# Confessions of a Railroad Signalman/Chapter 5

V
THE SQUARE DEAL
In the days of the Roman Republic, when a consul was invested with supreme power, he received a caution or command somewhat as follows: “See to it that the Republic receives no injury.”
This injunction is quite as significant and important to-day, both to individuals and to public officials, as it was a thousand years ago. Then, as now, the interests of the community were the first and paramount consideration. But in discussing questions relating to these interests, such as, for instance, those which have arisen between labor and management on our railroads, public opinion, as represented by the press and the laws, should insist upon a fair field, no favor, and absolutely open play on all sides.
We need only glance at the safety problem on American railroads to appreciate it thoroughly. During 1907, on a single well-known railroad, thirty passengers were killed and 1596 injured; 572 trespassers killed and 526 injured: 72 people were killed at grade crossings and 518 injured; twelve contractor’s men were killed and ten injured: the total killed numbered 686, and the injured 2650. ​These figures are not inclusive of employees. The biggest single item of the year’s disaster for personal injuries fell under the head of collisions, 76 of them resulting in 456 claims, to the account of which the charge was $145,748. The total was 876 claims for personal injuries, costing $746,075, still leaving 2345 unsettled cases at the expiration of the year.
Some time ago, in the Chicago “Record-Herald,” E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa Fé system, was quoted as follows: “One of the most serious conditions which this country is facing to-day is the indifference and disregard which the employee has for the interests of the employer.”
“The Santa Fé,” continued Mr. Ripley, “hopes to establish a better esprit de corps among its employees, and expects that a liberal pension system will have that tendency. We have on this system as much loyalty as most railroads enjoy, if not more, but it is not what it should be. The lack of loyalty among employees is a condition from which all corporations are now suffering, and it presents a most serious problem.”
It matters little to what railroad one turns for information on this subject, Mr. Ripley’s remarks, in a greater or less degree, apply to them all. Quite recently, in discussing this topic, the manager of another railroad uttered the same opinion from a ​somewhat different standpoint. He remarked in substance, “During the last week, at three different sessions, a committee of employees came to this office for the purpose of arbitrating, or coming to some understanding about, a matter of discipline. These men fought tooth and nail for what they considered their rights in this case, and finally, at the third hearing, an agreement was arrived at, which, if you choose, you may call a compromise. So far so good. But now to-day, these same men, or rather two of them, representing different organizations, have been up here again. Some kind of a dispute has arisen between these organizations, and they called upon me, with assurances of belief in my ability and impartiality, to act as final arbitrator between them. This means, of course, that I must devote two or three hours of my time to their private interests. Be this as it may, I consented to act as arbitrator, but at the same time I could n’t help wondering how these men could find it in their hearts to accept my verdict in their private affairs, about which I know comparatively little, while they persistently question my judgment, and practically my honesty of purpose, in matters of discipline and management. In a word,” he concluded, “why don’t the employees trust the management to administer the affairs of the railroad conscientiously and fairly, and to give to each employee a square deal?”
​During the palmy days of what may be called autocratic management, when a railroad man started out in the morning, the paymaster, or the office-boy, for that matter, could have told you the exact amount the man would have been entitled to on his return. The employee was willing, and in fact had agreed, to travel or to work from a point A to a point B for a certain fixed sum. So far as his pay was concerned, it made no difference whether he covered the distance in eight hours or eighteen. If a yardmaster delayed him for two or three hours before starting, and if he lost half a day on the road by reason of wrecks, disablement of locomotive, or a washout, so much the worse for him. His duty was to go from A to B and to do what he was told to on the way, without question, even if it took him from sunrise to sunrise to cover the distance. There was no help or rescue in sight, no appeal from the discipline in those days; and if the work was not to his liking, the world was wide, and a dozen men were ready to step into his place.
Nevertheless, the one-sidedness and injustice of the whole proceeding were manifest to everybody, and from year to year it remained to be talked about, objected to, and brooded over. But with ever-increasing business and complication of conditions, a much better educated class of men found their way into the railroad service. In moving a train from ​place to place, greater intelligence was required. A conductor to-day can frequently run from one end of the road to the other in a purely mechanical fashion; but in the early days of railroading, with a single track, a confusion of flags and train orders, and a multitude of unforeseen difficulties awaiting him at every station, it took little less than genius to make a successful railroad man.
