE PREVENTED.
Those who bear the famous name of George are peeved at the persistency with which the complacent traveling public addresses, the Pullman servitor by that cognomen. They declare “this thing must end.” So they have formed the S. P. C. S. P. G. Club which means the “Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George. George Ade and George Cohan are the principal propagandists. Already thev have enlisted a large membership of Georges. If George Riley, big and little George McCandless, George Alderice, George Hosack, George Metcalfe and the other Pittsburg “Georges” have the same grievance and desire to join the society, a membership card -will be sent them. This card reads:
“This is to certify that Mr. George————— is a member in good standing of the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters ‘George.'” It’s very easy to join this club—merely have a member fill in a membership card and swear your allegiance to the sole object of the society.
Also, it’s much easier to retain membership, for there’s no initiation fee or annual dues.
Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1936
The Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George (S. P. C. S. C. P. G.) is on the verge of having an election, George W. Dulany Jr. 936 Lake Shore drive, founder, secretary and moneybags of the organization, revealed yesterday.
“There are two reasons,” Dulaney explained. “One is that we’re out of membership cards and we need a new slate of officers to go with the new cards. The other is that this is presidential election.”
Founded in 1916 as a joke because Dulaney turned his head when travelers yelled “George” at a porter, the society now has 30,000 members. Only a George may belong.
Former Senator George Moses is president, and George Washington and Admiral George Dewey are its patron saints.
Of the country’s 12,558 Pullman porters, only 362 are named George. Thirty of these are members of the society.
Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph, June 3, 1945
WASHINGTON—Major General George Lull, deputy surgeon general, has no time for dilly-dallying these days. In addition to his strenuous military duties he is active in the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping-car Porters George, “Just because there Is a war on,” said General Lull, in a statement to this department, “is no excuse lor neglecting the great issues of the home-front. The Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping-car Porters George must not be allowed to languish.”
This department assured General Lull It was In complete concurrence and pledged full cooperation. But, in striving to put the general’s message across, this department made an astounding—utterly incredible discovery.
It discovered there are people in this great land of ours enjoying its many blessings and privileges, who have never heard of the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping-car Porters George!
Of course, they are mainly backwoods yokels, but that does not alter the case.
There are just two words I would like to. say to them.
The words: “Tut! Tut!”
The Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping-car Porters George—or SPCSCPG as it is known among Washington’s alphabetical agencies—is one of the great, flourishing organizations of our day.
It is strictly not a gag. It Is a serious organization devoted to a serious purpose. Among its members are some of the outstanding world figures of today!
The honorary president of the British chapter is His Majesty George VI, King of Great Britain and Ireland and the British dominions beyond the seas, Emperor of India—although India, I am informed, would like a recount.
The society, however, strives to be utterly democratic and unclass-conscious. Consequently it has granted George VI just as much voice in its affairs as that great American potentate George Herman (Babe) Ruth!
The international presidency also is held by an American. This signal honor has fallen to none other than Senator Walter F. George, of Georgia. Of course I will admit Senator George had a tremendous edge in prosecuting his presidential aspirations.
“George of Georgia!” had an irresistible appeal to the voting members. The SPCSCPG, as you may have gathered, is composed of men of stature who have revolted against the revolting practice of calling all Pullman porters “George.”
All whose first or last name is George are eligible. That is to say, they may be nominated for membership. But nomination does not by any means imply election. Many applicants are rejected. There are often so many blackballs a membership meeting looks like a warehouse full of caviar.
Senator George said the SPCSCPG was making steady progress toward its goal.
“I haven’t the latest figures before me,” he said, “but last reports showed a 34 per cent reduction In the number of over-night travelers who insist on bellowing ‘George!’at the porter.
“This, of course, might be due to ODT restrictions on traveling but we prefer to think otherwise. We like to feel it is due solely to the fine missionary work of the SPCSCPG.”
Senator George said the association will not hold a national convention this year, in line with the ODT ban.
“But that does not mean we are neglecting the cause. This vicious habit of calling all Pullman porters ‘George’ must cease. People named ‘George’ have a right to travel without being forced to hear their name shouted every few minutes!”
General Lull told me the organization’s patron saints are George Washington, Admiral George Dewey, and George M. Pullman. He confided that the late David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister in World War had never been invited to join because the membership committee could not agree on whether the British statesman’s last name was “Lloyd” or “George.”
I told him I knew a fellow named George Gerald Duncan who dropped the “George” and calls himself “Gerald Duncan.” General Lull said the SPCSCPG has expressed a wish that they wanted no part of him whatsoever.
“Imagine having a first name George and deliberately calling yourself Gerald?” he said.
In looking through the Washington telephone directory I found a George R. George, of 827 Allison NW He turned out to be a 47-year-old electrical contractor who has never discovered to this day why his parents hung two Georges on him.
Mr. George George said he did not belong to the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping-car Porters George but that he would be glad to join.
“My name has almost caused me to give up traveling,” he said. “It’s tough being in a Pullman and hearing both your names bellowed every few minutes!”
For further Information on the SPCSCPG please do not communicate in way with George (just call me “Dixie”) Dixon.
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