The Mena weekly star. (Mena, Ark.) 1904-1977, 1919-06-19
RADICAL PLAN OF
RAIL OPERATION
Under System Proposed by Chicago
Attorney Railways Would Be Owned
by Government and Operated by
Corporation as One System.

Chicago, June 12.-Glen e. Plumb,
Chicago lawyer and attorney for the
four railway brotherhood crganiza-
tons has proposed revolutionary
plan for rail control in the United
States. The system is under consid-
GRAFTON by the American Federation of
Labor and others.
Plumb's Plan is as follows:
Let the government buy the
railroads at the amount actually
invested by the stockholders
not the present physical value"
or cost of reproduction.
Let the government lease the
roads to a corporation consisting
of the railroad managers and en-
ployes, the board of directors of
this corporation to be selected
Five by the president of the
United State,
Five by the railroad executives,
Five by the workers.
Let the rates to the public, both
passenger and freight, be fixed
automatically by the operating
expenses, and let the profits be
distributed among the managers
and wage-workers in proportion
to their salaries.
Let the properties be operated
as one system.
If the Plumb plan of valuation is
adopted, the government, it is resti-
mated, would pay for the roads not
the 10 billions which represents their
present total capitalization, but in
stead about ten billion which it is cal
culated represents the TOTAL
AMOUNT OF MONEY ACTUALLY
in the roads by stock
holders and bondholders. 1t is the
most radical plan that has yet been
proposed for the solution of the rail-
road problem.
Plumb says that the plan has the
support not only Of the railroad
brotherhoods, with their 100000 mem
bers, but also of the organizations of
shop crafts and other employees num-
bering, it is said, over one million.
The railroad brotherhoods are not
of the American Federation
of Labor but the other railroad organ
izations are, and their support will in
sure a solid block of powerful unions
in the American Federation of Labor
when vote is taken on the resolution
to approve the Plub plan.
Superficial observers are amazed
that so radical plan should have any
chance of adoption by the American
Federation of Labor, which has con-
sistently opposed all socialistic pro-
posals. They overlook the fact that
the American Federation Of Labor in
common with other labor organiza-
tons, has always looked with favor
on government ownership of public
utilities, such as railroads, telegraphs
and telephones, and that opposition
of the trade unions to socialism has
been due in large measure to fear of
bureaucratic tyranny,
The Plumb plan has been devised
with the idea of preventing bureau
cracy by giving representatives of
the workers an equal voice in the
of the railroads.
The trade unions also have shared
the general fear that government
ownership would make the railroads
the playthings of politics, but several
trade union officials feel that the
Plumb plan goes long way toward
that danger
Along with these theoretical con-
siderations goes the practical fear of
the trade unionists that if the rail-
roads are turned back to private own
ership there will be general reduc-
ton of wages, which would create
precedent for wage cutting
in all industries Just now the Amer
lean labor movements has two slo-
gans: "No wage reductions until prices
are cut" and, second, "A voice for
labor in the management of industry"
The Plumb plan fits in with both of
these slogans and hence is sure to
command support from the rank and
file of organized labor.