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“A Triumph in Modern Philanthropy”: Age Criteria in Labor Management at the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1875–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Brian Gratton
Brian Gratton
Affiliation:
Brian Gratton is associate professor of history at Arizona State University.
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Labor policies based on age have been variously explained as benevolent, maliciously anti-union, rational, or prejudicial. Nineteenth-century devices to stabilize the work force set the stage for the Pennsylvania Railroad's 1900 program of age limits, mandatory retirement, and pensions, but its immediate cause was the conviction that the seniority system already in place seriously reduced the efficiency of older workers. As the following article shows, this economic calculation remained appealing to some executives in the twentieth century, even as the actual costs of pensions became painfully apparent. For others, the old fear of workers' unrest reappeared as a justification for ignoring the impending crisis of the 1930s.

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Articles
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Business History Review , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , Winter 1990 , pp. 630 - 656
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Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1990

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References

1 “[A]rticle for publication in the newspapers,” Pennsylvania Railroad Company Records, Urban Archives, Temple University [hereafter, PRR-Temple], Pension Department, Minutes of the Board of Officers, 1900, box 27.

2 The leading analyst of industrial pensions described the Pennsylvania program as “the model for large numbers of American formal plans.” Latimer, Murray Webb, Industrial Pension Systems in the United States and Canada, 2 vols. (New York, 1932), 1: 26-27, 44–48Google Scholar. On the PRR's prominence in the nineteenth century, see Chandler, Alfred D. Jr, “The Rail-roads: Pioneers in Modern Corporate Management,” Business History Review 39 (Spring 1965): 16–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in The Essential Alfred Chandler: Essays Toward a Historical Theory of Big Business, ed. McCraw, Thomas K. (Boston, Mass., 1988), 185Google Scholar.

3 For discussion of motives, see F. A. Vanderlip's comments in Squier, Lee Welling, Old Age Dependency in the United States (New York, 1912), 73Google Scholar; Nalebuff, Barry and Zeckhauser, Richard J., “Pensions and the Retirement Decision,” in Pensions, Labor, and Individual Choice, ed. Wise, David A. (Chicago, Ill., 1985)Google Scholar; and Williamson, Samuel H., “Unions, Seniority and Pensions: A Historical Study of on [sic] the Railroads,” Working Paper 88-2, Department of Economics, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (1988)Google Scholar.

4 Higgins, Neal Owen, “The Early Pension Plans of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Pennsylvania Railroads, 1880-1937” (Ph. D. diss., University of Nebraska, 1974), 14, 29, 37–40Google Scholar; Quadagno, Jill, The Transformation of Old Age Security (Chicago, Ill., 1988), 80–88Google Scholar; Haber, Carole, Beyond Sixty-Five (New York, 1983), 113–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brandeis, Louis, “Our New Peonage: Discretionary Pensions,” The Independent 73 (25 July 1912): 187–91Google Scholar. For an example of union criticism, see Locomotive Engineers Journal 60 (Feb. 1926)Google Scholar. Hirschman, Albert examines how “stiff penalties for exit” reinforce “loyalty,” in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 93Google Scholar.

5 Graebner, William, A History of Retirement (New Haven, Conn., 1980), 9–13Google Scholar; Hendrick, Burton J., “The Superannuated Man,” McClure's Magazine 32 (Dec. 1908): 122Google Scholar; Achenbaum, W. Andrew, Old Age in the New Land (Baltimore, Md., 1978), 48–50.Google Scholar

6 Hendrick, “The Superannuated Man”; Henderson, Charles Richmond, Industrial Insurance in the United States, 2d ed. (Chicago, Ill., 1911), chap. 8Google Scholar; Wood, Norman J., “Industrial Relations Policies of American Management, 1900-1933,” Business History Review 34 (Winter 1960): 403–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, Patricia T., End of the Line: Alexander J. Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad (New York, 1978), 141Google Scholar; Dellheim, Charles, “Business in Time: The Historian and Corporate Culture,” The Public Historian 8 (Spring 1986): 9–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Creation of a Company Culture: Cadburys, 1861-1931” American Historical Review 92 (Feb. 1987): 13–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Latimer, , Industrial Pension Systems, 1: 18Google Scholar; 2: 774; Hannah, Leslie, Inventing Retirement (New York, 1986), 11, 25-29, 100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for contemporary applications, see the essays in Wise, ed., Pensions, Labor, and Individual Choice.

