New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-08
Emotional Economists.

There are two reasons why there
will be no great railway strike. One
is that the public will not. as Grand
Chief Stone suggests, bear with us
if we tie up the railroads of the
United States for few days. in or
der to gain for themselves shorter
hours and more pay than they could
hope to win by arbitration. The other
is that the public, on looking at the
earnings of the railroads, would, if
they had been too unyielding at the
last, blame them for not having
"done something to keep the trans
portation machine going. That is to
say, the public would be extremely
intolerant of a struggle between the
brotherhoods and the railroads.
Their quarrel must be arbitrated.
and the side that in the end should
reject the principle of arbitration
finally would bear the greater bur
den of popular disapproval. The
brotherhoods have not suffered by
arbitration in the past. They have
come out of it each time with more
than they had before, though less
than they had asked for. That is
compromise. All human adjustments
are.
1t was very hot on Sunday. That
will perhaps explain the lack of
poise exhibited here by the repre-
sentatives of the brotherhoods. It
would not account for the state of
feeling on the part of Frank p.
Walsh, who was the majority of the
Federal Commission on Industrial
Relations. His faith is fixed and
inaccessible. He disbelieves in arbi-
tration. 1t is to him traitorous, futile
and immoral. But for the damned
wantlessness" of those who toll
though they are poor and who are
always induced to compromise the
institution of private property would
long ago have disappeared. What
Mr.. Walsh does not know is that the
existence of private property is his
own reason for being. What would
he do without it?
The contribution of Mr.. Dudley
Field Malone TO the rhetoric of the
railroad wage controversy is perhaps
of all the most difficult to account
for. He exhorted the men to stand
out for what they wanted. 1t would
he well for the railroads to realize,
he said, that any stupid lack of eco
nomic vision on their part would do
more to aid the agitation for govern
ment ownership Of railways than the
advocates Of government ownership
could accomplish. Mr.. Malone is
behind his own times. He evidently
does not know that it is no longer
possible to brighten railroad capital
with the idea of government owner
ship. Indeed. there are advocates
of government ownership within the
railroad circle. When its profes-
sional radical advocates find this out
they will probably change their
ground and oppose it, being governed
by the superstition that anything TO
which the railroads are reconciled is
wrong. Mr.. Malone boasted of know
ing some things for sure. He at
tackled the claim that the prosperity
of the railroads at the present time
was owing TO the war. CAS- Collector
of the Port of New York." he said,
Through which Ss0,00O,00O in ex-
ports pass every week, | know that
statement is not true. Three-ffths
of what the railroads carry goes TO
neutral countries in legitimate trade
and is not for the use of the bellig-
erents."
Waving the fairly obvious fact
that what Mr.. Malone calls "legiti-
mate trade" with neutrals has been
increased by reason of the war, this
country supplying goods which the
neutrals normally procure from the
belligerents, We may be pardoned for