New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-11-16
An Impotent Threat

In laying their plans for forcing a sec
ond wage increase the railroad brother
hoods have made one fatal miscalculatlon.
They have failed to take into account the
change which has occurred in the railroad
situation since they stampeded Congress
into passing the Adamson law. A year ago
the threat of a nationwide strike un-
nerved the government. The latter had
then no means at its command to prevent
q strike. Although it had theoretically as
sumed complete responsibility for the
operation of the railroads-for fixing
wages and conditions Of labor, as well as
for fixing freight and passenger rates-it
had neglected to equip itself with legal
authority to make good its control of the
entire field of operation. 1t still chung to
the fiction that, so far as the railroad en-
ployes were concerned, they were still alb
solutely free agents, dealing with the cor
porations to which they looked for wages
as in any non-government regulated in
dustry.
Our entry into the war has changed all
that. The government has taken over the
railroads. 1t could not do otherwise, be-
cause they constitute a military instru-
mentality of the first order. Our trans
portation system has at last been unified.
The government has asserted undisputed
and unlimited control over it. For the pc
Rod of the war the theory has been aban-
doned that private railroad ownership any
longer counts.
The governments control has been for
titled both by actual legislation and by the
calling into exercise of vast latent war
powers of the Presidency. The President
has been authorized to operate the rail
roads to any extent to which he may think
fit to do so. Obstructing their operation by
physical force, by threats of force or by
aiding others in making and carrying out
such threats has been declared misde-
meanor, and the President has been au-
thorized to employ the armed forces of the
United States to prevent such obstruction.
In so far as a concerted general strike
would obstruct the operation of the rail-
roads it could be suppressed by military
force. Moreover, under the selective con-
scription act the President has the power
TO draft men to work on the railroads.
The farce of 1916 can't be played over
again. The brotherhoods cannot 90 to the
railroad heads with demands for higher
wages, and threaten to strike if those de-
mands are not granted. The heads of the
railroads have no actual power to advance
wages, since they are no longer operating
the railroads, except in a Pickwickian
sense. The Interstate Commerce Commits
sion is at present the sole arbiter of rail-
road rates and railroad wages. Wages and
rates are interrelated. They should rise
and fall together, or should rise and fall
in accordance with harmonization by the
commission Of railroads operating in
come and outlay.
The body before which the wage de-
mands Of the brotherhoods must be laid
this time is the Interstate Commerce Com
mission. II there is strike because Of
what the brotherhoods consider an unsatis-
factory award it will be not against the
railroads, but against the government.
But the government, as President Wilson
has so strongly limited in his letter to
Judge Chambers, is not in a position TO
tolerate a railroad strike. 1t does not need
TO tolerate one For it has in its hands the
means to smother strike, which, il per-
by the government, would be classifable
with the outrageous activities of the
]. w. w.
We do not believe that the brotherhoods
intend TO force a strike. They have too