LETTERS FROM AN OLD 
 RAILWAY OFFICIAL 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 HIS SON, A GENERAL MANAGER 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES DELANO 
 
 1912 
 
 Published by the 
 
 SIMMONS-BOARDMAN PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 McGraw-Hill Book Company, Sole Selling Agents 
 
 239 West Thirty-ninth Street, New York 
 London, E. C., 6 Bouverie Street. Berlin, N. W. 7, Unter der Linden 71 
 
.COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY 
 
 SlMMONS-BOARDMAN PUBLISHING Co. 
 NEW YORK 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 The author of the letters composing this book, 
 which appeared serially in the Railway Age Ga- 
 zette in 1911, is a West Point graduate. He 
 served as a lieutenant in the 6th United States 
 Infantry. He is a civil engineer. He is a gradu- 
 ate of the Cincinnati Law School. Leaving the 
 Army to enter railway service, he worked as 
 freight brakeman, switchman, yardmaster, emer- 
 gency conductor, chief clerk to superintendent, 
 and trainmaster. When the war with Spain be- 
 gan in 1898 he quit railway service and partici- 
 pated in the Santiago campaign as a major of 
 volunteers. After the war he re-entered railway 
 work, and was trainmaster and later general 
 superintendent. Subsequently, he did special 
 railway work in various staff positions for both 
 large and small railways in the United States, 
 Canada and Mexico. 
 
 He was for a time inspector of safety appli- 
 ances for the Interstate Commerce Commission. 
 In 1907 he assisted in the revision of the busi- 
 ness methods of the Department of the Interior 
 at Washington, D. C. Then he was receiver of 
 the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Elec- 
 tric Railway. In 1910, as temporary special rep- 
 resentative of President Taft, he outlined a 
 scheme for improving the organization and 
 methods of the executive departments of the 
 iii 
 
 458642 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 United States government. Meantime, in July, 
 1908, he had become special representative of 
 Mr. Julius Kruttschnitt, director of maintenance 
 and operation of the Harriman Lines, and had 
 entered on a study of the needs of the operating 
 organization of those railways and of the means 
 that should be adopted to meet those needs. The 
 result of this work was the adoption by most of 
 the Harriman Lines of the unit system of organi- 
 zation. On January 15, 1912, Major Hine be- 
 came vice-president and general manager of the 
 Southern Pacific Lines in Mexico and the Ari- 
 zona Eastern, having about 1,600 miles of rail- 
 way. 
 
 The foregoing details have not been given for 
 biographical purposes. They have been given to 
 enable the reader to understand the author's 
 point of view. Or, rather, his points of view. 
 For few men have had opportunity to look at the 
 railway business from so many angles, both prac- 
 tical and theoretical. Given such an education, 
 such a training, such a varied experience, and a 
 keen observer's eye to see, an active, logical mind 
 to generalize, and a graphic, witty, scintillant 
 English style to set down the results of observa- 
 tion, experience and thinking, and, if their pos- 
 sessor turn to writing, the product is sure to be 
 literature of interest and value. The readers of 
 Major Hine's first series of letters, "Letters of 
 an Old Railway Official to His Son, a Division 
 Superintendent," found them at once entertain- 
 ing, suggestive and instructive. They will find 
 equally or more so the second series, written after 
 a wider experience, and now embodied in this 
 volume. 
 
 IV 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 One of the greatest problems of modern rail- 
 way management is that of organization. Little 
 railways have been combined into big ones ; and 
 big railways have been consolidated into big sys- 
 tems. To so organize these extensive systems 
 that each division and each railway shall have 
 enough individuality and autonomy to deal effec- 
 tively and satisfactorily with the conditions and 
 needs local to it, and at the same time bring 
 about the correlation and unification of all parts 
 of the entire system essential to the most efficient 
 operation this is one phase of the problem. To 
 develop men able to administer skilfully depart- 
 ments having many and varied branches this is 
 another phase. It was as a means to solving this 
 great problem that Major Hine worked out the 
 unit system of organization now in effect on most 
 parts of the Harriman system. In the letters 
 composing this book he has described, not with 
 the cold, hard outlines of a blue print, but vividly, 
 and with fullness of practical illustration, trie 
 nature, purposes and workings of the unit sys- 
 tem. Whether the reader agrees with the au- 
 thor's views or not, he cannot but be interested 
 in them as the views regarding a scheme of or- 
 ganization which is the subject of widespread 
 interest and discussion of the man who origi- 
 nated and worked out that scheme of organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 Besides organization the letters deal with 
 many other questions of practical interest both 
 large and small with the relations of the railway 
 with the public ; its regulation by public bodies ; 
 the labor situation on the railways, etc. Indeed, 
 they touch on almost every phase of contempo- 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 rary railway conditions and operation. Full of 
 human touches, they clothe the skeleton of^ rail- 
 way organization and operation with flesh and 
 blood; and will give the current reader and the 
 future historian a better picture of contemporary 
 railway working than many more stilted and pre- 
 tentious books. 
 
 SAMUEL O. DUNN. 
 
 VI 
 
FILE NUMBERS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 The New General Manager I 
 
 LETTER II. 
 Building an Organization 10 
 
 LETTER III. 
 The General Manager on the Witness Stand 20 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 Further Gruelling of the General Manager 32 
 
 LETTER V. 
 Limitations of the Chief Clerk System 43 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 Preventing, Instead of Paying, Claims 52 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 The Chief of Staff Idea 63 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 The Unit System 73 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 Standardizing Office Files 88 
 
 LETTER X. 
 The Line and the Staff 100 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 The Problem of the Get-Rich-Quick Conductor. 112 
 vii 
 
LETTER XII. 
 The Labor Nemesis and the Manager 126 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 A Department of Inspection, or Efficiency 136 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 Preserving Organization Integrity 146 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 The Size of an Operating Division 156 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 Supplies and Purchases '. . 168 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 Correspondence and Explanations 181 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 Organization of the Ideal Railroad 192 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 The Engineering of Men 205 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 The Fallacy of the Train-Mile Unit 214 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 The Man-Day as a Unit , 224 
 
 Appendix .228 
 
 via 
 
Letters From A Railway Official 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 THE NEW GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 Chicago, April 8, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : Once more a circular comes 
 to gladden my heart and gratify my pride. 
 This circular announces your appointment as 
 general manager, a position of honor and im- 
 portance, extensive in its opportunities for 
 good administration as well as for wasteful 
 neglect. 
 
 Some seven years ago, when you were a di- 
 vision superintendent, I wrote you a book of 
 letters which caused us both to be taken more 
 seriously than perhaps we shall ever be again. 
 Can T. R. come back? I don't know, I am 
 sure, but your old Dad can and will. For 
 never before in our splendid profession of rail- 
 roading has there been greater need for the 
 wisdom of old age, the enthusiasm of youth, 
 and the balanced execution of middle life. We, 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 the railways, we the most scattered and, ergo, 
 the most exposed of property rights, are the 
 first of the outposts to receive and to repel the 
 assaults of anarchy and its smaller sister, so- 
 cialism. Subtle, sinister, and specious is the 
 reasoning which supports the claims of those 
 who single out the arteries of inland commerce 
 as a thing apart, as something immune to the 
 irresistible laws of cause and effect. Shall we 
 sit idly by, because we have had our part ? No, 
 my son. In that inspiring painting, 'The 
 Spirit of '76," the old man and the boy, equals 
 in enthusiasm, typify the soul love of liberty of 
 an aroused people. Let you and I, therefore, 
 do our little part to call to arms our brethren 
 of a nation-long village street. Perhaps we 
 are only hired hands of imaginary "interests." 
 Perhaps, nevertheless, we are liberty-loving, 
 God-fearing, right-thinking American citizens. 
 Perhaps we do not need to be backed into the 
 last corner before we turn and stand for the 
 God-given rights for which men of all ages 
 have been willing to fight and die. Perhaps the 
 muck-rakers have not procured all the patents 
 pertaining to perfection, potential or pro- 
 nounced. But be that as it may, you and I 
 can at least be heard, can have our day in the 
 
THE NEW GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 forum of public opinion, which after all is the 
 court of last resort. In the language of Mr. 
 Dooley, the decisions of the Supreme Court 
 follow the popular elections. 
 
 What shall we do to be saved? First, put 
 our own house in order that example may pro- 
 tect precept. It is a pretty good house after 
 all. Only eighty years old to be sure, short in 
 epochs of experience, but relatively long in 
 aeons of achievement. It already has some 
 degenerate offspring, but mighty few when 
 you consider the rapidity of forced breeding, 
 the intensity of incubation. Transportation, ac- 
 knowledged as second only to agriculture in 
 the world's great industries, has advanced 
 faster and further in eight decades than has 
 agriculture in eight centuries. That is some- 
 thing to be proud of. Therein is glory enough 
 for us all. 
 
 Unfortunately, pride goeth before destruc- 
 tion. In the bivouac of the living, glory is a 
 mighty unreliable sentinel. Let us hang up 
 pride and glory as our Sunday-go-to-meeting 
 clothes. Let us don consistent practice and 
 tenacious watchfulness for week-day wear. 
 Let us cease to temporize with principle when 
 such unmanly action seems easy and inexpen- 
 3 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 sive. Nothing is so expensive ultimately as a 
 violation of principle. A platitude, you say. 
 So it is. The aforesaid T. R. has gained a 
 great hold on the American people, at one time 
 a strangle hold, by repeating platitudes over 
 and over again. Great is the man who can 
 measure the limitations of his fellows. Let 
 us take a leaf from his book and repeat, reiter- 
 ate, and reverberate the Ten Commandments, 
 and the greatest of all commandments, the 
 Golden Rule, alias the Square Deal. 
 
 It takes an abnormally intelligent people to 
 grasp at first blush the truism that railways 
 should charge "what the traffic will bear" for 
 the same good reason that the corner grocer 
 makes all the profit the business will survive. 
 Therefore, put the soft pedal on cost of service 
 and a fair return on capital invested. 
 
 Get on the band wagon and follow the able 
 lead of the good old Railway Age Gazette in 
 playing the logical tune of value of service 
 rendered, of charging all the admission fee 
 the show will stand. The people will not go 
 to church to hear our preaching. We must 
 reach them in the highways and the byways, 
 in the moving picture shows, and through im- 
 provised Salvation Armies of self-interest. Do 
 4 
 
THE NEW GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 not expect the people to espouse a cause in 
 which we are half-hearted. Either we are 
 right or we are wrong. Either the govern- 
 ment should own and run the railways, or the 
 stockholders should retain possession and we, 
 the intelligent entrepreneur class, should con- 
 tinue our scientific management for scientific 
 it has been. 
 
 In a world of complexities, filled with rela- 
 tive things, some truths are so absolute that 
 they are axiomatic, some positions so pro- 
 nounced that there is no middle ground. From 
 Trafalgar there rings through the ages Nel- 
 son's signal, "England expects every man to 
 do his duty." Its interpretation and its adapta- 
 tion for us to-day mean that every railroad 
 man, every home lover, every believer in prop- 
 erty rights must defend the sound position of 
 the railways, must anticipate the assaults of 
 pseudo-socialism. The individual is the indi- 
 visible unit of society. The family is the con- 
 secrated unit of civilization. The home is the 
 prime requisite for the family whose very ex- 
 istence depends upon the right of property, 
 tangible or intangible. 
 
 You say that all railway men are doing 
 something along this line. So they are, but 
 5 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 nearly every one can do more if intelligently 
 and persistently directed. We have taken too 
 much for granted in believing that the legal de- 
 partment would look out for legislation, and 
 the press agent for publicity. This phase, like 
 many of our problems, is a question of organi- 
 zation, which itself as a science is a branch of 
 sociology. On most railways some department 
 never, of course, our own has uncon- 
 sciously tried to be bigger than the whole com- 
 pany, in violation of the axiom that the whole 
 is greater than any of its parts. When, by 
 proper organization, we balance these depart- 
 ments especially on the other fellow's road 
 we shall be in a better position to present a 
 more united front in forestalling the arrival of 
 the common enemy, prejudice and his principal 
 ally, ignorance. "Men," says Marcus Aurelius, 
 "exist for one another. Teach them, then, or 
 bear with them." We, the railroads, have done 
 our share of bearing. It is time to do more 
 teaching. Before we can impart knowledge 
 we must know ourselves, we must be sure of 
 our own information. 
 
 Naturally, I want you to be the best general 
 manager in the country. Therefore, if I am a 
 little too didactic at times, you must be patient 
 6 
 
THE NEW GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 with me. Of course, you will have to work 
 out your conclusions for yourself. Remember 
 that I am too old at this teaching game to try 
 always to think for other people. My job is 
 so to state the propositions that you will reach 
 the answers in your own way. Incidentally, 
 the more you think you have discovered for 
 yourself, the greater the credit due your 
 teacher. Men are only boys grown tall. As 
 grown-up children they seem to prefer the mis- 
 fits of their own manufacture to the hand-me- 
 down assortment from the shelves of stored 
 experience. Too often the employing corpora- 
 tion pays the bill for educating an official for 
 his duties after his promotion and appointment, 
 for the cloth he wastes in selecting unwise pat- 
 terns of procedure. 
 
 Most of our large corporations are still in 
 a stage of industrial feudalism. In the middle 
 ages the feudal baron and his methods were 
 absolutely essential to preserve civilization for 
 society. Without him and his forceful ways 
 the relapse to barbarism would have been 
 rapid. In the earlier periods of the large cor- 
 poration the industrial baron and his ofttimes 
 lawless audacity were essentials of corporate 
 existence. As these great types die off, their 
 7 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 system dies with them. Supply keeps close on 
 the heels of demand. These feudal barons of 
 industry and commerce are breeding no suc- 
 cessors because none are needed. As a govern- 
 ment of laws succeeds a government of men, 
 so administration by system displaces adminis- 
 tration by personal caprice. The scheme of 
 progress now demands a higher type of cor- 
 poration official, and he is being rapidly de- 
 veloped. Altruism, adaptability, consideration 
 and courtesy are the more modern require- 
 ments. The successful official of to-day is 
 more of a sociologist than ever before. He 
 must study human nature from its broadest 
 aspects. He must know the public, its whims 
 and caprices, its faults and foibles, its intelli- 
 gence and its strength. He must learn to know 
 his men that he may see how many things they 
 can do, not how few. Human nature is mighty 
 good stuff. The more it is trusted the better it 
 responds. The feudal baron did not know 
 this. He was jealous of his own authority, be- 
 cause more or less conscious of his limitations, 
 of the weakness of his system. Those who 
 take up his self-imposed responsibilities must 
 be better men. They must be so sure of them- 
 selves and of the science of their methods that 
 8 
 
THE NEW GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 they can trust others, can delegate authority to 
 the man on the ground. The task of the gen- 
 eral manager to-day is so to decentralize au- 
 thority that the company can obtain the best 
 thought of the humblest employe, that indi- 
 visible unit of society whom his feudal su- 
 periors have trusted too little. The most im- 
 portant unit of organization is the individual. 
 Give him his due weight as a living, thinking 
 man, and you increase the mass efficiency of 
 the corporation. 
 
 This run is too heavy for stringing on one 
 schedule. I am now giving you the first ter- 
 minal figure, 12.01 a. m. at Problem. Next 
 time if I can push you to Principle you can per- 
 haps flag over a station or two toward the 
 despatcher at Understanding, whose wires 
 have been known to go down in stormy 
 weather. 
 
 With a father's blessing, 
 
 Your affectionate and rejuvenated, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Chicago, April 15, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy: Nearly every man en- 
 trusted with authority over his fellows flatters 
 himself that he is a born organizer. Flattery 
 is never more deceptive than when applied to 
 one's self. 
 
 For every good organizer there are a hun- 
 dred good administrators or managers. What 
 often passes for good organization is first class 
 administration. Yes, many a mother's son who 
 reads this will exclaim at first blush, "That is 
 just what I have been saying for a long time. 
 It beats all how weak some organizations are. 
 I am glad that my organization can stand the 
 test of such criticism." 
 
 If elements of self -perpetuation are prime 
 essentials of good organization, the Pharisee 
 family are certainly entitled to bid in the pre- 
 ferred runs. 
 
 The corporation was evolved to supply a de- 
 mand of society. Life, property, material, 
 10 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 moral and spiritual welfare could not be left 
 to depend upon the uncertain earthly existence 
 of the leader or trustee. So, both rationally 
 and empirically, by reason and by costly ex- 
 periment, came the corporation to beat Death 
 at his own game. Like all progress the cor- 
 poration was resisted, because in the divine 
 scheme of things the radicals never long out- 
 number the conservatives. Like all real prog- 
 ress the corporation idea won because it was 
 needed. The corporation, whether govern- 
 mental, religious, industrial or commercial, 
 marks a distinct advance from feudalism by 
 protecting the rights of the many against the 
 caprice of the few. Because we have moved 
 so fast might has often seemed to be right. 
 Because the line of least resistance is the most 
 attractive, we have sometimes backed down the 
 hill and doubled when a good run with plenty 
 of sand would have carried us over. Large 
 corporations, including many railways, have 
 often failed to attain maximum efficiency. 
 Much of this can be traced to a neglect to carry 
 out consistently in practice the sound working 
 conception of the corporation. The corpora- 
 tion has helped society to emerge from political 
 and financial feudalism. The interior organi- 
 ii 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 zation and administration of most corpora- 
 tions, including government itself, are still too 
 feudal in conception. The problem of to-day 
 is so to eradicate this feudalism that the cor- 
 poration can have the benefit of a free play of 
 its constituent forces. Where feudalism exists 
 the effective working strength is limited to the 
 personal equation of the man at the head. The 
 United States government is stronger than 
 Washington, or Lincoln, or Taft. The Great 
 Northern Railway measures its present ac- 
 knowledged effectiveness by the man the 
 Swedes call Yim Hill. The United States gov- 
 ernment grows stronger with every adminis- 
 tration. The Great Northern Railway, too 
 strong to be destroyed, faces a period of rela- 
 tive distress with the next dynasty. The Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad is stronger than such strong 
 men as Scott, Cassatt and McCrea. Both the 
 United States government and the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad, although among the least 
 feudal of large corporations, can still eradicate 
 feudalism from their interior organization and 
 administration. That, in good time, both will 
 do so cannot be doubted. Inconsistencies be- 
 tween comprehensive conceptions at the top 
 and narrow applications at the bottom are 
 
 12 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 often overlooked. When disclosed and ap- 
 preciated these incongruities soon give way 
 under pressure of the broad policies above. 
 We must build up from the bottom but tear 
 down our false work from the top. 
 
 Organization is a branch of a larger subject, 
 sociology, the science of human nature. Or- 
 ganization is not an exact science like me- 
 chanical engineering, for example. The va- 
 riables in the human equation defy entire elimi- 
 nation. We check and recheck engineering 
 conclusions. We compute and recompute ma- 
 terial strains and stresses. We run and double 
 back with the dynamometer car to try out our 
 tractive power. We test and retest materials. 
 We weigh and measure our fuel and our lubri- 
 cants. We do all this for material things, 
 which, because more or less homogeneous, are 
 the easiest to measure. When we come to the 
 really hard part, the judging of human nature, 
 the co-ordination of the heterogeneous human 
 elements, our self-confidence denies the ne- 
 cessity for preconceived practical tests. Be- 
 cause he is our man, because he followed us 
 from the sage brush or the mountains, he must 
 be all right. "Jti st look at our results." Right 
 there, my boy, shut off and pinch 'em down a 
 13 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 little. What are results ? Does any one know 
 exactly? One year they are operating ratio, 
 another, train load, and later on, net earnings. 
 In no storehouse do material things deteriorate 
 to scrap value faster than does the intangible, 
 indeterminate stock article, results. No, I 
 am not a pessimist ; I still see the ring of the 
 doughnut on the lunch counter. But I do 
 object to being fed on birds from year before 
 last's nests. I believe the railways hatch out 
 better results every year, but I also feel that 
 improvement should and can be made even 
 faster. It is largely a breeding problem. How 
 best can we blend our numerous strains to pro- 
 duce a balanced output? Too often we try to 
 do this by cutting off the heads of all the old 
 roosters, whose craws really contain too much 
 good sand to be wasted. A change of diet to a 
 balanced ration may be all-sufficient. 
 
 The wonderful Nineteenth Century in the 
 name of a proper specialization went too far. 
 It over-specialized. The still more wonderful 
 Twentieth Century will swing back to a bal- 
 anced specialization. The medical colleges are 
 learning that they can not turn out successful 
 eye and ear specialists, the law schools that the 
 constitutional or interstate commerce lawyer is 
 14 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 the production of a later period. The success- 
 ful specialist must first have the foundation 
 of an all-round training. Broadly speaking, 
 one applies everything of something only by 
 learning something of everything. We all be- 
 lieve in specialization. Where we differ is as 
 to the point where specialization stops and 
 overspecialization begins. We all believe in 
 religion. Where we differ is as to which is 
 the main line and which the runaway track, as 
 to which derail deserves a distant banjo signal 
 and which an upper quadrant. Orthodoxy is 
 usually my doxy. The great fear is always 
 that the other fellow, being less orthodox than 
 we, will try to put over some constructive mile- 
 age on us. Sometimes this causes us to make 
 his run so long and his train so heavy that he 
 ties up under the sixteen-hour law and we miss 
 supper hour going out to tow him in. An 
 empty stomach discourages drowsiness, and we 
 may then stay awake long enough tp realize 
 that said other fellow was just as orthodox as 
 anybody about trying to make a good run. 
 
 The corollary of specialization is centraliza- 
 tion. The undesirable corollary of overspecial- 
 ization is overcentralization. Get out your de- 
 tour map, approach this proposition by any 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 route of reasoning you please, and you will 
 reach the same conclusion. 
 
 Railway administration to-day suffers most 
 of all from overcentralization. Trace this to 
 its source and you will find overspecialization 
 of function, and its concomitant, an exagger- 
 ated value of certain constituent elements of 
 administration. When in doubt, recall the ever 
 applicable axiom that the whole is greater than 
 any of its parts. Some people confuse the 
 terms and ideas, concentration and centraliza- 
 tion. Proper concentration in complete units 
 by an earlier convergence of authority permits 
 decentralization in administration. A lack of 
 such early concentration makes centralization 
 inevitable. Again, concentration of financial 
 control is not incompatible with decentraliza- 
 tion of administration among constituent con- 
 trolled properties. When the big bankers have 
 time to think out these propositions for them- 
 selves they will permit the railways to get 
 closer to the people and hostile legislation will 
 diminish if not disappear. 
 
 Organization as a science seeks to develop 
 
 and to support the strong qualities of human 
 
 nature. Organization likewise takes account 
 
 of and seeks to minimize the amiable failings 
 
 16 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 of human nature. Constitutional liberty in- 
 sures the citizen protection against the caprice 
 of the public officer. Administrative liberty 
 demands an analogous measure of protection 
 for the subordinate from the whim of his cor- 
 porate superior. An amiable failing of many 
 a railway president is to be satisfied with hav- 
 ing everybody under his own authority, and to 
 forget that the official next below may be em- 
 barrassed by having only a partial control. The 
 general manager who insists the hardest that 
 his superintendents are best off under his de- 
 partmental system will squirm the quickest un- 
 der the acid test of having the chief supply, the 
 chief maintenance or the chief mechanical of- 
 ficial report to the president. The superinten- 
 dent who finds himself with a complete divi- 
 sional organization is oblivious to the troubles 
 of a distant yardmaster with car inspectors. 
 When your old Dad was a ninety-dollar yard- 
 master some of his most important work was 
 at the mercy of a forty-five dollar car inspector. 
 The latter was under a master mechanic a hun- 
 dred miles or more away, who in turn could 
 usually and properly count on the support of 
 the superintendent of motive power. The ob- 
 vious inference was to relieve the yardmaster 
 17 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 of responsibility for mechanical matters. 
 From one viewpoint these mechanical ques- 
 tions are too highly technical for the yard- 
 master. From another they are matters of 
 common sense requiring more good judgment 
 than technical training. No, I would not put 
 every yardmaster over the roundhouse fore- 
 man and the car inspectors. What I would 
 do would be to make the position of yard- 
 master sufficiently attractive to impose as a pre- 
 requisite for appointment a knowledge of me- 
 chanical as well as- transportation matters. 
 Gradually I would work away from the switch- 
 man or trainman specialist to the all-'round 
 man in whom I could concentrate authority as 
 the head of an important sub-unit of organiza- 
 tion. Instead of leveling downward, as the 
 labor unions do, by assuming that the average 
 man can learn only one branch of operation, I 
 would recognize individuality and gradually 
 develop a higher composite type. Because some 
 car inspectors are not fitted to become yard- 
 masters is no good reason for practically ex- 
 cluding all car inspectors from honorable com- 
 petition for such advancement. When we 
 build a department wall to keep the other fel- 
 low out we sometimes find it has kept us in. 
 18 
 
BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 We blame the labor unions for these narrow- 
 ing restrictions of employment and advance- 
 ment. Look once more for the source, and you 
 will find it among our predecessors in the of- 
 ficial class, a generation or more ago. These 
 officials insisted upon planes of department 
 cleavage which the men below were quick to 
 recognize. Railway manhood has been more 
 dwarfed by exaggerated official idea of spe- 
 cialization with resulting departmental jeal- 
 ousies than by the labor unions. 
 
 Therefore, my boy, let us get some of these 
 inconsistencies out of our own optics before 
 we talk too much about the dust that seems to 
 blind the eyes of those who are exposed to the 
 breezes of that world famous thoroughfare 
 which faces old Trinity Church in New York. 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE WITNESS 
 STAND. 
 
 Chicago, April 22, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy: Did it ever occur to you 
 how easily a bright lawyer could tangle up 
 many an able railway official on the witness 
 stand? Nowadays we have to spend more or 
 less valuable time testifying about service, 
 rates, capitalization, valuation, practices, meth- 
 ods, and a score of other things that become 
 of public interest. Whether this is just or un- 
 just, necessary or unnecessary, is beside the 
 question. It is a condition, not a theory, that 
 confronts us. The wise railway man, there- 
 fore, so orders his official life that it may en- 
 dure the scrutiny of both the persecutor and 
 the prosecutor, of both the inquisitor and the 
 investigator, of both the muckraker and the 
 political economist. It sometimes happens, 
 since men are only boys grown tall, that pub- 
 lic hearings are accompanied by stage settings 
 for dramatic effect; that trifling inconsisten- 
 cies are magnified into egregious errors. Let 
 20 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE STAND. 
 
 me picture part of such a hearing with a gen- 
 eral manager on the stand : 
 
 Question: You testified, Mr. General Man- 
 ager, on the direct examination that your road 
 is well managed and has a highly efficient or- 
 ganization, did you not? 
 
 Answer : Yes, sir, we think we have one of 
 the best in the country. 
 
 Q. Would you mind telling the able mem- 
 bers of this Honorable Commission in just 
 what your superiority consists ? 
 
 A. Not at all, sir. In the first place, we 
 have a great deal of harmony and work very 
 closely together. 
 
 Q. Did you ever know a railway official 
 who did not claim the same thing for that part 
 of the organization over which he presided? 
 
 A. (Hesitating.) Well, now that you men- 
 tion it, I can't say that I ever did. (Sudden 
 inspiration.) But you know there is a great 
 deal of bluffing in this world. 
 
 Q. (Drily.) What style of anti-bluffing 
 device has your company adopted ? 
 
 A. Of course, you are speaking figuratively. 
 Such a thing isn't possible. We have a pretty 
 good check in the fine class of men we have 
 developed. 
 
 21 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 Q. Then, it is a sort of breeding process? 
 
 A. Yes, sir, that's it. 
 
 Q. To go a little further, has your company 
 any patents on improving human nature ? 
 
 A. No, sir, we don't claim that. 
 
 Q. Is it not a fact that your officials and 
 employes are average citizens recruited and 
 developed about like those of other roads ? 
 
 A. That is hardly a fair way to put it, but 
 I suppose they are. 
 
 Q. Why isn't it fair? 
 
 A. Because it leaves out of account the ac- 
 knowledged efficiency that comes from having 
 men well treated and contented, and better in- 
 structed than others. Some farms make more 
 money than others because the old man gets 
 more work out of the boys. 
 
 Q. Then your road has officials who can 
 radiate more divine afflatus than others ? 
 
 A. I didn't say that. We do the best we 
 know how. 
 
 Q. What is organization? 
 
 A. Why organization is let me see why, 
 organization is the name we use for the men 
 the people, the forces we hire to run our 
 road. It is hard to give a concise definition. I 
 might ask you what law is. 
 
 22 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE STAND. 
 
 Q. That's easy, law is a rule of conduct. 
 Now, tell me, please, who runs the road? 
 
 A. Why, the officers run the road, the men 
 do the work. 
 
 Q. Did you not just say that you hire men 
 to run the road ? 
 
 A. I didn't mean that. 
 
 Q. Then in your business you are not very 
 accurate. You say one thing and mean 
 another. 
 
 A. No, sir; we may have more sense than 
 you think we have. We spend a lifetime at 
 this business and must learn something 
 about it. 
 
 Q. Will you please tell this fair-minded 
 commission just how you run the road, just 
 how you attempt to minister to the needs of 
 the intelligent people of this great common- 
 wealth? 
 
 A. Now, sir, it is a pleasure to testify. You 
 are getting away from definitions and techni- 
 calities and down to practical facts, where I 
 feel more at home. I will be glad to tell you 
 all about it. In the first place a railway is such 
 a big affair that we divide it into departments. 
 
 Q. Excuse me, what is a department? 
 
 A. A department is well I can make it 
 23 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 clearer by describing what it does. As I was 
 saying, we divided it into departments, and a 
 department is well a department is why, 
 something so different from everything else 
 that we put it off by itself and hold the head 
 of the department responsible for results. We 
 are very particular not to interfere with the de- 
 tails of the departments. 
 
 Q. Pardon me, but the present members of 
 this exceptionally able commission, inspired 
 further I may say by the example of our patri- 
 otic governor, are accustomed to give pro- 
 found consideration to these great questions. 
 (Modest pricking up of ears of commission, 
 with determined composite expression bespeak- 
 ing relentless performance of a dangerous 
 duty.) Please, therefore, tell us what your 
 department does. 
 
 A. As I testified on the direct examination 
 mine is the operating department; as general 
 manager I have charge of operation. 
 
