came a habit during the war to disregard local machinery for the settlement of disputes, and to run to Washington. This has weakened the disciplinary power of the local managers, and the situation has become acute with the restoration of the roads to their owners. Executives are now bending their efforts to a restoration of local morale, with the leaders of the employee organizations fighting for the supremacy of national, centralized adjustment boards and the continuation of the national agreements.

Labor under the New Law

This struggle made itself manifest in the passage of the Transportation Act. The employees vigorously opposed efforts to localize adjustments of labor disputes and made an attempt to preserve the agencies of the war period. The outcome was in a sense a compromise. The law encourages settlement of all controversies by the individual road and its employees. In matters not involving wages, provision is made for local and regional or national adjustment boards created by the parties concerned, and only in case of a disagreement do such controversies go to the Railroad Labor Board, an official body with national jurisdiction. In case of wages, disputes are to be considered in conference of the individual road and its em

ployees, and in case of disagreement, are to go direct to the national body. In the matter of wages, this national board has already taken jurisdiction. In August, 1920, it gave material increases to all classes of railroad labor, these increases dating back to May 1. This action was taken after a long period of restlessness and discontent, in which the great body of employees patiently waited for a fall in prices through government aid and then for the creation by Congress of the machinery of wage adjustment. This period was characterized by outlaw strikes, led by those who were skeptical of government aid, and impatient with the conservatism of brotherhood leaders.

Compulsory Arbitration

The serious danger of entire suspension of transportation, which was actually experienced for a time in some of the important centers, has brought prominently to the fore the question whether employees in public service industries should not be compelled to settle their grievances by other means than by the strike. The original Cummins Bill (of 1920) contained such a provision, and forbade employees to enter into a combination with intent to hinder or prevent the operation of trains or the movement of commodities. There is much force in the argu

ment that a public service should not be interrupted, and that labor as well as capital should accept service in this type of industry subject to this limitation. But the proposition came too suddenly. Neither the body of railroad employees nor the public was mentally prepared for it. Compulsory arbitration in public service industries should be reached with sufficient deliberation to have the underlying principle fully understood.

There is no power vested in the present Railroad Labor Board to enforce its findings, except the power that arises through the creation of a public opinion. The personnel of the board is guarded to secure just and reasonable decisions, and the board is instructed by law, in determining the reasonableness of wages, to take into account certain specific factors that bear upon the wage problem. Further than this Congress was not at the time prepared to go.

VII
Summary

One who reads this rapid survey of the problems of railroad control will probably reach the perfectly accurate conclusion that they will never be wholly solved. The

disposal of one difficulty only makes way for still another. What the American people have before them to-day is a railroad system of 260,000 miles, which is absolutely essential to our very existence, below the standard of proper maintenance, under-equipped in cars and locomotives, calling for enormous amounts of capital for extensions and betterments, and without the credit to secure the needed funds. However, it is living now under a new conception of regulation embodied in the Transportation Act of 1920, which makes the Interstate Commerce Commission a constructive force in the provision of transportation service instead of a mere defender of the shipper against unfair rates. While there is much misgiving over the financial outlook, there is much ground for optimism and for the belief that the railroads by vigorous and economical management will raise their properties to the standard which the public has a right to expect and that public opinion will recognize the necessity for just treatment of the capital employed.