8 Ducker, James H., Men of the Steel Rails (Lincoln, Nebr., 1983)Google Scholar; Licht, Walter, Working for the Railroad (Princeton, N.J., 1983)Google Scholar; McMurry, Donald L., The Great Burlington Strike of 1888: A Case History in Labor Relations (Cambridge, Mass., 1956)Google Scholar; and Stromquist, Shelton, A Generation of Boomers (Urbana, Ill., 1987)Google Scholar.

9 Latimer, , Industrial Pension Systems, 2: 751, 785-88, 894–97Google Scholar.

10 Conant, Luther Jr, A Critical Analysis of Industrial Pension Systems (New York, 1922), 29, 37, 45, 225Google Scholar; Latimer, , Industrial Pension Systems, 2: 894–97Google Scholar; National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., Industrial Pensions in the United States (New York, 1925), 24–25Google Scholar. On the relative productivity of older workers, see Doering, Mildred, Rhodes, Susan R., and Schuster, Michael, The Aging Worker: Research and Recommendations (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1983)Google Scholar, and chap. 13 in Levine, Martin Lyon, Age Discrimination and the Mandatory Retirement Controversy (Baltimore, Md., 1988)Google Scholar.

11 Salop, Joanne and Salop, Steven, “Self-Selection and Turnover in the Labor Market,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 90 (Nov. 1976): 619–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Ducker provides the best discussion of the monitoring difficulties faced by railroad executives. Discretionary seniority constituted one response to this problem. (Men of the Steel Rails, 4-5, 13, 42-52, 111-15, 124, 140, 169-70.) For an example from another industry, see Sundstrom, William A., “Organization Failures and Wage Determination,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 10 (1988): 201–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Licht states that seniority clauses in union contracts “sought to formalize and guarantee what had already been customary.” Working for the Railroad, 73, 130-31, 148, 171, 212; McMurry, Great Burlington Strike, 17, 39; Stromquist, Boomers, 242; and Mater, Dan H., “The Development and Operation of the Railroad Seniority System,” Journal of Business 13 (Oct. 1940): 387–419Google Scholar.

13 Licht, Working for the Railroad, 131, 171, 212; Samuel McCune Lindsay, “Report on Railway Labor in the United States,” in U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports on Labor Organizations, Labor Disputes, and Arbitration and on Railway Labor (Washington, D.C., 1901)Google Scholar. Using replies to questionnaires from forty American roads, Lindsay estimated that at least two-thirds of all regular railroad employees worked in firms that encouraged early entry, long service, and promotion from within. See also McMurry, Great Burlington Strike, 38; and Ducker, Men of the Steel Rails, 13-17. Certain occupations required written or physical examinations, trials, or successful training, but seniority dictated the opportunity to apply for such jobs. Reading Company Records, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Del. [hereafter, Reading Collection, Hagley], box 200, folder “Foreign (non-Reading) Railroads (1)”; Stromquist, Boomers, 109, 130-33.

For train service ladders and added benefits of seniority, see Personnel Department, box 931, folder “Age Restrictions on Employment and Promotion, 1919-1942 (11)”; Superintendent to R.E. McCarty, 2 Feb. 1916, Lines West, Operating Department, box 1, folder, “Engine and Train Service—Bidding in Runs with Long Hours in Order to Earn More, 1914-1916,” and box 5, folder, “Trainmen—Rates of Pay, 1904-1909,” all in Pennsylvania Railroad Company Records, Hagley Museum and Library [hereafter, PRR-Hagley].

14 Ducker, Men of the Steel Rails, 113.

15 Labor efficiency measures the cost of labor per unit produced. At the turn of the century, the term often carried a meaning closer to productivity—that is, labor time per unit produced. Recent economic theory explains mandatory retirement via seniority and efficiency: Lazear, Edward P., “Why Is There Mandatory Retirement?” Journal of Political Economy 87 (Dec. 1979): 1261–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Agency, Earnings Profiles, Productivity and Hours Restrictions,” American Economic Review 71 (Sept. 1981): 606–20Google Scholar. For a critical assessment of this approach, see Levine, Age Discrimination. Levine finds the economic rationalizations given for mandatory retirement insufficient explanations and concludes that age discrimination plays a central role.

