Brinksmanship, Shepherd Style
Boss Shepherd’s unabashed use of his self-proclaimed “law of necessity” during his reign as the District’s kingpin insured a steady diet of confrontational politics. Of course, the Boss usually won. Stories about Shepherd’s fights with those who stood in his way are legion, but perhaps his most celebrated confrontation was with John W. Garrett, the powerful president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
The Baltimore & Ohio tracks had been a major eyesore on the face of Washington ever since they were hastily laid as an emergency measure during the Civil War. They ran across Pennsylvania Avenue on the west side of the Capitol grounds, and when strings of railroad cars were left there — sometimes for days at a time — it was impossible to approach Capitol Hill from the west. But the war had been over for seven years, and while no one liked the situation, most tolerated it.
Most, that is, except for Alexander Shepherd. He and B & O president Garrett had conducted brief negotiations over removal of the tracks, but to no avail. Garrett’s proposed solution to the mess was to tunnel under Capitol Hill, and Congress already had agreed to consider the plan. Soon after dusk had settled over Washington on the evening of November 18, 1872, the Boss played his trump card. By 3 a.m., Shepherd’s crew of 300 laborers, wielding pickaxes and shovels, had torn up the B & O tracks in question, buried the roadbed, and not-so-neatly heaped the discarded tracks in front of the train station. When word reached Garrett, he stormed down from Baltimore to confront the man who had just ripped up part of his railroad. But it was already too late.
The outcome of their meeting was never in doubt. Garrett was the immovable object, Shepherd the irresistible force. And on that evening, the force was with Shepherd. When the smoke had cleared, Garrett turned to his adversary and said, “Shepherd, I offer you the job of first vice president of the Baltimore & Ohio. You’re just the man I’ve been looking for.”
Main Story: Boss
This article originally appeared in the November/December 1981 issue of Regardie’s.
Bill Hogan