States.

For this vast host there are only about five thousand general and five thousand subordinate officials, making a total of about ten thousand officials, or an average of about one for every one hundred and fifty employees. We are inadequately officered, and authority has to be delegated to foremen and clerks to a demoralizing extent. The result is a laxity in discipline, due to insufficient supervision, which is reflected in unnecessary accidents. The bent of the railroad mind is such that if an additional official position is created, the new official soon asks for a stenographer and builds up a bureau of records and correspondence around himself. Efforts are being made to correct this evil and concentrate clerical work in fewer offices. Railway officials all favor this in the abstract, but not one in fifty knows how to organize his territory properly. Railroads have much in common with military organization. They can learn from the accumulated experience of centuries of army existence. Thus, a regiment of twelve hundred men has from forty to fifty officers, or one for every twenty-four to thirty men. Each of the twelve companies keeps a record of its men, and all regimental records are concentrated at headquarters. In spite of this simplicity of administration in field units, the staff departments built up a bureaucratic system, which broke down in Cuba and in South Africa. The remedy in this country has been a general staff for the army and a general board for the navy. Every large railway system needs a general staff, divested of administrative responsibilities, but advisory and supplementary in nature. Railroads are burdened by bureaus and departments not properly balanced, which give a chief clerk in an office more authority than a higher-paid official of rank on the ground. Accidents will not be materially decreased until such organic evils are eradicated.

The tendency of railway executive and general officers is toward Napoleonic methods. Too frequently there is lacking as a necessary accompaniment both the genius of Napoleon and the indispensable training of his youth as cadet and under officer. The railway profession is too young to have many whole

some checks on abuse of authority. A general in the field cannot permanently degrade an officer or man without due process of law. A railway official usually holds his position at the pleasure of one or two superiors. Dwarfed he may easily become, and lacking in boldness and originality, under such a system. Skilled employees, in many cases driven to unionism by arbitrary abuse of power, have a firmer hold by virtue of the strength of their labor organizations. Reforms must begin at the top, and we must improve official tenure before we can comprehensively train our men to avoid accidents.

In the rapid growth of the country, captains of industry have floated away from old-time moorings set by directors. and stockholders. Many of the industrial absolute monarchies thus resulting have had good czars, and results have outstripped those obtainable by any other method. Too many have become drunk with power, and the reckoning for their stockholders has been heavy. Recent events in banking and insurance have awakened directors to the fact that they must direct. When railway directors appreciate more fully their responsibilities, there will be fewer accidents. power should not be exercised directly, any more than a committee of Congress should attempt to handle a fleet at sea. The president and his staff must act through a one-man system, but that oneman system must be held to a strict accountability to the interests it represents, to the source that appropriates the money it expends, to the public whose lives are intrusted to its keeping.

This

The railroads alone are not responsible for conditions that result in accidents. There is a responsibility upon the citizen. In general, a civic community may be said to have as good a government as it deserves. The same may be said of its railway service. As long as public sentiment countenances the holding up of corporations at the muzzle of a threatened legislative act or municipal ordinance introduced for unworthy motives, the probability of accidents cannot be greatly diminished. As long as people consider it legitimate and smart to beat a railroad company, or to secure a pass

on the flimsest pretext, just so long will money be wasted which should go to improve the service. When more juries regard their oaths and give corporations fairer verdicts, then will travel become safer.

As practical people, we are not sitting idly by and waiting for improved corporate, sociological, and ethical conditions to safeguard the traveler and the employee. Much is being done. Roadway, bridges, track, and equipment are being rebuilt and replaced at an enormous outlay. Thousands of miles of block signals have been installed at a cost of from one to three thousand dollars per mile. A block signal is merely an indicator of the occupancy or non-occupancy of a stretch of track called a "block." A signal is useless unless its command is obeyed. Too often a lax discipline winks at disregard of signals in order to make fast time. Then, when trouble comes, an unconscious administrative cowardice lays all the blame upon the poor fellow directly at fault. Where the block signal is interlocked with a derail, as at a drawbridge or the crossing of another railroad, the train disregarding the signal is stopped by being run off the rails on the ground. This is a drastic and violent precaution which sometimes results in greater loss of life than if the collision itself had occurred. Devices have been invented which automatically stop a train the instant it passes a block signal set at danger. For steam roads these appliances are generally regarded as still in the experimental stage.

