Twelve or fifteen hours at a stretch is too long a period for any man or boy to remain in harness. As I look at it, the primary object of this law is, or should be, to increase the efficiency of the service. This is particularly desirable, for the reason that some of the worst wrecks in the history of railroading have been attributed to sleepy and careless telegraph operators. But it by no means follows that, because the law has increased the operator’s pay and shortened his day’s work, it has also increased his efficiency. You can depend upon a good man, who works twelve hours at a stretch, while you can place little reliance upon a shiftless fellow who is called upon to work only nine. To increase efficiency in any department or industry, you must touch or act upon personality in some way. This giving of something for nothing by the United States government is at best a very questionable proceeding, and it is a pity that the nine-hour law could not have been framed with at least some reference to merit, attention to duty, and length of service. The man who works eight hours at high pressure is much more likely to be overworked, and, generally speaking, is more worthy of assistance than the twelve-hour man, who may handle on an average one message per hour, and consequently has difficulty in keeping awake. Unprejudiced judges are of the opinion that, as framed at present, the law will have no effect whatever upon the efficiency of the service. Of course the function of a railroad manager is to promote efficiency, but laws of this description ignore the usual and constituted authority and divert the attention of the employees to their unions and to the national government. But now we will take up this matter of personality and the human equation from a vastly more important point of view. A very serious and somewhat remarkable accident took place quite recently--an engine attached to a passenger train ran into an open draw and dropped thirty feet, leaving the tender and four coaches, containing seventy-five passengers, on the brink. The following day, in a report of this accident, the Boston “Transcript” quoted President Tuttle of the Boston & Maine Railroad, as follows:-- “You can’t open that draw, you can’t pull the bolts that block it, until all signals are set for danger, and they remain at danger while the draw is open. They do not disappear until the draw is closed and the signals for a clear track are set. The engineman knew these signals were there, and he knew what they meant. A railroad may supply every safety device known to modern science for precaution, it may put in the perfection of safety appliances for the safety of its passengers and its stock, but you can’t get by the _human equation_. You’ve got to stop right there. You can only discharge the man and get another, and, in turn, he is liable to do the same thing.”