Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1921-10-21
ODDS AND
ENDS

By Arthur Brisbane
In the New York American

Overshadowing all other news for
Americans is the threatening railroad
strike. The men say that will tie up
every railroad in the United States ex-
cept Henry Ford's railroad. He raised
wages and reduced rates instead of
raising rates and reducing e as
the others have done.
Railroad owners say they will RELY
on the public to deal with the situation
and compel the striking men to run
the roads.
The public, it seems, is not fit to
own or manage railroads, but will do
as a club to force the men back.
The President, intervening, demands
mediation. The City of Detroit, well
equipped by it's automobile industry,
will provide necessary fleets of trucks
to keep food moving.
The City of New York says it will
commander all food supplies and
ration the inhabitants if necessary.
All shipping would be tied up, all
foreign commerce and all interstate
commerce brought to a standstill-
and all because railroad owners bor-
rowing money at usurious rates, ex-
plotting their roads for the benefit of
insiders, competing for business and
with each other on a non-scientific,
wasteful basis, demand that their men
accept a cut in wages, with a vague
promise to reduce railroad rates later.
The President knows, as do the At
torney-General and every thinking
man, that there is something more
threatening on the horizon than an or
binary great strike" This country is
sick and needs care, not a first-class
industrial fight. 1t should not risk all
that is involved in a national industrial
CONFUSION for the sake of a few in
dividuals that control the railroads or
of two and a half millions that work
for railroads.
When the late war began the nation
took charge of affairs, told railroad
owners and workmen what they must
do. This threatening strike might
produce within the nation a war much
more serious than the wal just ended.
The government should take charge of
the situation and do it now. There
shouldn't be any %quibbling or hair
splitting about keeping the mails run
ming, none of the old-fashioned meth
DDS of putting the government against
the strikers without actually saying so.
Add to the five or six millions of
disconnected unemployed two and a
half million we'll organized fighting
railroad men and there may come
trouble temporarily beyond govern
ment control.
Those responsible should study
methods, the infinite pa
tience and tact of her government UNI
der similar conditions, dealing with
English workers. They have expe-
rienced statesmen there, educated men
that know it is hard to put out a fire
once it starts.
1t is wrong for two and a half mil
lion workmen to tie up and threaten
a hundred millions, even with their
living, their future at stake. 1t is
infinitely worse for a handful of rail-
road owners, with dividends, hoped for
profits only involved, to say, as they
are saying: 1--WE have got to beat these
workmen sooner or later; we might as
well do it now while times are bad and
business dull. The public must
take it's medicine and do u fighting
for us if it wants railroad service"
The national government should
protect the nation when it is threaten
ed from outside or inside. And this
railroad strike, voted by the men and
not much disturbing the railroad own
ers apparently, is a great national