Читать книгу Seventy Years on the Frontier - Alexander Majors - Страница 18

Table of Contents

When I grew up and became a married man, with daughters who were to be clothed and educated, I found it impossible to make, with the labor of one man on a farm, sufficient money to meet my growing necessities. I was raised on a farm and had always been a farmer, but with increasing expenses I was compelled to go into business of some kind, where I could accumulate a sufficiency for such purposes.

As I was brought up to handle animals, and had been employed more or less in the teaming business, after looking the situation all over, it occurred to me there was nothing I was so well adapted for by my past experience as the freighting business that was then being conducted between Independence, Mo., and Santa Fé, New Mexico, a distance of 800 miles.

At that time almost the entire distance lay through Indian Territory, where we were likely, on a greater portion of the trail, to meet hostile Indians any moment.

Being a religious man and opposed to all kinds of profanity, and knowing the practice of teamsters, almost without an exception, was to use profane and vulgar language, and to travel upon the Sabbath day, another difficulty presented itself to my mind which had to be overcome.

After due reflection on this subject I resolved in my innermost nature, by the help of God, I would overcome all difficulties that presented themselves to my mind, let the hazard be whatever it might. This resolve I carried out, and it was the keynote to my great success in the management of men and animals.

Having reached this determination, and being ready to embark in my new business, I formulated a code of rules for the behavior of my employees, which read as follows:

"While I am in the employ of A. Majors, I agree not to use profane language, not to get drunk, not to gamble, not to treat animals cruelly, and not to do anything else that is incompatible with the conduct of a gentleman. And I agree, if I violate any of the above conditions, to accept my discharge without any pay for my services."

I do not remember a single instance of a man signing these "iron-clad rules," as they called them, being discharged without his pay. My employes seemed to understand in the beginning of their term of service that their good behavior was part of the recompense they gave me for the money I paid them.

A few years later, when the Civil War had commenced, I bound my employes to pay true allegiance to the Government of the United States, while in my employ, in addition to the above.

I will say to my readers that, had I had the experience of a thousand years, I could not have formulated a better code of rules for the government of my business than those adopted, looking entirely from a moral standpoint. The result proved to be worth more to me in a money point of view than that resulting from any other course I could have pursued, for with the enforcement of these rules, which I had little trouble to do, a few years gave me control of the business of the plains and, of course, a widespread reputation for conducting business on a humane plan.

I can state with truthfulness that never in the history of freighting on the plains did such quiet, gentlemanly, fraternal feelings exist as among the men who were in my employ and governed by these rules.