The Connecticut labor press., 1920-02-28
PASSAGE OF R. R. BILL PUTS DAMPER ON MASS MEETING Time for Talk Gone Men Agree
 and Stay at
 Home. nT TIMHn m lAT MAT TnCT
PLUMB PLAN NOT LOST
New Law Inadequate Makes It
 More Certain, Speaker Declares.

The hasty action by the Senate and House of Congress in passing the Cum mins-Esch Railroad bill put such a damper on the enthusiasm of railroad and other organized workers, and the worker generally this week, that the monster mass meeting planned for the Arena on Tuesday night, was practically given up. Because arrangements had been made with the speakers and pro- gram. mapped out about 500 persons gathered and listened to the discussions but no action on anything was taken.
 The attitude of the railroad crafts generally was, following the swift pas sage of the bill, that the time had gone for depending on argument or moral in- f1uence, and that the matter can only be adjusted now by direct and prompt action. The word was passed along the iline and therefore instead of the big crowds expected from nearby cities, the workers stayed at home.
 To those that did attend however the meeting was we'll worth while Prof. Walter B. Kennedy, railroad expert, and former member of the legal departments of the New Haven, Boston & Maine, and Boston & Albany railroads, who was the chief speaker, urged the railroad work CTS not to give up hope because of the passage of the bill and pointed out to them that the Plumb plan for the fu- ture control of the railroads of the coun- try was by no means a lost issue. A new era is coming and will come all the more speedily because of the Cummins- Esch bill, he said, in denouncing the bill and predicting that 1t will never work out as a solution of the countrys and the railroads difficulties
 Speaking on the Plumb plan he de- clared it to be one of merit principle and democracy and declared that 1t cain not be shelved therefore. Any final so1u- ton of the railroad situation must have the ethics of the Plumb plan beneath 1t to be a success, he declared. He re- ferred to the watering of the stocks, not only of the New England roads but of practically all the railroads of the country as the base of all the troubles and declared that the Cummins-Esch bill was remedy to be applied externally when what is needed is something that will counteract an internal disease.
 The Plumb plan, Professor Kennedy explained, proposes the acquisition of the railroads by the government it created corporation, as the operating agency of the roads. This corporation would be composed of 15 directors, five to be appointed by the President to rep resent the general public; five to be elected by the managing officials of the roads, to represent the railway execu- tives, and the remaining five to be elected by the rank and file of the rail- way employees. Three interests, the pub lie, capital and labor, were adequately protected in the Plumb plan by this bi- partite plan, said the speaker, while the Cummins-Esch bill centered control in the hands of one group.
 Professor Kennedy countered the crit icism of the Plumb plan would not work, by declaring that 1t would cut, out profteering, would provide a recur- rent incentive to efficiency to the rank and file of the employees, and by the fact that 50 per cent. of savings effected by the employees would go to the gov ernment to help reduce cost of trans portation, and the other 50 per cent. would go to the employees themselves, thereby serving to decrease materially the cost of living.
 Ira M. Ornburn, president of the New Haven Trades Council and organizer for the C. F. of L., presided. After Professor Kennedy, the New Haven division chiefs of the various Railroad Brotherhoods made brief addresses, counselling their members to withhold any hasty action until the result of the conferences being held i'll Washington is known and the general executive and conference boards have had time to digest these results and report on to the workers at large.
 It was pointed out that all the Con- necticut representatives in both houses of Congress had voted in favor of the railroad bill as passed and this point was given the men to think over in making up their minds as to the elections com ing this fa11