Letters from an Old Railway Official. Second Series: [To] His Son, a General Manager

by Charles De Lano Hine

So completely has the old system broken down on most railways—there are a few exceptions—that it has become a farce. It is a sad commentary on organization that many roads are giving the passenger conductor up as a bad job and putting on expensive train auditors who usually are really not auditors, but collectors. They are called auditors probably because they are under the auditor. It is a principle of organization that the staff as such should never command the line. The staff reviews, inspects, audits, studies, advises, suggests and, perhaps, promulgates, but should never execute, except as a representative of the line, the latter being responsible for the results of operation whatever the operation may happen to be. The accounting department is a staff department. When it was given charge of a line function, fare collection, a principle was violated. Ultimate failure of the system was therefore certain and inevitable. The train auditor proposition fails to recognize this underlying cause. It further violates principle, intensifies the evil and wastes more money by increasing the number of staff men doing line work. Its direct effects are vicious and its indirect effects are demoralizing to discipline. How can the young flagman have due respect for his superintendent or other official when he sees the train auditor come to the rear platform and demand to see the pass of the official? If he is an old flagman it is a little hard for him to see why he himself or his friend, the old station agent, might not have been given this new job with its fine pay. Like his superintendent the flagman may have been in the service twenty or thirty years. The train auditor, only last week a country hotel clerk, mayhap, flashes on them both as a would-be superior being from a better world. Neither of the two can become very enthusiastic in helping the train auditor to protect the company's revenue.

It is an awful reflection for the conductors to meet, that, although the railroads of this country are now spending hundred of thousands of dollars for train auditors, they are more than getting it back from increased collections turned in. Is not this more of a condemnation of the old system than a justification of the new? Whether or not the train auditor enters into collusion with the conductor, the former soon learns how easy it is to beat the system. When he does break loose he will be more reckless than the conductor. The latter probably had to work for years as a freight brakeman and a freight conductor to get where he is, and if he loses out may be too old to begin all over again. The train auditor gets his appointment too easily to value it very highly. Offsetting this is the fact that the train auditor is more amenable to some discipline because, as yet unorganized, he can not rely on the support of a labor union to secure his reinstatement. The auditor also has the advantage of examining character from a wider range of selection in choosing his train auditors. The train and engine services have been so badly over-specialized, as I shall show you some other time, that our choice is restricted to men whom the trainmaster happened to hire as extra brakeman years ago. These slight advantages in favor of the train auditor system have been given undue weight. We are all too much inclined to dodge responsibility, to take the course of least resistance and to pass it up to the other fellow. The company pays the bill.

The railways of this country are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by failure to make the conductors do their honest duty. I would like to have you immortalize yourself by saving your company its pro-rata share of this economic waste. The American people at heart are honest, and barring a few dishonest traveling men who short-fare conductors and train auditors with cash, will in the mass support you and the Order of Railway Conductors in any intelligent movement for honesty. On the other hand, if the people at large get an idea that you are omitting to use all the moral forces at your command they will organize some more special commissions to handle another part of your business for you. Do not let the people get the idea that where passenger fare stealing flourishes, freight claims increase because some freight crews are robbing box cars, and expenses increase because some officials are grafting.

If I were your president I would ask authority of the board of directors, a staff body, to say, as a line officer, to you, also of the line, that as chief operating official you are the only passenger conductor with whom the executive and staff departments will normally deal; that your tenure of office depends quite as much upon your ability to prevent stealing as to prevent accidents. To the auditor I would say that he is responsible for certifying to the integrity of all components of your operations by proper examinations after the fact; that he has access to all your accounts and records; that he has no direct authority over any operating men; that all his instructions must be in general terms duly approved by the proper executive. Then he would be a real auditor instead of a chief accountant. We would not have to call in the public accountant to do our real auditing. You would be a real general manager.

Assuming that the proposition is up to you, then say to each division superintendent that he is the only conductor on the division in whom normally you will be personally interested; that the conductor will send either the original or a duplicate of every report made by him to the superintendent's office, addressing it impersonally, "Assistant Superintendent." Let the superintendent understand that he and his assistant superintendents when riding over the road on duty at the company's expense must openly check the train just as they check train orders. Pitch it on the high plane of self-evident routine duty for duty's sake, above any thought of underhanded spotting. Give the superintendent as many assistant superintendents and clerks as he may need. Do not let him employ specialists for this one simple component of operation. Have him bulletin train earnings by conductors that the dear women may help the cause by sewing society discussion. Let him have the community understand that some explanation is expected from a get-rich-quick conductor. By this time it will dawn on the superintendent and his assistants that their jobs depend upon the prevention of stealing. Their unconscious sympathy with the thief will vanish. Because they are close enough to the proposition to give practical attention they will prevent stealing.

I am aware that passenger conductors often run over more than one division. This presents no serious practical difficulty, although for many other good reasons also it is better, when practicable, for conductors not to run off the division. Pullman conductors run from their home district over the districts of several of their superintendents.

You and the auditor will have to work out the details as to the necessary bureau in your office, depositaries for money, interline relations and numerous other propositions which usually become self-suggesting when the broad working principles are established. You may, perhaps, need another assistant general manager for this work. You will not have the trouble a general manager in Mexico once did. His assistant general manager sold out, it is said, to the conductors. These conductors, mostly Americans, were an enterprising lot. They are also said to have bought the detective agency that was employed to check them up.

On some runs where the conductor is busy with numerous train orders you may find it better to make the head brakeman a collector, but never let him be a specialist independent of the conductor.

Affectionately, your own,

D. A. D.