Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 276, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1919 — Wage Earners Should Be Represented on Railroad Boards of Directors [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Wage Earners Should Be Represented on Railroad Boards of Directors

By Senator ALBERT B. CUMMINS

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The permanent railroad policy bill submitted to the senate by the interstate committee has these major features: Provisions for termination of government <<oll trol of the railroads; their- feturß to private ownership and operation under rigid federal control and consolidation into region systems; prohibition of Strikes and lockouts of employees ; joint committee. on wages | represent a non of employees on boards of directors. ' \1 y personal opinion is that the wage earner should be represented on flie hoards of directors of the rail-

roads. Eutv member of this committee helioses that the classified personnfd should jmrtieijrftte in the-management-of railroads. - By-inehtd-ing their tq>okesmen among the directors their peculiar problems could be worked out by those most'concerned and best informed. If this were done 1 believe most of their controversies would be ad justed before they reachcij the point of publicity. « The measure contains none of the fundamentals of the Plumb plan The Plumb the soviet principle, with very little concealment. The •oviet society is one in which the wage-earning class of a given industry or community exercise complete control over that industry or community. The program of the railroad brotherhoods, looks to the control of tire transportation industry by its wage-earning personnel. Our‘fhdnstrial civilization'is founded on the relationship between enipiuJker and employee, and 1 do not bt lieye it can be succeeded by any other. ’ . *• The plan of the brotherhoods would destroy that relationship so far as the railroads are concerned, and we cannot assume that it would be all enipted only in that industry. _» t