I hope that the example of the Santa Fé is to be followed by the other railroads of the country.[7] It is stimulating and encouraging; it shows that the big sick man of American business apparently is not beyond hope of recovery. For, in my own mind, the bonus system is, beyond a doubt, the eventual solution of the whole involved question of pay as it exists today and will continue to exist in the minds of both employer and employee. Our progressive and healthy forms of big industry of the United States have long since come to this bonus plan of paying their employees. The advances made by the steel companies and other forms of manufacturing enterprise, by great merchandising concerns, both wholesale and retail, and by many of the public utility companies, including certain traction systems, are fairly well known. It is a step that, when once taken, is never retraced. The bonus may be paid in various ways--in cash or in the opportunity to subscribe either at par or at a preferred figure, to the company's stock or bonds. But there is little variation as to the results. And the workmen who benefit directly by these bonus plans become and remain quite as enthusiastic over them as the men who employ them and whose benefit, of necessity, is indirect. * * * * * In this connection some studies made recently by Harrington Emerson, the distinguished efficiency engineer, are of particular interest. Mr. Emerson, while attached to the president's office of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, has had opportunity to study the railroad situation at close range and in a very practical way. He has placed his carefully developed theories in regard to the man in the shop and his wage into a study of the railroader and his pay-envelope. He has gone back into transportation history and found that at first employes were paid by the day. But long hours either on the road or waiting on passing sidings worked great hardships to them. As a more or less direct consequence the men in train service formed unions and succeeded in establishing the peculiar combination of pay upon the mile and the hour basis--which has obtained ever since in general railroad practice. If a train or a locomotive man was called for duty, even if he never left the station, he received a full day's pay. This, in Mr. Emerson's opinion and in the opinion of a good many others who have studied the situation, was as it should be and the principle should have been adhered to. But to it was tacked the piece rate of the mile. If a train or locomotive man made one hundred miles it was considered a day's work, even if made in two hours. In this way the piece-rate principle became firmly established alongside of the hourly basis.