Would he be able to transfer without beginning over again at the bottom? Between the civil service of the companies and the seniority of the brotherhoods he would find it like making a link and pin coupling on the inside of a sharp curve. He would be lucky if he could get a regular job on another division of the same system. Let him persist in suggestions as to how the matter may be brought about, and the average official, hidebound by precedent, will consider him nutty, a candidate for the crazy house instead of for another run. Who is the loser? Not only the man, but the company, which should have the benefit of his wider experience, of his peculiar interest in its territory, of the infusion of fresh blood which his advent would mean.
Suppose an official has resigned for any good personal reason, or because he couldn't reduce the size of the engine nozzles fast enough to suit a new management. When he starts out to hunt a job his brethren of the profession receive him with sympathy. They promise to help him out. Each begs him to understand how impossible it is for him to catch the pay car on that particular line. Perhaps his informant has been on that company's payroll only six months himself, but he waxes eloquent on the benefits of civil service, on the desirability of making their own men, of overcoming previous demoralization. This would be amusing if it were not a serious business. Each seems to flatter himself that he got aboard because of peculiar personal fitness, and inferentially denies such attribute of genius in the man on the outside. As a matter of fact, the recognition of outside talent is usually a consequence of acquaintance, of happening to know the right man at the right time, of having previously worked with the appointing official. All this contains too much of the element of chance. When we reserve certain vacancies for men outside of the breastworks and select them in advance we shall get better results.
We have made our civil service frogs so stiff that our discipline has climbed the rail. We know it is so hard for a conductor or an engineman to get a job that we sometimes hesitate too long before we make an example for the good of the service by discharging a flagrant offender. If we knew that by and by he could hit on some road the vacancy reserved for outsiders we would have the benefit of the change. The man would learn a lesson, would not be debarred from his occupation, and would give better service on another road. Talk with your employes about this and you will be astonished to find how many will fall in with this idea of leaving open a door of hope by filling just so many vacancies with outside men.
Your official or your employe seeking a transfer or hunting a job will be impressed with the fact that all assistance rendered will be with a view to favoring him because he is a good, worthy fellow. He will not hear it put on the ground that any company is fortunate to have his services, that his future employers are being especially considered. If he has known from boyhood the territory and civilization where he desires to work, it will not be urged as a special qualification. Right here is where the most of us fall down. We too seldom make our subordinates feel that we are the gainers by having them in our employ. We are too likely to make them feel they are lucky to have a job. This may do for the indifferent men, but it puts no premium on superior ability and loyalty. It renders a discharge, when made, less effective as an example. You cannot treat all your men alike in all things. In a few things, collisions, stealing, booze-fighting, for example, you have to do so. In most things you must avoid destroying individuality. You must build up personal pride in each. Even sister engines of the same type do not steam or pull exactly alike. Man, made in the image of Deity, has pride, brains and courage to make more complex his disposition. Corporations have no souls. Railroad men have souls and good red blood. Their intelligence is an inspiration; their steadfastness, a psalm.
Affectionately, your own
D. A. D.
LETTER XVI.
THE SUPPLY TRAIN.
July 3, 1904.
My Dear Boy:—Blacksmiths' horses and shoemakers' wives proverbially go unshod. A railroad puts up its poorest sample of transportation in the routine handling of its own material and supplies. Company stuff is moved and handled last of all; and probably at maximum expense. For example, if we wish to ship a car of wheels to division headquarters we load them after we are lucky enough to get an available car. Then after proper billing authority has been furnished we go through some more red tape, so that the auditor may not confuse figs with thistles, revenue producers with deadheads. When we happen to have a train with such light tonnage that all excuses for moving the car have been exhausted it reaches the yard nearest its destination. The master mechanic's office in a day or two has pounded sufficiently at the yardmaster to get the car set, usually several hours after it has been promised. It is not of record just how much time and money have been wasted by the mechanical department through not having the car when expected.
If our administration is unusually smooth we may be able to load our scrap wheels on this same car. Usually, however, we wait until the car has been hauled down the line before some office away off somewhere gives disposition for the wornout material. Or, having unloaded all the wheels, we wait until next week before we order in another car, and go through the same performance to ship a couple of pairs to some junction point on the same division. I will not bore you with the expensive details of getting a car of ties loaded and distributed, of how much time the sectionmen are worked to poor advantage because the car or material failed to show up when expected.