The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1905-11-30
q & q
RAILROAD EMPLOYEES ALERT.
Are Making Strong. Fight Against

81 80 4
road employees OF the country mean
10 throw their whole weight against
The adoption by congress of the Esch-
Townsend bill Or similar rate-fxin.
legislation is indicated by the great
number of protests that have been
coming to the senate committee on
interstate commerce recently and that
still continue to flow in by every mali.
When the committee meets on Tues
day it will be confronted by a formid-
form Of resolutions by local divisions
Of the railway labor organizations in
all parts Of the country and letters
from local officers and division chiefs
Not only have the national organ
izations of the leading orders, such as
brotherhoods Of engineers, firemen
and trainmen, and the order of con
ductors. taken action which has been
placed before the senate committee,
but hundreds of local divisions have
Ie-enforced this action by resolutions
of their own. While the expressions
Of sentiment that have reached the
senate committee have net yet been
tabulatad, there are some five or SIX
hundred local divisions of railway
workmen represented in this way,
and all the expressions that have
been received strongly oppose any leg
islation giving to any governmental
body the power to name rates. In
some states nearly all the local lodges
have taken such action. In New
York, for example, thirty-seven of the
forty divisions of the brotherhood O:
locomotive, engineers have protested
against the proposed legislation.
The other p:'ctests received include
many from d. -sions of the engineers.
firelnen, conductors, trainmen, teleg-
raphers, baggagemen and trackmen
in different parts of the country. The
railroad workmen claim that with
those dependent upon them they rep
resent six million persons who are
yita!ly concerned in opposing the pass
age of any such measure as the Esch
Townsend bill. tfM fs
Although the movement: has only
been called to public attention during
the past week by the visit of the COM
mittee' of railway employees at the
white house, opposition to the Esch-
Townsend bill apparently has been
gathering force among the working
men ever since the measure was
framed. ~zA a Wg
The initial action was taken at the
convention of the brotherhood of To-
connective engineers at Los Angeles,
California, in May, 1904, even before
the Esch-Townsend bill had become
fact. At this time this body voted
that government interference with
the railroads would be. detrimental,
In their opinion, to the interests of
the railroad companies, the railroad
employees and the country at large.
81 At special meeting of the division
chiefs of this order at Cleveland, Ohio,
January 81 and % of the present year.
a resolution was passed to the effect
'that this representative body is op-
posed to placing the power in the
hands of the interstate commerce
commission, regulating the rates for
Z transportation On railways" Twenty
eight division chiefs Of the order at.
tested the minutes of the meeting con
tanning this expression of opinion and
their statement is now before the
senate committee.
The brotherhood of locomotive fire
men, at the meeting of it's executive
committee at Peoria, ILL.,, last Febru
airy, following the example of the en-
gineers, took similar action. They
were followed by the order of rail
way conductors, assembled at Port
land, Oregon. and the brotherhood oil
railway trainmen who met at Buffalo
anst May. The representative of the
order OF railroad telegraphers in the
east have also committed themselves
IA condemnation of the bill.
Typical Of the stand taken by these
various organizations are the resolu
Sutfons adopted by the order of rail
way trainmen, with a membership o.
10000, at their national convention a,
Buffalo last spring. In this memoria
The trainmen said:
"The usual acceptance of the tern
rate regulation is rate reduction. Th.
real issue, then, of rate regulation /,
one of rate reduction, which mean,
o loss OF revenue to the railway com
panies, and just how far-reaching THU
loss would be is a matter of conjec
ture This organization does no
stand as an apologist for railway
wrong doing, nor as champion O
railway corporations as against thu
rights and interests of the genera
public. Practices of discrimination are
not condoned, but there is a remed,
for them within tho procont Iorx w