conditions permit. Before going into this very far, however, let us
consider our system of paying only once a month. Has it sufficient
merit to stand the test of time? It breaks down in some cases when we
wish additional cheap labor. Many of us have turned over to
contractors the unloading of company coal at fuel stations. The avowed
reason for so doing is that the shovelers being often recruited from
the hobo or the squalid class, we cannot hope to handle them as well
as a contractor who pays daily or weekly. Right down the track a
little way our agent is remitting company money which is not earning
any interest. Another reason given is that our officials are too far
away to give the coal wharves proper supervision. As a matter of fact
the official is on hand about as frequently as the contractor. This is
a sad commentary on the versatility and elasticity of our
organization. Before throwing money to the contractors why not give
our section foreman or our agent a bonus for supervising the coal
heavers? Let our men be a little interchangeable. If a man becomes
worn out from too much sun on the track, let the breeze blow through
his whiskers in the coal shed for a few weeks. No, I do not think the
track would suffer if the section foreman had to put the fear of the
Lord in another gang of men. The old-time section foreman had
ingenuity and originality enough to do many things. His prototype of
to-day may be dwarfed by over-specialization. When we treat our men
less like machines we can subdivide gangs and still get results.
Nearly every winter a bill is introduced in some legislature requiring
corporations to pay their men at least twice a month. Railroads at
once get busy and manage to be exempted from the provisions of these
measures. Such resistance is based on a variety of arguments, the
vastness of territory covered, the large number of men employed, the
necessity for careful auditing, etc. How long we can hold out against
the spirit of the age is a question. Why not keep ahead of the game
and lead public opinion? At such times we become very solicitous of
the thriftiness of our men. We claim that we are their benefactors;
that by paying them so much money at one time we are helping them to
save. As a matter of fact people who have studied such questions tell
us that when payments are frequent less stuff is bought on credit and
fewer bills are run. Savings banks find that, under certain
conditions, men who are paid daily or weekly will put by more money
than those who have a monthly pay day. It is an economic question,
dependent more upon sociological conditions than upon railroad policy.
It is usually pretty good business sense to take advantage of trade
discounts. Do you not think we could make better bargains with our men
if we did not wait to pay them until we are six weeks in arrears? We
pay them for only one month and are always in their debt. Every once
in a while we lose a good man from the service because he is hard
pressed and can raise money only by taking his time check.
The monthly payroll was adopted before bonding and surety companies
revolutionized business methods. The theory is that the roll must be
approved and audited before payment in order to insure accuracy and
prevent fraud. Did you ever hear of a payroll being disapproved as
such? No matter how unwise their employment, how injudicious the time
put in, the men must be paid. We are under moral and legal obligations
to pay for service performed. Did you ever hear of a padded payroll
being caught in the auditor's office? The man who stuffs the roll
alters the data against which the auditor checks. The few arithmetical
errors discovered do not justify the time consumed. Again, why should
you send your general superintendent a payroll of names any more than
you should send him copies of your train sheets? What difference
should it make to him just how much each particular man worked? He
should have a summary of results, totals, maxima, minima, averages,
etc., just as the morning report gives him a summary of the train
sheet. If he wants more detailed information, let him come to your
office and examine the time books, just as he should occasionally go
over your train sheets. He is furnished a car to travel for just such
purposes.
Assuming the desirability for more frequent payments, the day, the
trip, the piece, would seem the best unit. Railroads have
comparatively few credit lists. The ability to force patrons to pay
cash is a business asset, and should give us the benefits of a cash
basis. Our present system of payments is slow and cumbrous. In our
desire to guard every avenue to fraud we have gone too far and
retarded administration. The bonding company gives us a check which
should enable us, under a proper system of inspection, to have the
timekeeper practically the paymaster. I confess that I have not yet
been able to work out all the details to my own satisfaction. I have
gone far enough, however, to be convinced that there are men in our
business bright enough to solve the problem. When given proper
attention it will be found that for the same or less expense we can
pay daily, improve the service and render a better account of our
stewardship to the stockholders.
An agent remits daily. Why not let him turn in as cash a receipt or a
deduction to cover his own pay? If he can do this, it is an easy step
to accept as cash the time slips of his force, of the operators and
sectionmen at his station. The time slips of shopmen, roundhousemen,
yardmen, trainmen, enginemen, etc., when countersigned by the proper
chief clerk, should become cash at a certain designated agency or
local bank. It might be found practicable to use a form of time slip
similar to a postal note or a street car transfer which could be
punched and then authenticated with a stamp. An advantage of this
would be that these original data would be available for tabulation in
electrical integrating machines in the auditor's office. The plan
followed in compiling statistics would be similar to that in use for
many years in the census office in Washington.
