of the wages which the applicant had received each and every
month since the founding of the association. In many cases this
amounted to three or four hundred dollars. Still, the association
would not entertain the application until the money was present.
Even then a single adverse vote killed the application.
Every member had to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in person and before witnesses;
so it took weeks to decide a candidacy, because many pilots
were so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant
sinners scraped their savings together, and one by one,
by our tedious voting process, they were added to the fold.
A time came, at last, when only about ten remained outside.
They said they would starve before they would apply.
They remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could venture
to employ them.
By and by the association published the fact that upon a certain
date the wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month.
All the branch associations had grown strong, now, and the Red
River one had advanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month.
Reluctantly the ten outsiders yielded, in view of these things,
and made application. There was another new by-law, by this time,
which required them to pay dues not only on all the wages they
had received since the association was born, but also on what they
would have received if they had continued at work up to the time
of their application, instead of going off to pout in idleness.
It turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them, but it
was accomplished at last. The most virulent sinner of this
batch had stayed out and allowed ‘dues’ to accumulate against
him so long that he had to send in six hundred and twenty-five
dollars with his application.
The association had a good bank account now, and was very strong.
There was no longer an outsider. A by-law was added forbidding
the reception of any more cubs or apprentices for five years;
after which time a limited number would be taken, not by individuals,
but by the association, upon these terms: the applicant must
not be less than eighteen years old, and of respectable family
and good character; he must pass an examination as to education,
pay a thousand dollars in advance for the privilege of becoming
an apprentice, and must remain under the commands of the association
until a great part of the membership (more than half, I think)
should be willing to sign his application for a pilot’s license.
All previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from their
masters and adopted by the association. The president and secretary
detailed them for service on one boat or another, as they chose,
and changed them from boat to boat according to certain rules.
If a pilot could show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance,
one of the cubs would be ordered to go with him.
The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association’s
financial resources. The association attended its own
funerals in state, and paid for them. When occasion demanded,
it sent members down the river upon searches for the bodies
of brethren lost by steamboat accidents; a search of this kind
sometimes cost a thousand dollars.
The association procured a charter and went into the insurance
business, also. It not only insured the lives of its members,
but took risks on steamboats.
The organization seemed indestructible. It was the tightest monopoly
in the world. By the United States law, no man could become
a pilot unless two duly licensed pilots signed his application;
and now there was nobody outside of the association competent
to sign. Consequently the making of pilots was at an end.
Every year some would die and others become incapacitated by age
and infirmity; there would be no new ones to take their places.
In time, the association could put wages up to any figure it chose;
and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry the thing
too far and provoke the national government into amending
the licensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit,
since there would be no help for it.