Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1915 — MUST SHOW HIS VALUE [ARTICLE]

MUST SHOW HIS VALUE

EACH RAILROAD MAN CAPITALIZED FOR CERTAIN SUM.

Just What This Means Is Shown In the Following Article—Key to Whole Thing May Be Called Co-operative Economy.

Perhaps co-operative economy is the best way of designating the new method of railroad management. Without co-operation among, the men it would uot work. To save a nickel or a dime a day for the company, each man must be shown that he is capitalized along with the rest of the railroad property for a certain sum, and if he is any use he must earn interest on that capitalization, writes George Ethelbert Walsh in the Sunday magazine of the Chicago Herald.

A big railroad manager of an eastern road took the men into his confidence by addressing them in this way, by-personal interviews and speech when he could, and by letters and circulars when the former was impracticable:

“How much are you capitalized at? Do you know? If not, stop a minute to figure it out. If you’re getting a salary of $1,500, your capital value is $30,000, and you’ve got to ehrn five per cent on that or drop to a lower capitalization. If you’re earning only SBOO a year, it is because you have failed to earn five per cent on any greater amount. This is one sure way of getting out- of the lower wage class. Raise your capitalization? How! Show us that you’re earning more than five per cent on your present rated capitalization. Hereafter wages are going to be based on this idea —individual capitalization.”

A concrete illustration: A station agent at a salary of S6O a month had a record of wasting the company’s money through carelessness or a run of bad luck. Freight consigned to or shipped from his poirft had a way of meeting accidents that caused a lot of damage suits. The man was cautioned, warned and finally peremptorily fired. Another took his. position, with a warning that he would meet a similar fate if he did not look after the company’s interests with greater care. He made a two years’ clean record, and his capitalization went up to $16,000; another year it was advanced to SIB,OOO as the result of his earning capacity. Then came a letter couched in these words:

“We cannot pay more than SSPO at X. The business there will not warrant it. But we consider you worth more than S9OO a year, and you are hereby transferred to W, with a salary of $1,200.” The station agent who mishahdles a broom and wears it out beating the dog or using it for a baseball bat is the same man who roughly handles the freight and express packages, and lays the foundation for endless damage suits. He also leaves the station with the drafts all turned on the stove so that it consumes 20 per cent more coal than actually needed, and if by chance there is a wind blowing through the room it is his lamp chimneys that are always cracked by it or blown off.