16 Latimer, , Industrial Pension Systems, 2: 894–95Google Scholar. A number of historians mention seniority as a possible contributing factor to age-based labor policy. See Hannah, Inventing Retirement, 134-37; Haber, Beyond Sixty-Five, 113-21; and Williamson, “Unions, Seniority and Pensions.”

17 Boyer, George R. examines workers' attempts to build unions through benefit plans in “What Did Unions Do in Nineteenth-Century Britain?” Journal of Economic History 47 (June 1988): 319–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the response of railroad management see Stromquist, Boomers, 244-46; McMurry, Great Burlington Strike, 264-67; and Licht, Working for the Railroad, 263. For vivid evidence of management reaction to the strike of 1877 see Reading Collection, Hagley, box 200, folders “Employees: Railroad Strikes (1) March April,” and “Employees: Railroad Strikes May—July (2).”

18 Max Riebenack cites Scott's role in “What the Pennsylvania Railroad Company Is Doing for the Benefit of its Employees,” 10 Feb. 1903, Economic Club, Boston; PRR-Hagley: “Employes' Fund,” 12 Sept. 1877, citing board of directors' action, 13 Oct. 1875; Thomson to Roberts, 23 Aug. 1881; general manager Charles Pugh to President Roberts, 24 Nov. 1885; and approval of program, 4 Dec. 1885, effective in 1886, all in Board File (BF-) 91, “Relief Department/Insurance Project.” Workers' contributions and clauses precluding legal action against the company made the policy doubly attractive to management. Suits were still filed (PRR-Temple, Pennsylvania Voluntary Relief Department, box 68), but the secretary of the Reading Railroad claimed they became “exceedingly rare” after relief departments were established. Secretary to William L. Langford, 22 July 1912, Reading Collection, Hagley, box 333, folder, “Employees: Pensions and Benefit Plans (1907-1917) 5.”

19 See letters from insurance actuaries to company officers, and circular dated 25 Jan. 1886, PRR-Hagley, BF-91; and Riebenack, “What the Pennsylvania Is Doing.” Watkins, J. Elfreth, History ofthe Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, Pa., 1896), 2: 39Google Scholar.

20 Advisory Committee of Relief Department to President and Board of Directors, 30 Aug. 1887, PRR-Hagley, BF-91.

21 Ibid.

22 PRR-Hagley: “Memoranda in Regard to the Pennsylvania R. R. Pension Fund,” 31 Dec. 1888; Charles Pugh to President Roberts, 3 Oct. 1890; M. Riebenack to N. F. Shortridge, 20 April and 16 Dec. 1891, in BF-92, “Relief Department/Pension Department”; Minutes of the Board of Directors, 8 Oct. 1890; Special Committee Minutes Book, vol. 1, 13 Oct. 1890, 31 Dec. 1891; Road Committee Minutes, vol. 3,20 and 27 April, 9 Nov. 1891. M. Riebenack to John P. Green, first vice-president, 27 June 1899, PRR-Temple, Pension Department, Minutes of the Board of Officers, 1900, box 27.

23 PRR-Hagley: Riebenack to President Roberts, 24 Jan. 1893; “Memorandum for President Roberts, in Regard To Proposed Changes in Relief Department”; and “Statement ‘J’ Statement Showing the Number of Men Over 65 Years of Age, the Cost of Replacing Them by Younger Men and the Financial Benefit per Annum to the Company,” BF-92; “Memorandum for Special Committee on Superannuation Fund,” 18 Jan. 1897, BF-237, “Pension Department”; Riebenack to Green, 27 June 1899.

Born in 1844, Riebenack began work for the PRR in 1863 as a clerk, was appointed assistant comptroller in 1881, and helped to plan the relief program in the mid-1880s. He became comptroller in 1905 and died in 1910. His study of pension systems in the United States and Europe eventually appeared as Railway Provident Institutions in English-Speaking Countries (Philadelphia, Pa., 1905)Google Scholar. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., and Stephen Salsbury have described the innovative aspects in PRR management structure that made Riebenack's role so powerful: auditing and accounting, influential staff operations carried out in the central offices in Philadelphia, had ready access to the president and board of directors of the railroad and command over statistical data from all divisions. Chandler, “The Railroads,” and, with Salsbury, “The Railroads: Innovators in Modern Business Administration,” in The Railroad and the Space Program, ed. Mazlish, Bruce (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar; Morris, Ray, Railroad Administration (New York, 1915), 63Google Scholar; Wilson, William Bender, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (Philadelphia, Pa., 1894), 2: 59–61Google Scholar; New York Times, 15 May 1910.

