08 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

THE TRANSPORTATION ACT OF 1920

The Congress, in enacting the Transportation Act of
1920, stated that wages of railroad workers should be
“just and reasonable” in the following section:
Sec. 307 (d). All the decisions of the Labor Board in
respect to wages or salaries and of the Labor Board or
an Adjustment Board in respect to working conditions of
employees or subordinate officials of carriers shall establish
 rates of wages and salaries and standards of working
conditions which in the opinion of the board are just and
reasonable.

Senator Cummins, one of the authors of the Transportation
 Act, which established the Railroad Labor Board,
as already pointed out, stated in a hearing before the
Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on April 17,
1922, during a discussion concerning the meaning of the
labor provisions of that act, that “when organized society
comes to fixing wages, it is no more right to fix a wage
below the point of living, and comfortable living, than it
is to fix a return on capital below a reasonable point.” He
also announced that he was going to have the Act amended
to make its real meaning clear, but was unable to do this
before his death in 1923.2

PRESIDENT WILSON’S INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE, 1920

During the autumn of 1919, a National Industrial Conference
 assembled in Washington at the invitation of Presi-{ent
 Wilson. It was made up of three sections, one representing
 employers, another employees, and the third, the
general public. The President recommended that the Conference
 agree upon a series of fundamental principles
which should be accepted as mandatory upon agencies con-1

 See pp. 70-71.