Reading the American Past: Printed Page 41
DOCUMENT 18–1
Marshall Kirkman Likens Railroad Corporations to Armies
Railroads employed thousands of workers who operated trains, tracks, and related buildings and machinery that stretched for hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles. To control these massive enterprises safely and efficiently, railroad corporations pioneered in the development of professional managers. In the selection below, Marshall Kirkman — a railroad man who wrote many volumes about railroad operations, finance, equipment, and management — declared that railroads should be modeled on an army. Kirkman's argument illustrates corporate leaders' common assumption that their businesses had to be hierarchical, authoritarian, and left alone to function efficiently and profitably.
The Railway Army, 1894
The force that operates a railway is like an army. It is methodically organized and drilled. It has its commander, its rank and file; its officers, sub-officers and privates. Its action is, however, peaceful and conciliatory. It strives at all times to preserve amicable relations with everyone.
The officers and employees of railroads are trained to obey in all matters relating to their business. In other things they are free. It is necessary that they should be obedient. The cooperation of a multitude can not otherwise be secured.
Insubordination among railway men is as great an offense as insubordination in an army. The offense may not be material, but it is indicative of a spirit destructive to the morale of the force and which, if not checked, will, sooner or late, wreck its usefulness.
Rules and regulations governing trains and the station and track forces of railroads must have the force and effectiveness of a criminal code; but they must be simple and practicable. Insubordination and disobedience of orders in their department of the service endanger both life and property. They also prevent ... effective and economical service.
All who enter the service of the railroads do so on a perfect equality. ... But here equality ends. The energetic, capable, faithful and ambitious at once forge to the front. They do not need any one to assist or favor them. Their merits are sufficient. ... The natural law of selection operates in the railway service as it does everywhere else. It arranges and classifies the force and sooner or later, assigns each person to his appropriate sphere of duty. ...
A railway officer, in his intercourse with his subordinates, strives to look at every question from the point of view of the employee as well as his own; sees the excuses for their action, even if he can not justify them. It is only by such a course that he can govern effectively. ... This is oftentimes the case when men become demoralized by agitators and demagogues; become dissatisfied and captious [hypercritical] without reason. ...
Subordination is a cardinal principle of organized [that is, well-managed] labor — subordination to the employer, subordination to each other according to rank and natural precedence. It is based upon a just conception of the rights of men in their relation to property. All men, however, are entitled to justice and humane treatment.
The discipline of corporate forces is as absolute as that of a man of war. Obedience to superior authority is unqualified. It is, however, the privilege and duty of every subordinate in emergencies, when an order is given, to make such suggestions as the circumstances of the case demand. Here his responsibility ends, except in criminal cases.
An order once given, must be obeyed. Absolutism such as this involves grave responsibilities. It presupposes skill, accurate knowledge and appreciation.
In the administrative department of [railway] carriers lack of discipline breeds insubordination, idleness and extravagance. It engenders kindred evils ... with the added element of danger. ...
While the discipline of corporate life is as absolute as that of an army, there is this difference between them: army life destroys the individuality of all below the rank of officer; corporate life intensifies the personality of subordinates by recognition and promotion. Everyone knows that promotion will follow intelligence, faithfulness and industry. The officers of railroads are drawn from the ranks. It is therefore for the interests of such corporations to build up the intelligence and morale of subordinates; to strengthen the force by careful selection and cultivation. ...
The work of those in the employ of railroads must be continuous, systematic and orderly. It is said that cleanliness is next to godliness. I think, however, orderliness comes next, because it is the most distinctive characteristic of the creator. Cleanliness is largely conventional. But systematization or orderliness lies at the foundation of every beneficent thing whether of nature or man. ...
There must be a place for everything and everything must be in its place. There is a time to do everything and a necessity that everything should be done at such time. ... Slothfulness and inactivity indicate worthlessness and precede or attend decay of mental and physical faculties. They are evinced in a lack of method and system just as the effective exercise of these forces indicates life and growth. ... The more capable men in business life are taught to comprehend and obey while young; they grow up in the service, passing from once branch of usefulness to another as they increase in knowledge and understanding. ...
Immutable economic laws prescribe that labor, no matter how perfect its organization or widespread its appliances, can not, except temporarily, coerce capital beyond the point of reciprocal interest.
Labor, to exist at all, must act in harmony with those who give it employment, and in due subordination to the interests of society as a whole. It must respond quickly and intelligently to the necessities of its environment, just as capital, in its turn, must occupy the avenues of trade open to its profitable employment if it would not see them rendered useless or destroyed.
The world owes its civilization to the ability of capital to find safe and profitable employment, coupled with the uncontrolled choice exercised by every man of working where and when he pleases. ...
The strife of capital to find profitable use gives extended employment to labor and at the same time reduces the cost of the thing produced. Thus benefiting mankind, first, by giving work to those who need it, and second, by enabling them to live cheaply and well afterward.
