Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-03-20
RAILROAD WORLD ID ENJOY LONE
 PEACE PERIOD Nation wide Railroad Strike Danger Has Passed
 Into History.
ABOUT $12,0O0,000
 DUE RAILROAD MEN

Brotherhood Chiefs and Railroad Man
 agers Meet Today to Decide How
 Much Due Trainmen for Oypr- time Since January 1. New York, March 19.-With the ma tlon-wide railroad strike averted b, 1 agreement and the Adamson act de- clared constitutional, the controyers, that has ragged between the railroad. and their employees for more than ; year over the question of hours an( wages today passed into history.
 Appealed to by the president. mediators to yield on patriotism te the demands of their employees, the railroads, just before daybreak today consented to an agreement whereb, the employees receive an eight-hou] basic wordday and pro rata pay for overtime, the same as that provided by the Adamson law. Several hours later the United States supreme court upheld the constitutionality of the Adamson act, and what the brother. moods obtained by their threat to call a nationwide strike at z o'clock to- night the supreme court legally as- sured to them by it's decree.
 All that remains is to decide how much back pay the employees are en- titled to, inasmuch as the agreement signed by both sides and the Adam son law provides that the operation of the new wage and hour schedule shall be retroactive, beginning January 1 The brotherhoods and the railroad managers will get together on this matter tomorrow to decide how it will be computed It is estimated the en- ployes have between s12,0O0,0oO and $13,000,00o coming to them.
 Labor Chiefs Happy.
 The brotherhood chiefs were in happy mood today as they dispatched their code telegrams calling off the strike. They have not won all they asked for from the railroads when they first presented their demands on March 30, 1916, having lost the time and-a-half for overtime feature, but they have secured what they agreed to last August when they accepted the Atkinson law provisions, and which the railroads fought in the courts.
 w. G. Lee, spokesman for the brotherhoods, made it plain today that he looked for peace in the railroad world for long time. Asked whether there was any intention to bring up in the conferences the question of punitive overtime, MT. Lee said:
 "That will not be brought up now. We believe that overtime can largely be done away with by speeding up schedules"
 Franklin K. Lane, secretary of the interior; Secretary of Labor Wilson Daniel Willard and Samuel Gompers the mediatOrs of the Council for Ma tional Defense who brought the con- troversy to an end after AS hours of almost imcessant effort, returned to Washington this afternoon. MT Lane in statement expressing the satis- faction of his committee over the out come. praised the railroad managers for "their high sense of obligation and their unwillingness to permit any embarrassment to the country at this time of extreme strain"
 MediatOrs' Report.
 The mediation negotiations and their result are summed up in the following statement issued at 6 o'clock this morning by the committee from the Council of National Defense:
 We desire to express our apprecia- ton of the large and patriotic action of the railway managers committee which has put beyond preadventure the possibility of a nationwide rail- road strike. The railroads have met the full demand of the Adamson eight. hour law This concession was se- cured as the continuation of two days and nights of negotiation.
 "Our first effort was to secure g postponement of the strike which was fixed for Saturday night. This post. ponement was secured by presenting to railway managers memorandum agreement drafted by the brotherhoods which, with some particularly, ex' pressed the provisions of the Adam. son law. We asked the railways tc agree that if the Adamson law was held to be constitutional, that this construction and application would be given to it. The railways agreed te this at a joint session between tht brotherhood chiefs and the managers and, with much difficulty, the chiefs stayed the strike, an act that was vita to the success of our efforts at further mediation.
 "We now sought some adjustment that would be effective should the law be held to be unconstitutional. In this regard many propositions were made to both sides until the railroads ex pressed willingness to place thu
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