Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1919 — A SHOW-DOWN FOR THE PRESIDENT. [ARTICLE]

A SHOW-DOWN FOR THE PRESIDENT.

The senate interstate commerce committee has very promptly and very properly pajssed the railway “buck” right back to the president where it belongs. The report of -the committee explains that “the president and director general have ample power to adjust both wages of the employes and rates and that a special legislative wage board is neither necessary nor desirable.” The report of the committee was no mere partisan shot fired by republicans, but was unanimous. The democratic members aire Senators Smith, Pomerene, Myers, Robinson, Underwood, Wolcott and Stanley. Congress conferred on the president authority to do practically anything he sees fit to do with the railways. That power was granted to him as a war measure and is, still' in force. The federal control bill stipulates that his authority over (the railways and their affairs shall i continue during the war and not I exceeding one year and nine months 1 after the ratification of the treaty of peace. , He is authorized to initiate rate advances and to do practically anything necessary to meet' conditions that may come up in the operation of the nation's transportation system. Congress was not asked when, I on December 28, 1917, the roads were taken over by e executive proclamation. Nobody, not even the owners, knew until 'the government ( seized the roads. Congress was not: consulted when the freight ratesj were advanced 25 per cent a tittle later and passenger rates were put up. There was never any anxiety about congressional' opinion when I Wages were advanced before, and I the senate does not propose to be made the “goat" at this stage of the proceedings. _?_X-L From the time the president got behind the Adam Son wage law in the fall of 1916 and that bill was forced through Congress, there have been evidences of catering to the railway men and of the hope of bringing about a government own-' ersihiip program. McAdoo set about frankly shaping a five-year program to demonstrate the advantages of the adminßstration’s theories. The results of government control had been so expensive and so thoroughly unsatisfactory that they contributed

more than any other factor to the election of a republican senate and ; house (last November. j The president and his advisers can not Ibe unmindful of the unpopularity of the experiment dm socialism they inaugurated. They are confronted now with the necessity of either displeasing the radicals among the railway workers—and it ds doubtful if even a majority of thoughful railway employes favor nationalization of our industries—or of incurring the wrath of an overwhelming majority of the people of the United States. In their embarrassment (they called on congress to do something. The senate committee replied, in effect, very logically: “You asked for authority to handle the railways as you saw fit. We gave you that power, now use it and do not try to saddle on congress responsibility for your own muddling."—lndianapolis Star.