 Q. What does that include? 
 
 A. It includes transportation, and main- 
 tenance and new construction. It handles the 
 business the other fellow gets. 
 
 Q. Who is the other fellow ? 
 
 A. The traffic department. 
 24 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE STAND. 
 
 Q. Of another company? 
 
 A. Why, no, of our own. It is just another 
 department. It deals with the public, it gets 
 the business, it makes the rates; excuse me 
 it recommends rates to honorable bodies like 
 this commission. 
 
 Q. Then you in the operating department 
 don't deal with the public ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir, we do, more and more every 
 year. 
 
 Q. Is the traveling freight agent in your 
 department ? 
 
 A. No, sir, he is in the traffic department. 
 
 Q. Then you have no control over him ? 
 
 A. No, sir, no direct control, but as I said 
 before, we all work very closely together on 
 our road. 
 
 Q. It is claimed that there has been dis- 
 crimination in car distribution in this state, be- 
 cause a traveling freight agent promised more 
 cars to some shippers than the latter were en- 
 titled to according to the supply available. 
 How about that? 
 
 A. I am unable to say. 
 
 Q. Getting back to your narrative, please 
 resume the interesting description of your de- 
 partment. 
 
 25 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 A. As I was saying, we have several depart- 
 ments, each under a superintendent or other 
 officer. We have a general superintendent, a 
 chief engineer, a superintendent of motive 
 power, a superintendent of transportation, a 
 superintendent of telegraph, a signal engineer, 
 a superintendent of dining cars, and a general 
 storekeeper, all of whom we call general of- 
 ficers in charge of departments. 
 
 Q. I thought you said you are the head of 
 the operating department. 
 
 A. Yes, sir; that's right. 
 
 Q. I don't quite understand. You say that 
 there are eight departments in your depart- 
 ment? 
 
 A. Yes, sir; that is what we call them. It 
 always has been so. 
 
 Q. Then when is a department a depart- 
 ment? 
 
 A. You see these are really not departments ; 
 they are just parts of the operating department 
 which is really a department. 
 
 Q. Then, why not have definite designa- 
 tions ? 
 
 A. I don't know. We have never thought 
 it necessary. We are getting good results and 
 giving good service to the public. 
 26 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE STAND. 
 
 Q. What are results ? 
 
 A. I am not sure ; the longer I live the less 
 certain I am about these things. 
 
 Q. I am glad to hear that. This impartial 
 commission has been constituted because some 
 railway officers tried to dictate what was best 
 for this enlightened commonwealth. Now, tell 
 us, please, what you think of the plan the 
 United States government has of making the 
 "bureau" the next unit of organization below 
 the "department"? 
 
 A. I have never given government organiza- 
 tion much attention. The part of the govern- 
 ment that concerns me most is the Interstate 
 Commerce Commission, which seems made up 
 mainly of inspectors. 
 
 Q. Have you ever studied the organization 
 of the federal courts, and of the army and the 
 navy? 
 
 A. I can hardly say that I have studied their 
 organization, but I have observed them some. 
 
 Q. Then you and your road do not give 
 much attention to organization? 
 
 A. Perhaps not to theories. We are very 
 practical. I never could see where a railway 
 is like the government. They are very dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 27 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 Q. Is not human nature the same in its 
 basic characteristics, whether employed by a 
 railway or the government? 
 
 A. I suppose that it is, but many things 
 about a corporation are different. 
 
 Q. Is not the government the largest of em- 
 ploying corporations with its citizens as the 
 stockholders ? 
 
 A. Perhaps so. I would rather go on and 
 tell you something practical about our work. 
 
 Q. Pray do so. 
 
 A. You see, I am the responsible head, so 
 that I insist upon being consulted about all im- 
 portant matters, and leave only routine affairs 
 to be acted on by my subordinates. 
 
 Q. What are important matters, and what 
 are routine affairs? 
 
 A. Why, the important things are those that 
 I handle personally, and routine, well, routine 
 is what comes along every day and is so well 
 understood that it does not require my per- 
 sonal attention. 
 
 Q. Do you think any three men could agree 
 upon what should be considered routine busi- 
 ness? 
 
 A. I don't know. I had never thought of it 
 that way. Many things have to be left to dis- 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE STAND. 
 
 cretion. That is where judgment comes in. 
 
 Q. Whose judgment? 
 
 A. The judgment of the man handling the 
 matter ; in this case, my own. 
 
 Q. You have been here all day. Who is 
 handling matters in your absence ? 
 
 A. My chief clerk. 
 
 Q. You did not mention him before. What 
 officer is he? 
 
 A. He is not usually counted as an officer, 
 but is considered the personal representative of 
 an officer. 
 
 Q. Does he sign your name ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir; but puts his initials under my 
 name. 
 
 Q. Suppose he forgets to put his initials. 
 Could you swear to the signature in court? 
 
 A. I don't know. You understand that is 
 only for routine business. 
 
 Q. Does he sign your name to your personal 
 bank check? 
 
 A. No, sir ; he does not. 
 
 Q. Then the company's business with the 
 citizens of this state receives less careful at- 
 tention than your own personal affairs? 
 
 A. No, sir; the company's business comes 
 first with me. I am a poor man today. 
 29 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 Q. When you are away your chief clerk has 
 to sign instructions to the general officers in 
 your department? 
 
 A. Only routine matters. 
 
 Q. Does he receive a higher salary than 
 they? 
 
 A. No, sir ; a lower. 
 
 Q. What determines relative salaries? 
 
 A. Qualifications and experience. 
 
 Q. Then you have the less qualified and the 
 less experienced man instructing higher of- 
 ficers. 
 
 A. It might seem so, but in our case we are 
 very fortunate. My chief clerk is an unusual 
 man, and is very considerate and diplomatic. 
 He knows that I do not stand for inconsiderate 
 requirements of others. 
 
 Q. From whom do you receive your instruc- 
 tions ? 
 
 A. From our president. 
 
 Q. Always personally ? 
 
 A. Not always ; his chief clerk is authorized 
 to represent him. 
 
 Q. Is his chief clerk as considerate for you 
 as your chief clerk is for your subordinate of- 
 ficers ? 
 
 A. That is a very delicate question. I would 
 30 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER ON THE STAND. 
 
 rather not answer unless the commission in- 
 sists. 
 
 (Hearing adjourned for day. General coun- 
 sel sends cipher telegram to president stating 
 indelicacy of state officials is almost unbear- 
 able ; that bankers and business men should pe- 
 tition governor to stop destroying credit of 
 railways. ) 
 
 All of which, my dear boy, is not as bad as 
 it sounds, but, through difficulty of explana- 
 tion, points the way to desirable improvements 
 in railway administration. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 FURTHER GRUELLING OF THE GENERAL 
 MANAGER. 
 
 Tucson, Arizona, April 29, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy: After the commission 
 kicked for rest, the general manager tied up 
 in his caboose. Nobody was allowed to run 
 around him and he was marked up first out the 
 following morning. The commission not hav- 
 ing any agreement about initial overtime, the 
 attorney acting as yardmaster handed him a 
 switch list and told him to dig out these loads : 
 
 Question: How many letters a day do you 
 write ? 
 
 Answer : I don't know, a great many. 
 
 Q. How many a day go out of your office ? 
 
 A. I can't state exactly, probably a hundred 
 or more. 
 
 Q. Then you do not see them all ? 
 
 A. No, that would be impossible in such a 
 large office. 
 
 Q. Does the chief clerk see them all ? 
 
 A. I think he does. 
 
 32 
 
GRUELLING OF THE GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 Q. You are not sure then ? 
 
 A. No, not entirely. I have had no com- 
 plaints about that. 
 
 Q. Is the only way you know about how 
 things are going to have a complaint come in? 
 
 A. Not exactly. I try to keep ahead of the 
 game. 
 
 Q. Are the offices of your subordinates run 
 in this same haphazard manner? 
 
 A. I do not admit that it is haphazard. The 
 general method is the same. 
 
 Q. Who is in charge of the distribution of 
 cars? 
 
 A. My superintendent of transportation. 
 
 Q. To whom are his instructions given? 
 
 A. To the division superintendents. 
 
 Q. Does he give his instructions personally ? 
 
 A. The important instructions he gives per- 
 sonally. Of course, he cannot do it all alone. 
 You understand that his department deals with 
 individual cars and has an enormous amount 
 of detail. 
 
 Q. How many men are authorized to sign 
 his name and initials ? 
 
 A. I don't know. 
 
 Q. Then you do not regard this as an im- 
 portant matter? 
 
 33 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 A. Not as important as some others. That 
 is a matter for which the superintendent of 
 transportation is responsible. I look to him. 
 
 Q. Do you think every man charged with 
 duties should be allowed to select his own type 
 of organization and decide as to his own 
 methods ? 
 
 A. As far as possible, yes. 
 
 Q. Then why not let each conductor make 
 his own train rules, and each station agent 
 keep his own kind of accounts? 
 
 A. Because confusion would result. 
 
 Q. Is it not a fact that on most American 
 railroads six or eight clerks are signing the 
 name or initials of the superintendent of trans- 
 portation ? 
 
 A. I don't know ; very likely. 
 
 Q. Does not a similar condition exist in a 
 smaller degree in most railway offices. 
 
 A. Yes, sir, that is the system. 
 
 Q. Then who are running the offices, the of- 
 ficials or the clerks? 
 
 A. I always supposed the officials. You see 
 we could not afford so many officials. 
 
 Q. Has it ever occurred to you that by hav- 
 ing more officials you might get along with 
 fewer clerks ? 
 
 34 
 
GRUELLING OF THE GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. Who sign for the train orders on your 
 road? 
 
 A. Our conductors. 
 
 Q. Have not conductors and operators been 
 discharged for signing each other's names? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. We must maintain discipline. 
 If the train orders are not respected, accidents 
 will result. 
 
 Q. Then you have one policy for one class 
 of employes, and allow your officials and clerks 
 to be a law unto themselves ? 
 
 A. Not exactly. As I said before we can- 
 not afford so many officials. 
 
 Q. Whose initials are signed to your train 
 orders ? 
 
 A. The superintendent's. 
 
 Q. Why? 
 
 A. Because it has always been that way on 
 our road. It makes the order stronger. 
 
 Q. If initials make an order stronger, why 
 not sign yours, or the president's, or God Al- 
 mighty's ? 
 
 A. That would be ridiculous. 
 
 Q. Then it is not ridiculous to sign the su- 
 perintendent's initials when he is at home in 
 bed? 
 
 35 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 A. No, that is different. We wish to em- 
 phasize the fact that the superintendent is in 
 charge of the division. 
 
 Q. Then why not put the superintendent's 
 photograph on all the orders? Would that 
 strengthen him with the men ? 
 
 A. No, of course not. 
 
 Q. You have been talking about the super- 
 intendent ; is he the same as the superintendent 
 of motive power? 
 
 A. No, you do not quite understand. The 
 superintendent has charge of a division and 
 the superintendent of motive power, like the 
 superintendent of transportation, has charge 
 of a department. 
 
 Q. Then the word superintendent doesn't 
 always mean the same thing? 
 
 A. No, sir, but no confusion results. You 
 see, the heads of departments are general offi- 
 cers, while the superintendent is a division 
 officer. 
 
 Q. Which superintendent? 
 
 A. The division superintendent. 
 
 Q. Is it not a fact that on some roads there 
 is a question as to which has authority in cer- 
 tain matters, the division superintendent or 
 the superintendent of motive power? 
 36 
 
GRUELLING OF THE GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 A. I believe so, but we do not have any 
 such trouble. 
 
 Q. (Producing copies of letters furnished 
 by discharged office employe.) Does not this 
 correspondence indicate a heated difference of 
 opinion between your superintendent of motive 
 power and a division superintendent which had 
 to be settled by you? 
 
 A. Oh, yes; I recall, I had forgotten that. 
 That will not happen again. 
 
 Q. What guaranty have you against similar 
 friction ? 
 
 A. I have. that all straightened out. Every- 
 body is lined up and understands that I insist 
 upon harmony with a big H. 
 
 Q. To prevent confusion and, therefore, to 
 save money why not make titles sufficiently 
 distinctive in rank to prevent conflict of au- 
 thority ? 
 
 A. We have not thought it necessary. I do 
 not go as much on titles as some people. The 
 old-fashioned way is good enough for me. A 
 rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 
 
 Q. How, then, if you ordered roses for a 
 funeral, would you guard against the corpse 
 being handed lemons ? 
 
 A. By sending a note or a card. 
 37 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 Q. Signed by your chief clerk? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. Do you think it is honest to have your 
 chief clerk signing your name while you are 
 away at this hearing? 
 
 A. There is no intent to deceive. 
 
 Q. Do you not unconsciously try to convey 
 the idea that you are in one place when you 
 are really in another, or that you are acting 
 when it is really an entirely different man who 
 is taking action? 
 
 A. Perhaps so. I had never looked at it in 
 that way. It is a generally recognized custom. 
 
 Q. You do not seem to regard the office 
 part as very important, as you permit a lot 
 of clerks to take final action all day long. 
 
 A. The office is not as important as the road. 
 I try to give the most attention to the impor- 
 tant matters on the road. 
 
 Q. You feel that by doing so the office will 
 in a large measure take care of itself? 
 
 A. That is it exactly. 
 
 Q. Do you not think that most railway ad- 
 ministrative offices have grown too large to 
 take care of themselves? 
 
 A. You see, we keep in close touch with 
 our offices on a railroad, because when away 
 38 
 
GRUELLING OF THE GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 we have a telegraph or telephone wire at our 
 command. 
 
 Q. What good does a wire do you if you 
 are tied up in a hearing or a conference for 
 two or three hours at a time ? 
 
 A. I fear that I have not made clear to you 
 just how valuable a man I have trained into a 
 chief clerk. 
 
 Q. I fear that you have not. You seem to 
 believe the old system is all right. Do you 
 think the last word has been said or that your 
 road has hit upon the best system? 
 
 A. The last word on these important sub- 
 jects will never be said, but we have been get- 
 ting along very well. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 I shall not continue further in this letter the 
 catechismal method, lest you accuse me of for- 
 getting that you long ago graduated from the 
 kindergarten. So you did ; but when in doubt 
 get back to early methods. After reading re- 
 cently an article on scientific management, I 
 had to recall my catechism to feel certain that 
 handling pig iron is not the chief end of man. 
 We all, you and I included, sometimes show up 
 smaller than we really are, because we seem to 
 think only in the narrow terms of the things 
 39 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 to which we are closest. It once fell to the 
 lot of a young official to escort over his road 
 some of its directors, bankers from New York. 
 Being an enthusiast for his section of country, 
 being an operating man with an instinct for 
 developing traffic, he talked of progress, of 
 the economic and social welfare of the people. 
 When he spoke of sugar planting, or of cotton 
 growing, of blooded stock and dairy yield, the 
 bankers asked, "How much does it cost to raise 
 an acre?" or "What percentage of profit do 
 they make ?" He returned from the trip feeling 
 that money must be their god, that his directors 
 could think only in terms of dollars and cents. 
 It dampened his ardor for a time. Then he 
 was so fortunate as to ride for a few days 
 with some of the really big modern bankers. 
 He found himself listening with open mouth 
 to their expression of practical sociological 
 truths. He marveled at their recognition of 
 the human element, and he understood better 
 why the board sometimes turned down his rec- 
 ommendations. His only lament was that he 
 could not see more of them. There, my boy, 
 is the great misfortune, there is a problem to be 
 solved. There is too much Boston, New York, 
 Philadelphia and Chicago. The directors seem 
 40 
 
GRUELLING OF THE GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 too far away. It is a step forward that the 
 overlords of transportation are bankers who 
 have won their way rather than hereditary de- 
 scendants of once reigning families. Some 
 method must be evolved to make for more 
 elastic control. Annual inspection trips will 
 not overcome that rigidity in administration at 
 which the public chafes and from which it 
 seeks relief in drastic laws. An interesting and 
 hopeful phase of present development is the 
 election to directorates of trained railway ex- 
 ecutives like L. F. Loree and H. I. Miller. The 
 professionally equipped railway director is a 
 desirable evolution. Supply always follows de- 
 mand, and the broad solution will be a compo- 
 site made up of many elements of progress 
 which perhaps have not yet unfolded them- 
 selves to any of us. 
 
 It is a great game, this transportation busi- 
 ness. The more you study it, however, the 
 more you discover that it is amenable to the 
 same underlying principles on which rest the 
 great and small activities of the human race. 
 Like all professions, it has its distinct tech- 
 nique. Like all professions, it suffers from the 
 inborn tendency of human nature to segregate 
 itself behind an exaggerated class conscious- 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ness. "We are a little different," or "You do 
 not quite understand our peculiar local condi- 
 tions," are the arguments with which ultra- 
 conservatism has opposed progress in all ages, 
 are the obstacles which make so interesting all 
 real contests for principle. 
 
 I make no apologies for taking you in this 
 letter from the witness stand of the west to 
 the financial chancelleries of the east. When 
 both the banker director and the general man- 
 ager learn that signatures on letters and tram 
 orders must be as sacred as when signed to 
 bank checks, we shall be winning back a little 
 of that old-time sense of personal responsibility 
 which is so needed for improving composite 
 efficiency today. What better epitaph could 
 any man desire than this, "He helped to teach 
 corporations to remember that lasting compos- 
 ite strength comes only from intelligent recog- 
 nition of individual manhood?" 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 LIMITATIONS OF THE CHIEF CLERK SYSTEM. 
 
 Tucson, Arizona, May 6, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : I have had a good deal to 
 say to you at one time and another about chief 
 clerks and the chief clerk system. From actual 
 experience as a chief clerk I know that it is a 
 trying position. It is because the railway chief 
 clerks of the country are as a class such a splen- 
 did body of men that I am trying to do what 
 I can to help them. Too many times a chief 
 clerk misses promotion because he is such a 
 valuable man that he has to stand still to break 
 in all the new bosses who come along and leave 
 him in the side track. 
 
 The chief clerk system as we know it today 
 cannot long survive because it is too feudal in 
 conception to reflect the spirit of a progressive 
 age. We need a chief clerk to be a head clerk, 
 a senior clerk, a foreman of the office forces, 
 as it were. Much of the time on American 
 railroads the chief clerk is in effect an acting 
 official, acting trainmaster, acting superinten- 
 43 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 dent, acting general manager, acting vice- 
 president, and even acting president. As such 
 he signs the name of his boss, the theory being 
 that the latter, like a feudal baron or a king, 
 is omnipresent within his own dominions. Not 
 only does this outgrown conception violate the 
 fundamental laws of matter; it often borders 
 upon a breach of honor, integrity and good 
 faith. Legal fictions are fast giving place to 
 the law of common sense. Railway officials 
 should not risk arraignment before the bar of 
 public opinion for such indefensible practices. 
 When the chief clerk does business in the 
 name of some one else the effect is dwarfing 
 to all concerned. We do not get the effect of 
 either one or two men, but that of a fraction 
 of both. Again, the chief clerk is handling 
 important correspondence with officials below 
 of higher rank than himself, of greater com- 
 pensation, and presumably of wider experience. 
 Human nature is such that sooner or later the 
 chief clerk, a junior, is telling an official, a 
 senior, where to head in. Among the hundreds 
 of railroad officials with whom it is my proud 
 privilege to claim acquaintance, I have found 
 nearly every one flattering himself, "My chief 
 clerk never makes such breaks." To avoid 
 44 
 
LIMITATIONS OF CHIEF CLERK SYSTEM. 
 
 awkward and embarrassing silences, I am 
 learning to discontinue the acid test, "How 
 about your boss's chief clerk?" So widespread 
 a belief indicates a generic trait of human na- 
 ture rather than a sporadic condition. Organ- 
 ization as a science seeks by proper checks and 
 balances to minimize such amiable failings of 
 human nature. Organized society preserves 
 the effectiveness and dignity of its courts by 
 allowing only a duly qualified judge to admin- 
 ister justice. The old clerk of the court may 
 really know more law than the young judge, 
 but only the latter can sit on the bench and de- 
 cide causes. The lay reader must be duly or- 
 dained before exercising the full functions of 
 a minister. The man who uses another's auto- 
 graph signature in the banking business be- 
 comes a malefactor. Are we so different in 
 the large corporations that we can with im- 
 punity ignore such safeguards? 
 
 The chief clerk system had its origin when 
 railways were small and officials were few. On 
 a division, for example, the superintendent was 
 perhaps the only official and by common ac- 
 ceptance his clerk was really the next in rank. 
 When a small tradesman or a small farmer 
 goes away for a day his wife and boy may do 
 45 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 the work without any one knowing the dif- 
 ference. In a larger enterprise there has to 
 be an understudy in charge when the head is 
 away. 
 
 You may have noticed that I use the word 
 "rank" considerably. Rank is a practical ne- 
 cessity for the proper enforcement of au- 
 thority. Rank makes its appearance as soon 
 as society organizes for its own protection. 
 Rank may be local, limited, changing and tem- 
 porary as contra-distinguished from general, 
 extensive, hereditary, or permanent, but it is 
 rank just the same. The purest democracies 
 clothe their chosen leaders with temporary 
 rank. Before misconstruing the poetic aphor- 
 ism of Robert Burns, "rank is but the guinea's 
 stamp," remember that the guinea is only 
 fluctuating bullion until the stamp of authority 
 of government can be invoked. 
 
 Let me now enunciate a principle, which is 
 this: "In modern organization the chief clerk 
 as we now know him has no place. When the 
 stage is reached that such a chief clerk seems 
 to be needed, there should be another assistant 
 this or that." Mind you, I do not say assistant 
 to, because that little word "to" may give a 
 sent-for-and-couldn't-come appearance, Nearly 
 46 
 
LIMITATIONS OF CHIEF CLERK SYSTEM. 
 
 every week you notice the announcement of 
 the appointment of an old chief clerk to the 
 position of assistant to somebody. This is en- 
 couraging, since it permits him to do business 
 in his own name. It also shows that railway 
 officials are waking up to the distinct limita- 
 tions of the chief clerk system. The discourag- 
 ing feature is the failure to profit by centuries 
 of experience of such well-handled activities as 
 the Navy and the merchant marine. At sea the 
 executive officer ranks next below the captain 
 and is in effect, though not in name, the lat- 
 ter's chief of staff. The captain's clerk or the 
 purser cannot hope to become executive officer 
 and then captain without getting outside and 
 working up through the deck. When railway 
 executives and directors become better students 
 of organization, the science of human nature, 
 their stockholders will pay for fewer unneces- 
 sary experiments. One railway profits by the 
 discoveries and mistakes of another, as to 
 bridges and equipment, but rarely as to organ- 
 ization and methods. 
 
 The United States Army, copied largely 
 
 from the English, has the assistant to system, 
 
 calling such officer the adjutant. The rank of 
 
 the adjutant has been raised to captain, or 
 
 47 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 rather the grade from which the colonel can 
 select his adjutant has been elevated to that of 
 captain. The adjutant has thus gained, and 
 many military men hope that he will eventually 
 be the lieutenant-colonel, and as in the Navy, 
 be the executive officer, and, in effect, chief of 
 staff for the colonel. Since no officer of the 
 Army or Navy permits another to sign his 
 name the adjutant uses his own autograph sig- 
 nature, but preceded by the phrase, "By order 
 of Colonel Blank"; objectionable because it is 
 sometimes a legal fiction. The adjutant system 
 in the army works better than the assistant to 
 system on the railroads, because the adjutant 
 is relatively better trained for his position. 
 Not only does the adjutant know office work, 
 but he has learned practically to perform every 
 duty required of non-commissioned officers and 
 private soldiers. Very few assistants to could 
 run a train, switch cars, handle a locomotive, 
 or pick up a wreck. This is why soldiers and 
 sailors have more faith in the ability of their 
 officers than railway employes have in that of 
 their officials. He who would be called Thor 
 must first wield Thor's battle axe. We should 
 office from the railroad rather than railroad 
 from the office. 
 
 48 
 
LIMITATIONS OF CHIEF CLERK SYSTEM. 
 
 Since these things are so, as runs the old 
 Latin phrase, I would recruit my office assist- 
 ant from the road, from the head of a so-called 
 department, from an official who has gained a 
 face-to- face experience in handling men. The 
 old chief clerk is the first man I would con- 
 sider for appointment as one of my junior 
 assistants. I would so assign him that he would 
 get outside experience. Sunburn and redness 
 of blood sometimes go together. For the pink 
 tea contact of the telephone, for the absent 
 treatment of the typewriter, I would ask him 
 for a while to substitute the strong coffee of 
 the caboose and the surprise test of the through 
 freight. Office railroading has its origin in 
 the mistaken theory of overspecialization, that 
 office work is a highly-segregated specialty be- 
 yond the ken of the average man. The world 
 advances, and as education becomes more gen- 
 eral, as tenure is made more permanent, and 
 employment more attractive, we can impose 
 increased requirements. Suppose that it all 
 could be so worked out that a generation hence 
 no man would expect to be a railroad clerk 
 until he had served some such outside appren- 
 ticeship as trackman, brakeman, switchman, or 
 fireman, etc. This would mean that in an or- 
 49 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ganization like the post office department every 
 clerk in the department in Washington would 
 have been graduated from some such outside 
 position as letter carrier, railway mail clerk, 
 country postmaster, rural free delivery carrier, 
 etc. Every clerk in the war department would 
 be a soldier and every clerk in the navy de- 
 partment a sailor. Then the papers that the 
 clerk handled would have a living meaning for 
 him. His action would be more intelligent. 
 Pardon me a moment while I shake hands with 
 the highly-conventional gentleman who is ap- 
 proaching Mr. Cant B. Dunn. No introduc- 
 tion is necessary. We have met all over the 
 United States, in Canada and in Mexico. We 
 usually differ, but never quarrel, because each 
 is so necessary to the other. 
 
 Sure, my boy, all these things can't be done 
 right away quick, or before the Interstate 
 Commerce Commission again asks for in- 
 creased authority and larger appropriations. I 
 do not expect to live to see the consummation, 
 but hope that you may. I do expect to survive 
 long enough to see a good start made along 
 such rational lines of elasticity. Because we 
 cannot accomplish it all at once is no reason 
 for not making an intelligent beginning. If a 
 50 
 
LIMITATIONS OF CHIEF CLERK SYSTEM. 
 
 compromise with principle is ever advanced its 
 advocates should be prepared to pay the ulti- 
 mate cost. Those questions on which the 
 Federal Constitution compromised required the 
 expensive settlement of civil war. Otherwise 
 the Constitution has been elastic enough to 
 cover nearly fifty states as fully as the original 
 thirteen. It is even strong enough to with- 
 stand the latest political fallacy, the recall of 
 the judiciary, as solemnly proposed out here in 
 fascinating Arizona. 
 
 Remember always, my boy, that although 
 the good old days have completed their runs, 
 there are better days arriving and still on the 
 road; that from beyond the terminal at the 
 vanishing point of the perspective the best 
 days are coming special because no railway 
 time-table is big enough to give them running 
 rights. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 PREVENTING INSTEAD OF PAYING CLAIMS. 
 
 Phoenix, Arizona, May 13, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : You ask me to give you my 
 views on the handling and settling of freight 
 claims. 
 
 I restrain my impatience and consequent de- 
 sire to jump on you hafd. Allow me, there- 
 fore, with expressions of distinguished con- 
 sideration, to invite your esteemed attention to 
 the fact that your valued request contains no 
 mention of an intelligent desire for possible en- 
 lightenment on the most important feature of 
 the problem, namely, the prevention of claims, 
 the eradication of causes. 
 
 A railroad is a complex proposition. Sel- 
 dom can we discuss one of its problems inde- 
 pendently. So ramified are its activities that 
 the penumbra of one shadow coincides with the 
 outline of the next. Studied from the broad- 
 est view of railway administration, freight 
 claims are found too often doing duty as a 
 shadow which hides the real substance, poor 
 52 
 
PREVENTING vs. PAYING CLAIMS. 
 
 operation. It was formerly the almost uni- 
 versal practice on American railways for 
 freight claims to be handled and settled by 
 the freight traffic department. It was felt that 
 the man who secured the business, who dealt 
 with the shippers, was the man to placate the 
 claiming public. No, this did not always lead 
 to rebating. It placed before the man hungry 
 for gross revenue a temptation which he often 
 resisted. Since the 'passage of the Hepburn 
 act and the consequent inspection of claim dis- 
 bursements by the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission, the general trend of railroad practice 
 has been to place the so-called freight claim de- 
 partment under the accounting department. 
 Railroads are waking up to the fact that the 
 new order of things means more than an ac- 
 counting proposition; that in government reg- 
 ulation and supervision the whole matter of 
 railway administration is involved. What we 
 technically term "operation" is the largest of 
 the component elements of administration. 
 
 The tendency of overspecialization has been 
 to leave to the accounting or the legal depart- 
 ment the matter of relations with the various 
 branches of government, both state and 
 federal. Since a part can never equal the 
 S3 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 whole the results have been disappointing. 
 Railroads are learning by costly experience 
 that traffic men and operating men must have 
 an active part in these vital relations. Govern- 
 ment in the long run reflects the spirit of its 
 people. The American people as a nation are 
 positive and constructive. The training of 
 railway lawyers and railway accountants is 
 often negative and resisting. The general 
 counsel and the general auditor are inclined 
 to tell us what we can not do. The traffic man- 
 ager and the general maanger, on the other 
 hand, tell us what we can do. Out of it all 
 should come a well-balanced administrative 
 machine. We need the whole machine, not a 
 specialized part, the positive as well as the 
 negative elements, when we move alongside 
 the reciprocating engine of government. 
 
 Again, putting a man in the accounting de- 
 partment does not make him any more honest 
 than the rest of us. There is more logic in 
 taking freight claims away from the traffic de- 
 partment than there is in placing them under 
 the accounting department. The traffic man, 
 the accounting man, or the legal man can settle 
 or refuse a claim. None of these can eradicate 
 its cause. Only the operating man can do this. 
 54 
 
PREVENTING vs. PAYING CLAIMS. 
 
 Many roads cling to the belief that their won- 
 derful interior combustion and hot air harmony 
 give the operating department sufficient in- 
 formation to serve the practical purpose. My 
 observation has been that this information is 
 not sufficiently fresh; that it trails along too 
 far behind the actual transaction. Some roads, 
 like the Southern and the 'Frisco, have organ- 
 ized special bureaus in the operating depart- 
 ment to minimize the causes of freight claims 
 and to follow up discrepancies while the case 
 is fresh; in other words, to investigate before 
 the claim is filed. Sometimes this duplicates 
 the work of the freight claim office and some- 
 times it does not. 
 
