Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/53

 too far away. It is a step forward that the overlords of transportation are bankers who have won their way rather than hereditary descendants of once reigning families. Some method must be evolved to make for more elastic control. Annual inspection trips will not overcome that rigidity in administration at which the public chafes and from which it seeks relief in drastic laws. An interesting and hopeful phase of present development is the election to directorates of trained railway executives like L. F. Loree and H. I. Miller. The professionally equipped railway director is a desirable evolution. Supply always follows demand, and the broad solution will be a composite made up of many elements of progress which perhaps have not yet unfolded themselves to any of us.

It is a great game, this transportation business. The more you study it, however, the more you discover that it is amenable to the same underlying principles on which rest the great and small activities of the human race. Like all professions, it has its distinct technique. Like all professions, it suffers from the inborn tendency of human nature to segregate itself behind an exaggerated class