Boomer Bill – His Book, by I.M. Brown

[benjamintickell53]

Originally Posted in Yahoo Mopac group, January 2005

Boomer Bill, His Book is the first listing on the MPHS website library page, but we don’t have anything written up on it. I bought my copy off ebay a week or so back and have just finished reading it. I was assuming that the book was a tale about a MP railroader’s experience on the MP/Iron Mountain but seems I am wrong. I now think it was published as a morale booster for the MP employees, in line with the activities of the MP Booster Organization.

1- Was the book in fact an advertising book to be used similarly as the book on stations and areas of the MP?
2- Are the folks mentioned in the book All real which would also indicate the positions mentioned were real as well?
3- Was the book tied into the Booster Organization and how?
4- Can anyone explain the Booster Organization and it’s objectives? When formed, who could join, it’s relative importance to the MP/Iron
Mountain? Any notable accomplishments?
5- Does anyone have any memories of/know anything about I M Brown the author of Boomer Bill?

Elvin Klepzig

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Elvin,

The book Boomer Bill, by I.M Brown, is a classic for anyone interested in the MP during the mid-late 1920s. I obtained my copy of the book in 1964 from Walter Robbins, onetime boomer and longtime MP (I-GN) brakeman and conductor at Palestine, when I was still in junior high school and first getting seriously interested in railroading.

[attachment=4:3tf374ey]IMB.jpg[/attachment:3tf374ey] [attachment=0:3tf374ey]BB_0001w.jpg[/attachment:3tf374ey]

There is at least one lengthy article about the book and its author, I.M. Brown, in a Missouri Pacific Magazine of that era, and Brown authored a column in MP Magazine for a time. According to the forward in the book, Brown began his railroad career as call boy at Poplar Bluff, so you might be able to mine some information from the local newspaper microfilm files. Columns with the Boomer Bill byline began to appear in the Missouri Pacific Magazine in April 1924, and most if not all of these were contained in the book “Boomer Bill,” which was published in early 1930. After publication of the book, I.M. Brown continued to produce the monthly column in Missouri Pacific Magazine, all columns containing names of actual MP railroaders with whom he was acquainted. At the time of his death on September 7, 1931, I.M. Brown had written 99 such “Boomer Bill” switch shanty stories.

As far as I know, most if not all of the names and job descriptions mentioned in the book were real… J.A. Smallwood is mentioned in the book as the agent at Russellville, AR, and he was indeed the agent there for many years. In past conversations about this book with now deceased veteran MP employees such as Mike Adams, Eakles Hille, and Bill Church, they knew many of the people mentioned, so I think we can safely conclude that the people and the general circumstances in the book were indeed real, with a bit of artistic license thrown in to make the story interesting.

You cannot read the book without developing a strong admiration for L.W. Baldwin, a leader who was arguably Mopac’s greatest president. I suspect that promotion of company morale was indeed part of the motive for the book, and virtually every story has some mention of the MP Booster Club organization. I also suspect that Mopac underwrote the publication of the book, though I have no actual evidence of that belief. (Note that it is rare to see any significant criticism of the company in the book, other than an occasional tongue-in-cheek reference to a few hard-boiled trainmasters.)

All of the railroads, including Mopac, had suffered through a very bitter and divisive period of labor-management relations in the early and mid-1920s as a result of changing operations and reduced wage scales after the railroads transitioned back from USRA operation to private operation, culminating with the shopcraft strike a few years later. The Booster Clubs, the employee magazine, and this book were all part of the effort to boost employee morale and bring back a sense of company support after that period of intense labor unrest.

While the Booster Clubs were intended to benefit employee morale, the company also hoped to benefit as employees became more active in soliciting passenger and freight business for the railroad. Local freight and local passenger business was in sharp decline due to the government’s newfound infatuation with highways and the minimal regulation of bus and truck traffic which quickly developed to compete with the railroad. This traffic decline was hastened by the Great Depression, and traffic solicitation became almost an issue of job security for some employees. Boomer Bill was able to promote employee morale while suggesting an almost patriotic duty to be active in the Booster Clubs to bring additional traffic to the Missouri Pacific.

Brown even gets in a tiny bit of social commentary, with his recurring negative comments about rude “loud-mouths” in and about the Pullman cars — both passengers and employees. That tradition, and the problem, continues today, so the next time you are awakened in the sleeper on Amtrak’s Texas Eagle by a conductor passing through the car with his radio blaring, your aggravation is just as “historic” as the route your are riding — just another bit of railroad tradition.

I don’t think that Boomer Bill was an advertising or public relations book, but was published more for employees, just as you concluded after reading the book. Brown was a strong supporter of the Booster organization, but it remains to be determined whether there was any more formal relationship between the book and the booster clubs.

The history of the MP Booster Club needs to be written, if for no other reason than to give some historical substance to the many MP Booster Club lapel pins that are now in collections. The Booster Clubs originated early in the Baldwin presidency, and at least in Little Rock, they remained active into the late 1960s, with the former black waiting room at LRUD serving as the booster hall. It appears that the clubs were initially employees and their families, but by the late 50s-early 60s, much of the club membership was made up of retired employees, with only limited participation by current employees. Somewhere along the way, the booster clubs lost their company booster/traffic solicitation aspect, having evolved into more of a social club. The demise of the Booster Club organization was perhaps inevitable as a result of changing times, but it was probably hastened by the change in corporate management personalities and an even greater change in management style that took place in 1961.

Bill Pollard

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[attachment=3:3tf374ey]Bio.jpg[/attachment:3tf374ey][attachment=1:3tf374ey]forward.jpg[/attachment:3tf374ey][attachment=2:3tf374ey]preface.jpg[/attachment:3tf374ey]

[benjamintickell53]

Here is a sample story from the book.

[peggyrothschild]

Bill
I have a letter from L. W. Baldwin awarding a Boomer Bill book to an M-I agent for his efforts in the 1930’s in promoting local business. I’ll dig it out and scan it.

[benjamintickell53]

Charlie, the use of the Boomer Bill book as a “prize” for traffic soliciation would definitely tie the book in closer with the booster club activities and the suggestion that the company financed the deal. At some point, digitization of the book and the subsequent Boomer Bill articles in the magazines might be a good project.

The September 1931 MP Magazine carried the last Boomer Bill column. A news item in the May 1932 magazine stated: “Boomer Bill books will be distributed as prizes to Chief Boosters, rather than gold booster club buttons. The author, I.M. (Ike) Brown, was associated with booster affairs until his death less than a year ago.”

[peggyrothschild]

Bill
Here’s the letter from L. W. Baldwin to the M-I agent at Evansville, Illinois dated May 2, 1932. [attachment=1:1m42sl71]image.jpeg[/attachment:1m42sl71][attachment=0:1m42sl71]image.jpeg[/attachment:1m42sl71]

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