The really heart-breaking story of the hardship and heroism of the trainmen of those days has never been written, but a touch of the stern reality and pathos of it all can be imagined from the single consideration, that of seventeen freight conductors who in the year 1883 ran trains through the Hoosac Tunnel, only five in the year 1888, that is, five years later, were still to be found on the pay-rolls. In nearly every instance, death in violent form had removed the others. Of course, as we all know, the most popular type of heroism is to be looked for on the battlefield; but there are hundreds of railroad veterans on the streets to-day, undecorated and unremembered, whose services to the country are all worthy of popular sympathy and national gratitude.
As a result of these extraordinary conditions and the continual killing of employees, a new and more intelligent class of men was called upon, in course of time, to undertake the dangerous duties of railroad service. With increased intelligence and broader ​mental equipment, the thinking process in the brain of the railroad man expanded, and very naturally his awakened attention was not exclusively centred on the business of his employers. It soon became known to officials, and to the world, that we had grievances. Before long, rumblings of discontent were heard on all sides. Between ourselves we began to discuss matters of right and wrong. The men got together in groups, in small gatherings. Here and there, all over the country, little Runnymedes were attended by all conscientious, determined railroad men. With an ever-increasing demand for our services, came consciousness of importance and power. Attention was called to the injustice, the inconsistency of the situation. We petitioned and agitated for trifles. Inch by inch ground was gained. Frequently we were beaten back, sometimes routed, at other times the battle was drawn; but after every encounter, regardless of result, the ghost of the future remained on the field to disturb the slumbers of the management. So, through the years, the struggle proceeded, concession followed concession, until all kinds of injustice and favoritism, and in fact the whole system of purely autocratic management, had gone by the board, and fair play for the railroad trainman was an accomplished fact. For the future, to ask was to receive. Face to face with organizations of deter​mined men, with the crops and manufactures of half a continent waiting to be moved to the seaboard, what was a management or a combination of managements going to do about it?
Thus, by evolution and revolution, a mighty change has come over the scene. To-day, when a railroad man makes a trip from point A to point B, it is altogether different from the performance to which I called attention at the beginning of this essay. At the end of his trip, the man now takes out his pencil and does some figuring. Neither the superintendent nor the paymaster has the slightest idea what the engineman’s, the conductor’s, or the brakeman’s bill for a day’s work is going to be. If a man is delayed on a road by the negligence of a fellow employee, the company will have to pay for the extra time. If he makes a straight trip, with one or two stops, he has a certain rate; if in the performance of his duties he is called upon to make an extra stop or to pick up a car of perishable goods, he will call for a special rate and much more money. His day’s trip frequently bristles with possibilities in the way of special rates and overtime. In the matter of overtime, he may have the opportunity to be just or unjust, as it pleases him; anyway, the company is at his mercy. Again, if at the end of a hundred-mile run, or thereabouts, for which an engineman would receive from four to five dollars, ​he is requested to take his engine out on the road again and move a car a distance of twenty feet, he will turn in his bill to the company for a greater amount than a gate-tender or a switchman would receive for his whole day’s work, from six in the morning until six at night, without a minute for meals.
Again, if a man gets into trouble, he is called into the office for an investigation. If it turns out that the accident was unquestionably the fault of the employee, he, of course, is liable to be disciplined for it in some way; but if as a result of the accident, the whole road is tied up for twelve hours, and he remains on duty half a day longer than his usual time, he will receive payment for this overtime in full, regardless of the fact that he himself was wholly responsible for the delay.
Far from criticising this state of affairs, I consider the demonstration I have given of the exact status of the railroad man at the present day a magnificent tribute to righteous and necessary organization. Up to this point the public has had no cause to complain, and discipline has not been interfered with. The treasury has borne the whole burden. While it is doubtless true that the liberal terms and concessions to which I refer have been brought about, so to speak, at the point of the bayonet, nevertheless many privileges and advantages are ​enjoyed by railroad men, which cannot be said to owe their origin to compulsion or pressure of any kind. The care shown by nearly all railroads for the welfare of the employee, and the millions of dollars that have been expended for his social and intellectual betterment, must also be taken as direct evidence of square and honest treatment. To combat the evils of the saloon, and in the interest of good citizenship, both on and off the railroad, the corporations have gone extensively and expensively into the construction and maintenance of reading-rooms and hospitals, as well as relief, savings, and loan associations. There is, indeed, a fine sense of business judgment hidden away in these different methods of looking after the interests of the employees, and there is hardly a road in the country that does not recognize the principle that to obtain competent, trained assistants, especially in the operating department, it is essential that the men be surrounded with all sorts of inducements to remain in the service, and to be loyal to the interests of their employers. This philanthropic and betterment work is to be found on all railroads, and conspicuously so on the Baltimore & Ohio. The following particulars of relief and betterment work on the above railroad may be taken as a lesson of what corporations with souls are doing in the interests of employees.
