Evening star., 1894-11-09
ORGANIZATION OF LABOR
Attorney General 0lney on the Trainmen's
Brotherhood.
An Expression of Opinion Regarding
the Policy of the Company.

The controversy between the receivers Of
the Reading Railroad Company and such of
Its employees as are members of the Brother
hood of Railroad Trainmen has prompted
an expression of opinion from Attorney
General Olney in the form Of a letter %
Judge Dallas Of the United States circuit
court at Philadelphia, before whom the
case is pending. The difficulty between the
two organizations reached a crisis on Au-
gust 10 last, when General Superintendent
Sweigard summoned before him eleven en-
ployes and notified them that they should
abandon the brotherhood condition OF
| retaining their places with the railroad
company. Vigorous protests we're made
against this alternative, and the brother
hood urged the receivers to withdraw 1t,
but they declined to do
Attorney General Olney holds that labor
unorganized is practically powerless; that In
combinations such as this lies the only safe
guard of the workingman in his dealings
with organized capital, and that his right
to belong to such union--beneticial in in
Ftent and purpose-is legal right which he
cannot be deprived Of.
After discussing the letter of Mr.. Harris.
president and receiver, to Granl Master
Wilkinson, In which it is stated that the
ploying persons owing allegiance to organi-
cations which may make claims upon them
which are Incompatible with their duties
to their employers Mr.. Olney says:
hands of receivers, the receivers and all the
employees of the company are officers of the
court. The court, therefore, and not the
company, is the employer of all persons
engaged in the operation Of the road. The
present policy of the court, and not the
past policy of the company, is the material
thing to be considered And hence the pre-
else question is will the court now lay
down the rule that members of the Brother
hood Of Trainmen shall, because they are
such members, be discharged from the serv-
ice Of the road?
The brotherhood Not Illegal.
'The court 1t is admitted, ought not and
cannot lay down any such rule on the
ground that either the purposes and objects
Of the brotherhood, or the means by which
they are to be attained, are shown to be
Illegal
The aims and rules of the brotherhood are
discussed at length, and shown to be not
Illegal. He then proceeds:
IF the rule that a member of the
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen shall
not work on the Reading road cannot be
justified because of anything inherently un-
| lawful in the constitution and rules of the
brotherhood, the only remaining ground on
which it can be defended is that of business
expedieney: 1t Is conceivable,
one, that court of the United States may,
on business grounds, refuse employment to
persons for no other reason than their
poses the laws of the United States ex-
pressly sanction.
Expeliency of Exclusion.
I'm considering the question of the busi-
ness expediency of the employment Of
brotherhood men, such objection as there is
to it must arise from the fact that under its
constitution and rules the employees may
engage in q strike-with all the natural and
possible incidents and consequences. 1t can
hardly be denied that otherwise the brother
hood organization is not only not objection
able, bat is salutary in its operation both
as regards the employers and employed.
The Question of Strikes.
'Tt should be remembered, in the first
place. that the risks Of a srike are not OBJ
waited by excluding the members Of the
brotherhood from the receivers service.
Men deeming themselves agSrieved and
seeking relief or redress, though not asso-
ciated in any formal way or for any gen.
eral purposes. may easily unite for the sim
gle purpose Of a strike. In that view the
brotherhood constitution and rules may
we'll be regarded as operating In restraint
of strikes. By compelling the question Of
strike or strike to be acted upon af-
trmatively by four or five different and in
depeadeDt tribunals, they certainly tend to
prohibit strike that is rash or reckless, or
for other than weighty cause"
After discussing the inexpediency Of the
court, which should be the arbitrator as
we'll as the employer in the case of q re-
ceivership. approving the rules of the Read
ing company, Mr.. Olrey concludes:
In short, the question being whether
business policy requires the court to ap-
prove the rule that a member of the Broth
ertood of Railroad Trs,inmen is ipso facto
ineligible as an eInploye Of the receivers
of the Reading railroad and an officer of
the court, the conclusive considerations may
be summed up as follows:
Il. The rule is of doubtful value as pre-
ventive of strikes because 1t leaves en-
ployes to act upon impulse and from pas
sion and freed from the restraints of the
brotf er hood regulations.
''2. The rule is of doubtful value when
the court is the real employer, both from
the reluctance of the employed to defy the
courts authority and from the power of
the latter to-speedily and summarily vim
dcate it.
80 The rule is of positively Injurious ten
dency in the disaffecton and discomfort en-
genedered among employees by the denial
to them of rights enjoyed by citizens gen.
orally and deemed necessary for their Sc
curity and CON fort.
Merits of the brotherhood.
~. The Reputation of the rule. on the
other hand, has the positive merit-(a) of
tending to secure for the service of the
good will of employees and thus promoting
it's efficiency; CD Of recognizing the real
conditions of the capital and labor problem
and the fact that labor both has the right
to organize and is organized; (c) of illus
trating the working under the most favor
able auspices of the principle of arbitration
as the means of adjusting the differences
between capital and labor; I'D of demon
strating that there is not one law for one
class of the community and another for an
other, but the same for all, and of thus
tending to preserve for the law and for the
judiciary by which it is administered that
general respect and confidence which have
always been a marked characteristic as
we'll as excellence of our institutions