Such a system of payment presupposes fewer checking clerks but more
traveling auditors and inspectors. It does things first and talks
about them afterward. It is predicated upon the belief that checks and
balances must begin to work nearer the foundation, that true
centralization of results demands a full measure of local autonomy.
Affectionately, your own
D. A. D.
LETTER XXI.
MILITARY ORGANIZATION.
August 7, 1904.
My Dear Boy:--While in Washington last week I dropped in to see some
old cronies at the War Department. The iconoclasts have been at work
there, too, with gratifying results. The military secretary's office
has superseded the former adjutant-general's department. Under the new
dispensation every letter must receive definite action, not a mere
acknowledgment, the very day of its receipt; every telegram must be
answered within two hours. An emergency request came in for some
equipment for a militia encampment. In three hours the Philadelphia
clothing depot acknowledged the order, reported loading and shipment,
and advised that bill of lading had been mailed. This means better
supply, less suffering, more effective movements when real war comes.
It means a saving in blood and treasure.
We of the railroads are inclined to scoff at the slowness of
government methods. Are we doing as well as the rejuvenated War
Department? Of course, when there is a wreck, a washout, a fire, we do
some great stunts. Day in and day out we are sadly lacking in
promptness with our telegrams and our letters. The pulse of business
is so quick that these delays cost us money. The remedy is simple. Get
the departments in line. A diplomatic censor with rank enough, say,
that of assistant to the president, should be able to show even the
highest officials where they are falling down, where they are
duplicating work, where their telegrams have no business on the
company's wires, where their letters are too lengthy, where their
offices are lame. The departments on a railroad correspond to the
bureaux of the War Department.
The Spanish war showed the weakness of the departmental system under
modern conditions. It has been corrected by the creation by Congress
of a general staff, with a chief of staff, usually a general officer
detailed from the line, who, as next in rank to the Secretary of War,
controls all departments, thus insuring unity of action. He has help
enough to enable the general staff to give attention to details. The
president of a railroad is often too busy and seldom has assistance
enough to hold his departments in check. They do not always maintain a
proper proportion to each other. If he appoints a committee to
consider a question, the tendency is for such committee to leave the
transportation part to its transportation man, the mechanical question
to the mechanical member and the traffic problem to the traffic
representative. The results of such work are likely to be narrow or
one-sided. Each member should consider every phase of the matter and
not minimize his own versatility. Remember that the layman may
discover a radical inconsistency in professional practice. Give each
man due weight in his specialty, but do not let him be absolute. A
minority report from a committee should always be welcome as affording
more information for the parent body or the appointing power. A little
careful consideration, a little lively debate on a committee report,
may be a healthy check.
While speaking of military organization, let me impress upon you that
in the army the line always commands the staff. A staff officer cannot
command troops except by express direction of the President. Enlisted
men and junior officers must show a staff officer the respect due his
rank, just as our conductor is respectful to the division freight
agent, but when it comes to taking orders, that is another question. A
lieutenant of the line, if he happens to be the senior present, may
have under his command a surgeon with the rank of major, a commissary
with the rank of captain, etc. Certain special work, such as the
construction of buildings, of a telegraph line, of a road, may be put
under a staff officer reporting directly to headquarters and exempted
from the orders of the local commander of troops. We do the same when
we put certain construction work under our engineers working
independently of the superintendent. In an emergency all officers, men
and material come under the control of the senior line officer
present. With us the line is the transportation department, to whose
senior representative, in time of trouble, usually the superintendent,
every official and employe of whatever department should yield
unquestioning obedience.
They have another feature in army administration which we would do
well to emulate. On the theory perhaps that a cat may look at a king,
the lowest may address the highest. The official ear and mouthpiece of
the War Department is the military secretary. He may be addressed by
the lowest man in the service, provided, that under the address is the
important phrase in parenthesis, "through the proper channels." Unless
the communication is grossly irrelevant or disrespectful it must be
forwarded through the channels, each officer indorsing his opinion,
pro or con. If it reaches an officer whose authority and views can
give favorable action, it need not go higher. Otherwise, it must keep
going. The reply comes back to the man through the same channels. All
this is worth the trouble it costs, for, even if unfavorable action is
taken, the man feels that he has been given consideration; that he is
not a mere machine; that there may be good, honest reasons for turning
him down. This strong effort to preserve individuality is the reason
that the American people never have cause to lose confidence in the
man behind the gun. Its short-sighted absence in railroad
administration is the prime cause of our loss of confidence in the
spirit of our men. The inauguration of such a feature might cause our
agitators to be annoying and importunate for a time. The greater the
consideration shown, the sooner would the agitators be laughed at and
discouraged by their comrades. It would break up the fashion of
ignoring the superintendent and running to the general manager with
every petty little grievance.