24 “Memorandum for President Roberts,” and “Statement ‘J’” The effects of age were indirect—that is, length of service influenced wages. But the correlation between tenure, age, and wage was extremely high and persisted into the 1920s. In 1928, average monthly compensation peaked at ages 61 and 62, falling only slightly thereafter. PRR-Hagley, Legal Department, box 23, folder “8827 Railroad Retirement Board—Pension Statistics 1931 (8).” These patterns differed sharply from those of the working population as a whole; in these distributions, male workers reached peak annual incomes in their 30s. Ransom, Roger L. and Sutch, Richard, “The Labor of Older Americans: Retirement of Men On and Off the Job, 1870-1937,” Journal of Economic History 46 (March 1986): 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brian Gratton and Frances M. Rotondo, “Industrialization, the Family Economy, and the Economic Status of the American Elderly,” Social Science History (in press).

25 “Memorandum for President Roberts,” “Statement ‘J’,” “Memorandum for Special Committee.” Riebenack to Cassatt, 21 Aug. 1899, PRR-Temple, Pension Department, Minutes, Board of Officers, 1900, box 27.

26 From 1900 to 1911, pensions were charged to the division where wages were paid and under the same account; subsequently a separate line was provided. G. M. Ellsworth to F. C. Hoff, 24 July 1915, PRR-Hagley, Motive Power Department, box 465, folder “Pension Allowance Percentages 1915-17 (9).”

27 25 May 1896, Special Committee Minutes, vol. 1, PRR-Hagley; Riebenack to Green, 27 June 1899. E. G. Campbell notes the economy measures taken by the PRR during the 1890s in The Reorganization of the American Railroad System, 1893-1900 (1938; New York, 1968), 267-70.

28 Vice-president James McCrea informed President Cassatt on 9 January 1905 that “in the train service … we have not for many years employed any but young men; in fact, while there was no rule on the subject, the age for firemen was quietly understood to be twenty-eight years.” PRR-Hagley, BF-321. Lindsay's survey of European and American railroad practice in the late nineteenth century revealed extensive use of age limits, these clearly connected to internal promotion systems (“Railway Labor”). See also Higgins, “Early Pension Plans,” chap. 7. Lower occupational age limits continued after formal rules at higher ages were established. PRR-Hagley, Personnel Department, box 819, folder, “Age Limit for Employees—General 1929-1950 (8).”

29 Watkins, History, 2: 39; 14 Dec. 1897, Special Committee, vol. 1. Given the formula by which pensions came to be calculated, age limits only moderately restrained pension costs.

30 Riebenack to J. P. Green, 17 Nov. 1902, PRR-Hagley, BF-321; Riebenack to Pugh, 15 March 1906, PRR-Temple, Pension Department, Board of Officers Sustaining Papers, box 41, folder “Order of Business 4-22-07.” For further evidence of the general goals addressed by age limits, see “Age Limit for Employees—General 1929-1950 (8)”; and Riebenack to Green, 27 June 1899. Lindsay argued that the 1900 age limits were designed to ensure a successful relief scheme; “Report on Railway Labor,” 879-80.

31 Riebenack to Green, 27 June 1899. In May 1896, President Roberts ordered the Superannuation Committee to assess the effects of implementing the program for “employes who … had not availed themselves of the opportunity to become members of the Relief Fund.” “Memorandum for Special Committee.”

32 PRR-Hagley: Minutes, Board of Directors, 28 June 1899; 4 Dec. 1899; Resolutions of the Board of Directors, Dec. 1899. The most striking difference from English and Canadian practice was that PRR pensions were entirely noncontributory. Latimer, , Industrial Pension Systems, 1: 44Google Scholar.

33 PRR-Hagley: Minutes, Board of Directors, Resolutions of the Board of Directors, Dec. 1899; PRR-Temple: Pension Department, Minutes, Board of Officers, 18 Nov. 1899, Exhibit E, box 27. Hayes to vice-president W. R. Taylor, Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, 12 Nov. 1907, Reading Collection, Hagley, box 333. Riebenack's distrust of contributory plans built on “purely actuarial or scientific lines” sprang from “the inevitable train of legal incidents, such as ‘withdrawal’ values, ‘refunds’, ‘participation by legal representives,’ etc.” Memorandum to vice-president Samuel Rea, 14 July 1909, PRR-Hagley, Executive Department, box 150, folder “Pension Department—Information on Pensions (1907-1916) 10.”

