Sixty demerits--dismissed. That's the rule of one big road. But the record does not always continue to be negative. Its positive side rests in the fact that for every month a man keeps his envelope clear five demerits are taken from the black side of his envelope. A trainman might have forty-five demerits against him, be on the narrow edge of discharge, and in eleven months, after turning the new leaf, have as clean a sheet as the best man on the division. This is as it should be. The demerit plan--often called the "Brown system"--represents the triumph of modern railroad operation over the old. The superintendent may have all the advantages of a time-tried disciple and a modern record system; have the prestige and the reputation that come from the operation of 500 miles of railroad, and still have a hard row to hoe. Out in the Middle West there was, until recently, a stretch of what was known as "booze railroad." It was a division where reputations and records alike counted for naught, where discipline was a mockery. Train-crews went from their runs direct to saloons and, what was a deal worse, began their day's work within them. The wreck record of that division that went forward to the State Commission was appalling--and half the wrecks were not reported. Yardmasters were busy day after day stowing away damaged equipment far from the curious eyes of passengers--the wrecking crews were hammering for big over-time pay. It was a thoroughly demoralized stretch of railroad. The distressed president of the system sent East for a superintendent who had a reputation. He thought he had his man. The new broom was a book-of-rules man. He had a quarter of his operating force laid off all the time, to go before him. He was a man fond of words, and he lectured those old fellows as if they had been school children. He might have done quite as well with his division if he had been operating it from Kamchatka. The men began to call their rule-books the "Joe Millers." The superintendent got mad and was lost--hopelessly. He began discharging right and left, and the wrath of the gods and of the brotherhoods (the great labor unions of the railroads), was upon him. The road was threatened with a big strike at the very time that it could least afford it. He avoided that strike only by acceding to the demand of the brotherhood chiefs that the superintendent's head be given to them on a silver platter. After that the "Man Without a Country" was in a more enviable position. There was not a railroad in the country that dared employ him, despite his excellent technical training. He drifted up into Canada, got a job running a state-operated line. He held that job less than a year. He was murdered of a winter's night in a shadowy railroad yard, shot down by a discharged train hand.