If your trainmaster sees fit to make a general recommendation, for
example, about a train rule, provided he does so through your office,
you should forward it, giving your own views. If you happen to
disapprove, do not try to kill the proposition by holding the letter.
Under the narrow practice of most roads the trainmaster would have no
redress and would be considered disloyal if he attempted to reach the
general superintendent.
In the handling of railroad papers there are a number of short cuts.
There are too many letters written just for the sake of having a
carbon to complete a file. If you must have a carbon, require offices
reporting to yours to make an extra copy on the typewriter of the
original letter. Stamp both copies with the office dater, and just
below use a one-line rubber stamp; for example, "To the General
Superintendent," adding in pen, if necessary, such words as
"recommended," "disapproved," etc. If no special action is taken, no
signature is necessary, the office stamp being sufficient
authentication. Forward one copy, keep the other, and in routine
correspondence your file is complete without the scratch of a pen or
the click of a typewriter in your office. Certain classes of papers
referred to your subordinates, for example, special itineraries,
claims, statistics, etc., can be kept track of by a number system in a
small book, without using any carbon. Master the file system of your
office. If someone happens to drop in for information, do not be put
to the mortification of explaining that your clerks do not come down
Sunday morning, or that they are all playing ball on the company nine.
Filing should be uniform on divisions and in departments, one general
plan for the whole road. Some roads have as many varieties as a pickle
factory.
It was nice of your friend, the chief dispatcher, to write so strong a
letter indorsing the sacredness of signatures. He is right; most
telegraphic instructions on a division should go out over the initials
of the chief dispatcher. Years ago your old dad, with the title of
trainmaster and the duties of an assistant superintendent, obtained
smooth results from the following bulletin:
"Instructions from this office governing the movements of trains,
engines and cars, and the temporary assignments of men, will be given
over the initials of the chief dispatcher. Messages concerning such
routine matters will be addressed to the chief dispatcher. The idea is
to limit the use of the trainmaster's initials to cases handled
personally by him."
The men caught right on. They saw that it was impossible for a man to
be issuing all the instructions over the wire when he spent most of
his time on the road.
I have long thought that a train order should be as individual as a
bank check and be signed by the dispatcher's own initials. I am
beginning to believe that no signature is necessary; that the
dispatcher's initials, given with the "complete," should be
sufficient.
Affectionately, your own
D. A. D.
LETTER XXII.
WRECKS AND BLOCK SIGNALS.
August 14, 1904.
My Dear Boy:--You ask what we are going to do to prevent so many
wrecks. My various admonitions to you have been in vain if I have
failed to score some points looking to that end. We must get closer to
our men, improve their discipline, which means also their spirit. We
must have more official supervision. We must pay division officials
better salaries. The minimum pay of a division superintendent,
regardless of the price of wheat, should be $300 per month and
expenses, with such greater amount as the importance of the division
demands. Trainmasters cannot be expected to enforce discipline and set
an example in neatness if paid less than some of their conductors and
enginemen. Not a bad rough rule for fixing intermediate salaries is to
split the difference between the highest man in one grade and the
lowest in the next higher, and then add enough to make convenient even
money. Do not think you are saving money if you avoid raising the pay
of your officials when you raise that of employes.
Wrecks are a reflection of administration. Sometimes cause and effect
are years apart, so distant, in fact, as to be almost unrecognizable.
Adversity makes heroes and the more disorganized we find conditions
the more comprehensive and earnest should be our efforts to seek the
cure. Neither public opinion nor our own self-respect will stand for
shifting too much of the blame to our predecessors. Whatever safety
appliances we adopt we shall never be able to eliminate entirely the
element of human judgment, we shall never get beyond trusting
somebody. Therefore we must train our men to alertness. We must build
up a loyalty that pervades every rank. Those roads have the fewest
wrecks due to defective equipment which cater to the welfare of their
men. Such roads do not expect a man to live on air. When repair work
is slack they put their men to building cars and engines, taking
advantage of the low price of material. If we have to operate so
closely that we cannot make such wise investments in influence, we are
grading the way to disaster. We are preparing to pay out later in
wrecking, personal injuries, maintenance and renewal of equipment,
much more than the expense of anticipating future needs by keeping our
men employed and contented. No amount of engine and car inspection can
overcome inherent defects due to careless workmanship. Will the track
walker who knows not when he will be laid off prevent as many
disasters as he whom we find time to tell in advance what tenure to
expect? We can overdo this matter of running our railroad too strictly
in accordance with the auditor's statistical blue print. As surgery
the operation is a great success, but unfortunately the patient dies.
