The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1916-08-31

VIC nlISVh pIVSIdIlJ IL was learned 10
might.
1t is feared that the efforts to enact
the recommendations of Wilson vii
keep Congress in session at least two
months. Already opposition is devel
oping among both Senators and Con.
gressmen.
President Wilson laid the threaten.
ed railway strike before Congress to.
day in an address to both houses as
sembled in joint session. He spoke as
follows:
Gentlemen of the Congress: have
come to you to seek your assistance in
dealing with very grave situation
which has arisen out of the demand OF
the employees of the railroads engaged
IN freight train service that they be
granted an eight-hour working day
safeguarded by payment for an hour
anG a half of service for every hour
Of work beyond the eight.
THE matter has been agitated for
more than year. The public has been
made familiar with the demands of the
mAr and the arguments urged in ia
vor Of them, and even more familiar
with tire objections of the railroads
and their counter demand that certain
provisions now enjoyed by their men
and cc'tain bases of payment worked
out through many years of contest be
considered, especially in their relation
to the adoption of an eight-hour day.
The matter came some three weeks
ago to a final issue and resulted in a
complete deadlock between the parties.
The means provided by Law at media
ton of the controversy failed and the
means of arbitration for which the
law provides were rejected.
Position of Two Sides.
"Tne representatives of the railway
executives proposed that the demands
of men be submitted in their entirety
to arbitration, along with certain ques-
tons of readjustment as to pay and
conditions of employment which SEEM
ed to them to be either closely asso-
ciated with the demands or to call for
on their own merits.
The men absolutely declined arbitra-
ton, especially if any of their estab
lished provisions 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 September 4 next. 1t affects
the men who man the freight trains on
practically every railway in the coun-
try. The freight service throughout
the United States must stand until
their places are filled, if indeed, it
should prove possible to fill them at
all. Cities will be cut off from the 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 brought, it may
be, 10 the very point of starvation,
and a tragical national calamity
brought on, to be added to the other
distresses of the time, because no ba-
sis of accommodation of settlement has
been found.
Gust so 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, l considered 1T my
duty to confer with the representatives
of both the railways and the brother
hoods, and myself offer mediation, not
as an arbitrator, but merely as a
spokesman of the nation, in the in
terest of justice, indeed, and as a
friend of both parties, but not as a
Judge, only as the representative OF
one hundred millions of men, women