​Membership in the Relief Department of the Baltimore & Ohio is compulsory on the part of all employed in the direct operation of the road. The employees themselves have part in the direction of the affairs of the organization. The company makes all collections and payments, under its guarantee of responsibility for every penny coming into or going out through its hands. The company also pledges itself to pay four per cent interest on the monthly balances of current accounts; no charge is made for office rent, and all the facilities of the road are at command, without cost. Operating expenditure is thus reduced to a minimum, and upon transactions during the year 1906-1907, which represented a million dollars distributed in benefits, the expense averaged but a dollar and sixty-eight cents per capita of membership. The aggregate of the benefits paid from the founding of the Relief to the close of the year 1906-1907, was thirteen millions of dollars.
The Baltimore & Ohio plan for pension payments, in vogue for the past twenty-three years, is in conjunction with the Relief Department, but is not, as that is, maintained by the contributions of employees. The pension system is maintained entirely by the company, which contributes for the purpose about $90,000 annually. During the year 1906-1907 the fund paid in pensions was over $95,000, to about ​400 pensioners. Since its inauguration in 1884, there has been paid out in pensions, $1,008,000.
Again, the foundation of two other features—Savings and Loan—in the Baltimore & Ohio dates back a full quarter of a century. The Savings is strictly a trust fund, around it being thrown the unequivocal protection of the United States government in the decision handed down by its courts. Of course this is understood by employee-depositors; consequently there is absolute confidence. There are no runs, no anxiety as to savings, and no fear that what has been laid aside for a rainy day will be risked. Meantime, upon it the company is guaranteeing four per cent and earnings; the interest and dividend returns thus amount to never less than five and sometimes five and a half per cent. The total of the savings deposits to June 30, 1907, reached eight and a half million dollars, and interest and dividends paid to employee-depositors to that time came to a million and a half dollars.
The Baltimore & Ohio loan feature is still more remarkable. The object is to enable the employees to own their own homes. All are real-estate transactions, and it is a remarkable fact that the administration of this feature, throughout twenty-five years, has been entirely without appreciable loss on any single investment. Employee-borrowers have entered into personal obligations representing the ​building of two thousand houses and the purchase of three thousand homesteads. The transactions of the loan section to June 30 represented six and three-quarter millions of dollars, when there was also a million and a quarter in the treasury, upon which the company’s guarantee of four per cent held good.
Rest-houses are another form through which welfare work in the direct interest of the employee is carried on as part of the regular operation of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The aim is to furnish a comfortable and convenient place, open at all hours, to the employee coming in from his run, whose first want is a bath, with plenty of hot water, and subsequently a restful bed. The work carried on by the Railroad Y. M. C. A. is of a similar nature. The old-time dark cabooses, dingy freight cars, and decrepit coaches, serving as night-holes into which to crawl for the sleeping hours till the time for the next run, are now nothing but an unpleasant memory. The Railroad Y. M. C. A., with its commodious lounging-rooms, bright and airy dining-rooms, clean lunch-counters, well-appointed kitchens, billiard rooms and bowling alleys, general assembly halls, libraries, attractive bedrooms and baths, is the practical exemplification to-day of the fitness of things. The disbursements of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for these purposes have in ​single years exceeded fifty thousand dollars, and every penny is profitably expended from the purely business standpoint. Bettering the man betters his work.
Furthermore, incident to the administration of the Relief Department, the company, through a corps of medical examiners and surgeons, closely supervises the health of its employees and the sanitary conditions of the places where their duties are performed. This corps is in charge of a chief surgeon and chief medical examiner, both prominent in their professions; and although the number of men in their charge exceeds forty thousand, any complicated or persistent disability of an employee secures the personal supervision of the chief surgeon.
This is surely a remarkable demonstration of what one corporation is doing, and has done, for the benefit of its employees. It is very doubtful if any government or any other industrial institution in the world can show any such record, and one which extends over such a long term of years. Fair and humane treatment of employees cannot be carried any further.
