The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1938-10-14

brink; that last winter brought con-
gressional talk of transportation Co
ordination for railroads, buses,
trucks, airplanes; that caused rail-
roads to order IS per cent pay
cut effective October /; that caused
protesting rail workers to call a
strike the same day.
Upshot Of threatened pay cuts and
strikes has been President Roose-
velt's invocation of the 1925 Railway
Labor act, automatically effecting a
60-day truce between employers and
employees: 30 days (until October
27) while a fact-finding committee
investigates, 30 more days while the
President considers remedial steps
which will probably be congress
first order of business next winter.
Committeeman now at work in
clude University of Chicago's Prof.
Harry A. Mills, Harvard Law
Schools Dean James M. Lands,
and North Carolina Supreme Court
Justice Walter P. Stacy, chairman.
Early this month at Washington,
railroad management Represented
by J. Carter Fort) and railroad la
Dor (by Charles M. Hay) began pre-
senting their cases.
Management's claims: Business
is critical, 20 per cent under last
year. Causes are depression, de-
creased traffic, competition from
other forms of transportation, ex-
cessive taxation, restrictive rate
making rules, increased material
prices, low passenger and freight
rates, high wages, burdensome
union rules. About $50, 900 rail en-
ployees lost their jobs last year, but
the remainder now earn a higher
average salary ($1,785) than the
average worker.
LabOr'S claims: Railroads have
top-heavy capital structure and
management is by railroad bank
ers." Average 1887 wage was not
$1,785 but $1,115 computed by
throwing in every man who worked
two months or less, while manage
ment's $1,785 average includes only
men working part of every month";.
Wage cuts will solve no problems,
effect no reforms. Only cure is a
comprehensive national plan for
regulation and correlation of all
transportation.
While Justice Stacy's committee
gathers facts, railroad-vs.-labor
opinion is growing throughout the
u. S. Most Americans believe Ia
Dor should take some cut (though
not necessarily is per cent? in view
of similar steps taken by other in
dustries. Biggest result of the
squabble has been to focus atten-
ton on the railroads plight, SHOW
ing wage disputes into the back
ground. A moot question is whether
rail labor would not suffer through
the very coordination of transpor-
tation it recommends, since this
would automatically erase duplicat-
ed service, consequently decrease
employment in the rail industry.
People
Just turned 81, Secretary of State
Cordell Hull enjoyed rest after a
months harried preoccupation with
the European crisis, heard many
people were considering him seri-
ously as Democratic presidential
nominee in 1910.
D Arturo Toscanini, removed or
chestra leader, lost his passport at
Milan, Italy, for anti-Fascist atti-
tude, disappeared into France after
announcing he was determined" to
get back to the U. S. in time for
the winter music season.
D Returning to private life after 43
years in the army, Maj. Gen.
George Van Horn Moseley declared
the nation suffered from ''lack of
outstanding leadership" voiced crit
s<.ts.~,, - s.a1saf x,n1iriaQ