The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-07-31

A New York special to the Buffalo
Evening News contains the following:
Several changes are hourly expected
in the Lackawanna system. and every
one wonders where the lightning Will
strike next. The changes in the gen
pral management have not been so oh
icctionable to Scranton people as the
directors had every reason to expect In
the beginning. The new officials seem
disposed to conCiliate the men at
Scranton and adjacent points by n lib
eral, broad policy, wholly different
from that which obtained under the
old regime. The new officials seem to
have more power and wider latitude
than that enjoyed by the force recently
deposed.
zone evidence of the policy of the
new management may he noted in the
matter of desks. For five or six years
one of the chief officials at Scranton
had been trying to summon courage
enough to buy a Cutler desk. He never
bought 1t. Desks which bore a slight
resemblance to the Cutler and which
might have answered every purpose at
some wayside station, had to serve.
But they cut sorry figure in the gen.
cral offices and led many visitors to
fear that the apparent economy there
displayed might extend to other de-
partments which could lily bear it..
Apparent economy is said advisedly.
for really if the time taken by the car
carpenters and gondola builders in the
construction of these primitive affairs
were taken into consideration, the
desks cost more than the Cutters.
This is all changed now, and Mr..
McKenna. who's wiser than some of
his confreres saw where the lightning
was going to strike, and resigned in
time to escape the bolt He'll make no
more desks. Things have changed.
Men at the heads have changed. and
the railroad men have changed with
them in most instances where they
could not keep abreast Of the new or
der. New faces are seen at the desks
where the old-timers once held sway.
The late retirement of General
Superintendent Hallstead is an in
stance. He was and is interested in
many private enterprises, and he holds
stock i'm almost everything that is good.
He is probably the only one in the sys-
TEN who got out with anything like a
competency.
The transfer of George Graham
from Stroudsburg to Kingston, and the
transfer of his brother to Buffalo, is
another of the unexpected changes. So,
too, was the change of Mr.. Honan to
the dispatcher's office with Mr. Mars
ton in Buffalo.
Mr.. Marston is probably the richest
superintendent in the United States
considering railroad interests alone. He
is, like Mr.. Halstead, interested in
many private enterprises, and he is one
of the most popular men in all the
Lackawanna system. Mr.. Marston is
probably the only one of the officials
who has met with general approval
from the new board of managers. The
retirement of these many officials does
not presuppose their inefficiency. 1t is
the desire of the management to Sc
cure men wholly in harmony with the
new policy, and thoroughly familiar
with the proposed workings
1T is supposed now that with the in.
PRODUCTION Of Sunday trains there will
ne new flyer put on the Lackawanna
10 meet the challenge Of the Empire
state of the New York Central and tho
Black Diamond of the Lehigh Valley. "