So to your first qualities of dignity and authority and discretion--in these days we dare not call it discrimination--supplement those of affection and of loyalty. And to these add that of ability; for a conductor's entire work is not merely collecting his tickets and keeping the passengers of his train in good humor--though sometimes this last is a man's job by itself. He must bear in mind that Bible of the railroad--the time card--the place his train takes upon it; its relation to every other train, regular and special, on the line. His mind must be--every minute that he is on the road--a replica of the dispatcher's, working in perfect synchronism with that of the controlling head who bends over the train sheet back at headquarters. This work, comparatively simple on a double-track line, becomes, in many instances, tremendously complicated upon the many miles of single-track railroads that still bear a heavy traffic up and down and across America. The "opposing trains" to be met and passed; the slower trains moving in the same direction to be overtaken and also passed; the complications of special movements--all these must be borne in accurate correlation as the conductor passes up or down the line. He may have extra cars to his train and an extraordinarily difficult crowd of passengers to handle, but he cannot for a moment ignore the most minute detail of the flimsy messages that are handed to him during the entire length of his trip. And back of his specific orders for the day he must ever carry the entire scheme of the division's operation. [Illustration: THE KNIGHT OF THE TICKET PUNCH Courtesy, diplomacy, helpfulness are quite as much parts of his job as anything else. He is a distinctive American figure; no railroads elsewhere have his counterpart.] So here you have the passenger conductor--a real knight of the road, if you please--careful, discerning, courageous; a rare diplomat; perhaps in this commercial day of big things the spirit of the skipper of the famous old-time clipper ship incarnate! He is worthy of the great railroad empire of the world. In Europe, the state railroads of Germany and of France, the short, congested lines of Great Britain have not his counterpart. He is a product both of our nationalism and of the hard necessity that has hedged him in. And, in passing, it is worthy of note that some of the men who sit today in the highest executive positions of the greatest of our railroads have stood their long, hard turns with the ticket-punch. A recent and a peculiarly gifted chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission--Edgar E. Clark--was for many years a passenger conductor; his pride in his calling of those earlier years is unbounded.