Efforts of labor to put up the price of wages without reference to its value and the demand for its product, can not but result disastrously. Capital is quick to respond to any natural scarcity or call for labor, but becomes moribund under coercion.
The condition of the laborer, and of the employer as well, has steadily improved under the benign influences of peaceful and co-operative effort. These conditions are not improved by artificial associations of labor seeking (through combinations) to coerce the employer. ...
The association of vast bodies of laboring men under leaders clothed with arbitrary power, breeds among capitalists apprehension lest the equilibrium between labor and property be destroyed thereby. Ability to precipitate strikes over extended territories and involving thousands of men, is not a power that can be safely entrusted to any man or body of men. Its abuse follows as a matter of course.
Civilization and its comforts are the products of harmonious action between capital and labor; of the freedom of man to do as he pleases so long as he does not molest his neighbor. The moment either labor or capital dominates, from that moment the downfall of both begins. In our great Republic we have so much freedom that it sometimes seems to be in danger of degenerating into license; of giving birth to fatal heresies. The attempt to combine the labor elements of the country under particular men, without reference to the rights and equities of employers, is an illustration. Such an effort would mean, if successful, the subversion of the rights of everyone not able to resist its concerted onslaught. It says to capital, “You must be governed by us, you must permit us to fix the conditions of your business, or we will destroy you.” From whence arises this spirit? Is it the result of too much liberty, or is it the product of oppression. Was its primary object to rob capital of its prerogative, or was it laudable and proper? Has it grown out of abuses, or is it a struggle for supremacy merely? Did it have its origins in the brains and hearts of honest (however mistaken) men; in some real or imaginary grievance, or in the purposes of demagogues and knaves? No two, it is probable, will agree as to the cause. But whatever it may be, the betterment of labor is not to be attained by making it despotic. Labor, to be successful in its ambitions, must be in harmony with the commercial instincts and individual freedom of mankind.
Employers must not look for relief from labor upheavals and other social disorders to autocratic forms of government, any more than labor must look to communism for relief from the exactions of capital. The cure lies in better laws and in the more uniform and intelligent administration of those that already exist. Disorders are to be remedied, so far as they are attributable to bad government, by raising the standard of law makers; by eliminating from political influence irresponsible and unfit persons. In this direction lies the secret of better government of a representative character. Such form of government, to be of a high standard, must emanate from men of conservative instincts, accustomed to the exercise of judgment and familiar with the art of governing. ... And men in order to select trustworthy and worldly wise agents, must themselves be trustworthy and worldly wise. All not thus fitted must be excluded from participation in government until such time as they acquire the needed qualification, if good government is to be attained. ...
The purposes of labor acting through organizations and guilds [are] a matter of concern to everyone. Their power, if wisely executed, is not fraught with harm, but if short sighted or vicious is pregnant with evil. The strength of organized labor has nowhere evinced itself with more startling vividness than in its demands upon railroads and in its efforts to close these great avenues of business when its exactions were not complied with. ... We have seen the two forces, capital and labor, here arrayed against each other, in a life and death struggle. ... There can be no doubt but that, through the upheavals of labor, railroads may at any time be paralyzed for the want of some one to operate them. ...
The operation of railroads and manufactories by their owners is only possible so long as the force [of workers] engaged in carrying them on acts in harmony with the proprietor, with the single object of achieving success. The moment that the owner and employee are no longer free agents to carry out as individuals in harmonious accord the purpose that seems best to them, that moment labor will cease to find employment. Capital will not seek investment where profits are dependent upon a thing so uncertain as the caprice of men acting as a unit or without immediate and special reference to the rights of the employer. Labor must conform to the reciprocal conditions in harmony with the general good. In doing this it best advances its own ends. ...
It is a common belief in America that [railway] carriers lose no opportunity to oppress the public. Intelligent men need not be told that this is a delusion. The association of interest between carrier and patron insures harmony of action and an equitable distribution of the burdens of transportation. ...
Those who look to government as the source of all good, will ask why railway companies should not, in the event they find it impracticable to operate their properties because of labor complications, turn them over to the government. The answer is that governments are unfit to manage commercial enterprises. Nor would such transfer lessen the evil. It would augment it. Governments owe their strength and fairness to individual members of society. If these, acting singly or in concert, will not allow owners of railroads to manage their properties successfully, it is not probable that they would allow the government to do so. ...
There may seem to be antagonisms between labor and capital, but they are only seeming. Labor is interested in protecting capital in all its just rights and prerogatives; in permitting it to manage its own affairs in its own way in harmony with the best good of all concerned. Capital, on the other hand, is vitally concerned in granting to labor its just rights. ... The bond of sympathy and interest between them is complete and irevocable.
From Marshall M. Kirkman, The Science of Railways, vol. I, Organization and Forces (Chicago: The World Railway Publishing Company, 1894), 63–104.
Questions for Reading and Discussion