Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/185

Rh but it appears in a somewhat different light when we study it in relation to the safety problem.

For example, a man makes a serious mistake, without actual injury to persons or damage to property. He is punished to the extent of ten demerit marks. In the course of a few months five or six other men commit the same mistake. In every instance a secret record of the mistake has been kept. When a mistake remains unchecked, sooner or later it arrives at the epidemic stage and reaches its climax in a wreck, and then finally a man is discharged for it. The demerit marks have had no corrective or preventive effect whatever. Under this system the trouble is allowed to evolve in a natural way, from a simple case of unchecked negligence into a disaster in which, perhaps, a community is called upon to suffer.

On the other hand, a system that takes publicity and the pocketbook for its principal factors enlists every corrective element in its favor. You cannot separate suspension and loss of pay from publicity, to a certain degree. In all systems of punishment or correction, in a police court or elsewhere, there are usually two or three elements that are depended upon to bring about beneficial results. These factors are the shame that is attached to the publication of names, the pecuniary loss in the shape of a fine, and the danger of imprisonment. The Brown sys-