Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/132

 auditor proposition fails to recognize this underlying cause. It further violates principle, intensifies the evil and wastes more money by increasing the number of staff men doing line work. Its direct effects are vicious and its indirect effects are demoralizing to discipline. How can the young flagman have due respect for his superintendent or other official when he sees the train auditor come to the rear platform and demand to see the pass of the official? If he is an old flagman it is a little hard for him to see why he himself or his friend, the old station agent, might not have been given this new job with its fine pay. Like his superintendent the flagman may have been in the service twenty or thirty years. The train auditor, only last week a country hotel clerk, mayhap, flashes on them both as a would-be superior being from a better world. Neither of the two can become very enthusiastic in helping the train auditor to protect the company’s revenue.

It is an awful reflection for the conductors to meet, that, although the railroads of this country are now spending hundred of thousands of dollars for train auditors, they are more than getting it back from increased