The collision is the least excusable form of accident. The causes for collisions are numerous, but nearly all go. back to questions of organization and discipline. One excuse given by managing officers for loose discipline is the tyranny of labor organizations. It is claimed that the only way to enforce discipline is to discharge men, and that if men have to be reinstated at the behest of grievance committees, all proper effect is lost. While this contention is in part true, it betrays a deplorable lack of appreciation of the true mission of those invested with authority. Many unwise labor contracts have been made

by railroads. Too often principle has been temporized with to avoid the expense and inconvenience of a strike. Officials who are trustees for large properties sometimes yield too easily to demands which ultimately restrict employees to certain classes of work and hamper the development of the individual. This results in men being laid off at certain seasons without work, while a comprehensive scheme of organization would allow the man to be transferred to another kind of work. It is not enough to say that the men bring these conditions on themselves. They should justly but firmly be prevented from so doing. A fruitful source of accidents is a defect in track. Can we expect the track-walker to be vigilant in scrutinizing every bolt and tie on his lonely beat, when any day it may be his turn to be replaced by another of his section-gang in order to reduce the pay-roll? In summer track forces are large. In winter there is less work for them, but more in the shops and engine-houses. There should be some degree of interchangeability here. Such problems must be solved before accidents are fewer.

Defects in equipment contribute their full share to the number of accidents. A loose wheel, a broken rod, a bent axle, a loose. nut, may send a train into the ditch and its human freight into eternity. The inspector whose duty it is to discover these defects in time must be a man in love with his work, who feels himself during good behavior enlisted in the army of his road. Until wise methods give him this feeling, until he is helped in bearing the brunt of economic and industrial changes, he will not do his full duty in preventing accidents. In the meantime firm but considerate discipline accomplishes much and can accomplish

more.

Few people appreciate the true meaning of the word discipline, which can be found by going back to the same root as the word disciple-a learner, a pupil, a follower. With this fact should be kept in mind the immortal words attributed to George' Stephenson, namely, that the highest branch of engineering is the engineering of men. Engineer the men properly and accidents will be minimized.

Railroad accidents there will always be. Mankind cannot harness the forces of nature, cannot dart through space, cannot minimize the effect of time and distance, without some risk of life and limb.

There should, however, be less hazard in traveling on a well-organized railroad than that assumed by the farmer's son or daughter in riding the unbroken colt over the pasture-bars.

In

O not talk to the motorman !" The open car was whizzing along the country roadside and I was on the front seat. The legend upon the roof-rim gave admonitory counsel. But I was not talking to the motorThe motorman was talking to me. Perhaps on my part this was a passive violation of the company's rule. But I felt no call to discourage the talk. the first place, I did not want to seem rude. To assume a cold and distant bearing was contrary to my nature. Moreover, I was interested in what was said. The man was companionable, and he evidently had a desire for companionship at the moment. I noted that he was all the time keeping a vigilant look ahead. And, above all, he was entertaining me with some accounts of the motorman's life and of the sort of happenings that are peculiar to the street railway. His talk was broken by frequent intervals of silence, for every now and then we would thread a section of meandering track or cautiously descend a troublesome grade. At such moments I made no question. But when the track ran free and straight ahead, I would respond with a word or an assenting nod. Whenever we lay at turnouts for a coming car to pass, he would assume the vacant place beside me and rest from his constant standing. Then I would take more active part in the conversation and ask concerning this thing and that.

