Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/805

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 employés 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 employé expects to profit by his participation in such a scheme, so does the railroad, 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 insurance against accident, old age, and death is by the employer made compulsory upon the employé, 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, little difficulty is experienced in enforcing such a prerequisite to employment; but in this country, where the rapid development of railroad interests usually creates a constant demand for labor, and where the dissatisfied employé 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 employés are, as a class, discontented, migratory, and exceptionally difficult to reach with moral and economical 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 compulsion should be used," they are naturally slow to force an issue not