HIS DUTY TO KEEP EMPLOYEES IN HARMONIOUS ACTION--"THE SUPERINTENDENT DEALS WITH MEN; THE GENERAL MANAGER WITH SUPERINTENDENTS"--"THE GENERAL MANAGER IS REALLY KING"--CASES IN WHICH HIS POWER IS ALMOST DESPOTIC--HE MUST KNOW MEN. The general manager operating the railroad is held strictly responsible for the economical movement of the trains and the maintenance of the property. To the greatest portion of the railroad army (nine-tenths of it employed in the operating department) he is an uncrowned king. The superintendent, as we shall presently see, is the unit of the operation of the road, just as the division over which he is head is one of the physical units that go to make up some thousands of miles of first-class railroad track. The division superintendent deals in men; the general manager deals in division superintendents; and right there is the radical difference between the two. The superintendent must see to it that his men get a square deal. If he does not see to it in the first instance they will see to it in the last, and woe to him if such be the case. For the men who work on the steam railroad are well-paid, well-read, keenly sensitive as to their privileges and their rights. And from these men have come the division superintendents, as different each from the other as men can be grown. It is the general manager's chief duty to bring these very different men into harmonious action. That is absolutely essential to the successful operation of the railroad. The general manager must have absolute firmness with his superintendents. He can appoint or discharge them as they can appoint or discharge their trainmen--more quickly in fact, for up to the present time there is no brotherhood of railroad superintendents. A certain division superintendent in the East had 150 miles of busy double-track trunk line under his direction. At his headquarters were a big classification yard and a coaling-station for the engine of the two divisions that intersected there. In the course of gradually increasing business, the coaling-station, which stood in a narrow ledge beside the main-line tracks and under the breast of a steep mountain-side, had to be enlarged. In so small a place, that was a difficult engineering problem. It was necessary to build much bigger coal-pockets and while the engineers were removing the old and building the new station, temporary coaling facilities had to be provided for the busy engine point. That part of the problem--more operating than engineering--was finally solved by going across the main-line tracks and locating a temporary coaling-station there. That made a bad situation--with the heavy main-line traffic constantly intersecting with engines drilling back and forth to their coal supply, and the general manager was quick to realize it. He went up there and warned his superintendent.