Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/205

 former positions were discontinued. Puzzle: Find the reason. Answers to be sent to the Puzzle. Editor, Louis D. Brandeis, Boston, Mass.

A prominent railway executive, who is also a distinguished bridge engineer, said to me, “You must be patient until railway people can measure this big idea in their own little half bushels. I did not see it clearly until I thought it through in terms with which I am familiar. I reverted to my graphic statics and measured organization as a bridge truss. This showed the chief clerk as a short ordinate between the longest, the head of the unit, and next longest, the official second in rank. We would never design a bridge that way, for the short ordinate in between would break under the strain. You interpose the chief of staff and diminish your strains logically to suit the decreased resisting power. Why don’t you show the old telegraph men and the electric people the same idea in terms of things with which they are most familiar? They should see that you can not step down your potential through an undersized transformer.”

Railroad administration is usually said to be divided into four real departments, namely: