History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad

11 A Curmudgeon for All Seasons: Milton H. Smith and His Administration

11 A Curmudgeon for All Seasons: Milton H. Smith and His Administration The accession of Milton Smith to the presidency in 1884 ushered in an administration that was to run the L & N until 1921. During that long reign Smith influenced the course of the system's destiny more than any other man in its history except Albert Fink. In dedication, single-mindedness of purpose, and sheer tenacity he was unrivaled. No other railroad executive in the nation succeeded in achieving so indelible a personal identification with his company, and few equalled his energy and devotion to detail. The effect of his 37-year presidency was to create the legend that Milton H. Smith ran the L & N Railroad—indeed that he was the L & N Railroad—and that he represented a last charming bastion of rugged individualism in the emerging corporate era. As more and more of his peers retreated behind a faceless anonymity, Smith remained a colorful relic of a passing era, driving his employees unsparingly while breaking lances with shippers, rival managers, bankers, uncooperative politicians, state and federal commissioners, and congressional committees . He was truly cast from the mold by which a business culture shaped its heroes, and his lack of interests other than the company only reinforced that image. There was, of course, much truth in the legend. Smith did possess the vigor, genius, zeal, and monomania generally attributed to him. So, too, was he gruff, cantankerous, hard-nosed, and sardonic. But the combination of his talents and eccentricities, potent as they might be, were not enough 2 2 4 HISTORY OF THE LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD to fulfill the legend of complete domination over his company. The trends of his time were running against him, and his apparent resistance to them earned him his reputation as a maverick. That reputation, like Theodore Roosevelt's, was based more upon his colorful rhetoric and eccentricities than upon his enduring practices and influence. It was Smith, after all, who did much to rationalize the L & N's administration into a cohesive structure capable of dealing with the complex problems of the interterritorial era. And it was Smith who devised and promulgated a viable developmental strategy for that era. He did more than rescue the L & N from the shambles in which the financiers had left it; he gave the company unity and direction in the face of obstacles that would have overwhelmed a lesser man. In the process he helped shape the very kind of efficient, rational bureaucracy he was supposed to have resented. As suggested above, there was rich irony in the Smith legend and legacy. He was devoted above all to efficiency, which meant that he opposed not bureaucracy itself, but clumsy, cumbersome, and inefficient bureaucracy . He used the very force of his personality to create a corporate structure impervious to damage by personalities less capable and honorable than his own. A symbol of rugged individualism in the corporate era, he did everything in his power to insure that capricious individuals could never again derange the company's destiny. And, contrary to legend, he did not have a free hand. The logic of his approach and the financial realities of the situation demanded a strict separation of financial and operational responsibilities. Accepting that notion fully in principle, Smith rebelled against it constantly in practice. It meant that he was always at the mercy of the bankers in formulating any policy that involved large expenditures. Convinced that he understood the company's needs better than anyone, he fought the restraints of the more conservative guardians of the purse no less savagely than he fought the politicians seeking to regulate his activities. From those conflicts emerged the compromise policies that governed the L & N system for nearly forty years. The Road to Railroading Smith's early years followed the migratory pattern of so many Americans of his era. He was born in 1836 in Green County, New York, the oldest of nine surviving children. His family roots traced back into New England where his great-grandfather, a Connecticut surgeon, had served with the American army during the Revolution. His father, Irulus Smith, a farmer and occasional carpenter, possessed a strong streak of Yankee individualism that he passed on to his sons in spirit as well as in the Milton H. Smith, a gruff and stern managerial genius who held the presidency of the L & N longer than any other man and was more closely identified...