The idea of Civil Service Reform—­promotion for the good men in your employ rather than hiring new ones for the big places—­is a rule which looks well on paper but is a fatal policy if carried out to the letter.

The business that is not progressive is sowing the seeds of its own dissolution.  Life is a movement forward, and all things in nature that are not evolving into something better are preparing to return into their constituent elements.  One general rule for progress in big business concerns is the introduction of new blood.  You must keep step with the business world.  If you lag behind, the outlaws that hang on the flanks of commerce will cut you out and take you captive, just as the wolves lie in wait for the sick cow of the plains.

To keep your columns marching you must introduce new methods, new inspiration and seize upon the best that others have invented or discovered.

The great railroads of America have evolved together.  No one of them has an appliance or a method that is much beyond the rest.  If it were not for this interchange of men and ideas some railroads would still be using the link and pin, and snake-heads would be as common as in the year 1869.

The railroad manager who knows his business is ever on the lookout for excellence among his men, and he promotes those who give an undivided service.  But besides this he hires a strong man occasionally from the outside and promotes him over everybody.  Then out come the hammers!

But this makes but little difference to your competent manager—­if a place is to be filled and he has no one on his payroll big enough to fill it, he hires an outsider.

That is right and well for every one concerned.  The new life of many a firm dates from the day they hired a new man.

Communities that intermarry raise a fine crop of scrubs, and the result is the same in business ventures.  Two of America’s largest publishing houses failed for a tidy sum of five millions or so each, a few years ago, just thru a dogged policy, that extended over a period of fifty years, of promoting cousins, uncles and aunts whose only claim of efficiency was that they had been on the pension roll for a long time.  This way lies dry-rot.

If you are a business man, and have a position of responsibility to be filled, look carefully among your old helpers for a man to promote.  But if you haven’t a man big enough to fill the place, do not put in a little one for the sake of peace.  Go outside and find a man and hire him—­never mind the salary if he can man the position—­wages are always relative to earning power.  This will be the only way you can really man your ship.

As for Civil Service Rules—­rules are made to be broken.  And as for the long-horned ones who will attempt to make life miserable for your new employe, be patient with them.  It is the privilege of everybody to do a reasonable amount of kicking, especially if the person has been a long time with one concern and has received many benefits.