The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-08-29

in freight train service that they be
granted an eight-hour working day,
safcguarded by payment of an hour and
half of service for every hour Of
service beyond the eight
1.-The matter, agitated for more than
year, came some three weeks ago to
a final issue and resulted in a complete
deadlock between the parties The
means provided by law for the media
tion of the controversy failed and the
means of arbitration for which the law
provides were rejected.
"Thc representatives of the railway
executives proposed that the demands
Of the men be submitted in their en-
tirety to arbitration along with certain
questions of rcadjustment as to pay
and conditions of employment which
seemed to them to be either closely
associated with the demands or to call
for reconsideration on their own merits:
the men declined arbitration, especially
if any Of their established privileges
were by that means to be drawn again
in question.
The law in the matter puts no com
pulsion upon them. The 100000 men
from whom the demands proceeded had
voted to strike if their demands were
refused; the strike was imminent. 1t
has been set for the fourth of Septem-
bcr next. 1t affects the men who man
the freight trains on practically every
railway in the country"
The President called attention to
conditions which would result from the
strike.
"Just as soon as it became evident
that mediation under the existing law
had failed and that arbitration had
been rendered impossible by the at
tltude of the men | considered it nv
duty to confer with the representatives
.of both the railroads and the brother
hoods and myself offered mediation, not
as an arbitrator, but merely as a
spokesman of the nation in the interests
of Justice
1T seemed to mc that the whole spirit
OF the time and the prepondcrant evi-
dence OF recent economic experience were
both for the eight-hour day. 1t has been
.adjudged by the thought and experience
LOT recent years Il thing upon which So
.c!ety is justified in insisting. The whole
presumption of modern experience would,
it seems, to be in it's favor |. therefore,
proposed that the cight-hour day be adopt-
ed by the railroad managements and put
INTO practice for the present as a substi-
tutc for the existing l0-hour basis OF pav
and service; that ! should appoint with
the permission of the congress a small
commission to observe the results Of the
change and study the figures of the opcr-
.ating costs not only but also the condi-
.tIons OF labor under which the men work
and the operations of their existing agree
ments with the railroads with instruction
to report the facts as they found them 10
the congress at the earliest possible day,
but without recommendations. and that
after the fact had been thus disclosed an
adjustment should in some orderly man
ner be sought of all the matters now left
unadjusted between the railroad manage
ers and the men.
Having failed to bring the parties to
the political controversy to an accommo-
dation therefore turn to you believing it
clearly our duty to leave nothing undone
to safeguard the life and interests of the
nation. In the spirit of such a purpose /
earnestly recommend the following leqisla-
ton:
First. Immediate provision for the en-
largement and administrative reoruaniza-
ton of the interstate commerce commits
sion in order that it may deal with its
various duties with promptness and thor.
inughness.
Second The establishment of an eight
hour day as the legal basis alike Of work
and of wages of all railway employees