The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-08-30
Union Pacific Head Assails the
Plumb Plan as BOlshevik.
To Russianize @. S. In
dnstry R. S. LOvett Charges.
MEANS HIGHER RAIL RATES
Gives Employees Power To In
crease Wages at VIII.
Won't Affect Rail Owners Be-
cause o. s. VIII Pay Them.

New York. Aug. so.-The Plumb
plan is an effort to Russianize- Amer
lean railroads and apply to them the
soviet system, according to Judge r.
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
Says People VIII Suffer.
Holding that the American people
rather than railroad owners or execu-
tives would suffer most If the Plumb
Judge Lovett said:
The Plumb pan, as I grasp IT, is
plainly an effort to Russianize Amer
lean railroads; that is, to turn over
each industry to the employees oper-
ating it for exploitation in etheir own
interests
Whether the government takes the
railroads for operation by the govern
ment, as ordinarily understood, for the
interest of all the people, or takes
them for operation in the interest of
railroad employees exclusively, as pro-
posed by the Plumb plan, is probably
not very material to the railroad own
ers or investors as such. In either
case, so long as we have q constitu-
ton, the owners would be paid for the
railroads.
Rail Owners Won't Lose
'Tn that view, and in that sense, op-
position to the Plumb plan is not the
fight of railroad owners, as such, or
of the railroad executives represent
ing the railroads, but is matter that
concerns all the citizens Of every class
and occupation.
\ 'tTf OOyer0pnenf and Oavs
for the railroads and then turns them
over to the employees to operate in
their own interest, the result easily
is foreseen.
Since the beginning Of federal con-
troll, the wages of railroad employees
have been increased approximately
one billion dollars per annun, making
the total annual wages to the railroad
employees about $2,700. 100000, while
the total payable by the government
for the use of the railroads is about
$S92,000,O0O per annum. out of which
$3.50, 100000 must be paid for interest
on bonds, leaving only SAP. 900. 900 to
the owners of the railroads, or less
than one-half of the additional or
increased wages paid to labor.
Rates VIII Go Sky High.
IF the railroads are turned over to
those operating with unlimited author
ity to fix their own wages and hours
of work, 1t is obvious that transporta =
ton rates will have to be increased
again and again until they become I'M
bearable.
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.
1T is the people who will pay the
freight rather than the railroad own
ers that are most interested in the
Plumb plan. The farmer, whose prod
mr. xrvif1 FRA
zion, the consumer of these products,
the manufacturer in every line of in
dustry, and indeed, all the people will
suffer the consequences of exploitation
of the railroads by the unrestrained
selfishness of those engaged in the
operation of them.
IF the Plumb plan should be
adopted there would DE the constitu-
ton to protect the owners of the rail-
road against the taking of their prop
erty without just compensation but
there will be no protection on the
shipping and the travelling against the
wasteful extravaganza of the opera
tives in fixing their own wages, or
against the inefficient service that
would inevitably follow from the abol-
ition of all discipline.
Bold Plan for Starter.
ut is rather a bold move for the
radical leaders to take first, for Rus
SANITATION OF the one industry that
affects all the people. 1t would be
more reasonable to expect them to
| take some minor industry, some man
ufacturing line, for example, and then
turn 1t over to the employees engaged
in operating it to manage it in their
own interest.
This would have affected a com
paratively small number and the
process could have been extended
from lime to time to the other indus
| tries, so long as the public remained
apathetic or Indifferent, as is so often
the case except where individual in
terests are directly affected.
But to take the railroad industry
which is so vital to every community
and everybody. and seek to apply the
soviet system to 1t. must at once bring
home, to every citizen the extraordi-
nary character of the assault upon our
institutions and what it means to ev-
cry individual.
Men Don't Understand 1t?
'T do not believe myself that the
mass of railroad employees understand
the full effect and purpose of this
| proposition. When they do. do not
| believe they will favor it, I am sure
they are too patriotic and too thoroly
/ American to favor any such policy. +,
so far as PluHb's charges are con-
cerned, the few that have any founda-
| ton in fact were merely embellished
repetittons of very old stories: and. as
| to the others. have no doubt that
complete refatations will in due time
be presented to the committee by the
companies against which they were