| Show f t ° FEDERAL INTERFERENCE < jt > S i The House of Representatives Com mittce on Commerce is having troubla otter the resolution proposing a Congressional Con-gressional investigation Into the causes of the Reading railway and coal strike Some members of the committee doubt the right of Congress to interfere in the case and say that if it isa matter for governments interposition the business should be referred to the Interstate I Commerce Commission It is to be I hoped that the committee will drop the business entirely and in doing so will giye n tice that the general government ought to leave some things to the local authorities The Federal government bas no more right to interfere in this matter than it has to take HP a quarrel between two citizens of New York over a question of wages The Reading matter is an affair between an employer and its employees It is no concern of the United States whether the Reading Company pays its men much or little or pays them at all it is none of the business of the United States if the Reading ships a thousand cars of coal a day or ships none if the company shall declare a lockout of all its old hands and take in new men it will not be the concern of the United States and Congress will have no more right to interfere than it would to say hat the Reading must employ John Smith at a certain wage when John Smith is an objectionable laborer and cannot earn the money he demands If the trouble concerns the public authorities at all it concerns only those of Pennsylvania and they are abundantly able to do what should be done in the case without calling in the Federal government If this thing of Congressional assumption as-sumption of authority over purely local affairs is permitted to go along as it has been going for twentyfive years one of those days State lines will be obliterated literated and the country will get its law and its administration from Washington Wash-ington The Reading case would be a good one for the State to say to the federal government hands off |
