The Union Review (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, May 12, 1922 Page: 1 of 4
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PLACE YOUR MONEY WITH THE
Bankers
S“
Endorsed by the Texas State Federation of Labor.
GALVESTON, TEXAS, FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1922.
SUBSCRIPTION, $1.50 PER YEAR
VOL. 3, No. 52.— Frice 5c.
THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF
EAGLES AS A LAW MAKER
By Margaret Hall Scott.
At every possible op- perience of the Pennsylvania Railroad
tation charges.
who have served it in hon-
but often ill-paid
of
how impractical it is to attempt to
or
MINERS PLAY BASEBALL.
WHAT WERE THEY IN 1914?
■ ■ $
A Portion of Your
Account Solicited
ges paid railroad workers are entire-
ly responsible for existing transpor-
any stated rate of return to the car-
riers, in the absence of any effective
RAILROAD RATES AND WAGES
WHAT IS THEIR RELATION, IF ANY
The eighth of a series of ten articles
issued by the Old Age Pension Com-
mission of the Fraternal Order of Ea-
gles.
The World casts its burden on Labor—
And most of its sorrow and care,
The heavy and terrible crosses
Are all for the toiler to bear;
But in spite of trouble and worry,
That shut out the sunshine today,
There’s promise of brightness tomorrow—
Some gladness to lighten the way.
TRADE UNION METHODS
COULD EDUCATE BOSSES
£ But there’s promise still for improvement, %
5 And courage must win in the fight, i
5 Where the battle with wrong is raging, 5
i There’s victory promised for right; 5
? And friends, we believe in the promise, J
a That boosts a man out of despair, e
? And gives him the strength that protects him 5
5" From the Greed that has placed him there. 5
on the basis
guarantee a definte net revenue,
and passenger
duced unit labor costs,” and it cited
in support of its contention, the ex-
orable, necessary,
A PROMISE
Ohe LCnion Deview
Official Organ of Galveston Labor Council, Dock and Marine Council
and Affiliated Unions
ment, and in many cases of complete ducing these properties
portunity they reiterate that freight in its Juniata shops—probably the lar-
gest railroad shops in the world.
Ed. McCarthy & Co.
(UNINconPonATED)
minor officials that in permitting these control over their expenditures other
abuses to go on they were promoting 1 than wages. Such control over ex-
terstate Commerce Commission did
not agree with the railroads in their
contention that low wages meant low
rates. In the famous “Five Per Cent
Rate Case” the Commission held that
“even greaty increased rates of wa-
these men
penses is vital to the success of the
present policy of Congress in the
matter of the regulation of railroads."
Senate, “are but one illutsration
the interests of their superior offi-
cers. ”
Fat Contracts for “Insiders”
Dr. Warne, touched on the deals
between the railroads and the great
equnpment concerns like the Bald-
win Locomotive Company, the Amer-
ican Locomotive Company, etc. Tes-
timony submitted to the Interstate
Commerce Commission, he said, had
proven beyond question that the roads
had paid these concerns from three to
six times as much for repairing equip-
ment .as the work would have cost in
their own shops. Millions had been
thrown away in this way.
The roads were equally extravagant
in purchasing new equipment. Presi-
dent Biddle, of the St. Louis and San
Francisco, testifying, stated that his
company had bought freight locomo-
tives in February, 1916, for $36,750
each. Later in the same year it was
compelled to pay $51,000 for the same
type of locomotive, aad in February
of the following year the price was
boosted to $69,750, an increase of al-
most 100 per cent in one year.
As the result of all this, Dr. Warne
FORWARD!
We call our America an advanced
nation, but in the matter of providing
decently for the worker grown “too
old” in useful but low-paid industry,
we are behind the other great nations,
and some lesser ones. This partly has
been because for a long time in our
history old age poverty was not espe-
cially widespread. We can no longer
make that claim. Today there are
millions among us, of whom you, per-
haps, are one, who face the prospect
of becoming, at sixty, dependent on
their children, often themselves beset
by problems of living, or inmates of
almshouses whose dull, depressing rou-
tine is wprse than death.
FRANK E. HERING.
South Bend, Indiana, January, 1922.
tween $35,000,000 and $50,000,000.
Profits on Watered Capital.