 So bad have been freight loss and damage 
 conditions on most American railroads that al- 
 most any kind of attention has resulted in im- 
 provement. Nearly every road can cite figures 
 in defense of its particular treatment of the 
 situation. There are many good ways. In 
 the absence of an absolute unit of comparison 
 the best way must be largely a matter of 
 opinion. To me the logical and practical prin- 
 ciple has been discovereed by two of the best 
 managed railroads in the country, the Chicago 
 & North- Western and the Chesapeake & Ohio. 
 55 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 These roads, among others, place their freight 
 elaims under the operating department, thus 
 reserving the hair of the dog for treatment of 
 its bite. With such a system the general man- 
 ager controls the disbursements to operating 
 expenses for which he is responsible. Under 
 other systems the general manager accepts 
 charges which he does not directly control. 
 Some roads have endeavored to correct this 
 last defect by requiring claim vouchers to be 
 signed by the general manager and the division 
 superintendent. This beautiful example of 
 circumlocution is expensive. There are only 
 twenty-four hours in a day, and even claim 
 papers can not be handled for nothing. Fur- 
 thermore, the claimant himself refuses to see 
 the beauty of delaying payment to carry out a 
 theory. In some states he has secured legisla- 
 tion penalizing railways for delay in settling 
 intrastate claims. Can you blame him? The 
 claimant aforesaid may happen to be a coun- 
 try merchant waiting for the way freight to 
 come in. It brings him six boxes of groceries. 
 In his presence, and that of the agent, the way 
 freight brakeman drops and spoils a box. On 
 many roads, not only is the agent not allowed 
 to pay for this spoiled box, but is expected to 
 56 
 
PREVENTING vs. PAYING CLAIMS. 
 
 require the indignant consignee to pay the 
 freight on all six boxes before removing the 
 other five. The consignee is told to file a claim, 
 which then makes its weary round through 
 the circumlocution office where clerks are called 
 investigators. Such companies say in effect 
 to the agent : "Yes, you are a good fellow ; you 
 get us a lot of business; you handle thousands 
 of dollars of our money; you represent us in 
 many things; you must understand, however, 
 that a freight claim is a specialty requiring ex- 
 pert advice ; a bad precedent might involve us 
 in the future; you know, too, we might be 
 criticised as opening the way to grafting by 
 some other agents if we let you pay out money 
 without authority from the accounting depart- 
 ment; yes, we like your work and expect to 
 promote you in the sweet by-and-by," etc., ad 
 nauseam. Fortunately, these narrow views are 
 giving place to more enlightened practices. On 
 several railways in Texas most station agents 
 are authorized to settle instanter certain classes 
 of palpably just claims up to $20 or $25. 
 
 Among the practical advantages of claim 
 
 control by the operating department are 
 
 quicker recognition of lax methods causing 
 
 claims, better discipline and morals of train 
 
 57 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 and station forces, prompter settlement, and 
 greater attention to seal records. The Chesa- 
 peake & Ohio makes surprise tests by breaking 
 a seal and resealing the car with a different seal 
 to see if the next man copies the last record, 
 or actually takes his seal record from the car. 
 This road also appeals to the human element. 
 Claims settled are tentatively charged to the 
 conductor or agent apparently at fault, and he 
 is given an opportunity to explain. This is not 
 real money, but a combination of Brown sys- 
 tem, Christian Science coin, and 1907 clearing 
 house certificates. The practical effect is very 
 real, however. Each man learns to feel a re- 
 sponsibility which is reflected in a desire for a 
 clean record. The general claim agent, who is 
 under the general manager, sends monthly to 
 each division superintendent a list showing the 
 name of every freight conductor on the di- 
 vision, with number of claims, if any, charged 
 to him on account of pilferage from train, 
 rough handling, etc. The local divisions of the 
 Order of Railway Conductors have been inter- 
 ested and feel some responsibility in keeping 
 the work of their members upon a plane above 
 the imputation of collusion with pilferage. 
 Seek, my boy, to develop the higher natures 
 58 
 
PREVENTING vs. PAYING CLAIMS. 
 
 of your men and you will be astonished at the 
 response. Let them know that you know what 
 they are doing, and it becomes easier for them 
 to withstand temptation. 
 
 Freight claims are a fine example of an ex- 
 aggerated specialty resulting in unnecessary 
 centralization. The whole proposition can be 
 decentralized for the good of the service. Be- 
 cause the division superintendent can not well 
 settle interline claims of other divisions is no 
 reason why his forces should not settle such 
 local claims as concern his division. 
 
 A thorough study of freight claims will 
 bring you early to a consideration of personal 
 injury, stock and fire claims. The fad has 
 been on many railroads to take these items of 
 operating expenses away from their former lo- 
 cation in the operating department and give 
 them to the legal department. This exagger- 
 ated view of the laws of liability is partly re- 
 sponsible for the growth of the damage suit 
 industry. It is another case of considering a 
 part of the railway at the expense of the whole. 
 We need legal advice and expert knowledge. 
 The true function of the expert and the special- 
 ist is to see how much working knowledge he 
 can impart to the layman for everyday use and 
 59 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 reserve himself for the real complications 
 which, if his tutelage has been sound, the lay- 
 man will quickly recognize and bring back for 
 expert assistance. 
 
 Not long ago I happened near a freight 
 wreck. One of the cars in the ditch contained 
 an emigrant outfit in charge of a man. This 
 man was bruised, but not seriously injured. 
 With the superintendent and the wreck train 
 came a specialist, a claim adjuster for the legal 
 department. He could settle only the personal 
 injury. The damage to property was a freight 
 claJR^and belonged to another department, the 
 accounting, not formally represented at the im- 
 promptu function, and over which the superin- 
 tendent as master of ceremonies had no juris- 
 diction. The various items of operating ex- 
 penses involved on this occasion were in a de- 
 cidedly diverged condition. What the spirit- 
 ualist medium calls the control was in this case 
 the office of a busy president some fifteen hun- 
 dred miles away. Of course, the company 
 spirit and common sense guided the superin- 
 tendent, and he made the best of circum- 
 stances; perhaps risking criticism and censure 
 for crossing sacred departmental lines. What 
 do you think of a system that breaks down in 
 60 
 
PREVENTING vs. PAYING CLAIMS. 
 
 emergencies? Is not an emergency a test of a 
 system, a proof of its elasticity? Can we de- 
 velop the highest efficiency of superintendents 
 when we, the executive and general officers, 
 place upon them the burden of departing from 
 a system that fails to meet their practical prob- 
 lems ? Is it not a species of unconscious admin- 
 istrative cowardice for boards of directors to 
 impose implied and practical responsibility 
 without conferring corresponding authority? 
 Can such questions be ignored as exceptional, 
 trifling, and captious? Do they not reach to 
 the heart of railway organization and ef- 
 ficiency ? Will the railways correct such errors 
 themselves, or will they await once more the 
 remedy by legislatures and commissions? 
 
 If a study of conditions does not convince 
 you theoretically that one claim bureau should 
 handle freight, stock, fire, and personal injury 
 claims in short all claims covering injuries to 
 persons and damages to property go down on 
 the Chesapeake & Ohio and watch them do it 
 practically. Instead of several specialists du- 
 plicating each other's itineraries, you will find 
 some all-round claim men doing a variety of 
 practical stunts. When they do strike a really 
 different and highly technical case, they utilize 
 61 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 the services of their best specialist in that par- 
 ticular line, not infrequently the general claim 
 agent himself. Overcharge claims are very 
 properly handled under their traffic auditor, 
 being a matter of correction and not of operat- 
 ing disbursement. Were it up to me, I would 
 make the general claim agent an assistant gen- 
 eral manager, so that in claim matters he 
 would have rank and authority superior to the 
 division superintendent's. The division claim 
 agent I would make an assistant superinten- 
 dent, so that in claim matters he would have 
 rank and authority superior to all employes on 
 the division. 
 
 On this last division feature I once con- 
 vinced my old friend, Cant B. Dunn, by a long, 
 practical test. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 62 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 THE CHIEF OF STAFF IDEA. 
 
 San Antonio, Texas, May 20, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : Let me tell you something 
 about a wonderfully effective human machine, 
 the Confederate Army. I sit facing a Con- 
 federate monument which depicts a self-reliant 
 son of the Southland, the type of man real rail- 
 way training helps to perpetuate. Hard by is 
 a shrine to valor, the Alamo, a reminder of the 
 duty of altruism which an individual owes to 
 his fellows. 
 
 Fifty years ago two great armies were or- 
 ganized to fight to a practical, working conclu- 
 sion some of the indefinite compromises of the 
 Federal Constitution. Each army was sup- 
 ported by the intelligent spirit of an aroused 
 people. Each sought in its organization and 
 operation to give the most effective expression 
 to that spirit. Jefferson Davis and his advisers 
 sought to profit by the experience of the old 
 United States Army and to avoid inherent 
 weaknesses in its organization. So the Con- 
 federate Congress created the grades of gen. 
 eral and of lieutenant general, in order that a 
 63 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 general might command a separate field army, 
 a lieutenant general a corps, a major general 
 a division, and a brigadier general a brigade. 
 By thus more exactly defining official status, 
 jealousies were minimized. Until Grant was 
 made lieutenant general in 1864, the Federal 
 Army had only two grades of general officers, 
 major general and brigadier general. This led 
 to confusion, to bickerings, and to petty jeal- 
 ousies. Since a major general might command 
 such distinct and self-contained units of organ- 
 ization as a division, a corps, or a separate field 
 army, numerous special assignments by the 
 President became necessary. 
 
 The Confederate Army had another feature 
 of organization that was epoch-making. Sam- 
 uel Cooper had been adjutant general of the 
 United States Army, with the rank of briga- 
 dier general, issuing orders over his own sig- 
 nature from Washington "by command of" 
 somebody else Brevet Lieutenant General 
 Scott or the Secretary of War. Because of 
 his acknowledged efficiency in office work and 
 administrative routine, Samuel Cooper was 
 made adjutant general and inspector general of 
 the Confederate Army. Did they give him the 
 rank of brigadier general? No, sir; they made 
 64 
 
THE CHIEF OF STAFF IDEA. 
 
 him a full general, and number one on the list, 
 senior to Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. 
 Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and G. T. Beauregard, 
 who, as generals at one time or another, com- 
 manded separate field armies or territorial 
 military departments. General Cooper at a 
 desk in Richmond was the ranking officer of 
 the Confederate Army. This detracted not one 
 iota from the fame of Lee, the great soldier 
 and the first gentleman of the South. On the 
 contrary, the increased efficiency due to receiv- 
 ing instructions from a real superior, not 
 under-strappers or chief clerks, made greater 
 the reputation of Lee. From one viewpoint 
 General Cooper was a high-class chief clerk 
 for his President and the Secretary of War. 
 From a broader view he was their technically 
 trained, highly efficient chief of staff. 
 
 The Confederate Army gave in effect, but 
 not in name, the chief of staff idea to the 
 world as a great object lesson in the applied 
 science of organization. Historians say that 
 Jefferson Davis, himself a graduate of West 
 Point, a veteran of the Mexican war, and Sec- 
 retary of War in the cabinet of Pierce, med- 
 dled too much in military affairs when as Pres- 
 ident he should have been attending also to 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 civil affairs. Be that as it may, the organiza- 
 tion was elastic enough to meet just such va- 
 riations of personal equation. Whether the 
 President, the Secretary of War or the adju- 
 tant general (chief of staff) acted in a par- 
 ticular case, the subordinate knew who took 
 the responsibility and that the action came 
 from a real superior in rank. 
 
 The Confederacy fell. The passions of the 
 time, the shortsightedness of prejudice, pre- 
 cluded the adoption at that time by the United 
 States of any feature of the Confederate or- 
 ganization, however meritorious in principle 
 and practice. It remained for the Germans, 
 already applying the idea, to dazzle the world 
 in 1870 and conquer France by the work of 
 their general staff and its able chief, von 
 Moltke. Not until after the costly lessons of 
 the little war with Spain in 1898 did our Con- 
 gress wake up and give the United States 
 Army a general staff and a chief of staff. The 
 new law includes several desirable features of 
 elasticity. Among these is a provision for the 
 selection by each administration of its own 
 chief of staff. A permanent chief of staff 
 might be an obstructionist or might become too 
 perfunctory in compliance. The law wisely 
 66 
 
THE CHIEF OF STAFF IDEA. 
 
 limits the selection of a chief of staff to about 
 twenty general officers. This prevents playing 
 untrained favorites. It permits any passenger 
 conductor to be made superintendent, but for- 
 bids selecting an extra brakeman or the call 
 boy. Furthermore, if conditions change or a 
 new administration arrives, the chief of staff 
 is not penalized for efficiency by losing out en- 
 tirely, but reverts to his permanent status ; the 
 superintendent holds his rights as a conductor 
 and bids in a good run according to his per- 
 manent seniority. This feature of good organ- 
 ization, the conferring of definite local superior 
 rank, and the protection of the incumbent from 
 unnecessary degradation, was discovered cen- 
 turies ago by another effective institution, the 
 Catholic church. 
 
 Life is a composite. The Army, like several 
 railways, has been waking up to the fact that 
 a lesson can be learned from the civil courts. 
 A large city may have several courts and 
 judges. A judge may sit for one term in the 
 equity court, then in the criminal branch, and 
 next in a court en bane. All the time there is 
 only one office of record, one clerk of the court, 
 with as many deputies as may be found neces- 
 sary. When one judge wishes to know what 
 67 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 another judge has done, the former does not 
 write the latter a letter to inquire, but sends to 
 the clerk's office and gets the complete record 
 up to date. 
 
 Are the railroads above copying sound 
 working principles of efficiency from such tried 
 institutions as the Army, the Navy, the civil 
 courts and the churches? Certainly not, as 
 some roads are showing in a highly practical 
 way. Such movements as these are but expres- 
 sions of a cosmic tendency, greater and more 
 powerful than any one branch of human ac- 
 tivity. Such trends of progress are noted by 
 observers who happen to be favored with a 
 view from the watch towers and who are able 
 to make suitable adaptations because they real- 
 ize that ideas are greater than men, that prac- 
 tical devices are greater than their inventors. 
 
 Sound ideas often depend for their develop- 
 ment and permanency as working practices 
 upon some great exponent of acknowledged ca- 
 pacity for leadership. In 1870 Bismarck had 
 baited on the French and von Moltke had 
 planned their discomfiture. In 1870 General 
 Robert E. Lee, entering upon the last year of 
 his life, was president of Washington and Lee 
 University at Lexington, Virginia, where 
 68 
 
THE CHIEF OF STAFF IDEA. 
 
 Colonel Allan, of Stonewall Jackson's staff, 
 was a prominent professor. There came to sit 
 at the feet of these great teachers a mere boy in 
 years, but an adult in intellectual grasp. This 
 callow youth was of German lineage, but born 
 and reared in New Orleans, a city stamped 
 with the civilization of the French. Perhaps 
 this modest youngster dreamed that twenty 
 years later he would be a great railroad en- 
 gineer hardly, though, that in forty years he 
 would, as a great railway operating man, be 
 called the von Moltke of transportation. 
 Strange, indeed, that this von Moltke, Julius 
 Kruttschnitt, should find his opportunity for 
 highest development under the Napoleon of 
 our profession, Edward H. Harriman, himself 
 among the last of the feudal railway barons. 
 Stranger still that as this Napoleon was pass- 
 ing his von Moltke was starting the railways 
 away from feudalism in interior administra- 
 tion by introducing within the latter's own 
 sphere the chief of staff idea of the Confeder- 
 ate, the German, and the American armies. 
 For, my boy, the unit system of organization 
 on the Harriman Lines, of which you have 
 read more or less, is primarily a substitution of 
 the modern chief of staff idea for the out- 
 69 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 grown, dwarfing, irrational government by 
 chief clerks.* 
 
 The unit system of organization requires 
 that an official, whether the head of the unit or 
 an assistant, shall, when absent on the line, be 
 represented at headquarters by the senior or 
 chief assistant of the unit. Such senior or 
 chief assistant is in effect, though not in name, 
 the chief of staff. Normally, this senior is num- 
 ber one on the list of assistants, but whoever 
 is so acting becomes, as above explained, the 
 senior for the time being, and when relieved 
 reverts to his permanent place on the list. Ro- 
 tation for this chief of staff depends largely 
 on the personal equation of the head of the 
 unit and of his various assistants. In the last 
 two years some divisions have not rotated the 
 chief of staff at all. One superintendent who 
 credits the system with increased supervision 
 and notable decreases in expenses is now rotat- 
 ing his assistants in the senior chair every two 
 weeks. 
 
 There are diverse views on the subject of ro- 
 tation in general. My own opinion is that it 
 may or may not be desirable. I incline rather 
 
 * See appendix for a description of the unit system 
 of organization. 
 
 70 
 
THE CHIEF OF STAFF IDEA. 
 
 to rotation because it seems to be a biological 
 concomitant of rational evolution. Nature ro- 
 tates her seasons and her types. Where, as in 
 the tropics, there is less rotation we find more 
 stagnation and quicker death. Many soils are 
 impoverished by neglect of proper crop rota- 
 tion. The other day in a terminal, I found a 
 superintendent lately rotated, like a Methodist 
 minister, from another division. Favored with 
 a fresh viewpoint, Jie was having switch en- 
 gines give trains a start out of the yard, and 
 was taking off a helper engine which for years 
 had seemed an unavoidable expense. For what 
 was in this particular instance a case of over- 
 specialization he was substituting engines 
 which could more economically perform the 
 dual functions of switching and of pushing. 
 
 Speaking of yards, see if you have not some 
 bright fellows on your staff who can figure 
 out a car record that can be taken by the me- 
 chanical men, the car inspectors, that will an- 
 swer all the purposes of transportation, includ- 
 ing claims. Instead of two sets of specialists, 
 car inspectors and yard clerks, partly duplicat- 
 ing each other's work, see if you cannot de- 
 velop one set of all 'round men with some in- 
 terchangeability of function. No, you cannot 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 do it all at once. Even if you have a workable 
 scheme it will take a long time to establish. 
 The Brown system of discipline required nearly 
 twenty years for its complete extension to prac- 
 tically all American railroads, although in suc- 
 cessful operation for nearly a hundred years 
 at the United States Military Academy at 
 West Point. The demerit system is better 
 handled at West Point than is the Brown sys- 
 tem on railways. This is because most of the 
 officers are relatively better trained than rail- 
 road officials, having all been through the mill 
 themselves. Better training cultivates the judi- 
 cial quality. Too often the number of Brown- 
 ies does not depend upon a fixed scale for a like 
 offense, but rather upon how mad the superin- 
 tendent is or on how hard he has been pounded 
 by the typewriter in the offices above. 
 
 Before you condemn any system be certain 
 that its apparent shortcomings are not the fault 
 of your own interpretation and administration. 
 We used to speak of engine failures alone. 
 Nowadays we distinguish as between engine 
 failures and man failures. Likewise there is 
 a difference between a system failure and a 
 man failure. Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 72 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 Galveston, Texas, May 27, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy : We were talking of the unit 
 system of organization. There is little that is 
 new about the system. Like many useful 
 things in this world, it is mainly an adaptation 
 of some very old principles and practices. 
 From one viewpoint it is a rational extension 
 of the simple principles of train dispatching. 
 The standard code does not attempt to supply 
 the place of judgment in a train dispatcher. 
 It does not tell him when to put out a meet or 
 a wait order. When his judgment dictates 
 the necessity for any particular action, the 
 standard code comes into play by prescribing 
 forms, by imposing checks and safeguards, by 
 simplifying methods, and by unifying prac- 
 tices. This gives greater opportunity for ini- 
 tiative and originality on the part of the 
 dispatcher by making routine the detailed por- 
 tion of the process. He has more time to 
 think. 
 
 73 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 Because the unit system leaves so much to 
 the thinking capacity of the men below, some 
 people have found it difficult to understand. 
 Many codes of organization attempt to cover 
 in advance all the various cases that may come 
 up. The unit system enunciates principles and 
 prescribes methods, but leaves independence of 
 action to the man on the ground. He is for 
 the time being the judge as to what principle 
 to apply. When men are carefully trained 
 their first impulse is to do the right thing. 
 This impulse has been dwarfed and deadened 
 on many railroads by artificial restraints which 
 make a man doubtful of his authority. The 
 unit system reverses some old presumptions 
 and puts the burden of doubt upon him who 
 questions the official authority. 
 
 We have to take human nature as we find 
 it, not as we think it should be. The master 
 mechanic or the division engineer is riding on 
 the rear of a train, at the company's expense, 
 and tells a young flagman that the latter did 
 not go back far enough. If the flagman does 
 not tell the official to go to h , the train- 
 master probably will. The trainmaster says, 
 "This is my department, you have interfered 
 with my man." That is the old feudal concep- 
 74 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 tion. He is not my man but the company's 
 for service, and his own for individuality and 
 citizenship. Let the master mechanic or the 
 division engineer of many years' service re- 
 port the flagman whose tenure may have been 
 very brief. Human nature is such that the 
 trainmaster, stung by an implied reflection, 
 constitutes himself attorney for the defense. 
 The papers grind through the baskets of the 
 chief clerks. By and by, when everybody con- 
 cerned has forgotten the incident, the papers 
 come back with assurances of distinguished 
 consideration and politely intimate that the case 
 was not quite as bad as represented. The old 
 official, in a measure discredited, soon stops 
 concerning himself with flagmen. The man- 
 agement, the stockholders, and the public lose 
 just so much possible protection through in- 
 creased supervision. The salary and the ex- 
 pense account of the traveling official go on 
 just the same. 
 
 On the Harriman Lines the master me- 
 chanic, like the division engineer, has the rank, 
 title, and authority of assistant superintendent. 
 Mind you, it is not assistant superintendent in 
 charge of thus and so, but just assistant super- 
 intendent. An attempt to define duties in a 
 75 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 circular of appointment might imply that all 
 the responsibilities not enumerated would be 
 necessarily excluded. So the assistant superin- 
 tendent quietly speaks to the young flagman, 
 who profits by the instruction, and the incident 
 is closed without recourse to the typewriter. 
 For the technical brief to the Supreme Court 
 there is substituted the rough and ready but 
 surer justice of the police magistrate. The 
 employe still has the right to appeal just as he 
 had before, but seldom or never does he exer- 
 cise it. There are, of course, intelligent limi- 
 tations to all authority. The mechanical as- 
 sistant, or the maintenance assistant should 
 not, for example, order the flagman to buy a 
 new uniform. Common sense and courtesy 
 have proved effectual safeguards against abuse 
 of authority. 
 
 The underlying principle that responsibility 
 breeds conservatism in action has operated to 
 prevent those unseemly clashes of authority 
 which many predicted. The good sense of the 
 superintendents has served as an effectual bal- 
 ance wheel to maintain smooth running. The 
 unit system does not deny or dispute the neces- 
 sity for specialized talent for technical activi- 
 ties. It insists, however, that increased super- 
 76 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 vision of the countless phases of operation can 
 be gained by utilizing all the official talent 
 available. In many cases such increased super- 
 vision is a by-product. The maintenance assist- 
 ant is inspecting track. The train stops. He 
 cannot resume track inspection until the train 
 starts. Meantime, he may be able to find time 
 to see if the conductor receives his orders 
 promptly, if the dispatcher uses good judg- 
 ment, if the station forces are alert, if the pub- 
 lic are being well handled, if the news butcher 
 has his wares over several needed seats in the 
 smoking car. He may even go to the head 
 end and tell the eagle eye how the black smoke 
 indicates that the fire boy could save his own 
 back and the company's good money by less 
 liberal use of the shovel. Anything very tech- 
 nical requiring the presence of specialists for 
 all these things? Of course, if a special prob- 
 lem develops, such as a badly adjusted draft, it 
 may be necessary later to get the more expert 
 attention of a mechanical assistant. Often, 
 however, before this stage is reached there can 
 be rendered much economical first aid to in- 
 jured operating expenses. This increased su- 
 pervision, be it much or little, is clear gain for 
 the company. It means more effort for the of- 
 77 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ficial, but that is what he is paid for. It is 
 usually better in zero weather to have the old 
 master mechanic and the old traveling engi- 
 neer as assistant superintendents riding differ- 
 ent trains on the road than to have them sitting 
 in a comfortable office writing letters to each 
 other about engines that failed last week or 
 last month. 
 
 Once upon a time a traveling engineer talked 
 through a telegraphone to a dispatcher. The 
 latter requested the former to have the freight 
 train pull into clear to let another train by. The 
 conductor was not in sight. He was probably 
 in the caboose making out some of those im- 
 aginary reports about which grievance com- 
 mittees tell us and which are most in evidence 
 during investigations of head-end collisions. 
 So, this member of the ancient and honorable 
 order of attorneys for the brotherhood told 
 the brakemen where to head in. Whereupon 
 with much professional profanity the train- 
 men declined, saying that no traveling engineer 
 could tell them what to do. The superintend- 
 ent took the brakemen out of service. They 
 got back only on request of the traveling en- 
 gineer to whom they apologized. While au- 
 thority was vindicated, an undesirable situa- 
 78 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 tion had been developed. No matter how em- 
 phatic the vindication may be, it is as bad for 
 discipline to have authority questioned as for a 
 woman to have her virtue impugned. Since 
 then the unit system on that division has made 
 the traveling engineer an assistant superintend- 
 ent, and the question of authority does not 
 arise. 
 
 Out in that part of the country a fast train 
 was pulling out of a terminal. The train- 
 master was out on the road. His clerk signed 
 the trainmaster's name to a message, telling 
 the old passenger conductor to make a stop 
 to deliver what to the clerk was an important 
 letter, ran down and handed both to the con- 
 ductor. The latter demurred, saying that 
 under his running orders the stop would make 
 him miss a meeting point. The clerk insisted 
 and when the conductor disregarded the mes- 
 sage the latter was taken out of service. This 
 was done on the old feudal theory that the 
 trainmaster's name and position must be re- 
 spected. By the same reasoning a bank teller 
 should honor a check on which he knows the 
 signature is forged. Since then the unit sys- 
 tem on that division requires everyone to do 
 business in his own name. Employes obey the 
 79 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 instructions of men shown by name on the time 
 card, and are not at the mercy of clerks. The 
 old trainmaster's name is more respected be- 
 cause it is signed only by himself and is not 
 cheapened by use by Tom, Dick and Harry. 
 (Anvil chorus: "Such things couldn't happen 
 on our road." Perhaps not, but they do just 
 the same, in a greater or less degree. ) 
 
 When a conductor reports for train orders 
 he has a right to know that a competent dis- 
 patcher is on duty. He cannot dictate, how- 
 ever, what particular dispatcher shall work the 
 trick and give him his orders. The unit sys- 
 tem carries this same principle to correspond- 
 ence and reports. It denies the right of the 
 employe to dictate what official shall handle 
 a certain letter or report, under normal condi- 
 tions. The report is addressed impersonally 
 "Assistant Superintendent," and the office de- 
 cides what official is most available. As a mat- 
 ter of common sense the expert in that line 
 will be utilized. In his absence, however, his 
 feudal representative, a clerk, will not act for 
 him. The clerk may prepare the papers, but 
 final action can be taken only by an official. 
 Highly technical problems are sent to the ab- 
 sent official on the road or await his return. 
 80 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 Each assistant may issue instructions, in his 
 own name, to such subordinates on his own 
 pay roll as roadmasters under the maintenance 
 assistant, foremen under the mechanical assist- 
 ant, yardmasters under the transportation as- 
 sistant, etc., etc. Before these instructions 
 leave the office, they should pass, like all cor- 
 respondence, over the desk of the senior assist- 
 ant (chief of staff) for his information and for 
 the prevention of possible conflict and confu- 
 sion. Here, again, is a principle of train dis- 
 patching. All orders concerning the running 
 of trains go over the dispatcher's table. Should 
 there not be a similar check imposed on official 
 instructions and information imparted to hun- 
 dreds of delicate, sensitive, human machines, 
 made in the image of God ? 
 
 Why are not communications and reports 
 addressed "Superintendent?" Because there 
 would be an implied obligation for the superin- 
 tendent to act. This obligation cannot be ad- 
 mitted under normal conditions. Therefore, 
 to be honest and straightforward, the address 
 is "Assistant Superintendent." Under this sys- 
 tem the employe knows that some assistant 
 will see his communication, not the clerk of 
 somebody else. If the employe desires a par- 
 Si 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ticular official to see his communication, he 
 makes it personal by prefixing that official's 
 name. 
 
 Any employe can address the superintendent 
 by name for the same good reason that the 
 humblest citizen can appear in his own behalf 
 in any court in the land. Though the court 
 is open, neither the citizen nor his attorney can 
 normally dictate what judge shall hear his case. 
 Authority is abstract and impersonal. The 
 court exists if the judge is dead. The exercise 
 of authority is concrete and highly personal. 
 The court is silent until the judge speaks. 
 Conversely, the superintendent as the head of 
 the unit may address any employe direct with- 
 out going through the assistant on whose pay- 
 roll the employe is carried. Common sense 
 and the personal equation of the officials con- 
 cerned indicate how far this elastic feature can 
 be carried. Courtesy requires prompt notifica- 
 tion of the assistant concerned. Officials have 
 superiors, and to attempt to convey the idea 
 that each is a feudal chief, when in reality he 
 is not, can result only in self-deception. The 
 practice of each division superintendent re- 
 issuing verbatim in his own name instruction 
 circulars from the office of the superintendent 
 82 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 of transportation is misleading and ridicu- 
 lous. 
 
