O

N his new division the superintendent found abundant opportunities for decisive action. It was the big system's sore spot. "Boomer" railroad men infested it; outlaw crews, discharged elsewhere, gravitated to it. Since the day of its building this desert stretch of the line had been ruled by the bulldozer and the bad man who bluffed the officials and dominated the quiet worker.

On the first day the superintendent found, besides many pumping joints and broken ties, a rail with not a single spike to hold it down between joints. On the second day a switch engine tied up in front of his window, the crew marched across the yard and, defiantly violating the iron-clad rule prohibiting drinking on duty, returned with large cans of foaming cheer. On the third day the new boss found two men drawing pay for three men's work in the repair shops.

Then the storm broke. Within a month the shop payroll was cut down a full third; after due warning many men were dismissed for flagrant violations of train-service rules; box-car thefts ceased; roadmasters and section foremen looked at the track with new eyes; every department felt the

BY WALTER V.
WOEHLKE

worn boards heave under its dragging feet.

Twice the superintendent of the outlaw desert division was attacked by men armed with knives and guns. His house was torn to pieces by a bomb while he slept. His past was pried into for a weak spot.

Incendiaries burned down the shops. He recommended that they be not rebuilt. For a year and a half bodyguards watched over him day and night. Thus did the desert division fight efficiency.

He

But the superintendent won. whipped that stretch of road into shape.

When he left, all the employes presented him with a handsome token of their esteem. Their spokesman, looking the boss straight in the eye, said:

"We fought you hard. You have beaten us, and we realize now that you were right. You always fought fair, on the level. You were always just. That's why we offer you this remembrance."

Efficiency is this superintendent's one ideal, the safe, uninterrupted, economical movement of trains his one goal. He reached the goal, obtained the co-operation of all those around him because he recognized the man, his rights and his needs, even in the lowest dark-skinned section hand!

While the new superintendent of the desert division was whipping the mutinous upper crust of his army into shape for effective work-without rigorous discipline in the ranks no army, industrial or otherwise, can win he was equally busy raising the efficiency of the pariah among railroad workers, the section "hand." Usually the section gangs consist of foreigners, ignorant of the country's language and customs, the easiest victims of @ the vultures preying on defenseless poverty. In the Southwest section hands are imported from

Mexico by the carload, paid a dollar a day to start with and turned over to supply firms anxious to get the largest part of that dollar. To these peons went the superintendent with an interpreter, inspecting their quarters, their food, their accounts with the commissary, encouraging them to tell their grievances, promising fair, just treatment.

The peons spoke, slowly, haltingly at first, but without reserve when they found that the big man was sincere. The superintendent listened. He said little, but his heel came down at once, crushing the petty graft of which the Mexicans had

been the victims. He protected their wives and daughters. On the desert he gradually replaced the ancient shacks built of old ties with modern hollow-tile houses, cool, comfortable, sanitary and attractive. Around every house he planted trees, drilled wells and supplied pure water in abundance. Every month he went over every foot of his division, stopping at all section houses and workcars where the brown, solemn-eyed children were waiting for him, certain to receive an apple, a banana or an orange.

Nor did the superintendent forget the