Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/54

. “We are a little different,” or “You do not quite understand our peculiar local conditions,” are the arguments with which ultra-conservatism has opposed progress in all ages, are the obstacles which make so interesting all real contests for principle.

I make no apologies for taking you in this letter from the witness stand of the west to the financial chancelleries of the east. When both the banker director and the general manager learn that signatures on letters and tramtrain [sic] orders must be as sacred as when signed to bank checks, we shall be winning back a little of that old-time sense of personal responsibility which is so needed for improving composite efficiency today. What better epitaph could any man desire than this, “He helped to teach corporations to remember that lasting composite strength comes only from intelligent recognition of individual manhood?” Affectionately, your own, D. A. D.