Letters From A Railway Official
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. Let’s change ends with our rail and put it where it will do the most good. 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. Yes, but less than we are being forced to pay by some of the labor contracts we have had to sign. It is not only more graceful, it is less expensive, this leading instead of being driven.
The great trouble seems to be in this matter of civil service that we have tried to accomplish too much in too short a time. An industry whose existence does not antedate the memory of men still living cannot hope to have struck the best methods already. Yet it can be too cautious in building Chinese
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