that the short service man will make many more mistakes than the long service man. Conditions that arise in the daily routine of a trainman's experience are more or less similar and when a man has encountered a certain condition and gone wrong on it, or has had a slip of memory on some rule or order, the probabilities are large that should such a rule or order ever confront him again, his former experience would carry him safely along, whereas the one who encountered the same condition the first time would in greater probability fall down, so that while the discharge of the old hand may have been demanded by iron clad discipline still a nominal punishment, with retention in the service, would have no doubt added much to the smooth operation of the service.

Our plea is for the man who has put the best years of his life in the service, and not against the man who is just entering the service or has been in it a few years. Discipline is of course absolutely necessary to the service, but we contend that discipline which takes into account the element of human weakness and attempts to strengthen it is discipline of the very best and highest order. The following has the true ring:

"Mr. P. H. Houlahan, superintendent of the Burlington lines in Missouri, has recently been interviewed on the subject of railway accidents. 'You can labor from now till you are a hundred in trying to equip railroads with devices to secure safety, and yet you will have disasters until you realize the great fundamental requirement of judgment,' said Mr. Houlahan. No invention, however efficient, will take the place of the man with a cool head, who can reason readily and accurately in times when lives are hanging on seconds. Block signals may fail to work, a telegraphic order may have a doubtful meaning, a switch lamp may be turned wrong or a hundred other things may happen to furnish an excuse for a man to say, 'It wasn't my fault!' But going down to the bottom of railroading, you want to impress upon men who have to do with the running of trains that in their judgment is the real

reliance-their knowledge of what to do when the emergency arises.

"I am not one of those who believes that men should be retired from active service when they have left forty or forty-five behind. It requires from thirty-five to forty years to ripen some intellects to perfect judgment. The man of forty has generally been tried by fire, and thereafter he avoids the flame. Like the general on the battlefield, he knows what's best to do.

"'A young engineer may take chances on a sharp curve, or over a yard full of switches. The veteran will begin cutting off his steam at the proper moment, and reduce his speed, making up the time on the next fair stretch.

" 'Brain is a matter of development in railroading, as in everything else. You can't find any mechanical substitute, though you line the track from beginning to end with automatic devices. I'm a friend to every possible appliance for safety, but I'm a greater believer in a system that relies upon human agencies as the chief safeguard. God made man, and man made the inventions. The Master's work is the better.'

We do not of course mean to minimize the value and necessity of safety appliances, but to show more clearly that their use should be guided by the hand of experience and that proper experience can only be attained by years of service.

Statistics recently published by the European railroads showing that only one-third as many employes are killed as on American railroads and one-sixth as many passengers, has given American railway managers and others a whole lot of explaining to do to the public. It might perhaps be quite difficult to put one's finger on just the fault that produces more accidents on American railways than European, but it is easy to see that several differences in operation might be mentioned which would easily make up the difference in casualties as for instance faster time, greater tonnage, difference in construction of cars, more miles of track operated, difference in length of experience of train

men, difference in signals and safety appliances, and possibly others. It is barely possible, even, that a difference in management has an effect on the accident list. Or do not circumstances show conclusively that there is a very great disregard for human life in this country. Not on the part of railway managers, particularly, but throughout the whole length and breadth of the land, it seems as if one is justified in making the assertion that the thing held in cheapest estimation is human life.

