The Frankfort roundabout. [volume] (Frankfort, Ky.) 1882-1908, 1907-02-23
INTERESTING ADDRESS.

The representative Of the Freight
and Passenger Department of the
Southern Railway Company were
brought together in Atlanta on Feb
ruary 18th, at the request of President
Finley, who addressed them in part as
follows:
Your duties bring you into personal
and daily contact with the people
along the lines of the Southern Rail-
way, and l as one who has filled
positions which some of you are now
Milling, propose to speak to you briefly
of the relations of freight and passen-
ger agents to the public. Your duties
are of a two-fold nature. You owe
duties to the railway company by
which you are employed and you owe
duties to the public. These double
duties do not in any way result in
conflict or divided allegiance. for he
serves the railway best who serves
the public best.
The general officers of a railway
have, unfortunately, too few oppOr-
tunities for meeting and talking with
the people who are dependent upon
the road for transportation services.
with the road, as rule, comes into
personal contact with the local repre-
sentatives of the traffic and operating
departments. The policies of the rail-
way are formulated and mapped out
by the general officers, but the ap-
plication of these policies to specific
transactions must be entrusted in the
main to men in the field. 1t follows,
then, that you have in a substantial
sense the reputation of the Southern
Railway Company for fair and just
dealing in your hands. Whether the
company shall be popular or unpopu-
lar depends in very large measure
upon your attitude toward the public
and upon your treatment of those do
ing business with the road. At is of
supreme Importance, therefore, that
you, who daily come into intimate
personal contact with the public,
should bear in mind constantly that it
is the unvarying policy of the COM
pany to be just and fair to all alike
to the small shippers and the oc-
casional traveller as well as to the
large shipper and the regular trav-
eleH that you should be perfectly
frank in all business dealings; that
you should always be considerate and
patient, and that you should do all in
your power to make the services of
the road satisfactory to. those for
whom they are performed.
All classes of the public should be
treated with consideration and be
given every possible and reasonable
accommodation. Even the man who
makes impossible or unreasonable
demands should not be dismissed
with a curt refusal. He may not
know that what he asks is either inn
DoSolDlt vi uHiCcSOnQDlC, anu a lCW
words of frank explanation pointing
out to him why his wishes cannot be
complied with may send him away a
friend of the road instead of a fault
finder. While every thing possible
should be done for the accommodation
of those doing business with the road,
he
promise the impossible in the way of
facilities or services. When failure
to fulfill such a promise follows, the
man who made it may be able to shift
responsibility to the operating or some
other department of officer, but the
damage done to the reputation of the
road cannot be easily remedied
Questions that seem to you to be
trivial may be considered of much
Importance by the persons asking
them and they should be answered
with patience and courtesy.
The efficiency of the service as a
whole depends upon the efficiency of
each individual official and employee.
Every agent and employee should
study his duties in detail and should
understand thoroughly just what he IL
to do in any contingency that may
arise. He should then neglect no
detail of his duties, however unimport-
ant it may seem to him, for no matter
how carefully and infinitely duties
may be prescribed by the general
officers, the neglect of some apparently
minor detail may lead to serious or
possibly to disastrous results. OF
even more importance than a careful
observance of duties prescribed by