Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/180

154 sity for the intervention of the national government holds good, a general description of the American method of discipline, upon which the efficiency of the service is, in the mean time, absolutely dependent, should nevertheless prove interesting to all classes of readers.

To a great extent, a system of discipline represents a state of mind, the ideals of an individual or of a community, and sometimes, under certain special conditions, an economical habit or business necessity. In the old countries of Europe, where the public interests smother individual rights as well as the schedules of labor organizations, the railroads have taken for their motto, “He that sinneth shall die.” Cassio, faithful and true, with an honorable and spotless record in the public service, falls from grace in an unguarded moment, and is sorrowfully yet absolutely doomed to dismissal by the high-minded Othello. “Nevermore be officer of mine.” Such in spirit, and, to a great extent, in actual railroad life, is the European interpretation of discipline. The European officials work upon the plan, and with the unswerving determination to protect the traveling public at all costs. The record of accidents on their railroads leaves little doubt as to the correctness of their methods of railroading. On the other hand, in the United States, the railroad manager, backed to a certain extent by