Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/95

 of transportation is misleading and ridiculous.

All instructions from general officers, including the general manager, should come to employes through the superintendent’s office, not only to respect the integrity of the organization unit, but to preserve a history of the transaction in the authorized office of record—to get all the runs, including the general manager’s special, on the right train sheet as it were. Whoever acts, whether the superintendent himself or an assistant, has at hand in one office of record full information for his guidance. You understand that the superintendent is boss. He may see any or all communications from employes as he thinks fit. Where previously he instructed his chief clerk what to bring to him personally, such instruction he now gives to his chief of staff. An employe who addressed “Assistant Superintendent” may receive a reply signed by the superintendent himself. This is an honest record, not a subterfuge. Some assistant, the chief of staff, has handled the paper as well as the superintendent himself. To the subordinate the superintendent is normally an incidental representative of authority entitled to