Recently, an editorial in Leslie's Monthly Magazine contained some very emphatic sarcasm as to the responsibility for the accidents on the railroads of the United States. In a comparison of the number of killed and wounded during the years 1895 and 1902, it is shown that, while the travel was fivesixths as heavy in the former year, the list of killed and wounded was only little more than half as great as in the latter year. The somewhat novel idea is advanced, that in cases of railroad accidents, the directors, president and general manager should be indicted by the grand jury and held pending an investigation. A general in war is answerable to the nation for the success of his army, the directors and president of a bank are held responsible for the safe management of the business, when in many cases it may mostly be done by the cashier. We must confess, the parallelism is striking and perfect and it is difficult to see why the president of a railroad should not be required to know that his conductors, for instance, possess the requisite amount of experience to properly solve the problems they are liable to encounter, as it is for the bank president to know that his cashier is doing the proper thing by the depositors, nay, much more so, because the one deals with human life and the other with dollars. In fact, the parallelism might be extended still further, as, for example, those who have noted the difficulties and delays attendant upon the general use of the power brake and automatic coupler for cars and engines, are impressed with the disregard for human life manifested thereby by

many of the railway owners and managers, as is shown by the fact that more than eleven years have elapsed since the passage of the law requiring the use of these safety appliances. This too, in the face of such sayings as the following, made by a president of one of the greatest railroad systems in the world before the senate committee, when it was considering the automatic coupler bill: "Our road believes in the provisions of this bill and we are putting on these automatic couplers and brakes as rapidly as possible and we expect to have all our rolling stock equipped before the time fixed in the bill. We know what we want and what we ought to have for the safety of our men as well and much better than anybody else, and we will provide them just as fast as we are convinced that we need them."

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And now note the sequel to the above plausible talk. At a hearing before the Interstate Commerce Commission, five years after the Safety Appliance bill became law, the officials of this same great road pleaded for an extention of five years more time in which to comply with the law, saying that only about half their cars had been equipped as the law required. Poverty, hard times, and all other excuses were made, -poverty, but with never a let up in eight per cent or more dividends.

Also, the courts were resorted to in cases of accidents to men in the service, so as to test every part of the law and to escape liability on every technicality that could be brought up by ingenious attorneys. And even now, after more than eleven years have elapsed, quite a number of roads are asking for still further time in which to comply with the law.

Only the other day a writer, who is no doubt the mouthpiece of many railways centering in Chicago, assures us in that same old placid way, like as if we had never heard it before, that "self interest will lead the railway companies to install safety devices as rapidly as possible." Self interest! Yes, in dividends, not in human lives. We venture the assertion that if eleven years ago devices

had been discovered by which bank vaults and safes could have been rendered burglar and fire proof, it would be hard to find a bank in this country unequipped with them at this time. So that while he is regarded as cynical who contends that human life is held in less estimation than dollars, still facts seem to bear out the harshness of such comment.

While we do not advocate or plead for the indictment of presidents or general managers of railroads in case of accidents, we do plead for the man who has spent the best years of his life in railway service, as being much more likely to discharge his duties better than one who has had but few years experience. The man who began railroading twenty or thirty years ago, and who is now forty or fifty years old and sound of limb and sight is in the very nature of the case, better equipped to discharge the duties of a conductor than he who began the service five or ten years ago. Many features combine to make the

older man the better one. The conditions surrounding him have come to be a part of his being, almost a part of his structural growth, and another sense has been added to the ordinary five, which, for lack of a better name, may be called intuition, the exercise of which has saved many a wreck. No study of the book of rules or of the multiplicity of other rules and exceptions to them, can fit a man for the actual carrying out of those rules; experience, discipline, a full realization and solution of the human equation will ultimately come up before every railroad man, and life or death or safety or destruction of property will hang upon his individual action. And when railroads have men in their employ who have been tried by an experience extending over years, or when they can get men with such experience, it does not seem as if the public would be unreasonable in demanding that such service be secured and calling to account those who are responsible for the lack of such service.

It is interesting to see, one by one, the traditions and superstitions of former times and ages being superceded by thoughts, ideals and actions utterly at variance with those of long ago. What may be called almost structural beliefs of a former age have been subjected to iconoclastic destruction of the following age. This changed condition of human institutions shows progress in almost all walks of life. Some, perhaps, are of doubtful advantage or value. Changes have taken place in religion, science, political ways, in fact in all the directions of thought and ways of doing things. Perhaps the changed ideas regarding, not only the necessity but the value of work to humanity, have undergone as great transformations as upon any line of human progress. The olden allegory or fable led us to believe work to be a punishment for some sin committed by the ancestors of the race.

