Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1916-08-31

"Gentlemen of the Congress:
"I have come to you to seek your
assistance in dealing with a very grave
demand of the employees of the rail
roads engaged in freight train service
that they be granted an eight hour
working day. safeguarded by payment
for an hour and half of service for
every hour of work beyond the eight.
THE matter has been agitated for
more than year. The matter
came some three weeks ago to A final
Issue and resulted in a complete dead
lock between the parties. The means
provided by law for the mediation of
the controversy failed and the means
of arbitration for which the law pro-
vides We're rejected. The representa-
tives of the railway executives pro-
posed that the demands of the men
be submitted in their entirety to arbi-
tration. along with certain questions Of
read1ustment 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 abso-
lutely declined arbitration. especially
were by that means to be drawn again
In question. The law in the matter
put no compulsion upon them. The
100000 men from whom the demands
proceeded had voted to strike If their
demands were refused: the strike was
imminent; it has since been set for the
fourth of September next. 1t affects
the men who man the freight trains
raj
country The freight service through
out the United States must stand still
until their places arc filled. if indeed
it should prove possible to fill them at
all. Cities will be cut off from their
food supplies: the whole commerce of
the nation will be paralyzed; men of
every sort and occupation will be
thrown out of employment countless
thousands will in all likelihood be at
the point of starvation, and national
calamity be brought on, to be added to
the other distresses of the time. be-
cause no basis Of accommodation or
settlement has been found.
Just as soon as it became evident
that mediation under the existing law
had failed and that arbitration had
been rendered impossible by the atti-
tude of the men, considered it my duty
30 confer with the representatives. OF
both the railways and the brother
hoods and myself offer mediation. not
as an arbitrator. but merely as spokcs-
man of the nation. in the interest of
Justice, indeed, and as a friend Of both
parties. but not AS Judge, only as the
representative of 100000, 900 of men
women and children who would pay tn,
price, the incalculable price, of loss anC
suffering should these few mon insist
upon approaching and concluding tn,
matters in controversy between then
merely as employers and employees
rather than as patriotic citizens of tn,
United States looking before and afteI
and accepting tho larger responsible
ity which the public would put upor
them.
BELIEVES IN EIGHT-HOUR DAY.
1T seems to me. considering the sub
ject matter of the controversy. that tn,
whole spirit of the time and the pre-
ponderant evidence of recent economi
experience spoke for the eight -hou
day. therefore propose,
that the eight-hour day be adopted b.
the railway arrangements and put int
practice for the present as "A substitut
for the existing ten-hour basis of pa
and service; that | should appoint wit
the permission of the Congress, "A SINAI
commission to observe the results q
the change, carefully study the figure
of the altered operating costs. not only
but also the conditions of labor undo
which the men worked and the opera
tion of their existing agreements wit
the railroads with Instructions to re
port the facts as they found them I
the Congress at the earliest possibl
day, but without recommendation, an
that after the facts had been thus dis
closed an adjustment should in som
orderly manner be sought of all the ma,
ters now left unadjusted between tn
railroad managers ana the men
"Theao proposals were exactly in lin,