The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-08-09

1 DOdFuS DeclSlOHS.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
| Especial Dispatch to The Reformer.)
Copyright 1922.
WASHINGTON, Aug 9.-Neither
side likes President Harding's latest pro-
posal for a settlement of the rail strike
which, perhaps, is the best augury of an
eventual acceptance by both.
For the President is at the end of his
rope-he has exhausted every means of
mediation at his command except one
| and that is a personal address to con
gress when the house comes back next
Tuesday. In that address Mr.. Harding
can ask for an amendment to the trans
portation act which will put teeth in it
and compel the railroad executives and
road labor board or suffer a penalty for
J violating its decisions
! Until now there has been no penalty
/ for diSregarding the transportation act.
| Mr.. Harding is building up a case for
/ further legislation. In his latest pro-
| posal it will be noted that he calls atten-
| ton to the public pledge given by the
| railroads and the shopmen that they will
| recognize the validity of the decisions of
/
| pledge the moment the chief executive
suggests the settlement of troublesome
| issue through the instrumentality of the
| labor board. the need for legislation
/ Will be so obvious that congress will have
| to choose between seizure of the rail-
| roads and a return to government opera
/ ton which has proved so costly to the
! taxpayers, or the enactment of an amend
ment to cure the defects in the transpor-
! tation act now on the statute books.
Each Side Quibbling
! The reasons that both the shopmen and
/ some railroad executives are advancing
/ as a basis for refusing President Hard
| ing'S compromise offer are not looked
| upon here asa likely to carry much weight
/ with public opinion. One railroad exec
1 utive, for instance. says acceptance of
; the jurisdiction of the labor board on the
| seniority dispute is simply an outright
surrender. The shopmen are saying
that to submit the question to the labor
| board is to submit it to a prejudiced
court because the chairman of the board
| has already predicted in a public state
ment that the board could not afford in
| the future to disregard the rights of
those workers who had refused to go
out on strike.
Each side, in other words. is afraid the
| decision of the labor board will be ad-
verse. Yet the labor board is in a better
position 10 work out a compromise sat
| isfactory to shopmen and executives
! when once the strikers are back at work
| than is the President or even the repre-
sentatiyes of both sides in the embit-
| tered frame Of mind in which they find
! themselves at present
The railroad executives. however hold
the whip hand. There is no law which
! can compel them to take any individual
| back to work who has once left the en-
| plOy of the roads. Nor is there any law
by which the government can compel the
strikers to go back to work if their lead
ers feel that the shopmen will be de-
prived of seniority rights.
What Congress Might Do
Yet the processes by which congress
has gradually acquired control of the
income of railroads through freight rate
regulation is such that the government
can set up system of preferences for
those railroads which obey as against
those which disobey the Transportation
act. The leverage TO compel obedience
on the part of the roads is greater than
is possible to exert with strikers except
that constitutional lawyers in congress
believe the conspiracy statute4 can be