Labor. AND THE KAILROADS JAMESOFAGAN HEI74 F3 C.I THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924055822146 ■3Sp STanwB ®« iFapn LABOR AND THE RAILROADS, iimo, fi.oo net. Postage ii cents. CONFESSIONS OF A RAILROAD SIGNAL- MAN. Illustrated with photographs of typical wrecks, i2mOj 1.00 fut. Postage 10 cents. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and Nsw York LABOR AND THE RAILROADS LABOR AND THE RAILROADS BY JAMES O. PAGAN AUTHOR OF "THE CONFESSIONS OF A RAILROAD SIGNALMAN" coRrjL.i_L Ui,;iVEr.;:iTY BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY JAMES O. FAGAN ALL RIGHTS RCSERVBD J^blished October igoQ CONTENTS Introductory: The Industrial Dilemma i I. Labor and the Railroads 5 II. The Railroads and Education 28 III. The Railroads and Efficiency of Service 56 IV. The Railroads and Publicity 85 v. The Case of the Pennsylvania 115 VI. Labor and Responsibility 135 VII. Labor, Authority and the Railroads 15s LABOR AND THE RAILROADS INTRODUCTORY THE INDUSTRIAL DILEMMA The great social problems of the day, such as those that have arisen between capital and labor, the trusts and the people, the railroad employee and the railroad manager, are being treated and thought out by American public opinion with marked hesi- tation. But while this public opinion is drifting around in a sea of theories, corporations and labor unions know just what they want, and, for the most part, how to secure their desired concessions and privileges. In this way, all preconceived no- tions of the fitness of things, and of the social results to be expected from modern industrial methods, have been completely upset. Carried off their feet by well-directed and organized assaults, political economists and leaders of widely different schools of thought are now in danger of losing their bearings. In a word, the situation is fast resolving itself into a great social and industrial dilemma. In a general way this dilemma may be defined 2 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS as the difficulty that now confronts public opinion when it is called upon to choose, or in some way to draw the line, between the interests and demands of labor and the corporations, and the more im- portant necessities and rights of society. In this country, to a greater extent, perhaps, than in any other, public opinion should be termed popular opinion, consequently it is very human and natural in its characteristics. To-day it is radical, to-morrow conservative, but at all times it has its ear to the ground to catch lessons from history. While at times it may appear to be long-suffering and indifferent, it is, nevertheless, very slow to forgive an injury. This is the teaching of instinct, which is as noticeable in the behavior of a nation as in that of an individual. Just at present, for ex- ample, popular opinion cannot make up its mind to deal reasonably with corporations and managers. It has now to be educated to treat these people fairly. But the corporations cannot expect the public to arrive at the unassisted conclusion that their business, generally speaking, is now above- board and legitimate. It thus becomes their duty to advertise and demonstrate these facts. Recon- ciliation is certain to follow frankness and pub- licity. From the point of view of the student, the social improver, and the mere theorist, the industrial THE INDUSTRIAL DILEMMA 3 situation on railroads and elsewhere has, of late years, been thoroughly analyzed by competent specialists, and the literature in relation to it is practically endless. But just what the worker him- self has to say about it, what his honest opinions and observations amount to as he works at his job, listens to the conversation of his fellows, and draws thoughtful conclusions from every-day prac- tical data, is as yet an unwritten chapter in the history of industrial progress. For it must not be forgotten that the employees on the railroads are the most important factors in the situation from every point of view. Their opinions, their policies,' their behavior, are the great topics to be con- sidered, socially, financially, and industrially. Out of every dollar earned by the railroads, the em- ployees, 1,700,000 of them, receive forty-two cents in wages. Consequently, the habits of thought, the point of view of these men, their actual work at the present day, and their probable behavior and intentions for the future, are matters of great so- cial importance. In many directions the opinions and conclusions of these men may be unscientific and contrary to the ideas of people who study generalities, but a careful consideration of them is likely to convince us that they constitute a very fair reflection of the actual state of affairs, viewed from a practical and common-sense standpoint. 4 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS However this may be, there is certainly no field of industry on which the every-day relations that ex- ist between labor, corporations, and public opinion can be so profitably studied as on American rail- roads. LABOR AND THE RAILROADS An engineman of my acquaintance leaves his home at six o'clock in the morning, and completes his day's work in six hours. For this service he re- ceives from four to five dollars, according to cir- cumstances. Some enginemen work longer hours and receive more money ; but anyway you look at the labor or the wages, the conditions leave little to be desired. With hardly any exception the same satisfactory state of affairs is to be found in nearly every branch of the train service. By degrees, step by step, from a comparatively low plane, an almost ideal standard of wage and treatment has been arrived at. In my own sixty-lever signal- tower, for example, within the past few years the pay has been run up from thirteen to over eighteen dollars per week, arid the working day has been run down from twelve to eight hours. Now, among the thousands of railroad men whose material con- dition I have been describing, there is but one opinion as to the means that have been employed in bringing about these satisfactory results ; and I think this general opinion is voiced when I say 6 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS that the motive power employed in securing these benefits was simply and actually business compul- sion. It is useless to assail the motives or per- sonality, either of corporations or of labor unions. The leaders of these bodies are fairly typical of twentieth-century civilization. In their business re- lations, one with another, they take what they can, and give what they are compelled to. Of course there is a vein of kindliness running throughout all nego- tiations between men and managers ; but when it comes to a settlement of differences concerning dol- lars and cents, the proceedings are governed by the strictest code of current business principles. In a fair and honorable way, the machinery of manage- ment is pitted against the machinery of the labor organization, and the weaker, for the time being, yields to the pressure of superior tactics and re- sources. But the point to be emphasized is that hard-drawn business compulsion is the sine qua non of progress as regards wages and similar conditions, and is the only form of advice, warning, or incentive to which corporations and labor unions pay any attention. For a number of years, it is true, railroad managers have been trying to break away from this thralldom of mechanical methods, but from lack of public sup- port they have now practically abandoned the strug- gle, or relegated the human and sympathetic side LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 7 of management to the editors of the railroad maga- zines. This is a very uncomfortable way of inter- preting industrial conditions and relationships on railroads, but the evidence upon which the employee forms his impressions of the mechanical and com- pulsory nature of his wage-settlement is unmistak- able. That power is privilege is nowhere so patent as on the railroads at the present day. Within a short distance of my signal-tower there is a crossing at grade. The man in charge receives one dollar and thirty-five cents for twelve hours' work. As a matter of fact, the crossing man holds a very responsible position. Alertness, attention to duty, and presence of mind are absolutely essential for the proper protection of travelers on trains and. on foot. There are actually more people injured and lives lost at these crossings than on trains, or in any way connected with trains. Therefore, good men and good pay should be the rule at these cross- ings. Increased efificiency of service would probably make up for the additional expense. Up to date, however, it never has entered into the heads of well- paid enginemen, conductors, and others to bestir themselves in the interest of these men. Beginning with the management, we all understand that they are down, to stay down until they are able to lift themselves. For years these men, and thousands in other departments, have been waiting for the con- 8 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS science of somebody, or anybody, to attend to their cases ; but unfortunately these gatemen are unor- ganized, and unable to organize, and there is nothing back of them to make trouble for anybody. Such is only one of numerous object lessons which the employee has constantly before him, and conse- quently he may be pardoned for concluding that actual business compulsion is your only wage-raiser. I am aware that, if the employee took time to look into the matter more carefully, he might be willing to modify this opinion ; but his every-day life is more concerned with speaking facts than with the philo- sophy of the subject, and actually, at the present day, his leaders give him no time to take his bear- ings. In season and out of season they stand be- tween the men and the management. They empha- size and extol the compulsory method, and point on all sides to its object lessons and the benefit to be derived from organized effort along these lines. But this simple theory of business compulsion, this cold- blooded material interpretation of the industrial situ- ation on our railroads, has a still wider significance. During the month of August, 1908, in the state of Massachusetts, two passenger trains at different points were handled faultlessly for thirty or forty miles past a succession of electric block-signals. Later, with the same crews, these trains were tele- scoped by other passenger trains on a track where LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 9 these safety devices were not in operation. The cause of these accidents was short-flagging and reckless running. On the roads in question the rules in regard to block-signals are now enforced ; the men are actu- ally compelled to live up to them ; but the rules in regard to reckless running and short-flagging are not looked upon in the same light — the same at- tention is not paid to them, and the penalties for violation of the rules are by no means so impartially bestowed. The compulsory method, then, is not only the most effectual factor in wage-progress, but the principle itself is found to affect in a marked degree the operating department. To secure efficiency and to secure satisfactory conditions of pay and treat- ment, the same compulsory methods must be em- ployed. When this compulsory method proves to be insufficient or unworkable, the point to be noticed is that there is actually no force, principle, or senti- ment to take its place and fulfill its duties in the situation as we find it to-day. But in considering the condition of labor on the railroads, we find ourselves obliged to study the employee and his environment from a wider point of view, both socially and historically ; for it must be evident to us all that there is something lacking in this hard-drawn theory of business compulsion in industrial life. At best it can be looked upon only as a temporary state of affairs. It must be utterly lo LABOR AND THE RAILROADS repugnant to the solid Christian sense of the com- munity, for it is a severe reflection on our up-to-date civilizing methods, that the condition of the em- ployees on railroads and the efficiency of the service must wholly depend, in the future, upon hard-and- fast rules and agreements. It is surely unreasonable that to safeguard the interests of the public, the corporation, and the men, the minutest details and arrangements will have to be stipulated in the bond. Is this the final word that labor and the corpora- tions have to say to twentieth-century public opin- ion ? I think not. Nevertheless, personally speak- ing, and looking backwards over nearly thirty years* service on the railroads, I am conscious that my personal liberty and freedom of action, my actual ability to do the wrong thing and escape detection, has increased fifty-fold, while the ability of the management and the public to cope with and pro- vide for the changed conditions has been decreas- ing in about the same ratio. The evolution of this state of affairs forms a cu- rious and instructive chapter in industrial history. This history embraces the methods and ideals of progress in all civilized countries, and perhaps the most curious feature in regard to industrial progress, both in this country and abroad, is that the social conscience, the very factor that is now being elimi- nated from our industrial schedules, is and has been LABOR AND THE RAILROADS ii responsible for the situation as we find it to-day. This is by no means a reflection on the splendid work of the social conscience in uplifting humanity. On the contrary, it is a reflection on those employees and corporations who either are ignorant of its his- tory or have forgotten their social indebtedness. A glance at the great social movement in this country for the betterment of industrial and other conditions should make this clear to us. Disregarding the earlier years of American his- tory, we find ourselves, say from 1830 to 1870, in a period of great mental and industrial activity. In those days narrowness of mind was beginning to give way to conceptions of duty that embraced hu- manity at large. Man in relation to the Infinite still retained his central position, but man in relation to his fellows began to acquire considerable relative importance. For centuries, with utmost compla- cency, Christian people have contented themselves with simply reading and rereading the story of Cain and Abel, until it would almost seem as if the ques- tion, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " had become a too commonplace consideration for practical appli- cation in society. While in countless ways indi- viduals have done noble work, the collective mind of the community seems to have been practically asleep to general questions of humanity until, com- paratively speaking, a quite recent date. 12 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS In the period of American history to which I refer, the thinkers among us woke up and found themselves confronted with numerous social and moral enigmas. Man's inhumanity to man was brought to light and discussed with merciless free- dom ; an era of common sense set in ; its logic was applied with cold and impartial severity to all sorts of inhuman customs and habits, and especially to atrocious labor conditions that had prevailed in society unnoticed and unchecked for centuries. It was a long-drawn-out battle, for the very instincts of people were more or less saturated with supersti- tion — but the emancipation of the human mind went on apace. The horizon of men's sympathies grew ever wider and brighter ; common sense ap- plied to religion gave us a new Heaven ; common sense applied to our daily duties and responsibiUties gave us a new Earth. This new-born social con- science introduced new conceptions and new stand- ards into human affairs. The abolition of slavery, the humanizing of prison life, the considerate treatment of lunatics and paupers, the conscientious inspec- tion of ships, factories, and tenement houses, are only a few of the reforms that remind us of the widespread influence of the social and spiritual conscience. In this way, by means of organized sympathy, labor in particular was indebted to the people for the social start and uplift, the magnifi- LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 13 cent growth and fruition of which we see around us to-day. But of late years, in the industrial world, the fun- damental forces at work in these great civilizing movements have undergone remarkable changes. The appeal for better conditions in the name of hu- manity has been displaced by the demand for rights in the name of justice. With the assertion of these principles and the appeal to justice as universal arbiter, the industrial dilemma begins to manifest itself in concrete form. How to limit, define, and harmonize the rights of society, of corporations, and of labor unions, is to-day the paramount in- dustrial problem. It has divided the country into two camps, — those whose duty it is, politically and otherwise, to protect the interests of the whole body, and those who are daily becoming more and more absorbed in multiplying the rights or privi- leges of sections. The press and the politicians at the present day are handling the whole subject with extreme caution, and, to save appearances, all concerned are now devoting themselves, with con- siderable energy, to the study of conditions. . It is therefore particularly desirable, at the present day, that those who are in possession of the statistics and understand these conditions should be per- suaded to speak out and explain their significance. For example, railroad managers are well aware 14 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS that within the past few years, in the midst of the body politic of the railroads there has been evolved an empire within an empire, whose consistent pol- icy is and has been the accumulation of power for its own exclusive use. In plain English, this is the empire of labor. Under the circumstances, consid- ering the history of railroad management in the past, this state of affairs need occasion but little surprise. Its principles are in line with the com- monplace ethics of commercial life with which we are everywhere surrounded. When a man goes into business it is for the purpose of making money for himself, and not for his neighbors. Such, at any rate, is the first stage of his progress. It is exactly the same with corporations and labor unions. The selfish stage is the first stage, and consideration for others is almost wholly dependent upon the es- tablishment of your own structure upon firm founda- tions. The empire of labor, then, as I am describing it, has evolved in a very natural way ; and society, by means of public opinion, is now called upon to influence, control, and guide the succeeding stages of its development. Compared with this actual and constantly in- creasing force of labor, the theories and proposi- tions of philosophers and social betterers have but little significance. Socialism may come and may go, but labor and its organization are marching on, not LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 15 different tOibut nevertheless quite independent , thesi^^asahd associations that are constantly work for the betterment of society in general socialism desires to assist labor, well and good, hat is the beginning and the end of the matter so far labor is concerned. Similarly, if municipal or pub- ; ownership in any form can be shown to bene- ; the worker without interfering with his organi- tion and his schedules, its claims and theories will ceive consideration. In other words, labor leaders, ore especially on the railroads, are now preaching e gospel of separation. They avoid everything in e nature of an alliance, even in the interests of iblic safety, and day by day their ability and in- ntions to stand alone become more pronounced. But it must not be taken for granted that the rank id file of railroad men have initiated, or unani- ously acquiesce in, this line of thought or action, ach broad issues are not thought out or de- ded upon down below ; matters of this nature ork down and not up, and in this way the ordi- u-y worker is frequently committed to the support a policy of which, as an individual, he is some- hat ashamed. Only too frequently, however, the aterial benefits derived from a certain policy are lowed to outweigh our conscientious scruples. I peat, then, the principle of separation and isola- jn is not due to any expressed desire or agitation i6 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS of the rank and file, but is due to the general policy of the leaders. Thus we find the labor situation on the railroads dominated by two or three of the high- est officials of the labor unions. The managers of railroads, if so disposed, could easily corroborate this statement, but a single illustration will give us a good idea of the nature of the evidence. During the spring of the year 1908, business fell to a very low ebb on the Boston and Maine Rail- road : the side tracks were blocked with idle cars, and engines by the dozen were rusting at the roundhouses. Equipment of all sorts, that should have been sent to the shops for repairs, was put into storage tracks, and over all a general retrench- ment and reduction of expenses was in order. Among other methods resorted to, the salaries of the officials above the grade of one hundred dol- lars per month were subjected to a substantial cut- down. Short time was the order of the day in the shops and out on the road, crews were disbanded, trains were abolished, and everything in the nature of a superfluity was swept into the realm of the unemployed, in a desperate effort to shave the pay- rolls. But, as time passed, conditions instead of improving dropped from bad to worse, and July, the month when the Boston and Maine is called upon to give an account of itself in the shape of dividends and fixed charges, was almost in sight. LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 17 Consequently, as a final resort, the management hit upon the plan of taking the employees in every department into its confidence. Not only the heads of the organizations, but the rank and file of the men, had the situation explained to them by com- petent officials. The proposition was very simple. The men were asked to consent to a five per cent cut-down for a period of three months. To an in- sider taking notes from day to day it soon became evident that the rank and file of the men, regard- less of their occupations, thoroughly understood the situation. The argument that railroad labor should bear with railroad capital the burden imposed by the hard times was generally appreciated. So far as my observations extended, it seemed to me that the men were glad to be treated confidentially in the matter. As individuals speaking for themselves, they admitted that the prosperity and interests of the corporation could not possibly be separated or distinguished from their own. They were willing to be reminded that, when business was good and the road was in a flourishing condition, their wages had been increased over and over again, in a legitimate and recognized manner, through the efforts of their organizations, and therefore the contention of the management was unanswerable, that it was the duty of employees to lend a helping hand now that the tide had turned. i8 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS Supported by these ideas and principles, a sort of canvass of the matter was initiated all over the road. Meetings were held, committees were ap- pointed, considerable expense was incurred, and the matter was finally put to the vote, on every division, by the various organizations. The result had been accurately anticipated. With, I think, one exception, the organizations, representing nearly every department of labor on the Boston and Maine Railroad, voted by heavy majorities to ac- cept the five per cent reduction under the terms and conditions which had been explained to them by the president of the road. Up to this point no suspicion had been hinted at that the vote-taking was a conditional affair, subject to the consent of the National Organization or its leaders. It was requested and taken in good faith as a matter of internal administration and adjustment of mutual interests ; but the result of the vote was no sooner made known than the whole business was promptly vetoed and made void by the exercise of supreme authority. It is not necessary to pass an opinion on the necessity for this action in the political or other interests of railroad labor considered as a factor isolated from the public interests. The points for public opinion to note are that the management was humiliated, that the referendum was a farce, and, in particular, that the ideas of the men and LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 19 eir leaders in regard to the relations that should ist, and the cooperation that should be permitted, tween employees and managers, are f undament- y at variance. But so far as the public interests are concerned, is referendum vote of the Boston and Maine Rail- id employees has a still wider application and ison. For the very first principles of sane and :e management are the issues at stake. In plain iglish, if the public interests are to receive any ;ognition whatever in the metallic constitution it is now being worked out between railroad cor- rations and labor leaders, it can only be accom- shed by unrestricted communication and coop- ition between the rank and file of the men and ; employer. This is by no means a mere theoreti- statement. Its practical possibility and absolute cessity are capable of easiest demonstration. A lit- plain speaking on this subject will do no harm. When the referendum already referred to on the ston and Maine was in progress, the Towermen's otherhood called a meeting of its members to isider the proposed reduction in wages. A com- ttee was forthwith appointed to wait upon the :sident of the road in regard to one or two points which additional information was desired. Very ich to the gratification of the towermen, Presi- it Tuttle came over from his office and addressed 20 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the men in a very kindly and considerate manner. He pointed out that the proposed reduction was a matter in which men and management alike were vitally interested. It seemed to him the better way to place a slight burden on every employee, rather than absolutely to discharge a considerable num- ber. He explained that railroads, like individuals, have debts that they are in honor bound to attend to, and, so far as the Boston and Maine Railroad was concerned, these obligations to stockholders and leased roads had to be met in honorable fashion. As the result of this amicable conference the tow- ermen voted to accept the reduction in wages. Now, the significance of President Tuttle's ideas and action must be evident to employees and pub- lic alike. In so many words he said to us, " The corporation needs money. I ask you to help us. I am quite aware that the proper way, in fact the only way, to secure your assistance and cooperation, is for the management to take you into its confidence and to explain to you our common business and interests. I appeal to you, then, as individuals, pos- sessed of good common sense and sympathetic understandings." Nothing can be plainer or more reasonable than this argument. The president of the Boston and Maine Railroad acknowledges that in financial deal- ings with employees, when compulsion becomes LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 21 possible, education and cooperation must be >ught into play and emphasized. But while in finan- I affairs the soundness of this doctrine is thus cnowledged by highest authority, it has appar- tly not yet dawned upon any one that its princi- !S apply with tenfold force to almost every phase the economical and efficient running of a rail- id. That railroad men should be kept in ignor- :e of the financial condition of the corporation 5y work for is of comparatively little importance ; I I think it will surprise the reader to be informed it the systematic and organized effort of man- ors to interest and instruct employees in the hu- in and economic sides of their calling can almost represented by a blank. Railroad managers 1 naturally question this statement. Their public erances, the betterment work they so cordially Drove and assist in a dozen different directions, :ir insistence, upon public occasions, on the im- •tance of social and economic cooperation, lend isiderable strength to their position ; but when come to examine the employee at his work and k around for the practical exemplification of the nions and ideals of the managing department, a inge and perhaps unlooked-for state of affairs is ealed. And right here we are brought face to e with the heart of the labor question on Amer- n railroads. From this point branch out the con- 22 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS structive lines along which economy of operation, safety of travel, and general efificiency of service, must be worked for and anticipated. Heretofore the employee has been treated as an implement ; from now on, in the interests of society, he will have to be considered as a man endowed with re- ceptive and intelligent faculties, who, with proper encouragement, will base his progress and interests upon reasonable and sympathetic foundations. The theories I am presenting are not nearly so strange as the facts in the case. A few days ago, in a freight yard, while I hap- pened to be looking on, a freight car was cornered through careless handling. Slight damage was done to the side and roof of the car. I asked the man who was responsible for the aceident to give me his idea of the damage in dollars and cents. He thought a couple of dollars would fix it up all right. A month or so later, happening to meet this man on the street, I informed him that the actual expense incurred for repairing the car had been 1^47.50. He was surprised beyond measure. I then asked him if he thought employees should be educated along these lines. Would it do him any good as a man, and consequently the service, if the manager were to tell him that the trifling act of carelessness, the price of which he estimated at two dollars, was simply an item of a bill for breakages of over five LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 23 lousand dollars a year in the small yard in which i worked, making no mention of the killed and jured? Branching out into my subject, I asked m if he was personally interested in the fact that .e station receipts on his division for September, p8, were fifty thousand dollars less than for the me period in 1907 ? Would it make any differ- ice in the feelings and the attitude of the men ward the management if they were systematically )sted on these subjects? I had quite a lengthy inversation with this man. Would it make any fference to the crossing man, I continued, if his tention was called to the statistics and the nature crossing accidents on his particular railroad, to e dangers to be guarded against, and to the vast :pense and suffering involved ? Would it do any »od to those whose duties are connected with the .ssenger and station service to know that it cost e road a matter of eighty thousand dollars a year r such trifles as icy platforms, doors closing on .nds, falling lamps, defective seats, tripping on ition platforms, and the like ? Would it, in his linion, be a good idea for the management to get ter every man and his job in this personal way, was it better to let the men continue in utter norance of their surroundings and wider respons- ilities ? In a word, are we to be considered as en, or merely as things ? 