He sent for the steel man in the morning and asked him what was the best price he could make for his product. The steel man cut his regular profit in half, but the president was not satisfied.
"You'll have to show me a better margin than that," he said.
"We'll eliminate profits," said the steel man, "and give you the stuff at cost, to save shutting down our plant."
"Is that the best you can do?" persisted the president.
Before he was done, the steel man had also eliminated depreciation on plants and half a dozen minor expenses. He agreed to deliver at the mere cost of raw material and labor. Then he received an order that would have broken some records in prosperous times. The road was committed to some big building projects and it needed whole trainloads of girders and columns; bridges by the dozen. The railroad president went further, and helped out the steel man's car-building plant. He ordered 3,000 steel freight cars, and every day he was getting reports from his general manager of a further falling of traffic tides. They had motive-power rusting on sidings, and they were dumping freight cars in the ditches along the right-of-way because they did not have storage-room for them. That took courage of a certain high-grade sort. When those freshly-painted new steel cars began to be delivered in daily batches of sixty, some of his directors asked him where he was going to find room to store them. He did not answer, for he did not know; but in the long run he won out. His company had a new equipment for the returning flood-tide of traffic which had cost it 25 per cent less than that of its competitors. When the time came to build its big improvement it had the steel all stored and ready. The president was able to tell his directors then that he had saved them $1,700,000 on that close bargain that he had driven in panicky times.
Sometimes a little thing makes a railroad president big.
The head of a busy road in the Middle West was hurrying to Chicago one day to attend a mighty important conference of railroad chiefs. His special was halted at a division point for an engine-change, and the president was enjoying a three-minute breathing spell walking up and down beside his car. An Italian track laborer tried to make his way to him. The president's secretary, who was on the job, after the manner of presidents' secretaries, stopped the man. The signal was given that the train was ready, but the president saw that the track-hand was crying. He ordered his train held and went over to him. The story was quickly told. The track-hand's little boy had been playing in the yards and had hidden in an open box-car; so his small companions had reported. Afterwards the car had been closed and sealed by a yardmaster's employee. Somewhere it was bumping its weary way in a lazy freight train, while a small boy, hungry and scared, was vainly calling to be let out.