Arizona republican., 1916-08-21
MADE PUBLIC GIVING
 WILSON $ STAND
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TRepubican A. p. Leased Wirel
 WASHINGTON, August 20.-Pres- dent Wilson's week of conferences with ranking officials of the railroads and leaders of their employees, threatening a nation wide strike, are believed by all parties to the controversy to have brought the situationsto a point where decisive developments may be expected within few days.
 While the negotiations took no ac- tual forward step today, the president replied indirectly to contentious of the road officials that the principle of ar bitration would be endangered by his plan for putting the eight-hour basic day into effect while a commission in- vestigates its practicability and pass es upon other points at issue. In a telegram made public at the White House the president declared he held firmly to arbitration as a principle and that his plan strengthened rather than weakened it. He also said that some means must be found to prevent the existing situation from ever arising again.
 Meantime, the road officials. who have tentatively refused to accept Mir. Wilson's proposal, continued confer ences among themselves The labor leaders. who already have approved the proposal marked time awaiting a def mite decision from the employers.
 The presidents telegram defending his plan was in reply to an appeal from George Pope, president of the National Association of Manufacturers urging that the principle of arbitration be pre- served in the strike negotiations. Mir. Pope's telegram follows:
 Hartford. Conn. August IS. The President.
 ''The White House:
 On behalf of thir-y-seven hundred manufacturing organizations employ ing three million persons and utterly , dependent upon uninterrupted railroad service for their continued operation. | beg to at once express our deep appre- citation Of your efforts to prevent the ! threatened destructive stoppage of ma tional railroad service and to respect fully urge that you will with all the power of your great office and person. ality assert and maintain the principle of arbitration for industrial disputes affecting national intercourse. No just | demand can fear such a test: no unfair | demand can or should survive it it. I 1 sincerely believe no man in our history 1 has possessed such an opportunity tn 1 fortify this essential principle of pub i lie security against future attack by 1 employer or eInploye.
 GEORGE POPE. President. National Association of
 Manufacturers.
 The president replied:
 Allow me to acknowledge the re- i ceipt of your telegram of August IS and to say in reply that I hold to the 1 principle of arbitration with as clear a i conviction and as firm a purpose as r.s-- %-N.- . means now in existence by which arbi- tration can be secuAed. The existing means have been tried and have failed This situation must never be allowed to arise again but it has arisen. Some means must be found to prevent its re- cgrrence, but no means can be found off-hand, or in a hurry or in season to meet the present national emergency.
 What l am proposing does not weaken or discredit the principle of arbitration. It strengthens it rather It proposes that nothing be conceded except the eight-hour day, to which the whole economic movement of the time seems to point. and the immediate ere ation of an agency for determining all the arbitrable clements in this case in the light not of predictions or fore casts. but of established and ascer- tained facts. This Is the first stage of the direct road to the discovery of the best permanent bas1s for arbitration when other means than those now available are supplied"
 There were no outward developments today pending arrival of the additional railroad executives to whom the presi- dent sent invitations yesterday Louis w Hiu. president of the Great Nor thern, and several other western rail- road presidents will arrive tomorrow morning and others are expected at night.
 Representative of both sides are prepared to remain here until the final word is spoken and strike declared or averted.
 President Wilson made no engage ments for tomorrow, in order to be ready to continue negotiations with the railroad presidents but it was thought probable that there would be no fur ther general White House conferences
 until Tuesday. Although the railroad executives continue to maintain theiI , position in opposition to the presidents } plan and in favor of arbitration. ad } ministratlon officials express hope that [ ultimately they would decide to nego-
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