Beyond this there is little more to be said--at least pending the decision of the highest court in the land. But no matter how the Supreme Court may find in this vexatious matter, the fact remains that the union man in railroad employ will continue to be paid upon this complicated and unfit double method of reckoning--clumsy, totally inadequate (built up through the years by men who preferred compromise) and complicate an intelligent and definite solution of a real problem. Some day, some railroader is going to solve the question; and, in my own humble opinion, a genuine solution, worked from the human as well as the purely economic angle is going to rank with the bonus and other indications of an advanced interest on the part of railroad executives in the men as a step toward a betterment of the relations between them. * * * * * In my opinion such steps as these that I have just outlined not only would go far toward solving the frequent "crises" that arise between the railroads and their employees, but would tend greatly to prevent the depreciation of the human equipment of the road. Remember that this labor problem is one which presses hard not only upon the body politic, but upon the whole human structure of our country. Its solution, as well as the solution of the physical question, must be not only immediate, but economic and financial. All this is bound to result soon in a very great increase in the railroad's pay-roll. It is an added cost that must be met before the railroad can come into its own once again. It is quickly obvious that the great pay-roll must be equalized, that in these days of steadily mounting cost of living, its unorganized labor--its trackmen, its carmen, its shopmen, its clerks, its station agents--must be given a fairer chance in the division of its wages. It needs to pay better salaries to its minor officers, and it is today handicapped for lack of these. It is obvious also that it is going to be extremely difficult, to say the least, for the railroad to reduce the wages of its organized labor. Put this statement to the ones that have gone before and you can quickly see the need for very great increases in the railroad's pay-roll in the immediate future. It is going to be compelled to seek a larger share in that great portion of the nation's outgo that goes to pay for its labor of every sort. It can no longer postpone the pressing demands of its unorganized workers. The failure to increase their portion of the pay-roll, with its consequent tendency toward the depreciation, if you please, of much of the human element in the operation of the railroad, may yet prove to be a problem, larger and more serious than the failure not alone to increase but to prevent the physical depreciation of the railroad.