130 [INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

diagrams as to “wages in other industries” and “the decrease
in the cost of living” shrink into nothingness. This matter of
lowering the wages of unskilled men is not a statistical problem,
 or an economic or industrial question. It is a question
of public policy, of public morals, of ethics, of humanity
itself. In our conception of this Board, this fundamental
question should be passed upon by this Board as a court
of equity—as a public body charged with a public responsibility.


The controversy between transportation employees and
managements was waged along these lines before the
Labor Board in various proceedings, over a period of two
years; and, as has been stated, it was taken up and discussed
 pro and con by the press, publicists, and leading
figures in and agencies of industry and finance. Finally,
when the majority of the Labor Board declared that the
living-wage principle could not be practically accepted
because of the depression then existing in manufacturing
and transportation industries, the issue was transferred to
the Congress. An appeal was made to the appropriate
committees of both Houses by representatives of the Maintenance
 of Wage Employees, requesting that the term
“just and reasonable” in the Transportation Act of 1920
be specifically interpreted as meaning a “living wage for
unskilled employees” and made mandatory upon the Railroad
 Labor Board by a special amendment of the law. In
a hearing upon this proposition before the Senate Committee
 on Interstate Commerce, Chairman Cummins stated,
as has already been pointed out, that he agreed with this
interpretation of the meaning of the phrase; later he
declared that he would submit the amendment for a “living
wage” to the Senate.! Before this could be accomplished,
however, the antagonism of employees to the Railroad
1 Ante, pp. 70-71, 98.