Dr. Warne pointed out that 6 per
cent on $18,900,000,000—the Interstate
Commerce Commission’s tentative
valuation of the property of the rail-
road companies—.would amount to
$1,134,000,000. That is the profit the
railroads are authoried to collect each
year from those who use the roads.
It is $223,000,000 in excess of the
rental received by the railroads dur-
ing the period of government control.
This rental,was the average of the
profits made by the railroads during
the three most prosperous years of
From 1903 to 1913 the rate of wages
in these shops increased nearly 40 per
cent, but according to the cost ac-
counting system of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, the cost of building locomo-
tives steadily decreased.
Dr. Warne undertook to show how
the railroads could make ‘ sweeping
reductions in rates without touching
the compensation of the workers.
When the roads were returned to
their owners on March 1, 1920, the In-
terstate Commerce Commission was
compelled to "guess" at the value of
the railroads, and fixed a “tentative
valuation of $18,900,000,0000. It then
placed freight and passenger rates
sufficiently high to enable the roads
to earn 6 per cent on this valuation,
and to pay the employes $600,000,000
a year in addition to the amount they
were then receiving.
In August, 1920, when the roads
were asking for freight and passenger
increases, their pay rolls amounted to
$335,000,000 a month, and they used
that fact as an argument to support
their claims for higher rates.
Having received the increased rates
rates cannot come
great majority of workers on the rail-
roads today are not receiving a wage
sufficient to support themselves and
their families in decency and comfort
to the extent demanded of them by
our democratic form of society with
its republican institutions.
“Not only is this the solemn truth,
but in the fact of intermittent employ-1
toil, and it denounces the injustice
done such men at sixty by their being
thrust out of the line of employment,
with no resources but the love and
duty of their children, if they have
them, as many have not, or cold char-
ity. Eagles regard this as quite wrong
from every standpoint, and, in the
words of Hon. M. O. Burns, at the
Newark Grand Aerie:
“We believe that if we organize the
great power of public opinion which
we can create with this propaganda
through the land, profiting by the ex-
perience of other countries and mak-
nig proper comparison, we then can
bring to the consciousness of this
country whatever legislation in this
respect is necessary. We know this
proposition will meet with opposition
from those by whom it is not under-
stood. Therefore we feel that this
matter should be taken up by men who
have the courage of their convictions,
and who want to do something for
mankind. Hence we believe that sup-
port of old age pension laws is a duty
of the Eagle Fraternity.”___________
unemployment, their present wage
does not meet even the absolutely
necessary charges of food, shelter
and clothing.”
In support of the foregoing it may
be stated that a study of wages re-
cently issued by the People’s Legis-
lative . Service of Washington, D. C.,
shows that on July 1, 1921, 932,140
railroad workers, or 57 per cent of the
total number employed, were earning
less than enough to provide the “min-
imum comfort budget" for a family of
five prepared by the United States
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In other words, on that date 57 per
cent of all the railroad workers were
receiving less than what government-
al research had demonstrated was a
living wage according to American
standards.
Relation of Wages and Rates.
Dr. Warne pointed out that the In-
erable sources, have argued that wa- ges are perfectly consistent with re-
struggle against adverse • fortune. In
short, an effort was made, at length,
to imbue law with the spirit of the
Golden Rule. The first successes were
obtained in the abolition of slavery,
the betterment of working conditions,
and in relief of some of the more fear-
ful miseries of. the poor. Within the
last twenty-five years this legislation
with the positive intent to do people
goods, has become increasingly promi-
nent and it is termed par excellence
“welfare legislation.”
The welfare legislation already ac-
complished or under consideration for
enactment, affects, in its range, a man’s
whole life, from the first faint stir-
rings of the unborn babe to the man’s
Charles Town, W. Va.—Town folk
“rooted” for the miners’ baseball
team in its game with the local cham-
pions for the benefit of'the hospital
fund controlled by the citizens. The
miners won by the score of 7 to 3.
All of the miners' are charged with
treason or murder. William Blizzard,
the first miner to face trial, played
right field for his team.
The miners have secured baseball
uniforms with the initials “U. M. W.
of A.” across their breasts. As they
walked on the diamond they were giv-
en a rousing cheer by Charles Town
citizens, who show their admiration
for the accused on every occasion.
---------O---------
HOLD EIGHT-HOUR DAY.
