tuted in the new organization, we have been quite successful in raising the wages and bettering the conditions of the employees and also in improving the morals of the class. At one time it was quite an ordinary matter for a telegraph operator to travel with some other people, you know, in different trades, in what is called a side-door Pullman-that is, a box car-and have a bottle of whisky along, but the whisky business has almost completely been eliminated from the telegraph business. It is no longer characterized as it used to be, and in addition to that the seniority clause in our schedules provided that the oldest men in the service shall be given a show for promotion has kept the men on the road, and there has been not so much of this wanderlust business as there used to be, so that the man has a sort of interest in the company with which he is employed, knowing that if he stays there every year adds to his chances for promotion. I take it that the seniority clause in these contracts has been the most valuable thing in the way of uplift that was ever devised by our craft, and it has resulted in giving our men a standing in the community and in the country and absolutely changed the thing around so they are not wanderers any longer, but respectable citizens, and, as I have stated, so many were elected to office that it shows they have the respect of their neighbors and the people they live among. Commissioner LENNON. Mr. Perham, in your contact with unorganized labor, which must be very considerable, do you believe if intimidations of all characters were removed from the organization that the people that are not in your organization who are eligible would become members?

Mr. PERHAM. I believe every man would join the organization of his craft, and that applies not only to telegraphers but to everyone employed on railroads. Commissioner LENNON. That is all.

Chairman WALSH. Mr. Weinstock has another question.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. I take it that you discovered in your dealings with railroad managers that sometimes they make mistakes; that they are not always right?

Mr. PERHAM. Not always, but they average up pretty well with the rest of the people.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Now, if the managers on one hand are liable to err in judgment, are not the workers on the other hand liable to err also in judgment?

Mr. PERHAM. They are, and they do; but the organization takes care of them, and they have experienced men in the organization to advise them and show them where they are in error, and the employer never hears of those kind of cases; they are killed in the organization.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. I am not speaking of individuals, but of the organization. Take the railway managers as a unit, acting collectively, as I take it they sometimes do; they collectively make their mistakes, do they not; their judgment is not always perfect?

Mr. PERHAM. I can not recall a case in our organization that I would classify that way.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Among the railway managers; have they always been right?

Mr. PERHAM. Oh, I thought you spoke of the employees. There can be various reasons why a railroad official might make a decision that is wrong. Commissioner WEINSTOCK. I am not talking of the individual making decisions, but the association collectively.

Mr. PERHAM. I am scarcely able to judge about the general managers of railroads.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Let me put it in this form: You know that railroad managers collectively deal with railroad employees collectively?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. In your judgment, has their decision arrived at by the railway managers collectively been always wise and just and a proper decision?

Mr. PERHAM. I can not recall any one that I would take objections to. Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Then we are to take it that the railway managers collectively are wise and are just and are equitable?

Mr. PERHAM. As a general thing that may be stated as true.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Then, if they are wise and just and equitable, how can your workers have any grievance?

Mr. PERHAM. They do on account of the failure of an individual, not as a group. Now, you are speaking of general managers as a group?

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Yes, sir. As I understood it, take in the transportation branch of the business, an individual does not deal with an individual. The four great rules of the railway men for these organizations, and the railway managers have their organizations, and they deal collectively, do they not? Mr. PERHAM. I have always understood so.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Yes, sir; very well. Now, if it is a fact that the railway managers have always been wise and always been just and equitable in their collective decisions, where is there room for grievances?

Mr. PERHAM. We never had a grievance against them as a group.
Commissioner WEINSTOCK. You never have?

Mr. PERHAM. No, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. And where lies the issue?

Mr. PERHAM. With the individual. The one man out of many men who does not know right from wrong.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Then I don't understand your method of procedure, Mr. Perham. Has your organization differentiated from the other railroad men's organizations? Don't you deal collectively with the managers as well as the other organizations?