24 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS To all these questions the man answered bluntly and frankly, " You bet your life it would make a big difference." Then I said to him, " Now if the president of the road were to come out with a bul- letin calling our attention to an expense account, for the year 1908, of a million dollars for prevent- able accidents and miscellaneous carelessness, and ask the men for a five per cent reduction on these items for 1909, what do you suppose would hap- pen ? " — " He would get it," was the reply. It must be evident, from the foregoing, that the education and enlightenment of the employees are being sadly neglected. Along the indicated lines, good feeling, cooperation, and daylight in every direction can be discerned. For if the education of the railroad man is to consist merely of the know- ledge and the lessons to be derived from his daily routine, assisted by the inspiration received from mechanical and rule-of-thumb surroundings, the social and industrial results of his training are likely to be extremely narrow and unsatisfactory. The importance of these considerations cannot be too earnestly impressed upon employees and managers. At first glance, the idea that an em- ployee can be converted into a real wide-awake partner in the affairs and interests of his railroad, may appear to some to involve an undertaking of enormous proportions. As a matter of fact, it is LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 25 ithing of the kind. Railroad managers are to-day ccessf uUy coping with problems ten times as com- icated. The car-service system is a good illustra- (n in point. On my own railroad, for example, actually mil- ns of freight cars are annually received from con- ctions. From the moment when these cars touch e road, they are never lost sight of for a minute til they are set back to the track of the road from lich they were received. If you want to know the tual history and adventures of each and every one these cars, you will find the information all ready r you in the records. Its number, its physical ndition, its suitability for such and such freight, 1 capacity, its weight, its general equipment, and ; behavior on the road, are all there for public in- ection. But it is not a tenth part of the attention at a car receives from the management. Every e of them is watched, examined, inspected, and, len necessary, sent to the shop for repairs. Then rs of a certain class are called for to load at one int, cars of another class at another point, per- ps hundreds of miles away. During its short visit your road every car has attached to its record a ore of telegrams, a bundle of letters, a file of formation. The car business on the wires never tits or slumbers, and an army of telegraphers and 5rks are kept hustling night and day, year in and 26 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS year out, at enormous expense, to keep order in all this seeming chaos. To give a complete history of the business would baffle the arithmetic of descrip- tion. Yet, when I asked one of these car-service men how they managed to keep things straight, he assured me it was the easiest thing in the world ! From the side of the labor organization, accord- ing to its light and interest, this personal education of the employee has been closely watched and strictly attended to for years. During this period the man- ager has been busy with other concerns. He has permitted it to appear, to outsiders at any rate, as if the employee were, in a measure, an antagonistic feature. His office has been executive, not educa- tionally and sympathetically administrative. You cannot blame the superintendent — he has never had a chance to get away from his rules and ma- chinery of government. The world at large has been his enemy. To the reporter of a newspaper the railroad superintendent is still a sort of industrial Bluebeard, with a closet full of skeletons, and a head full of schemes for the confusion of employees and the public. But corporations and the public are now taking a saner view of the situation. Especially in the West corporations are beginning to under- stand that the railroad manager of the future will have to be first of all an educator. Destructive ideas and intentions on one side or the other are out of LABOR AND THE RAILROADS 27 the question. The contest ahead of us is an edu- cational rivalry. On the one hand we have the pro- tective organization of the employee ; on the other we have the economic, the social, the sympathetic administration of the management. There can be no question as to the beneficial results of this rivalry. But now, giving these ideas form and substance and applying them to everyday life on the railroads, what are the actual methods of management to be advised or adopted.' A practical exemplification of this will, I think, prove interesting reading. II THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION As time goes on, the embarrassment of the authori- ties, and of public opinion, in dealing with the in- dustrial situation in railroads and elsewhere is cer- tain to resolve itself into action along definite and reasonable lines. As a matter of fact, the result of years of agitation and study can be accurately fore- casted, and is known in advance. Certain impres- sions and lessons are being constantly imprinted on the mind of the community, and the doctrine of the survival of the fittest applies with equal significance to the world of ideas and to animal life. Looked into closely, we find this principle of the survival of best-fitted ideas to be the anchor to which democracy attaches, and always has attached, its optimism. At the beginning, and looking ahead, the demo- cratic idea proclaimed to the world, not " I rule," or "I serve," but "I trusty And the reason for the faith that lies at the root of democratic institutions is known to all. Through good report and evil re- port the faith of democracy in education, and in the social conscience as director of ways and means, THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 29 has never wavered. In the present century, it is true, the fundamental truth and supremacy of demo- cratic principles are being tested up to the hilt. But all this " knocking " and " raking " means puri- fication. The faith of the great mass of the people in the solution of industrial and social problems by educational methods knows no shadow of turning. To sneerers and doubters, democracy responds by increasing her educational facilities, and by widen- ing the sphere of her activity. Above all the turmoil and the controversy, she calmly abides the issue. The determined and well-directed effort of pre- sent-day educators to keep in close touch with in- dustrial progress is certainly one of the healthiest signs of the times. Schools and colleges no longer pride themselves exclusively upon the scholars, the poets, and the theologians they send forth into the world. Not to mention the professions, marked at- tention is now being paid to the industrial arts, and to the requirements of commercial life; in fact, honors are bestowed with impartiality upon ex- cellence in almost every branch of honest human endeavor. Once impressed with the importance of the edu- cational problem in the social and industrial life of the nation, one turns instinctively to the railroads for illustrations of its work and principles. There are very good reasons for directing our efforts and 30 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS study in this direction. For the railroad is probably the most important industry in the country, not alone as an employer of labor and a purchaser of material, but on account of its intimate relation to the everyday needs and safety of society. Day by day the railroads are getting closer to the homes and the pockets of the people. It can no longer be asserted that five or six capitalists own or control the destinies of any railroad. They are now nearly all subject to the influence of an army of stockholders. For example, to illustrate the dis- tribution of railroad stock among the homes of the people, it is worth noting that .nearly half of the ^9,437,839 which the Pennsylvania Railroad lately distributed as the semi-annual dividend on its ;?!3i4,- 594,650 of capital stock, was paid to women. There are now 58,739 stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose average holdings are 107 shares. Of these, about 28,000, or 47 per cent, are women, who, the figures show, own a total of over ;^ 148,000,- 000 of Pennsylvania stock. The November dividend last year was paid to 52,622 stockholders. The in- crease since then has been 61 17, or at the rate of twenty new stockholders in the Pennsylvania Rail- road for each business day of the present twelve months. Consequently it is eminently the concern . of the general public to see to it that both as regards the physical condition of a railroad, and as regards THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 31 the means employed for the efficiency of its service, the very best material and the highest quality of leadership and workmanship are insisted upon. To begin with, then, and very naturally, the topic "Education and the Railroads" divides itself into two main sections, namely, the enlightenment and instruction of the public in regard to actual condi- tions and methods of operation ; and, on the other hand, the enlightenment and instruction of em- ployees and employers in regard to their responsi- bilities and duties. As it seems to me, the first and more important of these considerations relates to the education and enlightenment of public opinion. To this end, we must have a fearless description and analysis of present-day conditions and tenden- cies. But for a number of reasons those who are best posted and informed, whether on the side of labor or of capital, have actually two sets of opin- ions : that which they know in their hearts to be true and right ; and, on the other hand, a modified state- ment of these real opinions, which alone they are willing to publish over their own signatures. It thus becomes evident that the knowledge of the public in regard to present-day conditions on our railroads is derived from incomplete and modi- fied information. Neither the worker, the manager, nor the capitalist can be depended upon to forget self-interest, and to publish the whole truth in the 32 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS interests of the community. Studying the history of the case, which includes the contents of the em- ployee's schedules or bill of rights, and the absolute silence of railroad managers, one must be pardoned for arriving at the conclusion that in the past, at any rate, these forces have been actually in com- bination or tacit agreement to keep the public in ignorance of the actual ways and means by which the business of the common carrier is being trans- acted on American railroads. The only way the railroad manager can dispose of this charge is by coming out in the open and frankly explaining his position. He, the manager, is in a position of public trust and responsibility. The public look to him for a sane and safe administration of the railroad busi- ness, in the interest of the whole people. In the process of enlightening and educating public opinion on these matters the time has come for the manager to give an account of his steward- ship. In a word, is he nowadays to be called a manager or simply a slave to a cut-and-dried sched- ule of arrangements which he has entered into with organizations of his employees, and in which, it is claimed, the public interests have been sacrificed? Is the manager willing to publish and comment on these agreements for the information and educa- tion of the traveling public? In the business of the common carrier, what reason or excuse can be ad- THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 33 need for secrecy? These are questions which the ilroad manager is now called upon to answer, for ey relate to the social standing and to the moral alth, not only of the worker and the manager, ;t with positive emphasis to the self-respect and e social conscience of the community. At the present day the public is utterly and un- countably ignorant of the nature of the points at iue between labor and management on the rail- ad. There seems to be little disposition in any arter to enlighten or educate the public on topics which they are vitally interested. Under date of December 4, 1908, a mediation ct was signed in Washington by representatives the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and e Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Chairman tiapp of the Interstate Commerce Commission, d Dr. Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of Labor, ;re the mediators. From the published report of e proceedings it is evident that the engineers are jsatisfied with the discipline that is administered the members of its brotherhood, while the man- ers complain of the interference with the regu- :ions of the road which they try to enforce in the terest of the traveling public. Sooner or later iblic opinion is always called upon to throw the :ight of its influence on one side or the other; nsequently the details of the controversy, with 34 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS concrete illustrations of the points at issue, should receive the widest possible publicity. To furnish the public with as much of the inside information as possible is the primary purpose of this paper. In the "Santa F6 Employees' Magazine" for November, 1908, one of a series of very seasonable articles on the relations that obtain on our railroads between the man and the manager was written by a well-posted and conscientious employee of that system. To begin with, he made the following statement: — " It is very evident we railroad men have rendered a very poor account of our stewardship." In dis- cussing the failure of employees to report transgres- sions, the writer insists that they "often run the risk of dismissal, rather than comment ofificially on the conduct of a fellow employee. Many of them have a peculiar sliding scale which they use when necessity confronts them for reporting their fellows. Upon this scale appears (in unwritten letters) the enormity of the violation, the standing of the delin- quent among his comrades, and last, but greatest of all, the chances of the officials finding it out. These matters are all weighed before a decision is arrived at as to whether to make a report or not. "That such a condition of affairs exists is not hard to believe, when we take into consideration that the vast majority of enginemen and trainmen THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 35 are members of railway brotherhoods, bound to- gether by secret ties in an endeavor to promote their interests as a body, and to render mutual assistance and relief. And then, back of this lies the fact that an employee who makes it a practice to report, or who will report another when it might have been covered up, is in a fair way to become an outcast, deprived of the confidence of his friends and co- workers. Between the attitude of employees who will not report the shortcomings of their fellows, and the inability of the officials to learn of the trans- gressions of these men, poor old Safety is between the devil and the deep sea." This is one of the most important contributions that has yet been written and signed by a railroad employee. The traveling public must understand from this information that the business of the common carrier is being conducted by employees who, for unstated reasons, are bound together by secret ties. Without pausing to discuss the nature of these secret ties, or their relation to the safety of the traveling public, it will, I think, be allowed that no special privileges can be granted by the community, either to corporations or to brother- hoods of railroad men, in regard to their methods of serving the public in this business of the common carrier. The same law that applies to a traffic arrange- 36 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS ment should also be in force in regard to the rail- road man's schedule. This should not only be a theoretical fact or condition, but the making of the schedule itself should actually be looked upon as an affair in which the public is a vitally interested factor, and nothing should be allowed to appear in it that can be shown to interfere with the mainte- nance of discipline, with the safety of travel, or with the industrial and ethical ideals of the American people. At the present day, the party most con- cerned, the principal sufferer in this secret contract between the man and the manager, has no voice in its composition, and is kept in total ignorance of its stipulations and their social significance. The following illustration will be sufficient to demonstrate the wide and important significance of this branch of my subject : Some time ago the adjustment committee of one of the largest unions of railroad employees paid an official visit to a rail- road manager, and said to him in substance, " For the future we desire to establish the rule that no employee in our department shall be permitted to consult or confer with a superintendent on matters relating to his work except through the medium of the adjustment committee." The thoughtful reader is invited to think over this proposition, and if possible to reconcile it with his ideas of personal liberty and the first principles THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 37 of American civilization. According to my light, the only way to enlighten the public in regard to the significance of this and similar situations in the industrial world, is to furnish concrete illustra- tions of actual work and behavior, and to call atten- tion to the lessons contained in them. Some time ago the general manager of perhaps the largest railroad system in the United States said to me, " I hope to live to see the day when a railroad manager, as an individual responsible to the public for the safety of travel, shall be able to re- move a man for the simple reason that in his opinion the employee is actually unsafe to run an engine or conduct a train." The manifest meaning and the lesson for the traveling public contained in this statement cannot be too strongly emphasized. The safety of travel at the present day is actually at the mercy of a system that has eliminated the very first principles of sane supervision and executive control. Just how this principle lives, moves, and conducts itself on an American railroad, cannot but make the judi- cious grieve. Let us look into this matter with all seriousness. Some time ago, on one of the most important railroad systems in the country, an engineman, while backing his train into a yard, called in his flagman before the train was in to clear. As the 38 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS result his engine was " side-swiped " by a passenger train and several employees were injured. After a thorough investigation into the accident itself, and considering the previous record of the man, the superintendent of the division, his assistant, and the superintendent of motive power, reported to the general manager that the man in question, in their opinion, was unfit to be in charge of an en- gine. In the words of the superintendent, "We might just as well have saved ourselves the trouble and time given to the matter. The usual number of marks that apply to his offense was added to the man's record, and that is all there was to it. We now watch the going out and coming in of that man with fear and trembling ; but we are helpless." The traveling public is to-day at the mercy of the railroad man's schedule. It is not so much this clause or that clause that is objectionable, but the simple power and practice of a powerful organiza- tion to dispute and appeal from the decision of the management, not only in matters of discipline, but actually in every verdict that happens to rub any individual railroad man the wrong way. With a view to enlightening public opinion on the widespread nature of this evil, illustrations must not be spared. One of the best-known methods employed by rail- road managers at the present day to ascertain the THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 39 vigilance and obedience of road men, is what is com- monly called the surprise test. This is, perhaps, the best out-on-the-road inspection yet inaugurated, for it places all employees on an equality so far as observance of the rules is concerned. When this system of surprise tests was first inaugurated on a Western railroad, on whose payrolls there are up- wards of fifty thousand employees, the management encountered a very strange experience, which will serve to illustrate another phase of the railroad man's schedule, and the principles which are in- volved. One day two of the chief executive officers of this railroad took a trip out on the road. Alighting at a way station, they walked along the track for a mile or two until they came to a long wooden trestle. Taking all necessary precautions, they built a fire in close proximity to the bridge and then secreted themselves in the bushes to watch the effect of their surprise test. Before long an express passenger train came along, and although a cloud of smoke was ascending through the rafters of the bridge and right in the face and eyes of the engine- man on the passenger train, he failed to pay the slightest attention to it, but kept on his way with undiminished speed. The test officers remained at their posts in the bushes. Very soon another train came along, but 40 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the engineman of the second train had no sooner caught a ghmpse of the smoke than he blew the customary fire-signal. He then whistled out his flagman, brought his train to a standstill, and with the assistance of the train crew he quickly extin- guished the flames. At the end of his trip he re- ported the matter to his superintendent on the usual form. A few days later, the general manager, who had been one of the test officers in the bushes, called the engineman of the first train into his office. The evidence was altogether too strong for the engine- man to question the existence of the fire, so he fell back upon the simple excuse that he didn't or could n't see it. The manager said to him, in sub- stance, " I am very sorry that I am unable to remove you from your engine for inexcusable carelessness. You are just as well aware as I am that every trestle and wooden bridge on your run is actually a fire-risk or a fire-trap. It is surely not too much to ask you to remember this every time you ap- proach or run over a bridge with the lives of hun- dreds of passengers in your charge and keeping. In my opinion you are not a safe man to be in charge of an engine ; that is all I have to say to you ; you may go." Then the engineman of the second train was called into the office. The manager thanked him and complimented him in flattering terms for THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 41 his conduct in regard to the fire under the bridge. Finally, he said to him, " As a slight acknowledg- ment of your prompt action and praiseworthy con- duct in the interest of the passengers and the road, I grant you a month's leave of absence, with full pay." So far, so good. But before long the grievance committee of the brotherhood took the matter up, and informed the manager that he would have to cancel his disposition of the case. In plain English, it was against the principles and rules of the brother- hood to pick out and signalize any man's conduct in this way. No allowance, either in time or money, would be sanctioned by the brotherhood to any man for doing his duty. It creates a distinction where no distinction is recognized. It makes a difference in the pay schedule, where no variation is permitted in favor of any man. This was a decision of the adjustment committee, and so far as the public and the management are concerned, it remains the law on the subject. Nevertheless, public opinion is invited to study this illustration, and to think it over from a wider standpoint than that contained in the fiat of a griev- ance