Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/153

 Returning once more to the bank for inspiration and for light, do the bookkeepers of a chain of associated banks report to a head bookkeeper in a central office in a distant city? No, each bank is a self-contained unit under the president or a manager. The policy is dictated, the methods are prescribed by a central authority. Efficiency, integrity, and uniformity are insured by inspections and audits by competent experts free from local affiliations.

What is going to become of the accounting department? Why, the accounting department is going to be absorbed by the operating department. From the ashes of the ruins there will arise a department of inspection or efficiency which will do the things that the so called auditors are now helpless to accomplish. Some of the men in this new department will be recruited from the earnest officials and clerks of the accounting department of today. These men fail to attain the result they so loyally desire, not from their own limitations, but from the fallacy of the system under which they work. They deal with accounts—mere symbols; with money, a representative. Their work, to be effective, must