Review - "The Brasspounder"

by Jim Haynes

			Book Review

		"The Brasspounder" by D. G. Sanders
		copyr 1978, ISBN 0-8015-0881-9
		Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York


D. G. Sanders grew up in the little coal mining town of Hemlock, Ohio.
At the age of thirteen he got interested in telegraphy by hanging around
the railroad depot.

   "Now be it noted that in that day [1912] telegraphers were a special
   kind of people.  They were thought to be especially talented and
   their advice was sought.  They got notices in the paper now and then,
   and fables were attached to some.  There was one fabulous fellow,
   never named, who could send a message with one hand while taking down
   another message with the other hand..."

The station agent helped him to learn Morse code.  By taking care of
horses, and by trapping muskrats, he earned enough money
to order a Morse practice set from Sears, Roebuck.  A four mile walk
took him to a town where the telephone company would sell a used but
still serviceable battery for a nickel.

When he was sixteen his family moved to Coshocton, a city large enough to
have a bustling Western Union office.  Within a few days he had acquired
his first pair of long pants and a job as a Western Union bicycle
messenger.  A fringe benefit of that job was an opportunity to learn
telegraphy.  After a few months he realized that a career with Western
Union would entail working in an office in a city, and that the rural
life was more to his liking.  A railroad worker friend suggested that
he use the railroad telegraph to introduce himself to a supervisor and ask for
a job.  He was hired by Pennsylvania Railroad and sent to a station
to work and be trained on the job.  After five months he was assigned
to a signal cabin where he would work alone.  He was a few months short
of seventeen years old - he had told the railroad he was 17 already.

The rest of the book is more about railroading than about telegraphy.
There was a close relationship between Western Union and the railroads.
He mentions that in small towns the railroad station might also be
the Western Union office, and that in larger towns the railroad
office might be used for telegraph business outside the hours when
the W.U. office was open.  On one occasion Sanders' boss from his
Western Union days telegraphed him at at his railroad office,  offering
him a one-night moonlighting job receiving returns from the 1916
Presidential election.  He typed these on transparent paper, which
was then used with a magic lantern to project onto a sheet attached
to a building across the street, where the public was gathered.

He mentions the distinctive style, or "fist", of each telegrapher,
whereby he could identify who was sending.  The possibilities for
ambiguity in American Morse code led to some confusing and amusing
messages, as when a bridge inspector's report was copied as "Found
a lion under bridge 16..."  (the intended message was "Foundation
under bridge 16...").

In 1922 he was furloughed because a coal strike left his branch of
the railroad without any traffic.  He quickly found work as a farm
hand, but after a month was called to Akron where the railroad was
swamped with telegraph work.  He could have remained there after the
strike was over, but preferred to return to his former station.
In 1937 he was offered the opportunity to become a train dispatcher,
but turned it down so that he could remain in the country.  In 1938
he got the second-shift operator's spot at Orrville and remained
there until retirement in 1965, with 50 years service.  He notes
that by the end of World War II there were many railroad signal operators
who did not telegraph.
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