The Connecticut labor news., 1922-08-11

reaches the root or the Q1SedSe. lie the moment. He thinks only in terr Representatives of the striking shopmen, in session here for two days, voted to accept the Presidents plan as preliminary basis to set clement. This action was purely one of policy, for the proposal held out no assurance to the strikers that they would obtain better conditions than they quit the shops. The Presidents plan would have the men return to work, leaving them to the tender mercies of the Railroad Labor Board, the same tribunal which has been kicking railroad employees in the stomach for the past two years and four months.
 Railroad executives, in a one-day session at New York, summarily re- jected the plan, basing their action on the "great wrong that would be done scabs and strikebreakers" if they were denied seniority rights guaranteed them by the Railroa La Dor Board in the Outlaw" resolution of July 3, which is quoted at length in support of their position.
 Thus does the spite resolution of Governor Hooper, chairman of the Labor Board, again serve as a club in the hands of the managers. This is the first time, thanks to him, that seniority rights have ever been made a subject of contention in the settle ment of a railroad strike. In May, 1910, I,428 machinists struck in the shops of the Missouri Pacific. By the time the strike was settled in Decem Der of that year II,327 "mechanics" had been employed to fill their places, The management did not request that every one of these recruits should be kept in the shops. It was a good riddance, just as 1t would be in the present instance.
 Strike Goes On Under Greater Head of Steam.
 Officials of the railway employees department, presidents of the six fed erated shop crafts and the division committeeman from all parts of the United States, in session this week, declared that the strike would now be carried on under a greater head of steam. No weakness was reported sent to all locals to carry on with vigor. More than GOO 900 coal miners have been out for four months and they are all alive" was the way one official put it.. The United Mine Workers membership is 117,ooo greater than on April I. The shop men can and will make a similar record If necessary to win this strike.
 It becomes more and more evident that this strike will have to be settled by direct negotiations between en- ploye and employer, impelled by the economic power of the organized workers. The Labor Board, a tribu- nal set up by Congress, and the President of the United States with all his supposed influence has failed There yet remains. the chance that President Harding may take over the roads and operate them in the inter est of the public. He is clothed with the legal authority to perform this major operation. All he needs is the will to do.
 In the meantime transportation grows increasingly groggy. Round houses are full of maimed locomotives and side tracks are clogged with bad order cars. Trains are being annulled every day. Passenger schedules on most lines cannot be maintained. Troops are on guard in eight states. Injunctions continue to be issued for the asking
 Yet this is one of the most orderly strikes of magnitude in all industrial history The shop men know they can win by holding firm. Millions of dollars are being uselessly spent by the carriers in recruiting the strike breakers who are not mechanics. This is hard on the stockholders and the | people who pay the freight. Not a i single engine was turned out of the | Illinois Central back shops in Chicago during the month of July, where 1t 1 was claimed I,2oo ''mechanics" had been recruited This is true of other roads, here and elsewhere.
 Scabs Well Paid, See America"
 De Luxe.
 These strikebreakers are paid the 70 cents an hour awarded by the board as a "just and reasonable wage" 30 cents more as bonus, housed and fed by the railroad com pAnies. This pay includes all travel ing time,. and thousands of hitherto unemployed men are "seeing Amer ica" de luxe at the expense of the railroad corporations and are guar anteed seniority fights by the Labor Board
 Responsibility for the strike and the present chaotic conditions in the railway industry rests primarily upon the Railroad Labor Board and it's chairman, Governor Ben w. Hooper, who admits that he owes his appoint | ment to the fact that he "knew nothing about railroading." He Is a l jack-leg lawyer politician who once upon a time was accidentally elected governor of Tennessee when the