This method of interfering with the regular course of discipline may perhaps be proper and commendable in a cigar factory or a cotton mill, but on a railroad, where the lives of countless people are dependent upon obedience to the rules, its effect upon the service is absolutely fatal. But unhappily this is not the whole story, for it must be confessed that the public frequently joins hands with the organizations in defeating the ends and aims of discipline. After some of the worst and most inexcusable accidents that have ever occurred on New England railroads, petition has followed petition into the railroad offices with the expressed object of influencing the management to reinstate men in the service who have been convicted of inefficiency or unpardonable carelessness. Of course a superintendent should thoroughly investigate every case on its merits, but the verdict of the management should be final. The wisdom of this policy might be questioned if superintendents were political appointees or owed their positions to “graft” or “pull.” As a matter of fact these men are among the hardest worked, most thoroughly capable and conscientious men in the United States. No combination of opinion from the public, the railroad commissioners, and the labor organizations is half as likely to be just and impartial as the individual judgment of the superintendent on the spot. The following significant remark by one of those gentlemen may well be taken to heart by the public as well as by employees: “With a free hand, we could put a stop to this killing in a week.”
The story of railroad management is now before us, and the record of accidents all over the United States is the price that is being paid for it. As I have described the situation, the circle of cause and effect is now complete. Beginning with the negligence of employees, which must be considered as the primary cause of these accidents, I next took up the matter of discipline, whose function it is to control and put a stop to this negligence. The system was found to be altogether inadequate and useless. Finally, I attempted to demonstrate that the labor organizations are responsible for the nature of this discipline, and thus indirectly for the accidents that have resulted from its inefficiency. Systems of discipline vary on different roads; nevertheless these contentions are sound and universally applicable, for the blight of interference with the management has in greater or less degree withered every system of railroad discipline in the United States, and exposed the traveling public to the mercy of service that is inefficient and demoralized.
For the rest, it will be evident that the foregoing diagnosis of the situation bears on its face unmistakable indications of the nature of the cure. At all cost, interference with discipline must cease. This conclusion admits no compromise. At the present day every decision made by a superintendent is practically subject to the approval of the Grievance Committee. But this is not all: the railroad manager is handicapped and held up at every turn. In his dealings with the labor problem, if by any possibility he manages to escape the fire, it can only be by taking refuge in the frying-pan. An illustration in point is the problem of keeping expenses within reasonable limits and at the same time administering discipline to the very men who, backed by powerful organizations, are continually insisting upon additions to the pay-rolls.
But now, granting the situation and the difficulties as I have described them, in what direction are we to look for relief? As it seems to me, an unmistakable expression of public opinion would, in the first place, go far in starting us all thinking and working in the right direction. But even this will have little effect until railroad men wake up out of the self-satisfied trance in which at present they seem to be comfortably slumbering. Time was when our forgetfulness of the public interests could be accounted for by our own poverty and sufferings. But these unhappy conditions no longer exist, for to-day we are probably as well paid and otherwise as well provided for and equipped as any class of workers in the United States. Nevertheless, when we are informed that in the year 1906 ten thousand people were killed and one hundred thousand injured on American railroads, the knowledge does not seem to “give us pause” in any way, or to ruffle our individual self-satisfaction; while our organizations look at their surroundings silently and impassively as the pyramids and obelisks look upon the Egyptian deserts.
But affairs have now come to such a pass on the roads that at last we are imperatively called upon to answer questions and explain our position. Our best friends are beginning to criticise us. They remind us that interference with discipline is in reality an attempt to take part in its administration, and that our unions were never intended or organized for that purpose. For a great many years an educational campaign has been in progress all over the country for the purpose of reminding us of our duties and obligations to our unions. This educational method has been extremely successful, and has brought into being armies of laboring men thoroughly loyal and self-centred. But the result of this system on the railroads has been so disastrous to human life that at last we are beginning to realize that there is a limit even to the pursuit of our individual well-being.
In paying attention, even at this late date, to the higher call of the social conscience, we railroad men shall enter a new world with brighter prospects and a wider horizon. The nobility of labor has always been the proud watchword of American civilization. Let us be watchful lest we forfeit our claim to share in this national distinction. By recognizing our duties and responsibilities to society in our treatment of these railroad problems, we shall finally take our place in line with those who through sacrifice and high endeavor are destined, in good time, to cut out their way to industrial freedom.
IV
LOYALTY
The relations, coöperative and otherwise, that exist between the men and the management of a railroad are intimately connected with the safety and efficiency of the service. Generally speaking, the public is quite ignorant of the nature of these relations. The men and the management may be working harmoniously with a constant solicitude for the safety and well-being of the patrons of the road; or, on the other hand, they may be intrenched in opposing camps, mutually watchful and suspicious of each other, and more or less forgetful of the wider and vastly more important interests of the community at large. One way or the other, the public knows little or nothing about the actual situation. The managers of railroads are not in the habit of discussing such matters or of taking the public into their confidence; our organizations of railroad men likewise pursue the even tenor of their way. It seems to the writer that the time is opportune for a candid discussion of this topic, with a view to the education of public opinion, and in the general interest of travelers by rail. A very brief preliminary survey of the situation will not be out of place.