Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/171

Rh economical administration of the affairs of your own town or your sawmill, for fear lest the departments or the machinery might be deliberately ruined by employees, or by your fellow townsmen, in their efforts to secure said reward and encouragement?

If, after painstaking experiment, you become convinced that the plan would result in benefit to the interests of both management and men, would you hesitate to offer a bonus, or reward on coöperative principles, as an incentive to the economical use of supplies on a locomotive, for fear lest unprincipled engine crews should play tricks with the engine in order to secure the bonus?

Furthermore, if the encouragement of the best men and the best service can be shown to work against the interests of second-class men and poorer service, would you be willing, on a railroad, to sacrifice these second-class men and their interests, in so far as this action should become necessary, to secure the greatest possible efficiency for the safe-guarding of the traveling public?

Finally, in the history of the development and civilization of the human race, is it possible to point to a single item of real progress, efficiency, or achievement, that has not been the direct result of the sacrifice of something below to the more important interests of something above?

Does it not therefore follow that any legislation