Mr. PERHAM. No, sir; we do not.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. You deal with each individual manager?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. And the telegraphers on the North Western Railroad would deal with Mr. Aishton, for example?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir; we always have, and got along very well, and that does not mix up the New York Central or any other railroad.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. In that way your organization is different from Mr. Garretson's?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Mr. Garretson, representing his organization, would deal with a group of managers?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Have you given any thought to the question of workmen's compensations as applied in the various States of the Union? Mr. PERHAM. In a rather indefinite way; yes, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. You know that the laws provide, where they have compensation laws, that those injured workmen shall receive a certain compensation if he is injured, and that his beneficiaries shall receive a certain compensation in case of his death?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. This commission, I am sure, would like to have your opinion as to the wisdom of advocating a Federal compensation act to apply to workmen engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. PERHAM. It is a very complex question, and on that even the labor men have not been able to come to an agreement. We have many divergent views and have not yet had sufficient experience with the business to become crystallized about it. My personal view in the matter is that injury and death to the employee should be charged to the cost of production.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. That is the philosophy of workmen's compensation, that the industry shall bear the burden; the industry, not the individual or the employer, but that it should be put upon the industry; that is the underlying principle of workmen's compensation?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir; that is my view of it.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Now, in view of that being your philosophy, which is the general philosophy on the subject, do you think it would be a good thing for this commission to recommend to Congress that it shall enact a Federal workmen's compensation act that will deal with workmen engaged in interstate commerce, precisely as the States in the Union-many of them-deal with the workmen engaged within their borders? To illustrate: Here are two telegraphers working in the State of California, one engaged in interstate commerce and one in domestic or State business. Both meet with an accident or death, are killed, and that the California State law provides that the workers engaged in domestic service, his family, would be provided for; but in the absence of a Federal similar law the beneficiaries of the worker engaged in interstate commerce would be thrown upon society; and does it now seem that both should be taken care of and the industry bear the burden of both losses?

Mr. PERHAM. I think so. On that subject I would like to make a little statement. We are feeling our way out with these various State enactments, and

eventually we will discover just what we do want. We do not seem to favor the idea that exists in Germany about these things, nor the English proposition. but out of these various State laws we expect to be able to select one that we can indorse. It is difficult to frame a statute and to surmise just how it will work out. It is only by court action that we discover the defects in the statutes. The court decisions, for instance, often point out a salient feature that we should have met in the first place, but did not. Now, after these State enactments have gone through the courts we may look them over and discover something that would do very nicely for a Federal act. That has been our attitude. Now, I could not commit my organization to this question without at the present moment treading upon the toes of some other organizations that hold a different view.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. The point I want to get at is this: If this commission in its judgment would see fit, as one of its recommendations to Congress, to advocate the enactment of an interstate workmen's compensation act, would your organization, for example, look upon it with friendly eyes?

Mr. PERHAM. I believe it would.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. And if it was a just and equitable law you would be prepared to support it?

Mr. PERHAM. You will understand that is because I represent a class of preferred risks in the insurance tèrm. Men that are not working in dangerous employments. That is, as a general thing, now and then a man loses his nerve and loses out, but, as a general proposition, we are a preferred risk and are necessarily segregated from the brakeman on the train or the engineer.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. That regulates itself, Mr. Perham, by the difference in the rate charged for the insurance charged by the insurance carrierby virtue of the different kinds of employment?

Mr. PERHAM. But that feature is the cause of my attitude in regard to this Federal enactment for liability. That is why I speak for my organization, knowing that is the situation.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. That is all.

Chairman WALSH. Mrs. Harriman has a question.

Commissioner HARRIMAN. Mr. Perham, in speaking of universal strike, you said such a strike could not happen in this country. What do you mean by that? Do you consider labor conditions not as good in other countries as ours? Mr. PERHAM. I mean by that that we have had our fingers burned in those attempts and don't intend to have them burned again. The men who are runLing the labor organizations, who have been in the business a number of years, have had their experience with Nation-wide strikes and sympathetic strikes and are not in favor of those things, and the chances are it will not occur again in the United States.

