are eliminated and a full measure of productive efficiency secured from railroad employees. Under the principles established by the national government during the war, as well as the guarantees extended to industrial workers by the treaty of peace and sanctioned by the enlightened opinion of the civilized world, railway transportation employees are convinced that there are two fundamental economic rights to which they are entitled, and which, if granted, would place the industrial relations of the transportation industry upon a basis which would make inevitably for permanent peace. These rights are (1) a basic eight-hour work day and a punitive measure of time and a half for all over-time in accordance with our existing method of computation, and (2) a living wage.

By a living wage is meant not merely a subsistence rate of pay but a wage sufficient, after meeting minimum physical needs of food, clothing and shelter, to yield a balance sufficient for a reasonable degree of comfort and to enable the wage earner to secure a reasonable measure of health, recreation and education, and to set aside a portion of his earnings for old age and disability.

The rates of pay of locomotive firemen must be advanced to a standard of a living wage. Moreover, locomotive firemen cannot physically endure the hours they have been required to work and which they have temporarily acquiesced in because of the war emergency. They have decided that after nearly four years of patient waiting on their part, this issue cannot be longer postponed.

These two fundamental rights-a living wage and a reasonable work-day—must be granted if the railroads continue under government control, and if it is decided to return them to their private owners, these rights must be established and made a condition to their return to private ownership and operation.

Anti-Strike Legislation

Railroad employees, as well as impartial students of methods of conciliation and mutual arbitration of industrial disputes, have recently been astounded by the action of the senate Committee on Inter-state and foreign commerce in reporting a bill for the return of the railroads to private ownership. This measure contains a provision which not only denies the right of striking to employees but makes a conspiracy punishable by fine or imprisonment. The bill referred to is the so-called Cummins Bill which receives its designation from the fact that Senator Cummins is chairman of the senate committee on Inter-state and Foreign Commerce. It is all the more extraordinary that such legislation has been proposed by this committee for the reason that less than three years ago it had prepared and printed as a public document a report showing that the experience of all the leading industrial and com

mercial nations of the world with anti-strike legislation had been ineffective.

The committe on inter-state and foreign commerce of the house of representatives reported a bill a few days ago for the reorganization and turning back of the railroads to private control and operation which is more vicious than the Cummins Bill with its anti-strike feature. The house bill contains a proviso which would absolutely shackle railroad employees and prevent them from going on strike for the purpose of securing increases in pay or to oppose any injustice that might be perpetrated upon them by railroad corporations, and if they violated any of the provisions of the proposed law they would be amenable to the law and the organization representing the employees could be prosecuted and judgement rendered against the organizations to the limit of common property, which means confiscation of funds and property such as buildings, office fixtures, etc., and it has been stated that the courts could levy assessments upon all employees after the funds of the organization had been exhausted and the property confiscated, to reimburse corporations for any damage which might be alleged in the event any class of employees went on a strike to protest against injustices which might be perpetrated upon them.

A Conspiracy To Reduce Wages

Under these conditions, the executives of the railway labor organizations have become convinced-and their conclucions based upon actual evidence-that this legislation is the outcome of a conspiracy to reduce wages below their present inadequate levels. The large financial interests who, in the back ground, originated this legislation under the guise of protecting the public against railway strikes, have reasoned that if governmental control of the transportation industry ceases after December 31st, they will reduce the rates of pay of railway workers, and if strikes result, they will break them by fining and imprisoning the strikers. It is the same reasoning and it is essentially the group who have attempted to continue the enslavement of the iron and steel workers and the further exploitation of the bituminous mine-workers. As a matter of fact, it is a part of the general conspiracy of the large financial interests who have decided to attempt to disrupt all labor organizations. Their object is to continue unchecked their war-time profiteering, and the exploitation of the wage-earner and the public which they had been so successful in doing prior to the war. It is needless to say that not only as railway workers, but as free-born American citizens in a self-governing republic, we shall resist this conspiracy to the uttermost.

No Danger of Railway Strikes

There has been no strike on American railroads of any importance for more than thirty years. There is no danger of any strike occuring unless it is provoked by such legislation as that embodied in the Cummins Bill or the Esch house bill, or as a result of such a policy as that adopted by the department of justice against the United Mine Workers.

Strikes occur in industry for various reasons. They may come as a result of small grievances. They may arise from an arbitrary denial of fundamental rights. They may arise because of failure of workers to secure prompt and honest action on real grievances. The experience of the world has shown that antistrike legislation has always been abortive. The irrationality of the action of the senate and house committee is only equaled by its ineffectiveness.

If railroad employees are given their simple, fundamental, economic rights, together with proper machinery for adjusting current and less important grievances, there would be no occasion for strikes and no strike of any significance would occur. This is the intelligent and effective policy to pursue. If the members of the senate and house committees were possessed of the elements of real industrial insight and constructive statesmanship, they would recommend such policy instead of the foolish and futile anti-strike provisions of the Cummins Bill or the Esch Bill.

