The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1916-09-01

An example of the railroads bare
faced attempts to mislead the public
is an article signed by Luke Grant,
Special Agent, United States Indus
trial Commission which appeared in
Chamberlain's Magazine for February,
1916, entitled Wages and Hours of
Railroad Employees" This article has
been reprinted in circular form and is
now being circulated by the railroad
companies.
The following statement, signed by
Frank P. Walsh, chairman, Committee
on Industrial Relations, is a perfect
expose of the cheap and deceitful
methods deliberately being used in an
attempt to discredit the railroad en-
ployes in their fair and reasonable
demand for an eight-hour day:
Mr.. WaIsh's Statement to the Public
Washington D. c., Feb. 16, 1916.
Charging the conference committee
of managers of the railroads of the
| United States with a deliberate at
tempt to deceive the public, Frank P.
Walsh today issued statement re-
pudiating and denouncing the use of
the name of the United States Com
mission on Industrial Relations in
connection with the distribution of a
pamphlet attacking the eight-hour
movement of the railroad brother
hoods.
The pamphlet is entitled Wages
and Hours of Railroad Employees" and
is by Luke Grant, who is designated
on the cover, and again on the title
page as Special Agent for the United
State Industrial Commission"
After characterizing Grants discus
sion of the eight-hour movement of
the brotherhoods as a "skillful piece
of special pleading, in which facts are
distorted, for the evident purpose of
prejudicing the public against the
men," Mr.. Walsh says
Grant is not an agent of the In
dustrial Commission and has not been
since last July. The commission, as
was we'll known to the railroad man
ayers when they put out this pam
phlet expired by statutory limitation
in August, and their use of this desig-
nation of Grant is a deliberate and
willful attempt to deceive the public
and give the prestige of this commits
sion to a document that was not en-
titled to it and that without it would
carry no weight
The commission made no investiga-
tion whatever into conditions of en-
ployment in the train service of the
railroads, and whatever information
Mr. Grant possessed on the subject
must have been handed to him by the
railroads or obtained from other
sources. His statement sounds sus-
piciously like an echo of that issued
by the railroads themselves.
Mr.. Grant since he left the employ
of the commission, has been employed
by the Tariff Commission League. and
in that employmentahe has attempted
to capitalize his standing with or
ganized labor, acquired in past years
as an active trade unionist. Grants
attack on the railroad brotherhoods
shows him in his true character as a
hostile critic of the labor movement
and a champion of those interests
that are always ready to reward men
of his type.
This dishonest use of the name of
the commission is not the first evi-
dence that the railroads are deter
mined to sacrifice the truth in their
campaign to turn the public against
the men who operate the trains, and
to defeat the movement TO relieve
them from excessively long hours of
labor.
In their own names, the railroad
managers have issued a statement
whcih, for deliberate and shameless
misrepresentation of the facts, has
never been surpassed. This state
ment asserts flatly and without quail