| For | Accident death benefits | $2,185,343.40 | |
| Sickness death benefits | 5,914,811.18 | ||
| Accident disablement benefits | 4,076,636.89 | ||
| Sickness disablement benefits | 7,855,069.73 | ||
| Superannuation allowances | 415,367.55 | ||
| Operating expenses | 3,207,131.06 | ||
| Total | $23,654,359.81 |
During the same period, the Pennsylvania has contributed to the fund in operating expenses, gratuities, etc., exclusive of interest, the following:
| For Operating expenses | $3,207,131.06 | |
| Special payment, etc. | 424,571.91 | |
| For deficiencies | 733,913.89 | |
| Total | $4,365,616.86 |
In addition to what the Pennsylvania is doing in the payment of the pensions and contributions for the maintenance of the relief fund, the relief and pension departments have the use of the telegraph and the train service free of charge; and in case of accident in the service to employees, free surgical and hospital attendance is furnished, and, where necessary, artificial limbs or other appliances, without cost to the employee. No figures are available as to the cost of surgical attendance, or the furnishing of artificial limbs, but it is conservatively estimated by the Pennsylvania officers as equalling the amount paid for the operation of the relief department.
The modern railroad does not wait, however, for a man to become injured or to die before assuming any responsibility for his care. There may come a day when the burden of years makes him a little less fit for the strenuous service of railroading. It is Nature’s way of telling man that he has labored well and that he is entitled to a rest. In other days, the railroad recognized this in a rather informal way. It took its veteran employees, retired them into a comfortable ease, and had the paymaster send them checks each month for a part of their old wages. Out of that custom the railroad pension system was born, only with this sharp distinction: In the old way the man was taught to believe his monthly check a favor or gratuity on the part of the railroad; under the pension system he comes to know it, not as an act of charity but as his right, a right earned by long hard years of faithful service.
This idea has begun to be recognized as fundamental by railroad managers. Directors and officers now realize that the pension fund and some of these other features that we have just considered, are causes directly contributing to the efficiency of the railroad. The policy is merely one of good management. Again, let us see the way the Pennsylvania handles this matter, not because the Pennsylvania is alone in this thing, but rather because it is one of the largest and most distinctive of American railroads, and almost a pioneer in this work. Before it began paying pensions to retired employees, the Pennsylvania had already long conducted a relief fund and a savings fund, and had contributed to libraries and railroad branches of the Y. M. C. A.
The pensions are paid entirely by the company. In the year 1909, for instance, $594,000 was paid out to the men who had retired between the ages of 65 and 70. From the time the fund was established until the end of 1909, appropriations for it amounted to more than $4,000,000, now paid to some 2,300 men annually.
Employees may retire for age at 70, or for physical incapacitation between 65 and 69. If they have been in the service as long as 30 years, they are granted an allowance based on one per cent of the monthly wages for each year of service. The percentage is based on the wages received for the ten years preceding retirement.
Thus, if an engineer, or a brakeman, or a fireman, has served the Pennsylvania 30 years, he may retire between 65 and 70 and receive not less than 30 per cent of his monthly wages during the last 10 years of work.
The other railroads using the pension scheme have followed these general outlines for their work. It has become an established feature of railroad operation, and recently a second vice-president was created on the Baltimore & Ohio for the express purpose of handling the company’s relief work. Sometimes the railroad organizes savings-funds for employees, paying from three and one-half to as high as five per cent on their deposits, limiting these to something like a hundred dollars a month, and making every agent on the system a depositary of the fund.