Washington, D. C.—Rhode Island
jewelry employers need much “educa- ,
tion" before they will abandon old-
fashioned work conditions, according
to a statement in a report on “Women
in Rhode Island Industries,” issued by
the United States women’s bureau.
The report makes no mention of the
need for trade unionism among these
women wage workers, but the follow-
ing portion of the report indicates that
organized labor could function with
much benefit:
“Almost all the work in the jewelry
industry is of such a nature as to ne-
cessitate close application of the eyes.
The questions of light and posture had
not received sufficient attention from
individual managers, and in many es-
tablishments old fashioned methods
survived. In the opinion of the presi-
dent of the jewelry protective associa-
tion, considerable education along
these lines is necessary for the devel-
opment of the industry and the safe-
guarding of the workers.”
roads put an end to these evil prac-
tices, and that we’d hear no more of
the propaganda in favor of compelling
the workers to labor for starvation
wages.
“The results I have disclosed,” said
Dr. Warne in his testimony before
Senator Cummins’ committee of the
Detroit, Mich.—Seamen employed
by the Detroit & Cleveland” navigation
company defeated an attempt to in-
stall the 12-hour day. After a short
strike the company discharged its
strikebreakers and came to an agree-
ment with its employes.
of war time, prices. The work of val-
uation on 71 first class railroads has
been completed. These roads have a
"book” value of $1,520,000,000, but
the Commission’s engineers report
that they could be rebuilt and equip-
ped new for $877,000,000, or a trifle
more than one-half the amount upon
which they are claiming returns.
If the other railroads have been
“watered” to the same extent—and
there is ample evidence to sustain that
theory—then the total value of the
railroads of the United States does
not exceed $11,000,000,000.
That is about the price Wall Street
places on the roads. On January 4,
1922, every share of stock and every
bond issued by every railroad in the
United States could have been pur-
chased, at the prices quoted on the
New York Stock Exchange, for $10,-
640,000,000, or $8,260,000,000 less than
St. Louis, Mo.—Rev. Dempsey,
known as “Father Tim,” served as ar-
bitrator in the wage dispute between
carpenters and employers. The work-
ers prevoiusly reduced their rate from
$1.25 to $1.12% per hour. The bosses
attempted to cut to 95 cents. The ar-
bitrator ruled that $1.10 an hour would
be the rate for one year, starting May
, 1. This is the thirty-seventh arbitra-
tion award by Father “Tim.”
they began slashing their pay rolls,
the tentative value placed on the car-
riers by the Interstate Commerce
Commission.
In view of the foregoing Dr. Warne
contended that the first economy in
railroad operation demanded by pub-
lic policy was the “ un-watering” of
the roads.
This would effect a saving of ap-
proximtely $480,000,000 a year.
Exorbitant Sums Paid for Supplies.
Dr. Warne showed from the official
, records that the roads were paying
“extortionate prices” for supplies of
all kinds, and that these supplies were
purchased from institutions which
were controlled by the same financial
interests that dominated the railroads.
In other words, the powerful finan-
ciers are “milking” the railroads
Baltimore, Md.—In an address to
women voters in this city, Secretary
of Agriculture Wallace said that wa-
ges of railroad workers “are still al-
most 100 per cent above 1914 and New
York factory wages about 95 per cent
higher. ”
The cabinet officer failed to state
the 1914 wage rates.
•--------------O--------------
REV. FR. “TIM” TO ARBITRATE
a woman, maximum hours of labor
and minimum wages will be found laid
down in both state and national laws.
And "recently it has been proposed to
grant him an old age pension when
the industrial system finds him too old
and infirm for further employment un-
der the wage contract. Several of the
states have been investigating the mat-
ter, and bills providing such pensions
have been introduced in congress and
in a number of state legislatures.
All this legislation looking to the
protection of human life and its full
enjoyment has been uniformly favored
and supported bythe Eagles and ad-
vocated in the Eagle Magazine. In
the matter of Mothers’ Pensions, in-
deed, leading members of our order
were the first to suggest the proposi-
tion, and The Magazine was one of
the first publications earnestly and
steadily to support it.
4ollowing out this line of humanita-
rian action the Fraternal Order of
Eagles now is turning all the power-
ful mechanism of its organized mem-
bership to the securing of old age
pensions for the workers. The order
recognizes the debt of the state to
their existence. It was so high that
Senator Cummins of Iowa—who can-
not be charged with hostility to the
railroads—said “it shocked the moral
sense of mankind.”