 All instructions from general officers, in- 
 cluding the general manager, should come to 
 employes through the superintendent's office, 
 not only to respect the integrity of the organi- 
 zation unit, but to preserve a history of the 
 transaction in the authorized office of record 
 to get all the runs, including the general 
 manager's special, on the right train sheet as 
 it were. Whoever acts, whether the superin- 
 tendent himself or an assistant, has at hand in 
 one office of record full information for his 
 guidance. You understand that the superin- 
 tendent is boss. He may see any or all com- 
 munications from employes as he thinks fit. 
 Where previously he instructed his chief clerk 
 what to bring to him personally, such instruc- 
 tion he now gives to his chief of staff. An 
 employe who addressed "Assistant Superin- 
 tendent" may receive a reply signed by the su- 
 perintendent himself. This is an honest rec- 
 ord, not a subterfuge. Some assistant, the 
 chief of staff, has handled the paper as well as 
 the superintendent himself. To the subordi- 
 nate the superintendent is normally an inci- 
 dental representative of authority entitled to 
 83 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 the greater respect to be given his higher rank. 
 To the general offices, and to co-ordinate units, 
 the superintendent is an essential head of a 
 component unit who must not be ignored. 
 Therefore, since there is an implied obligation 
 for the superintendent to answer superior au- 
 thority himself, all communications from supe- 
 rior and co-ordinate authority are addressed 
 impersonally, "Superintendent." A railway is 
 so extensive that the superintendent should 
 spend at least half the time out on his division. 
 In his absence the chief of staff is allowed to 
 communicate with the general offices and other 
 divisions in his own name, but "for the super- 
 intendent." The superintendent may answer 
 from the road himself, but in any case the gen- 
 eral offices know who has really taken action. 
 Going down on the division any assistant may 
 sign, subject to review by the chief of staff. 
 Going up to higher authority only the superin- 
 tendent or his chief of staff may sign. The 
 rights of the individual assistants are preserved 
 by permitting any one to go on record to the 
 general offices when he so desires. He writes 
 his letter, addresses it "Assistant Superintend- 
 ent," and takes it to either the superintendent 
 or chief of staff and requests that it be for- 
 84 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 warded. In this exceptional case a letter of 
 transmittal is written setting forth the views of 
 the superintendent. A cat may look at a king. 
 A meritorious idea should not be throttled be- 
 cause it does not happen to appeal to the next 
 superior. 
 
 When a division official on any road rides 
 a train, he does not first thing try to tell the 
 conductor what meeting points should be made. 
 He usually says, "Let me see your orders," 
 which is in effect asking the conductor what 
 the dispatcher has said must be done. Pro- 
 tected by this vital information the official may 
 then venture some suggestions. In the prelim- 
 inary lecture explaining the unwritten laws of 
 the unit system the new assistant superintend- 
 ents are cautioned to apply the same principle. 
 They are not to see how much trouble they can 
 make, but how little. If the transportation 
 assistant, for example, pulls up to a water tank 
 at 7 120 a. m. and sees the section men just go- 
 ing to work, he does not jump on the foreman 
 for being late, but quietly asks, "What are 
 your working hours? What time does the 
 roadmaster tell you to begin work?" The 
 moral effect of the presence of an alert, ob- 
 serving official, armed with sufficient authority, 
 8s 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 becomes an asset of value to the stockholders. 
 We have not enough officials to ride every 
 train and cover every point. The more open, 
 intelligent supervision we can get from each 
 official the better should be the operation. Of 
 course, if the officials were not experienced 
 railway men a condition of nagging and raw- 
 hiding might result which would prove fatal. 
 What the unit system does is to try to make 
 potential the latent knowledge and ability 
 which every official possesses in a greater or 
 less degree. The old over-specialized system 
 denies that this stored-up reserve exists to any 
 practicable extent. 
 
 The fact that the title of assistant superin- 
 tendent is uniform tends to bring out the real 
 individuality of the different assistants. Each 
 has to have his name on the door of his private 
 office. As we hear less and less of "my de- 
 partment 5 ' and more and more of "this divi- 
 sion/* the references to "the trainmaster," "the 
 master mechanic," etc., etc., give way to "Mr. 
 A.," "Mr. B.," etc. The assistant superintend- 
 ents have definite seniority, and when two or 
 more come together under circumstances ren- 
 dering it necessary, as at a wreck, the senior 
 present takes charge and becomes responsible. 
 86 
 
THE UNIT SYSTEM. 
 
 Remember that rank and authority can be con- 
 ferred by seniority in grade as well as by 
 grade itself. 
 
 The scriptural warning that no man can 
 serve two masters is still applicable. In our 
 case the master is the corporation, represented 
 at different times by various individuals clothed 
 with authority. The conductor runs his train 
 under the laws of the land, the policy of the 
 president, the rules of the general manager, 
 the bulletins of the superintendent, the assign- 
 ment of an assistant superintendent, the orders 
 of a dispatcher. He collects tickets and fares 
 as directed by the general passenger agent and 
 reports on forms prescribed by the auditor. 
 The lower we go in the scale the fewer the su- 
 periors with whose instructions the employe 
 comes in direct contact. The trackman knows 
 authority only as its exercise is personified 
 by his section foreman until the paymaster tells 
 him to wipe off his feet before entering to re- 
 ceive his check. Therefore, put out a slow flag 
 against too fast running over such low joints 
 as "one boss," "complete responsibility/' "di- 
 vided authority," etc., etc., until you feel cer- 
 tain just what speed they will stand. 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 87 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 Chicago, June 3, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy : It has doubtless occurred to 
 you how worthless as evidence are many of 
 the office files. How can any one tell a year 
 afterward whether the general manager or 
 the superintendent ever saw the telegram on 
 which his name is typewritten ? On most roads 
 any one of a half dozen or a dozen people may 
 have dictated the message. How much better, 
 as under the unit system, to have every man 
 doing business in his own name ! He can then 
 supplement the written record with much more 
 intelligent recollection of events related to the 
 transaction. We dictate the most important 
 telegrams, which pass unquestioned, without 
 an autograph signature. This is common sense 
 and just as it should be. When an unimport- 
 ant letter is written somebody has to get out 
 a pen and sign some name or other. How in- 
 consistent ! Why not, for certain kinds of cor- 
 respondence, let the stenographer typewrite 
 
STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 the name of the dictating or signing official, 
 and then authenticate with the office dating 
 stamp or a private seal mark ? The office dat- 
 ing stamp should be kept under lock and key 
 in official custody in order that it may be used 
 for authentication, like the seal of a notary 
 public. To save the labor of constant signing 
 I predict that some time we may go back to 
 individual personal seals carried on a finger 
 ring or a watch fob. That is the way they 
 authenticated documents at a time when the 
 gentry felt themselves above learning to read 
 and write. 
 
 If you have occasion to dictate a message 
 over the telephone from your house at mid- 
 night, do not let the operator imitate your auto- 
 graph signature, but have him print your name 
 with a pen, pencil or typewriter. Also, take 
 good care to have such messages sent to you 
 afterward for you to check. Your time is 
 valuable, but it cannot be put to better use for 
 the company than in insuring the integrity of 
 your individual transactions. It may be that 
 no record whatever is necessary. With all 
 our craze for accumulating files we do not 
 record many telephone conversations. You 
 must be the judge as to whether a record for 
 89 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 your office is necessary, and in such exceptional 
 cases state your wishes at the time. The 
 farther down the employe the more zealous is 
 he to escape possible censure by preserving un- 
 necessary information. What we need is one 
 complete record of a transaction rather than 
 so many partial records. Many of the tele- 
 grams sent from a superintendent's office 
 should, after sending, go to the main file room 
 for consolidation with related papers under a 
 subjective classification. It is more logical to 
 file certain classes of messages by days in date 
 order. For example, messages relating to 
 train movements should usually be filed in date 
 order since they are supplementary to the train 
 sheets of that particular day, and the date 
 would be the determining factor in tracing the 
 transaction afterward. These two distinct 
 classes of messages should be filed, the one 
 under a subjective classification, the other under 
 a serial classification. The good, old-fash- 
 ioned way of rolling together all the messages 
 of the day and cording them in a pile on the 
 top shelf was all right in the day of wood- 
 burners, but falls short in this day of higher 
 pressures. Remember, too, that the telegraph 
 office is a part of the same establishment. 
 90 
 
STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 Wherefore, make a carbon copy of every tele- 
 gram that is going down the hall to be trans- 
 mitted. 
 
 If you wish to get real busy and cultivate 
 patience, try to introduce a uniform filing sys- 
 tem in all the offices on the road. Every fel- 
 low will tell you that the system in his office 
 is best. The acid test is: "Will your system 
 fit the president's office?" and the stereotyped 
 reply is, "You see we are very different. Our 
 local conditions are peculiar." So it falls out 
 that when the agent writes his superintendent 
 about office furniture, for example, the agent, 
 if it is a big station, gives the subject a file 
 number. The superintendent gives it a second 
 number. If perchance the general superin- 
 tendent, the purchasing agent, the general 
 storekeeper, the general manager, and the pres- 
 ident should happen to get hold of the papers, 
 each office would affix a different number. 
 You might have on the same railroad as many 
 as seven different file numbers for the same 
 subject. Remember that all filing systems are 
 arbitrary. Whether you designate office furni- 
 ture as seven, eleven, twenty-three, or forty- 
 four, it rests in the breast of somebody to say 
 what that designation shall be. It is like num- 
 91 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 bering trains, cars and locomotives, we take 
 some arbitrary basis from which we build up 
 a logical classification. Formerly, trains, cars 
 and locomotives were given serial numbers in 
 the order of creation. So were letters in an 
 office. Now the proposition is too big and we 
 assign series of numbers for classifications 
 which are more or less self-suggesting. Any 
 number of men have tried to work out a filing 
 system based on the Interstate Commerce Com-' 
 mission classification of accounts. Any num- 
 ber of men have soon encountered limiting 
 conditions which seem to preclude a satisfac- 
 tory solution. 
 
 If you had time, I do not doubt your ability 
 to work out the best kind of a filing system, 
 but you have not the time. If you had lived 
 before George Stephenson you might have in- 
 vented the locomotive, but George beat us all 
 to it. If you had time you could work out a 
 table of logarithms, or a table of trigonometric 
 functions. Life is so short that it is better to 
 use the tables that other people have prepared. 
 By the same token, if I were you, I would save 
 my company money by adopting Williams' 
 Railroad Classification. It is an expansive, but 
 not expensive, decimal system suitable for 
 92 
 
STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 everybody from the station agent to the presi- 
 dent. Among the roads that have taken it se- 
 riously are the Baltimore & Ohio, the Delaware 
 & Hudson, the Pennsylvania, and the Harri- 
 man Lines, not such a puny lot. Others say 
 of it as of the unit system of organization: 
 "We are watching its development with much 
 interest." In either case, if the stockholders 
 and directors are complacent, you and I have 
 no kick coming as to the number of years over 
 which this inactive watchfulness may extend. 
 
 The manifest advantages of a uniform 
 filing classification are the time saved in 
 avoiding duplication of numbers, and the 
 practical familiarity possible to officials and 
 employes of all grades and locations. 
 When a man is promoted or transferred, 
 he does not have to learn a new fil- 
 ing system. Instead of the whole burden 
 of filing being upon a file clerk, everybody can 
 be helping to preserve the integrity and insure 
 the efficiency of the system. It is not neces- 
 sary to sit up nights and memorize filing num- 
 bers. Take the matter seriously, and in a short 
 time you will unconsciously absorb the most 
 important numbers, just as you get trains, cars, 
 and locomotives in your head. Officials fre- 
 93 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 quently have a disproportionate and exagger- 
 ated sense of the value of their own time. They 
 are paid to think from their presumably wider 
 understanding. If the official by one minute's 
 thought can dictate the file number and later 
 on save several hours of search in the file room, 
 it is his duty to do so. All over the country 
 file clerks tell me their troubles. The burden 
 is, "If you will get the officials to respect the 
 files as much as we respect the officials, it will 
 all be easy." You know, my boy, that there 
 are a whole lot of things that deserve to be 
 taken just as seriously as we take ourselves. 
 Consider this standard code of train rules 
 again. With all its defects and shortcomings 
 it is a vital force. Because it is standard it 
 gains a respect as a result of lifelong drill and 
 discipline of employes, regardless of changes 
 in location or assignment. Therefore, stand- 
 ardize your files, and interest your officials. 
 Rank imposes obligation, or noblesse oblige, as 
 the French say. 
 
 It is a much easier matter to start a new 
 filing system than is generally supposed. Just 
 begin. It is not necessary to renumber the old 
 files. Give new numbers to all the old stuff 
 that comes in, and in a month or two you will 
 94 
 
STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 probably absorb nearly all that is of current 
 interest. Then store the remainder of the old 
 stuff as a dead file under the old system. Most 
 of the old you will never need, but if you do, 
 as occasion arises, locate under the old system 
 and transfer to the new. 
 
 If you are putting up a new office building 
 or re-arranging an old one, try and locate the 
 main file room next to the telegraph office. Or 
 put one over the other so that quick communi- 
 cation can be made by some such device as a 
 chute, dumb waiter, or pneumatic tube. Tele- 
 grams received can then be hurried to the file 
 room and related papers attached, when desir- 
 able, without taking the valuable time of an 
 official to send to the file room for them. Here 
 is a place for a really rational conservation of 
 official time. The effect of effort should be 
 in proportion to its intelligence and intensity 
 rather than to its amount. 
 
 Experts long ago established the fact by 
 time studies, and otherwise, that flat, vertical 
 filing cases are the most efficient and economi- 
 cal. There are a number of satisfactory makes 
 on the market. Like selecting a typewriter, it 
 is largely a matter of personal preferment. 
 The way to beat another man at his own game 
 95 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 is first to sit in, play and learn. Gamblers 
 would become extinct if all men lived up to this 
 advice. Most railway officials regard organiza- 
 tion as an exception to this precept because, as 
 I said before, nearly every man flatters him- 
 self that he is a born organizer. Before you 
 raise the stakes too high in trying to beat an- 
 other man's game of organization, better first 
 sit in and play it his way. 
 
 Do not be afraid to trust outlying offices, 
 like those of your superintendents, to run their 
 own files. Have them inspected as often as 
 may be necessary to insure uniformity and ef- 
 ficiency. Do not forbid their adding numbers 
 as emergencies arise. Assemble these new sub- 
 jects periodically, say once in six months, for 
 standardization, and amplify the working num- 
 bers if necessary. You must allow for differ- 
 ences in the human equation. Some men are 
 strict constructionists, and some are broader. 
 Some men classify under a few subjects, while 
 others subdivide to a greater degree. You 
 know the old story of the man who was index- 
 ing and feared that something might be over- 
 looked. So under the caption, "God," he put 
 the cross reference, "See Almighty God." 
 Without a retrospective study of actual per- 
 96 
 
STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 formance you cannot well say just how many 
 sub-numbers shall be used in a given office, any 
 more than you can determine in advance how 
 many train orders a certain dispatcher should 
 put out under the standard code. Among the 
 advantages of using a card index for running 
 a file is that by counting the live cards we 
 know the number of subjects in actual use. 
 This is not inconsistent with book numbers, the 
 book then being used as a reference encyclo- 
 pedia from which subjects are entered on cards 
 as fast as each necessity arises. 
 
 Remember that while immutable principles 
 must eventually triumph over local conditions, 
 much depends upon considerate application. 
 The local condition didn't just happen, but had 
 its origin in some reason, good or bad, per- 
 haps once convincing but now outgrown. 
 Sometimes the reason is so vital as to be a 
 principle in itself. In our beloved Southland 
 there are local conditions of society which do 
 not obtain elsewhere in this country. True 
 Southerners thank God that human slavery 
 has been abolished. They are striving earn- 
 estly and successfully to adjust conditions 
 created in the birth pangs of a social revolu- 
 tion. Well managed railroads like the Louis- 
 97 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ville & Nashville adjust their working policies 
 to these basic conditions. Nearly a decade ago 
 Samuel Spencer, as president, felt that the 
 Southern Railway needed an infusion of new 
 operating blood and a rotation of types, both 
 excellent things in themselves, but, as experi- 
 ence showed, easily overdone and carried to an 
 irrational degree. With native talent at hand 
 for the developing he imported to the proud 
 old civilization of his birth some rough and 
 ready brethren of the western prairies. These 
 earnest men and their followers knew how 
 better than they knew why. They were long 
 on art, but short on science. Demoralization 
 and wrecks, attributed to inadequate facilities, 
 cost the road much public confidence, cost the 
 stockholders hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
 and finally, in an awful tragedy, cost the able 
 president his useful and honored life. Fate ac- 
 corded to outraged sociology and her smaller 
 sister, organization, terrible and undeserved 
 retribution. For, barring this one mistaken 
 policy, Samuel Spencer was an earnest patriot 
 and a constructive railway statesman. As a 
 youth he served in the Confederate army. 
 Through life devotion to his flag was a pas- 
 sion. As a man and a gentleman his character 
 
STANDARDIZING OFFICE FILES. 
 
 was unblemished, his integrity was stainless. 
 Peace to his ashes. Success to the Southern. 
 Its great traffic strength, actual and potential, 
 rests on the broad foundations laid by Samuel 
 Spencer. Prosperity to the railroads. By con- 
 stant search for the lessons of human efficiency 
 to be drawn from such experiences as these, 
 they prove their broad claim to scientific man- 
 agement. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 99 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 Chicago, June 10, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy: You have asked me to tell 
 you something about line and staff. The term 
 line is used to indicate the direct sequence to- 
 ward the active purpose of the organization. 
 The line officer exercises a direct authority 
 over men and things. He is the incarnation 
 of administrative action. The staff is supple- 
 mentary to the line as equity is supplementary 
 to law. The staff officer is the playwright. 
 The line officer is the actor. The actor is usu- 
 ally too much absorbed with the technique of 
 his art to write new plays. The line officer, as 
 such, seldom originates new methods, because 
 he is too close to his everyday problems of ad- 
 ministration to cultivate perspective. The ideal 
 staff officer has had experience in the line. 
 
 The line with a railroad its fighting force, 
 so to speak is the operating department. Be- 
 cause they are staff departments the offices of 
 100 
 
THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 the other three, namely, accounting, traffic, and 
 executive, legal and financial, can close from 
 Saturday noon until Monday morning. The 
 operating department, being the line, keeps the 
 road open and the trains moving. Because of 
 the poverty of our language, we now encounter 
 some difficulties of expression in explaining all 
 the various ramifications of line and staff. A 
 staff department, because of its size, may exer- 
 cise line functions within its own interior ad- 
 ministration. Thus, the auditor organizes his 
 office forces under appropriate chief and subor- 
 dinate officers who, within the accounting de- 
 partment itself, exercise the authority of line 
 officers. When such accounting officers get 
 outside their legitimate sphere and endeavor to 
 act as line officers in the operating department, 
 expensive friction begins. This feature I shall 
 discuss with you later. Suffice it to say that 
 at present the hardest of all problems is to 
 keep line and staff in economical balance. Staff 
 departments then may within themselves exer- 
 cise line functions. This grows rather from 
 necessities imposed by size than from inherent 
 nature of function. The first staff officer was 
 an adviser and exercised no authority, except 
 that of polite inquiry, because there was no one 
 
 101 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 whom he could properly command. So the 
 line, the operating department, soon grows so 
 big as to require staff officers within itself, 
 people who have time to think out improve- 
 ments because they are not burdened with ad- 
 ministrative responsibilities. 
 
 Hold tightly to this thought, my boy. The 
 plane of differentiation between line and staff 
 usually follows a cleavage based upon size 
 rather than upon relative importance of func- 
 tion. The first line officer needed no staff, 
 because he had time to think as well as act 
 for himself. The first superintendent looked 
 after the repairmen himself. The first master 
 mechanic came into being not because he was 
 so different from everybody else, but because 
 the superintendent had become too busy to do 
 it all himself. By and by the master mechanic 
 forgot this basic fact and, unconsciously exag- 
 gerating his own specialty, began to feel that 
 the railway is incident to shops and equipment 
 rather than shops and equipment incident to 
 the railway. The last five years have witnessed 
 a decided improvement in this undesirable con- 
 dition. Just at present the store department 
 Indians are the tribe most in need of being 
 rounded up on the operating department res- 
 
 102 
 
THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 ervation for eye wash and vaccination against 
 distorted perspective. 
 
 The operating department of a railroad is, 
 or should be, a real department, complete and 
 self-contained. It consists of such important 
 component elements or branches as mainte- 
 nance of way and structures, maintenance of 
 equipment, transportation, telegraph, signals, 
 stores, purchases, dining cars, etc. Let us not 
 waste any time discussing the relative import- 
 ance of these components. ^Esop centuries ago 
 did that better than we can. His fable of the 
 quarrel among the organs of the human body 
 teaches us that while all are important each is 
 useless without the others. 
 
 Individually the general superintendent, the 
 chief engineers, the superintendent of motive 
 power, the superintendent of transportation, 
 the superintendent of telegraph, the general 
 storekeeper, and the superintendent of dining 
 cars, are line officers exercising direct author- 
 ity in a defined sequence. Collectively they 
 constitute, for consultation, the general man- 
 ager's staff. When all have the rank and title 
 of assistant general manager, this duality of 
 function is the more pronounced and valuable. 
 For the feudal notion of unbalanced compo- 
 103 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 nents is substituted the cabinet idea of compre- 
 hensive deliberation, unified administration and 
 devotion to a common purpose. (Anvil cho- 
 rus: "It's that way on our road now/') Per- 
 haps so, but if so, what assurance have your 
 stockholders and the public that the same happy 
 condition will obtain ten years hence? Each 
 head of the nine executive departments in 
 Washington is a line officer running his own 
 department. At the President's cabinet table 
 he becomes a staff officer deliberating upon the 
 problems of all. The attorney-general should 
 be called secretary of law, and the postmaster- 
 general secretary of posts. Then all nine 
 would have the uniform title of secretary. The 
 position of secretary to the president, an assist- 
 ant to proposition, should be abolished usu- 
 ally I prefer the gentler expression, "title dis- 
 continued." His duties should be performed 
 by the secretary of state, who is always the 
 ranking member of the cabinet. In the first 
 cabinet, that of George Washington, the sec- 
 retary of state, Thomas Jefferson, was in ef- 
 fect, though not in name, prime minister and 
 chief of staff. Foreign affairs, then an inci- 
 dental feature, are now so extensive for a 
 world power that we should have another de- 
 104 
 
THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 partment under a secretary of foreign affairs, 
 leaving the secretary of state as senior to be 
 the able righthand man of the president. Here 
 again the size of the proposition, the volume 
 of business, is the proper determining factor. 
 
 On a small railway the chief engineer as 
 a line officer may be able to do all the engineer- 
 ing himself. As the business grows he re- 
 quires such special staff advisers as an office 
 engineer, a locating engineer, a bridge engi- 
 neer, a tunnel engineer, a signal engineer, etc. 
 Some roads make such engineers line officers 
 by giving them extensive authority over work- 
 ing forces. Usually I believe this is a mis- 
 take. It seems better for these engineers to be 
 real staff officers, thinking, inspecting, warn- 
 ing, instructing (in the sense of lecturing), 
 improving, designing and perhaps sometimes 
 installing, but never directly operating or main- 
 taining. The same general reasoning applies to 
 the mechanical bureau when the business of 
 the chief mechanical officer attains a volume 
 necessitating the help of such valuable staff of- 
 ficers as a mechanical engineer, an electrical 
 engineer, a testing engineer, etc. 
 
 When the telegraph came to supplement the 
 railway, men stood in awe of its invisible ef- 
 105 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 fects. Soon the telegraph man said in effect, 
 "This is a wonderful and mysterious specialty 
 which you fellows cannot understand. Let 
 me, the expert, handle it for you." So he seg- 
 regated unto himself a so-called department on 
 the plea that it is so different. By and by the 
 division superintendents woke up to find their 
 telegraph hands tied. Appeals to the general 
 superintendent or general manager proved 
 fruitless. So the division linemen usually re- 
 port directly to the superintendent of tele- 
 graph. They often stay around division head- 
 quarters until the chief dispatcher is able to 
 jar them loose and get them out on the road. 
 Then they go to the scene of trouble, look 
 wise and get the section foreman to dig the 
 hole and do most of the work. Why not, 
 therefore, hold the section foreman responsible 
 for ordinary wire repairs in the first place? 
 Let every section house have a pair of climbers, 
 a wire cutter and pliers with whatever simple 
 outfit may be necessary. If unusual troubles 
 develop or a line is to be rebuilt send the most 
 expert help available, but while on the division 
 let such help be under the authority of the 
 superintendent. We need an expert at the top 
 as chief telegraph and telephone officer to tell 
 106 
 
THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 us all how to do it. The volume of business 
 will usually warrant making him a line officer 
 with the rank and title of assistant general 
 manager. He should not deal directly with 
 operators and linemen any more than a gen- 
 eral superintendent under normal conditions 
 should instruct an individual conductor or a 
 chief engineer communicate direct with a sec- 
 tion foreman. The integrity of the division 
 as an operating unit should be respected. 
 
 By and by the signals followed the tele- 
 graph. Once more the management allowed 
 the specialist to put it over at the expense of 
 the good old wheel horses in the regular line 
 organization. The embryo signal engineer 
 said, "This wonderful and mysterious develop- 
 ment is really something different this time. 
 It is absurd to suppose these stupid old section 
 foremen can learn anything about electricity." 
 So the signal engineer was allowed to build 
 up a new department. He went out on the 
 ranches or in the barber shops and hired signal 
 maintainers. A new department is liberally 
 treated because its activities are a fad for the 
 time being. These signal maintainers in a 
 few months absorb so much magnetism from 
 the field of the signal engineer that they are 
 107 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 qualified experts to whom the rest of us must 
 not say anything. They have easier work, if 
 not -better pay, than the faithful section fore- 
 men of perhaps twenty years' service. The 
 old section foreman has a "savey" of the rail- 
 road business, an intuitive knowledge of the 
 requirements of train movement that it will 
 take the fresh young maintainer years to ac- 
 quire. Then we wonder why it is so difficult 
 to secure loyal section foremen. Sometimes a 
 belated effort has been made to let in the sec- 
 tion foremen on the signal game. It is diffi- 
 cult, however, to get the signal people to take 
 an appreciative and sympathetic interest in 
 men who are not in "my department." There- 
 fore, to prevent your track forces being thrown 
 out of balance it will be better for a few years 
 to keep the signal engineer on most railways 
 as a staff officer without permitting him a line 
 organization for operation and maintenance. 
 Say to your roadmasters and section foremen 
 that they will, at the company's expense, be 
 given instruction in signals. When the signal 
 engineer, the expert, pronounces them quali- 
 fied by examination or otherwise, let them 
 understand that there is a small automatic in- 
 crease in pay. Transfer to branch lines the 
 108 
 
THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 few who prove hopelessly deficient. The track 
 laborer who can qualify to look after a par- 
 ticular signal is worth a few cents more a day 
 to the company and should be so advised. If 
 you start with the presumption that the man 
 below is too dumb to learn you handicap him 
 and probably doom him to failure. If you 
 make him believe that he can learn what men 
 of the same class around him are learning, that 
 you, his elder brother, are in duty bound to 
 help him, you will be astonished at the re- 
 sponse of his latent intelligence. The great 
 managers of the feudal period were forceful 
 drivers. The great managers of to-day and to- 
 morrow are great teachers, the greatest of all 
 experts, because they show the man below how 
 to do it. Lots of men know how. A good 
 many know why. Comparatively few have 
 that rare and valuable combination of know- 
 ing both how and why. It is not a happen so, 
 but a response to the law of supply and de- 
 mand, that men of the Woodrow Wilson type 
 are coming to the front in our political life. 
 
 Getting back to signals. On a road of more 
 
 than one or two tracks, it may be advisable to 
 
 segregate your signals from your track. Here 
 
 again the dividing line is volume of business 
 
 109 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 rather than fancied importance of function. 
 Signals are important, but so is the track. 
 Each is an incidental component of railway 
 operation, not the whole operation itself. On 
 most railways the section foreman should be 
 the responsible head of a complete sub-unit 
 for everyday maintenance and inspection, in- 
 cluding track, bridges, fences, poles, wires and 
 signals. This may involve giving him more 
 help or a shorter section. 
 
 One of the problems of line and staff is to 
 determine what is intelligent rotation between 
 the two. The line officer, dealing with men 
 rather than ideas, may get into a rut of prac- 
 tice which prevents his seeing the beauty of 
 the rainbow which the untrammeled staff of- 
 ficer may be tempted to chase too far. Some 
 officers succeed brilliantly at originating or de- 
 veloping ideas in the staff and fail miserably 
 at handling men in the line. 
 
 True individuality about which men prate 
 the most is that which is understood the least. 
 Our Army and Navy are insisting that before 
 being staff officers, all officers, except surgeons 
 and chaplains, must first learn to handle men 
 by serving in the line; that crystallization in 
 the staff must be prevented by periodic rota- 
 no 
 
THE LINE AND THE STAFF. 
 
 tion to definite tours of duty in the line. The 
 railway of the future will probably carry extra 
 numbers of line officials in the various grades 
 that some may be available for detail to the 
 staff, that we may better co-ordinate our study- 
 ing and our working activities. 
 
 People say that our good friend, Harrington 
 Emerson, able and sincere, will unconsciously 
 give the staff the best of it; while your old dad, 
 on an even break, will be found on the side of 
 the line. If they are correct, it leaves plenty 
 of room for the other fellows in between. One 
 of the delightful foibles that make human na- 
 ture so interesting and so lovable is the inborn 
 conviction of the average man that, "though H 
 be a conservative and K a radical, I am always 
 the happy medium." 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 in 
 
LETTER XL 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE GET-RICH-QUICK 
 CONDUCTOR. 
 
 Chicago, June 17, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy: Not so very long ago the 
 wife of a passenger conductor, running out 
 of a large southern city, sought the assistance 
 of her pastor, a noted divine. She was wor- 
 ried by the fact that her husband was stealing 
 the company's money. With a good woman's 
 intuition she knew that the wages of sin is 
 death ; that sooner or later her husband would 
 lose his job and his family its legitimate in- 
 come. To her good, old-fashioned, unspecial- 
 ized conscience stealing is stealing, whether 
 called "embezzlement," "holding out," or 
 "trouble with the auditor." The fearless 
 evangelist shortly afterward preached a power- 
 ful sermon against stealing, and included pas- 
 senger conductors in his warnings. So in- 
 censed was the conductor in question that he 
 announced his intention of disregarding the 
 protection carried by the clerical cloth and of 
 knocking the minister down. When the two 
 112 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 met his bluff was called. The conductor, not 
 the minister, came to his knees, not in fighting, 
 but in prayer. 
 
