Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 273, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1915 — CHARACTER THE GREAT POINT [ARTICLE]

CHARACTER THE GREAT POINT

Matter Worth Consideration by Mon Who Occupy Positions That Entail Degree of Responsibility. One of the railroads had a bad collision recently. The conductor, engineer and fireman of an extra train all forgot about a regular passenger train, the schedule of which they knew perfectly well, and ran into it from behind. After getting all the facts the superintendent of the division reported that the accident was caused by the chance assignment of three moral weaklings to the same crew. The conductor had been fired once before for causing a collision and was not a man of strong character. The engineer’s record showed three previous suspensions, and he was known to indulge occasionally in gross Immoralities. The fireman had been in trouble over a scandalous domestic difficulty. The superintendent summed up: “Having in the service such men as these, the best way to frame up a collision is to get them together in the same crew.” The Railway Age Gazette comments on the gravity of this danger and the difficulty of forestalling it, and suggests that perhaps It would be a good riile “to make sure of at least one wholly trustworthy man on every train.” The point is that in this particular railroading does not differ from any other human pursuit having to do with the hard facts of this world. The basis of them all is character and lack of character means loss and peril and death. —Collier’s Weekly.