committee, or the unwilling consent of a rail- road manager. But now just a word or two about my illustra- tions in general. It is, of course, a noticeable fact 42 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS about these illustrations that I seldom mention the road upon which the incident occurs, and still less the names of the managers or the men concerned in them. There is at bottom a deep-rooted reason for this omission. It is a matter of common know- ledge that, so far as educating the pubUc into a knowledge of the internal management or conduct of the railroad business is concerned, every em- ployee who is connected with an organization, and every superintendent who has a position he cares anything about, is virtually and practically under an implied oath of secrecy. Thus the man is sup- posed to be loyal to his union, the superintendent to the management of his road. It would appear from this that we have some- thing to conceal, or that we do not care to submit many of our methods and regulations to public criti- cism. Few of us have stopped to think of our be- havior in this light, and yet there can be no other excuse or reason for secrecy in a business that so closely concerns the public interest and welfare as this business of the common carrier. We are all under the spell of Mr. Carnegie's old maxim, " Richard, if you want to succeed in this business you will have to keep your mouth shut, and al- ways remember that a close mouth is always the sign of a wise head." In considering the industrial dilemma with which THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 43 we are confronted at the present day, and in pro- posing and inviting a new and better order of things on American railroads, the breaking of the ice con- tained in the secret platform of the manager and the employee is a matter of the first importance. It is of little use to ask the writer of this article to prove the truth of his illustrations while the manager remains silent. What the writer knows is but a drop in the bucket to what the manager is aware of, and won't tell. To tell the truth, the man- ager has the best of reasons at the present day for keeping his mouth shut, and for allowing the pub- lic to worry itself out of the dilemma as best it can. Some time ago I asked the president of a West- ern railroad to account for this seeming indifference of railroad managers. He replied, " Silence is the last stand of the American railroad managers. To express opinions or assert ourselves in any way would cost millions. The revenues of the railroads to-day are at the mercy of the political schemer, who, upon occasion, makes a deal at our expense with our own flesh and blood, that is to say, with our employees. It is the apathy of the public to its real interests that is the actual cause and root of inefficient management. For example, if I were to make a public statement that the inspectors em- ployed by the Interstate Commerce Commission are nearly all of them discharged employees, do you 44 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS think it would shock the public's sense of fairness ? Not a bit of it. Stranger things are happening every day. Take another illustration. A piece of machinery, a self-dumping ash-pan, was invented. Legislation was sought to compel the railroads to adopt the invention. The cost, of course, figured little in the matter. After hearing from all sides, the congressional committee to whom the matter had been referred concluded not to report the bill favorably. Thereupon, within a day or two of the closing of the session, both Speaker Cannon and Vice-President Fairbanks were bombarded with telegrams to the effect that 75,000 firemen demanded that the ash-pan law should be passed. This could only be done by unanimous consent, but it was done thereupon, and the law passed in both the House and the Senate, and was signed by the President, who sent the pen to Grand Chief Hanrahan. The railroads must now foot the bills." But so far as the public is concerned, the para- lysis and silence of the railroad manager can be brought still nearer home. At a station on a certain railroad, the change of men was supposed to take place at 11 p. m., but on account of the train service the relief man was always five minutes late. The man he relieved objected to this, and insisted upon leaving the office at 1 1 p. m. The matter was taken up by the union, and considerable feeling was mani- THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 45 fested on both sides. Finally, the business was taken to the manager of the road for settlement. But neither conciliation nor arbitration had any effect whatever, and so at last, in despair, the man- ager changed the schedule of the train. How does a settlement of this kind suit the travel- ing public .' What is to be said about their conven- ience and their connections .' Should any fifty mer- chants in a city desire to change the time of a train they would soon discover that they had quite a job on their hands. While talking with a manager about this case, he informed me that he could furnish a dozen illustrations of a similar nature. From this statement we may infer that when the manager, by means of public recognition and support, can be persuaded to come out in the open and tell his story, strange revelations may be expected. Continuing my illustrations of methods and ideals on American railroads, another interesting phase has to be noticed. In one of the articles of a former series which appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly," I had occasion to refer to the painstaking and successful manage- ment of the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Previous to writing the article I paid a visit to the road. I collected a mass of statistics, and conversed with many of the employees. I was very much impressed with the healthy esprit de corps that seemed to me to 46 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS be a marked characteristic of the work and conver- sation of the employees. On all sides there seemed to be a spirit of cooperation, which was fostered by a marked liberality of treatment on the part of the management toward the employees. The actual results, in efficiency of service and freedom from accidents, were known to railroad men all over the country, and recorded in the newspapers. Over and over again, employees of the Chicago and Alton informed me that in those days serious accidents were almost unheard of, and injuries to passengers and trainmen were few and far between. But now, within a year or so, a change has come over the spirit of the scene. New methods of man- agement are now in force. According to the talk and understanding among the men, the watchword of the former administration was efficiency of ser- vice ; that of the latter is economy of operation and a reduction of the working force to the lowest pos- sible limit. The men very quickly catch on to the ideals and policy of a management. To secure effi- ciency of service, a wide sympathy and considera- tion for the interests of the employees must actu- ally be the first consideration. To cut a gang of men in half, reduce the wages of the survivors, and then preach the doctrine of cooperation in the in- terests of efficiency, is questionable policy. It is not necessary to take my ideas on the subject as THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 47 warrant for applying the story to the Chicago and Alton Railroad. For some time past the superintendent of the road has made a feature of lectures and talks to employees, and has been calling attention to the unsatisfactory state of affairs. One of his circulars reads as follows : " We are having too many mis- haps, the offered excuse for which has been, 'We have been doing that way right along, and nothing has ever happened.' This is following out customs and practices with utter disregard to rules. The safety of yourselves and all your fellow employees, as well as the economical operation of the road, is directly proportionate to the rules being carried out." In one of his talks to the men, Superintendent Mulhearn dwelt largely upon the subject of ambi- tion. He appealed to every employee to keep ad- vancement in view, and to think of something else besides six o'clock and pay-day. He declared that the careful, conscientious, loyal employee would be in the front, and help make up the family of offi- cials and others in the executive position, while the drone and don't-care variety would always remain at the bottom. He said that he was anxious that every employee try to make himself valuable to the company, so that mutual interests might be con- served, and that all might profit. 48 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS These confidential talks, and the general policy of Superintendent Mulhearn, will perhaps be con- sidered as decidedly healthy and satisfactory. From the viewpoint of public education and the real in- terests of the men, the railroad, and the community, however, a little analysis of the cooperative doctrine will not be out of place. I spoke to one of the subordinate officials of the Chicago and Alton about it. This man was in charge of fifty or sixty men. I said to him, " I notice the officials on the Chicago and Alton have inaugurated a campaign of instruction and education, with a view to interest the men in their work, and to induce them to cooperate with the management in the interest of efficiency and economy. I would like to know what this means," I continued ; " is it a real gospel you are preaching, or is it only a method adopted to secure economy and efficiency of operation with- out any positive and real regard for the interests of the men ? For example, when your superintendent says that on his railroad drones will remain at the bottom and conscientious employees be advanced over their heads, is the statement a fact, or a mere figure of speech ? Are you yourself at liberty to handle your men in this way? Is there any way, so far as you know, by which you can single out a good man and fayor him ? Can you increase his pay, promote him, or distinguish him above, or at THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 49 the expense of, the shiftless worker? If not, what does all this preaching amount to ? The doctrine is hollow to the core if, after all your preaching, your superintendent, and you yourself, deliberately ad- vance a man, perhaps a drone, regardless of his qualifications, over the heads of good men, simply because he happens to be their senior." The foreman I spoke to confessed his inability to answer me in a satisfactory manner. While he was willing to admit the truth of my contention, he blamed the schedules for the unsatisfactory rela- tions that exist, on all railroads, between the men and the management. Unfortunately, however, the men are unable to j look upon the seniority rule in this light. They seem to think the very existence of the unions on the railroads is dependent upon the enforcement of the seniority idea to the letter. And they are right, while the men and the management continue to be antagonistic forces. While this feeling of separate interests and objects remains in force, cooperation is a mere will-o'-the-wisp. The men themselves are J quick to appreciate this fact. Some time ago I met an engineman who is em- ployed on the New Haven system. He was more or less familiar with my essays and arguments. He considered them quite plausible in theory, but use- less as to any practical application. He said to me: PROr-r^TY C- U--ARY g283 fir-" vr;': ; =' *"' ) 50 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS " Can you give me one reason why a railroad man should interest himself in the management or the welfare of his road ? " "Your pocket-book, and your self-respect," I suggested. " Not at all," he replied. " You must give me a definite, a concrete illustration. I must get some actual return for any special interest I take, over and above the routine of my work. But we want this as a body, and not separate illustrations as in- dividuals. For example, I say to my railroad : ' One shovelful of coal in every fo"ur that is handled on a locomotive is wasted. Make a bargain with us and we will actually save you twenty-five per cent of your coal-bill. Moreover, there are a score of other ways in which economy can be exercised in our de- partment, and quite as many in which the comfort and convenience of the traveling public can be in- creased. As individuals, we decline to consider the matter either with you or the public ; but if you, the railroad, will set aside a block of your stock of a value equivalent to the saving we are prepared to guarantee to you, and place this stock in the hands of our unions, we will at once talk and act coopera- tion with you to some purpose. At the same time, we candidly confess to you that we desire to hold and control this stock with the ultimate object of getting a share in the management.' " THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 51 At the present day, without doubt, the most in- teresting single topic connected with the industrial situation on railroads is contained in the word schedule. What is this schedule we hear so much about ? What is the nature of this interesting agree- ment which defines the rights of a railroad man, and the powers of the superintendent ? Generally speaking, the schedule is a very simple and compre- hensible document. The schedule of the Boston and Maine trainmen, for example, contains no less than seventy-three rules or stipulations. From the moment when a trainman goes on duty in the morn- ing until he puts up at night, every move he makes, every circumstance he encounters, or is liable to encounter, is outlined in some clause of his sched- ule, and the remuneration for his services connected therewith is distinctly defined. With the changing of conditions and the constant expansion of business, new clauses are added to the schedule. It is hardly too much to say that nine out of ten of the stipulations in the trainman's schedule can actually be called the righting of wrongs. Take the following, for illustration : — No. 6. Crews will not be required to work with more than one inexperienced man. No. 1 1. Men shall, if they so desire, upon leaving the service, be given a letter stating the nature and time of service and reason for leaving the same. ^ 52 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS No. 19. Men released from duty between termi- nal stations will receive pay for full run. No. 28. Regular conductors, doing the work of an assistant conductor, will receive regular con- ductor's rate of pay for the day. No. 45. Men doubling hills, or obliged to follow the engine in going for water or coal, will be allowed mileage in addition to trip. The agreement covers every conceivable phase of the railroad man's work. His overtime, his promo- tion, his pay for attending court ; when he is called for duty and not required ; his leave of absence, his right to emplo)mient after being injured in the service, his emergency service, his extra service, his wreck-train service, — not an item is forgotten, every detail in regard to his work and pay is down in black and white, and he carries the agreement, signed by the general manager, in his pocket. No little admiration and praise must be accorded to organized labor for this crowning result of years of agitation and courageous effort. But nevertheless there are one or two clauses in this schedule which very closely concern the public interests ; their nature, and their effect on the community at large, should be thoroughly understood. Among the general rules of the trainman's sched- ule. No. I reads as follows : — " Promotions will be governed by merit, ability. THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION S3 and seniority; all things being equal, preference will be given to men longest in the service, the superintendent to be judge of qualifications." This rule is altogether in the best interests of the men, the management, and the community at large. The superintendent is placed in charge of the pro- motion department. He is empowered to overlook seniority in favor of merit and ability. In this rule .there is actually no appeal from his decisions. He is distinctly named as judge of qualifications for every vacancy or appointment in the train service. But in actual practice the rule is useless and un- workable. One rule in the schedule is played against another, and in the mSlde the judge is turned into a cipher. Rule No. 7 is as follows : — " In case of discipline, right of appeal will be granted if exercised within ten days, and a hearing will be given as promptly as possible, at which men may be accompanied by fellow employees of the same or superior class. If the investigation finds the accused blameless, his record will remain as previous thereto, and he shall receive pay for all time lost." Here again, standing by itself, is a fairly good rule, which does away with any possibility of unprincipled management. But unfortunately the employee, through his organization, has seen fit to 54 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS enlarge the right of appeal from the verdict of the management in matters of discipline to a general right of appeal from anything that displeases him in every nook and corner of the railroad business. In this way the superintendent, as final and absolute judge of qualifications, is blotted out. At the pre- sent day, if he should exercise his prerogative and place merit and ability above seniority, he would raise a veritable storm in railroad circles. As a di- rect result of this state of affairs, merit and ability, as qualifications for promotion, have been banished from the train service of American railroads. From the educational standpoint the contents of the railroad man's schedule, and its effect upon the efficiency of the service, are in little danger of being over-emphasized. According to John Ruskin, there are two im- portant mottoes in the industrial world : the em- ployers', which says, "Every man in his place," and the employees', which demands for " Every man his chance." Mr. Ruskin adds the following comment : — " Let us amend the employees' motto a little and say, ' Every man his certainty,' — certainty, that if he does well he will be honored and aided and advanced, and equal certainty that if he does ill he will by sure justice be judged and corrected. For the only thing of consequence is what we do; and , THE RAILROADS AND EDUCATION 55 for man, woman, or child, the first point of educa- tion is to make them do their best. It is the law of good economy to make the best of everything. How much more to make the best of every creature." So far in this paper, from the educational stand- point, my object has been to call attention to actual conditions and methods of operation on the railroads. Next in order comes the attempt to inter- est all concerned in certain practical reforms, to the end that we may secure better work and a better understanding between the men, the man- agement, and the community. Ill THE RAILROADS AND EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE There is in this country to-day an ever widening circle of people who desire to look beneath the surface of things. In this way the teachings and works of politicians, merchants, ministers, and rail- road men, are being constantly subjected to a searching probe of inner criticism. In a score of different ways we desire to get at the truth ahd meaning of life, whether in regard to labor condi- tions or to social surroundings. The public anxiety to which I refer has a very practical origin. On the railroads, for example, the problems relating to inefficiency and safety of opera- tion are peculiarly calculated to arouse widespread interest. But safety and efficiency are results ; con- sequently we are first called upon to consider the methods by means of which these desirable condi- tions are now being encouraged and worked out in industrial circles. From the fact, then, that on our railroads labor is organized and firmly entrenched, and for the additional reason that the organization to-day is probably the most powerful influence at f EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 57 work in forming the type and ideals of the Ameri- can railroad man, the following declaration of George B. Hugo, President of the Employers' As- sociation of Massachusetts, should receive attention and analysis. "The strength, power, and corner-stone of the union structure," he affirms, " is inefficiency. Ineffi- ciency makes stanch union men. Unionism destroys individuality, and the competitive spirit which urges men to strive to reach the top ; it retards growth, offers no goal, discourages effort, says to its mem- bers, ' Thus far shalt thou go and no farther,' and teaches the doctrine, ' Get all you can, and do as little as possible.' " It would hardly be possible to submit this state- ment to the test of a practical analysis, without first glancing at the railroad man and the railroad manager, and at their relations to each other and to the business of the common carrier. If the reader were to accompany an engineman, a conductor, or a trainman on one of his daily trips, I am sure he would be very much impressed with the importance and variety of his duties. If any of these men were to explain to him the system of switches and signals as the train is drawn out of one of the great terminals, his respect for the men and their jobs would be still further increased. Continuing his story, the man might post him on S8 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS a variety of matters to which, perhaps, he had pre- viously given little attention, such as the location of switches, side tracks, and branch tracks on his route, as well as on a score of rules relating to the safety of travel, and the right of way of trains of every de- scription, at different points on his trip. Summing up, I think the investigator would come to the con- clusion, not only that brainy, careful, and conscien- tious men are absolutely essential for the proper conduct of a railroad, but that the men he had met in his travels were of this description and calibre. Turning his attention to the other side of the problem, if he were to pay a visit to the general oifices of any of the big railroad corporations, he would doubtless be gratified to discover that prob- ably ninety-five per cent of the men who occupy positions of responsibility and influence have risen from the low, and sometimes from the lowest, strata of railroad life. He would be informed that in the past this rule has applied with equal force to road- masters, to foremen in shops and on the road, to trainmasters and train-dispatchers, to superintend- ents and managers in every branch of the service. Furthermore, if the reader should happen to be acquainted with any of these men in private life, he will, I think, agree with me that they are, as a class, more than usually gifted with breadth of in- telligence, honesty of purpose, and sympathy of EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 59 disposition, qualities that are universally judged to be the best qualifications for successful leadership. So far, then, as material is concerned, the public has little reason to complain of its servants. Furthermore, it must also be confessed that to the outsider the relations between men and managers are apparently harmonious and friendly. Once in a while, it is true, there is a disturbance, and things leak out that immediately set the public mind thinking and wondering. However, at this stage of our study, we find our- selves confronted with a peculiar situation. We have good men, good managers, apparently good inten- tions, but unsatisfactory results. While, for the most part, these unsatisfactory results are connected with the safety problem, which of course is of great interest to the traveling public, the funda- mental issue is efficiency of service from a much wider standpoint. In a word, the railroad accident, and the question of efficiency of service in con- nection with it, is a problem of industrial loyalty. The problem, and the community interests that are at stake, have been connected with organized labor by Mr. Hugo, in his published opinion, with an em- phasis that is quite startling. The question remains, can we bring Mr. Hugo's declaration home to the principles and policy of the unions and brother- hoods of railroad men ? 