The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1919-08-30
Plumb Plan is Called an Eff
fort to Russianize the
Railways Of This
Country.
JUDGE LovETT's IDEA
Human Nature Makes it Impossible
for Human Men to Fix Their
Own Wages and
Hours.

! UNITED Press Leased Wire Service. ]
! NEW YORK, Aug. 30.-The Plumb
plan is an effort to RussianiZe Amer
lean railroads and apply to them the
soviet system, according to Judge X.
| S. Lovett, head Of the Union Pacific
railroad.
In an interview with the United
Press today, Judge Lovett character
lied the Plumb plan as an assault
upon American institutions which
the mass of railroad employees as
well as citizens fail to understand.
Holding thai the American people
rather than railroad owners or
executives would suffer most if the
Plumb plan were attempted in oper-
alton, Judge Lovett said:
THE Plumb plan, as grasp it, is
fplainiy an effort to Russianize Amer
lean railroads; that is, TO turn over
each industry to the employees oper-
ating it for exploitation in their own
interest.
Whether the government takes
the railroads for operation by the
government, as ordinarily under
stood, for the interest of all the
in the interest Of railroad employees
exclusively, as proposed by the
Plumb plan, is probably not very
material to the railroad owners or
investors as such. In either case, SO
long as we have a constitution, the
owners would be paid ror the rail
roads.
'In that view and in that sense,
opposition to the Plumb plan is not
the fight of railroad owners, as such,
or OF the railroad executives repre-
senting the railroads, but is matter
that concerns all the citizens of every
class and occupation.
III the government takes and pays
for the railroads and then turns
them over to the employees 10 operate
in their own interest, the result is
easily foreseen-
"Since the beginning of federal
control, the wages of railroad en-
ployes have been increased approx
mately one billion dollars per annum,
making the total annual wages to the
railroad employees about S2,700,000,-
00v, while the total payable by the
government for the use of the rail
roads is about $S92,000,000 per
annum, out of which $3.50. 100000
must be paid for interest on bonds,
leaving only about SAP, 100000 to the
owners of the railroads, or less than
one-half of the additional or increased
wages paid to labor.
"If the railroads are turned over
to those operating with unlimited
authority to fix their own wages and
hours of work, it is obvious that
Transportation rates will have to be
become unbearable.
Human nature makes it impossible
that human men should be allowed
to fix their own wages and own hours
of work for others to pay.
at is the people who will pay the
freight rather than the railroad owners
that are most interested in the Plumb
plan. The farmer, whose products
are worthless without transportation,
the consumer of these products, the
manufacturer in every line of industry
and indeed, all the people will suffer
the consequence of exploitation of the
railroads by the unrestrained selfish
ness of those engaged in the operation
OF them.
"If the Plumb plan should De
adopted there would be the constitu-
ton to protect the owners of the .+lr-
roads against the taking of their prop
erty without just compensation, but
there will be no protection to the
shipping and travelling public against
the wasteful extravaganza of the oper-
atives in fixing their own wages, or
against the inefficient service that
would inevitably follow rom the
abolition of all discipline.
while. therefore, we are opposed
to the Plumb plan, as involving the
utter ruin of the transportation of the
(Continued on page 81