LETTER XI.
PREVENTING WRECKS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN.
My Dear Boy:—An able and successful general manager—not all able men and not all general managers are successful—recently called attention to a most important distinction in the training and practice of superintendents. He says that too much stress is laid upon the development of ability to locate responsibility after a wreck occurs, and not enough upon the quality of controlling circumstances, of cultivating precautionary habits that will prevent disaster. As he aptly puts it, the superintendent should be a doctor, a health officer, rather than a coroner; his staff a sanitary commission, a board of health to prevent disease rather than a jury to determine its causes and effects. Some superintendents pride themselves on their legal acumen, their ability to cross-examine, and on the way they can catch a crew trying to lie out of a mix-up. This is all very well if
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