We have divided responsibility sufficiently when we furnish both the
conductor and the engineman a copy of the train order. If it is
desirable for the brakemen and the fireman to be informed, we should
furnish a copy to each man in the crew. What is everybody's business
becomes nobody's business. Even if it were practicable it is
undesirable, this idea of showing the orders to every member of the
crew. It would seem better to have three different standard signals
for an engineman whistling into town; one indicating a wait order or a
meeting point, either by time table or train order; another indicating
a passing point, and a third indicating no other trains to be
considered. The wrong signal sounded by the engineman should cause the
conductor to stop the train with the air before the switch is reached.
Some roads now have the engineman sound a prescribed signal, after the
station whistle, to indicate orders to be executed. The objection to
this is that valuable time may be lost by the conductor before being
sure whether or not he heard the signal. A condition should not be
indicated in a negative manner by the failure to do something. All
indications should be of a positive nature, that a positive
understanding may result and positive action be taken. It may be a
little hard to give up the good old long blast for stations, but
safety demands some such modification.
The fad for main track derails at interlocking plants seems nearly to
have ditched itself. We are realizing that it is not necessary to kill
an engineman who runs past a signal. The money that such unnecessary
derailments have cost might better have been spent in enforcing
discipline by increased official supervision. If main track derails
were proper for an interlocking plant, it would logically follow that
every block signal should be interlocked with a derail. Desirable as
they are on auxiliary low-speed routes, it is doubtful if derails have
any place in a main track, even at drawbridges. We are learning, too,
that a good derail can be installed without cutting the rail.
Public opinion is aroused on the subject of our failure to safeguard
human life in proportion to our progress in other matters. We must
cough up the money for more block signals. I say block signals, not
because they are the panacea for the evil that many people imagine,
but because they are the best safeguard yet devised. They are useless
without proper discipline and supervision. The vertical plane coupler
is not all that can be desired. Yet if modern equipment had to stand
the slack of the link and pin it would be in a bad way. The block
signal even with the train staff or the train tablet is far from
perfect. It is impolitic, however, for us to hesitate too long before
going down into our clothes for the coin. While waiting for the
perfect method to be developed the perfect man may be evolved and bump
the most of us out of our jobs.
There will be fewer wrecks when executive and general officials have
better control of temper and judgment. Feeling in an indefinite way
the responsibility for an appalling wreck, the high official thinks he
must do something. He butts in with some ill-considered instructions
which breed distrust of the entire system of running trains, which
discount the whole organization. This action may result for a time in
an abnormal, unhealthy vigilance, which is certain to be followed by a
demoralizing reaction. When a condition, like a man, gets the drop on
you the only sane thing to do is to throw up your hands for the time
being. Wisdom consists in looking for the true prime cause of the
aforesaid drop. The frontal attack on a buzz saw is suicidal. Always
take it in flank.
When you get your block signals, consider the permissive block as an
abomination before the Lord. The only block to have is the positive
block in both directions. If there is trouble in a block, let the
dispatcher give the delayed train a message to flag over. Encourage
your men to flag over, block or no block, against any train on the
road when common sense dictates such a course. The object of all rules
is to run trains with safety, not to tie them up on technicalities.
Flagging means good flagging, signals as sure and unmistakable as
fixed signals. Some day we shall find time to instruct our flagmen
uniformly. They should all either put the red light on the end of a
tie and swing the white light across the track, or they should swing
both lights; not sometimes one way, sometimes the other. A red light
of itself means stop. If the flagman swings it he runs a big risk of
blowing it out. In matters of this sort there cannot be too much
uniformity for all roads. Where we run uniformity into the ground is
where we fail to recognize the radical differences in individual
characteristics of men of the Atlantic, the Pacific and the prairie
type.
Realization, if not repentance, must precede salvation. We must save
ourselves. If not, the government doctrinaires will undertake a task
for which we are better qualified. We cannot stop killing people
to-day or to-morrow, this year or next. The problem is not as easy for
us as for the oft cited English railways. Their block signals are a
coincidence, not a prime cause of their safer operation. Much of our
mileage has only a speculator's or a promoter's excuse for existence.
Much of our traffic is so thin that English thoroughness would put a
part of our lines out of business, much to our relief, but much to the
intolerance of the public. Until our systems are sufficiently stable
to remove the tempting sign, "Please kick me," from the view of the
financial manipulator, we cannot keep out of the scrimmage, we cannot
build up as safe and conservative operating organizations as the
English. We can, however, do much better than we are doing. Automatic
devices will help, but they are only a check. The balance lies, my
boy, in developing the human interest of the men, high and low, who
work for the road.
Affectionately, your own
D. A. D.
LETTER XXIII.
UNIONISM.
August 21, 1904.