Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 184, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1919 — LABOR DEMANDS U. S. OWNERSHIP [ARTICLE]

LABOR DEMANDS U. S. OWNERSHIP

OF ALL INDUSTRIES^—STARTS FIGHT FOR NATIONALIZATION. Washington ,August s.—Nationalization of ail essential industry in the United States is the objective of the American Federation of Labor. This will be made clear tomorrow at the hearing before the house interstate commerce committee to consider the Plumb proposal that private capital be retired from railroad operation and that there be substituted a trpiartite control of the railroad properties by the public, the operating management and the employes. The proposal of organized labor is confined for the present to the control and operation of the railroads. But it is not the intention that it shall end .there. On the contrary, the support of the American Federation for'’ the Plumb plan to have the railroads owned (by the government and operated by the railway workers on a profit-sharing basis was secured upon the pledge that if this plan should achieve success, through the support of all organized labor, the railway workers would stand with the workers in the other essential industries in bringing about nationalization of new industries under similar conditions. The mine workers, for instance, have had under consideration for two months the British mine workers’ plan for the nationalization of the mines of the United Kingdom, although that plan, as I am informed, has not yet been made public in Great Britain. In considering this plan for the nationalization of the coal mines, it was found that the problem presented difficulties and complications which do not exist in relation to government ownership of the railroads. The (railroads, even under private ownership, have had a quasi-public character. A railroad is a public highway and as such is subject to regulations of the state. Coal mines have no quasi-pUblic character and the only regulations to which they are subjected by law is such as is necessary for the safety, the comfort and health of their workers. After general consultation among the leaders of labor, it was agreed, therefore, that the nationalization of the railroads was the easiest approach to public ownership. If that did not succeed, it was not likely itihat the nationalization of the mines or any other essential industry could succeed.