 Here, my boy, is a canker sore that must be 
 cured. Do not tell me that the Order of Rail- 
 way Conductors is alone to blame. Do not tell 
 me that in the lodge room the order side-tracks 
 the eighth commandment for the working 
 schedule. Do not tell me that the order will 
 expel a member for any other offense rather 
 than for stealing. Do not tell me that our 
 problem is harder and our revenue less be- 
 cause Ed. Clark, the grand chief of an order 
 thus lawless, was appointed by Teddy Roose- 
 velt to sit in judgment on us from the high 
 throne of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
 sion. Tell me, rather, that we, the official class, 
 are to blame; that we must cease to dodge re- 
 sponsibility. We, the educated and entrepre- 
 neur class; we, the elder brothers of society 
 and industry, cannot shift the burden. 
 
 Please do not misunderstand me. There are 
 many honest passenger conductors. I have 
 known them on the road and in their homes. 
 Some there are who deserve the more credit 
 for withstanding temptation because of sick- 
 ness or extravagance in the family. There 
 "3 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 are, however, too many dishonest passenger 
 conductors. It is not enough for a man to be 
 honest himself. The complexities of modern 
 life make him more than ever his brother's 
 keeper. He must not only stand for the right 
 but condemn the wrong. The Order of Rail- 
 way Conductors must make the American peo- 
 ple believe that it is a great moral force for 
 honesty in all things. We, the officials, must 
 help the conductors to bring about this happy 
 result. 
 
 The clerk for the corner grocer will not steal 
 from his employer as quickly as he will from 
 a large corporation. The existence of a per- 
 sonal employer brings home the moral turpi- 
 tude by visualizing the individual wrong com- 
 mitted. Coupled with this higher moral. incen- 
 tive is the fear of detection through close per- 
 sonal supervision and interest. In a large cor- 
 poration we have to approximate to this con- 
 dition. The corporation, an impersonal crea- 
 tion, is vitalized by the men charged with re- 
 sponsibilities. The problem of organization is 
 to give maximum effectiveness to this vitaliza- 
 tion, to utilize to the fullest degree the per- 
 sonal equations of those entrusted with author- 
 ity. Many railroads have lost control of their 
 114 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 passenger conductors because of a fundamen- 
 tal misconception of the principles of true or- 
 ganization. 
 
 On the early railways the superintendent 
 was the only officer the conductor officially 
 knew. The superintendent, close to the presi- 
 dent, was interested in the revenue as well as 
 the disbursement side of the company's ledger. 
 If the conductor stole, if the returns were short 
 on a day of heavy travel, the superintendent 
 was among the first to know it, and to preserve 
 his own reputation, and thereby hold his own 
 job, promptly discharged the conductor. By 
 and by some conductors graduated into super- 
 intendents. This new condition brought a new 
 temptation. The conductor, if allowed to keep 
 on stealing, and if favored with a run where 
 the stealing was especially good, could well af- 
 ford to whack up secretly with the superin- 
 tendent. A few, a very few, superintendents 
 yielded to this temptation. Along came the 
 auditor with his mistaken theory that human 
 nature can be changed and men made more 
 honest by being put in "my department." He 
 said, in effect, "Take this away from the super- 
 intendent, who is dishonest and busy with other 
 things ; let this mysterious specialty of conduc- 
 "5 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 tors' collections be handled by the only honest 
 department." So the superintendent was re- 
 lieved from responsibility for making his. con- 
 ductors render honest returns. He soon lost 
 interest in that feature. The roads grew, and 
 superimposed above the superintendent came 
 first the general superintendent, and then the 
 general manager, both also relieved from this 
 responsibility to which the auditor clung with 
 jealous tenacity. The conductor probably 
 could not have told what principles of organi- 
 zation had been violated. He was the first to 
 see the easier mark the company had become, 
 the first to profit by the serious mistake that 
 had been made. He found that his reports 
 were checked by office clerks hundreds of miles 
 away and entirely uninformed as to current 
 conditions of local travel. The superintendent 
 and the other division officials who rode with 
 him and knew conditions were powerless to 
 check him promptly and effectively because his 
 reports and returns were going to somebody 
 else over the hills and far away. These offi- 
 cials, because somebody else was responsible, 
 did not seem to care very much. So the con- 
 ductor stole under their very eyes and got 
 away with it. Anything like this which begets 
 116 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 a wholesale contempt for duly constituted au- 
 thority is demoralizing to general discipline. 
 The labor unions are not alone to blame for 
 the spread of insubordination. 
 
 All men are students of practical psychol- 
 ogy, whether conscious of the fact or not. The 
 conductor found that to hold his job he must 
 do well those things for which the superintend- 
 ent and the division officials were responsible. 
 So the bigger thief the conductor became the 
 more careful was he about other duties. He 
 was a crank on train rules, perhaps, or made 
 courtesy to the public his watchword. All of 
 this stood him well in hand. Sooner or later 
 the spotter caught him and the auditor re- 
 quested the general manager to order his dis- 
 charge. When this got down to the superin- 
 tendent or the trainmaster the conductor was 
 called in. Instead of being berated for a thief, 
 if he acknowledged the corn, the conductor 
 was discharged, half sympathetically, half 
 apologetically. The division official would 
 have resented the imputation of harboring or 
 encouraging a thief. To him the conductor 
 was an efficient, faithful employe, meeting all 
 requirements of service. If the conductor 
 failed to please somebody else it really must 
 117 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 be the fault of that somebody or the system. 
 This feeling was not unnatural, since the detec- 
 tion came through a discredited channel, the 
 spotter. Rare are the circumstances where 
 secret service should be necessary. There is 
 something inherently wrong in any system 
 which has to gain routine information by indi- 
 rect methods. The detective should not be nec- 
 essary for checking the good and the bad alike, 
 but only for following up those who become 
 manifestly bad or notoriously corrupt. The 
 most efficient system is that where open check- 
 ing and inspection are so thorough that temp- 
 tation is diminished by the ever-present 
 thought of prompt and sure detection. This 
 desirable condition cannot obtain where the 
 system makes such important officers as the 
 superintendent and the trainmaster unconscious 
 attorneys for the defense, sometimes openly 
 advocating reinstatement of a thief. On the 
 contrary, from its impersonal nature, a corpor- 
 ation must be so administered as to gain the 
 moral effect of every available force for right, 
 to secure the help, however small, of every 
 person connected with the administration. 
 Views of composite efficiency must converge 
 at a point sufficiently near to be of practical 
 118 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 value, not so remote as to be of only theoreti- 
 cal interest. No system is perfect. Under 
 any conditions the very size of a railway neces- 
 sitates a trifling allowance for peculation which 
 creeps in. This can, however, be reduced to 
 a negligible quantity. 
 
 So completely has the old system broken 
 down on most railways there are a few ex- 
 ceptions that it has become a farce. It is 
 a sad commentary on organization that many 
 roads are giving the passenger conductor up 
 as a bad job and putting on expensive train 
 auditors who usually are really not auditors, 
 but collectors. They are called auditors prob- 
 ably because they are under the auditor. It is 
 a principle of organization that the staff as 
 such should never command the line. The staff 
 reviews, inspects, audits, studies, advises, sug- 
 gests and, perhaps, promulgates, but should 
 never execute, except as a representative of the 
 line, the latter being responsible for the results 
 of operation whatever the operation may hap- 
 pen to be. The accounting department is a staff 
 department. When it was given charge of a 
 line function, fare collection, a principle was 
 violated. Ultimate failure of the system was 
 therefore certain and inevitable. The train 
 119 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 auditor proposition fails to recognize this 
 underlying cause. It further violates principle, 
 intensifies the evil and wastes more money by 
 increasing the number of staff men doing line 
 work. Its direct effects are vicious and its in- 
 direct effects are demoralizing to discipline. 
 How can the young flagman have due respect 
 for his superintendent or other official when 
 he sees the train auditor come to the rear plat- 
 form and demand to see the pass of the offi- 
 cial ? If he is an old flagman it is a little hard 
 for him to see why he himself or his friend, 
 the old station agent, might not have been 
 given this new job with its fine pay. Like his 
 superintendent the flagman may have been in 
 the service twenty or thirty years. The train 
 auditor, only last week a country hotel clerk, 
 mayhap, flashes on them both as a would-be 
 superior being from a better world. Neither 
 of the two can become very enthusiastic in 
 helping the train auditor to protect the com- 
 pany's revenue. 
 
 It is an awful reflection for the conductors 
 to meet, that, although the railroads of this 
 country are now spending hundred of thou- 
 sands of dollars for train auditors, they are 
 more than getting it back from increased col- 
 120 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 lections turned in. Is not this more of a con- 
 demnation of the old system than a justifica- 
 tion of the new? Whether or not the train 
 auditor enters into collusion with the conduc- 
 tor, the former soon learns how easy it is to 
 beat the system. When he does break loose 
 he will be more reckless than the conductor. 
 The latter probably had to work for years as 
 a freight brakeman and a freight conductor to 
 get where he is, and if he loses out may be 
 too old to begin all over again. The train 
 auditor gets his appointment too easily to value 
 it very highly. Offsetting this is the fact that 
 the train auditor is more amenable to some dis- 
 cipline because, as yet unorganized, he can not 
 rely on the support of a labor union to secure 
 his reinstatement. The auditor also has the ad- 
 vantage of examining character from a wider 
 range of selection in choosing his train audi- 
 tors. The train and engine services have been 
 so badly over-specialized, as I shall show you 
 some other time, that our choice is restricted 
 to men whom the trainmaster happened to hire 
 as extra brakeman years ago. These slight 
 advantages in favor of the train auditor sys- 
 tem have been given undue weight. We are 
 all too much inclined to dodge responsibility, 
 
 121 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 to take the course of least resistance and to 
 pass it up to the other fellow. The company 
 pays the bill. 
 
 The railways of this country are wasting 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars every year 
 by failure to make the conductors do their hon- 
 est duty. I would like to have you immortalize 
 yourself by saving your company its pro-rata 
 share of this economic waste. The American 
 people at heart are honest, and barring a few 
 dishonest traveling men who short- fare con- 
 ductors and train auditors with cash, will in 
 the mass support you and the Order of Rail- 
 way Conductors in any intelligent movement 
 for honesty. On the other hand, if the people 
 at large get an idea that you are omitting to 
 use all the moral forces at your command they 
 will organize some more special commissions 
 to handle another part of your business for 
 you. Do not let the people get the idea 
 that where passenger fare stealing flourishes, 
 freight claims increase because some freight 
 crews are robbing box cars, and expenses in- 
 crease because some officials are grafting. 
 
 If I were your president I would ask author- 
 ity of the board of directors, a staff body, to 
 say, as a line officer, to you, also of the line, 
 
 122 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 that as chief operating official you are the only 
 passenger conductor with whom the executive 
 and staff departments will normally deal ; that 
 your tenure of office depends quite as much 
 upon your ability to prevent stealing as to pre- 
 vent accidents. To the auditor I would say 
 that he is responsible for certifying to the in- 
 tegrity of all components of your operations 
 by proper examinations after the fact; that he 
 has access to all your accounts and records; 
 that he has no direct authority over any oper- 
 ating men; that all his instructions must be in 
 general terms duly approved by the proper ex- 
 ecutive. Then he would be a real auditor in- 
 stead of a chief accountant. We would not 
 have to call in the public accountant to do our 
 real auditing. You would be a real general 
 manager. 
 
 Assuming that the proposition is up to you, 
 then say to each division superintendent that 
 he is the only conductor on the division in 
 whom normally you will be personally inter- 
 ested; that the conductor will send either the 
 original or a duplicate of every report made by 
 him to the superintendent's office, addressing 
 it impersonally, "Assistant Superintendent." 
 Let the superintendent understand that he and 
 123 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 his assistant superintendents when riding over 
 the road on duty at the company's expense 
 must openly check the train just as they check 
 train orders. Pitch it on the high plane of 
 self-evident routine duty for duty's sake, above 
 any thought of underhanded spotting. Give 
 the superintendent as many assistant superin- 
 tendents and clerks as he may need. Do not 
 let him employ specialists for this one simple 
 component of operation. Have him bulletin 
 train earnings by conductors that the dear 
 women may help the cause by sewing society 
 discussion. Let him have the community un- 
 derstand that some explanation is expected 
 from a get-rich-quick conductor. By this time 
 it will dawn on the superintendent and his as- 
 sistants that their jobs depend upon the pre- 
 vention of stealing. Their unconscious sym- 
 pathy with the thief will vanish. Because they 
 are close enough to the proposition to give 
 practical attention they will prevent stealing. 
 
 I am aware that passenger conductors often 
 run over more than one division. This pre- 
 sents no serious practical difficulty, although 
 for many other good reasons also it is better, 
 when practicable, for conductors not to run off 
 the division. Pullman conductors run from 
 124 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDUCTORS. 
 
 their home district over the districts of several 
 of their superintendents. 
 
 You and the auditor will have to work out 
 the details as to the necessary bureau in your 
 office, depositaries for money, interline rela- 
 tions and numerous other propositions which 
 usually become self -suggesting when the broad 
 working principles are established. You may, 
 perhaps, need another assistant general mana- 
 ger for this work. You will not have the trou- 
 ble a general manager in Mexico once did. 
 His assistant general manager sold out, it is 
 said, to the conductors. These conductors, 
 mostly Americans, were an enterprising lot. 
 They are also said to have bought the detective 
 agency that was employed to check them up. 
 
 On some runs where the conductor is busy 
 with numerous train orders you may find it 
 better to make the head brakeman a collector, 
 but never let him be a specialist independent 
 of the conductor. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 125 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 THE LABOR NEMESIS AND THE MANAGER. 
 
 Omaha, Neb., June 24, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy: You tell me that you are 
 conducting labor negotiations these days. As 
 I understand it, all the old grievances have 
 been merged ; after eliminating all demands in- 
 troduced for trading purposes it is simply a 
 question of more money. This simplifies the 
 proposition. The union gets all that it can and 
 the general manager gives up only what he 
 must. Simple, but barbaric. Such innocent 
 bystanders as the public and the stockholders 
 may get hurt in the process, but that is part of 
 the penalty for being innocent bystanders. We 
 are in a transition period. All the hot air fests 
 that you are now holding are probably neces- 
 sary to blow the chaff away from the wheat. 
 Sooner or later the irrevocable law of supply 
 and demand must operate to place the whole 
 matter of the compensation of labor upon a 
 more scientific basis. At present it is rather 
 126 
 
LABOR AND THE MANAGER. 
 
 the strength of the particular union than the 
 relative justice of its demands. 
 
 Our predecessors of two generations ago did 
 many fine things, but they overlooked some 
 basic propositions. Suppose that fifty or sixty 
 years ago when a brakeman expected to be pro- 
 moted to a conductor they had said : "Fine, my 
 boy. You have the ear-marks of a conductor. 
 You understand, of course, that we have no 
 conductors who cannot run an engine. We 
 will arrange, without money loss to you, for 
 you to fire two or three years. When you as- 
 sure us of your ability to run an engine we 
 will begin to commence to talk about making 
 you a conductor." Later on a man with this 
 splendid all-around training could have spe- 
 cialized along the line of his greatest aptitude. 
 We would not see freight tied up in terminals 
 waiting for firemen, with a board full of extra 
 brakemen. There would be an elasticity of 
 assignment that would work out for the good 
 of all concerned. We would not have the fire- 
 man straining his back to shovel fifteen or 
 twenty tons of coal while a different breed of 
 cat, a brakeman, rides on the fireman's seat 
 and forgets to ring the bell when the train 
 starts. 
 
 127 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 We blame the unions for expensive lack of 
 interchangeability of function. The fault lies 
 at the door of the official class. The master 
 mechanic said: "This is my man" The su- 
 perintendent, and later the trainmaster, said: 
 "This is my man." This pleasing tenacity for 
 so-called individuality left the company out of 
 the reckoning. The company got it where the 
 chicken got the axe, sweet Marie. It did not 
 take the men long to respect the plane of cleav- 
 age which the officials had projected. So we 
 have a number of unions with conflicting de- 
 mands rather than the more enlightened self- 
 interest of a larger body. I know that it has 
 been fashionable to play one union against an- 
 other, but the day of this is nearly passed. Just 
 how it will all work out I do not know; per- 
 haps it is too late to expect amalgamation. Per- 
 haps it will come of itself when the Firemen 
 and Enginemen absorb or replace the Brother- 
 hood of Locomotive Engineers, and when the 
 Trainmen outlive the Order of Railway Con- 
 ductors. Whatever the cause and whatever 
 the existing conditions the result is plain. We 
 have a number of forces operating to restrict 
 the output of capable men. The economic 
 machinery of society at large is therefore out 
 128 
 
LABOR AND THE MANAGER. 
 
 of balance. You cannot blame the artisan, 
 skilled or unskilled, for guarding the entrance 
 to his craft. It is human nature, and it is 
 right. The debatable ground, however, is as 
 to where the entrance of the public at large 
 should be to prevent the matter being over- 
 done. No one labor organization can expect, 
 in the long run, to be given preferred consid- 
 eration over another; neither can the labor 
 unions, comprising only a small percentage of 
 the country's population, expect indefinitely to 
 dominate society at large. 
 
 It is useless to expect to accomplish much 
 in the way of increased elasticity of labor as 
 long as railway officials, through so-called de- 
 partments, insist upon narrowing and special- 
 ized rigidity. Such reforms to be effective 
 must begin at the top. It will all come out in 
 the wash, but in the meantime the laundry bills 
 are disproportionate and may place cleanliness 
 far beyond godliness. 
 
 General Sherman, one of the versatile ge- 
 niuses developed by our great Civil War, once 
 said that most men consider the immediate at 
 the expense of the remote; that a few like 
 himself were handicapped by considering the 
 remote rather than the immediate; that really 
 129 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 great men, like Grant, derived their title to 
 greatness from an ability to balance the imme- 
 diate and the remote. All men are more or 
 less a product of conditions and environment. 
 The railroad official of today lives from hand 
 to mouth the hand of expediency to the 
 mouth of rapid-fire results. When more roads 
 are like the Pennsylvania in having the sta- 
 bility which admits of intelligent, far-seeing, 
 actual control by directors and executive offi- 
 cers, it will be easier. The banker, from his 
 condition and enviroment, dreads a war or a 
 strike more than the famine and the pestilence. 
 The former two seem to him to be avoidable, 
 while the latter may be visitations of Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 A strike, like a war, is a terrible thing to 
 contemplate. A surrender to principle and 
 violation of the broad laws of true altruism 
 can be even more terrible. Last year when 
 the Pennsylvania, backed by its directors, 
 called the bluff of the Trainmen, there was 
 hope in many a breast that a lesson would be 
 learned; that the rights of the community at 
 large would be vindicated as against the unrea- 
 sonable demands of the powerful few. How 
 quickly did the Trainmen find an excuse to 
 130 
 
LABOR AND THE MANAGER. 
 
 back down ! Their friend and adviser, the late 
 Edward A. Moseley, shrewd and scheming, 
 once told them that their best weapon is a 
 threat of a strike and not the strike itself. By 
 and by the bankers will learn these lessons and 
 bargaining will be scientific and altruistic as 
 well as collective and coercive. 
 
 Perhaps you are thinking that, like the min- 
 ister who lectures the members present for the 
 non-churchgoing of the absentees, I am taking 
 too much of this out of you. We all know, as 
 do the labor leaders, that no general manager 
 ever went through a long strike, successful or 
 unsuccessful, without ultimately losing his job. 
 The directors start out with the best intentions 
 of supporting him. As the struggle grows 
 fiercer, the temporarily reduced earnings have 
 a refrigerating effect on their feet. This cold 
 storage is reflected by a message to the brain 
 that the poor Mr. General Manager is so un- 
 fortunate; that he lacks tact. "He is so rash. 
 He jumps right in. We told him he might go 
 out to swim and hang his clothes on a hickory 
 limb. We cautioned him, as all prudent moth- 
 ers should, not to go near the water." Every- 
 thing in this world costs something, and noth- 
 ing is more expensive than an unjust peace, a 
 131 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 peace which leaves out of the reckoning the 
 rights of the body politic. 
 
 One of the hopeful signs of the times is 
 the opposition that the labor unions have of- 
 fered to the exponents of so-called scientific 
 management. Already our critics are giving in- 
 dications of becoming our allies as against the 
 hard-headed, selfish opposition of labor unions 
 to progress. This will serve to help show the 
 public our problems in their true light. All 
 that we need ask is a fair hearing, and ulti- 
 mately the calm judgment of the American 
 people will decide aright. 
 
 I have no quarrel with the labor union, as 
 such. Were I in the ranks I would belong to 
 a union and give it my loyal support. Mon- 
 opoly and combination of capital beget as a 
 corollary a labor trust. You and I are power- 
 less to eliminate the effect of such natural, eco- 
 nomic forces. We can, however, help control 
 the effect of these forces, preferably by rea- 
 son. There are so many of the primal instincts 
 and passions still extant in human nature that 
 at times diplomacy exhausts itself and falls 
 back upon the protection of forces offensive 
 and defensive, active and passive. 
 
 You see that it is merely a phase of a gen- 
 132 
 
LABOR AND THE MANAGER. 
 
 eral problem that a disproportionate amount 
 of your time is taken up by affording an op- 
 portunity for delegates to make their lodges 
 believe they are earning their per diem and 
 expenses. What matters it to the locomotive 
 engineers if their importunities cause scant at- 
 tention to the unspoken rights of your clerks 
 and trackmen? Why not figure out just what 
 proportion of your time the different organiza- 
 tions are entitled to, shut off senatorial cour- 
 tesy and limit debate accordingly? 
 
 Whatever you do, have your division super- 
 intendents present at your negotiations. Do 
 not flatter yourself that your own wonderful 
 ability will enable you to take a sound position 
 on every question that may arise. Such delib- 
 erations are staff work and, unlike line admin- 
 istration, are not a one-man function. The 
 final decision should rest with you, but in the 
 meantime get all the light you can. Under 
 the unit system the superintendent can be thus 
 spared from his division to help save the com- 
 pany money because there is always a compe- 
 tent man to perform his duties, and a provision 
 all along the line for automatic successions to 
 meet just such incidents of service. It should 
 be as easy for a chief assistant superintendent, 
 i33 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 familiar with the routine, to assume the super- 
 intendent's regular duties any day as for the 
 second dispatcher to work the first trick. When 
 your mechanical assistant conducts his shop 
 negotiations, by all means insist that he direct 
 the superintendent to send in each mechanical 
 assistant superintendent to assist in the con- 
 ferences. 
 
 One reason that the labor situation has got- 
 ten away from us is because the matter has 
 been handled on too large a scale. The ten- 
 dency has been to consider the abstract possi- 
 bilities rather than the concrete effort. A 
 superintendent of a i4O-mile division once rec- 
 ommended approval of an application for in- 
 crease in wages of his milk train crew, be- 
 cause the men on the next division were get- 
 ting as much for running only 105 miles. In- 
 vestigation showed that his men were on duty 
 less than six hours, of which the total time 
 consumed in handling milk cans was a trifle 
 over an hour. Each general manager is in- 
 clined to believe that his men will get the worst 
 of it as compared with other roads. He has 
 been inclined to yield when he should have 
 been firm. The further away from 4he con- 
 crete local conditions the negotiations can be 
 i34 
 
LABOR AND THE MANAGER. 
 
 conducted the more vulnerable are the officials. 
 The labor leaders know this, and the more divi- 
 sions or the more roads they can bunch in a 
 single negotiation or arbitration the more un- 
 wieldy becomes the proposition and the greater 
 the gain for labor. This condition of things 
 was partly inevitable, is now partly avoidable. 
 Uniformity may be deadly. Standardization 
 can be run in the ground, as was shown when 
 a West Virginia agent of the Chesapeake & 
 Ohio painted his wooden-leg orange color with 
 maroon trimmings. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 135 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 A DEPARTMENT OF INSPECTION OR EFFICIENCY. 
 
 Chicago, July I, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy : One of the easiest things to 
 measure, because definite in terms and limited 
 in quantity, is money. The things which 
 money may represent are hard to measure be- 
 cause often intangible and indefinite. The 
 money account may or may not reflect effi- 
 ciency in performance. Have we not been 
 grasping at the shadow of money at the ex- 
 pense of the substance, effect? Consider, if 
 you please, the working of a bank, perhaps the 
 corporate institution in whose efficiency the 
 public has the greatest confidence. In a small 
 country bank one man does all the work. Later 
 he requires a clerk or a bookkeeper. As the 
 bank grows there are self -suggesting divisions 
 of labor along such well defined positions as 
 teller, paying or receiving, cashier, vice-presi- 
 dent, president, etc. In the first place, the 
 same man handles the money and its written 
 representations, the accounts. When we reach 
 136 
 
INSPECTION OR EFFICIENCY. 
 
 the stage of having both a teller and a book- 
 keeper, the one is a check on the other, because 
 of a difference in point of view. I do not un- 
 derstand that a bank considers its bookkeepers 
 more honest than its tellers or vice versa. The 
 bookkeeper came along to check the teller, 
 not because of such marked variations in hu- 
 manity, but because of the volume of busi- 
 ness. There was more than one man could 
 do. 
 
 The large corporations, including the rail- 
 ways, seem to have followed governments into 
 a fundamental fallacy in the matter of money 
 and accounting. Because, now and then, in 
 spite of safeguards, a trust is violated and 
 money embezzled, a remedy is sought by seg- 
 regating in administration all activities having 
 to do directly with fiscal affairs. The ultimate 
 effect is dwarfing to administration and fatal 
 to maximum composite efficiency. In a com- 
 pact establishment like a department store or 
 a large manufacturing plant, the closer con- 
 tact of the departments concerned minimizes 
 the evils of this segregation. The operations 
 of a government or of a railway extend over 
 so much territory that such close contact is im- 
 possible. The result is that our bookkeeper 
 137 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 is too far away from the paying teller. The 
 bookkeeper then arrogates to himself fancied 
 qualities of a superior being blessed with a 
 rectitude born of the guardianship of money. 
 Yes, we must have the transactions of one 
 man checked by another more or less disinter- 
 ested. This is not alone a question of integ- 
 rity, but concerns the failings of the human 
 mind. The more conscientious and careful the 
 engineer the more does he desire a check on 
 his own calculations by competent persons. We 
 accept the estimates of the engineer, swallow 
 them whole sometimes. We tell him to go 
 ahead and blow in the company's money or 
 credit to accomplish a desired result. This is 
 because we have confidence in his professional 
 ability. When it comes to one of the compo- 
 nents of his constructing work, the disburse- 
 ment of real money, a lay function, we balk. 
 We say to him, this is so different that your 
 vouchers and checks are worthless until mulled 
 over by a distant circumlocution office. This 
 office, it is true, has no first hand, practical 
 knowledge of what you are doing, but be- 
 cause this is money we feel safer by imposing 
 such a check. When the bookkeeper sat 
 in the same room, like a bank, and checked 
 138 
 
INSPECTION OR EFFICIENCY. 
 
 the engineer, this was a good working hypoth- 
 esis. Did we not outgrow it long ago? We 
 trust the engineer to hire a thousand men, to 
 incur a legal obligation for us to pay them. 
 Why send the pay-rolls several hundred miles 
 to be checked by a lot of boys? Why not let 
 the engineer disburse, subject to a real check, 
 after the fact, by a competent disinterested in- 
 spection of his work? 
 
 The same general line of reasoning applies 
 to all the activities of a railroad. We endeavor 
 to insure integrity by disbursing only through 
 the central offices of the auditor and the treas- 
 urer. By the same reasoning a large bank 
 would keep its customers waiting at one win- 
 dow because only one teller would be allowed 
 to pay out money. A bank can count its cash 
 at the end of a day, but it can never tell exactly 
 what remittances its correspondents have in the 
 mail. A railway's money is even more in a 
 state of unstable equilibrium. All night long 
 some of its ticket offices and lunch counters 
 are open. All night long cash fares are being 
 collected on trains. The exact amount of 
 .money on hand at a given moment is only an 
 approximation. This is natural from the char- 
 acteristics of a railway. It would be a hard 
 i39 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 matter to stop every train and determine the 
 exact location of every freight car, at home or 
 earning per diem, at any particular moment 
 of time. We can, however, approximate suffi- 
 ciently closely to the conditions to serve all 
 practical purposes. 
 
 Tremble not at my coming, Clarice ; I would 
 not push the auditor off the pier. Rather would 
 I put him on the band wagon and let him blow 
 a bigger horn. Is not accounting one of sev- 
 eral components of operation of which collec- 
 tion and disbursment are yet others? Why 
 not frankly admit that a railway is too unlike 
 a department store to put all the cashiers and 
 bookkeepers on a single floor? Why not 
 interweave accounting with operation? Why 
 not make such operating units self-contained, 
 as experience may prove wise and practicable ? 
 Some of the best roads in the country now 
 have division accounting bureaus in order that 
 the superintendent may keep his operating 
 expenses in hand. The next step must be 
 a division disbursing officer. A pay-roll 
 and certain kinds of vouchers, including 
 some for claims, must become cash without 
 the worthless certification of the general 
 office. 
 
 140 
 
INSPECTION OR EFFICIENCY. 
 
 Returning once more to the bank for inspir- 
 ation and for light, do the bookkeepers of a 
 chain of associated banks report to a head 
 bookkeeper in a central office in a distant city ? 
 No, each bank is a self-contained unit under 
 the president or a manager. The policy is 
 dictated, the methods are prescribed by a cen- 
 tral authority. Efficiency, integrity, and uni- 
 formity are insured by inspections and audits 
 by competent experts free from local affilia- 
 tions. 
 
 What is going to become of the accounting 
 department ? Why, the accounting department 
 is going to be absorbed by the operating de- 
 partment. From the ashes of the ruins there 
 will arise a department of inspection or effi- 
 ciency which will do the things that the so- 
 called auditors are now helpless to accom- 
 plish. Some of the men in this new depart- 
 ment will be recruited from the earnest offi- 
 cials and clerks of the accounting department 
 of today. These men fail to attain the result 
 they so loyally desire, not from their own lim- 
 itations, but from the fallacy of the system 
 under which they work. They deal with ac- 
 counts mere symbols; with money, a repre- 
 sentative. Their work, to be effective, must 
 141 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 deal with things, and above all with men. 
 Audit is extremely important, but not all-im- 
 portant. Audit is a component part of a larger 
 activity, inspection. The word inspection on 
 railways is unfortunately and improperly asso- 
 cited with the thought of secret service and 
 underhanded spotting. True inspection is as 
 open as the day and as welcome as the evening. 
 The earlier station agents resented the crea- 
 tion of the traveling auditor as a reflection 
 upon their integrity. The station agent of 
 today and as a class what splendid, honest 
 men they are! welcomes the traveling au- 
 ditor, because his visit means a clearance. The 
 public accountant had a long fight for rec- 
 ognition of his legitimate function, first in 
 England and later in this country. To- 
 day he is established and is desired by the gen- 
 eral accounting officers of railway corpora- 
 tions. 
 
