I have come to you to seek your assistance in dealing with a very grave
situation which has arisen out of the demand of the employees of the
railroads engaged in freight train service that they be granted an
eight-hour working day, safeguarded by payment for an hour and a half of
service for every hour of work beyond the eight.
The matter has been agitated for more than a year. The public has been
made familiar with the demands of the men and the arguments urged in
favor of them, and even more familiar with the objections of the
railroads and their counter demand that certain privileges now enjoyed
by their men and certain bases of payment worked out through many years
of contest be reconsidered, especially in their relation to the adoption
of an eight-hour day. The matter came some three weeks ago to a final
issue and resulted in a complete deadlock between the parties. The means
provided by law for the mediation of the controversy failed and the
means of arbitration for which the law provides were rejected. The
representatives of the railway executives proposed that the demands of
the men be submitted in their entirety to arbitration, along with
certain questions of readjustment as to pay and conditions of employment
which seemed to them to be either closely associated with the demands or
to call for reconsideration on their own merits; the men absolutely
declined arbitration, especially if any of their established privileges
were by that means to be drawn again in question. The law in the matter
put no compulsion upon them. The four hundred thousand men from whom the
demands proceeded had voted to strike if their demands were refused; the
strike was imminent; it has since been set for the fourth of September
next. It affects the men who man the freight trains on practically every
railway in the country. The freight service throughout the United States
must stand still until their places are filled, if, indeed, it should
prove possible to fill them at all. Cities will be cut off from their
food supplies, the whole commerce of the nation will be paralyzed, men
of every sort and occupation will be thrown out of employment, countless
thousands will in all likelihood be brought, it may be, to the very
point of starvation, and a tragical national calamity brought on, to be
added to the other distresses of the time, because no basis of
accommodation or settlement has been found.
Just so soon as it became evident that mediation under the existing law
had failed and that arbitration had been rendered impossible by the
attitude of the men, I considered it my duty to confer with the
representatives of both the railways and the brotherhoods, and myself
offer mediation, not as an arbitrator, but merely as spokesman of the
nation, in the interest of justice, indeed, and as a friend of both
parties, but not as judge, only as the representative of one hundred
millions of men, women, and children who would pay the price, the
incalculable price, of loss and suffering should these few men insist
upon approaching and concluding the matters in controversy between them
merely as employers and employees, rather than as patriotic citizens of
the United States looking before and after and accepting the larger
responsibility which the public would put upon them.
It seemed to me, in considering the subject-matter of the controversy,
that the whole spirit of the time and the preponderant evidence of
recent economic experience spoke for the eight-hour day. It has been
adjudged by the thought and experience of recent years a thing upon
which society is justified in insisting as in the interest of health,
efficiency, contentment, and a general increase of economic vigor. The
whole presumption of modern experience would, it seemed to me, be in its
favor, whether there was arbitration or not, and the debatable points to
settle were those which arose out of the acceptance of the eight-hour
day rather than those which affected its establishment. I, therefore,
proposed that the eight-hour day be adopted by the railway managements
and put into practice for the present as a substitute for the existing
ten-hour basis of pay and service; that I should appoint, with the
permission of the Congress, a small commission to observe the results of
the change, carefully studying the figures of the altered operating
costs, not only, but also the conditions of labor under which the men
worked and the operation of their existing agreements with the
railroads, with instructions to report the facts as they found them to
the Congress at the earliest possible day, but without recommendation;
and that, after the facts had been thus disclosed, an adjustment should
in some orderly manner be sought of all the matters now left unadjusted
between the railroad managers and the men.
These proposals were exactly in line, it is interesting to note, with
the position taken by the Supreme Court of the United States when
appealed to to protect certain litigants from the financial losses which
they confidently expected if they should submit to the regulation of
their charges and of their methods of service by public legislation. The
Court has held that it would not undertake to form a judgment upon
forecasts, but could base its action only upon actual experience; that
it must be supplied with facts, not with calculations and opinions,
however scientifically attempted. To undertake to arbitrate the question
of the adoption of an eight-hour day in the light of results merely
estimated and predicted would be to undertake an enterprise of
conjecture. No wise man could undertake it, or, if he did undertake it,
could feel assured of his conclusions.
I unhesitatingly offered the friendly services of the administration to
the railway managers to see to it that justice was done the railroads in
the outcome. I felt warranted in assuring them that no obstacle of law
would be suffered to stand in the way of their increasing their revenues
to meet the expenses resulting from the change so far as the development
of their business and of their administrative efficiency did not prove
adequate to meet them. The public and the representatives of the public,
I felt justified in assuring them, were disposed to nothing but justice
in such cases and were willing to serve those who served them.
The representatives of the brotherhoods accepted the plan; but the
representatives of the railroads declined to accept it. In the face of
what I cannot but regard as the practical certainty that they will be
ultimately obliged to accept the eight-hour day by the concerted action
of organized labor, backed by the favorable judgment of society, the
representatives of the railway management have felt justified in
declining a peaceful settlement which would engage all the forces of
justice, public and private, on their side to take care of the event.
They fear the hostile influence of shippers, who would be opposed to an
increase of freight rates (for which, however, of course, the public
itself would pay); they apparently feel no confidence that the
Interstate Commerce Commission could withstand the objections that would
be made. They do not care to rely upon the friendly assurances of the
Congress or the President. They have thought it best that they should be
forced to yield, if they must yield, not by counsel, but by the
suffering of the country. While my conferences with them were in
progress, and when to all outward appearance those conferences had come
to a standstill, the representatives of the brotherhoods suddenly acted
and set the strike for the fourth of September.
