Charles DeLano Hine

“ Mankind absorbs a certain amount from the experience of others. In spite of the much good that comes, the same old fallacies are followed, the same old blunders are made. Within the last fifty years every road in the country, at some time or other, has undergone at least one reorganization and a corresponding radical change in personnel. ”

“ It is quite another to make the thousands of men along the road believe that we can stick to the original package. Blood is thicker than water and the new man will have his relatives and his followers or the followers of his friends. If he is too thin-skinned, fear of criticism may prevent his bringing in some new talent that would be of real benefit to his road. He is blamed if he does and blamed if he doesn’t. ”

“ If we leave the hiring to the different trainmasters, master mechanics, or agents, we may have mostly the Irish on one division, mostly the Dutch on another. If we are going into this civil service business and are taking men, like Federal judges, for life or during good behavior, let’s have a long list of waiting eligibles recruited for each division. ”

“ Let’s send around periodically a car with an examining board from central headquarters to size up the talent recommended by local officials. Put experienced officials, a surgeon and an oculist on the committee. Show your trainmaster that men who make it a business have more time than he to keep dudes and cigarette smokers off the runboard and the payroll; that the former have broader opportunities than he to develop a high standard of requirements. Let the committee encourage men already employed to demonstrate their fitness for transfer to other departments or to heavier divisions. ”

“ The cousins intermarry too often and ere long the road is breeding its own scrubs.
Within the last five years every road in the country has gone outside its own ranks for official talent. The oldest roads have had only a few Leonard Woods and Fred Funtons, a president here, a vice-president there. Other roads have changed officials so fast that one is reminded of the traveler sojourning in Paris during the French Revolution. ”

“ Every superintendent believes that he is the best judge of men on the pike. On every system are probably men who can give him cards and spades, picked coal and treated water, and then outclass him on such a run. ”

“ Should we not back up and draw some of the spikes we have put in the connection switches? It is one thing to sit in an office and figure that the importation, of this one man ought not to make anybody uneasy. ”

“ They have come to stay and ultimately to benefit the masses. Legislation will no more succeed in destroying them than it did in preventing partnerships in England where centuries ago it was thought for two men to unite as partners in business was an unsafe combination of power. ”

“ The employment bureau, the recruiting office, or the civil service commission becomes a necessity to every large organization. Some roads have made a start in this direction, but it is only a start. To work out the problem will cost us money. ”

“ The earnest efforts of able men, crowned by many partial successes, are sufficient guarantee of honesty of purpose, of the necessity for something of the sort that has been attempted. He who criticises, be he ever so honest, must suggest a practical remedy or he soon descends from the level of the critic to that of the demagogue or the common scold. ”

“ Education comes by hard knocks and probably anti-merger decisions are worth the inconvenience that they have caused. The sober sense of the American people will tell them after a while that in attempting constitutional and legislative interference they have not benefited themselves one dollar. ”

“ Whichever course he pursues there remains, in greater or less degree, that uncertainty which is so demoralizing. Remove this uncertainty, let men know definitely what to expect, and you are over the hill and closer to the terminal. ”

“ Always, after several new camels get their heads under the tent, comes a newspaper pronunciamento that thereafter the management will breed from its own herd. This inbreeding invariably leads ultimately to narrowness if not to deterioration. ”

“ It has too many flat wheels to run smoothly. It must be jacked up high enough for new trucks and a stronger kingbolt. True civil service presupposes maximum care in original selection. It doesn’t mean that we shall wait until the grain and the coal begin to move before we figure on more crews. ”

“ The old-fashioned rule of promote two and hire one worked mighty well on some roads for conductors and enginemen. In these days of larger systems the ratio might be changed to three or four or even five or six to one. ”