Since the Commission placed the
valuation of $18,900,000,000 on the
I roads, it has been, through its engi-
neers, ascertaining the cost of repro-
pointed out. These equipment con-
cerns controlled by the same men who
managed the railroads, were paying
enormous dividends.
These extravagant practices accord-
ing to Dr. Warne, ran through all
branches of the railroad service. He
submitted page after page of statistics
taken from the Interstate Commerce
Commission reports, showing how the
payments to the supply houses had
increased.
On the comparatively unimportant
item of “small tools” the increase in
five years had been 277 per cent. Sta-
tionery and printing in the various de-
partments had gone up from 100 to
250 per cent.
Dr. Warne touched on the matter
of the publicity expenditures of the
railroads, and cited examples where
millions of dollars had been expended
in this way.
JUST ONE OF THESE PUBLI-
CITY CAMPAIGNS HAD COST
1 $8,000,000.
One of the surprising statements
made by Dr. Warne was that the rail-
roads were losing enormous sums
each year through the accumulation of
“surplus materials,” which were car-
ried over from year to year and finally
“junked.” He submitted evidence
from men of wide experience in the
railroad world to support this conten-
tion.
George G. Yeomans stated “there
can be no question but what the rail-
roads collectively are losing between
$100,000,000 and $150,000,000 every
year from their neglect of this branch
of the service.”
Dr. Warne insisted that if the pub-
lic could be placed in possession of
these facts it would insist that the
. -
Unfavorable are the conditions
And tumults and conflicts abound,
But organization gives promise
That some better way may be found;
The union of labor learns wisdom
, And testing its strength as it should,
Shall combine with world-wide endeavor
To overcome evil with good.
The members of this order will soon
be called upon to initiate legislative (
action for the establishment of old age
pensions. It will be an inspiring test,
of the genuine democracy in which we
live and achieve our destiny as a na-
tion. The increasing democracy of the
world has had its effect on the charac-
ter of the laws enacted in civilized na-
tions—modern law making being more
fraught with a purpose to confer di-
rect benefits on the masses—which we
call society—than as in ancient times,
with a purpose merely to prevent overt
crime. The following article points
out the changes that have taken place
in obedience to this impulse.
All laws of the civilized nations, and
even the crude regulations of savage
tribes, have been enacted “to promote
the general welfare” or at least the
welfare of the law-makers and enforc-
ers of the law. “Thou shalt not kill;
thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie;
thou shalt not commit adultery; thou
shalt not covet”—these were the first
pronouncements of the judges and
lawgivers when society was primitive:
and they are still the basic prohibitions
on which rest today all our laws safe-
guarding life and property—that is, hu-
man welfare.
These laws of ancient origin were,
however, merely negative safeguards.
They provided only against actual in-
jury. At length, however, as the or-
ganization of society was studied and
pondered, certain bolder spirits began
to demand that government not only
restrain the strong from rapacity and
oppression of the weak, but compel
them actually to aid these in their
through the supply houses.
For example, he showed, through
the testimony of John Skelton Wil-
liams, former Comptroller of the Cur-
rency, that the Steel Corporation was i
profiteering in railroad supplies to the
extent of $35 a ton. If that one leak
had been stopped, Dr. Warne said, the
railroads would have saved $120,000,-
000 in 1920.
The railroads coal bill increased 220
per cent from 1915 to 1920, going from
$209,000,000 to $668,000,000. The rail-
road propagandists have had nothing
to say about this becaus coal is pur-
chased from companies controlled by
the same interests that control the
railroads.
Dr. Warne read"into the record a
mass of evidence showing the inti-
mate relations between the railroads
and these coal mining companies. One
instance will suffice. The O'Gara
Coal Company, “in which the presi-
dent of the New York Central was
personally interested,” was discover-
ed by the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission to be selling coal to another
railroad company for very much less
than it charged the New York Cen-
tral.
