The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-10-29
RAIL BOARD IS
NOW TRIBUNAL
OF REAL POWER
Backing by Harding
Has Put That Body
On the Map.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
Copyright, 1921.
Especial to The Argus

tSpec1al 10 Inc Argus.
Washington, Oct. 29.-The rail-
road strike may have been averted.
but the issues which caused it to
be threatened have by no means
been settled. Most everybody in the
government realizes that a truce
has been made and nothing more
Further wage cuts are up in the
air. so are further freight reduc-
tions. The status quo will be main
tanned for at least nine months
more.
Meanwhile, certain points have
been cleared up in the present con-
troversy which will have the effect
in the future of diminishing the
area of dispute. President Harding.
SO to speak, put the United States
railroad labor board on the map.
Its authority was challenged. its
powers as a mediating body were
questioned. But with the full sup
port of the chief executive, the
United States railroad board ap-
proaches its pending cases know
ing that it is responsible morally
to the president for a thorough ex-
animation of all the issues and for
just verdict.
Swings Public Opinion.
/ Both the railroads and the labor
unions now see the United States
railroad board as tribunal with
real power. In an emergency, the
president showed that he was ready
to back up the board in its decis-
ions. 1t was moreover to be used
as an important lever in swinging
| public opinion. The labor leaders
themselves now have admitted that
with public opinion against them
they could not hope to win the
strike. They confessed the value
of public opinion. This is source
of much qualification here for it
means that the missing teeth in the
transportation act have been found
The way the United States rail
road board, assisted by President
Harding, functioned in the present
! crisis convinces officials that il in
all labor disputes an effort were
made to go at once to the root OF
the trouble without trying to set
tie imaginary issues that merely ir-
ritate, and get nowhere, more pro-
gress would be made in solving la
Dor quarrels.
Same Idea in War.
Curiously enough the manner il
which the railroad strike has beer
settled is exactly the formula thai
President Harding would like Il
IN,
believes that if public opinion car
be marshalled against an offending
nation, the people of the offending
country will cause their govern
ment to recede from an aggressive
stand. Woodrow Wilson believed
the League of Nations would al
ways furnish such an intermediary
Mr.. Harding thinks the grouI
known as the supreme council car
do the same thing.
The theory back in Mr.. Harding:
mind in the railroad controyers!
was one of thorough and complet'
investigation of the merits of th'
. dispute by the properly constitutes
agency. So long as the rallroa'
, brotherhoods insisted upon striking
Il SIMPLY OCNduSC Va a ~ -
railroad executives for a secon'
! wage cut Mr.. Harding was read.
to use the full power of the govern
ment to explain to the American
people the error of such an atti
tude. The railroad labor boar
did in effect guarantee the union
that no second wage cut would b
considered before next July by an
nouncing that the docket of case
was too crowded to take up tn
wage case. The railroads may o
may not have had some assuranc
} that their revenues would not i
s the meantime be diminishe
= through reductions in freight rate:
That's something which only tn
: interstate commerce commlsslo
I can answer but the prevailing vie'
here is that the commission and tn
: United States railroad board no.
: are working together and that
e drop in income will not be force
e without some understanding abor
S diminished costs, though to be sur
the statisticians may find in th
: next few months railroad earning
increased through a general bus
ness revival.