Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/128

 collections be handled by the only honest department.” So the superintendent was relieved from responsibility for making his conductors render honest returns. He soon lost interest in that feature. The roads grew, and superimposed above the superintendent came first the general superintendent, and then the general manager, both also relieved from this responsibility to which the auditor clung with jealous tenacity. The conductor probably could not have told what principles of organization had been violated. He was the first to see the easier mark the company had become, the first to profit by the serious mistake that had been made. He found that his reports were checked by office clerks hundreds of miles away and entirely uninformed as to current conditions of local travel. The superintendent and the other division officials who rode with him and knew conditions were powerless to check him promptly and effectively because his reports and returns were going to somebody else over the hills and far away. These officials, because somebody else was responsible, did not seem to care very much. So the conductor stole under their very eyes and got away with it. Anything like this which begets