At one long stretch there was a complication of curves and of down grades. I sat regarding the figure before me. It was erect with the statuesque immobility that marks the motorman's calling. The distinctive dexterity of the trade was the simultaneous manipulation of

the controller-handle and the brake in opposite and outward directions. These adroit motions suggested the hand movements of a prestidigitateur before an audience. But now, with the gradual substitution of the pneumatic brake for hand power, this gracious token of the trolley is passing. A sense of greater safety is the compensation.

How quickly a new trade stamps its character upon the men who follow it! It differentiates them by divers subtile indications. It remolds their features with new contours, graves them with new lines. It organizes new vocabularies ;words, perhaps familiar, fall from their lips with novel implications that make laymen feel ignorant-much the same. helpless ignorance that one feels in the presence of a Sanskrit scholar when he discourses of his specialty. It abolishes old perils, but it develops new ones. The trolley allays all fear of scalding steam, but the "live wire" inspires us with a new terror. The new vocation also adds new sorts of maladies to the long list that human flesh is heir to. Has not somebody heard of a "motoritis"?

Little more than three lusters have passed since electric power began to supersede animal traction upon the tramways. In its dispersion over the world it is now universal. Trolley-line practice, like the steam railway and like the sea and its sailors, already has its own traditions and even its conservatisms and its trade-clannishness-perhaps its superstitions as well. How long will it be before it develops its adventurous and romantic aspects and calls in literature to work them up? There is already a deal of good raw material in waiting.

I once traveled in England in the company of an eminent man of science.

He was fond of tracing the course of evolution in everything that came under his eye, and he did it fascinatingly. On the railway he showed how nearly every feature of the fittings in the compartment was a survival from the stage-coach. In a restaurant he traced the development of the electric-light fixtures from gas fixtures. In like manner, while the steam railway's equipment is derived from the stage-coach, so the street-car, the tram-car, blends the city omnibus with the passenger-car of the former. When the trolley came in, it was a question whether the term "driver" should be retained, as on the steam railway in Great Britain. It was even seriously proposed to adopt the verbal monstrosity "motoreer," in analogy with the locomotive engineer. But, fortunately, the sensible word "motorman." found universal acceptance.

Just as not a few old stage-drivers became train conductors, and even locomotive engineers, so many old car-drivers became motormen. But about the motorman of to-day there is no suggestion of horse or stable. Mechanical environment has driven those associations clean away, as they have from the locomotive engineer and fireman. As a rule, the motorman knows no more than does the average passenger about the laws and the mysteries of the subtile energy whose power obeys his hand. But he knows a deal about its peculiar actions and behavior, and he is skilled in dealing therewith so far as he is called to be.

Not every man is fitted for a motorman. Many of the best old horse-car drivers failed when they exchanged the reins for the controller-handle. Strong nerves, presence of mind, instantaneous response to emergency demands, are required to a degree not excelled even on the steam locomotive. The strain on the nerves is something tremendous. Hence the motorman is peculiarly subject to nervous disorders and their attendant maladies. These strong, alert fellows often wear out in a very few years under the exceeding stress of their work. The life of the railway engineer is placid in comparison. At any moment some emergency may make a demand upon the nerves comparable to that upon the

motor itself when the full current is suddenly turned on or as suddenly shut off. In the case of the motor, when the force of the current is too great for the rheostat to take it up, the fuse burns out. There is a flash, a report, the startled passengers jump, the women scream, the car stops. But no particular harm has been done. The burned-out fuse has saved the motor. The excessive current, melting the metal, has cut its own connection and can go no farther. The motorman gets down to the trucks, inserts another "safetyplug," and the car goes its way.

Possibly the human organism may have the equivalent of a rheostat. But no fusing contrivance has yet been adapted to the needs of the nervous system. So, at moments of nervous strain, when the vital energy is disturbed in its course by some instantaneous interruption, it goes worse with the motorman than with his motor. The man is fortunate if some nerve has not been burned out because of a tension far beyond the point of safety.