 Following the public accountant comes the 
 efficiency engineer. While one inspects con- 
 ditions, the other audits accounts. By an easy 
 process of evolution the two positions sooner 
 or later merge into one. The volume of busi- 
 ness may warrant segregation, however, into 
 component activities. Sooner or later the final 
 142 
 
INSPECTION OR EFFICIENCY. 
 
 certificate must include inspection of men and 
 things as well as audit of accounts. 
 
 We, the railways, are big enough to have 
 our own efficiency engineers. This is a dis- 
 tinct function for the staff as contra-distin- 
 guished from the line. Efforts, more or less 
 crude, to introduce special staff work have sig- 
 nally failed on a number of railways. The 
 underlying cause has been a violation of the 
 principle that the staff can never as such di- 
 rectly command the line. The temptation of 
 the special staff men, call them inspectors or 
 efficiency engineers, if you please, is to become 
 meddlers. They are so enthusiastic for the 
 cause that they desire to save the country and 
 reform the road all on the same day. The 
 men who succeed at special staff work are those 
 who stick to the principle enunciated. An in- 
 spector, because he is- a staff officer, should 
 never give an order. 
 
 The coming new department of inspection 
 or efficiency, like all innovations, will have its 
 troubles. One of the temptations will be to 
 build up an office full of clerks to check a lot 
 of unnecessary reports. The head of the de- 
 partment, whether he be called general inspec- 
 tor or vice-president, will have to remember 
 143 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 that untrained persons do not necessarily be- 
 come endowed with superior intelligence and 
 professional acumen by the privilege of per- 
 sonal contact with him and assignment to his 
 department. To be successful his department 
 will consist of a corps of highly trained in- 
 spectors of official rank and experience, capa- 
 ble of first hand dealing with things and men. 
 The tendency of both inspection and audit is 
 to become perfunctory. One remedy, found 
 efficacious by the Army, is definite and periodic 
 rotation from the line positions. The law of 
 the survival of the fittest will bring out those 
 all-around men who can succeed in both line 
 and staff. The superintendent who has been 
 detailed as an inspector for a year or two will 
 return to a division with a broader view and 
 will be a better superintendent. He will not 
 resent the inspection of his division by the 
 other department, because conscious of the fact 
 that the inspectors are at least his equals, and 
 perhaps his superiors, in experience and rank. 
 These inspectors will certify not only that the 
 money has been honestly and legally expended, 
 but wisely and efficiently as well. While an 
 absolute essential, honesty is not the only com- 
 ponent requirement of good administration. 
 144 
 
INSPECTION OR EFFICIENCY. 
 
 The one road on which good intentions are 
 standard ballast is not as yet telegraphing its 
 accidents and its density of traffic to the Inter- 
 state Commerce Commission. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER XIV. 
 
 PRESERVING ORGANIZATION INTEGRITY. 
 
 Chicago, July 8, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy: You write me that your 
 work is heavy, that your territory is extensive, 
 that you wish to divide it into two districts 
 each under a general superintendent. If your 
 president follows his usual practice and asks 
 my advice it will be summed up in four letters, 
 "d-o-n-'t." For years I have been seeking in 
 vain for a general superintendent's district 
 with an entirely satisfactory administration. 
 I know many strong general superintendents. 
 The trouble is not with them, but with the 
 system. Organization is a series of units. 
 These units get out of balance when they are 
 defective or incomplete. There is usually 
 withheld from the general superintendent some 
 such vital process as car distribution, on the 
 specious plea that such activity is so different 
 it can be more cheaply handled by some higher 
 office. If the organization unit is created it 
 must have the same full chance for life and 
 146 
 
PRESERVING ORGANIZATION INTEGRITY. 
 
 development as the rest of the offspring. A 
 principle in organization cannot be violated 
 with impunity any more than in other branches 
 of science. 
 
 The average general superintendent's office 
 is a great clearing house for correspondence. 
 Few matters receive final action and many are 
 passed along to the general manager's office. 
 The resulting delay usually does more harm 
 than good. On the other hand, since we all 
 like to feel that we are highly useful, the gen- 
 eral superintendent, or his chief clerk, is un- 
 consciously dwarfing the initiative of superin- 
 tendents by requiring references to him of 
 matters that should receive final action at divi- 
 sion headquarters. If you do not believe it, 
 check up a few general superintendents' of- 
 fices and study the processes. I am not refer- 
 ring to jurisdictions where a general superin- 
 tendent is required by charter or other legal 
 requirements. I have in mind districts which 
 are arbitrarily created by ill-considered execu- 
 tive mandate. 
 
 The general superintendent starts out with 
 a brave determination to get along with a 
 small staff. Sooner, rather than later, human 
 nature asserts itself; he feels that my man can 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 be more useful if he is on my staff. He builds 
 up a larger staff with an inevitable retarding 
 bureau of correspondence. He perhaps has a 
 $200 traveling engineer rinding fault with the 
 division performance of the $300 superintend- 
 ent. 
 
 Sometimes a general superintendent is lo- 
 cated at a large city under the theory that the 
 importance of the metropolis demands an offi- 
 cer of higher rank. There are various ways 
 to skin a cat, and the method we have seen 
 is not necessarily the only solution. The Penn- 
 sylvania handles successfully large cities like 
 Cincinnati, Cleveland and Chicago with a su- 
 perintendent who has the authority of a gen- 
 eral agent. 
 
 The unit system of organization, because 
 based on sound fundamental principles, solves 
 several vexatious problems. Among these is 
 this matter of general superintendents' dis- 
 tricts. Under the unit system every assistant 
 should have his office of record in the same 
 building with the head of the unit. For ex- 
 ample, it is a violation of good organi- 
 zation to give a district passenger agent 
 the title of assistant general passenger agent 
 with an office of record at a city away 
 148 
 
PRESERVING ORGANIZATION INTEGRITY. 
 
 from the general offices. If such outly- 
 ing office of record is necessary, and it 
 sometimes is, a complete unit should be segre- 
 gated under a head with some such distinct 
 title as district or division passenger agent. 
 This does not, however, preclude having an 
 assistant reside in the outlying city and main- 
 tain his office of record at the general office 
 in the same file with the head of the unit. 
 
 If I were you I would appoint enough as- 
 sistant general managers so that you can have 
 one reside at each point where you have 
 dreamed district headquarters are necessary. 
 Give him a business car and a stenographer, 
 but let him understand that his office file is a 
 part of yours. Let him live on the road as a 
 high class traveling inspector, superior in rank 
 to the people he is inspecting. He is your 
 staff officer with line authority available for 
 action when in his judgment circumstances 
 so require. He can obtain all necessary in- 
 formation from the files at division headquar- 
 ters or by telegraphing your office. Your chief 
 of staff, the senior assistant general manager, 
 will promulgate instructions, while this travel- 
 ing representative, like a trainmaster on a di- 
 vision, will see that they are carried out. 
 149 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 When he finds it necessary to give instruc- 
 tions he should promptly notify your office, 
 that the record may be completed and confu- 
 sion avoided. He can do all this without be- 
 coming bureaucratic, without putting the com- 
 pany to the expense of a great circumlocution 
 office maintained under the feudal notion of 
 his royal importance. Railroad administration 
 suffers from too many offices and instructions, 
 not from too few. The best officials, and the 
 best train dispatchers, give the fewest orders. 
 It is a qualitative rather than a quantitative 
 proposition. 
 
 The moral effect of the presence of an offi- 
 cial cannot be discounted. We need more of- 
 ficials and fewer clerks. The railways are 
 over-manned, because they are under-officered. 
 The great mistake of the past, due to crude 
 conceptions of organization, has been in creat- 
 ing offices rather than officials. 
 
 The same line of reasoning applies to the 
 handling of outlying terminals on a division 
 away from a dispatcher's office. The old idea 
 has been to locate a trainmaster with an office 
 at such points. The moral effect of his pres- 
 ence is unquestionably good. The objection is 
 that he must necessarily be on the road much 
 150 
 
PRESERVING ORGANIZATION INTEGRITY. 
 
 of the time, and the train crews are handled 
 by a clerk. Duplication results because most 
 of the correspondence and records have to be 
 referred to the superintendent's office. The 
 Union Pacific has found it better under the 
 unit system to have an assistant superintendent 
 reside at such important terminals. His office, 
 however, is located with the superintendent, 
 which encourages travel back and forth, just 
 what is desired, and discourages sitting in an 
 office and carrying on correspondence which 
 can better be looked after by the chief of staff 
 in the superintendent's office. The train crews 
 are under the immediate direction of the yard- 
 master when in the terminal, and of the train 
 dispatcher when on the road. 
 
 The railroads of this country have suffered 
 from rigidity in administration. The unit sys- 
 tem permits an elasticity of assignment to take 
 care of conditions as they come along. For 
 example, your non-resident assistant general 
 manager can, if desirable, chaperon three divi- 
 sions when movement is heavy, and four or 
 five, if you please, during the dull season. You 
 can on short notice throw all assistants to the 
 most exposed points. A non-resident assistant 
 superintendent can likewise be sent to an ex- 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 posed district. A permanently located train- 
 master requires an official circular to have his 
 jurisdiction extended, and if suddenly ordered 
 away can leave only a clerk to represent the 
 company. A railway has an ever-present fir- 
 ing line. The more mobile the official force 
 the more promptly can weak portions be rein- 
 forced. 
 
 A striking violation of the unit principle in 
 organization is to have the master mechanic 
 report to the division superintendent in trans- 
 portation matters and to the superintendent of 
 motive power in technical matters. This is a 
 half-way attempt at divisional organization 
 which lacks the courage of conviction. Better 
 have a straight departmental organization with 
 its divided authority and expensive duplica- 
 tion than thus to straddle the question. If the 
 division is to be a real unit, it must be com- 
 plete and self-contained. The lack of balance 
 in this attempt at divisional organization comes 
 from the fact that units are mixed. The su- 
 perintendent of motive power, a general offi- 
 cer with jurisdiction over the entire road, is 
 a member of the general manager's staff. He 
 has a rank and value superior to that of a divi- 
 sional officer, the superintendent. The poor 
 152 
 
PRESERVING ORGANIZATION INTEGRITY. 
 
 master mechanic is often puzzled which supe- 
 rior to please. His natural inclination will be 
 toward the man higher up, the superintendent 
 of motive power. Again, it is difficult for any 
 three men to agree upon what are technical 
 matters. The chief of staff method is not ap- 
 plicable to this phase of the problem, because 
 units have been mixed. The master mechanic 
 and the superintendent of motive power are 
 not components of the same integral unit. The 
 unit system of organization requires a super- 
 intendent of motive power to transact all busi- 
 ness of record with the office of the superin- 
 tendent of the division, a component unit of 
 the general jurisdiction. The senior assistant 
 general manager and the senior assistant su- 
 perintendent, each, as a chief of staff for the 
 head of his unit, decides promptly in the ab- 
 sence of the head of the unit, what matters 
 are sufficiently technical to demand the atten- 
 tion of a particular official. Clear-cut, definite 
 and prompt action is possible, with proper 
 checks and balances, because units are not 
 mixed. The governor can introduce a balance 
 without throwing the administrative machine 
 out of gear to avoid stripping its cogs. The 
 splendid personal equation of railroad officials 
 iS3 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 often serves to carry an illogical organization 
 in spite of its fundamental defects. Similar 
 violations of scientific principles in material 
 things would cause bridges to collapse and 
 locomotives to break down. The showing 
 made by the railroads is a tribute to the admin- 
 istrative ability of their officials rather than 
 to their knowledge of organization. The 
 Pennsylvania a half century ago, and the Har- 
 riman Lines in more recent years, are said to 
 be the only roads that have made comprehen- 
 sive studies of the science of organization. 
 Both of these great railways are prepared to 
 stand the test of time. Both will grow 
 stronger as the years roll by. So feudal is the 
 conception of organization on most railways 
 that the essential elements of self -perpetuation 
 are sadly lacking. Fortunately their traffic 
 strength is so great and our country develops 
 so fast that errors due to preconceived miscon- 
 ceptions and personal caprice are covered up 
 by increased earnings. One encouraging sign 
 is that railway officials have ceased to be quite 
 so cocksure of themselves and are seeking the 
 underlying reason for the faith that is in them. 
 True science ever finds its vindication in im- 
 partial inquiry and intelligent investigation. 
 
PRESERVING ORGANIZATION INTEGRITY. 
 
 The world advances by definite steps rather 
 than by leaps and bounds. Do not lament the 
 fact that some roads are groping ahead only 
 to occupy the abandoned organization camps 
 of the Harriman Lines. Be thankful rather 
 that they have moved forward at all, that 
 though lacking in faith they are coming to a 
 position admitting of enlarged perspective. 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
LETTER XV. 
 
 THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal., July 15, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy: How many miles of road 
 should one division superintendent handle? 
 Like the old lady's recipe for pie crust, it all 
 depends. Some superintendents in the east 
 with two hundred miles handle as much busi- 
 ness as do their western brothers with a thou- 
 sand. As a matter of fact mileage has little to 
 do with the question. On the ideal division 
 the superintendent is in the middle with terri- 
 tory extending one freight district in each di- 
 rection. If he happens to be at a hub he can 
 comfortably handle several freight district 
 spokes, which will increase his mileage accord- 
 ingly. Under such a condition the advantages 
 of a seemingly large mileage are numerous. 
 The superintendent can run his power wher- 
 ever most needed. He can hold back at the 
 farther end of one district cars that he knows 
 the connecting district cannot possibly load or 
 unload for several days. He can preserve a 
 156 
 
THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 balance which is impossible when jurisdictions 
 divide at the hub. In the latter case each su- 
 perintendent hurries freight to the end of the 
 division to avoid a paper record showing delay 
 on his territory. The result is that the next 
 man has terminal indigestion because he has 
 been fed too fast. Therefore, divisional juris- 
 diction should, when possible, change at an 
 outlying district terminal away from a large 
 city. This avoids the added complication due 
 to industrial switching, suburban trains, re- 
 stricted area, etc., etc. A congestion of cars 
 is often caused by a congestion of jurisdic- 
 tions. You may avoid the one by diffusing 
 the other. Several roads in the country have 
 saved heavy expenditures for larger terminal 
 facilities by more scientific organizations. 
 
 The amount of mileage a superintendent can 
 economically handle depends, then, for the 
 most part upon the location of his headquar- 
 ters. Such location in turn admits of no hard 
 and fast rule. Cities and towns spring up and 
 industries develop quite regardless of the limits 
 of a hundred-mile freight district and a speed 
 of ten miles per hour on the ruling grade. A 
 railroad usually begins and ends at a large city 
 which is either a seaport or a gateway. It is 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 normally better to locate a division superin- 
 tendent at such beginning and ending city. He 
 can then handle its terminals and the one or 
 more diverging freight districts. His division 
 should include the terminal at the farther end 
 of such districts, to afford him opportunity 
 both to hold back stuff whose inopportune ar- 
 rival might congest the more complicated ter- 
 minals at headquarters and to relieve such ter- 
 minals promptly by movement outward. In 
 other words, owing to his important terminals 
 this superintendent should have less mileage 
 than his country brother who would be in the 
 middle between the second and third districts. 
 Some roads try to solve the problem by giv- 
 ing the superintendent the first and second dis- 
 tricts with headquarters in the middle. If in 
 such case the general offices happen to be at 
 the initial point they soon ignore the superin- 
 tendent and do business direct with his termi- 
 nal subordinates. When this condition be- 
 comes intolerable, one of two things usually 
 happens. Perhaps the superintendent's office is 
 moved to the first terminal where it really be- 
 longs. Thereupon he loses full touch with 
 his freight crews on the second district, which 
 is left out in the air. The other attempted 
 158 
 
THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 remedy is to appoint a superintendent of ter- 
 minals reporting direct to the general offices. 
 The difference in viewpoint thus legalized may 
 cost the stockholders much money. To the 
 terminal superintendent the trains are always 
 made up on time and the power and road crews 
 are seldom ready. To the division superin- 
 tendent the trains are seldom made up on time 
 and the power and road crews are always 
 ready. Much energy of both officials and 
 their offices as well as that of the general su- 
 perintendent and his office is then directed to 
 holding useless post mortems and negotiating 
 unnecessary treaties of peace. Remember, my 
 boy, that typewriters exert no tractive power 
 and explanations move no cars. Self-preser- 
 vation is the first law of nature. We must so 
 organize that this law will operate to keep the 
 company into clear, not to put some other fel- 
 low in the hole. All of these questions are 
 largely matters of opinion. After working 
 with every kind of terminal organization all 
 over the country, your old dad believes that 
 the best is to have a division superintendent at 
 the big terminal with an assistant superintend- 
 ent in direct charge of and responsible for 
 such terminal, the superintendent controlling 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 every diverging freight district to include the 
 next terminal. 
 
 It should always be remembered that a large 
 terminal demands preferred consideration, be- 
 cause owing to restricted area its problems 
 are intensive and expensive. A dispatcher has 
 a hundred miles or more over which to keep 
 his trains apart, while a yardmaster finds his 
 engines bunched within a mile or two. Again, 
 if the cost of terminal switching does occasion- 
 ally happen to be reflected in a freight rate, 
 the genial gentlemen of the traffic department 
 are prone to recommend its absorption. I be- 
 lieve as a broad proposition that the manage- 
 ment of railroads is more scientific than that 
 of most modern industries. I would not like, 
 however, to file much of their terminal opera- 
 tion as an exhibit. A majority of the switch 
 engines in the United States have one super- 
 fluous man in the crew. This is partly because 
 so few operating officials have sufficient prac- 
 tical knowledge of switching to go out and 
 intelligently handle a crew all day. If you 
 don't believe this, make some time and motion 
 studies of switching. Compare the relative 
 performance of your yard conductors. The 
 tasks of road conductors are relatively so well 
 160 
 
THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 defined that comparison of individual perform- 
 ance is not so difficult. The intense conditions 
 of a terminal complicate such differentiation 
 as among yard conductors. 
 
 Another factor of prime importance in de- 
 termining the size of an operating division is 
 the location of train dispatchers. The dis- 
 patcher's table should always be considered an 
 integral part of the superintendent's headquar- 
 ters offices. The train sheet is perhaps the best 
 record on a railroad. It is never fudged by 
 being made up in advance. It is a history usu- 
 ally unimpeachable because it is so close to the 
 actual transactions which it records. It deals 
 with the essence of railway operation, train 
 movement. Few are the important records on 
 a railway that do not derive their primary data 
 from the train sheet. The sheet may be gra- 
 phic, like a daily time card chart, or may be 
 cut up into card strips, as under the ABC 
 system. In any form, it is a fundamental of 
 operating history. 
 
 The number of dispatchers to which a divi- 
 sion is limited is, like the number of miles, 
 variable. With headquarters at the hub, one 
 superintendent and one chief dispatcher may 
 comfortably handle three or four sets of dis- 
 161 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 patchers. An outlying division with thin traf- 
 fic may require only one set of dispatchers. 
 When it becomes necessary to locate a set of 
 dispatchers away from division headquarters, 
 it is time to appoint another superintendent 
 and create a new division, perhaps with only a 
 light staff of all 'round officials. So important 
 is the train sheet and so much of vital, human 
 interest centers around a dispatcher's office, 
 that the far away superintendent must refer 
 much correspondence to this detached portion 
 of his office. The result is expensive circum- 
 locution and a lack of human touch. The su- 
 perintendent has in effect become a general 
 superintendent too far away from real things. 
 A trainmaster or a chief dispatcher is really 
 carrying the responsibility of a superintendent 
 without the title and authority necessary for 
 smooth administration. I know several rail- 
 ways that are fooling themselves into the be- 
 lief that they are saving money by having one 
 superintendent for two dispatching offices. 
 One of them has five superintendents and ten 
 dispatching offices, really ten divisions in fact, 
 if not in name. By a logical arrangement of 
 territory these ten dispatching offices could be 
 consolidated into seven division headquarters 
 162 
 
THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 and the road operated in seven divisions. In 
 these days of overtime and complex working 
 schedules, a timekeeper should check the time 
 slips against the original train sheet, not 
 against a copy, a transcript or an excerpt. A 
 division accounting bureau handling all that it 
 should handle has also much other use for the 
 train sheet. 
 
 Second only in importance to the train sheet 
 as a record, and with which it should be closely 
 related, is the conductor's car and tonnage 
 report; what the men call the wheel report. 
 This important report made by a division man 
 is sent to a remote general office in disregard 
 of the responsible head of such division, the 
 superintendent. The result is that a distant 
 authority, the superintendent of transporta- 
 tion, is telling the superintendent that certain 
 cars are being delayed on the latter's division. 
 This profuse correspondence is often foolish, 
 because meantime the cars have actually gone. 
 Some roads now have a carbon copy of the 
 wheel report made for the use of the account- 
 ing department. Why not send this carbon to 
 division headquarters and let the division ac- 
 counting bureau make up the ton miles and 
 the car miles, subject to proper check after the 
 163 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 fact? Why not have the office of the super- 
 intendent know so much about the cars on his 
 division that he will tell the general offices that 
 certain cars are being delayed on his division 
 for lack of motive power, loading or disposi- 
 tion, conditions which, perhaps, the general 
 office, with its larger view, can remedy? This 
 would also permit, when desirable, the check- 
 ing of the agents' car reports against the con- 
 ductors 1 reports. The more closely to actual 
 transactions we can do our checking the more 
 intelligent should be the process and the 
 smaller its volume. 
 
 I wish that you would come out here and 
 see the Southern Pacific run its monthly sup- 
 ply, pay and inspection train. Before coming, 
 re-read my letter to you on the subject some 
 seven years ago. I know of no place where 
 the idea has been better carried out. Ideas 
 seldom originate with any one man. They 
 seem rather to float around in the air. They 
 are pulled down by those who happen to erect 
 lightning rods or like Benjamin Franklin to 
 fly kites. To vary the metaphor, do not laugh 
 at people who ride hobbies. Sometimes they 
 ride well enough and far enough to demon- 
 164 
 
THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 strata that the hobby is a real horse. Then it 
 is the turn of the horse to laugh. 
 
 Whenever I see an announcement that a 
 division has adopted the telephone for train 
 dispatching, I always feel that there should be 
 an accompanying apology for being several 
 years behind the times. For years progressive 
 young railway men advocated the telephone 
 only to be assured by old-time dispatcher offi- 
 cials of the unwisdom of such a course. Time 
 and practical tests have shown that not only 
 is the telephone practicable for dispatching, 
 but it actually makes operation safer because 
 of the increased human touch. Whenever and 
 wherever we can replace a specialist with an all 
 'round man we are gaining. 
 
 The first train dispatching is said to have 
 been done by Charles Minot when a superin- 
 tendent on the Erie in the early fifties. So 
 seriously was the matter taken that only the 
 superintendent himself could issue a train or- 
 der, even though this involved calling him out 
 of bed. Hence the foolish feudal custom of 
 signing the superintendent's initials to all train 
 orders. It soon developed that a regular dis- 
 patcher was necessary. Accordingly, a con- 
 165 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ductor, a man who knew how trains were prac- 
 tically handled, was taken off the road and 
 brought to the superintendent's office to dis- 
 patch trains. Stop off at Port Jervis, N. Y., 
 some time and in a local hotel see the portraits 
 of some of these old Erie dispatcher-con- 
 ductors, their dignity being protected by the 
 tall beaver hats of the period. The dispatcher 
 not being a telegrapher, he wrote out his or- 
 ders and handed them to a young operator to 
 send. This operator was a bright fellow, who, 
 by and by, graduated into a dispatcher, able 
 to send his own orders and often to do the 
 work previously requiring both men. Too 
 often it has happened that the experience of 
 the new dispatcher, a telegrapher specialist, 
 was limited to the office end, with no first- 
 hand experience in train service. The tele- 
 phone, fulfilling the immutable laws of evolu- 
 tion, will take us back to first principles. The 
 dispatchers of the future will graduate from 
 the train, engine and yard service, through the 
 dispatcher's office to higher official positions. 
 The man who gives the order will be a man 
 who has once carried out such an order him- 
 self. The man below will obey the more cheer- 
 166 
 
THE SIZE OF AN OPERATING DIVISION. 
 
 fully and the more intelligently because of 
 increased confidence in the man above. 
 
 When the record is made up by the future 
 historian, with that discriminating perspective 
 which time alone can give, high will be the 
 place accorded the railroad officials and em- 
 ployes of America. The military, the pioneers 
 of civilization, the forerunners of stability, 
 have their periods of enervating peace. Trans- 
 portation, the first handmaiden of progress, 
 is in active attendance every day of the year. 
 Those who worship at her shrine and follow 
 her teachings must lead the strenuous life and 
 love the voice of duty. The splendid, virile 
 performance of the past, handicapped often by 
 crude facilities and forced expansion, must 
 and will be eclipsed under the intense, trying 
 conditions of the present and the future. In 
 no profession more than in ours is* there eter- 
 nity of opportunity. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 167 
 
LETTER XVI. 
 
 SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 Salt Lake City, Utah, July 22, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : Supplies and purchases are 
 a feature of railroad operation illustrating the 
 tendency to overcentralization through over- 
 specialization. Please notice that I say sup- 
 plies and purchases; not as some roads do, 
 purchases and supplies. Is not "supply" the 
 broader term, including "purchase" as a very 
 important component? If we happen to make 
 some of our supplies from our own scrap, a 
 question of supply and accounts is involved, 
 but not necessarily one of purchase. The vol- 
 ume of work involved in purchasing for a 
 large railway may be so great as to warrant 
 the segregation of the purchasing function. 
 
 Among the best purchasing bureaus in the 
 United States are those of the Harriman 
 Lines. As I understand it, their able director 
 of purchases does not, as many people suppose, 
 scrutinize all requisitions. Each of the eight 
 vice-presidents and general managers has his 
 168 
 
SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 own purchasing agent, who, under the broad 
 policy of local autonomy, buys many articles 
 as best he can. Those large items which ex- 
 perience proves can best be bought for all by 
 the director of purchases, are so purchased un- 
 der blanket contracts. For those items the 
 local purchasing agent becomes an ordering 
 agent. The point of it all is that no iron clad 
 rule is laid down. Because some items can 
 best be purchased in bulk, it does not follow 
 that local administration should be hampered 
 by requiring all items to be so procured. In- 
 stead of a narrow, rigid rule, there is a broad 
 policy enunciated which permits the discrimi- 
 nating judgment of experience, to decide ques- 
 tions on their individual merits under the ever- 
 changing conditions of service. 
 
 When railroads are older similar broad 
 treatment will be accorded other features of 
 operation as well as supplies and purchases. 
 Broad policies and individual judgment will 
 gradually supplant attempts to decide questions 
 in advance in accordance with preconceived no- 
 tions of probable conditions. 
 
 The evolution of the so-called store depart- 
 ment on most railways has been a striking in- 
 stance of one-sided development. A railway 
 169 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 exists to manufacture and sell an intangible 
 commodity, transportation, not necessarily to 
 carry either a large or small stock of material 
 and supplies. The purchasing agent tells us 
 in good faith how much money he has saved 
 the company by time spent in driving good 
 bargains. He is not in a position to know 
 how many men have been worked to poor ad- 
 vantage, or have been idle, while waiting for 
 proper tools, materials and supplies. Such 
 features of economic waste are not always the 
 fault of the purchasing agent. The general 
 storekeeper and the local storekeeper, ambi- 
 tious for low stock records, may hold down 
 their requisitions. It is so easy to say that a 
 telegram will bring a cylinder head or other 
 spare part to the desired point. If meantime a 
 big locomotive has been out of commission in 
 a distant roundhouse for two or three days 
 and a light engine has been sent to protect 
 the run, there is nothing in the store accounts 
 to reflect this needless expense. The individual 
 batting averages are high, but some way the 
 team is not winning games. 
 
 One of the fallacies introduced by the store 
 people is that the user of material cannot be 
 trusted with its custody, because he will carry 
 170 
 
SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 too much stock, due to an exaggerated view 
 of future necessities. This mistaken theory is 
 carried to the extent of denying to the division 
 superintendent the custody of fifty shovels to 
 be used by the emergency gang of fifty men 
 which it is entirely within his province to order 
 out to clear the road. The men he can com- 
 mand. The shovels, without which the men are 
 useless, he must beseech from a storekeeper 
 receiving, perhaps, one-third as much salary 
 as himself. Of course, in an emergency, the 
 superintendent takes the shovels, anyway. As 
 I said before, it is a pretty poor system that 
 breaks down in an emergency. The test of a 
 system is an emergency. I confess my inabil- 
 ity to see that being a user of material neces- 
 sarily makes a man more indifferent to the 
 company's interests. Perhaps it is the same 
 habit of mind that causes me to deny greater 
 rectitude to the man in the accounting depart- 
 ment. 
 
 The user of material has undoubtedly been 
 careless in many cases. Will he not become 
 more careless if relieved of responsibility and 
 informed that he cannot be trusted? When 
 children err, the wise parent does not disown 
 them. From his fund of riper experience, he 
 171 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 helps them by impressive teaching to gain a 
 proper viewpoint. Similarly, the general store- 
 keeper should control the superintendent and 
 teach the latter the most economical handling 
 and use of material and supplies. Control is 
 comparatively valueless without authority. 
 This authority can be most effectively con- 
 veyed by rank. The general storekeeper should 
 not be a keeper of a general store. He should 
 be a general officer, under the general mana- 
 ger, superior in rank and pay to the division 
 superintendent. Instead of the superintendent 
 being relieved from responsibility, he should 
 be held to a greater accountability. The re- 
 formed and reconstructed bandit often makes 
 a relentless police chief. The despised user of 
 material under proper organization becomes 
 the zealous conserver and protector. 
 