Commissioner WALSH. Mr. Garretson has some questions.

Commissioner GARRETSON. You were asked about the working of the Canadian act. Mr. Perham. I think you have been "Lemiuexed" about as often as anybody?

Mr. PERHAM. I think so.

Commissioner GARRETSON. Have you ever seen any possibilities come from the act in Canada greater than come from the proceedings in an ordinary arbitration board in this country?

Mr. PERHAM. No, sir; about the same.

Commissioner GARRETSON. The ordinary status?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir; about the same.

Commissioner GARRETSON. Have you seen this period within which action, in which the law says action can not take place, that the employee can not strike nor the employer can not lock him out-have you ever seen that time utilized by the employer to reinforce himself ready to defend a strike if they did not accept?

Mr. PERHAM. It has caused me to put men at every port of entry in Canada to keep their men out.

Commissioner GARRETSON. In defiance of the law, they were acting?
Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner GARRETSON. They were changing the status? And is it not a fact that the employer has repudiated-I am applying this solely to transportation organizations-is it not a fact that the employer has repudiated the verdict oftener than the employee has?

Mr. PERHAM. That is my impression; I couldn't definitely state that is so, but I believe that is true.

Commissioner GARRETSON. Is it not a fact also that the provisions of the act are regularly disregarded, both by employer and employee, outside of the railway service?

Mr. PERHAM. I believe that is true.

Commissioner GARRETSON. And you are speaking from a knowledge based on former Canadian citizenship?

Mr. PERHAM. I never was a citizen of Canada.

Commissioner GARRETSON. You lived in that country?

Mr. PERHAM. I lived there for a while.

Commissioner GARRETSON. A question was asked you a moment ago about a deadly injury being done to a great body by a fraction of 1 per cent of its membership. Is it not a fact that the actual principle upon which the question put to you was based applies to fifteen-twentieths of the people of the Republic instead of a fraction of 1 per cent? In your membership it is a fraction of 1 per cent, but the same idea applies to all laboring men whether union or nonunion?

Mr. PERHAM. The same idea would apply. What per cent did you say? Commissioner GARRETSON. I said three-fourths, fifteen-twentieths instead of one-half of 1 per cent.

Mr. PERHAM. I think that is more near the correct proportion of those affected.

Commissioner GARRETSON. Is there any good reason-because the question could not by any system of reasoning be narrowed to the operators-is there any good reason why the 5,000,000 of this 100,000,000 population who serve the railways, and that is conservative in number taking their families, should be nailed to the cross for the benefit of the other 95,000,000?

Mr. PERHAM. I never could see any good reason for it; I don't believe the people of the United States would indorse such a view.

Commissioner GARRETSON. Then, the withdrawal of the right to quit on the part of any laboring man would in itself be a form of involuntary service? Mr. PERHAM. I so understand it.

Commissioner GARRETSON. In regard to the Government taking a man up and putting him in the trenches with a gun in his hand, and making him shoot, is it your opinion that that might be something like leading the horse to water? Mr. PERHAM. It would be in my case.

Commissioner GARRETSON. You would decide yourself which way you were going to shoot?

Mr. PERHAM. Yes, sir.

Commissioner GARRETSON. I suppose also you will decide whether you will work the key or not in the case of emergency?

Mr. PERHAM. I intend to have the disposal in my hand whether I use it or not.

Commissioner GARRETSON. We talk about this 50,000 men, and about the power of the operators in a universal strike to paralyze the traffic of the company. Is it not a fact that there is a reserve force of about that many men in the way of promoted officers and retired operators available that would, or at any rate always have been, called in when the Government was confronted with a matter of that character?

Mr. PERHAM. It is true that they have been able to get along in strikes by putting on men to run the business, and in some sort of way run it, but as to the telegraphers who have left the business on account of finding the conditions intolerable, they could not get them back.