In

The locomotive engineer has his clear track, the right-of-way is fenced in, frequented grade-crossings are guarded. His daily routine is seldom liable to break. But where the trolley-car speeds along the common highway, something is likely to happen at any moment. the motorman the vigilance of the locomotive engineer is immensely intensified. At any moment his hands may have to make response to alert eyes. A bewildered person gets in the way; a child, impishly daring, scampers across the track; a team suddenly veers across the road. Prompt slowing down, sudden stops, may be called for numerous times in the course of a trip. These things, constantly recurring, subject the motorman to a physical wear and tear more serious than that put upon the carwheels. The latter often get flat intervals worn in their originally perfect circles when the sudden brake clutches them and makes them slide along the rail. The "flat wheel" hammers the track with each revclution and makes rough going. But it is taken to the repair-shop and turned true again. It is not so easy to repair the motorman's strained nerves. Every day, several

times a day, some excessive draft upon them is likely to make his heart jump into his throat and his breath stop short. When peril is averted by a hair's breadth, it leaves him white and trembling. He keeps his way and runs his trips-but what exhaustion at the end of the day's run! At times he breaks down and cries like a child. Again, something. more serious happens, something like a nightmare in its sense of fright, of terror. It is seldom his fault. But he feels his responsibility; he was the instrument. Then he faints away, he is completely unstrung and is deathly sick. It is no boy's play, the simple-seeming task of guiding a trolley-car.

Being a comparatively new calling, few motormen are primarily trained for the work. Though far from "unskilled labor," the pursuit is something fairly easy to learn, though requiring some special aptitude. The ranks are recruited from those of many and diverse occupations. Among these are some that are the last which one would expect to find represented. One late autumn day I was on the way into town; the air was mild and the crowded box car was unbearably close. I escaped to the front vestibule for air; fortunately, the motorman had the plate-glass window open before him. As we crossed the river I looked down stream to the shipping at a great coal-dock and remarked: "There's a big six-masted schooner down there." "Yes, and four five-masters besides," said the motorman.

"Mighty few," he replied. Squareriggers are getting scarce. But there are three of them further down; one of them is a pretty big craft-a four-masted ship."

bearings in thick weather. I owned a good part of the vessel; there was little insurance, and everything I had was invested in her. After that I concluded

to keep on shore. I had had enough of the sea. That is why I am here to-day at the bow of a trolley-car instead of on a ship's quarter-deck."

I afterwards learned that there were three old sea-captains running as motormen on that one division of a great street railway system. It is related that at one time the police force of old Salem was largely made up of veteran sea-captains, left stranded by the decline of American shipping. But here was a new calling that seemed to have a special attraction for seafaring men, perhaps because substituting a mild sort of land navigation, as it were, for their wonted wanderings over the world. I once knew an old shipmaster who, on retiring from the sea, invested his savings in a canal-boat, passing the rest of his days in navigating the placid Erie. Thenceforth his course was upon still water, and he retained the importance of command and the privilege of free expletive. But the life recalled salt water, much as ginger ale might be reminiscent of champagne. As a pursuit, the piloting of a trolley-car is far more adventurous.

Many a motorman has his avocation. I knew one who, besides giving much of his spare time to pigeon-breeding, derived a considerable income as the landlord' of a couple of two-flat suburban houses Another one told me about the well

I looked closer at the man beside me. Something in his way of speaking and in his bearing told unmistakably of the salt water. "You seem to know something about vessels," I remarked.

"I ought to by this time," he answered. "I was more than thirty years at seatwenty of them in command of squareriggers, sailing to all parts of the world. My last ship had her keel pounded out of her on Nantucket shoals; we lost our

In modern fiction, as a field for tales of adventure, the steam railway has become conspicuous in recent years, the locomotive engineer a special sort of a hero. Runaway locomotives, derailments, collisions head-on and rear-end, exciting episodes on the plains and among the Rockies, pioneering, the rude