Four years ago, as part of an all-out cost-cutting program, the Southern Pacific Co.'s tough President Donald Russell (TIME cover, Aug. 11) began to thin out the ranks of S.P. telegraphers. The move made economic sense: in a day of central traffic control, telegraphers are increasingly only a nostalgic reminder of railroading's romantic past. But last week, after 3½ years of off-again on-again negotiations, which finally wound up in Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg's Washington office, the telegraphers whistled Russell to a stop. Rather than face a strike in which the telegraphers...
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