6o LABOR AND THE RAILROADS To begin with, and turning our attention for a minute or two from men and managers to the methods by means of which the business of the railroad is carried on, we find the situation regu- lated, and to a great extent dominated, by an agree- ment which is always spoken of as a schedule. This schedule defines and limits the responsibilities of both manager and employee. Enginemen, con- ductors, firemen, trainmen, towermen, and tele- graph operators have different schedules, which have been drawn up, discussed, amended as neces- sary, and finally signed by railroad managers and committees of employees. In this way both man and manager are unionized to the extent, and under the terms, of the scheduleVBroadly speaking, it can be said that this schedule has had the effect of limiting the initiative and personal authority of the manager ; but there is one peculiarity about it that is worthy of notice. It is a secret document, and as soon as signed it is buried from view, and exempt from public discussion. In effect, the schedule says to man and manager, " Take your medicine, or your increase of pay for another year, and keep quiet." ~" This secrecy accounts for the lack of interest manifested by the public in a document which is so vitally interesting to the community. The press, also, is not interested where no discussion of any importance seems to be called for. Neither does EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 6i the press show any disposition to ask men or man- agers a single question which would be liable to create a ripple on the surface of such harmonious _ relations. Now, there is a distinct line to be drawn through the middle of this schedule, the result and working out of which, it is evident, is what the public secures in terms of service. On the one hand, we have the clauses that define the railroad man's hours of labor, the nature of his duties, and the remuneration connected with them. On the other, we have certain stipulations in regard to discipline, to the right of appeal, to principles and methods of promotion, and to kindred matters that relate to the fulfillment of the service which every employee owes to the public as well as to the railroad. It is with the latter we have now to do, and it is evident that if Mr. Hugo's interpretation of organ- ized labor can be applied to railroad men, and the service they render the public, the trouble must be looked for in the schedule, and in the allegiance of the men to its principles. But Mr. Hugo has not raised a question of de- tail. In plainest language, he is describing a state of industrial disloyalty to certain fundamental social requirements. Organized labor, according to him, is a menace to the best interests of human society. We understand this at once when we compare his 62 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS statement with the following extract from "The Social Unrest," by Mr. John Graham Brooks : — "The Race sets no such value upon anything as upon individuality and freedom." And again, " Un- less Society deteriorates, it must give free play to liberty, variety, and individuality." What then have American railroad managers and employees to say to this indictment ? Let the situa- tion on the railroads to-day speak for itself. A short time ago, in a lecture at Harvard, a high official of perhaps the largest railroad system in America made a statement somewhat as follows : — " In the past it has been the invariable rule and policy of nearly every American railroad to be- stow upon their own men the higher offices and executive positions as they become vacant, or as opportunity ofFers. But I am sorry to say we are being gradually compelled to abandon this policy, and to look elsewhere, particularly to the colleges, for our material. It takes a great many years of close touch with, and of practical interest in, the managing department to fit any employee for an executive position, and with the situation as it is to- day, no employee could consistently follow out such a line of endeavor without becoming estranged from his union. But when loyalty to the union takes prece- dence of loyalty to the railroad, our supply of capable men is cutoff. And besides, in a number of ways, the EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 63 labor organizations require the services of their best men for their own offices and purposes, so the rail- roads must now look elsewhere for their material." Here is a condition of affairs in which the legi- timate growth of the railroad man is checked, and stanch union men are being created at the expense of the railroad and the interests of the traveling public. The point is, not that a man prefers an office in his organization to one on his railroad, but that the company should have the first call on his loyalty and services, and does not get it. The gen- eral efficiency of the service suffers in conse- quence. But, comparatively speaking, the situation I have alluded to is an insignificant phase of the problem on our railroads. The real issue is the seniority rule, and what follows in its train. This rule is respons- ible for the obliteration of incentive, and the discouragement of effort, to which Mr. Hugo calls attention in such forcible language. There is no concealment about the nature or intent of this rule, or the quarter from which it has emanated. It was initiated, and it is now upheld, as the corner-stone of the union structure on the railroad, by the em- ployee himself. He has elected to stake his own future, and that of coming generations of railroad men, upon a principle that cuts out merit and ability as factors in promotion, and converts ambition and 64 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the desire to excel into the inflexible mandate "Take your turn." But the American railroad man is wide-awake and intellectual. He realizes the weakness of his posi- tion. In his own organization, seniority cuts little figure : merit and ability are the prime factors con- sidered when committees are appointed or officials are elected. But the employee, after giving years of thought to the matter, has come to the conclu- sion that the existence of his organization depends upon the maintenance of the principle that ranks the best type of man with the lowest, so far as his standing and opportunity to climb are concerned. In this way race ideals are upset, for the man is simply commanded to take his turn, to hold his tongue, and to watch what his organization with its immense power will now do for him. In a word, with his eyes wide open, the employee has consented to retard his own growth, to limit the field of his own effort, and to destroy his individuality, for material considerations, at the behest of his union. It now remains for his organization to "make good," at the expense of the employee's individuality, of the interest of his employer, and of principles which have always been considered the pillar of social life. At this stage of the discussion, a very simple question presents itself : " Where has the railroad manager been all this time ? " EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 65 The president of one of the largest raib-oad sys- tems in the country answered my inquiry as fol- lows : — " I am going to criticise one or two features of your book, because I think they give a misleading impression. "In respect to the seniority rule. I agree with you that this rule is a very bad one, if the em- ploying ofificer has no latitude ; but, on the other hand, the rule of favoritism is also a bad rule, and to look at the thing fairly and squarely, one must realize that the seniority rule was urged by the employees because they thought there was an in- justice in the old rule. It is a good deal like what we see in the Government Civil Service. The Civil Service method of making appointments was urged by many reformers because the old ' spoils ' system of making appointments was very vicious. Now I think, however, many reformers and the most intelligent men generally will agree that the Civil Service method of making appointments is very faulty ; that it leads, in the first place, to the selection of men who may be ' glib ' at answering questions and passing examinations, and who, after once receiving their positions, are apparently fairly secure in them, regardless of their general worth- lessness and unfitness. In other words, we are con- fronted by the fact that a reform which was intended 66 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS to improve existing conditions has been found want- ing in an unexpected direction. So, it seems to me, that while you point out the real serious objection to the seniority rule, you omit the statement that the seniority rule became effective because an- other rule was objectionable, and you do not suggest a plan which is free from the old or new objections. " If we are to look the facts squarely in the face, I think we would have to admit that if there had never been an unjust or dishonest employer, there never would have been trades or labor unions. In other words, trades unions grew and developed as a means of enabling the employees to protect them- selves against injustice ; and having once grown and become strong, like many another unbridled power, they have gone too far, and become ty- rannical." Here we have a very fair and reasonable criticism of my position. It is at once apparent, however, that it is more of a confession than a criticism. In- terpreted in this light, the railroad president's reply must be construed as follows: "The seniority rule is a very bad one. Being a rule, however, the 'lati- tude' of officers must be looked upon as referring to its working in exceptional cases and nothing more. We, the managers, are obliged to confess that we surrendered to the employees, and granted this rule with all its vital principles, in order to avoid EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 67 the evils of favoritism ; a very important, yet prob- ably a minor consideration, and one which we must have forgotten could have been eliminated by improving and raising the ethics and standards of management. We substituted a superlative evil for a comparative and removable objection, be- cause we had to surrender, horse, foot, and artil- lery; and now, in this reply, and elsewhere, we are trying to make the best of a bad bargain." The necessity for a return to reasonable and busi- nesslike methods in railroading must be evident. The remedy is a high standard of personal manage- ment, the recognition and reward of merit and abil- ity in promotion, and the reinstatement of the man- ager as judge of the qualifications of employees. Now, if my diagnosis of conditions on the rail- roads be a correct one ; if, with constantly increas- ing emphasis, loyalty to his organization is super- seding and undermining the man's loyalty, not only to his work and to his employer, but to society as well, one must be pardoned for examining his work and service for indication of inattention and apa- thy in matters relating more especially to the com- mon weal. With equal reason and force, if the railroad manager has been made a party, either will- ingly or unwillingly, to an arrangement or sched- ule under the terms of which he has signed away his birthright, and the prerogative of his order, one 68 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS would naturally expect him to be silent and sphinx- like on tjie business from beginning to end. It seems to me this is just the position we find him in to-day. And in regard to the apathy of the organ- ization and the men composing it, in matters relat- ing to safety, and to problems other than those that immediately concern the union, a glance at the accident situation should prove very enlightening. For the close and vital connection between the sympathetic attention of the labor organization and the railroad accident is worthy of most careful study. In regard to these accidents there is this to be said : that you cannot localize them ; that it makes little perceptible difference, according to our statis- tics, whether the man who disobeys rules is a green- horn or a veteran, on duty for six hours or sixteen ; whether he happens to be running fast or slow, crawling through the yard as a switcher, or speeding across the prairie as a flyer. We have illustrations on hand to suit every condition and circumstance. Naturally, this state of affairs calls into being a great number of specialists, who go to work and diagnose the symptoms. Nostrums by the score are volleyed at every tissue of the railroad man's anatomy that is open to moral, medicinal, or surgi- cal treatment. It is very doubtful if any section of our fellow creatures has ever before been subjected EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 69 to such comprehensive and analytical scrutiny. Ex- amine his eyes, his ears, his diet, his alcoholic affinity, his domestic troubles, his mentality, his capacity for prolonged attention under the circum- stances, not to mention the discipline he is sub- jected to, and all the different theories and meth- ods of management. I must not be misunderstood. There is more or less importance to be attached to every one of these considerations. They are all spokes of a wheel, with the man himself and his complete personality as the heart of it all. Now, for a number of years the public has been furnished with certain statistics relating to prevent- able accidents. As a matter of fact, we are not immediately concerned with the proportion of the fatalities or expense that can be definitely laid at the door of the employee. Indeed, if we could be convinced, and I think we can, that the employee is actually doing his best according to his light and education, the fact would be comparatively insigni- ficant. What we desire to bring out is that the train- man and engineman are actually and soulfully impressed with the deplorable loss of life and suf- fering, and that they publicly and privately make known their desire, and make manifest their inten- tion, to improve the records. We desire to make this public spirit of the employee so unmistakable that it will become the strongest factor conceivable 70 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS in the good work of decreasing the number of those who disobey rules and disregard signals. But unfortunately, up to date, the railroad em- ployee, represented by his organization, has given no intimation to any one that he is in any way re- sponsible or in need of treatment. The statistics that appall the public have not yet aroused him as a class to definite action that you can place your fin- ger on and say, Here is a public declaration, here is a private circular from a labor leader, or here is an account of a convention of railroad men called to- gether to consider and talk over the safety problem. So far as I am aware, we feel no special call for consultation or agitation of any kind. We seem to think that all matters relating to efficiency of ser- vice can properly be left to take care of themselves, without our personal assistance or that of our or- ganization. Of course, if it can be shown that the employee, the labor organization, and the labor leader have taken up this matter of wreck and suf- fering on the railroad with the same businesslike determination that has been applied to the matter of wages and service, my argument falls to the ground. I am not raising questions of conduct, or making inquiries into the habits and thoughts of employees. My point is, first and last, to connect the rule and the signal with the mind of the em- ployee in the most reasonable and sympathetic EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 71 manner. This matter of personal and sympathetic attention is the key to efficiency. But from my point of view there is quite a dis- tinction to be drawn between attention and interest. Interest, real and sympathetic, is the soul of atten- tion. Not forgetting other incentives, good work has always been distinguished from imperfect work by the amount of soulful interest that has been brought to bear upon it. Not only is this true, but the very defects and idiosyncrasies of attention are, to a wonderful degree, at the mercy of interest of this description. As a mental clarifier, as an eye- sharpener, as a rule-reminder, as a purifier of en- vironment, as a moral and physical regenerator, its efficacy is universally recognized. Along these lines it is, and has been, the only miracle-worker to which science pays any attention. " In spite of " has always been its motto. External treatment of conditions relating to overwork, disease, automatic tendencies, and wool-gathering is, to a great extent, mechanical according to common sense, and com- paratively efficacious ; but the internal application, comprising the conscientious initiative of the em- ployee, the public expression in various ways of the interest and concern of the labor organization, backed by the hearty encouragement of public opinion, is the superlative method of treatment. That the problem of efficiency of service and 72 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS safety of travel has now been advanced to the stage when the railroad organization will be compelled to give an account of its stewardship was never so forcibly brought to the public notice as in an able and convincing article written by a brotherhood man, which appeared in the " Santa F^ Employees' Magazine" for December, 1908. The following paragraphs speak for themselves:-^ " One reason for such lack of interest in a matter [safety] in which railroad men should be so vitally interested, is the general idea among them that the subject is one for the railroad managements to take care of. " In all my experience in attending lodge-room meetings I have never heard the subject discussed there, and I also note that it is an extremely rare thing to find anything in the numerous brotherhood magazines touching thereon. "I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that the American people are going to look more and more every year to the individual employee, instead of to the railway companies, in placing blame for disastrous wrecks. "The abuse of the power of the railroad brother- hoods in their relation to safety, or rather their in- terference with the disciplinary measures of rail- road managements, has a very direct bearing on the safe and expeditious handling of traffic. This EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 73 abuse owes its origin to a deep sympathy for a brotherhood man in trouble. The result is that certain classes of employees are careless in their observance of the rules, in accordance with the atti- tude of their organization in fighting for disciplined members. Officials are well aware, and brotherhood men well know, that these conditions exist, and that they vary, too, according to the conservative methods employed by the different organizations; but we all know that they do exist to a greater or lesser extent in all of them. And yet brotherhood men, through a mistaken sense of loyalty or fealty to their order, refuse to admit, except to other mem- bers, that such things are done. I believe that it is a very serious abuse of power, and one that does not 2Av2.-R.CQ the interests of organized labor; and which also has the grave tendency of blocking the proper enforcement of disciplinary measures." Brotherhood men all over the country have had their attention called to this article in the " Santa F6 Employees' Magazine," and they are giving the subject serious attention. Having thus described to the best of my ability the status of the labor problem as we find it to-day on our railroads, and the dilemma in regard to it which society has to consider, one turns naturally to remedies and influences that are now engaging 74 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the attention of sociologists and thinkers. Turn where we will, there are indications that the problems relating to efficiency, and to the educating and training of the worker, are being studied with the greatest seriousness. Sociologists and others who make the study of industrial conditions a specialty, are insisting upon the establishment of trade schools as the best pos- sible remedy. President Eliot, of Harvard Univer- sity, for example, has very decided opinions on the subject. He has this to say: "Public trades-schools, which are greatly hampered by trades unions, are be- ing started in Boston, and all over the United States. The movement must be persevered in by the Amer- ican people. Employers and the people cannot, must not, yield to the unions." Among the first to recognize the soundness of this advice, and the necessity of taking action in the matter, are the railroad managers. Complaint is con- stantly being made that the supply of skilled work- ers in the railroad shops is short, and that the majority are incompetent. To supply the demand, the Grand Trunk railway system has adopted a form of apprenticeship, which has been in successful oper- ation for a number of years, and has been the means of supplying that company with skilled mechanics. All apprentices are indentured to the machinist's trade for five years, and to the blacksmith's, boiler- EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 75 maker's, or other trades for four years. The system insures thorough education in all details of the trades. It has been found of great advantage both to the company and to the apprentice. It has a tendency to keep the apprentice satisfied, and to steady his energies along the required lines. The advocates of the trades-schools point to Eu- rope, and in particular to Germany, and say, " Study the schools and methods of these foreign countries, and take warning in time. Bring up the youth in the way he should go, and when he enters the service of the railroad, he will not depart from it." But any one who has worked in a machine-shop, or drawn a day's pay on the railroad, if he chooses to give an impartial opinion, would tell these sociologists that technical education is by no means the complete guide and key to efficiency of service. Altogether this question of efficiency, of the best possible service, is the goal to which the best endeavors and the industrial conscience of America are now pressing forward. Public opinion demands that we dig to the root of the matter, and begin at the beginning. So we are now going into our schools and colleges, and we propose to give the rising gen- eration all sorts of facts and information relating to industrial life. This education of youth is to include mental and technical equipment of every description. After the student has received the instruction that 76 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS (^^ will enable him, not only to run the machinery, but Vto know all about the ingenuities and forces con- nected with it, he is to be given an insight into the world of affairs. No phase or incident connected with the managing department is to be considered too trifling ; no world issue or abstract proposition too large. His education is to begin with the trifles connected with the routine of a day's work, and is to be followed all the way up to the realm of high politics that enables Mr, Harriman to manipulate millions of dollars, and Mr. Gompers to handle millions of men. In a word, the young man of the future is to be equipped from head to foot with industrial facts and information. When we look into the matter carefully, we find the simplest kind of a reason for the difficulties with which, at the present day, the problem of efficiency is surrounded. It is essentially an American prob- lem, due to abnormal expansionof the national mind, which in the past has been so much occupied with size and material results that there has been no time to pay attention to detail and thoroughness. In this way the spirit with which the community has be- come possessed is actually the father and prompter of inefficiency. This is true to a great extent in the public schools. When I read the curriculum, or am informed of the opportunity of the boy to absorb, if he only will, or can, every branch and byway of EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 77 knowledge, my admiration is unlimited ; but when ^ the boy has left school, I find to my sorrow that, generally speaking, he rarely knows anything welll But it is to little purpose that you single out the railroad man and concentrate your attention on him and his failings. So far as railroads and railroad ac- cidents are concerned, public methods and public opinion are actually the promoters of inefficiency. This is not only a curious statement, it is also a very important and interesting one. We are all aware how interested the American public is in generalities, in totals, in conditions relating to labor or accidents, reduced into the form of short and eloquent tables of statistics. The press, in touch with the require- ments of the pubHc, delights in this kind of educa- tional literature. There seem s to be little desire in any quarter to concentrate attention on the concrete ex- ample, to take hold of, and so far as possible settle, a question of an accident on some particular spot, and then extend our exact remedy and method un- til we are able to arrive at general and well-grounded conclusions. Far from desiring such minute and thorough investigations of conditions, the following report may be taken as a sample of what the pub- lic has been satisfied to receive from its different bureaus as the limit of practical investigation, ever since commissioners and other investigators began to draw salaries. 78 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS How much does America pay every year in human life for her civilization ? The government is always discovering remarkable facts through its various bureaus of statistics. This is one of the most start- ling of all. More people are being killed every year in the United States during times of peace than in the bloodiest battles of history. America is the world's slaughter-house for human beings. It is the price America pays for her civilization. During a singleyear 57,513 American men, women, and child- ren were killed or wounded by accident. During the last nineteen years the railroads of America have killed 143,527 persons. During the same period 931,450 persons have been injured by American railroads. The railroad toll alone for twenty years has been more than 1,000,000 American fathers and wives and children. During the last seventeen years American coal mines have killed 22,840 men, made at least 10,000 widows and upward of 40,000 orphans. The total cost of Cuba and the Philippines has been less than 2000 American lives. During a single year American street railways killed and injured a few less than 49,000 persons. In New York the record of only twenty-seven days showed 42 deaths and 5500 injuries. Every year 6000 Americans lose their lives in fires. American industrial plants are estimated to kill every year at least 25,000 men, and to injure 125,000 more. American building opera- EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 79 tions cost 3000 lives every year, and 10,000 other persons sustain injuries. Pleasure costs more than 1000 American Hves each year. The American auto- mobile accidents of last year took 229 lives, to say nothing of the thousands more or less seriously in- jured. American drownings last year numbered 492. There are 1000 American murders each year. Each American Fourth of July costs approximately 500 lives, with injuries to 4000 other merrymakers. All of which means that each and every year the United States yields up the lives of 60,000 of its citizens in payment for its civilization. Of course it is evident that a great deal of honest work has been expended in securing and tabulating reports of this nature, but I think it goes without saying that something more definite and useful is called for in the treating of railroad accidents, which, bunched together for public instruction, reveal such astonishing totals. Let us take an illustration : The other day, in a Boston freight yard, an employee waited for a freight train to pull by, and then, being in a hurry, he ran over on to the next track and was instantly killed by a locomotive moving in the opposite direction. Catching a glimpse of the man in front of the en- gine, the engineer had given a sharp whistle, but of course it was too late. Without any comment, this accident was looked into by the authorities and 8o LABOR AND THE RAILROADS added to the list of unavoidable fatalities. A few days later, a telegraph line-man met the same fate in the same way in a different locality. As a matter of fact, hundreds of lives are annu- ally sacrificed in identically the same way. This has been going on for years, and if one consults the reports of national or state commissioners, no refer- ence to, or at any rate no study of, this particular kind of an accident will be found except as it can be imagined under the general head of " Miscella- neous. ".Studying this accident for ourselves, how- ever, we find that these human lives are thrown away because the victim forgets to stop, look, and listen. The fact that theoretically it is the victim's own fault has actually silenced all public inquiry or en- deavor on the part of men, managers, or people, to come to the rescue of unfortunates who are liable to get caught in this way. And yet, if humanity were to apply the same method and principle to sickness, or to forgetfulness in warding off other dangers that our flesh is constantly exposed to, society nowadays would be in a pitiable position. As regards this specific accident, railroad men are well aware that the most careful employee is at all times liable to get killed in this way, as well as the farmer on the crossing in the country. In my opinion, the public and the management of the railroads could immediately cut the casualty EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 8i list, from this and similar causes, in half, by getting after every specific accident and by treating it in a common-sense and practical manner. There is still one point or phase of the efficiency problem on American railroads to which the atten- tion of the public is frequently directed. In a word, we all look with astonishment and envy at the acci- dent records of European railroads. From various quarters come statistics in regard to the road-bed, the density of traffic, the general conditions under which trains are moved, — from which information we are called upon to bunch together and frame our excuses for inefficiency as best we can. It is all to no purpose. If people will only take the trouble to study the actual accidents and the way they take place, they will quickly discover that very few acci- dents are common to European and American rail- roads. The American accident is a characteristic of personal behavior, which, in fact, has no counter- part in any other part of the world. The compass and trend of American progress points to these accidents as the natural outcome of freedom of thought and action running riot. This is no ill-considered statement. For a number of years there has been a scramble in almost every line of industrial behavior to kick over the traces. In many directions the results have been surpris- ingly beneficial, but on the railroad the principle 82 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS has proved to be surrounded with numerous and well-defined dangers. Illustrations of this fact are to be met with on every side, and they are very significant. For