The reasons for suggesting these amendments as they occur to us are as follows: The amendment indicated on line 12, page 4, seems to be desirable because, as the section now reads no offense would be committed by efforts to obstruct or retard the passage of mails or interstate transportation unless those attempts were successful. It is most important, having regard to the object of the section, that the attempt to obstruct or retard should be punishable even though not successful. Moreover, if the attempt itself to thus obstruct or retard were not punishable, it would be necessary apparently to establish, in order to convict anyone, that the carriage of the maile or interstate transportation was actually obstructed or retarded by some act of his, and in cases where the intimidation was participated in by a large body of men, it might prove very difficult to establish that the act of any one man was responsible for the obstruction which ensued.

It is important that the words stricken out on lines 24 and 25 should be omitted, otherwise it would be necessary, in order to convict under the section, to establish not merely the trespass which the section prohibits, but also that the person trespassed in order to obstruct or retard the carriage of the mails or interstate transportation. This would make necessary proof of intent, always a difficult matter to establish.

In case of a strike it is most important that the striking employees should be prohibited from coming upon or trespassing upon the premises of the employer without some justification for so doing, and of course where there was justification the provisions of the section would not be violated, because in that case the act of going upon the premises would not be an act of trespass, and consequently the section would not apply. Where there is no justification, however, then in order to accomplish what the section is designed to accomplish there should be a prohibition of trespassing, regardless of the purpose for which it is committed.

We trust that these amendments will commend themselves to your consideration, and that you will see your way clear to have them inserted in the bill, for we believe the bill will be very much strengthened by their insertion.

Very truly, yours,

S. C. NEALE, Attorney, Pennsylvania Railroad Co.

STATEMENT OF MR. AMOS L. HATHEWAY.

The CHAIRMAN. Please give your. full name, residence, and occupation.

Mr. HATHEWAY. Amos L. Hatheway, Boston, Mass., attorney at law. I am representing the Boston Chamber of Commerce in my capacity as a member of its transportation committee.

The Boston Chamber of Commerce, gentlemen, is a body of some four thousand-odd citizens intimately associated with the financial and commercial interests of New England. They are part of the great public, and the great public, it seems to me, is a party very much in interest here. I am not going to burden the committee with statistics. I shall assume that this committee has been informed and fully realizes that New England is particularly liable to acute suffering in case of developments similar to that which came to such a head last August. She is dependent for 75 per cent of her sustenance upon merchandise which is brought in from the outside and must pay for that by an equal amount of her own manufactured products which she sends out. I am assuming that these facts are familiar to the committee as well as the broader facts that the public at large is an acute and immediate sufferer whenever such a condition is allowed to develop as developed in the closing days of August, 1916. I shall, therefore, gentlemen, get down to what seems to me the basic propositions involved in the situation, and they are first, to my mind, the parties involved, and I submit, so far as the parties are concerned, they are first, capital, as represented in railroad transportation, secondly, the workers, who conduct the operation of the railroad lines, and thirdly, the great public, as a party with a paramount

interest, who can not be ignored or excluded or forgotten or omitted in any sense in any contract relation which may be entered into between railroad capital on the one side and railroad labor on the other, and in connection with that statement of position, I wish to submit the following brief proposition:

First. The railroad systems of the country have been equipped and developed largely by the contributions of the American people supplemented by Government aid, both State and Federal.

Second. The railroad corporations are the creatures of the State, and their functions are performed by virtue of public authority. They are quasi-public corporations and as such their owners have had to give up many of the rights which accrue to ownership in other forms of property.

Third. The interests of the railroads, the Government, and the public have become intimately interwoven and related, and reciprocal rights and obligations have been developed which can not be divorced. In case of interruption of the service the public are the immediate and acute sufferers, and as a party with a paramount interest they are entitled to be safeguarded in their rights and assured that the service shall be continuous and unimpeded.

Fourth. The right of the body politic to protect itself and assure the public safety is the highest conceivable right and the broad scope of the national commerce power subjects to national regulation all the agencies by which national commerce is carried on.

