Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/17

 not expect the people to espouse a cause in which we are half-hearted. Either we are right or we are wrong. Either the government should own and run the railways, or the stockholders should retain possession and we, the intelligent entrepreneur class, should continue our scientific management—for scientific it has been.

In a world of complexities, filled with relative things, some truths are so absolute that they are axiomatic, some positions so pronounced that there is no middle ground. From Trafalgar there rings through the ages Nelson’s signal, “England expects every man to do his duty.” Its interpretation and its adaptation for us to-day mean that every railroad man, every home lover, every believer in property rights must defend the sound position of the railways, must anticipate the assaults of pseudo-socialism. The individual is the indivisible unit of society. The family is the consecrated unit of civilization. The home is the prime requisite for the family whose very existence depends upon the right of property, tangible or intangible.

You say that all railway men are doing something along this line. So they are, but