example, "taking chances" is distinctly a characteristic of American railroading. You will search in vain on European railroads for accidents of this nature. The European railroad man is too stolid, — too stupid, if we prefer the term, — at any rate he is too methodical, to get caught in this way. He has been too long accustomed to the rut of unquestioning obedience in matters relating to the safety of travel; and I think it would be an easy matter to demonstrate that the difference between the records on American and European railroads is to be found in these accidents that are distress- ingly typical of American temperament. Making use of a significant illustration, — on our railroads to-day the kicker is king. We kick against discipline, we kick against merit and ability as factors in pro- motion, we kick against publicity of almost any description ; but there is one feature of our occupa- tion and duties that has escaped our attention : we don't kick against the accident record. Summing up, then, and reviewing the evidence, what is the conclusion to be arrived at in regard to this charge of industrial disloyalty on the railroads EFFICIENCY OF SERVICE 83 which Mr. Hugo makes in such emphatic language? "Unless society deteriorates," we are told, "it must give free play to liberty, variety, and individuality." The railroad man is world-wide in his sympathies, but I think I have made it plain that his behavior and duties on the railroad are arranged and regu- lated by his committee. He now consults his sched- ule to discover how much liberty, how much variety, how much individuality, it is lawful for him to ex- ercise. The man is organized, grouped, and scheduled into items, and when the mechanical process is complete, liberty, variety, and individuality have disappeared. The future of the race depends upon the cultivation of these social forces, and efficiency of work and service are very important branches of social development. Finally, then, the efificiency problem is the employers' problem. Far be it from me to criticise the American railroad employee so far as his honesty of purpose is concerned ; but we must all agree that a certain number of deplorable accidents have happened, and are still continuing to happen. A minority of railroad men are account- able in some way for these fatalities. Now, the only power in the United States to-day that is able peacefully, radically, and permanently to reach and influence this responsible minority is the railroad labor organization. The centre of influence upon the personality of the men has passed, to a very 84 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS gre?it extent, into the hands of the union. This is the power behind the men at the present day, that can be exerted in a variety of ways in the interests of efficiency. Just at present along these lines there is very little doing. Nevertheless on all sides, among rail- road men, there are indications of awakening. We are all right and wrong in spots. But this safety problem, and the wider problems of efficiency in industrial life, are bigger than any man or collection of men who dislike to be criticised. I am a firm be- liever in the splendid prospects and future of the railroad man, but there are breakers ahead of him, and storms to weather. So intimately related to the conduct and policy of the railroad organization is this matter of effi- ciency, that I think I am justified in applying the memorable words of Abraham Lincoln to the acci- dent situation, and in saying that it is now for rail- road men themselves to determine that these dead shall not have died in vain, and that we by our policy and conduct in the future, under God, shall take on a new birth of freedom. IV THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY A SHORT time ago, in a speech made to a class in Economics at Harvard University, Dr. Charles W. Eliot made the following statement : — "A great remedy — possibly the remedy — for strikes and troubles between capital and labor, is publicity. Is it not a great comfort, after all, that publicity is the great remedy for public wrong, or private wrong, for that matter ? Why is it ? Be- cause the majority of people in this world, despite all ancient theological teachings, want to do what is right." Here we have a solution of industrial problems theoretically enunciated. The application of this theory to the situation on the railroads, and to the policy and work of managers and labor organiza- tions, brings to the surface a most interesting story. In its best educational meaning, publicity stands for knowledge, enlightenment, efficiency, the best possible type of manhood and womanhood, and for social betterment in every direction. On the rail- roads, for example, it is an easy matter to demon- strate to what a wonderful degree publicity means 86 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS prevention as well as cure. The success of any campaign to secure greater eificiency of service and to improve the standards and ideals of the workers is now to be fought out and secured by means of this powerful agency. There was a time when it did not make so much difference what was known or what was concealed, for the reason that the public conscience was to a great extent indifferent; but to-day society is keenly alive to the situation, and recognizes the fact that publicity is the most power- ful and wholesome educator in the laboratory of social science. While, then, generally speaking, the publicity method will be found to result in a useful know- ledge of conditions, of methods, and of men, there is also concealed in it an art of a very practical de- scription. In everyday life and work this may be termed the art of social persuasion and uplift. In municipal, as well as in industrial affairs, the best possible conditions are always fostered and encour- aged by absolute publicity ; the worst imaginable by political and industrial secrecy. To convert the lat- ter into the former, with or without legislation, is the mission of social persuasion. This social better- ment instinct, in this country at any rate, always has the majority at its back. It is always reaching out into the future where majority interests are centred. From barbarism to the projected efii- THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 87 ciency of the highest civilization is almost an infinite span. Publicity, as I am about to explain it, is the highest point in the climbing process that has yet been reached by human effort and the human con- science. For centuries, with very little force or method behind it, publicity has been knocking at the gate of human progress, but not until lately has its widespread significance been understood. In the industrial world, for example, we are now beginning to understand that publicity, or social persuasion, is actually the art of bringing labor and capital, men and managers, together in the interest of the people. Its present and prospective value as the most use- ful agency in betterment work can be emphasized by a glance at the industrial situation. Turn where we will at the present day, we find the distinguishing feature of the industrial world to be specialization for material ends and purposes. The struggle of authority to hold its ground, of capital to retain its supremacy and to reap its har- vest, of labor to assert itself and to secure its due proportion of profits, has brought into active service an army of specialists, whose life-work seems to consist in upsetting the plans and defeating the specialties of their competitors. Under the direc- tion of these trained specialists, the different inter- ests have formed themselves into isolated group- centres. In order to safeguard their possessions, 88 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS and to ward off interference, these group-centres have surrounded themselves with all kinds of finan- cial, legal, and legislative barricades. The railroad world in particular is completely roped off and specialized in this manner. These groups of capitalists, workers, and managers can neither be broken up nor scattered by legal or legislative action. With their group-interests and group-ideals, these people are narrowing the horizon of national life. The specialists who manage their affairs and preside over their councils are seldom permitted to extend their vision, or exercise their sympathies, an inch beyond their own premises and interests. With their limited vision, these groups are socially incomplete. They lack the salt of a wide social brotherhood. The,/social conscience must now take them in hand, and inoculate them with the leaven of a wider philanthropy. The original soulless cor- poration has already been purged of its most fla- grant abuses. At has now joined the brotherhood of groups, and is no better and no worse than the rest of them. In this way the problem has widened, and become more intense. Its economic importance has been dwarfed by a paramount human issue. It is, first of all, a question of American manhood and womanhood. In the interest of social betterment it thus becomes the business of publicity, or the art of social persuasion, to see what can be done THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 89 with the group situation in American industrial hfe. To begin with, what is it like, and how does it work on the railroad ? In making the best of a rather uncomfortable predicament, the manager has be- come attached to the group situation. It is now the only peg on which he can hang the hat of his au- thority. In fact, the principle of management has now been reduced to these forms and to these terms. As the manager looks at it, the greater the number of groups, the less chance for unanimity among them, for the groups are self-centred and selfish. On a given railroad they have no common base ; the engineer, to a sufficient degree for the manager's purpose, looks askance at the fireman, the trainman at the conductor ; and the towerman, as a rule, can- not be persuaded to cast in his lot with the telegraph operator. Amid these varied interests and little storm-centres the manager plays his part, and the harmonious relations that exist are the result of his manipulation, and a tribute to his skill. But in this industrial shufHe the individual is passing through a humiliating experience. My own position on the railroad will serve as an illustration. My term of service on the Boston and Maine Railroad extends over a period of twenty-eight years. 1,9° LABOR AND THE RAILROADS So far as I am aware, there are no marks of any- kind on my record. Consequently I think I am justi- fied in contending that, in my own interest, and that of the service, if there are any avenues of promo- tion in the tower service they should be kept open so that I and others may have them in mind as an ever-present incentive for exertion and faithful ser- vice. Nevertheless, since management by group and schedule has been inaugurated, I and others in similar positions have been like so much Dead Sea fruit. By reason of pressure from other groups, the field of promotion is confined to my own group. The avenue along which I should be able to press upwards and forwards in the tower service has been blocked by rigid agreements between the manage- ment and the different group-interests. I work on the Fitchburg Division. On other di- visions of the road there are situations that for a long time have paid a dollar a day more than that which I hold. Of course, if these divisions were separate railroads, nothing more could be said ; but they are all under the same management, and a towerman can qualify for a new job on another division nearly as quickly as he can for one on his own. But if I desire one of these higher positions on another division, it is open to me only in one way — '■ I must throw up my record of service and my seniority and ability privileges on my own divi- THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 91 sion and begin life over again on the other, at the bottom of the ladder ; which, of course, is practi- cally out of the question. A telegraph operator in a tower in the terminal division, with a few months' service to his credit, has the call on the tower work on that division ahead of a man who has been work- ing for the same corporation for over a quarter of a century. Neither seniority, merit, nor ability is per- mitted to interfere with the. interests which each group formulates for itself, and which are at present impervious to publicity. It is hardly to be supposed that the manager is alone responsible for this state of affairs, for it must be evident that his ability to place his men to the best advantage is circum- scribed, while the liberty and individuality of the worker receive no recognition. But publicity, or social persuasion, in the United States, has the biggest kind of a mission. Its main business is to explain and to illuminate the indus- trial dilemma, so that the people as a whole can be brought to understand the situation. The collective good sense of the community, without much fuss, will then take care of its own interests. But, unfor- tunately, publicity is no part of the programme of organized labor. Many of its principles will not stand the test of social scrutiny. In the interests of the labor body as a whole, its inefficient members are only too often protected and retained in the 92 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS service. Our unions discourage criticism and dis- cussion, and insist upon discipline in the dark. Bishop Keane, in an address at Denver, Colorado, some time ago, made the following statement : " Labor unions should not therefore destroy com- petition, even in labor, by denying efficiency ex- traordinary compensation." But the seniority rule, as in actual practice on the railroads, denies to effi- ciency this extraordinary compensation, contrary to the manifest interests and requirements of the pub- lic service. A short time ago I read in a Boston newspaper an account of fifty or more teamsters who had been fined for disobeying certain traffic rules, which had been laid down by the city authorities for the safety and convenience of travel. Since the new traffic law went into effect, January first, there have been 1061 teamsters in court. Of this number 944 paid fines of five dollars each. Both fines and the names of the offenders were published in the daily papers. The city of Boston, it would seem, does not believe in the Brown system of discipline in relation to street traffic. Presumably the city would long ago have adopted secret and psychological methods of discipline if it could anticipate better results. So the question arises — If publicity is good for the teamster, why is it not equally so for the railroad man ? On the railroad, when an employee disobeys THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 93 a traffic regulation he is treated psychologically in the dark. So far as his fellows are concerned, there is no lesson or warning attached to it, as in the case of the teamsters. In passing, the psychological problem on the rail- road deserves a word or two in its relation to pub- licity. Some of the managers have taken hold of this matter in practical fashion. They give as one reason the fact that nowadays juries and arbitra- tors must be addressed and worked upon psycho- logically, or very little" impression can be made on them. The railroad manager meets the psychological problem at every turn. In a sort of despairing effort to compel employees to read attentively and cor- rectly in sending and repeating train orders, for example, he will change the names of a dozen rail- road stations to meet certain psychological possi- bilities. Another bugbear of this description relates to divided responsibility. Until quite recently, this poor old world has been run on the supposition that two hurdles in your path are more likely to arrest your career than one, and that double protection is more reliable than a single safeguard. Under stress of psychological promptings, which whisper to the easy-going twentieth century that what is every- body's business is nobody's business, the props are being knocked from under this common-sense logic. 94 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS The situation is becoming most peculiar in its prac- tical aspect, more especially on the railroads, where the interests and safety of the public are now threat- ened from so many directions. Not long ago extensive tests were instituted on a well-known railroad. The manager of the road told me a curious incident in connection with these tests. The record was almost perfect. The only out about it related to one particular signal. Nearly every en- gineman on the division disregarded this signal, for some unknown reason. The manager, an acute judge of human nature, as it lived, moved, and received encouragement on his railroad, at once detected a cause. Personally he investigated the matter; as he approached the signal in question, the reason for its neglect was very evident: a second signal, some distance ahead of the signal which had purposely been set at danger, was plainly seen to be in the safety position. What, then, was the use of bother- ing about signal No. i when the track was certainly clear up to and beyond signal No. 2 ? Here we have the usual psychological excuse for disobedience. II But, regardless of their own indiscretions here and there, I think the managers of railroads are beginning to perceive that they are likely to gain more than they lose by encouraging publicity THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 95 methods. One Western railroad goes so far as to publish instructions, and all sorts of warnings to employees, in the daily papers. Take, for example, the following from a newspaper published in Bloom- ington, Illinois: — "It has developed of late that some train bag- gagemen delivered milk and cream to the wrong persons, causing heavy loss to the company in set- tling damage claims. Hereafter every case of such carelessness, where claims must be paid, will be charged to the baggagemen at fault." "Towermen, agents, yardmen, and crossing-ten- ders, are asked to do what they can to avoid delay of passenger trains. The performance sheets of late show considerable delay due to the carelessness, laziness, and negligence of certain employees who are not alert in the effort to prevent delay. All concerned are again urged to do better in the way of accelerating the movement of such trains." " Crews are asked to respect the orders about not running too fast down-hill and around curves. Plain- view being a notable example. Speed there should not exceed fifty miles an hour." By the way, fifty miles an hour round curves is n't at all bad as a reduction in speed. To secure the attention of the employee, and to enlist his interest in the cause of efficient service, the modern manager is now willing to go to any 96 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS extreme. He is even prepared to surrender his pre- rogative and to share his duties with the employee. On a Western railroad it has been decided to appoint engineers and conductors to examine and instruct employees in regard to rules and duties. These men are to be placed on regular pay, and called in to cooperate with the officials. The idea of appointing employees for this purpose is a novel one, and its success will be watched with consider- able interest. But there are all sorts of strings to the publicity kite, which fact is a reminder of another phase of the topic that also seems to call for a little atten- tion. I allude to the personnel and the work of the Interstate Commerce Commission in relation to organized labor and the public interests. The Interstate Commerce Commission employs something like twenty-one inspectors. All but three of these men are members of the four big railroad orders, in good standing; and, indeed, service for the Interstate Commerce Commission is used as a stepping-stone of promotion in these orders. In connection with the promotions recently made, due to the resignation of Chief Hanrahan of the Fire- men, and of Chief Morrisey of the Trainmen, three different Interstate Commerce Commission In- spectors have been promoted to positions as offi- cers of the orders. THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 97 Another point, which is certainly of interest to the public, is that representation on this govern- ment board of inspectors is in proportion to the membership of each of the large orders. Now, not for a minute do I presume to say that these men are not good men, that they are not competent, and that they cannot serve their country well. What I do say is that under their oaths to their organi- zations they owe allegiance to them ; and that this is not in line with the best ideals of public service. The comfortable, matter-of-fact way in which the organization of Railroad Trainmen looks upon the merging of labor interests and those of the people under one head, is particularly noticeable. The fol- lowing information on the subject is from "The Railroad Trainman " : — "On January i, 1909, the lately appointed Vice Grand-Master, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, will assume his duties. He has been careful and painstaking in all his work, and in everything per- taining to his business connection with the organi- zation has proven himself to be a thorough-going capable officer, whose record as such is the reason for his appointment. " He has been employed by the Interstate Commerce Commission for a number of years as inspector of safety appliances, and while in this employ has been the meansy in a large number of 98 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS instances, of bringing suit against railway compa- nies for violation of the law ; and very many deci- sions in favor of the act are to be credited to his efforts in seeking its enforcement." This is a very satisfactory arrangement for the labor organization. The public service, however, should be free from such entangling alliances. How would it look if the railroad officials of the coun- try, through the American Railway Association, for example, should get together and select from their number a man whom they should nominate to act as Secretary of the Interstate Commerce Commission ; and if, having obtained that position, he should then proceed to nominate men for inspec- tors .' How would the country at large look upon such a situation .' It is simply unthinkable. In the case as I have stated it there seems to be plenty of room for a little " social persuasion " of a very healthy description. in But the deeper we study publicity and its history, the more interesting are the developments. For a start, then, publicity must breathe and work in an honest, unprejudiced atmosphere. In other words, public opinion and public ideals must approach the industrial future with a clean record. Its methods cannot be confined to a process of showing up the THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 99 intrigues of railroad managers. As a matter of fact, at the present day the railroads are more sinned against than sinning. Up to the present time the American people have desired publicity in regard to corporations, but they have fought shy of it any nearer home. Conse- quently, publicity as a clarifier and rectifier of in- dustrial conditions is sadly handicapped. The good sense of the people is beginning to appreciate the situation, and is now calling for a wider application of the publicity methods. In no line of work can these facts be so fruitfully studied as in the railroad business, particularly in relation to efificiency of service and the safety of travel. Just at present an interesting comparison can be drawn between the American and the Canadian ideas and methods of publicity. In this country, when con- ditions in the railroad business attract attention and adverse criticism, a commission looks into the trou- ble and publishes a report containing a few interest- ing generalities. If politics or labor questions are involved, the commissioners know better than to express themselves on these topics. In regard to accident reports and methods of investigation, the American newspapers, for example, invariably neg- lect to describe the nature of the trouble, the mis- takes that are made, and the lessons to be derived from them for public information and criticism. 