142 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
From that time forward the representatives of the em- 
ployees 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 indispen- 
sable 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 mis- 
construed 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 sci- 
entific adjustment of the living and saving wage, with en- 
larged freedom from the complications of the “relevant 
circumstances” of the abnormal period which is now ap- 
proaching its end. 
. + « In the settlement of these questions, it is the profound