this fair play to the individual frequently means a sacrifice of the public interests. In the operating department of a railroad illustrations of this point meet us at every turn.

In any ordinary business establishment there is at all times a certain amount of weeding going on for the good of the business. This is done on the personal judgment and initiative of the manager. In this way a high average of efficiency is attainable in all departments. But in the railroad business no such personal action on the part of a superintendent would be tolerated for a minute. It is surely reasonable that among the thousands of men who enlist in the railroad ranks there will be many who after a while will give evidence of unfitness for the service. Regardless of the power of the superintendent in theory, these men, if they are members of an Order or Brotherhood, must actually hurt somebody or do considerable damage to property, before they can be removed. That is to say, there is no elimination of weak spots until something happens. But this is not all. When a vacancy occurs in the service, it is immediately advertised, and the oldest bidder in point of service takes the position. In some of the agreements with the management the seniority rule is said to be absolute, in others it is modified by the clause, "with the approval of the superintendent." But in a business of the nature of a railroad the public interests demand that at all points the best available man should be in charge, regardless of his length of service or his rights as an individual. But the labor organizations do not permit the public interests or those of the corporation to interfere with what they consider to be the just and inalienable rights of each and every employee. Applied to the railroad business, the fixed principle that every man shall take his turn is fundamentally wrong and demoralizing. It is one of the wedges that are being used to destroy personal supervision and management and to substitute management by machine

methods. In my opinion its tendency is in the interests of poor service. Healthy competition in good behavior is almost obliterated, while honest ambition and esprit de corps get very little encouragement. It has the general effect of removing the attention of employees from the management and concentrating it steadfastly upon the organization, that is to say, upon the source from which increase of pay and all other blessings are expected to flow.

Of course, I cannot expect railroad managers to agree at all points with my estimate of their powers and functions, or of the helpless situation in which they now find themselves. Just at present, however, I am not interested in opinions from any quarter. The facts that interest me, and I think the public as well, relate to what these railroad managers have done in the past and are actually doing at the present day, with such powers as they possess, in the interest of safe and efficient railroad service. It may be very interesting to be informed that a superintendent has the power promptly to discharge an engineman for running a danger signal and placing the lives of five hundred passengers in utmost peril, but it is much more to the point to impress upon the public mind that the action of the official will not amount to a snap of his finger if an organization puts down its foot and signifies its opinion to the contrary. Illustrations of these facts are not far to seek. Only a short time ago an engineman was promptly discharged for disregarding a signal in a most inexcusable manner. The case was passed up higher for the approval of the general manager. Meanwhile the man had discovered some kind of an excuse for his action, and a committee was appointed to look into the matter. There being a total difference of opinion between the management and the grievance committee, the heads of different organizations were summoned from some western city to help straighten out the deadlock. After a while the man was put back on his en

gine and the report passed round that the case had been settled in this way, in the interests of harmony. No wonder the superintendent who was concerned in the matter threw up his hands in disgust and exclaimed, "What's the use?"

This method of interfering with the regular course of discipline may perhaps be proper and commendable in a cigar factory or a cotton mill, but on a railroad, where the lives of countless people are dependent upon obedience to the rules, its effect upon the service is absolutely fatal. But unhappily this is not the whole story, for it must be confessed that the public frequently joins hands with the organizations in defeating the ends and aims of discipline. After some of the worst and most inexcusable accidents that have ever occurred on New England railroads, petition has followed petition into the railroad offices with the expressed object of influencing the management to reinstate men in the service who have been convicted of inefficiency or unpardonable carelessness. Of course a superintendent should thoroughly investigate every case on its merits, but the verdict of the management should be final. The wisdom of this policy might be questioned if superintendents were political appointees or owed their positions to "graft" or "pull." As a matter of fact these men are among the hardest worked, most thoroughly capable and conscientious men in the United States. No combination of opinion from the public, the railroad commissioners, and the labor organizations is half as likely to be just and impartial as the individual judgment of the superintendent on the spot. The following significant remark by one of those gentlemen may well be taken to heart by the public as well as by employees: "With a free hand, we could put a stop to this killing in a week."

The story of railroad management is now before us, and the record of accidents all over the United States is the price that is being paid for it. As I have described the situation, the circle of cause and ef

fect is now complete. Beginning with the negligence of employees, which must be considered as the primary cause of these accidents, I next took up the matter of discipline, whose function it is to control and put a stop to this negligence. The system was found to be altogether inadequate and useless. Finally, I attempted to demonstrate that the labor organizations are responsible for the nature of this discipline, and thus indirectly for the accidents that have resulted from its inefficiency. Systems of discipline vary on different roads; nevertheless these contentions are sound and universally applicable, for the blight of interference with the management has in greater or less degree withered every system of railroad discipline in the United States, and exposed the traveling public to the mercy of service that is inefficient and demoralized.

