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Show BINGHAM COUNTY CAN HELP SAVE ITSELF (Bapvfart ot Editorial frtMB Maim RpabBcu e Uckfo, kUW) Julf 17, 102a . At the present time with prospects pros-pects for it heavy crops as we have ever had there is now the poorest prospect we have ever had for freight transportation. The rail-road rail-road strike may be broken at any i time, the men may go back to work, but the prospects are that the re pairing of railroad equipment and keeping it in working order will depend on their finding new men to put on the task. , At this time the trains are running run-ning on schedule, but at a sacrifice that the public does not very well understand. The auditors and managers man-agers and clerks leave their own work and are doing work on the yard and in the aheps to keep ths - trains running, bat this cannot last very long. When the heavy shipments ship-ments of grata and potatoea begin next month and in September these men will be needed at their desks and large numbers of men will be needed to do the yard work, the car work and the shop work. The present railroad strike is different dif-ferent from most of the strike we have been accustomed to. In most eaaei the men were asking for higher high-er wages because they were not getting enough or they were asking to have existing wage scales maintained. main-tained. In this case the strikers are asking that the red need prices of . things shall be borne by other people peo-ple but not themselves. They are unwilling to share in the great redaction re-daction of prices and they are unwilling un-willing to leave their work and let anybody else step in and fill the plaees. President Harding has issued is-sued a proclamation on the matter' in which he says that it Is the priv-ilege priv-ilege of every railroad employee to leave his Job, bat it is not his privilege priv-ilege to prevent anybody else froir stepping into it It is the right oJ the employee to decline to work at ' the wages offered, It Is the right of every other man who is willing to accept soon wages to step ia and 1 The present strike is not a strike against the railroad company, bat against the government and the people of the United States. A very large percentage of the men who are going on strike on this occasion, are people of foreign birth who took advantage of this condition condi-tion growing oat of the war so that while our men were leaving to go overseas to fight the battles in those p old countries where these people came from and to save civilisation which the old countries were wrecking. wreck-ing. Many jobs were made vacant by enlistment and the heavy traffic on the railroads made it necessary for railroad companies to find men and put them to work almost disregarding disre-garding their fitness for the positions. posi-tions. In this emergency lasting two or three years large numbers of foreigners got into the railroad jobs and promptly organized and tied up the railroad companies in labor contracts con-tracts binding them to what they call seniority rules making it impossible impos-sible for the railroad companies to discharge men without the consent t of the union and even the ex-service men on returning from the battlefields battle-fields of Europe, expecting to take up their old jobs, could not get in because they were barred by these new rules, an,d even tho they are much more 'efficient and capable than the men now holding the jobs, the foreigners hold forth and ear own men .trained by years of service, serv-ice, are seeking jobs elsewhere. Under Un-der this strike conditio the railroad company has not been able to reinstate re-instate them and now that the men have gone on a strike and refused to work and are refusing to let anyone any-one else work if they can prevent it, the railroad company Is hunting up its ex-service men and new men who have clean records to go on the Job. , Under this emergency the young men from the farms and ranches who have been accustomed to hard work and to relying on their own resources in emergencies are being given very good positions by the railroad company, where they will be trained for the railroad work, allowed al-lowed to take advantage of the unusual un-usual opportunities afforded by the present scarcity of men and pushed to the front in their respective de-partmenta. de-partmenta. , During the war the anion made strides in their work of what is known as aabbotiam that is, handling handl-ing their work to get as little done as possible, making the railroad company operate shorter trains so ae to give employment to more crews. They have made rules for handling every kind of work in a way to have as many helpers as possible. While one man Is working work-ing the helper is standing idle or while the helper is working the chief is standing idle. In all these ways this foreign element led by the organisers who build and plan the work of the union, have made transportation more expensive and the American people are footing the bill. Millions of tons of farm prod-ace prod-ace cannot be moved because the freight rate ia so high that it is prohibitive and these things explain why the rate cannot be reduced until un-til we get the real American men i charge of the work to straighten out the difficulties and Introduce high efficiency. , men graduating from our schools who want employment, but who have lived in the towns and have never been accustomed to working much, have never been thrown on their own resources in their daily tasks and are not very valuable men for the railroad companiee. They do not regard them as hopeful prospects. pros-pects. They prefer to get the men who have been brought up on the farms and ranches and In the occupations occu-pations where they have developed their pep and resources, for railroad rail-road men must be men who can do things and do them quickly. If Bingham county would aid in making it possible to move its own I crops this year it should contribute some of its best men to the railroad service and help keep equipment repaired that is to carry the crops. A man working for the railroad company these days has a number of unusual advantages. They carry insurance for him so that if anything any-thing happens, his family is protected. pro-tected. By the peyment of 75 cents a month into the hospital fund he is entitled to the best hospital service the country affords. In case of death his salary goes on a year just as if he were working; in case of sickness he draws half salary. Men desiring to get positions should apply ap-ply to any railway agent in the nearest town. |