Committee of Managers, Elisha Lee flatly denied that conditions had changed sufficiently since the ClarkMorrissey award in 19101 to warrant any increase whatsoever. As in the firemen's case, he attacked the principle of the saving classes (d, p, and q) as inequitable and inconsistent with the plea for uniformity. Many witnesses were called, and voluminous statistical exhibits were introduced by both sides. The testimony exceeded in volume that taken in the firemen's

case.

The award authorized increases amounting to about seven per cent, or less than half what had been demanded. This advance was based largely upon the increase in cost of living in the three years since the Clark-Morrissey award. The plea for uniformity as between Eastern and Western territories was disallowed.

This Board believes that before a standardization of pay for conductors and trainmen can be brought about between the East and the West, the organizations concerned should formally and officially commit themselves to the policy of standardization between East and West. In the absence of such an accepted policy, were this Board to place the pay of conductors and trainmen in the East, as they are asked to do, on the Western basis, such an increase of the wage scale in the East might serve, in the prevailing opinion of the Board, to bring about a new movement in the West to secure the old differential against the East.

A recommendation was made, however, that "some public authority authorized by Congress" should make an inquiry into the matter; and it was suggested that the Commission on Industrial Relations might undertake the work. The increased productivity of train crews, whether through double-heading or otherwise, was admitted; but this was attributed to increased efficiency of management rather than to conscious

1 See Cunningham, in this Journal, xxvii, pp. 276–277.

effort of the men. The request for time and one-half and double time for such service was therefore denied, as was the request for overtime as time and one-half in certain varieties of service, upon the ground that in railroading overtime cannot be prevented either by the management or by the men, and "that punitive overtime, as it is called, is an unsound principle when applied to the running of trains." As to the effect of the award upon the railroads and the public, the board said:

This Board. . . believes that it must make its finding as to what is a proper rate of pay to be awarded . . . without any reference to the dilemma in which the railroads are evidently placed by the laws which make it impossible for them to increase passenger and freight rates without the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission, or of the Railroad Commissions of the various states.

The Interstate Commerce Commission, and not this Arbitration Board, has the duty of determining whether the railroads can earn, in addition to their other charges, without an increase of freight rates, the rates of pay that this Board believes to be due at the present time to the conductors and trainmen.

The other railroad labor controversies of 1913 which have been mentioned do not call for extended notice here, since those which were of any great importance have been continued into the present year. In the case of the Chicago and Western Indiana and the Belt Railway of Chicago, a board of three1 ordered some changes in working conditions, but denied the requests for increases in rates of pay, except in work service, partly on the ground of comparison with rates paid by other lines similarly situated and partly because of inadequacy of evidence. The representative of the employees dissented. This award was filed on Sep

tember 16.

1 The personnel of this board was: E. S. Huston of Washington, D.C.; F. A. Burgess, assistant grand chief, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers; and W. J. Jackson, president, Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad.

The arbitration on the Pacific System of the Southern Pacific road arose out of a controversy having to do mainly with the classification of employees on certain electric lines about San Francisco bay operated on street railway franchises. The management contended that the conditions of service warranted an official distinction between such employees and those engaged on the other electric (suburban) lines of the company. Most of the points at issue were adjusted through mediation, but the determination of what constitutes street car service was left to a board of arbitration of three men,' which decided, October 18, in favor of the management by majority vote.

Questions of discipline were chiefly involved in the differences between the Southern Pacific, Atlantic System, and its employees in train service. The four brotherhoods, having failed to obtain satisfactory results through individual conferences with the management, pooled their issues and presented a joint list of sixty-seven grievances for adjustment; but the management stated its willingness to confer jointly only as to matters of joint concern. It also submitted a communication which contained practically the same counter propositions as those which the Conference Committee of Managers had presented to the conductors and trainmen in the Eastern wage dispute. It appealed to the Board of Mediation and Conciliation, and so notified the representatives of the employees, but a strike was ordered on the ground that there were no matters which were proper subjects of mediation. As a result 2,500 men were out from November 13 to 17, when a settlement was arranged to the effect that the management would meet the joint committee and take

1 John F. Davis, of San Francisco; M. E. Montgomery, vice-president, Board of Locomotive Engineers; and W. R. Scott, general manager, Southern Pacific Company.

up each grievance, with the understanding that in case of disagreement the whole matter would be referred to the Board of Mediation and Conciliation.

A board of six arbitrators assembled in Chicago in November to consider thirty-nine articles proposing a revision of the schedules affecting conductors and trainmen on the Burlington. The date fixed for filing the award was February 1, 1914.

The railroads in Western territory were confronted in October by a joint demand for a revision of schedules affecting the engineers and firemen,2 and in return they abrogated the existing schedules. The effect of this move was to put an end to all rates of pay and rules of employment better than those demanded; thus forestalling the attempt of the employees to "standardize upwards" through the application of a saving clause in the articles to be presented for arbitration. This was

the situation at the end of the year. It is a situation which presents several interesting aspects that should be noted. Here are two brotherhoods, between which there have been many differences, now united under terms of a formal working agreement. That the conductors and trainmen saw fit to withdraw from what had been proposed as a general movement of the train service brotherhoods may be due to the fact that at the time the matter came up for decision, the award in the Eastern concerted movement was being determined, and the necessity for conservatism was sufficiently apparent in view of the fact that standard

1 Henry S. Boutelle, of Chicago; G. J. Diekema, of Holland, Michigan; E. P. Curtis, vice-president, Order of Railway Conductors; E. L. Harrigan, of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; P. H. Morrissey, assistant to the president of the Burlington; and Fairfax Harrison, president of the Chicago, Indianapolis, and Louisville Railway (succeeded by Pierce Butler of St. Paul upon resignation to accept election to the presidency of the Southern Railway).

2 The proposed schedules are given in full in the Railway Age Gazette, Iv, pp. 825-826.

ization as between East and West had occupied such a prominent place in that case. The attitude of the railroad managers is also significant. They insist that if they must arbitrate, they too must stand to win concessions, and that rates and rules unfavorable to them must be considered by any board which would change those which are unfavorable to the employees. It is obvious that if this contention is not sustained, the federal law as it stands can hardly be expected to serve its purpose, namely, to prevent injury to the public interest through interruption of the transportation service.

A number of suggestions have been made as to amendments to the Newlands act. One, proposing the extension of its terms to provide for the settlement of disputes between industrial corporations, subject to the authority of Congress, and their employees, may be disregarded here as irrelevant to the subject of this paper. The suggestion, from a railroad source, that the scope of the act be widened to apply to all classes of railroad men engaged in the interstate business of their employees is worthy of consideration. But without hazarding a prediction as to the attitude of the courts toward such a provision, its practical application would be extremely difficult. Such an amendment, if constitutional and practicable, would have one certain result; it would force the employees concerned into closer bonds of organized labor. For unorganized labor cannot take advantage of the Newlands act except through some form of organization. Another suggestion is to associate the Board of Mediation and Conciliation and the Interstate Commerce Commission, either in coördinate or subordinate relation, to the end that the tribunal responsible for increasing wages should be also responsible for adjusting rates