The general manager of this road of which I am speaking--he is himself a real red-blooded little man who came up through every phase of railroading through his ability and his sheer energy--told the shop-crafts unions just what he would do and what he would not do and when he would do it. If they would accept piece-work on a schedule 25 per cent. higher than that of 1917 and turn out the same good volume of work that they turned out in 1917, they would be making considerably more than the per-hour basis gave them in 1921. If they would not accept piece-work by a certain specified day he would then proceed to lease these facilities to outside corporations, much as it would hurt the road's pride to do so. The men did not accept the piece-work system. And the general manager of the big road went from one end to the other of it leasing its shops just as he said he would do. When he came to the last of them he hesitated. It was the road's oldest shop. In it there had been made no little railroad history. Sentiment halted him. He thought of tradition. Remember, if you will, that there are as many times in railroading where tradition is a good thing as where it is an exceedingly bad thing. While he halted a request came to his ear from a personal friend, one of the oldest mechanics in that ancient shop. His old friend wanted to see the big boss--he still called him "Billy." He came and brought a friend or two with him. He wanted to know why the big shop, with its six thousand workers, had been shut down for so long. The G. M. answered promptly. He told of his proffered plan for piece-work. The old mechanic made him repeat his statement. "We never heard one word of it, Billy," he said. "Billy" stayed two more days in that town. On the second afternoon he called a mass-meeting of the shop-workers in the biggest hall in the city. They came, enough of them at least to fill the place to its very rafters. He put the piece-work proposition to those men. They ratified it overwhelmingly. The next day the shop reopened and from that day to this has been a humming center of revivified railroad industry. * * * * * There also is still another side to this vexed shop situation, and it too is a big side. I should not be fair if I did not give it at least passing attention.