Letters from an old railway official/Letter 10
LETTER X.
THE BAYONET PRECEDES THE GOSPEL.
My Dear Boy:—The evolution of the relative importance of the several departments in railroad work is an interesting study. The early railroads were short and usually had for president the most important man of affairs in the community, a banker, a lawyer, a publicist, a what-not. Frequently this man could not give his whole time to the road and he leaned heavily upon his superintendent, who, perhaps, had been the engineer in charge of construction. The superintendent of the early days was general manager on a small scale, and with limited facilities had to be a man fertile in resources. The superintendent of to-day is a better man, because the race improves all the time, but he performs duties of a decidedly different nature. It is idle to speculate as to just what he would do under primitive conditions. A return to such circumstances is impossible. We know that in a pinch our railway officials and employes, as a class, are never found wanting. They will measure up to standard in the future as they have in the past. One fact they must never forget is that, like soldiers and sailors, their faculties must be so alert, their grasp so comprehensive, that they will not get lost when the fortunes of the service bring them into strange territory. The pace is too swift to admit of standing still to get one’s bearings.
There were few officials and the conductors were very important personages. When the superintendent needed an assistant it was natural to take a conductor who helped around the office, ran the pay car and specials, and made himself generally useful. Later on, train dispatching developed splendid tests of executive ability and the official staff was recruited by promotions from dispatchers. Still later, the growing importance of terminal problems gave yardmasters a chance for recognition and advancement.
As West Point was the nursery of the early constructing engineers, many of the early roads were built and operated by military men, whose impress in railway methods has survived to this day. When the civil war was over the railroads gained for their service thousands of men whose ability had stood the stern test of camp and battle, men who could meet unexpected conditions. These men bore the brunt in the wonderful railroad development that secured forever the commercial greatness of our country. The value of military methods was appreciated by them and almost unconsciously such methods were copied in organization, in discipline, in correspondence. One reason the great Pennsylvania organization is so strong and successful is the training some of its embryo high officials received in the military railway bureau of the War Department during the great conflict. The bayonet always precedes the gospel. When the military have cleared the wilderness of the savage foe the railroad brings a permanent civilization. Witness the marvelous growth of the great West during the last forty years.
A majority of the railroads in the country at some time or other passed through a receivership. Here came a chance for legal men, and after reorganizations lawyer presidents have not been uncommon. At the next stage of development many railroads had been built and systems were growing larger. The civil engineer, who in earlier years would have become the president or chief operating official, was now taken care of in a newly necessitated department, that of maintenance and construction, sufficiently important to attract his talents. Following this period competition was keen; it was a struggle for existence. The man who could get the business was IT. The traffic man had his inning and, if not president, dictated policies and the amount of his own salary and perquisites. With the growth of the community of interest idea the traffic man is just as important; but he is no longer wreckmaster, and the transportation man is up under the lime light near the derrick car. Between the different dynasties of departments the transportation man, like the rock of ages, is always the standby and always will be. The other departments come and go in relative importance, but the transportation never shuts off, and is there with the sand when the others unload from the gangway.
The revolution in standards of power and equipment incident to recent years of tractive units and ton-mile costs has brought the mechanical man prominently in front of the headlight. Fortunately for himself and for the service in general he has not dodged the rays when anyone cared to read figures, and the way to higher executive positions has not been left dark for him. The pendulum is already coming back toward the transportation man. Whether the next swing will be toward the signal engineer or toward the electrician it is hard to say.
The lesson a superintendent should learn from all this is that he has more and more superiors to please, more and more fads to follow, more and more improvements to develop, more and more different points of view to reconcile. He must merge his own importance, his likes and dislikes in the great corporation with which he has cast his lot. If his superiors spell traveler with two l’s or labor with a u, let him do likewise. By so yielding he is not losing any manhood. He is winning a victory over the crotchety part of his individuality and leaving room for its development along broader lines. He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city. As no man can take a city or do any great work unaided he must learn first to rule his own spirit in order that he may rule others and gain their heartiest co-operation. The superintendent who is habitually calm and polite, however great the provocation to speak angrily, will soon find that if he is firm and just his men are worrying even more than he lest things go wrong on the division.
In the matter of discipline there has been a great change in sentiment and in method. Whether or not it is all advisable is very much of a question. There are too many collisions in proportion to the improvement in material and personnel. In the old days the crew at fault, whether they actually got together or not, were discharged and forever barred off the road. Nowadays we are apt to give them another trial on the theory that we are immune from future mistakes on their part. This may or may not be so, but how about the effect on others in the service? How about the men who are thereby entitled to promotion? Is not a failure to make an example of such offenders holding life and property too cheap? We may pity the unfortunate blunderers, just as we may pity a drunkard or a thief, but their usefulness to us should be over. They may start in again, but it must be on some other road. Our duty to the public and to our stockholders demands that the safety of a train should be sacred. One of the most absurd conclusions is to measure the punishment by the amount of damage, according to how straight the track happened to be, according to how hard they happened to hit. Some railroad sins can be forgiven, but drunkenness, chronic or periodic; stealing, money or property; and collisions, actual or constructive, should be unpardonable on any road, however thoroughly they may be blotted out elsewhere. Less sentiment and more discharges will mean fewer collisions.