" yt '"T""pj
"W'rr''
The Commoner
1?
VOL. 16, NO. 9
T1 jv1 n-
i
The President's Appeal to Congress
in Railroad Controversy
On August, 29, President Wilson appeared bc
for the Joint session of congress to explain the
situation growing out of his efforts to settle the
controversy botween the officials of the railroads
and the railroad brothorhooda, and asking for
tho enactment of legislation which would en
ablo.hlm to prevent or stop a strike.
President Wilson did not make his appeal to
congress until after he had exhausted evory ef
fort to bring-about an amicablo solution of tho
railroad controversy. Congress responded to
his appeal by tho enactment of tho Adamson
eight-hour law, which was signed by him Sep
tember .1. The text of the Adamson law will bo
found on another page. President Wilson's
messago to congress follows:
"Gentlemen of tho Congress: I havo come to
you to seek your asslstanco in dealing with a
very gravo situation which has arisen out of the
demand of tho employes of tho railroads engaged
In freight train service that they bo granted an
eight-hour working day, safeguarded by the pay
ment of one hour and a half of service for evory
hour of work beyond the eight.
"The matter has been agitated for more than
a year. The public has been made familiar with
tho demands of tho men and the arguments
urged in favor of them, and oven more familiar
with tho objections of tho railroads and their
counter-demand that certain privileges now en
joyed by their men and certain bases of payment
worked out through many years of contest be
reconsidered, especially in their rolation to the
adoption of an oight-hour day. The matter
camo up some three weeks ago, to a final issue,
and resulted in a completo deadlock between
tho parties. Tho means provided by law for me
diation oi ho controversy failed, and tho means
r,b U,mtn' t,or wnicU th0 law Provides, were
rejected. Tho representatives of tho railway
executives proposed that the demands of the men
??!! !bmfKted In their entirety to arbitration,
along with certain questions of readjustment as
to pay and conditions of employment, which
seemed to them td be either closely associated
with tho demands or to call for reconsideration
on their own merits.
STRIKE BECOMES IMMINENT
tin3!!e ,mqn tely declined arbitration, es
pecially it any of their establshed privileges were
by that means to be drawn again in question.
Tho law in tho matter put no compulsion upo
them Tho 400,000 men from whom t de
mands proceeded had voted to strike if their de
mands were refused; the strike was imminent.
It has been sot for September 4 next. It affects
the men who man the freight trains on practic
ally every railway in the country. The freight
2m ?inHiir?Us.hou,t th0 Unlted States must stad
still until their places are filled, if, indeed it
should prove possible to fill them at all. Cities
will bo cut off from their food supplies, the
whole commerce of tho nation will bo paralyzed
men of every sort and occupation will bo thrown
St,? mpl0,yment' countless thousands will, in
all HkeH hood, bo brought, it may be, to the very
point of starvation, and a tragical national ca
lamity, brought on, to be added to the other dis
tresses of the time, because no basis of accom
modation or settlement has been found,
EFFORT AT MEDIATION
"JuBt so soon as it became evident that media
tion under tho existing law had failed and that
arbitration bad been rendered impossible by the
attitude of tho men, I considered it my duty to
confer with the representatives of both tho rail
ways and tho brotherhoods, and myself offer me
diation, not as an arbitrator, but raeroly as
spokesman of tho nation, in tho interest of jus
tice, indeed, and as a friend of both parties, but
not as) judge, only as tho representative of 100,
0.00,000. men, women and children who would
pay the price, tho incalculable price, of loss and
suffering should these few men insist upon ap
proaching and concluding tho matters in contro
versy botween them merely aa employers
employes, rather than as patriotic citizens of the
united States looking before and after and ac
cepting tho larger responsibility which the nub
Uo woud put upon them.
. EIGHT-HOUR DAY LOGICAL
"It deemed to me, in considering the subject
matter! of the controversy, that trfe whole spirit
of the time and tho preponderant evidence of re
cent economic experience spoke for the eight
hour day. It has been adjudged by tho thought
and oxporienco of recent years a thing upon
which society is justified in Insisting as in the
interest of health, efficiency, contentment and a
general increase of economic vigor. The whole
presumption of modern experience would, it
seemed to me, be in its favor, whether there was
arbitration or not and tho debatable points to
settle were those which arose out of the accept
ance of tho eight-hour day rather than those
which affected its establishment. I, therefore,
proposed that tho eight-hour day be adopted by
the railway managements and put into practice
for tho present as a substitute for the existing
ton-hour basis of pay and service; that I should
appoint, with tho permission of congress, a. small
commission to observe tho results of the change,
carefully studying tho figures of tho altered oper
ating costs, not only, but also tho conditions of
labor under which the men worked, and tho op
eration of their existing agreements with the
railroads, with instructions to report the facts
ns thoy found them to congress at the earliest
possible day, 'but without recommendation; and
that after the facts had been thus disclosed, ad
justment should in some orderly manner be
sought of all the matters now loft unadjusted
between the railroad managers and the men.
CITES OPINION OF COURT
"These proposals were exactly in line, it is in
teresting to note, with the position taken by the
supreme court of the United States when -appealed
to to protect certain litigants from the4
financial losses which they confidently expected
if the should submit to the regulation of their
charges and of their methods of service by pub
lic legislation. Tho court has held that it would
not undertake to form a judgment upon fore
casts, but could base its action only upon actual
experience; that it must be supplied with facts,
not with calculations and opinions, however sci
entifically attempted. To undertake to arbitrate
the question, of the adoption of an eight-hour
day in the light of results merely estimated and
predioted would be to undertake an enterprise of
conjecture. No wise man could undertake it, or
if ho did undertake it could feel assured of his
conclusions.
