Larger Image Courtesy of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway. An interesting illustration of rail-power development. Notice the evolution of the crude steam engine of 1848 into the giant locomotive of 1913, which in turn is overshadowed by the later arrival—electricity. Courtesy of the C. M. & St. P. Railway. Steam, the giant power, which, by welding our states together with bands of steel, has been a mighty factor in the unifying of the nation. The Railroad Problem By Edwar

THE SICK MAN OF AMERICAN BUSINESS On a certain estate there dwells a large family of brothers and sisters. There are many of them and there is great variety in their ages. They are indifferent to their neighbors; they deem themselves quite self-sufficient. But, for the most part they are an industrious family. They are a family of growing wealth—in fact, in every material sense they may already be called rich. And their great estate is slowly beginning to reach its full development. In this fami

THE PLIGHT OF THE RAILROAD Remember that the Railroad is the big man in the American business family, the very head of the house, you may say. Sick or well, he dominates his brothers—even that cool, calculating fellow whom we delight to call “the Banking Interests.” All America pays toll to transportation. And, inasmuch as the steam railroads are its dominating form of transportation, the entire country hangs upon them. In the long run this country can prosper only when its railroads prosper. Do

ORGANIZED LABOR—THE ENGINEER So much then for the physical condition of the railroad as it exists today—the condition that constantly is being reflected in its inability to handle the supertides of traffic that, in this memorable winter that ushers in 1917, are coming to its sidings and to the doors of its freight houses. Consider now the condition of its great human factor—its relations with its employees. I am sure that you will find this, in many ways, in quite as deplorable a condition as th

ORGANIZED LABOR—THE CONDUCTOR Here is another of the well-organized and protected forms of the railroad’s labor—the conductor. He will tell you that a goodly measure of responsibility rests upon his own broad shoulders. Yet your veteran railroad executive does not regard his conductor so much as a responsibility man as a diplomat. This last, after all, is his chief rôle. You gather your brow. You do not understand. “I thought,” you begin slowly, for you have made some sort of a study of this big

UNORGANIZED LABOR—THE MAN WITH THE SHOVEL In choosing the engineer and the conductor as the two very best types of organized labor upon the railroad I have had in mind the special qualifications that go with each. With the engineer one instantly links responsibility. And I think that in a preceding chapter I showed you with some definiteness that responsibility is never far from the engine cab. With the conductor one touches the diplomat of the rank and file of railroad service—one of the most f

UNORGANIZED LABOR—THE STATION AGENT The primary schools of railroading are the little red and yellow and gray buildings that one finds up and down the steel highways of the nation, dotting big lines and small. You find at least one in every American town that thinks itself worthy of the title. And they are hardly less to the towns themselves than the red schoolhouses of only a little greater traditional lore. To the railroad their importance can hardly be minimized. They are its tentacles—the hi

THE LABOR PLIGHT OF THE RAILROAD Some eighteen per cent of the 2,000,000 railroad employees of the land, receiving a little over twenty-eight per cent of their total pay-roll, are affiliated with the four 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 proportion, receives twenty-eight per cent in financial proportion, is that the eighteen per cent includes the larger propor

THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE RAILROAD In the past decade the United States has progressed mightily. Have the railroads of the land made equal progress? The past decade of American progress will, in all probability, pale before the coming of the next—particularly if we are cool-headed and smart-headed enough to take critical reckoning of our weaknesses and to use such a reckoning as a stepping-stone toward supplementing our great inherent and potential strength. Will the railroad during the coming deca

THE IRON HORSE AND THE GAS BUGGY The other day the convention of an important Episcopalian diocese was held in a large town in one of our eastern states. The general passenger agent of a certain good-sized railroad which radiates from that town in every direction saw a newspaper clipping in relation to the convention and promptly dictated a letter to his assistant there asking about how many passengers they had had as a result of the gathering. The reply was prompt. “None,” it read. The G.P.A. r

MORE RAILROAD OPPORTUNITY Let us now bring the motor truck into consideration. So far we have not taken it into our plans. And yet it is the phase of automobile competition that some railroad men frankly confess puzzles them the most. For it hits close to the source of their largest revenue—the earnings from the freight. It is a transport of things rather than of men. But that is no fundamental reason why it should not become as much an ally and a feeder of the railroad—as the passenger automobi

THE RAILROAD AND NATIONAL DEFENSE The Secretary of the Navy met a high officer of the telephone company in Washington some months ago. “I have noticed a great deal about your new transcontinental telephone line,” said he. “I wonder if you could tell me how long it would take us, in a national crisis, to get in telephone communication with each navy yard in the United States and what the cost would be.” The telephone man stepped to the nearest of his contraptions. In a moment he was back. “Not mo

THE NECESSITY OF THE RAILROAD In the entire history of the railroads they have never witnessed an outpouring of freight traffic such as came to their rails this winter and last, and congested their yards and lines in every direction. In addition to the high tide of traffic arising from a return of general prosperity the tremendous rush of munitions of war, destined overseas to the Allies from the North Atlantic ports, found the greater part of the roads suffering from the results of a decade of

REGULATION At the time that these lines are being written the railroads of the United States are entering a veritable no man’s land. The ponderous Newlands committee of Congress has begun its hearing and accomplished little; so little that it has asked and received an extension of time of nearly eleven months in which to go into the entire question more thoroughly. We all hope it does. The Adamson bill, establishing the so-called eight-hour day for certain favored classes of railroad employees,