Wagon Train (TV Series)

The Gus Morgan Story (1963)

Tommy Sands: Ethan Morgan

Quotes 

• Gus Morgan : Maybe you think a quitter doesn't have to defend himself.

  Ethan Morgan : I'm not a quitter, Gus.

  Gus Morgan : Well, what would you call it? Do you have a better name for it?

  Ethan Morgan : Yes. How about: common sense?

• Ethan Morgan : You won't have any trouble recognising him. He's Vice President of the Kansas and Pacific Railroads and acts every inch of it.

• Ethan Morgan : We're not going to be able to keep the sandstone up there without an awful lot of help.

• Ethan Morgan : Ah, I shoulda known a rig like this wasn't built for the desert.

  Duke Shannon : You pull it here by yourself?

  Ethan Morgan : Nah, I learnt that when you unhitch a horse, you better tie him up.

• Ethan Morgan : Oh, I understand, all right. I understand how it is with a man who solves every one of his problems with his bare hands, even murder.

• Christopher Hale : Wait the storm out.

  Ethan Morgan : But you need a doctor, Mr Hale.

  Christopher Hale : Too tough to die. Find a rock overhang. Use stretcher for breaking storm. Build fire. Marches, my coat pocket. Wait out storm, our only chance.

• Ethan Morgan : I don't understand you, Gus. You never drank like that before.

  Gus Morgan : Leave me alone.

  Ethan Morgan : Look, if there's something, can't you tell me what it is.

  Gus Morgan : What could YOU do?

• Ethan Morgan : I know all about the percentage of rise, and the degrees of curvature, and tract of power. And I also know you can solve every one of those problems by using two locomotives instead of one.

• Ethan Morgan : You've achieved a lot without a formal education. I can appreciate you learn by trial and error. But I learned the reason why things work the way they do. I learned how to save a lot of energy. I learned how to value a human life.

• Gus Morgan : Where're you going? You going into some corner to lick your wounds?

  Ethan Morgan : You think I should hit you back, don't you?

  Gus Morgan : Yes, I like it better. I think a man would.

  Ethan Morgan : Then I'm sorry to disappoint you. Maybe if you'd be around more, you could have taught me that a man is only a man when he can force other men to their knees. And watch them die without getting sick to his stomach.

• Ethan Morgan : A locomotive still just a piece of machinery. You feed it coal and water and it works for you. It runs and your railway makes money. And when a locomotive gets worn out and quits, you don't mourn it and feel guilty because you ended its life. You toss it on the scrapheap and get a new one and forget about it.

  Gus Morgan : Are you trying to stack an engine up against the lives of the men who were lost in the tunnel?

  Ethan Morgan : One of the men was Sam Benson, a friend of mine, and yours once. Before you outgrew a gang.

  Gus Morgan : You don't run a railway on sentiment.

  Ethan Morgan : All right, Gus. How much in dollars and cents do you think those 20 lives were worth? Enough to buy a locomotive?