34 PRR-Hagley: Special Committee, vol. 1, 14 Dec. 1897; Minutes, Board of Directors, 1901-1907, especially 23 Jan. 1907; McCrea to Cassatt, 23 Oct. 1902, BF-321. PRR-Temple: Pension Department, Minutes, Board of Officers, 23 March 1905, Exhibit N; 22 April 1907, Exhibits A ansd M, box 29; box 40; Sustaining Papers, box 41, folder “Order of Business 4-22-07,” rejected exhibits. The shift muted but did not silence petitioners: PRR-Hagley, BF-A-1675.

35 At first, “Every case presented to the Board of Officers” for early retirement was “acted upon favorably and Pension allowance granted.” PRR-Temple: Pension Department, Minutes, Board of Officers, 23 Jan. 1902 [sic, in Minute Book for 1901], box 27; Riebenack to vice-president J. J. Turner, 21 March 1905, Exhibit N, Minutes of 23 March 1905, box 29; Board of Officers Sustaining Papers, box 41, folder “Order of Business 4-22-07,” rejected exhibits. PRR-Hagley: Riebenack to Pugh, c. 30 Jan. 1902, and Riebenack to Green, 17 Nov. 1902, BF-321. The overriding problem was early retirement, especially among the highest paid workers.

36 Higgins, “Early Pension Plans,” 58-59; Riebenack's 1899 estimate can be found in his memorandum to Cassatt, 21 Aug. 1899. PRR-Temple, Pension Department, Minutes, Board of Officers, 24 Sept. 1906, box 29.

37 Special Committee Report, “Exhibit AA,“ 22 Oct. 1906, PRR-Temple, Minutes, Board of Officers, 1906. Riebenack and future president W. W. Atterbury signed this report.

38 “Exhibit A,” 15 March 1906, PRR-Temple, Pension Department, Minutes, Board of Officers, 22 April 1907, box 29; PRR-Hagley: Minutes, Board of Directors, 10 Jan. 1906, 9 June 1915; BF-A-14; BF-A-2491; Executive Department, box 150, folder, “Pension Department—Information on Pensions (1907-1916). Atterbury's proposition and the enthusiastic response it elicited can be traced in Atterbury memorandum, 21 March 1921; A. J. County to G. L. Peck, 17 March and 7 April 1925; and passim, PRR-Hagley, Legal Department, box 20, folder “8827 Railroad Retirement Board Correspondence 1899-1926 (12).”

39 The researcher must choose among several somewhat inconsistent statistical series. I base most of my calculations on William Breiby's “Report on Pension Plan of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company,” 20 March 1933, PRR-Hagley, Personnel Department, box 855, folder “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).”

40 Unsigned memorandum to Advisory Committee, 28 April 1931, PRR-Temple, Legal Department, box 14, folder “Correspondence w/about VRD Gen. 1905-1931.” From more than 264,000 workers in 1922, the railroad's labor force fell to 192,000 in 1930. PRR-Hagley, Legal Department, box 23, folder “8827 Railroad Retirement Board—Pension Statistics 1931 (8).” Graebner states that the average age of all railroad workers rose from 32 to 42 between 1920 and 1930; A History of Retirement, 154.

41 “Report on Pension Plan.” the report's figures for active workers differed somewhat from other series. In other data, pensioners made up slightly lower percentages of those compensated. For operating income estimates, see draft of a report to president W. W. Atterbury by Messrs. Heiserman, Clement, County, and Fell, March 1933, and, for 1924, County to Peck, 17 March 1925, in “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics—1910-1933 (5).” Latimer discusses the pattern in the railroad industry of costs rising more rapidly than the number of pensioners; see Industrial Pension Systems, 1: 162, 213-16.

42 PRR-Hagley: Neilson, 14 March 1913, Executive Department, box 150, folder “Pension Department-General (1906-1916) (9).”

43 Roberts and Rea, in Rea memorandum, 8 June 1914, BF-A-2491.

44 PRR-Hagley: Minutes, Board of Directors, 3 and 9 June 1915; BF-A-14; BF-A-2491 for 1914-15. Hunter predicted that the PRR would support about 6,000 pensioners in 1929 with maximum costs of $2.6 million; the actual number exceeded 9,500 and cost more than $6 million. The actuary underestimated the average benefit and grossly underestimated annual retirements during the period 1915 to 1929 (in part for reasons he could not have foreseen). Folder “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5)”; cf. Higgins, “Early Pension Plans.”