The railway managers based their decision to reject my counsel in this
matter upon their conviction that they must at any cost to themselves or
to the country stand firm for the principle of arbitration which the men
had rejected. I based my counsel upon the indisputable fact that there
was no means of obtaining arbitration. The law supplied none; earnest
efforts at mediation had failed to influence the men in the least. To
stand firm for the principle of arbitration and yet not get arbitration
seemed to me futile, and something more than futile, because it involved
incalculable distress to the country and consequences in some respects
worse than those of war, and that in the midst of peace.
I yield to no man in firm adherence, alike of conviction and of purpose,
to the principle of arbitration in industrial disputes; but matters have
come to a sudden crisis in this particular dispute and the country had
been caught unprovided with any practicable means of enforcing that
conviction in practice (by whose fault we will not now stop to inquire).
A situation had to be met whose elements and fixed conditions were
indisputable. The practical and patriotic course to pursue, as it seemed
to me, was to secure immediate peace by conceding the one thing in the
demands of the men which society itself and any arbitrators who
represented public sentiment were most likely to approve, and
immediately lay the foundations for securing arbitration with regard to
everything else involved. The event has confirmed that judgment.
I was seeking to compose the present in order to safeguard the future;
for I wished an atmosphere of peace and friendly cooeperation in which to
take counsel with the representatives of the nation with regard to the
best means for providing, so far as it might prove possible to provide,
against the recurrence of such unhappy situations in the future,--the
best and most practicable means of securing calm and fair arbitration of
all industrial disputes in the days to come. This is assuredly the best
way of vindicating a principle, namely, having failed to make certain of
its observance in the present, to make certain of its observance in the
future.
But I could only propose. I could not govern the will of others who took
an entirely different view of the circumstances of the case, who even
refused to admit the circumstances to be what they have turned out to
be.
Having failed to bring the parties to this critical controversy to an
accommodation, therefore, I turn to you, deeming it clearly our duty as
public servants to leave nothing undone that we can do to safeguard the
life and interests of the nation. In the spirit of such a purpose, I
earnestly recommend the following legislation:
First, immediate provision for the enlargement and administrative
reorganization of the Interstate Commerce Commission along the lines
embodied in the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and
now awaiting action by the Senate; in order that the Commission may be
enabled to deal with the many great and various duties now devolving
upon it with a promptness and thoroughness which are with its present
constitution and means of action practically impossible.
Second, the establishment of an eight-hour day as the legal basis alike
of work and of wages in the employment of all railway employees who are
actually engaged in the work of operating trains in interstate
transportation.
Third, the authorization of the appointment by the President of a small
body of men to observe the actual results in experience of the adoption
of the eight-hour day in railway transportation alike for the men and
for the railroads; its effects in the matter of operating costs, in the
application of the existing practices and agreements to the new
conditions, and in all other practical aspects, with the provision that
the investigators shall report their conclusions to the Congress at the
earliest possible date, but without recommendation as to legislative
action; in order that the public may learn from an unprejudiced source
just what actual developments have ensued.
Fourth, explicit approval by the Congress of the consideration by the
Interstate Commerce Commission of an increase of freight rates to meet
such additional expenditures by the railroads as may have been rendered
necessary by the adoption of the eight-hour day and which have not been
offset by administrative readjustments and economies, should the facts
disclosed justify the increase.
Fifth, an amendment of the existing federal statute which provides for
the mediation, conciliation, and arbitration of such controversies as
the present by adding to it a provision that in case the methods of
accommodation now provided for should fail, a full public investigation
of the merits of every such dispute shall be instituted and completed
before a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted.
And, sixth, the lodgment in the hands of the Executive of the power, in
case of military necessity, to take control of such portions and such
rolling stock of the railways of the country as may be required for
military use and to operate them for military purposes, with authority
to draft into the military service of the United States such train crews
and administrative officials as the circumstances require for their safe
and efficient use.
This last suggestion I make because we cannot in any circumstances
suffer the nation to be hampered in the essential matter of national
defense. At the present moment circumstances render this duty
particularly obvious. Almost the entire military force of the nation is
stationed upon the Mexican border to guard our territory against hostile
raids. It must be supplied, and steadily supplied, with whatever it
needs for its maintenance and efficiency. If it should be necessary for
purposes of national defense to transfer any portion of it upon short
notice to some other part of the country, for reasons now unforeseen,
ample means of transportation must be available, and available without
delay. The power conferred in this matter should be carefully and
explicitly limited to cases of military necessity, but in all such cases
it should be clear and ample.
There is one other thing we should do if we are true champions of
arbitration. We should make all arbitral awards judgments by record of a
court of law in order that their interpretation and enforcement may lie,
not with one of the parties to the arbitration, but with an impartial
and authoritative tribunal.
These things I urge upon you, not in haste or merely as a means of
meeting a present emergency, but as permanent and necessary additions to
the law of the land, suggested, indeed, by circumstances we had hoped
never to see, but imperative as well as just, if such emergencies are to
be prevented in the future. I feel that no extended argument is needed
to commend them to your favorable consideration. They demonstrate
themselves. The time and the occasion only give emphasis to their
importance. We need them now and we shall continue to need them.