Why the American railroad wage could not have been fixed upon some basis as this is difficult to understand. The fairest, the broadest-minded, the most human of our railroad executives across the land say that 90 per cent. of their difficulties with their men would be wiped out entirely if only they could have direct dealings with them. Witness the example which I showed in the preceding chapter; the big and representative road which sought to install a piece-work scheme and, working through the leaders of the shop-crafts unions, found that its actual shopmen had not been consulted at all in the entire transaction. The Pennsylvania railroad has fought desperately for the privilege of direct dealings with its employees. Three years ago its operating vice-president, General W. W. Atterbury, upon his return from France where he had had charge of the movement of our American troops and munitions, went on record as saying that the time had come for the rank and file of our railroaders to have a distinct voice in the operation of the properties. This does not mean in this instance that the Pennsylvania would become enthusiastic over the admission of direct labor representatives to its board of directors; such a genuinely progressive step still is quite beyond its imagination. But it has sought--and, I believe, honestly sought--to establish some sort of direct relationship between the great body of its workers and its executive officers. In accordance with such a plan the Pennsylvania started more than a year ago toward the election of employee representatives from its various shops. It turned its back upon the national officers of the shop-crafts union and said frankly that it preferred to deal separately with its various shops and their men as distinct and separate entities. One of the sharpest quarrels that the railroad managements have had with the national agreements has arisen from the fact that these contracts take no pay-roll cognizance of whether a worker is living in a big city, such as Philadelphia, or a very small one, such as Bradford--either Pennsylvania or Ohio. Under the national agreements the Southern Pacific would have to give the same pay to a station-agent at Orange, California (which is almost heaven), as to the agent at Winnemucca, in the Nevada desert (which is something less than heaven). In other days the Winnemucca man was given what corresponded to a bonus salary, in order to compensate him in part for the bleakness of his surroundings. Under the national agreements it was a little difficult to get a good man to go to Winnemucca--to put the matter mildly.