ng department to the highest, and during that five
years he introduced nearly one hundred improvements in locomotive
construction.

The training he had received in a small machine-shop was repaying him with
interest, and his determination to make machines do as much work as
possible was bearing fruit. Wherever he could, he introduced automatic
machines.

He was only twenty-five years old when he was promoted to the position of
chief draftsman in the Rhode Island Locomotive Works.

"Rather a responsible position for a young man," one of his friends
suggested dubiously.

"Not if the young man knows his business," replied Pitkin. "And I think I
do. I've thought of nothing else for the last nine years."

Became Superintendent.

After two years in Providence, he went to the Schenectady Locomotive
Works, and in two years he became superintendent of the shops. Here he was
free to put into operation many of the ideas he could not use before,
while he was working in subordinate positions, and it was largely due to
him that the Schenectady company became one of the most prosperous in the
country.

When the American Locomotive Company was organized, Pitkin was made
vice-president, for it was recognized that he was probably the most
thoroughly equipped man in the business. There was not a department with
which he was not acquainted, nor a mechanical operation in the shops that
he could not perform.

Two years ago Samuel R. Callaway, president of the company, died, and
Pitkin was unanimously chosen as his successor. It took him thirty years
to climb to that height, and the thirty years were marked by hundreds of
improvements in locomotive construction and by wonderful records in
turning out locomotives against time.

There were many mechanics who started with him and had an equal chance,
but they were soon distanced in the race.

"They were content," he said, "with a steady, plodding, uniform way of
doing things, and while they were methodical and obtained good results, I
tried to figure out some way of getting better results and getting them
more easily. I took chances on doing a thing in other than the prescribed
way, but often the new way was the better way."

Little Glimpses of the 19th Century.

The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled
so as to Present a Nutshell Record.

[_Continued from page 260._]

FOURTH DECADE.

1831

Political disorder in Greece becoming