Very Well, This Growing Swarm Of New Pilots Presently Began To Undermine
The Wages, In Order To Get Berths.
Too late - apparently - the knights of
the tiller perceived their mistake.
Plainly, something had to be done,
and quickly; but what was to be the needful thing. A close
organization. Nothing else would answer. To compass this seemed an
impossibility; so it was talked, and talked, and then dropped. It was
too likely to ruin whoever ventured to move in the matter. But at last
about a dozen of the boldest - and some of them the best - pilots on the
river launched themselves into the enterprise and took all the chances.
They got a special charter from the legislature, with large powers,
under the name of the Pilots' Benevolent Association; elected their
officers, completed their organization, contributed capital, put
'association' wages up to two hundred and fifty dollars at once - and
then retired to their homes, for they were promptly discharged from
employment. But there were two or three unnoticed trifles in their by-
laws which had the seeds of propagation in them. For instance, all idle
members of the association, in good standing, were entitled to a pension
of twenty-five dollars per month. This began to bring in one straggler
after another from the ranks of the new-fledged pilots, in the dull
(summer) season. Better have twenty-five dollars than starve; the
initiation fee was only twelve dollars, and no dues required from the
unemployed.
Also, the widows of deceased members in good standing could draw twenty-
five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of their children.
Also, the said deceased would be buried at the association's expense.
These things resurrected all the superannuated and forgotten pilots in
the Mississippi Valley.
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