 The general storekeeper, like the chief me- 
 chanical officer, should be located in the same 
 building with the general manager. There is 
 no more reason for locating either one at a 
 store or at a shop than there is for locating a 
 general superintendent in a switch shanty near 
 a yard. General officers must see the whole 
 property and maintain a balance among its 
 component units, which are normally operating 
 172 
 
SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 'divisions. If I were you, as between your pur- 
 chasing agent and your general storekeeper, 
 I would appoint the most experienced an as- 
 sistant general manager, so that his office file 
 can be logically and consistently consolidated 
 with your own. The other of these two men 
 I would make purchasing agent with a distinct 
 title and a separate office file, because of his 
 large volume of business with outside persons. 
 Such assistant general manager would be in 
 effect manager of supplies and purchases, the 
 trained expert seeing the whole problem of 
 operation and deciding normally what material 
 and supplies the company needs. Under such 
 assistant general manager, would be the pur- 
 chasing agent, a staff officer, specializing on 
 the technique and psychology of bargaining. 
 Such assistant general manager, as a line offi- 
 cer, would be his own general storekeeper and 
 would hold division superintendents responsi- 
 ble for the stores on their respective divisions. 
 His work would be co-ordinated with that of 
 the other assistant general managers by the 
 chief of staff, the senior assistant general man- 
 ager. 
 
 The organization thus outlined would pre- 
 clude the necessity for the usual perfunctory 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 approval of requisitions by the general mana- 
 ger. The assistant general manager for sup- 
 plies would normally put the final approval 
 on requisitions. Large or exceptional items 
 the general manager would approve. When 
 differences of opinion developed among the 
 interested assistant general managers as to the 
 relative ultimate economy of different mechan- 
 ical or structural devices, the general manager 
 would be invoked to give a decision that really 
 would be worth something, because made after 
 considering different viewpoints. Under the 
 old order of things, the superintendent of mo- 
 tive power or the chief engineer is tempted to 
 seek the ear of the general manager on the 
 latter's best natured day to put over a requisi- 
 tion for some pet device. So sporadic is the 
 comprehensive consideration of requisitions, so 
 perfunctory is the usual approval, that the gen- 
 eral manager frequently tells his purchasing 
 agent not to take the former's approval too 
 seriously, and to hold up approved requisitions 
 about which the latter is doubtful. This is an- 
 other species of unconscious administrative 
 cowardice which attempts to put on the sub- 
 ordinate the burden of responsibility for a de- 
 parture from the normal. True organization 
 i74 
 
SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 and administration demand normal procedure 
 by subordinates. At normal speed, the admin- 
 istrative machine should run well balanced. 
 When the speed becomes great enough, higher 
 authority should be a governor brought into 
 action more or less automatically. Telling a 
 subordinate habitually to question the acts of 
 his superior has the same cheapening effect as 
 unchecked disregard of block signals. It puts 
 higher authority in the undesirable attitude 
 of exploiting a fad, or an over-worked system, 
 rather than of demanding reasonable compli- 
 ance with proper and logical requirements. 
 
 Have we not overdone the matter of low 
 working stocks? Is is not more expensive for 
 a railroad to carry too small a working stock 
 of material and supplies than one too large? 
 Is not the problem too extensive to warrant 
 very rigid comparisons as between different 
 roads ? Like the average miles per car per day, 
 does not the equation contain too many vari- 
 ables to admit of a very exact solution? Can 
 we compare effectively the dissimilar condi- 
 tions involved in climate, distances from pro- 
 ducing and distributing centers, character of 
 predominating traffic, etc. ? Are not some rec- 
 ords for seemingly low economical stocks 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 based upon the fallacy that it costs the com- 
 pany nothing to ship and reship its own mate- 
 rial ? Where would these records land if com- 
 pany material carried a freight charge of, say, 
 5 mills per ton per mile? Is it not more eco- 
 nomical to handle numerous items of supply in 
 carload lots regardless of average monthly con- 
 sumption? Have we given due weight to the 
 concealed items of expense in arriving at con- 
 clusions as to the cost of handling company 
 material and supplies? 
 
 Two of the best-managed roads in the coun- 
 try, the Pennsylvania and the Big Four, had 
 no stores departments the last time I inquired. 
 At the other extreme, we find the Santa Fe 
 and the Lake Shore carrying their depart- 
 mental system to their stores in an intensified 
 form. In between that happy medium which 
 I mentioned to you stand the Harriman 
 Lines with division stores under the division 
 superintendent, who in turn as to supply mat- 
 ters is under the general storekeeper or other 
 chief supply official, the latter already having 
 in some cases the title and status of an assist- 
 ant general manager. The man in direct 
 charge of the one general store which is al- 
 lowed each general jurisdiction is called a 
 176 
 
SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 storekeeper. The underlying conception is 
 that railroad stores are maintained to help 
 make the wheels go around, that all supply 
 activities should be concentrated upon the 
 most economical manufacture and sale of 
 transportation. 
 
 This brings us to another phase of the prob- 
 lem. Frequently a railroad as a plant is ade- 
 quate to manufacture more transportation than 
 it can sell. The other fellow is getting too 
 much of the competitive business. Investiga- 
 tion often shows that railroad solicitors can 
 sell a shipper no freight or passenger transpor- 
 tation, because his salesman receives no orders 
 from the railroad's purchasing agent. The in- 
 dustrial bureau of a traffic department works 
 to create new business which is fostered by dis- 
 criminating freight rates. Yes, I stand up and 
 use the word "discriminating," because, when 
 properly understood, it implies intelligence and 
 science, and is therefore one of the finest words 
 in the language. This good work of the traf- 
 fic department in creating wealth and develop- 
 ing industrial communities in territory local 
 to a particular road may be largely lost to 
 that road because its purchasing agent, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, fails to exercise 
 177 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 proper and legitimate discrimination in the 
 performance of his important function. 
 
 At first blush, in these days of doubting in- 
 sinuation and hysterical aspersion, when a rail- 
 way official is often denied the presumption of 
 possessing common honesty, when the burden 
 of proof is to show him as having average rec- 
 titude, such a statement may be construed by 
 distorted minds as a plea for subtle forms of 
 rebating. Tenuous as may seem the line here 
 between right and wrong, it can in a given case 
 be readily determined. Too often apparent 
 complexities are only the result of an abstruse 
 contemplation of abstract possibilities. Give 
 honest, fearless, practical treatment to each 
 concrete case as it arises, indulge more in in- 
 ductive reasoning which predicates laws upon 
 facts, not facts upon laws, and complexity 
 gives way to common sense. Transportation 
 is the most exacting, the most diversified, the 
 most far-reaching of commercial and industrial 
 activities. It follows then, under the law of 
 the survival of the fittest, that those who can 
 survive in the art and science of transportation 
 must be the fittest of the fit. In their hands 
 can safely be left the solution of these difficult 
 problems. 
 
 178 
 
SUPPLIES AND PURCHASES. 
 
 After three years of satisfactory experience 
 with division accounting bureaus, the Harri- 
 man Lines have extended such activities to in- 
 clude the division stores. This is done by 
 moving the division storekeeper, his account- 
 ing and correspondence clerks, to the division 
 superintendent's office in order that division 
 records may be consolidated in one file and 
 division accounts in one bureau. A division 
 material-on-hand account is included. The 
 necessary issue clerks, foremen, etc., are left 
 at the storehouse, which is often a mile or two 
 from the superintendent's office. Another 
 avowed object is to get the division supply 
 people closer to the train sheet, to give propin- 
 quity a chance to develop love, and to counter- 
 act that we-are-so-different feeling which 
 comes on many railroads, not only in the 
 spring, but under all signs of the zodiac. The. 
 logical development on divisions of consider- 
 able volume of supply business will be to make 
 the division storekeeper an assistant superin- 
 tendent. This method of store accounting is 
 relatively closer to real transactions, especially 
 where the division supply train is used, than 
 might be supposed. On the Hill lines, the store 
 accounting is done in the general auditor's of- 
 179 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 fice, perhaps one or two thousand miles from 
 the store itself, a decidedly long range propo- 
 sition. Which policy is better is of course a 
 question of opinion. A man's views on organi- 
 zation and methods are largely a matter of 
 temperament and association, just as his poli- 
 tics and religion depend usually upon heredity 
 and environment. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 180 
 
LETTER XVII. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 Portland, Ore., July 29, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy : The man who is successful 
 in the exercise of authority soon learns to be 
 something of a buffer between his superiors 
 and his subordinates. He learns to temper 
 justice with mercy. In this little railroad game 
 of ours there has often been an unconscious 
 departure from this rule of conduct. The 
 word "why" should ask for an increased over- 
 time rate in its next working schedule. Some- 
 body at the top is peeved because a train comes 
 in late. He asks the next man below, "Why?" 
 Down goes the inquiry through the baskets of 
 offices whose files contain the desired informa- 
 tion, because it is so much easier to write 
 another man a letter than to dig up one of our 
 own. The final inquiry is to a man who has 
 already rendered one report or explanation. It 
 would be a pretty poor sort of recording angel 
 that would register against this underling the 
 181 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 more or less justifiable profanity in which he 
 then indulges. 
 
 Up in this part of the country, where they 
 do some mighty good railroading, is a big 
 hearted general officer, who once, during a 
 blizzard, directed his superintendents to order 
 train and engine crews to disregard block sig- 
 nals forced out of commission by the elements. 
 A section foreman went out to change a rail 
 with the traditional one man who could not 
 flag both ways. So the section foreman, with 
 the rail out, relied upon the [automatic] block 
 signal for protection. Along came the train 
 with orders to disregard the signal and the 
 engine landed in the ditch. There was some 
 official talk of discharging the section foreman. 
 The big general officer faced the music and 
 said, in effect, that if any enforced vacancies 
 were to occur he himself must be the man. 
 "Furthermore," he added, "we have learned 
 something; if we are ever again tempted to 
 disregard block signals, we will first notify 
 everybody on the railroad, including the sec- 
 tion foremen." Such manliness is the rule 
 rather than the exception among railroad offi- 
 cers. It is a practical kind of honesty which 
 counts in the great art of handling men. 
 182 
 
CORRESPONDENCE AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 The lesson to be drawn is that we should all 
 be just as honest and considerate for the man 
 below in the conduct of our offices as in the 
 face to face contact of outside activities. The 
 first thought of an official and of his chief of 
 staff should be to avoid humiliating a subor- 
 dinate. A letter demanding an explanation ac- 
 cumulates much momentum of censure while 
 traveling, perhaps from the general offices, 
 through the channels to an agent, a yardmas- 
 ter, a conductor, or a foreman. The tendency 
 of each office is to unbottle a little more of a 
 never- failing supply of suppressed indignation. 
 By the time the return explanations and apolo- 
 gies have trekked back across the plains to the 
 starting point, the whole incident is often as 
 much ancient history as the days of '49. 
 
 Yes, we must have explanations for certain 
 irregularities. The taste for such office pabu- 
 lum is more or less cultivated. It is a kind of 
 diet which demands vigilant restraint of appe- 
 tite. It does not increase the self-respect of a 
 faithful old employe to write a schoolboy ex- 
 planation of something that looked badly on 
 paper in a distant office. Actual experience has 
 demonstrated that discipline can be maintained, 
 efficiency increased, and loyalty engendered by 
 183 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 greater politeness and consideration in official 
 correspondence. Instead of the superintendent 
 or trainmaster writing to a conductor, "Why 
 did you delay No. i at Utopia when you pulled 
 out a draw-bar on the main track on the 
 32nd ?" why not say, "It is claimed that quicker 
 work on your part would have avoided delay 
 to No. i when your train pulled out a draw- 
 bar, etc." This leaves it open to the man to 
 explain or to let the matter go by default. The 
 employe who lets too much go by default is 
 soon well known to his officers and his cases 
 will receive the special treatment they deserve. 
 Some officials devote more time to the gnat- 
 heel measure of explanations than to a broad 
 analysis which will prevent future irregulari- 
 ties. 
 
 To some officials, papers on the desk are 
 a nightmare. For the sake of a clean desk they 
 will write unnecessary letters and pass the 
 papers to the men below. The road will not go 
 to pieces if many papers are held for a personal 
 interview next trip. Because it is now and 
 then desirable to force some old buck to go on 
 record is no reason for not separating the 
 sheep from the goats and avoiding the neces- 
 sity for a record in a majority of cases. This 
 184 
 
CORRESPONDENCE AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 is another instance where L. C. L. judgment 
 is worth a whole trainload of rigid bumping 
 posts. 
 
 Among the many advantages of the chief 
 of staff should be his ability to prepare explan- 
 ations for higher authority from routine re- 
 ports at hand without making a special refer- 
 ence of papers to offices below. 
 
 Your old dad takes considerable pride in the 
 fact that he never consciously wrote a sharp 
 letter to a subordinate. Once, when a train- 
 master, and sick in bed, he dictated in a letter 
 to a conductor, "Hereafter, please take suffi- 
 cient interest to see that switches are properly 
 locked." The stenographer improved the 
 phraseology by writing, "Please take special 
 interest, etc." see the difference? which 
 happy circumstances caused the conductor to 
 come to the sickroom and express his undying 
 devotion to the cause of locked switches. A 
 personal interview with a conductor, how- 
 ever, is worth a dozen letters by a train- 
 master. 
 
 These same observations apply to the gen- 
 eral manager as well as to the trainmaster. 
 The higher one goes, the more consideration 
 must he cultivate. If you have something dis- 
 185 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 agreeable to get out of your system and the 
 typewriter is your only recourse, take it out on 
 your superiors rather than your subordinates. 
 It is better for the company to have you fired 
 for insubordination than for you to demoralize 
 the service by rawhiding men below. You 
 must carry out the policies and instructions of 
 your superiors. The success of your adminis- 
 tration will depend upon the manner in which 
 you execute the wishes of your superiors and 
 upon the methods you pursue, as much as upon 
 the inherent merits of the policies themselves. 
 Flattering yourself, as you probably do, at be- 
 ing the happiest of the happy in the medium 
 line, see how safe a middle course you can 
 steer. It will take another generation to eradi- 
 cate feudalism in railroad administration. 
 Those whom Fate, opportunity, or desire has 
 landed in the railroad game must abide by the 
 existing rules. If out of accord with the poli- 
 cies of those above, be a good sport and resign 
 like a gentleman. Before doing so, however, 
 be dead sure that you have not mistaken some 
 trifling inconsistencies of methods for real 
 incompatibility warranting voluntary sepa- 
 ration. 
 
 A good friend and a good superintendent 
 186 
 
CORRESPONDENCE AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 down south recently asked me to preach a lit- 
 tle on the necessity for a more dignified tone 
 in railway correspondence. He cited his cor- 
 respondence with government offices as an ex- 
 ample of dignified expression. Instead of say- 
 ing, "Please advise me," or, "Kindly let me 
 know," or "I wish to be informed," they use 
 some such impersonal expression as, "Please 
 advise this office," or "Kindly favor the de- 
 partment," or, "This bureau desires informa- 
 tion concerning, etc." Some people say they 
 like to have an official or an employe act as if 
 he owned the property. I would not. A man 
 will ride his own horse to death. When acting 
 as trustee, guardian, or fiduciary, he will per- 
 haps conserve the property entrusted to his 
 charge more carefully than if it were his own. 
 Is not a careful trustee better than a careless 
 owner? Railway officials are trustees as well 
 as hired hands. Through long traditions of 
 service, the government officer, however ham- 
 pered by certain limitations that are inherent 
 in government administration, forms a habit 
 of mind which prompts first attention to his 
 employer rather than to himself. On railways 
 we are equally loyal, but are cruder in our man- 
 ifestations. We have the feudal conception of 
 187 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 "my railroad" rather than that of "the rail- 
 road on which I have the honor to be em- 
 ployed." 
 
 Following the same reasoning, it is better 
 for a man to sign, "John Doe, for and in the 
 absence of the General Manager," than "Rich- 
 ard Roe, General Manager, per John Doe." 
 When John Doe acts in the place of Richard 
 Roe, the former has become the representative 
 of the company, rather than a facsimile of 
 Richard Roe. The act of John Doe binds the 
 company, and the papers should show on whom 
 personal administrative responsibility must be 
 fixed. The phrase, "For and in the absence 
 of," explains to the recipient the departure 
 from normal procedure, and to the company's 
 future reviewer is John Doe's explanation or 
 apology for seeming usurpation of the func- 
 tions of higher authority. 
 
 When you have signed a letter, no matter 
 by whom suggested or prepared, it becomes 
 your act for which you are responsible. Do 
 not have its effect weakened by showing in the 
 corner of the original the initials of the per- 
 sons dictating and typewriting. Whether or 
 not such initials shall be shown on your file car- 
 bon for the sake of future reference is a mat- 
 188 
 
CORRESPONDENCE AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 ter of taste. Such carbon copy record can be 
 made either by a rubber stamp or by typewriter. 
 With the latter method some stenographers 
 prefer to slip in a piece of heavy paper to blank 
 the original and to save the trouble of remov- 
 ing the outer sheet from the machine. The 
 point is that, however desirable such informa- 
 tion may be for your own office, it is no con- 
 cern of the recipient of the letter. It is much 
 more important that the carbon copy should 
 show by rubber stamp or otherwise who actu- 
 ally signed the original and became responsible 
 for that completed stage of the transaction. 
 
 The impersonal form of address used in 
 government correspondence precludes the ne- 
 cessity for printing the names of officials on 
 letter heads. Illegible signatures are a pretty 
 poor excuse for attempting to issue an official 
 directory in the form of a letter head. The 
 working conception of the self -perpetuating 
 corporation falls short if we must alter or re- 
 print our stationery every time an official is 
 changed. 
 
 We are wont to look upon government ad- 
 ministration as typical of conservatism and cir- 
 cumlocution. Some things we do much better 
 than the government. There are things the 
 189 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 government does much better than we do. For 
 example, an officer of the corps of engineers 
 in the Army does his own disbursing. He con- 
 trols all the component functions of his par- 
 ticular activity, including supply and purchase. 
 He is checked up after the fact by an auditor 
 in Washington. A railway cannot pay most 
 of its bills until six or seven persons sign a 
 voucher. Number seven signs perfunctorily 
 because Number six did. Number six likewise 
 is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt 
 that caused the voucher in the house that Jack 
 built. It all comes down to some responsible 
 man who handled the matter in the first place. 
 Why not trust him, and perhaps one other, 
 checking them both after the bill has been 
 promptly paid ? A bank check is validated by 
 only one genuine, creditable indorsement. If 
 drawn to bearer or to self, only one signature 
 is necessary. I am optimistic enough to be- 
 lieve that you will live long enough to see 
 railways follow the example of the banks and 
 the government and pay a legitimate bill with 
 one, or at the most two signatures. When 
 this is done, however, I trust that due notice 
 will be given, so that the seismograph stations 
 may have fair warning. If all the old time 
 190 
 
CORRESPONDENCE AND EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 auditors turn over in their graves at the same 
 time, the earth will tremble and the shock will 
 be too great for delicate instruments. 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 191 
 
LETTER XVIII. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 Spokane, Wash., August 5, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy: Someone has asked me 
 how far up and how far down the principles of 
 the unit system and the chief of staff idea can 
 be applied. It is too bad the answer is so 
 easy. Otherwise we might inaugurate a guess- 
 ing contest and offer prizes. The unit system 
 is applicable to every phase of modern organi- 
 zation. When its principles are better under- 
 stood, you will see develop in the great finan- 
 cial centers some such important title as vice- 
 chairman, in order that rank and authority 
 may be conferred superior to that of the presi- 
 dents of the constituent properties. Both the 
 chairman and the president need a senior vice- 
 chairman and a senior vice-president, respec- 
 tively, to act as chief of staff. The New York 
 Central once had a senior vice-president, W. 
 C. Brown, and the St. Louis & San Francisco 
 created the same position for Carl Gray. When 
 these two able men became presidents, their 
 192 
 
ORGANIZATION OF IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 former positions were discontinued. Puzzle: 
 Find the reason. Answers to be sent to the 
 Puzzle. Editor, Louis D. Brandeis, Boston, 
 Mass. 
 
 A prominent railway executive, who is also 
 a distinguished bridge engineer, said to me, 
 "You must be patient until railway people 
 can measure this big idea in their own little 
 half bushels. I did not see it clearly until I 
 thought it through in terms with which I am 
 familiar. I reverted to my graphic statics and 
 measured organization as a bridge truss. This 
 showed the chief clerk as a short ordinate be- 
 tween the longest, the head of the unit, and 
 next longest, the official second in rank. We 
 would never design a bridge that way, for the 
 short ordinate in between would break under 
 the strain. You interpose the chief of staff 
 and diminish your strains logically to suit the 
 decreased resisting power. Why don't you 
 show the old telegraph men and the electric 
 people the same idea in terms of things with 
 which they are most familiar? They should 
 see that you can not step down your potential 
 through an undersized transformer." 
 
 Railroad administration is usually said to 
 be divided into four real departments, namely : 
 193 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 the executive, including legal and financial, the 
 traffic, the operating, including maintenance 
 and construction, and the accounting. Most 
 railroads place each of these departments in 
 charge of a vice-president. I think that this 
 is usually a mistake. Experience has demon- 
 strated the practicability of the same man be- 
 ing a division master mechanic, for example, 
 and at the same time performing some of the 
 broader duties of an assistant superintendent. 
 Likewise an assistant general manager can act 
 as the head of the mechanical bureau in the 
 general office. When we reach so high as to 
 go beyond the heads of real departments we 
 find our old friend, volume of business, and his 
 bastard brother, unbalanced administration, to 
 demand more balance wheels. The unit has 
 become of too large a size for a single gov- 
 ernor. If you don't believe this, watch some- 
 body try to transfer a bureau, freight claims, 
 for example, from the department under one 
 vice-president to that of another. 
 
 When I incorporate and organize that ideal 
 railroad it will have a president, a senior vice- 
 president and as many other vice-presidents as 
 may be necessary. The vice-presidents will be 
 real assistant presidents, not heads of depart- 
 194 
 
ORGANIZATION OF IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 ments. Each will be an expert graduated from 
 some particular department. Such graduation 
 will depend more upon the man being big 
 enough for a vice-president and possible presi- 
 dent than upon the department itself. Since 
 volume of business warrants separation of the 
 financial and the corporate from the legal, and 
 of passenger from freight traffic, I shall have 
 seven departments, under seven general officers, 
 namely, the general inspector (who will also 
 be the comptroller), the secretary, the general 
 treasurer, the general manager, the freight 
 traffic manager, the passenger traffic manager, 
 and the general counsel. Each of the seven 
 departments will have its own office file. All 
 of the vice-presidents will have one consoli- 
 dated office file in common with the president. 
 Trusting that these few lines will restrain 
 you for a brief period, which is Boston & Al- 
 bany for hold you for a while, let us consider 
 the application of the unit system to a humbler 
 sphere, that of roadmaster or track supervisor, 
 who is the head of a highly important sub-unit 
 of maintenance organization. The roadmas- 
 ter's clerk is usually paid less than a section 
 foreman. As a result such clerk is either a 
 callow youth looking for speedy transfer or 
 195 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 an old man married to the job. In the latter 
 case, after one change in roadmasters the clerk 
 probably dominates the office. He puts so 
 much fear of paper work in the minds of the 
 section foreman that few aspire to be road- 
 masters. Instead of a clerk, why not have an 
 assistant roadmaster, a real understudy, pro- 
 moted from section foreman at a slight in- 
 crease in pay and allowances? Get the work- 
 ing atmosphere of the section into the roadmas- 
 ter's office. Perhaps some of the section fore- 
 men are not relatively as stupid as certain su- 
 periors who take snap judgment on possible 
 qualifications. Some people deny the necessity 
 for a roadmaster's office. Is it not rather diffi- 
 cult to hold a man responsible without giving 
 him access to first hand records of perform- 
 ance ? An assistant superintendent or an assist- 
 ant general manager can and should come to 
 his own headquarters where there are clerks to 
 furnish him necessary information. A road- 
 master away from division headquarters can- 
 not gain such contact without deserting the 
 subdivision for which he is responsible night 
 and day. He cannot well take the section fore- 
 man from work to compile statistics. 
 
 When the word superintendent is eliminated 
 196 
 
ORGANIZATION OF IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 from all higher titles so that it means the 
 head, and a real head, of an operating divi- 
 sion, there will be a bigger return for that item 
 of operating expenses known as "superintend- 
 ence.'' If the notion still lingers that opera- 
 tion is merely train movement, and that it is 
 enough for a superintendent to be a high class 
 chief dispatcher, the idea of real management 
 can be driven in by calling the head of a divi- 
 sion a "manager/' In such case, the title gen- 
 eral manager would have a logical meaning. 
 The title district manager would fit the case 
 where subdivision into such territorial units 
 became unavoidable. 
 
 When the telegraph, the telephone, and the 
 phonograph were invented the Greek language 
 was consulted and new words were scientifi- 
 cally coined to express a new necessity of lin- 
 guistic expression. The automobile and the 
 aeroplane are founding whole families of new 
 words. As society and industry become more 
 highly organized it may be necessary to coin 
 new words to convey the full idea of the rank 
 and duties of the human elements in a large 
 organization. Critics of the unit system de- 
 plore the uniformity of titles as tending to 
 merge individual identity. This is not the 
 197 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 fault of the system but of the poverty of the 
 English language which lacks varying termina- 
 tions of root words to express different shades 
 of meaning. If necessary to meet this view 
 helps can be sought from such highly inflected 
 languages as Greek and Esperanto, and new 
 words coined. Thus the same word with a 
 slightly different ending would mean, "assist- 
 ant superintendent in charge of maintenance 
 of way and structures as classified by the In- 
 terstate Commerce Commission," or, "assist- 
 ant superintendent in charge of maintenance 
 of equipment, including an allowance for de- 
 preciation at the legal and constitutional ratio 
 of sixteen to one, expiating the crime of 1873 
 and glorifying the Hepburn Act of 1906." 
 
 Many practical things in this world escape 
 attention because they are so close as to be 
 inside the focal distance. The persons most 
 concerned are often too close to a proposition 
 to observe what should be distinctly obvious. 
 I uncover my headlight to the fellow down 
 East who recently showed us all that green 
 flags can be replaced by the night markers. 
 For the over-specialization of perishable day 
 indicators he substituted the all-round day and 
 night marker. The supply people should not 
 198 
 
ORGANIZATION OF IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 kick at the decreased demand for their prod- 
 uct. They should be thankful, rather, that rail- 
 road officials did not wake up sooner to 
 changed conditions. The new practice is 
 worth the price of admission if it only serves 
 to do away with the delay and inconvenience 
 of loading and unloading the time-honored and 
 cumbrous train box which still roams wild in 
 some regions covered by the Spokane rate deci- 
 sion. 
 
 Among the other simplifications which time 
 will bring is a logical method of designat- 
 ing extra trains. To-day we tell a man 
 that an engine number means little, because 
 the train indicator says that it is train so- 
 and-so. The numbers on the engine and 
 on the train indicator are different and have 
 no relation. To-morrow the engine runs 
 extra and the two numbers must be iden- 
 tical. When we adopt the train indi- 
 cator, should we not banish numbers from 
 the outside of our engines and tenders? 
 Should not the number be inside the cab to be 
 consulted for reports and statistics, including 
 the train sheet ? This would mean that extras 
 would be numbered consecutively in a series 
 higher than the numbers on the regular trains. 
 199 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL, 
 
 Extras, like regular trains, would lose their 
 running rights in twelve hours. In this con- 
 nection, did you ever figure that, except pos- 
 sibly in the case of extras, the distinctions 
 "A. M." and "P. M." are superfluous on train 
 orders? Should P. M. come before the order 
 is fulfilled, the A. M. train is dead. 
 
 The proposed change would force regular 
 trains to be numbered in lower series, regard- 
 less of divisions and branch lines. This would 
 make for safety. The more figures in a num- 
 ber, the greater the possibilities of error in 
 reading a train order. A man is much more 
 likely to confuse 2347 with 2345 than 47 with 
 45. If the motive power bureau must recog- 
 nize the high numbered union for classifica- 
 tion purposes, let us avoid having the blooming 
 series federate with the train dispatcher's order 
 book. 
 
 The magnificent distances of this western 
 country are reflected in increased difficulties in 
 railway operation. Perhaps no branch of the 
 railway service is more affected thereby than 
 the dining car service. American travelers, as 
 the colored soldier said about the Cubans, are 
 the "eatin'est lot of people." The long haul 
 for cars and supplies renders supervision more 
 200 
 
ORGANIZATION OF IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 difficult and deficits correspondingly greater. 
 The dining car man on most, if not all, west- 
 ern roads is attached to a losing game. When 
 poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at 
 the window. The dining car superintendent is 
 kept busy retaining the affections of the man- 
 agement in the face of red figures. 
 
 A dining car is about the most complex 
 proposition in its operation that we have on 
 the railroad. It will be the hardest to bring 
 under the supervision of the division superin- 
 tendent and his assistants. The difficulties of 
 so doing are many, but are not insurmountable. 
 The dining car, because it moves on wheels, 
 is an incident to the manufacture and sale of 
 transportation. It is not, as a few dining car 
 people suppose, merely a traveling hotel to 
 which the railway is an incident. Originally 
 the dining cars were under the passenger traf- 
 fic department. Later it was realized that they 
 are logically a part of operation. So they have 
 been placed under the general manager and 
 his subordinate, the superintendent of dining 
 cars. We say nonchalantly that the superin- 
 tendent and the train conductor can instruct 
 the so-called conductor of the dining car. Let 
 a passenger conductor report a dining car con- 
 201 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 ductor. The former's superintendent will 
 probably find himself helpless to defend his 
 man against the momentum of a correspond- 
 ence bureau located in the general offices. As 
 a result, the superintendent and the passenger 
 conductor soon lose interest. They are not 
 looking for trouble and possible censure. The 
 outcome is long-range supervision of a central- 
 ized activity. The man in charge of the din- 
 ing car should be called steward, because he 
 cannot conduct a car even to a side track. He 
 should be under the control of the train con- 
 ductor, whom the superintendent can hold re- 
 sponsible for the entire train performing 
 proper public service. A good, honest passen- 
 ger conductor can secure and retain more busi- 
 ness for the company than two traveling pas- 
 senger agents. The conductor cannot do this 
 if the dining car man is unwilling to send 
 promptly a pot of coffee to the shabby little 
 sick woman in the chair car whose daughters 
 are going to buy tourist tickets next year. In 
 the days of simpler organization the good old 
 passenger conductor would unload on the 
 prairie a short-sighted sleeping car or dining 
 car man and let the latter walk home. Because 
 this cannot be done to-day is one of the rea- 
 
 202 
 
ORGANIZATION OF IDEAL RAILROAD. 
 
 sons for the lack of initiative on the part of 
 the train conductor. The lack of courtesy 
 sometimes shown by employes is not infre- 
 quently the fault of heads of would-be depart- 
 ments whose tenacity for departmental lines 
 leaves subordinates with an unbalanced notion 
 of the necessity for real courtesy and consider- 
 ation. Bowing and scraping do not alone con- 
 stitute politeness. 
 
