Confessions of a Railroad Signalman

by James O. Fagan

Is this an overdrawn picture? I think not. It is simply a truthful matter-of-fact description of railroad organizations, from whose calculations and behavior the personal and sympathetic element in regard to these safety questions has been eliminated.

But now, widening our horizon a little, we have next to take note that these questions of personal character, personal responsibility, and unhampered personal effort, are real and intense problems for thoughtful people to study, not only in relation to preventable accidents, but in every department of railroad life.

Some time ago, in an issue of the “Engineering Magazine,” a note of warning was sounded against the result of certain American manufacturing methods. It was pointed out that the principle of securing the largest output of uniform character, at minimum cost, made automata of the operatives, and discouraged skilled and trained artisans to so great an extent that the quality of the men to-day, for lack of proper inspiration, was generally poor and unreliable. According to the opinion expressed in the article that I refer to, many American manufacturers are beginning to realize the necessity of attracting men of high character to their employ, of surrounding them with an environment tending towards sobriety, integrity, and industry, and rewarding them according to their efforts, in order to avoid the effects of this so-called “American tendency.”

That American methods of conducting business should be considered retrogressive, on account of lack or poverty of inspiration, certainly points to unhealthy conditions somewhere. If these American tendencies can be shown to have the effect of discouraging individual effort and the natural growth and ambition of the worker on railroads or elsewhere, the matter certainly calls for serious attention. To say the least of it, it betokens a very peculiar state of affairs, for the reason that if there be one characteristic that more than another distinguishes the American citizen from the rest of the world, it is his freedom of personal action, his propensity for striking new and unexplored trails in almost every branch of research, industry, and invention. The American is par excellence the world’s inventor. And yet, without the utmost liberty of thought and action, an inventor would cut but a sorry figure. It follows, therefore, that any curtailment of or interference with these distinctively American gifts and instincts will, as they say, bear watching.

Quite a number of years ago an American firm secured a contract for the erection of a large factory somewhere near Manchester, England. The contractor soon discovered that no persuasion or encouragement would induce the British workman to lay more than a certain number of bricks per hour, according to the fixed law and schedule of his union. In order to complete the work within the allotted time, the contractor was compelled to send for American bricklayers. These men, who were paid according to their industry and personal effort, were able to lay four bricks to the Englishman’s one. The American could beat the Englishman four to one, not because he was, to that extent, a cleverer and quicker workman, but because at that time and place he was a free man. Transferred to American shops and factories, and in a different atmosphere, the foreign workman easily adapts himself to conditions and is able to hold his own.

According to the writer in the “Engineering Magazine,” American manufacturers are taking measures to stimulate and revive the principle of individual effort, in order to secure excellence in workmanship; but, according to other authorities, these efforts are being counteracted by the labor unions on the railroads and elsewhere, which appear to be following in the footsteps and adopting the methods of the British organizations. However, the ideas and ideals of many wide-awake manufacturers and managers have found practical exemplification in various manufacturing establishments, as well as in railroad shops in different parts of the country.

Perhaps the best field for a short consideration of this interesting subject, so far as railroads are concerned, is to be found on the Santa Fé Railroad system. The introduction of the individual-effort reward or bonus system of stimulating employees to extra or unusual effort, and of compensating them suitably therefor, is probably the most important of all the betterment work on this railroad. The inauguration of the system followed the strike of the machinists, boiler-makers, and blacksmiths, in May, 1904. The credit for its introduction on the Santa Fé is due to Mr. J. W. Kendrick, Second Vice-President. Mr. Charles H. Fry, associate editor of the “Railroad Gazette,” who has written a valuable and comprehensive report of this betterment work, gives the following as its principal features and objects:—

“To restore and promote cordial relations, based on mutual respect and confidence, between employer and employee;

“To restore the worker to himself by freeing him from the small and debasing tyrannies of petty and arbitrary officials on the one side, and from individuality-destroying union domination on the other;

“To give the company better, more reliable, and more trustworthy employees;