Evening star., 1943-12-13
Railroads
Refuse 10 Obey
.FEPCDirective
Southern Lines Soy
Committee Has
No Legal Power
By the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
Sixteen Southern railways to-
day challenged the right of the
Presidents Fair Employment
Practices Committee to order
the railways to cease discrimin-
ating against colored employees.
The Is carriers declared they
would rot obey the FEPC directives
Of November "a forbidding racial or
religious discrimination. The FEPC,
the railroads said in a joint letter,
is wholly without constitutional
and legal jurisdiction and power to
issue the directives, and for this
reason the said directives are with
out legal effect"
In prompt rejoinder, FEPC Chair
man Malcolm Ross issued a state
ment denying the contention that
1T would be Impractical and i'm
possible for the railroads TO carry
out the directive He said barriers
against the use of colored rail work.
ers was "a war problem of the first
order"
The action of the railroads openly
challenges Executive Order No. o.
346 issued by President Roosevelt,
which sorbids any contractor doing
business with the Federal Govern
ment to discriminate against en-
ployes or job applicants for racial
or religious reasons.
Call Order ImpracticabIe.
The railroads charged that the
FEPC was utterly unrealistic" in
attempting to solve delicate prob
lens of inter-racial relations in the
Southern States by fiat"
1T is wholly impracticable, and
indeed impossible, for these rail-
roads to put into effect your COM
mittees directives addressed against
them" the letter to FEPC declares.
Any attempt, for instance, to pro-
mote Negroes to locomotive en-
gineers or train conductors would
inevitably disrupt their present
peaceful and cooperative relations
with their employees. would antago-
lAASO C4iC VI oNCLIlS d1iO puo~
lie served by them. would substitute
conditions of chaos for the present
conditions Of harmony, would re-
suit in stoppages of transportation,
and would most gravely and irrepar-
ably impair the whole war effort OF
the country. These railroads cannot
assume the responsibility for precipi-
tating such disastrous results"
Hearings Held in September.
I The railroads asserted that rail-
way labor relations are explicitly
controlled by the Railway Labor Act
and changes in contractual rela-
tions between the carriers and rail-
way labor unions can only be ac-
complished under the act.
The open defiance of the Presi-
dents executive order and the
agency he created to administer It
grew out of hearings held by FEPC
IN Washington in September.
Seven railway labor unions and 20
railroads were then cited by FEPC
on complaint of colored railway
workers that "collusive" contracts
between the carriers and the unions
barred colored persons from ad-
vancement, deprived them of SEN
lority rights and we're gradually
freezing colored persons out Of all
work on the railroads.
Misrepresentation Charged.
Mr.. Ross declared the primary
issue was the employment of Ne
groes as flremen. This and other
problems were taken up at the
FEPC hearings in September. he
said, but the railroad unions chose
to ignore the hearings" and 1.-The
carriers made a perfunctory ap-
pearance.
Their letter now makes a bid
for public disapproval of FEPC by
viewing with alarm alleged preten-
sions of Negroes to be engineers and
conductors" Mr.. Ross continued.
The plain fact is that this issue
is dormant and could remain so
if the railroads offer justice to
Negro railroad men.
The FEPC believes that the
granting of overdue rights to Negro
railroad men, far from being
cause for disorder, could be so man.
aged as to improve service and to
raise the morale of tens of thou
sands of Negro Americans who have
| their own stake in winning this war
quickly"