Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 190, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1919 — LABOR DEMANDS LABOR PROBE [ARTICLE]

LABOR DEMANDS LABOR PROBE

DEMAND FULL INVESTIGATION OF ALLEGED RAILWAY STEAL BY FINANCIAL INTERESTS! Washington, Aug. 12.'—The railroad brotherhoods through their counsel, Glenn E. Plumlb, today laid before the house interstate commerce committee, their charges of ■corruption in the management of the railroads under privaite control. The charges announced as forthcoming a week ago, were that many of the great railway systems had ibeen plundered systematically by jthe financial interests, and that the railroads illegally held of acres of puiblic lands. Eighteen representative railroads of the country, the brotherhood attorney asserted, issued stock aggregating $450,414,000 between 1900 and 1910 as bonuses and paid millions of dollars in dividends on these bonuses. These same railroads, he further charged, were “controlled in whofle or in part by the Morgan interest, the Rockefeller interests and ithe Gould interests.” Coupled with the charges, winch came just before the house committee closed its hearings on organized labor’s bill for elimination of private capital from railroad ownership, was the demand by Mr. Plumb that congress make a thorough investigation of the matter so that “the American people may know to what extent it is sought to subject them to exploitation” under the other plans proposed for future disposition of the railroads. There was no intimation as to what course the committee might take in regard to the request for an investigation. Chairman Each, in half a dozen questions, indicated that to go into the charges would (be like traveling over old ground, as they had been threshed out long ago. Plumb told the committee that he either had the evidence to support every charge or knew where it could be obtained. Presentation of the charges apparently failed to arouse much interest among members, as no one except the chairman sought light through examination of the witness. A. B. Garretson, former head of the Order of {Railway Conductors, closing his statement begun Monday, declared with utmost frankness that if a vote were taken today the country probably would reject organized labor’s plan. He explained, however, that this would be due to general suspicion against new things and predicted that it would be endorsed and adopted in ■the not far distant future. The opinion was expressed by Mr. Garretson that there had been no fair test of government operation of railroads, because the, railroads since being taken over had been operated by officials who were opposed to government ownership and wanted to demonstrate that it was not best for the country. With the filing of Plumb's charges the committee concluded hearings on hlis plan for public ownership and employe-operation of the railroads, and wifi take up later Jthe plans to ibe offered by security 'holders and railway executives, both of which labor officials* have testified, are more radical than that framed (by Mir. Plumb and endorsed 'by the * .brotherhoods. It probably >wll be a month before the committee can make'a final report.