“The fact is,” said the Interstate
Commerce Commission, “that the
connection of some of the high offi-
cials of the New York Central lines
with these coal properties resulted in
no small demoralization in the serv-
ices, and led to a belief on the part of
last vital breath. The maternity law
recently enacted by congress provides
that for a certain period before, dur •
ing and after a child’s birth, his moth-
er, if she be employed in the indus-
tries, shall be relieved from hard work
and be given proper care and nursing,
so that he may be born under favor-
able conditions. Mothers’ pension
laws, now enacted in many states,
grant to her, if she becomes a widow,
a sufficient allowance to enable her to
keep her children at home and to re-
main at home herself with them so as
to 'protect them and train them for
useful citizenship. Child labor laws
prohibit the child’s employment in his
tender years and regulate the hours
of labor aad the kind of work he may
do when he grows older. There are
laws also that require him to go to
school +o be educated. Housing and
factory laws for his manhood require
wholesome, sanitary surroundings for
his daily labor and safety devices both
in the building where he lives and in
the shop where he works. If “he” be
Railroad executives testifying be-
fore the Senate Committee on Inter-
state Commerce, the Interstate Com-
merce Commission and the United
States Railroad Labor Board, and in
propaganda disseminated front innum-
with the result that in April of 1921
the pay rolls of all the roads in this
country totaled only $221,000,000.
This was a decrease, or saving, of
$114,000,000 a month, or of $1,3368,-
000,000 a year. No part of this saving
was returned to the shippers.
In addition to this, the United
States Railroad Board ordered a 12
per cent cut in the employes’ wages,
thus affecting an additoinal saving of
$400,000,000. On top of that the
board made sweeping changes in the
rules governing working conditions,
and it is estimated that those changes
will net the railroads some place be-
tween $200,000,000 and $300,000,000.
Dr. Warne told the Interstate Com-
merce Commission that depsite these
sweeping reductions in pay rolls,
there have been only slight reductions
in freight rates’ and that these reduc-
tions have “affected less than 2% per
cent of the freight traffic.” Accord-
ing to railroad estimates the cost of
these reductions is somewhere be-
tan
down unless wages are slashed.
To what extent are these claims j
sustained by the facts? ,
Within the last few weeks the sub- i
ject has heen discussed in great de-
tail before the Interstate Commerce 1
Committee of the United States Sen-
ate and the Interstate Commerce
Commission by Dr. Frank J. Warne,
of Washington, D. C., an economist
of established reputation, who has de-
voted his life to a study of the railroad
question.
Dr. Warne testiifed that the in-
crease in J freight rates from 1914 to
1921 averaged, for the country as a
whole, 113 per cent.
From 1914 to 1916 wages of railroad
employes remained almost stationary,
and from 1916 to 1921, according to
the highest estimate made by the rail-
road executives, they advanced 84.6 per
cent.
These statements of Dr. Warne will
come as something of a shock to those
who have gained their knowledge of
the railroad problem from the state-
ments issued by the railroad execu-
tives.
Wage Increases Exaggerated.
The railroad propagandists have re-
peatedly made the claim that the in-
crease in railroad wages ranged from
ICO to 150 per cent, and they have al-
ways insisted that the increase in
freight rates was considerably less
than 100 per cent.
They have endeavored to convince
the public' that the only increase in
rates were the flat increases ordered
by the Railroad Administration and
the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion.. They have concealed the fact
that the roads, since the return to pri-
vate management, have made thous-
ands of changes in commodity rates,
and that 85 per cent of the traffic of
the country is moved under these
rates. )
Dr. Warne challenged the accuracy
of the estimate that the workers’ wa-
ges had increased 84.6 per cent. It
was presented,, he said, to the Senate
Committee on Interstate Commerce
by John F. Walber, secretary of the
Bureau of Information of the eastern
railroads, and Dr. Warne accepted it
because he said it was/the highest es-
timate that had been made by any au-
thorized representative of the rail-
roads when testifying before an of-
ficial body, where his testimony be-
came a matter of record.
“Freight rates alone,” said Dr.
Warne, “have increased in amount of
dollars since 1914 from two to three
times as much as the increase in the
wages of employes.
“Notwithstanding the long deferred
increases in wages granted to railroad
employes during and following Feder-
al control,” said Dr. Warne, “the
Guaranty Building &
**7 Loan Co.
S°¥
5% onA-ounts of $5.00
6% on Amounts of $500.00
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The Union Review (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, May 12, 1922, newspaper, May 12, 1922; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1416624/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rosenberg Library.