it would become binding, and if there was an appeal taken and they were not satisfied with the district court's decision an appeal could be taken to the circuit court but no further.

In substance that is the difference between the two laws. This law has been in effect for three and a half years, and there have been handled under this act 74 or 75 controversies, and an adjustment and settlement has been reached in all of these cases but two, either by mediation and conciliation or by arbitration. Up until May 15, 1916, there had been 56 controversies handled under this act, 45 cases were settled by mediation and 11 by mediation and arbitration. Out of these 56 application was made by the employees in 20 cases, application by the railroads in 13 cases, and in 15 cases the railroads and their employees made joint application. In 8 cases the board offered its services, which were accepted. From July 15, 1913, to May 15, 1916, every case was settled without a strike or inconvenience to the public. Of the cases handled there were some involving the employees of great territories of the United States and an adjustment was had in each case.

The only serious failure to bring the parties together was the so-called eight-hour movement in August of last year, and this was through no fault of the employees or the Board of Mediation and Conciliation; neither was it the fault of the President of the United States, but squarely the fault of the railroads themselves.

Senator POINDEXTER. What do you base that statement on? Give your reasons for that statement.

Mr. DOAK. During December, 1915, the employees in train and engine service, through their representatives, prepared and submitted to a referendum vote of the employees in engine and train service of the United States a request for a 12 miles per hour basis in freight service and an eight-hour day in yard and hostlering service, and by the vote of nearly 100 per cent of these employees this matter was approved and on March 30, 1916, was simultaneously filed with the management of practically every railway in the United States, giving until April 29, 1916, in which to reply thereto. This matter was carried over by the appointment of a conference committee of managers representing the railroads and the officers of the organizations until June 1, at which time negotiations were commenced, resulting in a refusal on the part of the managers' conference committee, speaking for the railways, to grant the request of the employees but suggesting that, in the event of the application of the request of the employees, it would be applied in such a manner as to take away many things in the existing schedules and agreements of the employees that had been built up by years of negotiations between the employers and the employees. This request of the managers was declined, a strike vote was taken, resulting in the men largely sustaining the position of the officers of the organizations in declining to accept the managers' proposition. It is also noted that the managers of different properties refused to authorize the conference committee of managers to speak for them on a great number of the small properties; to be exact, about 75 in number.

Senator TOWNSEND. Before you proceed further I wish you would make it a little clearer to me what that eight-hour demand was for. Mr. DOAK. If you will pardon me, Senator, until I get through with this, I will explain it to you.

Senator TOWNSEND. All right

Mr. DOAK. Where it was thought the men could be defeated or other lines exempting a great number of employees who were organized, and this despite the fact the men themselves had signified their willingness for the organizations to speak for them. Conferences were resumed on August 8 and the position of the employees placed before the managers' conference committee, and then mediation was sought by the managers, and the Board of Mediation and Conciliation tendered their good offices but were unable to reach an adjustment of the pending controversy, because the managers' conference committee refused to grant the demands of the employees and refused to withdraw their request for the taking out of the schedules of the many things that they had been years in building up. The position of the employees was that these questions were not subjects for arbitration, and that they honestly were contending for a shorter work-day, with punitive overtime at the rate of time and one-half, not to increase wages, but to enforce the application of the shorter work day.

The President of the United States requested both parties to come to Washington, and he submitted a proposition to both parties, suggesting the acceptance of same as a basis of settlement. The President sustained the position of the employees that the eight-hour day was an established fact, and not an arbitrable question. He requested the employees to withdraw their request for punitive overtime, and the managers to grant the so-called eight-hour day, and that he would appoint a commission to observe the operation of the eighthour day and make a report of its findings, with recommendations, after which the matter could then be taken up by either party the same as before, if not satisfied.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Would you permit me there to make a suggestion? I want to ask to have it go into the record, unless you are willing to at this point, because you have a right to control your own remarks. But I find here in the hearings on the Adamson bill, which is published as Senate Document No. 549, first session of the Sixtyfourth Congress, on pages 39, 40, and 41, Mr. Garretson put into his testimony the correspondence between himself and the President in relation to this matter, showing exactly what the propositions were, and I would like to have it go into the record at some point, and if you do not want it to go in as a part of your examination, I will ask that it go in later, subsequently. I simply mention it because you are touching on that very feature now.