Real Constructive Statesmanship Needed

Because of the sinister interests which are back of this and other railroad legislation relative to the continuance of private ownership of the transportation system, the railway labor organizations have become convinced that real constructive, patriotic statesmanship is needed to deal with the railway problem in all its aspects. I expect to have an opportunity to speak of this at one of the sessions tomorrow. Our experience under the private ownership and operation of the railroads has led us to the firm belief that our present political democracy in its relation to industry must be supplemented by measures which will make possible a full measure of industrial democracy. In no other way can the fundamental rights of labor and the public be attained. We have, therefore, formulated a constructive program which has become known as the Plumb Plan, which so far as the transportation industry is concerned, safeguards the interests of the public while permitting the development of the proper well-being of the railway employee. The fundamental underlying principles of this plan are those of a rational industrial democracy, and are applicable to any industry. We have determined to do all in our power

to keep the transportation industry under government control until these principles in general can be applied to the operation of the transportation system in the interest of the public and the employees.

CRITICISM OF THE PLUMB PLAN FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

By Geo. C. Sikes, of Chicago

The adoption of a permanent policy of ownership and unified operation of the railroads by the national government I regard as one of the greatest needs of the country. Therefore, I claim the right to be heard at a conference called in the name of public ownership. However, what I have to say is likely to be displeasing to many in attendance at this gathering, for seemingly the champions of the Plumb Plan are in the majority here. But I wish to voice my protest and to warn the genuine public ownership men and women in this meeting that endorsement by them of the Plumb plan will be an act of folly.

For years I have been studying suggested franchise arrangements put forth by privilege seeking private corporations and have been criticising such suggestions with the view of protecting public interests. I think I have some familiarity with such matters. In my opinion, the Plumb plan is more vicious than any project of this nature ever put forth before by any predatory transportation magnate or exploiting Wall Street promoter. As a public ownership measure, the Plumb Plan is a perversion and a fake. It represents an attempt to perpetrate a colossal confidence game the American public and on the advocates of government ownership. The Plumb plan propaganda, in so far as it wears the mask of public ownership, is misleading, hypocritical and essentially dishonest.

Workers Would Exploit the Public

Exploitation is exploitation, whether by capitalistic promoters or by a group of organized workers. The idea that exploitation is all right if carried on in the interest of certain labor groups may be accepted in Russia. But such doctrine will be spurned by any land that remains steadfast in its adherence to democracy. Autocracy is autocracy, whether the autocrat be a selfish labor group, or a plutocrat, or a kaiser or a czar. Whenever the workers of a country in large numbers, in selfish disregard of the public welfare accept the principle of autocracy in the hope that they may bene

fit from its application there is danger that the country may fall under the control of the autocracy of the opposite extreme. It was inevitable that the excesses of the French Revolution should produce a Napoleon. If stories from Russia are to be accepted as correct, it cannot be doubted that the conditions there must lead sooner or later to reaction and to some form of despotism. If dependence is to be placed on might, rather than on right, labor rule in any land must be short-lived. Labor can hope to share effectively in control of governmental affairs for any considerable time only by making its cause as broad as the public welfare and by acting in accord with the principles of democracy. Henry George, in memorable words, voiced the true principle when he was a candidate for mayor of New York some years ago, with strong labor backing while espousing labors cause, he refused to be regarded as the candidate of labor, in the narrow sense of the term. "I am not for working men", he said, "I am for men."

It is a far cry from the time when Henry George uttered that sentiment, with the approval of labor, to the present. when important labor groups, differentiating themselves from the general public, are brazenly bent upon exploitation for their own selfish benefit, in accordance with the spirit of Prussianism. Psychologically speaking, it looks as if the Germans had won the war.. The spirit of Prussianism was never so rampant in the United States as it is today. Certain employing and business interests are more arrogantly autocratic than they ever have been before. And some spokesmen for labor groups are just as bad, if not worse. In a battle between an autocracy of capital and autocracy of labor, I do not believe labor can win. Labor's only hope lies in democracy, in making common cause with all who stand for right and justice and the broad public welfare.

The Plumb Plan is an effort to Prussianize the labor movement in America. It is an appeal to certain groups of workers to stand for exploitation of the general public for their own selfish interest coupled with a deceptive, false appeal to public ownership advocates to help on the undemocratic move.

Would Turn the Railroads Over to Workers

Under the Plumb plan, if put into effect, the United States will buy the railroads and pay for them. It will not retain control and operate the roads itself in the public interest, however. Instead it will immediately turn them over, free of charge, to a corporation under an irrevocable 100-year lease or franchise arrangement, to be controlled by a board of fifteen directors. Five of these fifteen directors will be named by the President of the United States. The remaining ten, or two-thirds of the board, will be selected by the railroad officials and employes. Mr. Plumb seeks to give the impression that the five members of the board of directors to be