Present day ideals of work show how very far the human race has departed, progressed, from that far back misconception of work to mind and body. Able preachers, eminent scholars and noted editors have from time to time spoken and written on the benefits of work to the human family, but the editor of the Wall Street Journal, in a recent issue takes a rather more advanced position on the ideal of work than we have ever before seen. Possibly a great many people hold views that coincide with those uttered by the editor of the Journal, but are unable to put them into such elegant syntax. The Journal calls "Work a Grand Ideal," as follows:

"The world is outgrowing the idea that work is a curse, a punishment, or even a discipline. Some have even gone to the other extreme and regard their work as a play, a sport, a game. They enjoy to the full the stress and suspense

of the conflict, and the thrill of victory. Their work takes the place which, with other men, is filled by wife, home, love, and the delights of friendship, of books and of art. Work absorbs every faculty of their being and it satisfies every ambition and passion. Modern business is on so large a scale that it is not strange that some find it the gratification of every desire. They work not so much for gain as for very joy of working."

This, it is needless to say, is an advance upon the old conception of work as a curse. It is far better to regard work as a sport than as slavery, as something to be eagerly sought after, than as a thing to be avoided. But there is a still higher conception of work, which a few have adopted as the guiding principle of their lives, and which, as a grand ideal, will ultimately prevail with all.

This conception of work is that it is part of a divine plan. In working a man performs his highest destiny and makes himself a partner with his Creator in the civilization of the world. Work from this point of view becomes an act of religion, a solemn function. It assumes something of the character of a a sacrament. The man, therefore, who works the hardest and achieves the most is, in this sense, the most religious man. In working such a man may enjoy the delights of achievement and the fruits of success, but above all will be the feeling that he is an instrument in the hands of an almighty power for the furtherance of a divine plan, and if in working he gains wealth, it is only to hold it as a trustee.

Now such a conception of work as this if generally adopted would transform the world. It would give a new charm, a new spirit, a new dignity to work. Success would no longer be regarded. with suspicion and fear. The promotion of great enterprises and the control of great properties would have much of the same significance as now attaches to some supreme act of worship or heroism. The man who built a canal, organized an industry, established a great railroad system, developed a mine, invented a

new machine, or discovered a new principle of science, would be as truly a priest and a minister as one who served at the altar. Hatred of wealth would be an act of impiety, while the truest infidel would be not so much one who refused to believe, as one who refused to work, for work would be the sublimest expression of faith.

There would be no labor problem under such a conception as that. Let the world accept the idea that work is the one thing that unites us closest to the Creator, that it is in the highest sense an act of devotion, and there would be no question of hours and wages of labor. Even the humblest worker would be ennobled. The digging of a ditch, the sweeping of a street, the feeding of a furnace with coal, the cleaning of a sewer, would have stamped upon it the seal of divinity. There would be no such division as capital and labor. There would be no classes. All would be workers.

This is a mere dream, it will be said. But it is a grand ideal, toward which the world is making progress slowly, it is true, but surely.

It has been only forty years since slavery was abolished in this country. Yet what progress has been made in that time, the world over, toward this ideal. What a new dignity now attaches to work. It was not many years ago when work seemed degrading, when the "gentleman" was the man of leisure. Now the millionaire idler has become an object of scorn. The line once drawn between business and the professions has disappeared. The social ostracism of "trade" no longer exists. Our new leaders are captains of industry. Our young men are becoming engineers, are qualifying themselves to be experts in different lines of manufacturing. They are not afraid to soil their hands, to wear overalls, or to use tools. The man who does things has become a type of the age.

A manager of one of our largest railroads only a few years ago, on graduating from college, found, although he moved in polite society, that the only employment he could secure was as a