Mr. DOAK. Yes, sir; and, Senator, I will state exactly why I am doing so.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I did not ask you to make that statement. I simply asked you whether you wanted this to go into your remarks, or to go in separately?

Mr. DOAK. I would be very much pleased to state why I reviewed this. You have heard a great deal said at these hearings about the employees being responsible for this condition which arose here last summer, and that the tendency is to curb the employees, and we are trying to show that they were not responsible for the condition which has evidently led up to the agitation for the present legislation.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I know that. I do not think you exactly understand my question, and I will withdraw the whole thing for the present.

Mr. DOAK. I think I do understand it. However, there is not very much touching on that. I was just about through.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Very well. The President went further and guaranteed to the railroads that no obstacle of law would stand in the way of their increasing their revenue to meet the increased burdens brought about by the application of the eight-hour day. But it must be ascertained positively that this was brought about by the application of the eight-hour day, and not based on conjectural propositions. In other words, there is no way of investigating the application of an eight-hour day, or a basic eight-hour day, only by putting it into effect itself. You could not possibly investigate the conditions surrounding its application until it was applied. You might say you could take a ten-hour day, and see how it worked out, and changed any operation of a railroad, changed conditions; that if an eight-hour day was in effect, it would materially affect the question. Consequently it was something that had to be applied before you could ascertain the exact cost of it.

Senator CUMMINS. Mr. Doak, let me understand you there. Your demand was for a speed of 121 miles per hour in the movement of freight trains, and for punitive overtime, believing that punitive overtime would have a tendency to reduce the actual working day to eight hours; is that your position?

Mr. DOAK. Yes, sir.

Senator CUMMINS. You did not demand that the railroads in the movement of their trains immediately come to an eight-hour day; that is, a provision that would make it unlawful for men to work more than eight hours in the movement of trains, but you hoped to reach the eight-hour day through increasing the speed of trains, and punitive overtime?

Mr. DOAK. You are quite correct, Senator. I was going to explain that for the Senator just as quick as I could a little further along. I might as well do it now, while we are at this point. As no doubt you understand, a great number of you do, we have a speed basis on practically all the railroads in the United States, and Canada as well, providing in some instances for 10 miles per hour. The running time on a 10-mile-an-hour speed basis would be 10 hours for 100 miles. On others we have 11-miles-per-hour speed basis, which would be 9 hours and 5 minutes for 100 miles. On some we have 12, on others we have 123, and in one or more instances they have 15 miles an hour as a speed basis. That is for crews in freight service, road freight service. The request of the employees was for a 12-miles-an-hour speed basis, which would be 8 hours for 100 miles, on the running time basis. Overtime would be conditioned in every instance upon the length of the run. If the run was 100 miles, overtime would commence after 8 hours; if it was 150 miles, it would commence after 12 hours, and there was no change, no desire to change the terminals, or change the runs, but to simply speed the trains up in some instances 23 miles an hour, in others 11, in some, and in some none, and in one instance, if we had put this in effect, at least, it would have been a reduction from 15 to 121.

In yard service and in hostlering service, where the crews could be released, where they were right at one point, or in a small radius, providing for an 8-hour day, most of the yard service in this country, practically all of it, is on a 10-hour basis, with the exception of

one road, I think in New England, and possibly one or two others, they all have an 8-hour day in yard service, while one road particular, a small road, is still on the old 12-hour day proposition.

Senator POINDEXTER. Is any large road on the 8-hour day basis? Mr. DOAK. The New York, New Haven & Hartford is.

Mr. POINDEXTER. It seems to have been disastrous in that case. That is a very poor example.

Senator POMERENE. Which, of the 8-hour day?

Senator POINDEXTER. Yes.

Mr. Doak. I will say, Senator, that the application of the 8-hour day on the New Haven system was in effect when they were paying an 8 per cent dividend over there.

