Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-03-20
Tuesday, March 20, 1917.
Advice is not disliked because 1t
is advice. but because SO few people
know how to give it.-Leigh Hunt.
Eight Hour Law Constitutional.


The Adamson law eight-hour stan
dard is declared constitutional by the
Supreme Court of the United States.
After all the pitiful spectacle the
brotherhoods dictators made of them
selves. arousing the Indignation and
prejudice of the whole American peo-
pie, it was so needless! The railroads
were pledged to accept without a
murmur, the courts return, but the
autocrats who held up Congress could
not await the processes of justice
when a national crisis gave them a
strangle hold.
Not only was the Supreme Court it.
self held in contempt by the alleged
utterances Of these union leaders. but
their own bylaws were violated. and
q reasonable disposition Haunted be-
fore the world, regardless of respect
or effect. Even members Of the broth
erhoods arose in rebellion against such
union labor leadership and loyal to the
American Union.
Who shall predict the far-reaching
effect upon labor unionism? The
principle established by the Adamson
law and approved by the court is OF
less Importance than the spirit mani
tested in the nations critical hour.
Hundreds of thousands of underpaid
and struggling members of labor or
CARNATIONS resent the imposition of
sledge- hammer processes by the high
est paid labor in the world. and re-
member that in the end they must
help pay the additional price from
their own meagre wage.
The political folly of Congress is
displayed to the full before a disgust
ed public. The Presidents helpless
appeal to the hold-up men is pa
thetic demonstration of government
unpreparedness and incompetence. We
should have had immediate passage of
an anti strike law after the notorious
blackmail of last year. The first
duty of the new Congress should be
to see to it that no other such labor
union torpedo can be. Launched at the
ship OF state.
Let us have honest and fair. actual
control Of interstate transportation,
control that applies to both sides of
the problem, protecting the country
from elements that have neither re-
spect for, the law. the courts, nor the
moral rights of their own union
brothers and their Families
The New- York Tribune has we'll put
the one-sided position of the present
control in the following
The railroads are a pAblic instrl-
mentality. Their Uninterrupted opera =
lion is necessity. Yet Congress has
lodged the responsibility of securing
uninterrupted operation. 1t has dele
gated to the Interstate Commerce
Commission authority to enforce a
one-sided regulation of the railroads.
The railroads have been deprived of
power to make their own rates and
thus control their own income. They
are not permid Ito go into the mar
ket and sell their services but they
are still5compelled to go into the mar
ket when it comes to employing and
paying their operating force.
Railroad regulation so far has been
unbalanced and inequitable. The
whole burden of it has fallen on rail-
road stockholders. Rates have been
forced down and kept down by gov
ernmental. action, while taxes have
been put up and wages have steadily
advanced under arbitrations conduct
ed under government auspices. Rates
and operating expenses have never
been co-ordinated. No attempt has
ever been made to coordinate them.
THE theory of state control. has
been applied with the greatest rigor,
so far as the earning power of the
railroads is concernedA. sBut it has not
been applied at all as NJ as their wage
fund is concerned. The public or
semi public character Of the railroad
employees occupation has never been
properly recognized. Unions of en-
ployes have retained the same free
dom to strike as is exercised by
unions dealing with private employers
In private industry.
1.-The public has been cajoled with
the assurance that it was getting
cheap freight rates at the.expense of
the owners Of railroad Scks. But
the fact has been scopcea1ed that a
nation wide strike of = weeks might
easily cost the public more than all its
savings in freight rates fdf twenty
years"
Now the time has come to begin the
work SO long neglected. P11haps the
late demonstration was needed to
prove to the country that there are
trust perils in labor as we'll as In CAPT.
tai