The Massachusetts legislature recently passed a law requiring the railways of that State to sell interchangeable thousand-mile tickets for $20. The State commission is given power to except any company from its requirements if the public welfare or the financial condition require or demand it. This is a step in the right direction and should be followed by other States. Michigan also requires certain roads to carry first-class passengers at two cents per mile.
Railroad companies should be compelled to discard the pass as a courtesy as well as a consideration. The giving of passes under the guise of mileage books, or tickets for pretended or unnecessary services, is very pernicious and should be prohibited. Such a reform would soon enable them to offer low fares to all. An employe may be furnished free transportation while actually engaged in the business of his company, and it should be made the duty of the State and National commissions to make proper regulations governing such free transportation of employes. Half-fare tickets for adults should also be abolished. The pauper ticket is given to the minister of the gospel to secure for the railroads the influence of the pulpit, though offered under the pretense of charity or support of the church. The State should not permit the railroad companies to practice this or any other kind of charity at the expense of the general public. The railroad is a highway, and the company operating it is entitled to rates sufficient to pay operating expenses and a fair interest on the value of the property. It can therefore easily be seen that the so-called gifts show no liberality on the part of the railroad company, but are made at the expense of other people. Donations made by railroad companies should be made from the pockets of their stockholders and not from the pockets of their patrons.
All perquisites of railroad officers should be abolished. When a railway official has become so pompous and consequential that he requires a special car, it is about time to look about for his successor. If we are to have a special-car aristocracy in this country let it be supported at the expense of some other interest.
Another railroad reform is needed on this side of the Atlantic. While the great majority of railroad officials are courteous and considerate, and perform their duties in the most agreeable and acceptable manner, there are a few who do not properly appreciate the relation which they sustain to the patrons of their companies. They are inclined to forget that they are quasi-public servants, and that the public has a right to demand courteous treatment at their hands. All railroad employes should realize that their first duty is to administer to the welfare and the convenience of the public, and each one should have the full protection of the law in his efforts to do so. The American public objects much less to an inferior car than to rude treatment by the companies' agents. Railroad superintendents may justly be blamed for the incivilities of their subordinates. It is their duty to know the character of those whom they employ, and not to retain in their employ those who are derelict in their duty to the public. Nothing offends the feelings of a true American more than the display of a bureaucratic spirit on the part of public servants. Nothing more commends a line of railroad to the public than uniform painstaking kindness and courteous treatment on the part of its employes. It is made the duty of railroad employes of France "to so treat the public as if they were eager to oblige it," and the very first paragraph of the official instructions to the railroad employes of Germany enjoins them "to assume a modest and polite demeanor in their intercourse with the public." In this connection it might be stated that the second paragraph of those instructions positively forbids the acceptance of any gratuity by a railroad employe. If our American sleeping and dining-car companies would give their employes adequate compensation and then adopt and enforce the German rule concerning "tipping," their service would gain popularity and their employes self-respect.
Entrance into the railway service should be by agreement for a definite time, and dismissals and resignations should be governed by rules agreed upon by boards of commissioners and the companies.
The use of the corporation has done so much to secure for capital so large a share of the profits of industrial enterprises, and large salaries also for the officers who manage them, that laborers have been led to organize themselves into associations for like purposes, and ambitious men have not been slow in availing themselves of the advantages afforded them in this new field.
It is right and proper for laborers to organize such associations when they can do so under wise and economical management, for the purpose of securing greater intelligence, better education, higher culture, higher wages, a shorter work-day, and a general ameliorating of their condition, all of which will tend to make them more efficient workmen and also better enable them to resist the aggression of centralized wealth; for, in the absence of organization, the single-handed employe of the great modern employer is comparatively helpless. But if these organizations are allowed to be controlled by ignorant, unreasonable or designing men, who will, at trifling provocations, resort to violent and unlawful measures, they are sure to prove harmful, and a great detriment, instead of a help, to their members, and the sooner they are abandoned the better for all.
Great conflicts are sure to arise between organized capital and organized labor, and they must be settled in a reasonable way, or anarchy will prevail. They cannot be left for headstrong or inconsiderate men representing either side to determine, but the line must be drawn by the public authorities.
Each year affords accumulated evidence of the necessity of extending legal restrictions over the management of the railway business, and the law, as laid down by Judge Ricks to the Ann Arbor strikers last March, in the United States Circuit Court, at Toledo, is undoubtedly correct and will meet with general approval from the public.
He says: