Honolulu Republican, Volume IV, Number 505, 24 January 1902 — SUPERVISION OF RAILROADS BY THE GOVERNMENT [ARTICLE]

SUPERVISION OF RAILROADS BY THE GOVERNMENT

Attorney General Feels That Time Is Coming When This Will Be, fSOTECIIOIt OF THE IRDIYIDUAI Northwestern Railway Merger May Have Deep and Vital Significance. Heads of Organizations Lunch With the President —Enormous Labor Interests Involved Trainmen Greatly Disturbed Over the Merger and Predict Genera! Shading of Wages Unless It Is Prevented. (Special Correspondence.) WASHINGTON. Jan. 11 The northwestern railway merger may have a deep and vital significance for organized labor. Monopoly is almost always inimical to labor. Reduce the number of employers in any impor tant line of business, and wages and tenure of service are directly affected' The Northern Securities company is. for the labor world, a monopoly, and it is evident that the locomotive engneers. firemen, conductors, switchmen, telegraphers and trainmen generally have nothing to gain as the result of its continuance. The heads of the - great railway labor organization launched by appointment with the President yesterday. and the conference which followed lasted until after 3 o'clock. The Attorney General of the United States was present, and the Secretary of Agriculture. The conference may be very important. Should government supervision become the policy of the Roosevelt administration: should the president continue to advocate increased power for th • inter-state commerce commission. which is one form of government supervision; yesterday’s lunch and conference will be looked back on as marking the beginning of co operation # bet ween the administration and organized labor in order to bring these things about. Those who say they know the purpose cf yesterday’s conference claim that the President, who for weeks has been studying the northwestern railway merger from the view point of the statutes said to be involved, the probable effect of the merger on rates, and the discriminations which it may make possible, at last reached the position where he wanted to study it from the view point of the enormous labor interests which ere involved. He wanted to know whether the merger. in the opinion of the heads of the great railway brotherhoods, was to be regarded as a menace to labor Back of the conference is the fact, now well established, that the train men and employes generally of the Northern Pacific railway are greatly disturbed over the merger, and predict that unless it can be prevented, there will be a general shading &f wages, to correspond with existing schedules and practices of the Great Northern Railway. It may be stated with authorin', that the Attorney Gen ral feels that the lime is rapidly coming when there must be government supervision of lailrr-nds. and that he already favors this as a solution of the railway problem. The President in his message advocated enlarged powers for interstate commerce commission, and he. too. thinks, that government supervision in some form must be the ultimate result, if railway combinations are to continu . The argument for supervision is the protection of the individual. whether shipper or employe.