Having in this way, for the present, made an end of the evidence as regards the men, let us now turn to the management. It will, I think, be admitted that the running and operation of trains on American railroads calls for some system of management ​and discipline that shall be absolutely untrammeled and free from outside influence or interference. In a word, the manager of the operating department of a railroad should be permitted to manage. Public opinion, of course, is always free to express itself as it thinks fit on this and on kindred subjects, but it will be found to be utterly unjust in its position if it allows itself in any way to connive at the undermining of authority, and at the same time holds this authority responsible for results. Yet it does not call for a national mind-reader to extract from the history of public sentiment the uncomfortable conclusion that the laws and the press of the country, to a great extent, still harbor their ancient grudge, and are not prepared to treat railroad managers impartially. So accustomed have managers become to adverse criticism that they are now almost tongue-tied on the subject of their duties, and simple sufferance has become the badge of the fraternity. The manager may now be likened to a horse, willing and able to trot his distance with credit to himself and his owners; but behind him, on the box-seat, sits public opinion, the labor organization at his side. The horse is willing enough, and eager to work and to do his duty, but every effort to exert himself or to get into his stride is rewarded with a violent jerk of the rein. The effect of this treatment on any kind of an animal can be imagined. That the ​traveling public should be at the mercy of a three-cornered management of this nature, is rather remarkable. If managers nowadays were inclined to be autocratic or overbearing in matters relating to the public safety, there might be some excuse for the situation. On the contrary, to most people it will appear that they have already parted with the best part of their birthright. The following is the agreement on the subject, in force on nearly all railroads:—
“Employees shall not be disciplined or dismissed without cause. In case discipline is thought to be unjust, the employee may refer his case, in writing, to the superintendent, after which he shall be given a hearing within seven days. The aggrieved party may be present at all investigations and may be represented by a fellow employee of the same class. In the event of this investigation proving unsatisfactory, the case may be appealed to higher officials in regular order. If the accused is found blameless, his record will remain as previous thereto, and he shall receive pay for all time lost.”
Such an agreement will, I think, appear to most people to be remarkably fair and generous. Unfortunately for the interest of the public, it approaches the danger point. It is very doubtful if many, or any, private industrial establishments could be persuaded to sign any such agreement with their em​ployees. Manifestly it makes a cipher of the superintendent. But taking our agreement just as it is, the manager should at least be allowed to manage, and appeal should be limited to the officials of the road. The line must be drawn just where responsibility is wanted and needed. That the management of a railroad should invite interference or assistance from grievance committees or national organizations of labor men, in matters of discipline, is absurd. The situation has been forced upon them. It has been forced upon them during “rush hours,” when business was at high tide and pressure, and when the public was clamoring for its fast trains and for the prompt delivery of freight. Such are the stormy times on railroads, when discipline is lax and when concessions are granted at the expense of the public safety. Blame the management if you will,—the results and consequences are before us for consideration and remedy. Most of us understand something about rebates on a shipment of oil or cotton goods, and about the penalties that are enforced against offenders; but we do not seem to realize the fact that to-day on our railroads there are, in actual operation, rebates on the efficiency of the service, which are being paid for by the people, not in dollars and cents, but in blood and suffering.
But putting on one side public opinion and its influence on the efficiency of railroad service, what ​is the nature of the treatment that the employee himself, with his eyes wide open and his wits about him, is willing to give to the management and to the public, when he has the power and the opportunity to work in a little legislation for himself? For illustration, let us take what is commonly called the “Bumping Process.” Of course no management in its right mind would ever originate or put into service any such suicidal arrangement. From beginning to end it is a ludicrous, at times a pathetic, commentary on the seniority rule. It works somewhat in this way:—
On account of slack business, a crew consisting of a conductor and two or three men is relieved from duty. The conductor immediately looks over his list and picks out another job to his liking, the holder of which happens to be his junior in the service. The man who is thus turned out does the same to some one else, and meanwhile the discharged brakemen have been “bumping” other brakemen. So it goes on from one end of the division to the other, until some twenty or thirty men have been “bumped” out of their accustomed and hard-earned places. Finally, three or four of the youngest employees are bumped into space, at the end of the string, and the “bumping” ceases for lack of material. The management has had absolutely nothing to do with the affair; it can protect neither its own ​interests nor those of the public. The whole business must be looked upon as the natural sequel of the seniority principle. It is a concession granted during “rush hours,” when bumping was not anticipated. To understand this thoroughly, let us take a concrete illustration.
On a certain railroad there is a section, say from X to Y over which a local freight train has plied daily for a number of years. Along this route there are, perhaps, as many as fifty large foundries and industrial plants, to attend to the requirements of which this local freight was put on the road. The conductor of this train has attended to this business with satisfaction to his employers, and to the patrons of the road, for three or four years. He thoroughly understands the ins and outs of his route, all about the different switches, side-tracks, dangerous places, and difficulties that are to be encountered. He is personally acquainted with the foremen of the different establishments. He knows just what they want and when they want it; he understands when and where they want cars loaded and emptied. He has the phraseology of the different side-tracks on the tip of his tongue. When he arrives at any little town, his switch list reads something like this:—
“Six for Dublin St.” “Two for Jerrys.” “Three for The Middle.” “Seven for The Hole.”
