The New York herald., 1922-07-24
MONDAY. JULY "a. 1922.
The President in the Rail Strike.


President HARDING's aim to bring
the railroads and the striking shop
unions together would not seem to
be. impossible Of achievement. In
the more than three weeks since the
United States Railroad Labor Boards
findings on wages and working rules
became applicable to certain unions
there never has been an intimation
by either side that any decision of
the board was definite, final closing
OF Sny issue. There never has been
a moment when any condition en-
Traced in the boards decision could
not be brought up by workers stay
ing on the job or back on the job
for rehearing, reconsideration and
redecision.
These are facts borne out by the
plain record The maintenance of
way workers on the whole stuck to
their jobs under protest and appeal,
and their leaders have been and are
row negotiating, in accordance with
the provisions of the national trans
portation act, for notifications Of
+, the, new shop rules and changes in
the new wage scales. Other unions
have followed the example OF the
maintenance of way men.
1t is true that when the shop
unions walked out after JEWELL S
ultimatum to the roads and repudia-
tion of the United States Railroad
Labor Board they ceased to have
any standing before the board and
any rights with the railroads. New
ertheless, it is a fact that since then
the representatives of the strikers
have been in constant conference
both with spokesmen Of the railroads
and with members of the board. 1t
is fact that after wrangling and
debating and talking for days all
around the questions at issue the
roads generally and the strikers gen.
orally got so close together that they
were separated, SO to speak, by no
more than the thickness of a thin
sheet of paper.
This remaining barrier between
the strikers and employers was the
so-called seniority rights OF the men.
These seniority rules, in brief, deter
mine the relative rank of men in the
order of first right to employment
when going on payrolls and last
conipulsion to go off for reduction of
force or similar causes.
But when JEWELL peremptorily or
dered the men to go out they did
not all go. Some of them, accepting
in good faith the decision of the
United States Railroad Labor Board
and obeying the call of duty, stuck by
the ship. Furthermore, other men
not then employed by the roads left
the work they had and went to the
roads, under the decision of the
board and under the pledge of the
employing roads that in case of 2
strike settlement they would be pro
tected in their new jobs so long as
they were competent.
How many there are Of these old
men that stood by the roads and OF
new men that went to the roads the
public does not know, THE New
yoRK HERALD does not know. perhaps
nobody knows.
But here is a striking fact in con.
nection with this very important
legal and moral obligation of the
roads and of the United States Rail
road Labor Board, however impor.
tant or unimportant it may be IL
other ways. The strike leaders de
clare, and they declare with the loud
est assurance, that no old men die
stick by the ship. And they assert
with almost equal emphasis that th'
roads never have been able to gather
up more than a handful Of new mer
to put in the places OF the strikers.
II these strike leaders mean wha
they say, therefore, whether theJ
know what they are talking about o,
whether they don't know. 1t ough
not to be difficult for the Presiden
OF the United States to convinc
them that the strikers will do wei
to go back to work, with their senior
ity rights beginning after the merel.
negligible number Of men they de
clare are now on the jobs. 1t ough
not to be difficult for the strike lead
ers to save their faces with the logi
that since there are no men now ol
the jobs the strikers can lose nothin
in the way OF actual seniority right
by going second TO first that doe
not really exist.
That eolufion would Iet anvbod