In the early 20th century, the Pullman Company, manufacturer of the eponymous sleeper train cars, was in trouble. As its president, John Runnells, described it in a business magazine of the era, "During (our) long years of growth wasteful ways had been fostered, losses, inaccuracies, and confusing unrelated systems had been spontaneously developed." Runnells noted that other small manufacturers around the U.S. shared Pullman’s predicament, and many were also beginning to recognize that their "conditions were bad and methods slipshod."