Perhaps the best field for a short consideration of this interesting subject, so far as railroads are concerned, is to be found on the Santa Fé Railroad system. The introduction of the individual-effort reward or bonus system of stimulating employees to extra or unusual effort, and of compensating them suitably therefor, is probably the most important of all the betterment work on this railroad. The inauguration of the system followed the strike of the machinists, boiler-makers, and blacksmiths, in May, 1904. The credit for its introduction on the Santa Fé is due to Mr. J. W. Kendrick, Second Vice-President. Mr. Charles H. Fry, associate editor of the “Railroad Gazette,” who has written a valuable and comprehensive report of this betterment work, gives the following as its principal features and objects:-- “To restore and promote cordial relations, based on mutual respect and confidence, between employer and employee; “To restore the worker to himself by freeing him from the small and debasing tyrannies of petty and arbitrary officials on the one side, and from individuality-destroying union domination on the other; “To give the company better, more reliable, and more trustworthy employees; “To increase automatically, and without fixed limit, the pay of good men, this increase of pay depending on themselves and not on their immediate superiors; “To increase the capacity of the shops without adding new equipment; “To increase the reliability of work turned out and the efficiency of operation performed; “To do all these things, not only without cost to the company, but with a marked reduction in its expenses.” The programme was certainly ambitious and praiseworthy, and in Mr. Fry’s report the results, after a thorough trial extending over several years, are given in the following paragraph:-- “It can safely be said that the betterment work _has_ resulted as anticipated in restoring harmony between employer and employee, in restoring self-respect to the latter and increasing his efficiency and reliability. Also it has raised his wages ten to twenty per cent on the average. In addition, for every dollar of supervising and special expense incurred, the company has saved at least ten dollars in reduced costs.”