In any ordinary business establishment there is at all times a certain amount of weeding going on for the good of the business. This is done on the personal judgment and initiative of the manager. In this way a high average of efficiency is attainable in all departments. But in the railroad business no such personal action on the part of a superintendent would be tolerated for a minute. It is surely reasonable that among the thousands of men who enlist in the railroad ranks there will be many who after a while will give evidence of unfitness for the service. Regardless of the power of the superintendent in theory, these men, if they are members of an Order or Brotherhood, _must actually hurt somebody or do considerable damage to property, before they can be removed_. That is to say, there is no elimination of weak spots until something happens. But this is not all. When a vacancy occurs in the service, it is immediately advertised, and the oldest bidder in point of service takes the position. In some of the agreements with the management the seniority rule is said to be absolute, in others it is modified by the clause, “with the approval of the superintendent.” But in a business of the nature of a railroad the public interests demand that at all points the best available man should be in charge, regardless of his length of service or his rights as an individual. But the labor organizations do not permit the public interests or those of the corporation to interfere with what they consider to be the just and inalienable rights of each and every employee. Applied to the railroad business, the fixed principle that every man shall take his turn is fundamentally wrong and demoralizing. It is one of the wedges that are being used to destroy personal supervision and management and to substitute management by machine methods. In my opinion its tendency is in the interests of poor service. Healthy competition in good behavior is almost obliterated, while honest ambition and _esprit de corps_ get very little encouragement. It has the general effect of removing the attention of employees from the management and concentrating it steadfastly upon the organization, that is to say, upon the source from which increase of pay and all other blessings are expected to flow.