"I unhesitatingly offered the friendly services
to the railway managers to see to it that justice
was done the railroads in the outcome. I felt
warranted in assuring them no obstacle of law
would bo suffered to stand in the way of their
increasing their revenues to meet the expenses
resulting from the change so far as the develop
ment of thoir business and of their administra
tive efficiency did not provo adequate to meet
them. The public and the representatives of the
public, I felt justified in assuring them, were dis
posed to see nothing but justice in such cases
and were willing to serve those who serve them.
BROTHERHOODS ACCEPT PLAN
"Representatives of the brotherhoods accepted1
the plan, but the representatives of the railroads
declined to accept it. In tho face of what I can
not but regard as the practical certainty that
they will bo ultimately obliged to accept the
eight-hour day by the concerted action of organ
ized labor, backed by the favorable judgment of
society, the representatives of the railway man
agoraonts have felt justified in declining a peace
ful settlement which would engage all the forces
of justice, public and private, on their side to
take care of the event. They fear the hostile in
fluence of shippers, who would be opposed to an
increase of freight rates (for which, however, of
course, the public itself would pay) ; they ap
parently feel no confidence that the interstate
commerce commission could withstand the objec
. tions that would be made. They do not care to
rely upon the friendly assurances o? the con
gress or the President; they have thought it best
that they should be forced to yield, if they must
yield, not by counsel, but by the suffering of the
country. While my conferences with them were
in progress, and when, to all outward appear
ances these conferences had come to a stanT
still, tho representatives of the brotlwrhSS
suddenly acted and set the tte Wejjtem!!.
"The railway managers based their decision '
to reject my counsel in this matter upon tS
conviction that they must, nf ,. .
selves or to the country, stand firm t i em'
ciple of arbitration which tho men had rlS'
I based my counsel upon the indisniitnE !cd
that there was no means of obta nine nil, act
tion. The law supplied none; earnest efL tra
mediation had failed to influence thl men hti
least. To stand Arm for the princlnte Sr t
tration and yet not get arbitration seemed tn
futile, and something raoro than futfl? hi8
it involved incalculable distress to toe ft8
and consequences in some respects worse S
those of war, and that in the midst of peace
ARBITRATION NOT PRACTICABLE NOW
"I yield to no man in firm adherence ainf n,
. conviction and of purpose, to the principle of?
nitration in industrial disputes; but mftters havl
come to a sudden crisis in this particular dlsnute
and the country h&a been caught unprovided with
any practicable means of enforcing that convic
tion in practice (by whoso fault wo will nit nnJ
stop to inquire). A situation had to be met w ose
elements and fixed conditions were indisputable '
The practical and patriotic course to pursue S
it seemed to me, was to secure immediate peace
by conceding the one thing in the demands J?
, the men, which society itself and any arbitrators
who represented public sentiment wero most
likely to approve, and immediately lay tho foun
dations for securing arbtration with regard to
everything else involved. The event has con
firmed that judgment. I was seeking to compose
the present in order to Safeguard the future; for
I wished an atmosphere of peace and friendly
co-operation in which to take counsel with the
representatives of tho nation with regard to the
best means for providing so far as it might
prove possiblo'to provide, against the recurrence
of such unhappy situations in the future &..
best and most practicable means of securing
calm and fair arbitration of all industrial dis
putes in the days to come. This is assuredly
the best way of indicating a principle, namely,
having failed to make certain of its observance
in the present to make certain of its observance
in the future. But I could only propose. I could
not govern the will of others, who took an en
tirely different view of the circumstances of the
case, who even refused to admit tho circum
stances to be what they have turned out to be.
RECOMMENDS LEGISLATION
"Having failed to bring tho parties to this
critical controversy to an accommodation, there
fore, I turn, to you, deeming it clearly our duty,
as public servants, to leave nothing undone that
we can do to safeguard the life and interests of
the nation. In the spirit of such a purpose I
earnestly recommend tho following legislation:
"First, immediate provision for the enlarge
ment and administrative reorganization of the
interstate commerce commission along the lines
embodied in the bill recently passed by the
house of representatives and now awaiting ac
tion by the senate; in order that the commission
may bo enabled to deal with the many great and
various duties now devolving upon it with a
promptness and thoroughness which are, with
its present constitution and means of action,
practically impossible.
"Second, the establishment of an eight-hour
day as the legal basis alike of work and wages in
the employment of all railroad employes, who
are actually engaged in the work of operating
trains in interstate transportation.
, "Third, the authorization of the appointment
by the President of a small body of men to ob
serve the actual results in experience of the
adoption of the eight-hour day in railway trans
portation alike for the men and for the rail
roads, its effect in tho matter of operating costs,
in the application of the existing practices and
agreements to the new conditions and in all
other practical aspects, with the provision that
the investigators shall report their conclusions
to the congress at the earliest possible date, but
without recommendation as to legislative action,
in order that the public may learn from an un
prejudiced source just what accomplishments
have ensued.
HIGHER FREIGHT RATES
"Fourth, explicit approval by the congress of
tho consideration by the interstate commerce
commission of an increase of freight rates to
meet such additional expenditures by the rail
roads fife may have 'been rendered necessary y
the adoption of the eight-hour day, and which
have not been offset l)y administrative readjust
ments and economies, should the facts disclosed
justify tho increase ,
"Fifth, an amendment of the existing federal
statute, which provides for the mediation, con
ciliation and arbitration of such controversies as
fN
