Letters From A Railway Official
of the traffic department should accompany the train and distribute their own advertising matter. Perhaps the best feature of all would be the improved feeling among the country agents due to more intimate acquaintance with the operating and traffic officials with whom they are doing business. We can afford to compete with the organizers of the telegraphers and clerks for this spirit. It will interest you to know that at least two large systems are figuring on a company train. When it comes, as come it will, we shall all wonder, as in the case of the telephone, how we ever got along without it.
You ask if the pay car should be included in the outfit. Yes, if local conditions permit. Before going into this very far, however, let us consider our system of paying only once a month. Has it sufficient merit to stand the test of time? It breaks down in some cases when we wish additional cheap labor. Many of us have turned over to contractors the unloading of company coal at fuel stations. The avowed reason for so doing is that the shovelers being often recruited from the hobo or the squalid class, we cannot hope to handle
138
