Charles DeLano Hine

“ Have him bulletin train earnings by conductors that the dear women may help the cause by sewing society discussion. Let him have the community understand that some explanation is expected from a get-rich-quick conductor. By this time it will dawn on the superintendent and his assistants that their jobs depend upon the prevention of stealing. Their unconscious sympathy with the thief will vanish. Because they are close enough to the proposition to give practical attention they will prevent stealing. I am aware that passenger conductors often run over more than one division. ”

“ The superintendent and the other division officials who rode with him and knew conditions were powerless to check him promptly and effectively because his reports and returns were going to somebody else over the hills and far away. These officials, because somebody else was responsible, did not seem to care very much. So the conductor stole under their very eyes and got away with it. Anything like this which begets a wholesale contempt for duly constituted authority is demoralizing to general discipline. The labor unions are not alone to blame for the spread of insubordination. ”

“ The detective should not be necessary for checking the good and the bad alike, but only for following up those who become manifestly bad or notoriously corrupt. The most efficient system is that where open checking and inspection are so thorough that temptation is diminished by the ever-present thought of prompt and sure detection. This desirable condition cannot obtain where the system makes such important officers as the superintendent and the trainmaster unconscious attorneys for the defense, sometimes openly advocating reinstatement of a thief. ”

“ It further violates principle, intensifies the evil and wastes more money by increasing the number of staff men doing line work. Its direct effects are vicious and its indirect effects are demoralizing to discipline. How can the young flagman have due respect for his superintendent or other official when he sees the train auditor come to the rear platform and demand to see the pass of the official? If he is an old flagman it is a little hard for him to see why he himself or his friend, the old station agent, might not have been given this new job with its fine pay. ”

“ All men are students of practical psychology, whether conscious of the fact or not. The conductor found that to hold his job he must do well those things for which the superintendent and the division officials were responsible. So the bigger thief the conductor became the more careful was he about other duties. He was a crank on train rules, perhaps, or made courtesy to the public his watchword. All of this stood him well in hand. Sooner or later the spotter caught him and the auditor requested the general manager to order his discharge. ”

“ Whether or not the train auditor enters into collusion with the conductor, the former soon learns how easy it is to beat the system. When he does break loose he will be more reckless than the conductor. The latter probably had to work for years as a freight brakeman and a freight conductor to get where he is, and if he loses out may be too old to begin all over again. The train auditor gets his appointment too easily to value it very highly. ”

“ The auditor also has the advantage of examining character from a wider range of selection in choosing his train auditors. The train and engine services have been so badly over-specialized, as I shall show you some other time, that our choice is restricted to men whom the trainmaster happened to hire as extra brakeman years ago. These slight advantages in favor of the train auditor system have been given undue weight. We are all too much inclined to dodge responsibility, to take the course of least resistance and to pass it up to the other fellow. ”

“ The American people at heart are honest, and barring a few dishonest traveling men who short-fare conductors and train auditors with cash, will in the mass support you and the Order of Railway Conductors in any intelligent movement for honesty. ”

“ In a large corporation we have to approximate to this condition. The corporation, an impersonal creation, is vitalized by the men charged with responsibilities. The problem of organization is to give maximum effectiveness to this vitalization, to utilize to the fullest degree the personal equations of those entrusted with authority. Many railroads have lost control of their passenger conductors because of a fundamental misconception of the principles of true organization.
On the early railways the superintendent was the only officer the conductor officially knew. ”

“ The railways of this country are wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by failure to make the conductors do their honest duty. I would like to have you immortalize yourself by saving your company its pro-rata share of this economic waste. ”

“ Do not let the people get the idea that where passenger fare stealing flourishes, freight claims increase because some freight crews are robbing box cars, and expenses increase because some officials are grafting.
If I were your president I would ask authority of the board of directors, a staff body, to say, as a line officer, to you, also of the line, that as chief operating official you are the only passenger conductor with whom the executive and staff departments will normally deal ”

“ On the other hand, if the people at large get an idea that you are omitting to use all the moral forces at your command they will organize some more special commissions to handle another part of your business for you. ”

“ You and the auditor will have to work out the details as to the necessary bureau in your office, depositaries for money, interline relations and numerous other propositions which usually become self-suggesting when the broad working principles are established. ”

“ The existence of a personal employer brings home the moral turpitude by visualizing the individual wrong committed. Coupled with this higher moral. incentive is the fear of detection through close personal supervision and interest. ”

“ This feeling was not unnatural, since the detection came through a discredited channel, the spotter. Rare are the circumstances where secret service should be necessary. There is something inherently wrong in any system which has to gain routine information by indirect methods. ”