100 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS They give much more attention to publicity in Canada. The following is an extract from a Cana- dian newspaper of recent date: — "At nine o'clock this morning his Lordship, Justice Riddell, imposed sentence upon the three trainmen found guilty, at the recent spring assizes, of criminal negligence in connection with the wreck on the G. T. R. some time ago near Harriston." In the course of his judgment, Justice Riddell said : " It is a terrible thought that if any one of you men had done his plain duty, no accident would have happened. Five men were found who all neg- lected their plain duty at the same time, and as a consequence two men were hurled into eternity and a third was maimed for life. Had any one said in advance that this concurrent negligence of five men might happen, it would have been thought incredible. But such is the fact." The sentences imposed by the judge were par- ticularly impressive, and, so far as I have been able to discover, nothing so solemn and significant has ever been administered in American railroad life. "You, Engineer , must suffer immediate imprisonment. In view of your past good character and of the representations to mercy of the jury, and of the strong recommendations of others in your favor, and also your apparent penitence, I THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY loi think I may reduce the term of your imprisonment to eight months. You will therefore be imprisoned in the common jail at Guelph, without hard labor, for that term. " You, Conductor , and you, Fireman , I shall not sentence at the present time. You did wrong, and will have for life the consciousness that you have killed two innocent men, and that two, dead by your act, are awaiting you on the other shore. But I think that while you are justly con- victed, I may, for the time being, at least, refrain from sending you to the convict's cell. You will - have the opportunity to go back to the world and regain the places you have lost." In referring to a petition for clemency, the judge remarked that he couldn't believe that a Cana- dian had drafted it. It is evident that in Canada verdicts and opinions are published with startling impartiality. As President Eliot informs us, the Canadian law and methods have been in sight of American em- ployers and employees for nearly two years, and no employer or employee in the United States likes the looks of them. Let us see how the Canadian law and methods are put in force in regard to rail- road accidents. Under the Canadian Industrial Disputes Investi- gation Act, 1907, the following is an account of the 102 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS settlement of a dispute between the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers. The number of employees affected, or likely to be affected, was estimated at two thousand directly and five thou- sand indirectly. The differences in question were set forth as follows : — "(i) The dismissal of Engineer William Mc- Gonegal, of Sault Ste. Marie, for alleged violation of rule 89 (a) of the Company's Rule Book on November 12, 1907. ' Claims wrongful dismissal : requests reinstatement and pay for time lost.' " (2) The dismissal of Thomas W. McAuley, of North Bay, for alleged recklessness in or about the month of November, 1907. ' Claims wrongful dis- missal : requests reinstatement and pay for time lost.' " The Canadian Pacific Railway Company, in its statement in reply to the application, expressed its unwillingness to reinstate either of the two dis- missed employees, holding that both had been dis- missed with good cause, and insisting that the pro- visions of the act could not properly be invoked in respect to cases such as those indicated. In other words, the company insisted upon its inherent right and duty, in the interest of public safety, to admin- ister discipline without interference of any kind. However, the Minister, having duly considered THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 103 the circumstances, established a Board, and ap- pointed thereto Mr. Wallace Nesbitt on the recom- mendation of the company, and Mr. J. G. O'Don- oghue on the recommendation of the employees. These gentlemen being unable to agree upon the third member of the board, the Minister appointed Mr. Justice Fortin, of Montreal. In the case of McGonegal, the collision, which resulted in injuries to persons and damages to property, was, according to the evidence, the direct result of said McGonegal's attempting to take the switch at Blind River at the east end instead of at the west end, in disregard and violation, by Mc- Gonegal, of the company's rules and regulations. In the second case, the position of the company in regard to McAuley was as follows : — "The said McAuley was dismissed from the company's service for recklessness in the operation of his train under the following circumstances ; The said McAuley was in charge of Engine 1626 on November 21, 1907, and becoming stalled at or near mileage 82, had to take the front of his train to Azilda. On returning to pick up his train he approached it too fast, resulting in collision and damage to the company's property." The finding of the board in these cases was as follows: — "In the matter of William McGonegal. The 104 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS majority of the Board came to the conclusion that the contention of Engineer McGonegal, as to the constructiop of rule 89 (a), was incorrect, and that he should have backed his train and pulled into the siding. The contention of the company was there- fore sustained. " In the matter of Thomas W. McAuley. The Board, having heard the parties, was of opinion that the officers of the company were justified, on Mc- Auley's signed statement the day following the accident, in dismissing him. Furthermore, in both of these matters, the Board was unanimously of opinion that it should be clearly recognized by the employers and the employed, in the interest of the public, that the employer must have the inherent right of regulating, subject to the contract between the parties and the law of the land, the discipline and organization of the company" This report, which is published in the " Labor Gazette," bears the date January 15, 1909. The significance and value of this report lie in its direct appeal to the intelligence and moral sup- port of the people. This appeal direct to the people by means of publicity is the point at which I have aimed in this and an earlier series of papers. It may be looked upon as the "farthest north" of all the attempts that have yet been made to work out some kind of practical solution of the industrial THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 105 dilemma. The manner in which it can be applied to the accident and efficiency problems on Ameri- can railroads is the most important and the prac- tical feature to be considered. IV Let us now apply our publicity methods to the railroad crossings, and to the fatalities that are daily taking place at these points. Doubtless many of us think we understand all about these crossings — just how they are managed, and what the equip- ment of the crossing tender should be in order to run a crossing with satisfaction to the railroad and the public. And yet I have little hesitation in stat- ing that there are not a dozen men in the country who have actually studied the matter and are capa- ble of giving the story in truthful detail. In relation to loss of life and personal injury, the crossing prob- lem is one of the most important with which the public to-day is concerned. In order to make its importance clear to all, I call attention to a report which was prepared on a well-known railroad for the information of its president : — " Double the outgo for injuries to passengers was that for 380 killed and injured who were neither passengers, employees, nor trespassers. Of the number 33 were killed; 195 persons were struck on public streets or crossings ; 16 of these cases, io6 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS settled through suits, averaged 1^1365.67 each, and 82 other cases, settled by claim agent, averaged ;gi37.27 each. Through crossings acknowledged to be defective there were 25 additional cas^s of injury, the four court cases averaging $1205.76 each and the others $66. Eight cases under the general head miscellaneous, settled by suit, averaged ;^ 1976 each, 32 others cost ;^97.i4 each. Colliding with trolley car at crossing caused injuries to 18 persons, settle- ment in two cases averaging ;^8o3.i8, seven others averaging $154.88 each. Nineteen out of twenty- eight cases of injury occasioned by moving engines or cars without warning to men and teams working about them were settled at an average of $376.25 for four court cases, and $48 for the other fifteen. Negligence in crossing-men handling gates led to 25 instances of injury to persons ; five of them, set- tled through suits, averaged $615 each, and eleven others, through claim agent, $5. The enumerated and other analogous causes brought the outgo for the year to approximately $75,000, and almost as many claims left pending as were closed during the twelve months." In this report there are probably as many as twenty different kinds of dangers and difficulties that cross- ing-men have to encounter, and in regard to which one would naturally suppose a green crossing-man would receive some kind of instructions. THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 107 The importance of the crossing being conceded, let us now turn to the efficiency of the service con- nected with it. To begin with, the rules and regula- tions issued by the managements of railroads for the guidance of employees cannot be said to contain any specific instructions as to what to do, or how to behave, in relation to the dangers to which I have called attention. There are certain dangers peculiar to each individual crossing, which have to be care- fully guarded against, and^ from which accidents are almost daily taking place. But we find that when a new man is hired and put to work on a crossing, he is, for the most part, left to learn about the dangers from object lessons and narrow escapes. I have asked a score of crossing-men if they had received any instructions from any quarter, and they all an- swered in the negative. One and all will tell you that they were called upon to sign the usual application- for-employment blank, and were then examined for eyesight and hearing, but that they heard not a word about their duties, either specifically or generally. Some time ago I inquired of an old and faithful crossing-man, if in all his thirty-five years of service he had ever known or heard of any systematic supervision or instruction for crossing-men, and his reply was, "You must be dreaming." In plain English, then, the distressing accidents, of which we receive reports almost daily, are only io8 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS too frequently the price paid for the inexperience of new men learning their jobs. I believe that I am describing a situation that is more or less similar on all American railroads. The public interests in this business receive about as muchrecognition as the crossing-man himself. Judg- ing from our accident reports, his position is at least twice as important as that of a passenger brakeman. All told, everything connected with the crossing is an object lesson in efficiency or inefficiency well worth public consideration. The lesson derived from this story of the railroad crossing can be applied to nearly every branch of th e operating departments on American railroads. Over all there is a lamentable lack of supervision, and no method by means of which the public can be kept informed of what is going on. Into thescheme of management everywhere a system of publicity must be introduced. But the sticcess of publicity methods of betterment is absolutely dependent, under present conditions, upon the elimination of the brotherhood man as a factor in the supervision of his fellow em- ployees. The organisations have repeatedly put them- selves on record against the simplest and sanest methods of improving the service along these lines. Very recently one of the largest railroad systems THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 109 in the country organized an association of employ- ees for the purpose of studying the safety problem, and the improvement of the service in relation thereto. So far, the men in the different branches of the service have been brought together to discuss the prevention of accidents arising out of the application of the rules. But the formation of this society has already attracted the attention of the unions^among the men, and some of them have gone to the extent of proposing that any man who joins the safety association shall forfeit his membership in the union. It is well thoroughly to understand this phase of the situation, for the reason that if inquiries were made, the railroad manager would probably assert that the supervision of his system is of a substantial and adequate character. He might call your atten- tion to the work and services of his railroad detec- tives, and of his traveling engineers and conductors. But when you look into the matter and ask for illustrations and proof to show that these men actually report their fellows for carelessness and disregard of rules, the evidence will not be forth- coming. As a matter of fact, the duties of the traveling engineman are mechanical, or relate to the care of the equipment, while the conductor is kept busy with problems relating to the freight business and no LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the overtime of the men. These supervisors and traveling overseers in the operating department are brotherhood men. No sane railroad manager expects to secure adequate and reliable statistics from this source. In fact, the men should not be called upon to do this work, and yet the information must be secured in some way. The interest in his business, on the part of one of these men, can be placed along- side the interest of the inspectors employed by the Interstate Commerce Commission. In the latter case the inspector will do anything to hunt up his evi- dence and secure a conviction, in the former he will do anything to avoid the necessity for so doing. VI The conclusion we are compelled to arrive at is obvious. The public, that is to say, society itself, must take a hand in the actual management or su- pervision of the railroad. In plain English, the rail- roads should be called upon to appoint supervisors who are not union men. They should be paid by the railroad manager, and work exclusively under his direction. But these men should also be in the service of the public. Their reports, monthly or otherwise, should be sent, word for word, both to the manager and to the railroad commissioners. Between the watchfulness and anxiety of the management and the duty and responsibility of the commission- THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY iii ers in relation to these reports, the public interests would be amply taken care of. Methods of watchful- ness and security, with prevention as the principal object in view, would immediately result from this publicity plan. The traveling crossing-man, engine- man, conductor, and trainman, would constitute the safety department on the railroad at very little added expense. Under the public eye, the publicity system of betterment work would be placed on a practical and businesslike basis, and the respons- ibilities of these public inspectors would be clearly defined, and it would become practically impossible for the employee, management, or railroad com- missioners to neglect their duties. It is impossible in an article of this description to go into the details of this publicity plan in its practical application to the efficiency and safety problems on our railroads. It must suffice, at pre- sent, to describe the conditions, and the necessity for betterment which can actually be secured by the publicity route. In the situation as we find it to-day, the most inexcusable injustice is being inflicted on the rising generation of workers by means of some of the principles of our labor organizations, which, as it seems to me, the American people can by no means continue to countenance. This conclusion applies not only to the railroad business, but to the industrial life of the nation. 112 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS A young man enters the service of a wholesale manufacturing concern. The superintendent informs him that if he takes an interest in the business the business will take an interest in him. After the boy has become acquainted with the routine of his ofifice- work he begins to look round him a little. During the busy hours he steps into the shipping-room or the salesroom and gives a little assistance here and there. He is permitted to do this for a day or two, but before long a man steps up to him and says, " What are you doing here .' If the boss wants to hire any more help, let him do so. Don't you understand that you are probably taking the bread and butter away from some hard-up fellow, who is out of employment and who would be likely to get a job if you would stay where you belong.' Go back to the office and attend to your own business, or the union will get after you." The boy suddenly awakes to the situation. He has to choose between the slurs of his fellows and what he considers to be his duty to his employers. He is a good-natured young fellow, and his companions soon carry him off his feet. Later, when the boss asks him why he does not take more interest in the business, he tells his story, and only too often the superinten- dent is compelled to leave him to his fate, for the business is found to be permeated with this spirit from cellar to garret. THE RAILROADS AND PUBLICITY 113 Some day, perhaps, a shipment worth $1000 to the firm is being loaded on teams when the clock strikes twelve. Immediately every man on the job quits work. From twelve to one is the dinner hour ; it is so stipulated in the schedule. The foreman ex- plains to the men that the shipment will miss its train-connection and the sale be canceled if there is a minute's delay. But it is useless to discuss the j matter. There is no flexibility to a schedule. The men explain that if they work during the noon hour they will lose their union cards. That ends the dis- cussion. The goods are replaced in the store. It requires no prophet to predict some kind of a halt to this sort of industrial progress. The people will be neither slow nor careful in answering those who persistently dwarf the energies and misdirect the social principles of the young workers on whom the nation depends for its industrial future. In rail- road life the situation is even more unaccountable and indefensible than in other industries. There are absolutely no social ethics or principles what- ever in the present method of management by group-interests and by the law of the schedule. For efficiency of service and safety of travel the public continues to appeal to the managing de- partment, and yet, by this time, we must all be well aware of the fact that this manager, from whom so much is expected, has been legislated and 114 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS unionized out of existence. The old-time manager was an autocratic, irresponsible individual. But he has been called to account. The history of the lim- itations that have been imposed upon him during the past ten years is descriptive of a continuous slide down hill. To-day there is no one small enough to do him reverence. He now remains silent and contemplative. He has no explanation to offer ; he has made all the signs he is going to. If the public is dissatisfied, let the authorities tackle the problem. Meanwhile liberty, variety, and indi- viduality in the railroad business are adrift. V THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA Mr, Daniel Willard, Second Vice-President of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Com- pany, is one of the foremost railroad managers in America. He has direct charge of a railroad over 9CX)0 miles in length which goes through eleven dif- ferent states. In busy times the names of 50,000 men appear on its payrolls. It has large terminals in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and other large cities. It owns 1600 locomotives, 1200 passenger cars, and 52,000 freight cars. Mr. Willard is a warm advocate of the railroad man's schedule. This schedule is a signed agreement between the management of a railroad and the em- ployees. Its stipulations refer to and define rates of pay, methods of adjusting difficulties or disputes, and other matters relating to privileges and duties in the everyday life of the employee. Considered in this way, its face value is all in its favor. Manifestly all that is necessary is to make the stipulations con- tained in this agreement reasonably fair to employee, manager, and the public. From such an agreement the best possible results should be anticipated. ii6 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS My reference to the manager of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad has no significance apart from the fact that Mr. Willard probably voices the opinion of a great majority of railroad managers. This consensus of opinion is that this schedule re- presents the best working arrangement under the circumstances. Indeed, giving illustration from his own experience, Mr. Willard asserted in an interview with the writer of this paper, that to attempt to run a railroad nowadays without a schedule would be something in the nature of an invitation to chaos. But the shield has two sides. On the other hand, the Pennsylvania Railroad firmly declines to have anything to do with a schedule. Its superintendents propose to superintend and its managers to manage as heretofore they have always superintended and managed, without attaching their signatures to trade agreements or schedules of any description. The Pennsylvania Railroad is also an immense establishment. It controls 23,977 miles of track. The states through which the Pennsylvania lines run contain 44,936,522 people, that is to say, the road touches directly the social and industrial life of half the population of the United States. The Pennsyl- vania was the first road to use Bessemer steel rails. It was also the first to use the air brake and the block-signal system. It has over 1 34,000 employees on the lines east of Pittsburg. Its monthly payroll THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 07 on the eastern lines is over seven million dollars. It has an unrivaled pension system. There are 316 veterans who have served the Pennsylvania Railroad fifty years and over ; the United States Government has but 41. More than 2000 employees of the road were receiving pensions on January i, 1909, and the payments authorized to be made to them during the year 1908, amounted to ^544,245.08. The Pennsylvania owns 6000 locomotives, 248,000 freight cars, 5400 passenger cars, and the company's trains stop at 6000 stations. In regard to efficiency and safety of operation, reports just compiled of all accidents on the 23,000 miles of track show that during 1908, the various lines carried 141,659,543 passengers, and that not a single passenger was killed as a result of an accident to a train. However, a few figures on the subject seem to be called for. The total number of passengers injured in train accidents numbered only 102. These figures include every case requiring surgical or medical at- tention, however trivial. It will thus appear that, counting every personal injury due to train wrecks, only one person out of every 1,388,819 passengers carried, was injured. Statistics for the Pennsylvania lines east of Pitts- burg, directly operated, show a total of 88,328,604 passengers carried in 1908, and but 51 injured in train accidents. On the lines west of Pittsburg, ii8 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS directly operated, 22,314,209 passengers were car- ried during the year, and there were but 17 injured as the result of train accidents. Of the subsidiary lines, independently operated, the Long Island Railroad carried during the year 23,242,838 passengers, and only 17 were injured in train accidents. This line has now been operated for some fifteen years without a fatality to a passenger due to a train wreck. Some idea of the significance of these figures on the Pennsylvania Railroad may be drawn from the fact that forithe same period on all railroads within the state of Massachusetts eleven passengers were killed and fifty injured, while the number of passen- gers carried was less by several millions. Unfortunately the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion does not furnish tables from which comparison can be made. My request for specific information of this nature elicited the following reply from the Chairman of the Commission : " It has never been the custom of the Commission to make public the summaries of the accident reports from individual roads." But my interest in the Pennsylvania Railroad has comparatively little to do with its size and equipment. My interest and story are centred in the fact that it is a personally managed railroad, and that organ- ized labor, or rather, certain of its leaders, have now THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 119 Started a campaign, the avowed object of which is to put an end to this system or method of manage- ment. The point to be considered by the pubUc is whether or not their interests will suffer if this movement is successful. Some time ago a concerted move was made by the four railroad brotherhoods on all lines west of Chicago, and a blanket agreement was executed covering all roads west of that point. That is to say, so far as possible, uniform wages and similar treat- ment and privileges were desired for the brother- hood men. A similar movement is now on foot east of Chicago, and the great, and practically the only, stumbling-block in its way is the Pennsylvania Rail- road. Nearly all the big roads have already given up the fight, and have signed agreements which recognize and accept the principle of dual manage- ment, with all that follows in its train. It is now, of course, very important to get the Pennsylvania System into line. My attention was first directed to the dissatis- faction of organized labor with the personal policy and management of the Pennsylvania Railroad in December, 1908, by certain headlines and articles that appeared from time to time in the public prints. The following are some of these headlines : — "Pennsylvania firm to Engineers." I20 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS "General Manager refuses to recognize the Brotherhood and quits Washington." " Strike averted on Pennsylvania Railroad." "Mediation is effective." The inside history of this campaign and of other campaigns of a similar nature that were under way about the same time, with similar objects in view, is very interesting. Of course it was not a very easy matter to collect information and statistics in regard to this inside history. But while the negotiations were being carried on certain documents in regard to the matter were circulated, the substance of which was communicated to the press. For the rest my facts, and the story that is attached to them, were secured by means of personal interviews with some of the principals in the controversy. The nature of the issue, and its relation to the public safety, must be my excuse for making use in the freest manner of every item of information I was able to obtain, regardless of its source. The investi- gation was thus a personally conducted one in every way, and only the writer is to be considered respons- ible for the narrative and the opinion attached to it. On October 26, 1908, Mr. Burgess, the Assistant Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive En- gineers, addressed a communication to Mr. G. L. Peck, General Manager of the Pennsylvania lines THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 121 west of Pittsburg, in which he requested an inter- view for the purpose of considering a bill of re- quests which the general committee of adjustment had drawn up. Mr. Peck replied : — " I beg to advise that it is the fixed policy of this company that all matters relating to wages, or work- ing conditions, must be first taken up with the Divi- sion Superintendents for adjustment, before appeal can be taken to any higher officer. . . . The rights of employees are amply safeguarded by the present rule, which provides that employees, upon failing to adjust their matters with the Superintendent, may appeal to the General Superintendent, and finally to the General Manager. We cannot, therefore, consider any such change in our policy as is con- templated in your letter." On October 27, Mr. Burgess appealed to the President of the Pennsylvania System by telegraph, substantially as follows : — " Mr. Peck's attitude forces me to appeal to you, as it is very essential to the interests of your com- pany, as well as the men, that this matter be adjusted at the earliest possible moment. The se- riousness of the situation demands your prompt attention." The reply from the President of the road was as follows : — "Answering your telegram of yesterday, I beg to 122 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS say that the General Manager is the officer desig- nated by this company for dealing finally with all questions arising between the management and the employees." Thereupon negotiations were resumed between Mr. Burgess and the General Manager, and com- munications were exchanged at intervals until No- vember 19, when matters were brought to a head and Mr. Peck was informed, "As you have re- fused to grant any concession that would lead to the adjudication of the whole matter, the only course open to us was to submit the questions to your engineers in the form of the attached ballot. After polling the system all ballots have been returned and counted, and we are now in a position to officially inform you that 82% of your engineers have expressed themselves in favor of an issue." On November 21, no reply having been received to this notification, Mr. Burgess finally wrote to Mr. Peck: "It now becomes my imperative duty to inform you that I can wait no longer than twelve o'clock to-day. Failing to hear from you by that time, we will invoke the aid of the Erdman Act." On November 24, Messrs. Martin A. Knapp, Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion, and Chas. P. Neill, Commissioner of the Bu- reau of Labor, were called upon, under the act of June 1, 1898, commonly known as the Erdman Act, THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 123 to use their friendly offices in the controversy, and on December 4a" Proposal for Settlement " was drawn up and finally agreed to and signed by all the interested parties. The temporary nature of this settlement was significantly emphasized when, a few days later, on December 7, 1908, a meeting between the managers and committees was held in Pittsburg, at which only such requests as had been presented to the Superintendents, and properly ap- pealed, were considered. But while these negotiations were being carried on between the engineers and the manager, the same issues were being advocated and insisted upon from another quarter. In the month of October, 1908, the Joint Pro- tective Board of the Firemen convened in the city of Pittsburg. At this meeting a set of ten articles was provided. A sub-committee was immediately