Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 198, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1916 — Wilson Asks Financial Heads to Aid in Strike Settlement. [ARTICLE]

Wilson Asks Financial Heads to Aid in Strike Settlement.

Washington, Aug. -17.—President Wilson today laid his plan for averting the threatened railway strike before the employes committee of 640, and having found the managers committee adamant to his proposal that they accept the eight-hour day, he appealed to the railroad presidents and asked them to come to the white house for a conference. There is every indication the railroad presidents sustain their managers, President Wilson will appeal finally to the financial powers which control the roads, for it is his purpose to deal with the ultimate authority before he gives up his efforts. The president’s plan, which is expected to be formally accepted by the employes committee at a meeting at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning, proposes: An eight-ljour day as the basis for computing wages. Regular pay at the eight-hour day rate for overtime. To refer all other collateral issues to a small commission, to be created by congress, on which the employes, the railroads and the public would be represented. Acceptance of the proposal by the employes was forecast by expressions of their leaders after they left the president’s conference. One of them declared: “The men would be fools not to accept it.” The attitude oP the railroad presidents is not so clear. ‘They began arriving tonight; all are expected to be here tomorrow. No one can say what will be the effect of an appeal such as a president of the United States, speaking in the name of the welfare of a nation, can make. But from such information as can be gathered, it appears that the railroad presidents, if the managers committee understands them, are unalterably opposed to conceding the eight-hour day or anything else out of hand, but are quite ready to arbitrate anything and everything In almost any form of arbitration upon which the employes and the committee may agree.

The railroad presidents, it is understood, justify their stand upon the broad ground of maintaining the principle of arbitration, which, if sacrificed in this instance, they intend to tell the president, will be destroyed as a factor dn the settlement of industrial disputes. If the railroad presidents persist in that view and are supported by the financial powers, only the future can tell the outcome. With the growing seriousness of the situation, congress began paying more real attetion to the crisis today and there were many indications of intervention to prevent a nationwide tie-up. The general committee of the brotherhood, after considering the president’s proposal for more than an hour, adjourned without taking a vote on it. They will meet again at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning.