BAIL WAY MANAGERS AND EMPLOYES. 783 



Let other railroads follow their example. Let them do away with 

 nepotism in employment and promotion ; accept the services only of 

 those found to be expert workmen, physically as well as mentally 

 qualified to fill responsible positions ; then surround those selected 

 with such material protection and attractions as will annul migratory 

 instincts and anchor them by chains of self-interest, and they will have 

 made safe provision against such disasters as that which overtook 

 some of our Eastern lines in 1877. The motive of a railroad in thus 

 meeting its employes more than half-way need not be concealed. It 

 is far better to have it at once understood that self-interest is to be 

 the governing consideration on both sides ; that as the employe ex- 

 pects to profit by his participation in such a scheme, so does the rail- 

 road, from its participation therein, not at the expense but through 

 the promotion of its workmen's interests. The latter, by yielding a 

 small percentage of their pay, can secure to themselves all the benefits 

 derivable from the most judiciously prepared scheme of insurance and 

 mutual benefit that the light of the present age can afford ; the former, 

 through the annual investment of a reasonable sum, probably to the 

 saving of larger expenditures in other directions, will profitably secure 

 itself against the annoyance of lawsuits and other ill results, while 

 also reaping other advantages and forwarding the philanthropical 

 work of the age. The student of railway benevolent institutions abroad 

 will be struck by the disparity of growth between those in which in- 

 surance against accident, old age, and death is by the employer made 

 compulsory upon the employe, and others where such action is 

 optional in favor of the former. In old settled countries, where the 

 labor market is overstocked and competition for place most active, lit- 

 tle difficulty is experienced in enforcing such a prerequisite to employ- 

 ment ; but in this country, where the rapid development of railroad 

 interests usually creates a constant demand for labor, and where the 

 dissatisfied employe of one road has only to step across the field, as it 

 were, to be welcomed with perhaps increased pay by rival interests, it 

 takes nerve to enforce such a provision. There are few intelligent 

 railroad managements that will not fully admit that, as the result 

 of proverbial improvidence, their employes are, as a class, discontented, 

 migratory, and exceptionally difficult to reach with moral and eco- 

 nomical teachings ; and they must clearly perceive, in the words of a 

 recent writer, that " there is marked tendency to trust to luck in the 

 future for themselves and their families, instead of making provision 

 ahead, which exercises a demoralizing effect upon the whole character, 

 and directly affects the interests of their employers." Yet, though 

 they are prepared to admit that this fact makes it both right and a duty 

 of the employer to interfere to correct the evil, as far as it is possible 

 to do so, and that " if men need to be made provident, and to guard 

 against adversity in sickness and old age by compulsion, then compul- 

 sion should be used," they are naturally slow to force an issue not 