appointed, which took up the whole business with Mr. Peck. Eight of the articles which had been pre- pared related to the equipment of engines and to the services and duties of the firemen. Articles 9 and 10 were as follows: — No. 9. " Any engineman, fireman, or hostler, who considers that an injustice has been done him, shall have the right to present his grievance for adjust- ment, to the proper officer or officers of the company by a committee of his own selection, without said 124 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS employee first having personally to appeal his case. The right to appeal to the highest official of the company is conceded." No. lo. "The proper officer of the Lines west of Pittsburg will enter into a written agreement with the committee of Firemen and Enginemen representing the employees in engine service on those lines, agreeing to adopt and maintain these rules. Printed copies will be placed in the hands of all employees concerned." On October 24 Mr. Peck replied to this bill of requests, substantially as follows : — "We cannot consider any such change in our policy as is contemplated in Articles 9 and 10 of your petition, as these proposed changes are only a step in the direction of eliminating the Superin- tendent completely from the control of his men and breaking down that discipline upon which the safety of railroad operation depends. " The other matters in your petition, while not in the shape of direct requests for increased com- pensation, nevertheless involve additional expendi- tures on the part of the company in most every in- stance, and under present conditions they cannot be considered." Efforts to arrange for consultation and confer- ence between the sub-committees and the manage- ment were persisted in through the month of No- THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 125 vember, and taken up again in January, when the assistance of Mr. W. S. Carter, the President of the Brotherhood, was requested by the committee in convention in Pittsburg. After considerable ineffectual correspondence the issue with the firemen was placed before President McCrea, on February 9, in a long communication. A few days later the firemen on the lines east and west of Pittsburg joined forces and appealed to President McCrea in similar terms. The answer to both communications referred the committees back to the General Manager for adjustment of all ques- tions arising between the company and its em- ployees. On receipt of these answers the committee, before polling the system, hesitated, realizing that the industrial conditions were not the best, and also taking into consideration the great number of men unemployed. Nevertheless it was almost the unanimous opinion of the committee that drastic action was warranted. There was one more course open to the committee to take, and that was to appeal to the Board of Mediation at Washington, under the law known as the Erdman Act. Accordingly, an appeal was made to the Board of Mediation, and the result of the correspondence that followed to secure this mediation can best be given in the concluding paragraph of a letter to the 126 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS board, in which General Manager Atterbury put an end to the negotiation : — " Responsibility for the maintenance of discipline rests solely upon the railroad company. This re- sponsibility can be neither delegated nor arbitrated. As the issue is so clear and the principle at stake so vital, our management is therefore regretfully constrained to decline arbitration of the only point in question, which I reiterate is that in the inter- ests of good discipline the employees shall not ignore the Division Superintendent by direct appeal to the General Manager." Having thus brought the negotiations between the management of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Committees of Engineers and Firemen up to a focus, on March 27, with both sides resting on their oars, with arbitration declined and no settle- ment in sight, let us again state the issue and go over the ground from the viewpoint of the manag- ers and from that of organized labor and of the Men. The position and contention of the railroad can best be given in the words of Mr. W. W. Atterbury, who was at the time General Manager of the lines east of Pittsburg. "There is no question of wages, hours of employ- ment, or conditions of service at issue between the company and its men. The men are demanding, how- THE CASE OP THE PENNSYLVANIA 127 ever, that when grievances or demands of a general nature are to be presented to the management, they shall have the right to go to the General Manager, ignoring the Division Superintendent and the Gen- eral. Superintendent. To agree to such a procedure would be subversive of that disipline upon which the company relies to protect the safety of the lives and property of its patrons. It has been the policy of the Pennsylvania System, inthe interests of good discipline, to require that all questions that arise between the company and its employees should first be taken up locally with Division Superintendents. In case employees then desire to appeal from the decision of the Superintendent, they have the right to do so. The amicable relations which have always existed between the company and its employees would indicate that under this policy the men have been liberally dealt with. "The general relations between the company and its men are most satisfactory. The management prescribes for its employees only such reasonable regulations and procedures as are consistent with its duties to the public, the stockholders, and the employees themselves. While it concedes to em- ployees the right by every proper means to better their condition, the company is morally bound to resist any movement which tends to break down the discipline upon which depends the safety of the 128 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS traveling public, and the proper performance of its duties as transporters." From the side of the representative of the em- ployees the issue is equally plain and emphatic. Under date of March 17, 1909, it was submitted as a final statement of the employees' position to the railroad managers and to the Board of Mediation under the Erdman Act, in the following language, and signed by the President and Vice-President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and En- gineers, as well as by the Chairman of the Com- mittee of Employees for the Pennsylvania lines east and west of Pittsburg. "First: That all. subjects of a general nature governing employees represented by the regularly constituted committee representing the firemen that affects the entire system under the jurisdic- tion of the General Manager, shall be passed upon by the General Manager, without discussing the same with division officials. " Second : All rules and regulations affecting that class of employees represented by the regularly con- stituted committee of Locomotive Firemen, shall, upon adoption, be signed by the General Manager. "Third: The General Manager, upon request from the general chairman of the Firemen's Committee, shall render an official interpretation of any of said rules and regulations, which official interpretation, THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 129 signed by himself, shall be posted on all Bulletin Boards. " Fourth : That all matters that may be presented to any official shall be answered in writing within fif- teen days by the officers with whom the committee discussed such matters." Contained in these reports and statements we have a final and peremptory demand for the institu- tion and recognition of a schedule on the Pennsyl- vania Railroad. As we have seen, both management and men interpret the situation in that light, over their own signatures. It is also to be remembered that such a thoroughly capable and fair-minded man- ager as the Second Vice-President of the Chicago, Burlington, and' Quincy Railroad is of opinion that to withhold a schedule from the men would be, so far as his experience and opinion are concerned, no- thing more or less than an invitation to chaos. But Mr. Willard was careful to explain to me what he meant by chaos. In his mind and in his experience it signified a succession of annoying and constantly recurring quarrels and petty strikes all over the sys- tem. This unsatisfactory state of affairs was har- moniously adjusted by acceding to the demands of the employees and the labor organizations for writ- ten agreements or schedules, which, to a great ex- tent, assured to all employees of the different classes uniform and impartial treatment. The granting of I30 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the schedule was certainly not to be taken as an indication that Mr. Willard was not capable of hand- ling the situation alone, or of dealing equitably and impartially with his men if his authority had been sufficient for the purpose. He simply came to the conclusion, after a comprehensive study of the situ- ation, that if he did not grant the demands of the employees a warm time was in store for the manage- ment and the public, so authority took a step back- ward and parted with a portion of its prerogative. • Nearly all other railroads have been similarly sit- uated, and have taken similar measures to adjust their difficulties. Of course, as everybody is aware, the schedule and the power at the back of it to-day, and when it was first instituted, are widely different concerns. Consequently and reasonably, then, in any settlement of this controversy between the labor organizations and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the public should be fully informed as to how the schedule has served its interests on other railroads, for, as stated above, the Pennsylvania Railroad and its employees are engaged in a business that vitally concerns half the population of the United States. Naturally the people would like to know what the schedule actually means to them, their safety in travel, and their social and industrial interests. And this question as to the adoption of a schedule on the Pennsylvania, which is now hanging in the THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 131 balance, brings up a matter which is closely related to it, and which will throw a good deal of light on the subject. When "The Confessions of a Railroad Signal- man " was published, the statements of the author aroused no end of comment and criticism among the officials of the Pennsylvania System. So much so, that an investigation was immediately instituted for the purpose of discovering to what extent, if in any way, the condition of affairs described in those articles could be said to apply to Pennsylvania meth- ods and management. It was evident to the man- agers that not only the good name of the railroad, but an ordinary consideration for the safety of the public, called for a thorough sifting and scrutiny of the charges. The scope of the investigation to which I refer, can be imagined from the fact that 495 replies and explanations were returned by 45 operating offi- cers. The statements taken from the " Confessions " which these officials were called upon to investigate and report upon were briefly set down, as follows : — Investigation of accidents is in secret. Accident reports are whitewashed. Rules are not enforced. The word caution is misunderstood and misap- plied. Chances are taken by flagmen and others. 132 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS Negligence is unchecked. There is no out-on-the-road supervision. Train orders are seldom sent "slowly and firmly " as called for by the rules. Labor organizations nullify and hinder discipline and pay no attention to the interests of the public. Members of an Order or Brotherhood must act- ually hurt some one or do considerable damage to property before they can be removed. With a few modifications and qualifications, the substance of the replies that were received from the operating officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad amounted to a sweeping denial of the allegations, so far as this system was concerned. Without attempt- ing, at this stage, to criticise these replies, the point to be emphasized is that, whatever the situation may be on the Pennsylvania Railroad, it is not influenced by the workings of the railroadman's schedule. The conditions and results have been brought about by Pennsylvania methods and policy. But while this is true, the Pennsylvania management insists that the introduction of the schedule into its policy and man- agement, as now proposed by some of its employees, would constitute a most emphatic interference with discipline and imperil the safety of the traveling public and the proper safeguatding of the people's interests. Now, by no possible comparison of conditions on THE CASE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA 133 different railroads can one be persuaded that a gen- eral policy of this nature, spelling danger on the Pennsylvania, can be construed into a safe proposi- tion for nearly all other railroad systems in the coun- try. But the natural and inevitable results of in- terference with discipline and management is dis- tinctly pictured in the "Confessions of a Railroad Signalman." The missing link, then, is to connect the schedule with the evils anticipated by the Penn. sylvania management and thus justify them in their refusal to have anything to do with it, or even to accept arbitration or mediation of any kind in rela- tion to it. I have no authority whatever from the Pennsylvania Railroad to make an attempt to justify their action in any way, and this personal explana- tion is intended to cover this chapter from begin- ning to end. But as I look at it, the public is peculiarly inter- ested in this problem to-day, actually more so than it is likely to be at any future time. It is the duty of public opinion to study and to understand the nature of these problems ahead of any possi- ble complication. It is to be remembered that the boom in business, increase of accidents, and the la- bor difficulties are due at the same time. In the stress and excitement of strikes and rumors of strikes, the manager is always unfairly dealt with. People clamor for their goods and mediators are called upon to keep 134 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the traffic moving with but little reference to just- ice in the present or consequences in the future. In taking issue then with organized labor in these matters of authority and the schedule, and in advo- cating the soundness of the Pennsylvania system of management, it will be necessary to start with the rudiments of the topic, and to follow the issue in its development into one of the most important industrial problems which the present generation is called upon to study. VI LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY To begin with it must be understood that the inter- est of the people in the treatment and condition of railroad employees and in methods of management is not to be looked upon as a commonplace indica- tion of advancing social enlightenment. Its impor- tance has been emphasized and the impetus to the movement has been derived from object lessons relat- ing to the accident problem on American railroads. The people are now beginning to comprehend that the unexplained death-roll and suffering peculiar to American railroads, is a situation in which the self- respect of the nation is intimately concerned. Under stress of this national anxiety the industrial problems on railroads in their relation to efficiency of service have been advanced to a plane of superlative impor- tance. From no other standpoint or level, as it seems to me, can people be persuaded to reconsider some of their pet notions and convictions concerning cer- tain principles and standards of behavior, which are usually supposed to be essential to social and indus- trial welfare. And yet, so far as railroads are con- cerned, nothing can be easier to demonstrate than that a decided change of public opinion in regard to 136 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS the rights and liberty of the individual and to the nature and function of authority is absolutely imper- ative, if the sacredness of human life on the high- ways of travel is still to be looked upon as something more than a fanciful theory. In the history of human society, the term liberty has nearly always been associated with progress and betterment. Liberty has been the banner under which advancing civilization has won innumerable victories. Early and late our teachers continue to remind us of its intrinsic importance, and thus the masses of the people cannot be blamed for conclud- ing that this fundamental being granted, all other social and industrial harmonies may be expected to follow. Quite recently. Dr. Charles W. Eliot of Harvard declared that " Liberty is the only atmos- phere in which virtue can thrive." The objection to the broadcast preaching of this doctrine is that a vague principle of liberty is in- sisted upon without any definition or meaning of the term in relation to virtue. In these statements of a general nature, in which liberty is discussed, there is seldom any reference to self-restraint or obedience. In the popular mind, liberty and obedience are con- tradictory terms. And yet, the popular conception of liberty, whatever it may be, is to a great extent the inspiration that is still shaping the destiny of the American people. LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 137 In the wars and struggles of our ancestors to secure civil and religious liberty, countless human lives were devotedly sacrificed. Similarly and curi- ously at the present day, and with even greater sac- rifice of life, in the name of individual and popular rights a battle is being waged on American railroads, the manifest purpose and effect of which is to eman- cipate the employee from the manager. In the for- mer case the price paid was usually unavoidable and always praiseworthy, while in the latter the sacrifice of life is to a great extent an industrial crime. There has been no mystery in the evolution of this state of affairs. It has arisen from the laudable and democratic efibrt to give the individual the greatest possible amount of personal liberty consist- ent with the best interests of society. At the present day we find the popular conception of individual liberty in conflict with authority in almost every phase of American progress. On the slightest pro- vocation society becomes threatened with a strike of its units and a tie-up of its minutest as well as its most gigantic enterprises. On the railroads, in particular, the situation is daily becoming more acute and dangerous. To be precise, for individual and political reasons, championed for the most part on railroads by organized labor, authority is no longer able to deal effectively with industrial relations or with the safety problem. 138 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS This dilemma on the railroads, which so closely concerns the convenience and safety of the public, is simply a question between personal management and management by trade agreement or schedule. It is not to be supposed, however, that personal man- agement is altogether right and sufficient, or that the schedule in every particular is wrong and should be abolished. The point for the people to understand is that the present combination of these methods, now in force on most railroads, is a pact between man and manager from which the principles of just- ice and safety are slowly yet surely being eliminated. This is the nature of the pact which the Pennsylvania Railroad is now being called upon to adopt, after generations of successful personal management. In my demonstration of the actual work and in- fluence of the schedule on American railroads to-day, let me begin with a commonplace idea of authority in everyday life. The policeman stands at a crossing on a crowded thoroughfare. He is a striking exemplar of personal management and authority. He must deal firmly and justly with situations as they arise. His uplifted hand represents the law. Practically speaking, there is no appeal from his personal judgment. He is entrusted by the people with this autocratic authority for ex- traordinary reasons, and on account of dangerous conditions. At all costs traffic must proceed with LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 139 regularity and safety. If the public are dissatisfied with his behavior or his decisions, the authority and responsibility of his office is not interfered with; another officer is simply put in his place. Here we have certain principles in regard to au- thority followed by satisfactory results. On the rail- roads there are no such recognized principles, and consequently no such results. For a number of years public opinion has been trying to improve the man- agement of our railroads by placing limitations on its authority and holding it up to public scrutiny as more or less untrustworthy. In this way authority has been parceled out among national and state com- missions and the labor organizations. Improvement is sought in every direction at the expense of au- thority. As a matter of fact, with even greater com- plications and dangers to contend with than the policeman on the street crossing, the superintendent on the railroad should be equally powerful, and he should receive the support of law and public opin- ion. To-day the superintendent will tell you that you cannot treat railroad men as the policeman handles teamsters and the public. He is unable to do so because his superiors have made bargains and agreements with the labor organizations in which the managers are playing a losing game from start to finish. Superintendents and managers are losing ground in this way. 140 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS Whenever a condition or situation arises that is manifestly unjust to employees, or even when an apparently harmless concession is desired, the at- tention of the manager is called to it. Nowadays managers are obliged to deal fairly with employees. No other policy is now tolerated. Public opinion and armies of men insist upon it. /Sooner or later, then, a clause is inserted in the schedule and the wrong is righted. Before long, however, the working of these rules and concessions brings to light un- foreseen situations in which injustice is inflicted on the management, or the public safety endangered. The manager may protest, but the committee holds him to his signature. If it is in the schedule he lets it remain there. He thinks his Jionor is at stake. Sooner than have a row, indignity and injustice are swallowed. In this way and inevitably the schedule is continually growing at the expense of the man- ager and the people. I asked Vice-President Willard for his criticism of this picture. He replied, "I see the point." In fact, so thoroughly do managers appreciate this point that some of the foremost rail- roads are about to organize a board of experts to scrutinize and pass upon every word that goes into a schedule. But in examining the authority of the railroad manager, one naturally looks round for its scope and influence. How, for example, does authority LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 141 protect the pocket-book of the railroad ? It should, at least, be strong enough to protect the exchequer from injustice and a sort of e;ctortion at the hands of the schedule. As a matter of fact, no business establishment on earth but a railroad could or would put up with such a watering of the payroll, that is to say, the payment of wages without an equivalent return in work, as the schedule forces upon the American railroad manager. Illustrations are neither few nor far between. They form part of the daily experience and expenditure on nearly all railroads. When business is rushing the payrolls are stuffed with curiosities of the following description : — An engineman completes his run in seven hours. He receives ^S-^S for the service. Here we have a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. The man is then requested to take his locomotive a distance of two miles to a roundhouse. He does so and receives another day's pay and mileage for service performed inside the regular time limit for one day's labor. In this way, with the assistance of his schedule, he re- ceives about eleven dollars for eight hours' work. Again, a crew reports for duty at six a.m. An emergency arises and the men are despatched with the wreck train to a certain point. The wrecking service is finished in about five hours. For this they receive one day's pay. Then they return to their regular work and earn another day's pay, both jobs 142 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS being completed inside the regular working day of eleven hours. Another crew starts from a terminal on a regular freight trip. At a certain point they are ordered back a couple of miles to pick up a car of delayed stock. All hands get an extra half day for the service. They arrive at their destination in nine hours, with a day and a half to their credit. The following day they cover the same trip, and as business is brisk they consume eleven hours on the road and receive only one day's pay for the service. Once more, a crew doing a regular day's work is despatched on some extra service. The engine- man gets extra pay, the trainmen do not. From beginning to end those inconsistencies are the work of the schedule. The manager sends a man to the right and pays him four dollars for it. If while en route he turns to the left, it means more money without any reference to time or work. The other day a crew were instructed to pick up a car of stock. They telegraphed for an understanding regarding the extra pay. They were ordered to hurry along with the stock, the consignees were anxiously waiting for it, the pay would be adjusted later. The men refused, went along without the car, and were promptly discharged by the superintend- ent. But the men knew what they were about. They were acting within their schedule rights, and were LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 143 reinstated. The interest of shippers and the people in the schedule must be apparent to any one. To whom does this kind of a payroll and the agree- ment between men and manager appeal .' Do they contain any indication or vestige of authority, economy of operation, or justice to the people or the employer.' And yet railroad managers tamely submit to this domination. Public opinion has never shown any inclination to support them in any other course. They uphold the schedule as the only pos- sible working arrangement, and they are powerless to correct its abuses. But the illustrations relating to the lack of econ- omy of railroad management are of little public in- terest compared with the effect and influence of the schedule on the efficiency and accident situations. To begin with, the tendency of the method, as we find it in actual operation to-day, is to narrow the sphere of individual responsibility. Under a positive system of personal management the judgment of the superintendent is always hanging over the em- ployee, and his duty then covers every nook and cor- ner of his surroundings. The employee is then just as mindful of the behavior of his companions as he is of his own. He never can tell how the superin- tendent will interpret his conduct. This element of uncertainty has its uses. It is vitally connected with attention and efficiency. But now, with greater in- 144 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS sistence every day, the organization is saying to the manager through signed rules, regulations, and agreements, "I must know just how I stand. In- terpret this and explain that and sign everything. I want a safety device at one point and a respons- ible switchman at another. In this way, when trou- ble arises, we will know definitely who is to blame, and the area of responsibility will be contracted as