The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1916-08-19
Other 'EadS Than Ours
AN UNTHINKABLE STRIKE


The present railroad crisis is an
other illustration Of unpreparedness,
of want of foresight and thoroughness,
of muddling along.
1t is an inevitable result of our I'M
Willingness to think things out logic
ally and thoroughly. Nearly a gener-
alton has gone by since we formally
recognized and adopted the principle
Of government regulation of railways,
yet in all this time we have failed to
develop and apply the principle. log
ically Regulation has meant regula-
ton of rates and OF equipment and OPP
Grafton. 1t has ignored the fact that
regulation unless it is to be pro-
excessively destructive must take into
balancing the rights of the shipper to
fair rates with the right of labor to
fair wages and of invested capital to
fair dividend returns.
The present situation is a striking
example OF our inefficient and I'M
equal system of control. Eighteen or
20 per cent of railroad employees are
holding up the nation, figuratively
speaking, at the point of gun Their
demands involve a very heavy in
crease of the cost of transportation
If granted it will therefore follow that
freight rates must be greatly increaS-
ed or the fund from which dividends,
maintenance and extension and wages
for the so per cent of the employees not
included in the raise are provided for |
will be greatly decreased.
In the first alternative the shipper !
and consumer are interested.
In the second alternative there are
interested the 80 per cent of employees
not included in the raise, the investors
in railroad securities, of which there
are nearly twice as many as there are
employees demanding the raise, and
finally the general public, which is in
terested in the proper maintenance
and extension of our system of trans
portation.
There is deadlock between two
parties which vitality affects at least
four parties. Representatives of, say,
20 per cent of the employes-that is,
between 100000 and 100000 men-are
n a controversy with representatives,
say, of 5000 shareholders, although
hat controversy cannot be fairly de-
termined without consulting the IN
erests of the remaining so per cent of
or about 100000 men and
women, and the interests of the gen
sral public, some 100,000,00O of men
md women.
A strike in such a situation ought
G be unthinkable. The assertion of
he union leaders that arbitration
be honest and unprejudiced is
rot worthy of respect The American
public does not think so i'll of human
nature as to accept any such theory.
We know that honest arbitration can
,e assured and that no fair considera-
ion of the union demands can be Civ
n except through arbitration. The
Dterstate commerce commission is the
est equipped tribunal to determine
his controversy and it ought to have
I'LL power to deal with it. But if
is not to be given such power now
nd the unions are afraid to submit
leir demands to it voluntarily, then
special tribunal should be composed
/ once and all threat of strike with
rawn.
Whatever the outcome of the present
fficulty, there is no excuse for fur
er postponement of q thorough re-
sion of our system of railroad reg
atoms so as to bring within the au-
ority of the regulating agency, the