Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/100

 Chicago, June 3, 1911.

My Dear Boy:—It has doubtless occurred to you how worthless as evidence are many of the office files. How can any one tell a year afterward whether the general manager or the superintendent ever saw the telegram on which his name is typewritten? On most roads any one of a half dozen or a dozen people may have dictated the message. How much better, as under the unit system, to have every man doing business in his own name! He can then supplement the written record with much more intelligent recollection of events related to the transaction. We dictate the most important telegrams, which pass unquestioned, without an autograph signature. This is common sense and just as it should be. When an unimportant letter is written somebody has to get out a pen and sign some name or other. How inconsistent! Why not, for certain kinds of correspondence, let the stenographer typewrite