much as possible." Of course these identical words are not to be found in any schedule, but nearly everywhere on railroads you will find the mental attitude, which is the pro- duct of the theory and teaching of specific respons- ibility. This idea, I say, is fostered by the schedule. I have now before me a Towerman's Schedule which is being prepared for presentation to a manager of a railroad. Article i6 is as follows : — " Towermen will not be responsible for switches and signals not connected with interlocking plant." I will also call attention to what is called a "stand- ard rule," in force on nearly all railroads. " Switches must be left in proper position after having been used. Conductors are responsible for the position of the switches used by them and their trainmen, except where switch-tenders are stationed." These stipulations on the surface appear to be fair and reasonable, but the mental attitude that is at once induced 'by these rules is apparent. Practi- LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 145 cally speaking my interest in those switches has received a decided setback. General responsibility under unexpected conditions and in cases of emer- gency has been weakened. On the railroad, no employee should be held responsible for another employee's behavior is all very well as a general statement, with the superintendent as judge of the circumstances, but at the same time, no rule should be sanctioned that is liable to hold him blameless if he is present and fails to correct another man's mistake. The public cannot afford to travel under any other understanding or condition. Of course the degree of responsibility is for the superintendent to decide, and this is just the veto power he is deprived of to a great extent by the schedule. Let us take these rules and ideas with us out on the road, and see what happens. The other day a switch engine and crew crossed over from the west to an east-bound main line and failed to throw up the switch after them. They then waited on the east-bound main line nearly half an hour for a west- bound passenger train to go by. This passenger train came along, running forty miles an hour, took the open switch, and crashed into the switcher, kill- ing or injuring four or five people. It was a regular switchman's duty to attend to that switch, but he was at dinner at the time, and not a man connected with the switcher gave the matter a thought. The 146 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS blame for the accident was placed on the switchman who was not there. It is useless for other managers to exclaim : "I would have discharged every man on that switcher." It would depend altogether on the strength of the organization that called atten- tion to the wording of the rule, and the significance of, "except where a switchman is stationed." However this may be, the mental attitude in re- gard to specific responsibility remains, and the issue and its influence permeates railroad life from one end to the other. In my illustration it is very diffi- cult to account for the seeming apathy of five or six men, under conditions when their own lives were in such obvious peril, unless they were under the spell of a principle or a habit. Untrammeled per- sonal management stands for the widest possible system of general responsibility, with the judgment and opinion of the superintendent hanging over every issse and every situation, and the system is at all times in the best interest of the people who ride or work on the trains. Specific responsibility and its encouragement is to a great extent the work of organized labor, assisted by legislation and pub- lic opinion in their efforts to compel the manager to define his position and, practically speaking, give bonds for his good behavior. Organized labor now proposes to substitute the latter for the former on the Pennsylvania Railroad. LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 147 But in its own interests it is most important that the public should be thoroughly posted on the situa- tion, and therefore illustrations must not be spared. The following is an extract from an article in the May, 1909, issue of the " Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine," under the caption, "Another Judicial Outrage. Brother sentenced to jail." " On January 27th last, Brother Kennedy, Engin- eer, and Brother Frank T. Lane, Fireman, as the crew of Engine 584 left Stratford out at 5 : 30 A. m. hauling a way freight bound for Owen Sound, in charge of Conductor M. Fleming. All went well until leaving Harriston ; instead of taking the curve for Owen Sound, for which four blasts of the whistle should be given, they took the straight track for Southampton. They gave four blasts of the whistle to go to the pork factory, the factory being situated on the branch leading to Owen Sound. On coming back for their train, intending to pull right out, they took it for granted that the switchman had left the switch open for them, but he had closed it after they had backed over it, so of course they did not notice they were taking the wrong track. They pulled up and left immediately and, as a very severe snow- storm was raging at the time, they failed to notice they were taking the wrong track and proceeded three miles, meeting Engine 3 1 1 pulling the South- 148 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS ampton way freight. The Fireman of No. 311, Brother Mortimer Root of Wellington Lodge 181, and a brakeman of the Southampton way freight were killed and the engineer injured. At the time of the collision the entire train crew was in the caboose eating dinner." They all depended upon the specific behavior and responsibility of the switch- man, but under the Canadian law the entire train and engine crew were found guilty by the jury of criminal negligence. Disregarding the fact that the men were found guilty by the jury, the article at- tacks the judge for his decision and calls the prin- ciple of general responsibility in the case an outrage. Under the influence of this specific idea managers themselves are beginning to lose their bearings. The other day, on a Western railroad, a heavy freight pulled into a yard a good deal faster than the rule allowed. Smoke and steam from other locomotives and a slight fog obscured the view and called for added caution. The incoming freight smashed into the caboose of another train standing in the yard. An employee in the caboose, in trying to escape, got pinned in between the cars. The wreck immediately caught fire and the man met a terrible fate. The verdict of the management, to begin with, placed the sole blame on the engineer of the in-going freight. But the coroner who investi- gated the accident took a different view of the mat- LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 149 ter. Consequently there was a reconsideration and scrutiny of the rules aijd a comparison of opinion among managers of other railroads, and finally the responsibility of others besides the enginemen was clearly demonstrated, and the original decision was amended accordingly. But this movement and tendency in the interests of specific responsibility is not confined to the effects of organized labor or those railroad man- agers who have been brought under its influence. The following is the substance of a communication recently addressed by the management of a rail- road to the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission: — It appears that inspectors of the commission, charged with the duty of securing the observance of the safety appliance acts, permitted cars, which they inspected in different yards and found lacking in some of the appliances prescribed by the act, to go forward without notifying the yard masters. In this way, the movement of these cars while thus de- fective was permitted. The railroad took the posi- tion that the purpose of Congress in enacting these statutes was to promote the safety of the railroad employees, but in the opinion of the management, the commission inspectors evidently acted under the mistaken impression that the main intent of the statutes was the imposition of fines upon rail- ISO LABOR AND THE RAILROADS road companies, and it seemed as if the inspectors thought they could best perform their duties by- failing to disclose these defects for the purpose of securing evidence against the railroad company. The managers, as I understand it, respectfully requested that the commission inspectors should be instructed to notify yard masters of these defects, so that the safety of employees, and incidentally the safety of the traveling public, might be taken care of. The commissioners in their reply insisted upon the specific responsibility of the railroad companies and declined to render the requested assistance. It has been said that the science of railroading consists in the shifting of responsibility. This pro- cess may be satisfactory to those who depend upon making their records in this way, but in the event of accidents arising under the conditions and cir- cumstances mentioned, it is doubtful if the injured or the public would take the same view of the case as the Interstate Commerce Commission. But the more we look into it the more universal and dangerous do these evils of specific responsibil- ity, and the undermining of authority which follow in the train of the schedule, appear. Some time ago, on a Western railroad, a freight train started on a trip with a train of cars thoroughly equipped with safety appliances in good working LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 151 order. Arriving at a certain point they picked up six additional cars, and then proceeded on their way down a steep mountain grade. Before long the en- gineman lost control of his train and finally dashed into a work train ahead, and ten people were killed in the wreck that ensued. Investigation into the cause of the accident brought to light the facts that the equipment had been complete and in good work- ing order, but that only six cars with air had been in service. Every employee on the train was more or less responsible for failure to hitch up the full equipment which was provided for the purpose, and which the law calls for. It is unnecessary to look into the matter of the discipline imposed in this case, for the principal offender or offenders were killed. I wish, however, to take note of the effect which an accident of such a serious nature has on the public mind, and on the responsible conscience of the com- munity. In brief, it at once became evident to the people that extradrdinary legislation was necessary to com- pel the railroad to put a stop to accidents of this nature. For one thing it was plain to those who jumped into the breach, that the percentage of cars in any train required by law to be equipped and operated should at once be increased ; that an addi- tional number of railroad inspectors should be hired and located at way stations, and under certain con- IS2 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS ditions extra brakemen to man the trains should also be insisted upon. This actually represented the an- swer and influence of public opinion which was ex- erted in various ways after its investigation of the accident to which I refer. It signified thousands of dollars of added expenditure without even a glance at the cause of these accidents, or a word of sup- port or encouragement to superintendent and man- agers in their efforts to secure efficiency andsafety of operation by emphasizing the necessity for a strict observance of rules and the proper use of the ample equipment which was already provided. The following is another illustration of the kind of support the management of railroads receive when they detect danger and take measures to protect the public interests as well as their own. Railroad managers, very naturally, pay particular attention to the handling of trains on heavy grades, and so does the Interstate Commerce Commission. Some time ago some of the railroads protested that the use of these air brakes alone on heavy grades was a hazardous matter, for in case of an accident to the air brakes with the hand brakes unmanned, the danger arose of a runaway train with consequent heavy loss of life and destruction of property. No consideration of expense entered into the question, for the railroads carry as large a complement of men whether both brakes are in service or only one. It LABOR AND RESPONSIBILITY 153 was solely a question of safety to the public and employees. The commission sent out a great many inspectors to make an investigation, and in its offi- cial report to Congress had this to say on the sub- ject : — " The question of the safe handling of trains on heavy grades has been brought to the attention of the commission, it being contended that a literal interpretation of the law requires that trains shall be handled exclusively by means of air brakes under all circumstances and conditions of train operations. The object and intent of the law is to save life. If trains cannot be handled on these heavy grades without the use of hand brakes, it is certainly not the intent of the law that they be controlled by air alone. The commission has made a very extensive examination of the practice in handling trains on heavy grades in all parts of the country." To Washington, immediately following this report, went representatives of trainmen's unions, and pro- tested against the commission's construction of the statute. The " Railroad Trainman," the official or- gan of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, com- mented on the matter as follows : — "The commission has, on previous occasions, taken it upon itself to interpret the safety appliance law, without regard to all its provisions, and its lat- est attempt to read into the law something that was IS4 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS never intended to be a part of it, is one of the most outrageous assumptions of authority that have ever been attempted by a government department in recent years." Whereupon the commission took it all back and altered the report which was already in the hands of Congress, and substituted an amended clause, which promised to furnish to the public the inspec- tor's reports and a reconsideration of the points at issue. The reports, by the way, are not forthcom- ing. The power behind the scenes in this illustration is the same firm hand curbing and limiting the properly constituted authority which we found at work on the payroll, on the schedule, and in vari- ous other avenues, through which the service and public opinion are influenced. VII LABOR, AUTHORITY AND THE RAILROADS In the survey which I have given, I have drawn attention to the specific dangers of management by schedule, beginning with its effect on the employee at the switch, all the way up to the influence which the power behind this schedule exerts on public and legislative opinion, upon which the authority on railroads must always depend for moral support and encouragement in all their efforts to secure the economic success and efiSciency of the operating department. For the rest, a word remains in review and conclusion. From the viewpoint of the people perhaps the most important phase of the situation on railroads relates to the settlement of disputes between the management and men. I am sure the people have an idea that their representatives have or should have, in the first place and above all, the interests of the people in mind, when they are called upon to arbitrate or to mediate in such controversies. That is to say, the official mediator, in order to be fair to all concerned, should be guided in his delibera- tions and findings by the merits of the case. It iS6 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS should be understood that the mediator stands for something besides peace at any price. It must be evident to fair-minded people that in the midst of disturbance and strikes, the manager or the employees are liable to be unfairly dealt with in the hurry to patch, up some kind of a truce. At such times, authority, its functions and future status, should not be lost sight of. For example, the people look to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Board of Mediators under the Erdman Act to represent their interests in labor disputes. It may be claimed that the law looks upon this mediation merely as the offering of friendly offices, but in fact, after a settlement has been made by means of said " mediation," it is reasonable to suppose that the public have the impression that their interests have been zealously taken care of by the chairmen of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Labor Commission. If not, in whose charge are these interests ? With a view of finding out just how the board, under the Erdman Act, approached and considered these disputes, the writer asked Chairman Knapp for a statement of his views on the subject. He replied : " We have little or nothing to do with the merits of a case ; our business and function is to keep the traffic moving." Bearing in mind the fact that disputes, even on LABOR, AUTHORITY AND RAILROADS 157 railroads, are never settled until they are settled on their merits, and looking into the future, the inter- ests of the people in these so-called settlements will surely bear watching. Disputes temporarily arranged in this way are simply transferred to legislative bodies throughout the different states, and in their assemblies, just at present, the manager and his authority can hardly be said to be in the hands of their friends. In the next place, and face to face with these very conditions, it is to be noted that the Pennsyl- vania Railroad is now confronted with a problem, which is certain, when business permits, to agitate the railroad and industrial world to its centre. In this, as in all other controversies, public opinion must always be the court of final resort. The reader of the correspondence and evidence in this volume will not need to be informed that the Pennsylvania Railroad has put down its foot with unmistakable emphasis, and proposes to stick to its own idea of the function of authority, and the meaning of its responsibility to the public. In opposition to this stand of the manager, the advocates of the schedule call attention to their rights and their wrongs, and propose to encroach on the domain of the management for the purpose of adjusting their grievances. My endeavor in this article has been to demonstrate not that a schedule. xS8 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS in all industries, is a mistake, but that on the rail- roads, as it works to-day, and as it is calculated to fulfill its mission in the future, it is a dangerous encroachment on the prerogative of the manager. I have tried to make evident how and along what lines the public is called upon to suffer for all en- croachments of this nature. The point for all to understand is that while fair and reasonable methods of management should be insisted upon, the reform of the department should not be attempted at the expense of its authority. The United States Supreme Court has recently said, " In no proper sense is the public a general manager." This surely applies with equal force to any combination or union of employees. In combat- ing the entrance of the schedule into the constitu- tion of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and in refusing to permit the grand chiefs of the brotherhoods to define the policy of the railroad and to share in its administrations by making changes in the duties and functions of the superintendents, the manage- ment is doing the public a great service. As it ap- pears to me, the management proposes to head off the first appearance of a hydra-headed movement the manifest purpose of which is to divide the headquarters of attention and authority between the committee rooms of the brotherhoods and the superintendent's office. LABOR, AUTHORITY AND RAILROADS 159 Nevertheless, it is also true that the Pennsylvania Railroad has always granted to its men every free- dom to organize into unions and to utilize every legitimate opportunity to better their conditions. Labor leaders, who are employees, are given leave of absence whenever requested, to attend to organ- ization duties. The men are granted passes freely, and even when it is known that a strike ballot is being taken, the privileges of the men and the labor leaders are not curtailed in the slightest degree. I have been assured by those in authority on the Penn- sylvania Railroad, not only that the organization of the employees into unions is looked upon as right and necessary, but that the men are also justi- fied in electing the fittest and strongest men as leaders. But a different question is presented when a professional leader, who is not an employee, enters the situation to gather glory for an organization, as such, without regard to any loyalty to or sympathy with the ideas and policy of the management. The general effect and result of this system of dual management, which the Pennsylvania Rail- road management is combating, has been explained, according to my view of it, in the " Confessions of a Railroad Signalman." In the "Railroad Age Ga- zette" of June 18, 1909, a statement of the writer of those articles to the effect that "labor unions favored by a public sentiment, hostile to the roads, i6o LABOR AND THE RAILROADS have so deprived the railroads of control over their men that the manager has become helpless to en- force obedience to rules and secure good work," is noted with the following comment: "This is an ex- treme statement, but it is not without basis." And yet, as a matter of fact, it is by no means an exag- gerated view of the situation. In this respect there is a clashing between opin- ions and results. Nine superintendents out of ten may call it an exaggerated statement, and yet if they will consult their accident and breakage reports for the past four or five years they will perceive that re- gardless of all efforts and precautions there actually has been a failure to secure satisfactory service, and the public at times has been painfully aware of this fact. On all railroads superintendents have been unable to secure good results, just to the extent and in the ratio that they have been unable to direct, control, and discipline the mental attitude of the men on their divisions. The tendency and effect of the schedule along various lines, together with the economic doctrines and personal ambitions of many labor leaders, have succeeded in dividing the alle- giance of the men to the injury of the service. No other system of reasoning or appreciation of values and results can account for the emphatic declaration of General Manager Peck of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, that to enter into a written agreement with LABOR, AUTHORITY AND RAILROADS i6i the employees, or to accept a schedule such as the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen are now insisting upon on his system, " is only a step in the direction of eliminating the superintendent com- pletely from the control of his men, and breaking down that discipline upon which the safety of rail- road operation depends." But no treatise on Labor and Authority on the Railroad would be complete without a glance at the professional trouble maker. He is now a recognized quantity on nearly all systems. I do not care to say that trouble makers of this description are at the bottom of the present controversy between the Firemen and Enginemen and the Pennsylvania management because I have no information on the subject, but it is to be noticed that the management in many circulars and public notices has been continually emphasizing the well-known and long- established loyalty of all classes of its employees, and the entirely satisfactory results that have been obtained by means of their never-failing coopera- tion and faithful services. But this kind of voluntary and cooperative rela- tionship is an abomination to the salaried trouble maker. When all is well there is nothing doing in his department, and his clients are liable to ask him, "What are you there for?" Under his soulless supervision the best intentions of both employees i62 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS and managers are turned awry. No management is safe from this disturbing influence. Some six pr seven years ago, the Burlington ofifi- cials gave careful consideration to the problem of increasing the company's business. Increase of business on a railroad doesn't just happen; it has to be thought out and worked out by the managers. So the Burlington road finally decided that the most promising opening was to try and develop a coal movement from Southern Illinois to the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and the Northwest gen- erally, where the winters are severe and fuel supply limited. It was found that in order that the coal might be sold at a sufficient profit to the dealer, in competition with Eastern coal, the railroad would have to carry it 648 milfes for not more than ^2.10 per ton. It was impossible to do this at a profit to the railroad, on a road full of heavy grades. So $5,000,000 was expended in putting the road in shape. New engines and high capacity cars for the coal trade were purchased and a business was created which in full trains paid a fair profit. Of course a small army of employees was put to work in handling this traffic. But no sooner was the business on some kind of a paying basis than some one discovered that if you could compel the railroad to haul shorter trains it would mean the employment of more help. So LABOR, AUTHORITY AND RAILROADS 163 legislation was immediately introduced to secure this result. The men who are supposed to have the interest of the employee at heart are at the bottom of this suicidal legislation. In describing his efforts in building up the coal business to a meeting of the Burlington employees some time ago Vice-Pre- sident Willard summed up the situation in these words : " With the mere possibility of such legis- lation looming up iOf the future, can you expect improvements like this to continue? Would you recommend them if in my place ? " This antagonistic legislation will continue to paralyze management just as long as employees allow certain of their leaders to raise false issues and misrepresent the real interests of the worker and the community. Brought to a standstill over and over again, and his calculations upset by legislation of this nature, the manager has no alternative. He proceeds to make the public pay for it. Hitherto these unfore- seen and only too often unnecessary expenditures have been met by economies secured by continually working upon the principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but on most railroads this mainstay has been worked to the limit. When your hill has been leveled, economy is at an end in that direction, and so with your curves, you cannot keep at them after they are i64 LABOR AND THE RAILROADS once straight. So the manager falls back on his contemplated improvements. New stations, bet- terments, conveniences, and facilities of various kinds go by the board. Any manager can give a host of particulars of this description. It is now for the public to do a little thinking on the sub- ject. Of course it is not to be supposed that-the Penn- sylvania Railroad is entirely free from the spirit and perhaps from some of the conditions which I have described, but the energy with which the management is now opposing any change in its long-established policy will at least have the effect of calling public attention to the principles at stake, and will certainly tend to modify and dis- courage some of the extravagances of misguided labor movements on other railroads. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A Date Loaned -t^^SSi^ 'lir'2 •tJJ — L= ~"' ^k9-^ [nfP/ffi' i^^j^^**---!£_ 9@^ ' Jl^^ 1 1<^^ ■■I Hill 1 Mil .i_^ jysfijii SE^ i^JiilMff" / / 1 / / Remington Rand Ir c. Cat. no. 1a. \-\E\n\ CORNELL UNlVe^twsTY C.| 055 822 146