 One of the best dining car superintendents 
 in the country is Tom Clifford of the Erie, a 
 graduated division superintendent and passen- 
 ger conductor. Because they are general of- 
 ficers, the dining car superintendents of the fu- 
 ture should be assistant general managers, and 
 should come up from the grade of division su- 
 perintendent, in order to acquire a more com- 
 prehensive knowledge of operation. Just how 
 to work out all the details is, I confess, per- 
 haps the hardest operating problem that I have 
 yet tackled. Pullman employes have a home 
 terminal and a home district to whose superin- 
 tendent certain reports are made and com- 
 plaints referred. This works well, although 
 Pullman cars may run over several of their 
 superintendents' districts. The fact that din- 
 ing cars run over more than one division is 
 203 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 not of itself a sufficient reason for the em- 
 ployes being under the immediate direction of 
 a general officer. Volume of business, density 
 of traffic, shortness of runs, and other causes 
 may warrant varying applications of the un- 
 derlying principle. Above all, we should avoid 
 those hard and fast rules which even the Medes 
 and Persians never attempted to make applic- 
 able to dining cars. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 204 
 
LETTER XIX. 
 
 THE ENGINEERING OF MEN. 
 
 Chicago, August 12, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : As the old order changeth, 
 yielding place to new, the last of the feudal 
 barons among the chief engineers are passing. 
 Bold have been their conceptions, faithful their 
 performances and great their achievements. 
 Their work has developed those splendid types 
 of manhood which are characteristic of the 
 futile struggle of nature against art, of the 
 wilderness against civilization. 
 
 Partly because of better intellectual training, 
 partly because of the rush to complete addi- 
 tions and betterments and partly because of the 
 inborn tendency of human nature to over-spe- 
 cialize, the construction men of most railways 
 have frequently put it over on the so-called 
 operating men. Peace hath her victories no 
 less renowned than war. As civilization ad- 
 vances the struggles of a railroad are less 
 against physical nature and more against so- 
 ciological and political conditions. This ad- 
 205 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 vanced stage makes for altruism and compre- 
 hensive cooperation. The problem of the con- 
 struction engineer becomes harder when his 
 work is interwoven with the necessities of 
 everyday operation. A manufacturing plant 
 can sometimes shut down during a period of 
 new construction. A railway, however, can- 
 not store its product, transportation. Some 
 car wheels must be moving all the time. It 
 follows, then, that construction must yield to 
 operation rather than operation to construc- 
 tion. Again, from the nature of a railway, 
 construction is a component of operation, and 
 the whole is greater than any of its parts. 
 
 During the period of rapid expansion the 
 construction men were kept "on the front." 
 Here is another bet that our predecessors over- 
 looked. Instead of amalgamating construction 
 with operation and developing a corps of all 
 around men they sacrificed the future. The 
 result is two sets of specialists lacking sym- 
 pathy with each other's difficulties. The point 
 of convergence is the company's treasury, 
 which pays unnecessary bills. Sometimes these 
 are in the form of a duplication of work train 
 service; sometimes in idle equipment in which 
 the construction bureau retains a proprietary 
 206 
 
THE ENGINEERING OF MEN. 
 
 interest on days of idleness. The construc- 
 tion people may be awaiting material or men. 
 Meantime my work train cannot be used by 
 the superintendent for maintenance purposes. 
 The chief dispatcher has so little sympathy 
 with new construction that the young assistant 
 engineer dare not let go of my engine lest an 
 revoir may mean good-by. Another delightful 
 but expensive duplication occurs frequently in 
 the matter of stores. Look around and see 
 how many separate stores your construction 
 bureau is maintaining, some of them within a 
 stone's throw of a well stocked permanent 
 store. 
 
 After defying a few times the official light- 
 ning our wise construction Ajax learns to make 
 his estimates large. Having beaten his own 
 figures he exclaims, "Behold how much money 
 I have saved the company." 
 
 Comparisons of costs in construction work 
 are much more difficult than in operation. This 
 inability to control disbursement through the 
 discipline of statistics should be met as far as 
 possible by the most careful organization. Ex- 
 travagance and waste in maintenance and op- 
 eration are bad enough. In construction they 
 are worse, because capitalized and bearing an 
 207 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 interest burden for innumerable years to come. 
 
 All positions have their inherent tempta- 
 tions. The young engineer in charge of con- 
 struction is tempted to nurse the job because 
 when it is finished he may be laid off. Whether 
 he yields or not, it is a poor kind of organiza- 
 tion that places the temptation before him. Too 
 frequently the construction engineer costs the 
 company money because of his un familiarity 
 with maintenance conditions. Experience in 
 maintenance would help him in construction. 
 Before being entrusted with authority an en- 
 gineer should have experience in both mainte- 
 nance and construction, regardless of the 
 branch in which he may have happened to 
 start. Check up your new branch lines and 
 see how much money being charged to mainte- 
 nance could have been saved if the construction 
 people had better appreciated operating condi- 
 tions. See how many side tracks and water 
 tanks are on curves. Never investigate a col- 
 lision without considering faulty construction 
 and location as factors. 
 
 One of the easiest ways to save your com- 
 pany money will be to reorganize your con- 
 struction activities. When you decide upon 
 some new line, be it a branch, a second track, 
 208 
 
THE ENGINEERING OF MEN. 
 
 or an extension, call a cabinet meeting of all 
 your assistants. Let the supply assistant of 
 your grand opera troupe know at which stand 
 you are to play. Call in the superintendent of 
 the division concerned, with his maintenance 
 assistant. Tell the superintendent that he will 
 be responsible for the new work subject to the 
 instructions of your construction assistant. 
 Let it be understood that the work will be 
 under the direct charge of his maintenance as- 
 sistant, that the equipment will be looked after 
 by his mechanical assistant and the material 
 and supplies furnished by his supply assistant. 
 Throw the whole official momentum of the di- 
 vision on the side of the new work. Under 
 the old order of things the division people do 
 what they are told in helping out the construc- 
 tion, but no more. The proposed organization 
 will beget that extra individual effort which is 
 relatively as profitable as the farmer's extra 
 bushel per acre. At this same cabinet meeting 
 let your superintendent nominate a junior as- 
 sistant to act as understudy for maintenance 
 while his leading maintenance man is treading 
 the construction boards. If, when the job is 
 over, any scrimping has to take place it will 
 not be the construction man who has to drop 
 209 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 back. Two years hence the maintenance as- 
 sistant will not give you the old song and dance 
 about poor construction causing excessive 
 maintenance, because he himself built the line. 
 There is, of course, a danger that this mainte- 
 nance assistant will be extravagant in con- 
 struction for the sake of a future record in 
 maintenance. You have two checks against 
 this, one through the efficiency of your con- 
 struction assistant and the other through the 
 division accounting bureau, which should 
 handle additions and betterments as separate 
 accounts. 
 
 Once upon a time I ran across a contractor 
 grading a new line. His organization, the 
 most efficient that I ever happened to see in any 
 line of activity, made that of the railway for 
 which he was working look like thirty cents. 
 He made the grading camp the unit. Each of 
 his sixteen camps was in charge of a foreman 
 who controlled his own commissary, his own 
 timekeeper, his own blacksmith and his own 
 animals and equipment. The first duty of the 
 foreman was to supply his men with grub and 
 his animals with feed. Normally this took two 
 wagons. If he happened to be near the base 
 of supplies he used only one team and put the 
 
 210 
 
THE ENGINEERING OF MEN. 
 
 other on a plow or a scraper. If he happened 
 to be clear at the front he might have to bor- 
 row another wagon and use three teams for 
 supply. The point is that he kept all of his 
 teams working all of the time and never ran 
 out of supplies. The railroad would organize 
 a department of wagons, a department of 
 plows and a department of scrapers, and the 
 foreman who kicked the hardest would have 
 the most grub, even though somebody else 
 was short. These foremen were jacked up if 
 they used poor judgment in accumulating sup- 
 plies and had too much on hand when the next 
 move came. No clerk at the base was allowed 
 to cut the requisition of a foreman. The resi- 
 dent engineers of the railway in charge of 
 the several staking and inspection parties could 
 not procure railway commissary supplies with- 
 out the O. K. of a clerk in the so-called board- 
 ing house department. 
 
 Another noteworthy feature was the con- 
 stant presence of officials and sub-officials with 
 authority to act for the contractor. A general 
 foreman and two assistant general foremen 
 were riding the line and giving instructions to 
 meet changing conditions. For example, in 
 the afternoon an assistant general foreman 
 211 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 countermanded an order given by his general 
 manager who had happened to be on the 
 ground in the morning. When a resident en- 
 gineer in charge of a party desired such au- 
 thority he called up the tent of the division en- 
 gineer and gained the desired information 
 from the latter's chief clerk, who was receiv- 
 ing a smaller salary than the resident engineer. 
 I spare your feelings a description of the com- 
 plex methods imposed by the railway account- 
 ing department in marked contrast to the sim- 
 ple common sense practice of the contractor. 
 How much stockholders are paying for main- 
 taining the sacred system of railways I am 
 unable to state. Many administrative crimes 
 are committed in the name of organization. 
 
 One of the fallacies sometimes introduced 
 by the accounting department in construction 
 organization is to have all the timekeepers re- 
 port to a chief timekeeper, regardless of the 
 engineer or other chief of party. A bright 
 young engineer once told me his troubles in 
 this respect. He was astonished at the differ- 
 ence when he followed the advice to make each 
 party a complete unit with its own timekeeper, 
 the chief of the party being held responsible 
 for proper time keeping as well as for all other 
 212 
 
THE ENGINEERING OF MEN. 
 
 duties. This efficient youngster deplored the 
 fact that neither his engineering school nor his 
 official superiors had ever deemed it necessary 
 to give him lessons in the applied science of or- 
 ganization. Never forget, my boy, the immor- 
 tal words attributed to George Stephenson that 
 the greatest branch of engineering is the en- 
 gineering of men. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 213 
 
LETTER XX. 
 
 THE FALLACY OF THE TRAIN-MILE UNIT. 
 
 Tucson, Ariz., August 19, 1911. 
 
 My Dear Boy : Do you think it logical and 
 just to pay a train (including engine) crew the 
 same wages for going over the freight district 
 with a light caboose as with 50 or 75 cars? 
 Be careful how you answer. 
 
 As I understand it, the train-mile was 
 adopted as a unit of compensation for employes 
 on the theory that piece work rewards the de- 
 serving and promotes efficiency. Whatever the 
 merits or demerits of the piece work theory, 
 I have never been able to reconcile its applica- 
 bility to train service. A man operating a 
 machine in a shop can stop or start his indi- 
 vidual machine, can save steam power or elec- 
 tric current without seriously inconveniencing 
 his fellow workers or the general operation of 
 the plant. A railroad train cannot move re- 
 gardless of all other trains on the road. Such 
 independence of function will cause either a 
 criminal collision or an expensive blockade. A 
 214 
 
FALLACY OF THE TRAIN-MILE UNIT. 
 
 train must, therefore, move according to a 
 time-table and orders. The space occupied by 
 a train, unlike a stationary machine, is so vari- 
 able that time becomes the essence of the prop- 
 osition. The train crew cannot be allowed that 
 freedom of action which permits of piece work. 
 Too many arbitrary conditions are necessarily 
 imposed to warrant a very extended applica- 
 tion of a practical bonus system. One delayed 
 train will upset the whole day's combination. 
 On the other hand, the task imposed upon a 
 train crew is extremely definite and easy to 
 measure, when the equation can be solved for 
 all the variables. 
 
 So fallacious a unit of compensation as the 
 train-mile breeds numerous illogical practices. 
 We penalize ourselves every time we run a 
 train without full tonnage. Conditions of traf- 
 fic may demand quick movement regardless of 
 tonnage. When business is heavy terminals 
 are congested and empty equipment is scarce. 
 We all know that the way to relieve congested 
 terminals is to run light, fast trains. This 
 serves a double purpose, relieving the terminals 
 and increasing the earning power of the equip- 
 ment. Unfortunately our fundamental con- 
 ception is so distorted that we mulct ourselves 
 215 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 in money by doing that which is an obvious 
 necessity. Why not so arrange our methods 
 that we can be rewarded for quick judgment 
 and prompt action? 
 
 A shop workman sups, sleeps and breakfasts 
 at his own home. A train crew must have in- 
 creased expenses when away from the home 
 terminal. A train crew would really be ahead 
 of the game as far as expenses are concerned if 
 a round trip could be made within the sixteen- 
 hour limit and the away-from-home terminal 
 expenses avoided. We say that demurrage is 
 imposed primarily to hasten the release of 
 equipment. We claim that normally we would 
 rather have the cars than the dollars of demur- 
 rage. If cars are so valuable, how much should 
 we charge ourselves for the hire of the fifty 
 cars which are twelve or fifteen hours getting 
 over the district? 
 
 We can work out by a mathematical formula 
 the most economical scheme for fuel consump- 
 tion and maximum tractive effort. It is more 
 difficult to devise a formula to express the 
 effect of drastic laws caused by poor service. 
 Attempting to club converging live stock runs 
 in big trains has caused, in some states, legisla- 
 tion covering the movement of stock. Perhaps 
 216 
 
FALLACY OF THE TRAIN-MILE UNIT. 
 
 this is offset by the claims save for missing 
 the market with delayed stock. Is it not a sad 
 commentary to think that legislation is neces- 
 sary to make us do what is for our own best 
 interests ? 
 
 There can be no doubt that for a heavy and 
 regular movement of low grade commodities 
 on two or four track roads the big train is 
 logical and economical. Most of the prairie 
 roads are single track. Most of the distances 
 between the prairie cities are relatively long. 
 Stock, perishable freight and merchandise 
 must have rapid movement. Is it wise under 
 such a disparity of conditions to make the 
 train-mile rigid and sacred? Why not pay 
 men by the hour, with a monthly guarantee, 
 and run trains sometimes light and sometimes 
 heavy, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, to 
 meet actual controlling conditions of traffic? 
 When business happened to be light, equip- 
 ment plentiful, and terminals open we would 
 penalize ourselves in wages for slower move- 
 ment, but would save in fuel, in engine house 
 expense, etc. Just where the economical limit 
 would be, just how it would all work out, I do 
 not pretend to say. I do say, however, that the 
 old methods can be improved when we start 
 217 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 from proper basic conceptions. I do not be- 
 lieve that we yet understand the relation be- 
 tween increased cost of maintenance of 
 equipment and decreased wages for train 
 crews. 
 
 Perhaps because I had the honor of braking 
 on a way freight I have never outgrown 
 the idea of the practical trainman that a 
 local freight is a traveling switch engine 
 and a peddler of L. C. L. merchandise. 
 Whatever may be the showing as to per- 
 centage of tractive power utilized I am 
 unable to see the wisdom of a way freight 
 dragging in and out of passing tracks all day 
 with a lot of through cars. The claim is often 
 made that a few big trains can be easily hand- 
 led by the dispatcher, because the number of 
 meeting points is decreased. My own opinion 
 is that this seeming advantage is often more 
 than offset by the unwieldiness of the big train. 
 Fear of censure for delaying some important 
 train makes the conductor "leery" about start- 
 ing and the dispatcher timid about directing a 
 prompt movement. When we begin wrong, 
 how not-to-do-it methods always follow. The 
 chief dispatcher will let freight be delayed in 
 a yard for a full train with power needed at 
 218 
 
FALLACY OF THE TRAIN-MILE UNIT. 
 
 the other end, if he can start a light caboose 
 without its being included in the average train 
 load showing. How much better, and how 
 much easier, to run two fractional trains in 
 the direction of unbalanced traffic than one 
 light caboose and another dreary drag! The 
 shipper, only a hard-headed business man, 
 takes the same view. He becomes skeptical 
 of all our statements, before commissions or 
 elsewhere, because of our frequent seeming 
 lack of judgment. 
 
 Let us not spend too much time in discus- 
 sion as to theoretical possibilities. My asser- 
 tions can be either proved or disproved by ac- 
 tual demonstration. In the next labor agree- 
 ments you make include a stipulation for ex- 
 periment on some division. My prediction is 
 that if you can convince the labor leaders of 
 your fairness they will give the scheme a trial 
 for the sake of more possible time at home. 
 With a full trial the results will speak for 
 themselves. Success in such matters is made 
 possible only by enlisting the most intelligent 
 efforts of all concerned. Let your officials and 
 employes understand that you do not claim to 
 know it all, that you believe in their practical 
 intelligence as well as in your own, that ideas 
 219 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 are greater than men, and that right wrongs 
 no man. 
 
 Railroads have grown so fast that our con- 
 ceptions of working units have sometimes out- 
 stripped practical possibilities in performance. 
 Too frequently we make the unit too large. 
 There must be a practical limit beyond which 
 the train becomes too long for an economical 
 unit of movement. The fact that we should 
 have elasticity rather than rigidity in the size 
 of our economical train emphasizes the neces- 
 sity for defining the elastic limit. Practical 
 experience and sound judgment must aid in 
 interpreting and applying not only the laws 
 of matter and physical nature, but the laws of 
 sociology and human nature as well. After 
 the lading for the trip is discharged, the car 
 cannot be sold or abandoned, as was the flat 
 boat which Abraham Lincoln helped to float 
 down the Mississippi river to New Orleans. 
 Have you not seen cars pulled to pieces in big 
 trains, have you not seen freight delayed in 
 a manner to suggest to an innocent bystander 
 that the road was perhaps running its last train 
 and giving its cars their last load ? 
 
 The inevitable tendency of the big train is 
 to hold back and combine in large lots cars 
 
 220 
 
FALLACY OF THE TRAIN-MILE UNIT. 
 
 destined to the same point and to the same con- 
 signee. When a whole train can be unloaded 
 at the ship's side at tidewater, or at a large 
 consuming plant, the system is ideal. The 
 trouble begins with the small consignee. In- 
 stead of giving him a regular, systematic de- 
 livery of the five or ten cars which he can un- 
 load each day, our tendency is to bring in 
 twenty-five or fifty cars every five days or so, 
 and then express our horrified astonishment 
 at his failure to release promptly. No, we 
 should not run special trains of five or ten cars 
 for each consignee. What we should do is to 
 watch the matter so carefully that we can feel 
 certain we are considering all the factors of 
 expense as well as that of seeming light ton- 
 nage. It may, under given conditions, be 
 cheaper to run light trains than to put on ex- 
 pensive switch engines, to relieve unnecessary 
 congestion in receiving terminals, than to in- 
 crease overtime and demoralize the road by 
 pulling out drawbars when sawing by at short 
 passing tracks. Sometimes money can be saved 
 by balancing motive power as between steep 
 and level territory. 
 
 As a good soldier and a faithful hired hand 
 you must build up for yourself and your supe- 
 221 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 riors the best possible record for train load. 
 Carry out the policy consistently and loyally. 
 At the same time study the subject. Do not 
 have to flag in, but be prepared to run as a sec- 
 tion of a better unit of comparison when the 
 train mile loses its first class running rights. 
 Speaking of running in sections, you have 
 doubtless thought how inconsistent and almost 
 criminally dangerous is the method of display- 
 ing signals. We drill our men to watch the 
 rear of the train for the presence of something, 
 the markers, a positive indication. When the 
 markers are seen, the train is complete and the 
 opposing train can proceed in safety. If the 
 train happens to be complete without displaying 
 markers, or the markers are overlooked, the 
 opposing train declines to proceed. An avoid- 
 able delay occurs, but the error is on the side 
 of safety and away from a collision. At the 
 head end, however, we tell our men to watch 
 for the absence of something, the classifica- 
 tion signals, a negative condition. When clas- 
 sification signals are not seen the train schedule 
 is complete and the opposing train proceeds 
 in fancied safety. If the train happens to be 
 incomplete without displaying signals or the 
 signals are overlooked, the opposing train pro- 
 222 
 
FALLACY OF THE TRAIN-MILE UNIT. 
 
 ceeds just the same. No delay occurs, but 
 probably a collision, for the error is on the side 
 of danger and toward a collision. The prac- 
 tice should be reversed. The last or only sec- 
 tion should display classification signals. A 
 positive indication should replace a negative. 
 Can the train rules committee of the ladylike 
 American Railway Association beat the Inter- 
 state Commerce Commission to this unpro- 
 tected draw? Cases of such avoidable colli- 
 sions can be cited, even though "we never had 
 one on our road." 
 
 Some roads prefer special schedules and ex- 
 tra trains to movement in sections. On the 
 good old Big Four we handled everything pos- 
 sible in sections. I think this latter method 
 the better. Theoretically yardmen, section 
 men, tower men and all others should be al- 
 ways prepared for extra trains. Practically, 
 the more information that can be disseminated 
 among intelligent men the more effectively can 
 they cooperate in preventing disaster or delay. 
 There are fewer unlocked switches and fewer 
 unspiked rails when information is not locked 
 in the dispatcher's office and not spiked down 
 by too many train orders. 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 223 
 
LETTER XXL 
 
 THE MAN-DAY AS A UNIT. 
 
 Tucson, Ariz., August 26, 1911. 
 My Dear Boy : If people's eyes were never 
 too large for their stomachs there would be 
 less overeating. If human concepts were never 
 too vast for practical performance there would 
 be fewer disappointments in administration. 
 Because the railroads have grown so fast and 
 have become so large, our imagination has 
 sometimes run too far ahead of our judgment. 
 This is a big world full of big things and big 
 men. The biggest men are learning that big 
 things can be handled and big men developed 
 only by complete treatment of little things and 
 of the so-called little men. This growing con- 
 viction is manifesting itself in various ways. 
 Railways, thank God, are building more divi- 
 sion shops and relatively fewer general shops. 
 Division stores are becoming more and more 
 complete. Division accounting is gaining 
 ground and is paving the way for local dis- 
 bursement. 
 
 224 
 
THE MAN-DAY AS A UNIT. 
 
 The station agent, bless him, is being emanci- 
 pated by the telephone from specialized selec- 
 tion, and is gradually being accorded that rec- 
 ognition which is his due as an all 'round man. 
 In short, our big corporate units are growing 
 in strength only as the smaller units become 
 complete and self-contained. Official solici- 
 tude should be for ton-miles, as well as for 
 train-miles, for car-loads as well as for train- 
 loads. Take care of the mills and the millions 
 will take care of themselves. Above all, study 
 an often neglected unit, the man-day. How 
 much work can each man reasonably be ex- 
 pected to perform in one day? How many 
 days in each year can a man reasonably expect 
 to be employed ? Labor conditions on railways 
 will never be satisfactory until employment can 
 be reasonably constant and continuous. This 
 is a difficult problem, but when enough big 
 men give it attention it will be solved. It 
 probably means more elasticity, more inter- 
 changeability between train service and the 
 various kinds of maintenance, between the lo- 
 motive and the shop, between the railway and 
 allied contiguous industries. The individual is 
 the indivisible unit of society. We must build 
 from him as a unit. Since he is of such infinite 
 225 
 
LETTERS FROM A RAILWAY OFFICIAL. 
 
 variety it follows that our sociological archi- 
 tecture must be varied accordingly. Design is 
 staff work. Execution is line work. I do not 
 doubt the ability of one man to direct the 
 carrying out of a scheme practically designed. 
 When one man tells me that unassisted he can 
 furnish a design to meet all requirements I 
 am from beyond Missouri and have to be 
 shown several times. 
 
 I have been writing you all these things be- 
 cause of interest in you and pride in our pro- 
 fession. With four or five other professions 
 and occupations at command, I stick to the rail- 
 road game because it is the greatest of ancient 
 or modern times. If these letters, written hur- 
 riedly in the midst of a strenuous life, with lit- 
 tle opportunity for revision and verification, 
 have hurt anyone's feelings, I am sorry. Many 
 things in this world are taken too personally 
 and too seriously when intended as only Pick- 
 wickian. 
 
 If these letters have helped you or any friend 
 of yours, by shattering any false idol or other- 
 wise, they have more than fulfilled their pur- 
 pose. Those to whom fortune has been kind in 
 affording extended opportunities owe to so- 
 ciety the duty of imparting their conclusions 
 226 
 
THE MAN-DAY AS A UNIT. 
 
 to their fellows. The recipients alone are qual- 
 ified to judge as to how well such duty is per- 
 formed and as to how far such conclusions are 
 worth while. In this case the duty has been 
 a pleasure as well. 
 
 To avoid the switch shanty garrulousness of 
 an old brakeman I now give up this preferred 
 run and turn in at the office my lantern and 
 keys. 
 
 With a father's blessing, 
 
 Affectionately, your own, 
 
 D. A. D. 
 
 227 
 
APPENDIX 
 THE UNIT SYSTEM OF ORGANIZATION. 
 
 This system of organization, sometimes called "the 
 Hine system," is frequently mentioned in these "Let- 
 ters." It was originated and installed by their writer 
 while serving as organization expert for the Union 
 Pacific System-Southern Pacific Company (Harriman 
 Lines), 1908-1911, with the title of Special Repre- 
 sentative on the staff of the Director of Maintenance 
 and Operation, Mr. Julius Kruttschnitt. 
 
 An idea of the system can be obtained from the 
 two following standard forms of official circulars for 
 announcing its adoption: 
 
 RAIL COMPANY. 
 
 OFFICE OF GENERAL MANAGER. 
 
 CIRCULAR NO 
 
 191.. 
 
 The following appointments of Assistant General 
 
 Managers are announced, effective 191 .. 
 
 i. Mr 2. Mr 
 
 3. Mr 4. Mr . 
 
 5. Mr 6. Mr 
 
 7. Mr 8. Mr 
 
 Each of the above named officials continues charged 
 with the responsibilities heretofore devolving upon him 
 228 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 and in addition assumes such other duties as may from 
 time to time be assigned. 
 
 The titles, General Superintendent, Superintendent 
 of Motive Power, Chief Engineer, Superintendent of 
 Transportation, General Storekeeper, Superintendent 
 of Telegraph, and Superintendent of Dining Cars, will 
 be retained by the present holders or their successors 
 to such extent only as may be necessary for a proper 
 compliance with laws and existing contracts. 
 
 All persons under the jurisdiction of this office will 
 address reports and communications, including replies, 
 intended for the General Manager or for any Assistant 
 General Manager, simply: "Assistant General Man- 
 ager" (Company telegrams, "A. G. M."), no name 
 being used in the address unless intended as personal 
 or confidential or to reach an official away from his 
 headquarters. 
 
 It is intended that an Assistant General Manager 
 shall be in charge of this office during office hours. 
 Each official transacts business in his own name and 
 no person should sign the name or initials of another. 
 
 All persons outside the jurisdiction of this office are 
 requested to address communications, including replies, 
 intended for the General Manager or for any Assist- 
 ant General Manager, simply: "General Manager 
 
 Co., Bldg " 
 
 no name being used in the address unless intended 
 as personal or confidential or to reach an official away 
 from his headquarters. 
 
 General Manager. 
 Approved : 
 
 Vice President. 
 229 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 RAIL. . . . COMPANY. 
 
 DIVISION. 
 
 OFFICE OF SUPERINTENDENT. 
 CIRCULAR NO. . . . 
 
 191.. 
 
 Effective this date this Division discontinues among 
 its officials the use of the titles Master Mechanic, Di- 
 vision Engineer, Trainmaster, Traveling Engineer, 
 Chief Dispatcher, Division Storekeeper, and Division 
 Agent. 
 
 The following named officials are designated: 
 
 1. Mr , Assistant Superintendent. 
 
 2. Mr , Assistant Superintendent 
 
 3. Mr , Assistant Superintendent. 
 
 4. Mr Assistant Superintendent. 
 
 5. Mr , Assistant Superintendent. 
 
 6. Mr Assistant Superintendent 
 
 7. Mr , Assistant Superintendent. 
 
 8. Mr , Assistant Superintendent. 
 
 They will be obeyed and respected accordingly. 
 
 Each of the above named officials continues charged 
 with the responsibilities heretofore devolving upon him, 
 and in addition assumes such other duties as may from 
 time to time be assigned. 
 
 All of the above will be located in the same building 
 with one consolidated office file in common with the 
 Superintendent. 
 
 230 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 All reports and communications on the Company's 
 business, including replies, originating on this division, 
 intended for the Superintendent or for any Assistant 
 Superintendent, will be addressed simply, "Assistant 
 Superintendent" (telegrams, "A. S."), no name being 
 used in the address unless intended to reach an official 
 away from his headquarters, or to be personal rather 
 than official, in which latter case it will be held un- 
 opened for the person addressed. It is intended that 
 an Assistant Superintendent shall be on duty in charge 
 of the division headquarters office during office hours. 
 The designation of a particular Assistant Superinten- 
 dent to handle specified classes of correspondence and 
 telegrams is a matter concerning only this office. Each 
 official transacts business in his own name, and no per- 
 son should sign the name or initials of another. The 
 principle to guide subordinate officials and employes is 
 to be governed by the latest instructions issued and re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Train orders will be given over the initials of the 
 Train Dispatcher on duty, as will messages originated 
 by him. 
 
 The modifications of pre-existing organization and 
 methods herein ordered have been carefully worked 
 out to expedite the Company's business by the reduc- 
 tion and simplification of correspondence and records. 
 It is expected and believed that officials and employes 
 will insure a successful outcome by lending their usual 
 intelligent cooperation and hearty support. 
 
 Officials and other persons above and outside the 
 jurisdiction of this division are requested to address 
 official communications intended for the Superintendent 
 or for any Assistant Superintendent, simply, "Superin- 
 tendent, Division ," 
 
 (telegrams, "Supt"), no name being used in the ad- 
 231 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 dress unless intended as personal or confidential or to 
 reach an official away from his headquarters. 
 
 Superintendent. 
 Approved : 
 
 General Manager. 
 
 232 
 
IS DUE 
 
 
 * 
 
 
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