Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/201

Rh as our railroads are concerned, this is the “land’s end” of discussion on the safety problem. Harmony is the altar upon which the interests of the traveling public are continually being sacrificed. Harmony is the final adjuster, arbitrator, and referee. Harmony dictates the policy of the railroad, the nature and severity of its discipline, while efficiency follows in the rear, as best it can. Just as soon as the public gets interested sufficiently in preventable railroad accidents to call for all the facts in relation to them, then, and not until then, will harmony be dethroned from its dictatorship. So I think I am justified in repeating the statement that these preventable railroad accidents and the causes which lead up to them have not yet received proper attention and thought at the hands either of the public, of the employees, or of the managing bodies of the railroads. The superintendent allows the public to remain in ignorance out of regard for his job, and the manager does the same in the interest of harmony.

It must not be imagined, however, that the management is alone to blame in the matter. Only too often, in the past, when a railroad manager, in the interests of good service, has made a test case of his power, he has had the public as well as the men to contend against. As a matter of fact, even at the present day, the public is not in a mood to