Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-05-17
WALSH BELIEVES
 ROADS CAN GIVE
 EIGR1.HOUR DAY
Chairman Industrial Rela- tions Committee Upholds
 the Trainmen.

Pittsburgh. Frank P. Walsh. cam :nan
 of the committee on IauuStllal rrl,-
 lion.'. said:
 II hold that tEc cr,'t- hour day is
 so incontestabiy rieAf th4; the de-
 mand for it is not "ubi ' for arbi-
 tration It should ba taken aa ] Iii: l.
 ter of inalienaElc right through the economic power of the workers. \ot only should no man le cunircllcd to
 work more than o,ght hours Il day:
 but nc man should 1t. perm tteG t6
 work more than eight hours q uay except with . consent eff als lel- low workers ana under conditions which they impose, by h"if eanteil>e bargaining power, to 50" th1t !he unp man does not invade and inperil the rights of his fellows"
 "I hold further" continued MT. Walsh. that the right of workers to collective bargaining and the tight of every worker to be protected by his fellow. workers from arbitrary dis charge are also the inalienablc rights of modern industry and they also are not subjects for arbitration.'
 What the rsilroad brotherhods are demanding," said Mir. Walsh. ''iF that instead of ten-hour day they be given an eight-hour day. or if the railroads won't grant that, then that they be given time and one-haif for time over the eight-hoUr limit.
 "The railroads. say that this is, merely a demand for wages to be i'm creased. Suppose that the brother hoods demanded without any alt.rna- tive that they be given the eight-hour day (which every principle of human ity and human efficiency says is long enough for exacting risky and vigil ant labor) and that the railroad em- ployes be returned to their homes at the end of each days work without expense to them as most other cm= ployes are. What howl would then go up from the railroads as to the exorbitant cost that would mean toI them. If these righteous demands off the railway employees have become only demands for increased wages if is because the railroads themselves have made that the alternative.
 Wages of Trainmen Small.
 Bear in mind that the great ma- jority of railroad employees are Q great part of their time away from their home cities. They have to pay their own expenses for lodging, food, etc., and that domes out of their wages What are these wages? They will average, it is claimed. $1.242 al year. That is perhaps $100 or more too high, inasmueh as it takes into account the higher average of the 13.- 900 passenger conductors. engineers and others who are not involved in this controversy. But suppose it is 1.242 a year. The daily average wage for trainmen is $2.73 for ten hour day. or 27 cents an hour. To make $1,242 year at 27 cents an hour means that man must work 4,60o hours in the year. and that means the equivalent of 460 ten-hou' days. or 365 days of more than. 13 hours labor each. The way it actually works itself out is that for many, many days of the year the men who run your trains. and who keep the tracks safe and into whose hands tn" lives of all the rest are placed, and safely placed where the greed or cheapness of the financial manage ments does not intervene. those men must work to the point of exhaustion for sixteen or more hours out of the twenty-four.
 eve have been told bv the rail roads that there have already been considerable percentages of wage in crease to the train operatives in the past few years. A percentage of wage increase depends on what you c@o ct O vi with CI.oh low wage that man and his wife and children cannot live on it, even with the practice of the strict est economy. then it takes but a pre- cious little increase to make good showing. And not only that. but such increases as have been granted have been absorbed by the of trains and the greater amount of work put upon the men. And every one knows to his dismay how the greater cost of living hos in creased and has lessened the actual value of the wages received. Let the wages be placed on fair and re- spectable basis to start with and then it will be time enough and fair enough to talk about percentages of wage >n- creases."
 Business Profitable.
 Mir. Walsh gave figures to show that never in the history of the country has the railroad business been so | profitable as in the past year. A re- port for the eight months ending February 29 and covering all the railroads having operating expenses of one million dollars or more a year (and this includes Ss per cent of all the railroad mileage in the country) has just been completed by the interstate commerce commission. Those official statistics show that the net revenue of the railroads, above expenses of operation. wages, depreci- ation charges, taxes and every other possible charge was $6S7,653,S66. That vast sum was profits, to be distribut- ed in dividends, surplus or any other form of velvet that the directors chose to make.
 "The profits for those eight months from July 1. 1915. to March |, 1916, vvoro ohout fifty ner cent larger than