Commissioner GARRETSON. The bulk of them, that is true; but if there was one in there like railroads, like railway men, they might be available? Mr. PERHAM. They might be.

Commissioner GARRETSON. Your definition of a legal organization simply means an organization that is tacitly recognized by the labor world?

Mr. PERHAM. By the two or three million that are organized we recognize the other organizations as part of them. For instance, although the brotherhoods are not members of the American Federation of Labor, we are very close to them in every respect. We have their legislators represented here in Washington, and we work with them throughout the various States of the Union. We are in close contact with the brotherhoods all of the time.

Commissioner GARRETSON. That is all.

Chairman WALSH. That is all-just a minute.

Commissioner AISHTON. What was the date of your last visit to Altoona?

Mr. PERHAM. I would not be able to give you that. The last time I stopped off there might have been about 18 months ago.

Commissioner AISHTON. How long were you there at that time?

Mr. PERHAM. Probably a week.

Commissioner AISHTON. Your opinion that you gave as to conditions at Altoona was from your personal knowledge of the situation?

Mr. PERHAM. Prior to that time I organized a great number of section laborers at Altoona. They were foreigners. At their meeting I would have an Italian on one side and a Hungarian on the other translating my speech to their men; and inside of a couple of weeks we organized about a thousand men, but the organization was scattered by the company putting guards at the bunk houses and preventing the men from coming into the town and tried to prevent me from going on their right of way to organize these men. Commissioner AISHTON. That is all. I thank you.

Chairman WALSH. Mr. Atterbury.

TESTIMONY OF MR. W. W. ATTERBURY.

Chairman WALSH. Please state your name.

Mr. ATTERBURY. W. W. Atterbury.

Chairman WALSH. What is your business, please?

Mr. ATTERBURY. Vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Chairman WALSH. Where do you reside?

Mr. ATTERBURY. Philadelphia.

Chairman WALSH. Will you please give your connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad-your official connections?

Mr. ATTERBURY. I started about 30 years ago as an apprentice to the machinists' trade, and I have been in the service of the company continually since that time as assistant road foreman of engines and assistant engineer and master mechanic, superintendent of motive power, and general superintendent of motive power, and general manager and vice president in charge of operation.

Chairman WALSH. That is the position that you are holding at the present

time?

Mr. ATTERBURY. Yes, sir.

Chairman WALSH. I have been advised, Mr. Atterbury, that you prefer to make the statement that you have to make from written memoranda. If so, you may make any statement that you desire to make.

Mr. ATTERBURY. Mr. Walsh, I rather gathered from the newspapers the trend of the discussion and preferred that what we might have to say be presented in rather a formal way. I have it here, and the summary, if you will permit me, I will read.

Chairman WALSH. We will be very glad to have it.

Mr. ATTERBURY (reading): The Pensylvania Railroad has presented to the United States Commission on Industrial Relations a statement of its policies toward its employees, of which the following is a summary:

The management of the Pennsylvania Railroad believes that the company's greatest asset is the loyalty and efficiency of its men. Its labor policies may be generally described, therefore, as an effort to protect that asset.

The Pennsylvania Railroad early realized the importance of training its own officers. This, of course, carried with it the training of its own men. To make the service attractive it was essential that employment, as far as possible, be permanent. The result is that at present the average term of service on the Pennsylvania Railroad is exceptionally high.

The majority of those who enter the service continue in the service until they die or are pensioned. The consequence has been the establishment of sympathy, affection, and understanding between the officers and the men, which has done much to bring about the success of the company.

The company believes that railroad employees should be paid liberal wages, and it believes there should be every feasible safeguard to provide for the personal safety of both employees and patrons.

The management frankly recognizes the propriety of the men organizing for the purpose of bettering their condition, subject only to such restriction as may protect the elemental essential of safe and continuous operation. It sometimes happens that the management itself would be glad to do more in the direction of additional compensation of the men if economic conditions made it possible.