Fifth. National legislation has limited the power and freedom of capital when it has become a menace to the public interest. It can also restrict the operations of the workers when by combinationthat is the crux, gentlemen, to my mind-it can also restrict the operations of the workers when, by combination, they become a threat to the public good. To this end the legislation proposed by the President seems to us timely and necessary.

When a situation can develop such as came to a head last August, when 400,000 workers and about 600,000 stockholders threatened a tie-up of the transportation interests of the entire country because they could not agree upon the principle of the eight-hour law, it raised the question as to whether or not 110,000,000 people of the United States have any rights which railroad capital and railroad labor are bound to respect, and I assume that we all take for granted that that situation must if possible never be allowed to develop again, and that brings us to the question as to what power Congress has to legislate along lines which shall tend-if only tend at present-but which shall tend to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of that situation, and I submit to you gentlemen that by virtue of the control of interstate commerce which Congress has assumed, it has acquired a right analogous to the police powers of the States, and that that right has been reinforced by the association of the public-the intimate association of the public-by virtue of its ownership, by virtue of the surrender of its rights in a measure, by virtue of charters which it has granted to railroad capital to exercise its function-by virtue of all these things, its duly constituted legislative power has the right to see to it that the public safety is cared for; that the underlying and enveloping right of the public is in a Government such as ours superior to any other individual right; that no small body of men should ever be allowed to endanger

the public safety and that the powers of Congress are broad enough to enable it to pass the legislation which has been recommended by the President.

It may be that this is not the final form, but as a means to an end, as an open door, I am asked to urge with all the vehemence I can, with all the unction I can, that this piece of legislation shall be put upon the statute books at this time.

Gentlemen, I am obliged to you.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Let me ask you a question or two at this point. The purpose of this legislation that you recommend is with the intention of withholding a strike, or the bad results of a strike, until a board of arbitration can make a report. It is a half-way house. Is there any necessity, looking at it from the standpoint of your argument, of stopping at a half-way house? If the Govern ment is going to take this over, in the interest of the public, and control this question in the interest of the public, why should not the Government, as a primary proposition, fix the hours of labor on railroads?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I do not see, Senator, why the Government has not that right.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Why should we stop, if we act at all, at this half-way house?

Mr. HATHEWAY. It may be that the answer to that is perfectly obvious, but the legislation suggested is the legislation I am speaking about. I am not prepared to say I would not go so far as to say the Government should not take over the regulation of wages and hours of labor, but at the present time, I have a feeling that legislation, after all, is a matter of compromise

Senator UNDERWOOD. You are correct in saying that legislation is a matter of compromise, but that is a question for us to determine how far we can go. You are giving us the views of yourself and the men you are representing.

Mr. HATHEWAY. That is what I am attempting to do.

Senator UNDERWOOD. From your statement, if you could put the legislation on the statute books, would you stop at the half-way house or make a final settlement of it?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I should be controlled entirely by the question of expediency. Logically I should think it might be the thing to do. Senator UNDERWOOD. To make a final settlement?

Mr. HATHEWAY. That seems to me to be the logical conclusion, but as I say, I should be governed almost entirely in this respect by the question of expediency.

Senator UNDERWOOD. I do not know that there was an eight-hour proposition involved in the Adamson bill, but I do think that the logical question that the workers on the railroads had involved was the question of shorter hours of work, although I do not believe it actually got into the legislation. Now, if we are to attempt to regulate the hours of labor, don't you recognize that there are different conditions on different railroads, which must be met, and that it is impossible for Congress itself to meet those conditions by a statute that has got to be as broad and as wide as the territorial jurisdiction. of the country? In other words, you might run a train 12 miles

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an hour on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, in the south, where the stations are far apart and there are few side-tracks, but if you attempt to run a freight train continuously, on an average of 12 miles an hour between New York and Boston, you would have great difficulty in passing sidings, and getting in on time.

Mr. HATHEWAY. That brings us back, Senator, to the question of expediency.

