OCR Text |
Show WHO IS TO BLAME. A controversy has arisen as to who is to blame for the strike of the railroad shop crafts. Due to insistent demands by the public for lower rates the Interstate : Commerce Commission has made a reduction in freight rates. It was well understood at the time that freight rates could not be reduced wtihout reducing wages of railroad employees. Subsequently the United States Railroad Labor Board, after exhaustive ex-haustive investigation, issued an order or-der reducing the wages of certain classes of railroad employees among them the shopmen. The leaders of the Shop Craft refused to accept the order of the Board and called a strike. It is contended by some commentators commenta-tors therefore that the public is to blame for the rate reduction which necessitated the wage reduction and hence for the strike. This is a very superficial view Rates were reduced with the idea of restoring normal commercial conditions. condi-tions. It is noteworthy however that the railroads did not strike. On the contrary they accepted the reduction because it was ordered by a lawfully established government tribunal and they did it at a time when their margin of revenue over expenses was small. But the employees went on strike, though a lawfully established government gov-ernment tribunal had ordered a wage reduction and they did it in spite of the fact that the new scale of wages was front 29 to 00 per cent higher " ' than in 1917. Blame for the strike therefor rests neither on the public nor on the railroads rail-roads but on radical labor leaders who gave the workers unwise counsel. coun-sel. It is well said by some one during the war, and it will bear repitition as peculiarly applicable to the present strike, that if the kings and kaizers, emperors and czars had to go ointo the trenches and endure the suffering suffer-ing and privations of a soldier there .vould be few wars; and if the paid labor leaders had to walk the streets jobless and hungry and endure the hardships of a striker, there would be few strikes. |