In short, our conductor is the right man in the ​
* A REAR-END COLLISION
And yet there are men, even in high places, who are prepared to defend this bumping principle. In studying these railroad matters, and while calling upon managers of different railroads, I was always anxious to get the general opinions of the officials. One can usually tell, from the “atmosphere” in these offices, what can be expected in the way of treatment of employees and so forth out on the road. It was in order to get some of these impressions—some of this silent information—that I called upon the United States Commissioner of Labor in Washington. I asked him for his opinion ​of the bumping principle. The commissioner was outspoken in his defense of the bumping business; in fact, he wished to know what possible objection there could be to it. In so many words, and with considerable emphasis, he inquired if it was not a much more desirable state of affairs that the men should be allowed to pick out their jobs in this way, than that superintendents should be at liberty to give the preference to their cousins, their brothers-in-law, and other incompetents? In fact, managers are not to be trusted. If I wished for evidence, I could turn to the insurance scandals,—the cream of the appointments handed over to relatives and good-for-nothings. The commissioner was also of the opinion that in only too many instances railroad managers are in the habit of making rules which they know only too well it is impossible for employees to obey.
In the matter of the operating department, there is an abundance of evidence of an interesting description. What may in many ways be called abuse of the management is a national habit of long standing. In years gone by, this adverse criticism was frequently only too well merited. But the time has now come, in the interest of the public safety, for some serious second thought on the subject. That the habit still persists in the most unexpected quarters, is a matter of easiest demonstration. At ​the present day the Interstate Commerce Commission is the laboratory in which all these railroad questions are ground up, analyzed, classified, and finally sent out in legal packages for public consumption. With the idea of getting the “atmosphere” of this department, I quite recently called upon the secretary. He conducted me over the premises, introduced me to everybody, and was most kind and courteous in his attentions. He drew my attention to a dozen or more framed and illuminated testimonials, with which the walls of his office were pretty well covered. The tenor of these documents was all the same. Railroad men, telegraphers, organizations and brotherhoods of laboring men, from different sections of the country, unanimously testified to their gratitude to the secretary for his efforts and success in fighting their battles and winning their victories. In a word, he was their friend.
Remembering where I was, I thereupon looked about me for testimonials from railroad officials or corporations. I expected to see evidence of the secretary’s interest and work in behalf of the manager’s side of the problem, in relation, for instance, to the bringing of men and managements together in the interest of the public, for whose use and benefit, as I look at it, railroads are operated. But in this I was disappointed. My attention was then ​called to a number of pens, perhaps half a dozen, with which sundry bills, in the interests of labor, had been signed by different presidents. But one side of the question was emphasized.
Finally, I was introduced into a room in which were seated seven or eight of the railroad inspectors employed by the commission. I had no sooner given expression to my views, than I became aware that I was getting into hot water. With one or two exceptions, these men were of the opinion that I had taken hold of the wrong end of the problem. It was pointed out to me that superintendents and managers nowadays are promoted from the wrong material. The inspectors thought that the officials were nearly always picked out of the clerical force, instead of from practical, out-on-the-road men, such as engineers and conductors. Consequently, in their opinion, the managing departments all over the country are sadly inefficient. As a result, a general decapitation of incompetent superintendents is now in order, and is the one thing needful to secure the greatest possible degree of efficiency in the railroad service.
For something like ten years altogether I have devoted my spare time to the study of this safety problem on our railroads. During this period I have never received a word of advice, or encouragement, or assistance to the extent of a copper, from any ​manager or from anybody connected with the management of railroads. My incentive and encouragement have proceeded in an entirely different way. Some people are content to stand on their little pedestals and watch the world go round. The energies and thoughts of quite a number are absorbed in the climbing of pay-rolls. Others, again, have sensibilities that must be attended to. These touches of nature should be cultivated. As the world runs to-day, “business from the start means, only too often, business to the finish.” I do not think that the American people, the great business community, at any rate, realizes either the nature or the extent of these distressing accidents with sufficient acuteness. In the rush of affairs, sensibility runs the risk of getting smothered. There is a tendency to call upon money and machinery to accomplish everything.
Finally, let me add that, apart from my opinions on this railroad situation, or perhaps in spite of them, I am the heartiest kind of an optimist. At the present day, such splendid possibilities are latent in every sphere of thought and action that one almost trembles at the contemplation of them. Even now, as it seems to me, every man in his little world may be something of a Prospero, for every righteous thought is a winged Ariel on highest mission.