The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-10-13
LABOR BOARD
SCALP SOUGHT
BY BEvERIDGE
Flays u. S. Ownership
Urges Europe Pay

government and the rail unions, and
asserting that railroad rates must come
down. Albert j. Beveridge, candidate
for United States senate, spoke before
a well filled auditorium at the Coli
scum Thursday evening. Government
ownership, which he declared was a
purpose of the last coal and rail strike,
was condemned by him, and strong
stand was taken against the cancella-
tion of European debts
Denver C. Harlan, candidate for the
state senate on the Republican ticket
was chairman of the meeting. Charles
Jewett of Indianapolis, former mayor
of that city, was first introduced. Mr..
Jewett spoke briefly setting forth facts
in regard to the conduct of the war.
Attacks Adamson Law
Mr.. Beveridge said. in part:
During the Wilson regime, America
was led far from fundamental princi-
pies and American traditions; and this
began before and continued after the
war. Special classes were encouraged
to expect and demand assistance by
legislation at the expense of the coun-
try at large. Business was harassed
and restricted in every conceivable
way EHlGIpllSt WAS So dDOuL
by the red tape of governmental re-
quirements, governmental espionage
and governmental exactions, that pro-
duction and exchange were rendered
as hard and difficult as possible, in
stead of as simple and easy as pos
sible.
For instance, an arbitrary legal
yardstick of railway compensation was
fixed by act of congress-for that is
what the Adamson law is and was de-
signed to be and nothing else. 1t was
passed under threat of stopping all
transportation and starving the coun-
try; upon that threat alone, if | had
been in the senate, would have fought
it to the uttermost.
People Must Rule
81 fought banded capital when i;
tried TO run the American government
and | would have fought banded labor
when it tried to run the American
government. The very heart, the spirit
aud the life OF American institutions
require that the American government
shall be run by the American people
and nobody else-run by public agents
chosen as provided by general and
equal laws and run in the manner laid
down in the fundamental law of the
republic, the constitution of the Unit.
ed States.
An eight-hour day was not the OBJ
ject or effect of the Adamson law
The purpose and result of the Adam
son law was to provide by legislation,
methods by which wages could be
forced upward with the authority OF
statutory enactment.
Made Agreements
With this law-made yardstick as a
basis, Director General McAdoo, act
ing for the government, made elab-
crate agreements with every union of
railway men and with the American
Federation of Labor. These contracts
governed by and interpreted according
to the multitudinous and intricate
rules of each union, controlled the
most minute details of working con-
ditions; classified employees arbitrari-
ly; forbid particular jobs to be done ex-
cept by members of particular class !;
made these contracts, regulations and
the resulting compensation, uniform
throughout all America entirely, re-
gardless of local conditions, intensity
of labor or cost of living. These ut
terly uneconomic and wholly political
arrangements are called The National
Agreements"
Thus instead of conditions of work
and scales of wages being worked out
and mutually agreed to by employers
and employees, multitude of restric.
tions and eXactions were clamped up.
on the railways by law In this artifi
cial state of things, arbitrarily and au.
toCratically created. vet authorized by
law, the railways were returned tC
those who own them. To handle this
welter of unbusiness-like conditions
labor board was invented and estab
lished by law.
Impracteabe Body
This curious and impracticable
body. the child of desperation. promu-
gated, with some notifications, most
of the provisions of the McAdoo ma
tional agreements. There is not al
industry or business in America-not
a factory or farm. not a store or bank
that could operate under the McAdoC
plan and long remain solvent.
For instance, if a man leaves worF
after eight hours and is called bacl
TO do job and works four minutes OF
four seconds or does not work at all
he gets four hours additional pay
Trifling tasks-the repair of a stay
bolt, the adjustment of a nozzle -
which one man and his helper did cas-
lily and quickly five years ago. now re
uuires from six 10 twelve men.
The new classificatious raised
men. women and boys doing or
binary labor requiring neither though
experience nor skill. to the high wag,
level of trained specialists. Except a:
TO maintenance -of-way men, all thes,
rules and Isubrules and the complies
and multitndinous interpretations" o
them. were applied equally and every
where from California to Maine, from
Oregon TO Florida.
WsHes Enormously Increased.
by the method and through the ap
plication of the Adamson law yard
stick of compensation, wages wer,
enormously increased all over tn,
land: and the big raises went to tht
classes that had the most votes-en
gineers. firemen, switchmen and con
ductors got the smallest comparative
increases. BY standardizing thes
wages and rules. an employe in Mis-
sissippi. where the work is light ant
living cheap. gets just as much as al
employe in Indiana. where work is ia
heavier and cost of living much higher