Hine

following his father's death in 1899. I*1 I9°° ^e
was an inspector of safety appliances for the In-
terstate Commerce Commission. In 1907-08 he
acted as receiver for the Washington, Arling-
ton & Falls Church Railway, an electric line.
He was the author of two exceptionally vivid
books, Letters from an Old Railway Official to
His Son, a Division Superintendent (1904) and
Letters from an Old Railway Official, Second
Series, to His Son, a General Manager (1912).
These two series contain the writer's philosophy
of human relations as applied to problems of
railroad organization. They are direct, conver-
sational, intentionally filled with homely phrases
and railroad metaphors, but skilfully composed
and rich in thoughtful suggestions. While many
of the problems discussed are local, pertaining to
a given time and place, the series in general have
elements of value which ensure them a place in
the literature of railroad operation. He was
also the author of an article on wartime rail-
roading in Mexico contributed to The Railway
Library 1913 (1914).

Hine was an advocate of what he called the
"unit system of management" This system he
described in detail in a series of articles pub-
lished in the Engineering Magazine from Janu-
ary to June 1912 and in a book entitled Modern
Organization: An Exposition of the Unit Sys-
tem (1912). As proposed, the plan of reorgani-
zation was limited to railroads. From 1908 to
1911 he was organization expert for the Union
Pacific System, and as such put his plan into
operation on several of the Harriman lines.
After the dissolution of the Union Pacific-
Southern Pacific combination by order of the
Supreme Court, his plan was abandoned. In
1912-13 he was senior vice-president and gen-
eral manager of the Southern Pacific Railroad
of Mexico, and the Arizona Eastern Railroad.
In his later years, he was retained as an expert
organizer by several railroads, including the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Baltimore &
Ohio, the Delaware & Hudson, the Erie, and
the New York, New Haven & Hartford. In
this work, as in his previous work for the Union
Pacific, his basic principle was that too much
specialization is the lazy man's excuse for shift-
ing responsibility to other people.

In March 1915, Hine married Helen Under-
wood of Covington, Ky. They had no children.
He died in New York City.

Who's Who in America, 1927-2%; R. C. Hine, Hine
Geneal (1899) 5 & W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Officers and
Grads., U. S. Mil. Acad., Supp., vol. VI-A (1920); The
Biog. Directory of the Railway Officials of America,
1913; Railway World, July 1914; Railway Age, Feb.
19, 1927; Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Mar.

Hinman

1927; Evening Star (Washington, D. G), Feb. 14,
1927.3 S.D.

HINMAN, ELISHA (Mar. 9, i734~Aug. 29,
1805), naval officer, was born at Stonington,
Conn., the eighth of the nine children of Capt.
Andrew and Mary (Noble) Hinman and the
great-grandson of Sergeant Edward Hinman
who settled in Stratford, Conn., about 1650. He
went to sea young and at nineteen commanded a
brig in the West-India trade. About 1760 he
settled in New London. Early in 1776 he en-
tered Revolutionary service as a lieutenant in the
Continental navy, assigned to the Cabot, one of
Commodore Esek Hopkins' squadron on the
New Providence Expedition. Commanded by
Capt. J. B. Hopkins [#.#.], son of the commo-
dore, the brig bore the brunt of the action with
the British ship Glasgow. In August Hinman
was appointed to command her, and on the list
of captains, as established Oct. 10, 1776, he is
number twenty. Later he was given command
of the ship Alfred. After an uneventful cruise
in the spring of 1777, the Alfred was ordered to
France in company with the frigate Raleigh,
with Capt. Thomas Thompson as senior officer.
They sailed in August. Falling in with a large
British convoy escorted by four men-of-war,
they planned a descent on the convoy and the
capture of many prizes, but their scheme was
frustrated by circumstances and by the incapac-
ity of Captain Thompson. The ships arrived in
France and at the end of December set sail on
the return voyage. In March 1778 they fell in
with two British ships of inferior force, but the
Americans being separated, both enemy ships
attacked the Alfred and forced her surrender.
Thompson, blamed for not coming to her rescue
and for fleeing from an inferior force, was tried
by court-martial and was dismissed from the
navy. Hinman was tried later and acquitted
(Independent Chronicle, Boston, Mar. 18,1779).
Meanwhile he was confined in Forton prison,
but, escaping, he made his way to France and
thence home. This ended his Revolutionary serv-
ice. Finding no further employment in the
navy, in the later years of the war he turned to
privateering. He commanded the ship Deane
and the brigantine Marquis de Lafayette, but lit-
tle is known of his success in these ventures.
When in 1779 the Trumbull, built in the Con-
necticut River, was unable to pass over the bar,
Hinman, it is said, suggested the device used to
lift the frigate and float her over (Records and
Papers of the New London County Historical
Society, vol. I, pt. 4,1893, P- 47)- After the war
he was engaged in mercantile business and for
several years commanded the revenue cutter at

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