Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/189

 storekeeper. The underlying conception is that railroad stores are maintained to help make the wheels go around, that all supply activities should be concentrated upon the most economical manufacture and sale of transportation.

This brings us to another phase of the problem. Frequently a railroad as a plant is adequate to manufacture more transportation than it can sell. The other fellow is getting too much of the competitive business. Investigation often shows that railroad solicitors can sell a shipper no freight or passenger transportation, because his salesman receives no orders from the railroad’s purchasing agent. The industrial bureau of a traffic department works to create new business which is fostered by discriminating freight rates. Yes, I stand up and use the word “discriminating,” because, when properly understood, it implies intelligence and science, and is therefore one of the finest words in the language. This good work of the traffic department in creating wealth and developing industrial communities in territory local to a particular road may be largely lost to that road because its purchasing agent, consciously or unconsciously, fails to exercise