142 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

From that time forward the representatives of the employees
 constantly urged the Board to give a practical
application to the living wage. Not until June 10, 1922,
however, or almost two years after the declaration in
Decision No. 2, did the Board give any further indication
of its attitude. In Decision No. 1074 (Docket 1300),
effective July 1, 1922, having to do with clerks, freight
handlers, express handlers, station men, and other classes
of employees, the Board said:

The Labor Board can not venture too far into the realms
of economic prophecy, but it is generally conceded to be fairly
plain and certain that our country has entered upon an era
of gradually increasing business prosperity which will be
liberally shared by the carriers. That the carriers shall have
a fair opportunity to profit by the revival of business in order
that they may expand their facilities is absolutely indispensable
 to their efficient service to the American public. Their
unpreparedness now to cope with any greatly increased traffic
is notorious. Every facility of railway transportation has
been skimped for the last several years, and, as to mileage,
there has been an actual decrease instead of an increase.
This statement, in the connection used, must not be misconstrued
 to mean that the employees should be called upon
to bear the cost of railway rehabilitation, improved service
and reduced rates. It simply means that it is only patriotic
common sense and justice that every citizen, including the
railway employee, should cooperate in a cordial spirit, should
bear and forbear, until the carriers are back on their feet.
When this accomplishment is safely under way, it will then
be possible for the Railroad Labor Board to give increased
consideration to all the intricate details incident to the scientific
 adjustment of the living and saving wage, with enlarged
 freedom from the complications of the “relevant
circumstances” of the abnormal period which is now approaching
 its end.
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