human beings, who are not perfect, and who make mistakes.
In our country of large distances and large cities, the question of feeding people and keeping them warm means that transportation must be regular, sufficient, and continuous. What would happen to New York or Chicago or Minneapolis if for one week all railroad transportation were abandoned?
The railway-owner may make rules and regulations and make effort to continue in business, but he cannot always do so unless public opinion in time makes it clear that when a man chooses as his means of livelihood work on a railroad, he assumes a duty to society as a whole to give absolute obedience to rules, and to remain at work until suitable arrangements are made to relieve him. So dependent is the welfare of the whole country upon regular transportation that in time public opinion will declare that men on a railroad have no more right to disobey reasonable rules than have the men in the army, have no more right to leave in a body than have the men in
