Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/160

 be more useful if he is on my staff. He builds up a larger staff with an inevitable retarding bureau of correspondence. He perhaps has a $200 traveling engineer finding fault with the division performance of the $300 superintendent.

Sometimes a general superintendent is located at a large city under the theory that the importance of the metropolis demands an officer of higher rank. There are various ways to skin a cat, and the method we have seen is not necessarily the only solution. The Pennsylvania handles successfully large cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland and Chicago with a superintendent who has the authority of a general agent.

The unit system of organization, because based on sound fundamental principles, solves several vexatious problems. Among these is this matter of general superintendents’ districts. Under the unit system every assistant should have his office of record in the same building with the head of the unit. For example, it is a violation of good organization to give a district passenger agent the title of assistant general passenger agent with an office of record at a city away