Senator UNDERWOOD. That is the question I wanted to bring to your attention. Of course, if we pass a law, we can not pass one law for Alabama and one for Massachusetts. Our law has got to be as broad and as wide as the country; but if we delegate this power to the Interstate Commerce Commission, or some other commission, then they have got discretion to meet these conditions as they exist. In other words, if we delegate the power to fix the hours of labor to the Interstate Commerce Commission, they could meet conditions in various parts of the country through that delegation of power which Congress can not do. Don't you think that would be wiser than for Congress to undertake to act without knowledge of the particular facts?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I think it would be wiser than for Congress to attempt to go along the lines which you have pointed out that it would be wiser to accept your suggestion-but I do not think we ought to let the opportunity pass to let public opinion form itself upon defir ite information, which can be provided by this proposed legislation. The Canadian act has worked to the almost entire satisfaction of all parts of the public there. There have been amendments proposed to it, of course; but it has worked with amazing efficiency. After that act became a part of the statute law and became understood by the public, it was so generally recognized as a solvent and the public became so convinced of its workability that during the two years following 1907 there were but two strikes-actual strikespulled off; and only one was a railroad strike, and that one railroad strike was one of 20 strikes threatened.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Of course, in Canada they have no limitations of the Federal Constitution on them, as we have, but, aside from that, the purpose of this arbitration law is merely the finding of a verdict. After it is found there is nothing further to it, without the men, the railroads, and the public accept it. Now, if we gave the power to fix the rates of wages and hours of labor to the Interstate Commerce Commission, without compulsion to fix it just exactly as they fix the rates of freight-do you think any railroad in this country would become involved in a strike until it had filed a petition before the Interstate Commerce Commission-do you not think that public sentiment would be so strong that they could not afford to be involved in a strike until they had presented their petition to the commission and been heard?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I think that would depend entirely on how obligatory it would be upon labor. If it would not be compulsory

Senator UNDERWOOD. I mean, if we said instead of the railroad presidents and managers fixing the rates of wages and hours of labor, we say to the men, "If you are not satisfied with your rates of wage and hours of labor, you can come to the Interstate Commerce Commission and present your case and argue it, and they will decide the question as to what your rates of wage and hours of labor will be,"

do you think any of these operatives could involve the country in a strike before they presented their case to the Interstate Commerce Commission?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I should be inclined to say no to that. I hore not. Senator UNDERWOOD. If that is the case, then the first step is covered by the proposition-this compulsory feature would be covered by simply referring the case to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The public would get the same verdict and the same understanding from the commission as they would get from the arbitration, and there would be no compulsion in it.

Mr. HATHEWAY. I do not understand this is arbitration-I do not understand that compulsory arbitration is involved in this matter. Senator UNDERWOOD. It is contended by some it is, and by some it is not.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, how can you justify the application of the term compulsory arbitration" to a Government investigationSenator UNDERWOOD. I am not depending on that question

The CHAIRMAN (continuing). By officials of the Government appointed for that purpose?

Senator UNDERWOOD. What I mean is this: There can be no occasion for any controversy with respect to compulsory arbitration at all if the Interstate Commerce Commission had power to fix wages. If they did have the power, and they fixed the rate of wages, do you think it is at all probable that that would not, after this matter has been settled by an independent court, be a final solution to the problem?

Mr. HATHEWAY. In view of the attitude of the combination which came here last summer, I am not prepared to say that, in the absence of an obstacle, they would wait for a tribunal of that sort. I simply do not know.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Don't you think that if there was a tribunal of that kind, which would give a fair hearing, an independent hearing, free of bias on either side, and render its verdict, that public opinion itself would be strong enough to prevent either the railroads or the men going against that verdict?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I should strongly hope so, or else I would give up my hope for the success of democratic government.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Why is there any necessity, then, for stopping at this halfway house?

Mr. HATHEWAY. I do not think we need go into the rights of individuals here

Senator UNDERWOOD. Is not that the final conclusion?

Mr. HATHEWAY. It may be so. The question now is as to expediency?

Senator UNDERWOOD. Well, you represent a great business body. Mr. HATHEWAY. Yes, sir.

Senator UNDERWOOD. I agree with what you said very thoroughly, that although there is a great issue involved with the men who work on the railroads, and a great issue for the capital invested, the people who are primarily involved in this question is the American public; that their business and commercial life, their very existence, is dependent on keeping open these arteries of trade; that primarily it must be their rights we must consider ahead of either of the contending parties. If that is true, why should not the public be repre