43 PRR-Hagley: A. J. C[ounty]. to O. J. D., 5 Feb. 1915, Executive Department, box 150, folder “Pension Department—General (1906-1916) (9).”

46 W. H. Myers to Rea, 19 June 1915, PRR-Hagley, BF-A-2491; Latimer, , Industrial Pension Systems, 2: 866, 898Google Scholar; A. J. County to G. L. Peck, 11 Feb. 1925, “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).” The ominous liabilities of railroad pension plans had received some public notice, as in J. C. Clark's “Railroad Employees’ Pension Plans,” Railway Age, 17 April 1925.

47 PRR-Hagley: Hunt to Peck, 10 Sept. and 2 Dec. 1925; vice-presidents A. J. County, G. L. Peck, and M. C. Kennedy to Board of Officers, 24 Nov. 1925, in “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5)”; County to Arthur W. Thompson, 28 April 1925, in “8827 Railroad Retirement Board Correspondence 1899-1926 (12).”

48 “Reports and Statistics—Pension Department, 1910-1933 (5).”

49 Assistant general counsel H. S. Prentiss Nichols to E. A. Stockton, 9 April 1915, and Nichols to Hunt, 5 March 1925. “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).”

50 Memorandum to G. L. P[eck]., prepared by C. S. K[rick]. for a committee of the “three regions, the Altoona Works and the General Office,” dated 8 Dec. 1925; and memorandum from general manager R. V. Massey and Hunt to Krick, regional vice-president, 7 March 1925, in “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).” Other memoranda of line officers and Pension Department staff displayed similar sentiments.

51 County to G. L. P[eck]. and M. C. K[ennedy]., 4 Dec. 1925; Miller to [Elisha] Lee, 27 March 1926, “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).”

52 For stiffer retirement standards, see memoranda of I. A. Miller, Elisha Lee, and Peck, “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).” A slight drop in the number of retirees aged 65 to 69 appeared in 1926 and 1927 statistics. A “Memorandum for Mr. Felton” (c. 1926) states that earlier funding proposals had also been rejected on the grounds that reserves would “take the use of the money, as it were, out of the business.” Writing President Atterbury on 21 March 1929, the chairman of the Pension Department's Board of Officers reiterated the 1926 rejection: “the consensus of opinion” is “that it would be unwise at this time to make any change in our present method of charging to operating expenses.” County vigorously advocated reserves: County to Peck, 7 April 1925, “8827 Railroad Retirement Board Corrrespondence, 1899-1926 (12).”

53 County, Peck, and Kennedy to Pension Board, 24 Nov. 1925; unsigned memorandum [Knck?], 7 Dec. 1925; County pondered the same possibility in a letter to Thompson, 28 April 1925. “Pension Department—Reports and Statistics, 1910-1933 (5).”

54 For a spirited treatment of railroad retirement legislation, see Graebner, A History of Retirement, chap. 6.

55 “Article for publication.”

56 Indeed, Riebenack appeared surprised by the high incidence of retirement. Scattered comments suggest that PRR executives assumed that older workers wanted to remain at their jobs as long as possible; this opinion may have provided another incentive for man datory retirement.

57 Latimer laid out the often violated rules for labor cost savings: there can be no possibility of reducing the wages of older employees who, under crude payroll savings calculations, are assumed to be employed and paid at full wage until they die; the reduction in the number of employees by more efficient replacements must be maintained for an equivalent period of time; the new employees should receive a constant rate of pay; and the pensioners cannot receive increases in their pension benefits. Industrial Pension Systems, 2:, 895-96, 904.

58 Latimer reviews the various justifications in Industrial Pension Systems, 2: 904-9. Although the PRR had pioneered in rigorous administration and accounting procedures, Stephen Salsbury argues that the railroad failed to maintain its high standards after 1900. “Twentieth Century Railroad Managerial Practices: The Case of the Pennsylvania Railroad,” in Recent Developments in the Study of Business and Economic History: Essays in Memory of Herman E. Krooss, ed. Gallman, Robert E. (Greenwich, Conn., 1977)Google Scholar.

59 Latimer, Industrial Pension Systems; National Industrial Conference Board, Industrial Pensions.