Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1914-06-04
UNDUE PREJUDICE AGAINST
BANKS AND RAILWAYS.
President Harrison Of Southern Rail.
way Addresses Lynchburg Cham.
Der of Commerce.

business life. who, relying on the
lcandor of his Intentions, has striver
earnestly and laboriously to achieve
progressive Improvement in the EN-,
cheney of personnel and materiel Of
the service, who has always been &C
tuated by a determination to adjust
| his business practice to what he un'
derstands to be the public expectation
who believes that fair dealing and
frank discussion are the surest means
TOT success, but who has not for mo-
Iment lost sight of the fact that rail-
way is not an eleemosynary institu-
It;on; that its purpose is the reward OF
those who have adventured their capi-
tai as well as to serve the public;
such an one, I say (and / know that
there are many, must sometimes
pause to take account of the undoubted
fact that for some years there has
been steady growth of public disap-
probation of his profession.
l venture to claim that no American
| boy begins life criticising and con-
demning the railways. On the cou-
trary, most inland boys have their
Imagination and ambition first stirred
by the physical aspect of life on the
/ rail. They see the train crews at
work they admire the demonstration
Of mighty power and the shining beau
ty of the locomotives; they hear tales
of manly hardship and derring-do
such as quicken the heart heats of
every one with red blood in his veins
and so they make heroes of those men
of the throttle and the lantern who
come periodically out of the great un-
known into the narrow confines OF
their young lives to go again like NIL
grating birds to mysterious points
South" which are only names to the
untraveled lad The railroad is to
the inland boy what the ship is to the
boy born at 'seaport-the outward
and visible sign of world of adven-
ture.
So it is that many boys cherish
some day to work on the railway and
they believe it to be an honorable
plan and useful life. 1t is only later
when the germs of an endemic social
nalady invade the system that the
blind and, at times, apparently unre-
lenting hatred OF the railway corpora
ton, of which for years we have had
frequent demonstration, feeds itself in
the average man upon all the tempta-
tions of personal self1shness, upon
kte cant phrases of the ambitious
demagogue, upon the poisoned politi-
cal economy of the undertaking
magazine, to blaze, with orgiastic fury,
in laws and regulations such as Nd
virile man would ever accept for thu
conduct of his own private business.
When he thinks Of such things and
his conscience works, as it sometimes
does, the average man justifies him
self with belief that "great" corpor~
alton can submit to oppression and in
Justice, or can adjust it's business
practices to methods which an indi- |
yidual could not brock. He finds his |
justification then somewhat in mere /
size of the sacrificial victim. But |
there are two more potent causes OF |
bis discomfort, viz: latent inherited |
class prejudice, and the remoteness
Of management.
Of these causes of current misun- |
derstanding, the last named-remote-
ress of management-is the one
which, in my judgment, best yjust1ties
much of the criticism of the railways.
There are few American men who
would lend themselves to the despo1-
ing of their immediate neighbors. we
all know how public opinion regards
those who do that thing. know, TOO.
hat where communities are acquaint-
ed with the men who manage the rail-
WAYS and respect them in their per-
sonal lives and bearing, the pressure
Of hatred of what they represent IS
less. The psychology of this is not,
however, as simple as it would seem
to be. Most railway managers have
experienced a curious differentiation
n the public mind between the indi-
vidual reputation of the officer and
1ninion of his official acts. That
which is hated is not the man who ex-
srcises the power and who makes the
determination which the public con-
siders unreasonable, but the impalpa-
bic thing known as 1.-THE Company,
which somehow is distinguished from
the officers and even from the stock
nolders, who choose the officers. This
seems to be the explanation of the re-
of juries to impose criminal
upon Offices for their