582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



susceptible as they are of an organization and discipline as perfect and 

 efficient as distinguished the greatest armies of history. 



If further proof of the utility of such action is desired, it can be 

 had by observing the result attained by one of our Eastern trunk lines 

 the management of which has made itself prominent in organizing 

 for its employes protection against financial distress resulting from 

 sickness, accidents, old age, and other vicissitudes of life and death 

 which will be noticed further on as also in the fact that such 

 measures have actually and uniformly been found to compensate for 

 material differences in wages ; to put the service offering them at a 

 premium, and ultimately to secure it the best and steadiest men at 

 relatively insignificant outlay. 



But it has often been asserted that corporations, no more than in- 

 dividuals, should enter into the philanthropy business, and that rail- 

 road companies are not more than other employers interested in the 

 personal welfare of their people. Such assertions convict their authors 

 of ignorance of social science and lack of forethought unpardonable 

 in this advanced age in those intrusted with the overshadowing inter- 

 ests of our great American railways. In defense of such assertions it 

 is alleged that individuals and classes of men are in the market repre- 

 senting labor, and other individuals or combinations of men represent- 

 ing capital are likewise in the market ; that the one is perfectly justi- 

 fiable in purchasing the other at its market value, and, when capital 

 ceases to be able to pay the market value of labor, the other will nat- 

 urally seek other purchasers, and that there the claims of one upon the 

 other cease ; that as labor is never held bound to maintain its connec- 

 tion with capital to the laborer's disadvantage, so, when labor ceases 

 to make profit for capital, the latter must be allowed to exercise the 

 same right to sever their associations. 



While as a broad proposition this must be admitted to be true, 

 railroads are, more than most other employers, interested in the pros- 

 perity of their employes, and, like all other corporations whose work 

 is dangerous, are partly answerable for the misfortunes of their em- 

 ployes, and peculiarly interested in providing means for lessening lia- 

 bilities to accident, and in relieving the suffering and hardships caused 

 by injuries received in their service. In partial recognition of this 

 principle, many individuals and corporations employing small bodies 

 of labor continue the pay of their men when sick, but where large 

 masses are to be dealt with such a course would entail an expenditure 

 beyond all reason. As an illustration of this, on one of our Eastern 

 trunk lines, the employes of which number something over twenty 

 thousand (and several of its rivals have more than double this force), 

 the sick and disabled from all causes have, within the writer's knowl- 

 edge, numbered continuously more than six hundred per annum for at 

 least four consecutive years. Increased remuneration for labor will 

 not alone solve the problem under discussion, for railroad men are pro- 



