Confessions of a Railroad SignalmanFagan, James O. (James Octavius)
History
Confessions of a Railroad Signalman
Fagan, James O. (James Octavius)
Railroad accidents; Railroads; Railroads -- United States -- Employees
For the rest, it will be evident that the foregoing diagnosis of the
situation bears on its face unmistakable indications of the nature of
the cure. At all cost, interference with discipline must cease. This
conclusion admits no compromise. At the present day every decision
made by a superintendent is practically subject to the approval of
the Grievance Committee. But this is not all: the railroad manager is
handicapped and held up at every turn. In his dealings with the labor
problem, if by any possibility he manages to escape the fire, it can
only be by taking refuge in the frying-pan. An illustration in point
is the problem of keeping expenses within reasonable limits and at
the same time administering discipline to the very men who, backed by
powerful organizations, are continually insisting upon additions to the
pay-rolls.
But now, granting the situation and the difficulties as I have
described them, in what direction are we to look for relief? As it
seems to me, an unmistakable expression of public opinion would, in
the first place, go far in starting us all thinking and working in the
right direction. But even this will have little effect until railroad
men wake up out of the self-satisfied trance in which at present they
seem to be comfortably slumbering. Time was when our forgetfulness of
the public interests could be accounted for by our own poverty and
sufferings. But these unhappy conditions no longer exist, for to-day
we are probably as well paid and otherwise as well provided for and
equipped as any class of workers in the United States. Nevertheless,
when we are informed that in the year 1906 ten thousand people were
killed and one hundred thousand injured on American railroads, the
knowledge does not seem to “give us pause” in any way, or to ruffle our
individual self-satisfaction; while our organizations look at their
surroundings silently and impassively as the pyramids and obelisks look
upon the Egyptian deserts.
But affairs have now come to such a pass on the roads that at last
we are imperatively called upon to answer questions and explain our
position. Our best friends are beginning to criticise us. They remind
us that interference with discipline is in reality an attempt to take
part in its administration, and that our unions were never intended
or organized for that purpose. For a great many years an educational
campaign has been in progress all over the country for the purpose
of reminding us of our duties and obligations to our unions. This
educational method has been extremely successful, and has brought into
being armies of laboring men thoroughly loyal and self-centred. But the
result of this system on the railroads has been so disastrous to human
life that at last we are beginning to realize that there is a limit
even to the pursuit of our individual well-being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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