For the rest, it will be evident that the foregoing diagnosis of the situation bears on its face unmistakable indications of the nature of the cure. At all cost interference with discipline must cease. This conclusion admits no compromise. At the present day every decision made by a superintendent is practically subject to the approval of the Grievance Committee. But this is not all: the railroad manager is handicapped and held up at every turn. In his dealings with the labor problem, if by any possibility he manages to escape the fire, it can only be by taking refuge in the frying-pan. An illustration in point is the problem of keeping expenses within reasonable limits and at the same time administering discipline to the very men who, backed by powerful organizations, are continually insisting upon additions to the pay-rolls.

But now, granting the situation and the difficulties as I have described them, in what direction are we to look for relief? As it seems to me, an unmistakable expression of public opinion would, in the first place, go far in starting us all thinking and working in the right direction. But even this will have little effect until railroad men wake up out of the self

satisfied trance in which at present they seem to be comfortably slumbering. Time was when our forgetfulness of the public interests could be accounted for by our own poverty and sufferings. But these unhappy conditions no longer exist, for to-day we are probably as well paid and otherwise as well provided for and equipped as any class of workers in the United States. Nevertheless, when we are informed that in the year 1906 ten thousand people were killed and one hundred thousand injured on American railroads, the knowledge does not seem to "give us pause" in any way, or to ruffle our individual self-satisfaction; while our organizations look at their surroundings silently and impassively as the pyramids and obelisks look upon the Egyptian deserts.

But affairs have now come to such a pass on the roads that at last we are imperatively called upon to answer questions and explain our position. Our best friends are beginning to criticise us. They remind us that interference with discipline is in reality an attempt to take part in its administration, and that our unions were never intended or organized

for that purpose. For a great many years an educational campaign has been in progress all over the country for the purpose of reminding us of our duties and obligations to our unions. This educational method has been extremely successful, and has brought into being armies of laboring men thoroughly loyal and self-centred. But the result of this system on the railroads has been so disastrous to human life that at last we are beginning to realize that there is a limit even to the pursuit of our individual wellbeing.

In paying attention, even at this late date, to the higher call of the social conscience, we railroad men shall enter a new world with brighter prospects and a wider horizon. The nobility of labor has always been the proud watchword of American civilization. Let us be watchful lest we forfeit our claim to share in this national distinction. By recognizing our duties and responsibilities to society in our treatment of these railroad problems, we shall finally take our place in line with those who through sacrifice and high endeavor are destined, in good time, to cut out their way to industrial freedom.

AMERICA, with the present generation, has fairly launched her native musical life. Just when the conditions have seemed most unpromising, in the midst of a commercial civilization, in the midst of so much of brutality and hurry in American life, the composer, the creator of an ideal world of tone, appears in our midst. Orpheus, in Hades, in some respects, could have found scarcely less congenial surroundings. There may be those who regard this impulse in our national life as untimely and misguided. Evolution,

however, seldom produces unnecessary species, and may not the appearance of this one be providential, its purpose regenerative, and its existence to be cherished by every means in our power? Certainly, if we were to have no use for the American composer he would not have been given to us; if the time for his labor were not ripe, he would not be here. And certainly, while there are any of us left who regard art as-something more than an elegant amusement imported from Europe for a wealthy

few, who see the deep need of art, in the broad and simple sense used by William Morris, as an inseparable beautifying element in the daily life of each of us, as maker or user, - we can ill afford to let slip the present opportunity of helping to birth in our own land an art which, if cherished, is unsurpassed in its power to lift our lives above the sordidness and routine into which so many conditions of the time would draw them. Even the severest critic of American music and most of the critics vie with one another for this title cannot deny the presence of an extraordinary and ever-increasing creative impulse in American musical art. While, for reasons to be considered, no American works in large forms come to general public performance, and but few to an occasional hearing, every year witnesses a notable increase of orchestral works, chamber music, piano and vocal works, and other compositions by American composers. Of smaller piano compositions and songs, the seasons bring forth an appalling quantity, and too often, it is true, an appalling quality as well; yet in the midst of this saturnalia appear many works of true distinction, of breadth and beauty, works infinitely in advance of those usually chosen to represent American music on artists' programmes. And from time to time an American opera rises from the composer's consciousness to completion-never to performance— and sinks again into a mysterious obscurity, oblivion, or temporary neglect, we are fain to know which.