Senator POINDEXTER. I was just joking.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Will you let me ask you there, when these agreements are made between the managers of the railroad proper-` ties, and the brotherhoods of trainmen, are they signed on behalf of the brotherhoods by the officials of the brotherhoods in the shape of a contract?

Mr. DOAK. They generally are; but not in all instances.

Senator BRANDEGEE. It is not a contract with the individual men who compose the brotherhood, the individual members, is it, except in so far as they authorize their officials to sign for them?

Mr. DOAK. They have a power of attorney just the same as your attorney would sign up an agreement for you, or anything.

Senator BRANDEGEE. They usually are signed and run for some period of time named in the agreement?

Mr. DOAK. No; there is no time named, but the usual tacit understanding is that it will be in force not less than 12 months, and there is contained in a great number of schedules a provision that 30 days' notice by either party of a change will be given, and in some they have nothing of the kind. We work on a system that is different, possibly, to the system the mine workers work under. They make an agreement. say, for three years, and when that expires they usually quit until they sign another one. Ours are always in effect. They say, "On and after such and such a date the following rates of pay and conditions will govern."

Senator BRANDEGEE. The idea is that until otherwise changed those conditions shall prevail?

Mr. DOAK. Yes, sir.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Now, is it a contract which either party can enforce in a court of law, for instance?

Mr. DOAK. In a strict sense I do not know that we have had any case of that kind.

Senator BRANDEGEE. No brotherhood has ever attempted to compel a railroad company to live up to it, or anything of that kind?

Mr. DOAK. No. Here is the way we always do that. If they do not live up to the agreement we generally use the strength of the organization to make them do it, and the most of these controversies generally that arise, that have arisen, and are constantly arising all over the country have not been so much from the question of the increase in pay or change of working conditions, but over the carrying out of the agreement or over some discipline case or somthing of that

kind.

Senator CUMMINS. Now, just see if I fully understand that situation. You presented this change in basis for movement of trains and the eight-hour day for what might be called the stationary or yard service, and the railroads said to you that they would not consider that, unless you at the same time would go over with them and revise certain other privileges which had been from time to time agreed upon as fixing the conditions of service or of the pay for service? That was their first reply to you?

Mr. DOAK. Not exactly the way you put it, Senator. They said they never did, now mark you, agree to grant the eight-hour day, but they said, "In face of an eight-hour day being applied we will apply thus and so."

Senator CUMMINS. That is, if they did grant it, then it would abrogate some of these other arrangements that had been made in the long course of years?

Mr. DOAK. Absolutely. It would have turned down every agreement, in substance, that we had been years in building up. It would have taken away our first in and first out rule, our rules at terminals, and all those rules we have spent thousands and thousands of dollars in putting in our schedules. They said they would apply it in such a way that it would take those things away from us.

Senator CUMMINS. And that then they would consider the proposition? Did they say they would grant this new basis?

Mr. DOAK. They never have yet said they would grant it to us. They said that if an eight-hour day was applied they would apply it thus and so. In other words, they used this term-they used the term "yardstick," that they would apply or measure schedules by, and that yardstick meant the measuring out of existence many of the things that we had been for years in building up.

Senator CUMMINS. Now, then, let me see if I understand the next step. You declined any such basis as that for negotiation? Mr. DOAK. Yes, sir.

Senator CUMMINS. Then, finally it came to a point where the railroads said they were willing to arbitrate the whole subject; is that right?

Mr. DOAK. They would put the yardstick and the request of the employees in the jackpot, and we would take a chance of losing what we had been 25, 30, or 40 years in building up, and submitting it to a board of arbitration, Senator, to see whether or not we were entitled to what we had already paid for.

Senator CUMMINS. I know; but nevertheless it means the same thing. They said they were willing to arbitrate the whole thing. It is very plain that the yardstick would abrogate your privileges as well as the vardstick itself.

Mr. DOAK. Sure.

Senator POINDEXTER. Did they ever offer to arbitrate the eighthour day proposition alone?

Mr. DOAK. No, sir; and there was a question of principle involved there with these organizations that no member of this committee, I dare say, if it had been in our position, would ever have submitted

to.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Let him state what that principle was, before you go on with your questions.

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