The Railroad Problem

great brotherhoods-of the engineers, the firemen, the conductors, and the trainmen. In fairness it should be added that the reason why this eighteen per cent in numerical

eceive the same wages as Freeman, whose skill and sen

t his section-six or seven or eight or even ten miles-is, every inch of it, fit for the pounding of the locomotive at high speed. You do not have to preach eternal vigilance to him. It long since became part of his day's work. And to do that day's work he must work long hours and hard-as you have already seen-must be

Hill earns his pay. As a matter of fact Blinks is rather well paid. There are more men at country depots to be compared with Fremont-men who give the best of their energy and diplomacy and all-round ability only to realize that their

foremen of engines who have far less in their pay envelopes at the end of the month than the men who are under their supervision and control. And there is not much theory about the difficulty a road finds, under such conditions, to "promote" a man from the engineer's cab to

-protected engineers and conductors of their divisions. There is no brotherhood among station agents, none among the operating officers of the railroads of America. And yet for loyalty and ability,

a man we

gent. I happen to know that a certain missionary bishop down in Oklahoma receives as his compensation $1,200 a year-although he never is quite certain of his salary. With due respect to the comedia

r-maintainer or the station agent is amply paid? And is it equally fair to infer that the pay of these three classes of railroad employees, so typical of unorganized transportation labor, could be raised by lowering the pay of organized employees without leaving these organized employees actually underpaid? And

ith his belief that the wage outgo of the entire nation is correct, is it not possible that the railroad as an institution is not getting its fair proportion of the national total? I have just shown you how eightee

of the national wage account. Even the salaries paid to railroad executives, with the possible exception of a comparatively small group of men at the very top of some of the largest properties, are not generous. There has been m

hy the business has so few allurements to the educated young men-the coming engineers of America. They come trooping out of the high schools, the technical schools, the colleges, and the universities of our land and struggle to fi

d up a personnel for future years by intelligent educational means. The Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific have made interesting studies and permanent efforts along these lines. But most of the railroads realize that it is

other phase of its great problems. One road today has twenty-seven scientific observers-well trained and schooled to their work-making a careful survey of its territory, with a view to developing its largest traffic possibilities. And some day

a certain definite sum which might best be expressed, perhaps, as the employee's profit from his work; a sum which, in ordinary cases at least, would or should represent the railroad's steady contribution to his savings-bank account. To these three fundamental factors there would probably have to be added a

ntly there apparently has not been a single railroad which has taken up this question of bonus payments for extra services given. To the abounding credit of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railway and its president, Edward Payson Ripley, let it be said that they have just agreed to pay the greater proportion of their employees receiving less than $2,000 a year a bonus of ten per cent of the year's salary for 1916-a payment amounting all told to $2,750,000. The employees so benefited must have

er and employee. Our progressive and healthy forms of big industry of the United States have long since come to this bonus plan of paying their employees. The advances made by the steel companies and other forms of manufacturing enterprise, by great merchandising concerns, both wholesale and retail, and by many of the public utility companies, including certain traction systems, are fairly well known. It is a step tha

e back into transportation history and found that at first employes were paid by the day. But long hours either on the road or waiting on passing sidings worked great hardships to them. As a more or less direct consequence the men in train service formed unions and succeeded in establishing the peculiar combination of pay upon the mile and the hour basis-which has obtained ever since in general railroad practice. If a train or a locomotive man was called for duty, even if h

trains and terminals; railroad managers, driven by the need to make a showing long since began to plan more revenue tons per train-mile in order to keep down or lessen train-crew wage-costs per ton-mile. This was very well as long as it led to better-filled cars and trains, but the plan quickly expanded into heavier locomotives and heavier cars which necessitated heavier rails, more ties, tie-plates, stronger bridges, reduced grades, and a r

ction. But he puts the case so clearly in regard to the confusing double basis in the pay of the trainmen-the vexed point that is before the Supreme Court of the United States as this boo

great strain. There should be heavy penalties attached for overtime, although it does not follow that the man who puts in the overtime should receive the penalty. Soci

faster trains would increase the roads' capacity as well as car and locomotive mileage. Capital expenses would drop. T

is vexatious matter, the fact remains that the union man in railroad employ will continue to be paid upon this complicated and unfit double method of reckonin

rom the human as well as the purely economic angle is going to rank with the bonus and other indications of an advanc

but would tend greatly to prevent the depreciation of the human equipment of the road. Remember that this labor problem is one which presses hard not only upon the body poli

quickly obvious that the great pay-roll must be equalized, that in these days of steadily mounting cost of living, its unorganized labor-its trackmen, its carmen, its shopmen, its cle

that have gone before and you can quickly see the need for very great increases in the railroad's pay-roll in the immediate future. It is going to be compelled to seek a lar

you please, of much of the human element in the operation of the railroad, may yet prove to be a problem, larger

that the great man of American business lies sick upon his bed. Already we have learned that from a purely material point of view, the railroad is nine years back of 1917 instead of nine years ahead of this date. Its involved, delicate, unsettled labor p

man of American business back to health again, just for the opportunities of development that stand before him,