It is not the purpose of this inquiry to seek to appraise this musical output. Musical students and musicians of high standing, who make it their especial task to follow every development and apprehend every musical revelation of modern Europe, and who are familiar with every advance of American music, know that our composers have produced many works surpassing a great amount of the current European music which fills our programmes in the United States.

These programmes by no means consist wholly of the works of the great epochmakers of musical history. If they did there would be nothing to say, for scarcely any American composer, however indispensable and vital to our national musical evolution, could successfully lay claim to having produced a major deflection in the course of the world's musical history. It is very probable, however, that musical tendencies already manifest in this country will eventually produce such a deflection. Our programmes, it is plain to see, are not made up from the few great masters who have hewn out the main channel of music's progress. Society would not tolerate such a diet. They contain a vastly greater proportion of lesser works. Some of these are obvious and charming, and introduced merely as a foil to weightier works. Others are more pretentious and represent the general effort of contemporary Europe for musical advancement, an effort offering examples often no whit better than those which represent American progress, and in many cases not so good. For oftentimes mere virtuoso tricks are proffered upon the artist's programme, and it is well known that we are not without genuine thinkers among our foremost composers.

Now it is precisely this general effort toward musical advancement which is the soil that finally produces the powerful master. When it becomes easy and common to do well, there suddenly arises one who can do infinitely better, and who would never have existed except for the general culture and effort. The universal nourishment of this culture is essential to the production of masters. Of many bards, one becomes a Homer. After generations of effort, when the technical equipment was insufficient and the national spirit too unawakened artistically to admit of the development of a preeminent individual, our nation is at last paralleling the general status of European musical culture. The conditions for powerful individual development are

no longer lacking, and in fact we now see one after another of our composers striking high above the international average.

To this question, then, does the matter at last resolve itself. Why do not the more excellent American compositions find a generous and adequate, nay, even a just, or, at the least, an appreciable representation upon American programmes ? Why does not American society, in the broad sense of the term, support American music? Is it neglect on the part of society, or is it unworthiness on the part of the composer? But for my belief that we are about to witness a great and farreaching revolution in this matter, the question would not have been broached. But there is at present every indication of such a revolution. The subsoil for this movement was prepared long since, when our popular music came into its own. More recently the discussion of a "national American music" and of "American" folksongs has arisen, and if no conclusions have been reached, a most important circumstance has resulted, namely, the stirring up of the rank and file of the American people to the study of the works of American composers. Individuals and clubs in all parts of the United States are taking up the study of American music, and there remains but one more step, — and that one sure to be taken, its general acceptance by American society. Yet there still remain formidable obstacles, the nature of which must be more generally recognized before the final establishment of American music in American musical life can be brought about. We must glance at the causes of the present condition.

The time was when we had nowhere to look but to Europe for our musical art. We accepted European music as a starting-point, as naturally as we accepted European civilization generally as the starting-point for ours. The love of our forefathers for the European lands of their birth but foreshadowed the

depth of our love for America; and their love for the great old-world masterworks, a passion which we inherit, is the measure of the intensity of the love which we shall one day bear to our own masterworks. The eastern ports of entry, especially Boston and New York, became the authoritative centres of European music, and therefore, at that time, of all music, in the United States. There the great symphonies and operas could be heard. About this serious work for musical progress grew up a life of musical fashion, a reflex of the life of social fashion, which, while it served indeed to support the performance of the masterworks, fostered also many European developments of lesser significance. In this life the appearance of a great European artist would rival in glamour the visit of an Athenian to a Grecian province. Coming from the source of all music, his authority would be nothing less than apostolic.

Gradually, as western cities aspired to a similar culture, both of art and of fashion, a "circuit" was developed. The artist from across the water could now carry his authority to St. Louis, or even as far as San Francisco. Finally other cities, Cincinnati, Chicago, Denver, were added. The peculiar commercial and artistic conditions of the United States, reinforced by the profound European ignorance of American geography, gave rise to the necessity for able management for these visiting artists. The seat of this managerial activity could be only in New York, which had finally become the point from which each virtuoso in turn started upon his triumphal American tour. A great and profitable business thus arose, and we are to recognize that by far the greatest asset of this business became not primarily the command of artistic ability, although this was manifestly present, but the command of fashion. For one listener whose object was to learn from the artist the authoritative interpretation of the works which he performed, or for one who sought him