Charles DeLano Hine

“ All the hot air fests that you are now holding are probably necessary to blow the chaff away from the wheat. Sooner or later the irrevocable law of supply and demand must operate to place the whole matter of the compensation of labor upon a more scientific basis. At present it is rather the strength of the particular union than the relative justice of its demands. ”

“ We all know, as do the labor leaders, that no general manager ever went through a long strike, successful or unsuccessful, without ultimately losing his job. The directors start out with the best intentions of supporting him. As the struggle grows fiercer, the temporarily reduced earnings have a refrigerating effect on their feet. ”

“ No one labor organization can expect, in the long run, to be given preferred consideration over another; neither can the labor unions, comprising only a small percentage of the country’s population, expect indefinitely to dominate society at large. ”

“ It should be as easy for a chief assistant superintendent, familiar with the routine, to assume the superintendent’s regular duties any day as for the second dispatcher to work the first trick. When your mechanical assistant conducts his shop negotiations, by all means insist that he direct the superintendent to send in each mechanical assistant superintendent to assist in the conferences.
One reason that the labor situation has gotten away from us is because the matter has been handled on too large a scale. ”

“ It is useless to expect to accomplish much in the way of increased elasticity of labor as long as railway officials, through so-called departments, insist upon narrowing and specialized rigidity. Such reforms to be effective must begin at the top. It will all come out in the wash, but in the meantime the laundry bills are disproportionate and may place cleanliness far beyond godliness.
General Sherman, one of the versatile geniuses developed by our great Civil War, once said that most men consider the immediate at the expense of the remote ”

“ Each general manager is inclined to believe that his men will get the worst of it as compared with other roads. He has been inclined to yield when he should have been firm. The further away from the concrete local conditions the negotiations can be conducted the more vulnerable are the officials. The labor leaders know this, and the more divisions or the more roads they can bunch in a single negotiation or arbitration the more unwieldy becomes the proposition and the greater the gain for labor. ”

“ Already our critics are giving indications of becoming our allies as against the hard-headed, selfish opposition of labor unions to progress. This will serve to help show the public our problems in their true light. All that we need ask is a fair hearing, and ultimately the calm judgment of the American people will decide aright. ”

“ We would not have the fireman straining his back to shovel fifteen or twenty tons of coal while a different breed of cat, a brakeman, rides on the fireman’s seat and forgets to ring the bell when the train starts.
We blame the unions for expensive lack of interchangeability of function. ”

“ Under the unit system the superintendent can be thus spared from his division to help save the company money because there is always a competent man to perform his duties, and a provision all along the line for automatic successions to meet just such incidents of service. ”

“ We have a number of forces operating to restrict the output of capable men. The economic machinery of society at large is therefore out of balance. You cannot blame the artisan, skilled or unskilled, for guarding the entrance to his craft. ”

“ You see that it is merely a phase of a general problem that a disproportionate amount of your time is taken up by affording an opportunity for delegates to make their lodges believe they are earning their per diem and expenses. ”

“ Whatever you do, have your division superintendents present at your negotiations. Do not flatter yourself that your own wonderful ability will enable you to take a sound position on every question that may arise. ”

“ When you assure us of your ability to run an engine we will begin to commence to talk about making you a conductor.” Later on a man with this splendid all-around training could have specialized along the line of his greatest aptitude. ”

“ The tendency has been to consider the abstract possibilities rather than the concrete effort. A superintendent of a 140-mile division once recommended approval of an application for increase in wages of his milk train crew, because the men on the next division were getting as much for running only 105 miles. ”