(4) The congress recommended "that the wages of employees should be increased by endeavoring to reduce the staff." (5) The congress has recognized the advantage of bonuses being granted for economizing expenses and increasing receipts. (6) The congress agreed "that when private initiative fails it is advisable to institute stores-provided employees are not obliged to deal at them—but that it is preferable that they should be on a cooperative basis." (7) The congress declared that they considered it morally incumbent upon administrations to insure, as far as possible, the future of former employees, and, next, that of their families." The body is merely a deliberative one, but one whose conclusions carry with them great authority, because of the fact that the leading railroads of the world are officially represented, and also the principal governments which own or control railroads. Next in importance to the International Railway Congress is a national organization working along somewhat similar lines and known as the American Railway Association. In 1899, 257 railroad companies, operating 171,180 miles of line in the United States, were members of this association. Its headquarters are in New York. It meets twice a year and issues important publications. Next to the American Railway Association in importance come the railroad men's clubs, made up chiefly of officials. These exist in all the leading railroad centers, especially the large cities. Seven or eight of the more important clubs, such as those in New York, Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, and St. Louis, have a combined membership of over 2,500. These clubs meet monthly to discuss technical questions relating to railroad operation. Most of them publish proceedings. Their members are chiefly the active officers in the mechanical and operating departments. Their purpose is mainly educational, although in part they have important social features. The next class of associations has a combined membership of still larger proportions. It reaches most all of the officials of the roads, and includes such organizations as the following: 1. Maintenance of Way Association. 2. Passenger and Ticket Agents' Association. 3. The Association of Railway Telegraph Superintendents. 4. Railway Transportation Association. 5. Train Passengers' Association of America. 6. Freight Claim Agents' Association. 7. American Association of Traveling Passenger Agents. 8. Association of American Accounting Officers. 9. Central Association of Railroad Officers. 10. Master Car Builders' Association. 11. Master Mechanics' Association. 12. Traveling Engineers' Association. 13. Road Masters' Association. The above are among the more important organizations of this class. Their members meet usually in annual conventions which furnish a basis for comparison of methods and results of work in different parts of the country, and also a pleasant occasion for an outing and vacation on the part of the delegates or members participating. Some of these organizations meet at more frequent intervals, and others have local branches meeting at frequent intervals. Several of them have offered prizes and carry on a work that has contributed materially to the solution of difficult problems of railway management. The numerous clubs and organizations of one kind and another among the employees of the lower grades of service are usually organized for social, fraternal, and beneficial purposes alone. With the growth of the brotherhoods most of these organizations have been either affiliated with or transformed into local and subordinate lodges. There are many, however, which exist independent of the brotherhoods, and some of these have accident, sick, and other forms of beneficiary insurance. A list of railway associations, mostly of the class of railway clubs and the technical associations already referred to, was published by the Interstate Commerce Commission, February, 1898. This list gave the names of the officers of the associations. It has not been corrected to date, but the pocket list of railroad officials published quarterly by the Official Railway Equipment Register, 24 Park place, New York City, contains a list of the associations of railroad officers, and gives the names and addresses of the chief officers of each association. II. The Railroad Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association.Among the religious organizations of railway employees none has assumed the general importance of the railroad departments of the Young Men's Christian Asso I C-VOL XVII-01-at ciation now organized at over 150 division points, with a membership of over 37,000 railroad employees. The railroad corporations now contribute annually over $180,000 toward the support of this work. Thirty-five of these associations reported in the year 1900 that they had educational classes in which 112 branches were being taught. The railroad department combines all that is best in the reading room, library, and club-house features of the general Young Men's Christian Association, and is besides this a positive aggressive power for good. It offers many attractions which are peculiarly valued by railroad men, because of the very nature of their employment, which deprives them of many opportunities easily enjoyed by the average workingman in other occupations. Attractive rooms, where the railroad man can readily go in his uniform or working clothes, if necessary, and spend a pleasant evening or the few hours of free time during a lay-over have of themselves many attractions; but among the privileges offered by the better equipped railroad associations, of which there are not a few located at the prominent railroad terminals, are reading rooms, library, social rooms, bathrooms, parlors, classes in light gymnastics, bowling alleys. rest rooms, lunch rooms, temporary hospitals, educational classes, practical lectures on railroad topics, social receptions, entertainments, and religious services. The work and organization of railroad associations is under the supervision of the international committee, with headquarters in New York. This committee employs six men for this purpose. The local associations are managed by a local committee, usually made up of Christian railroad men. The expenses of local assocations are met by small membership fees and by appropriations from the railroad corporations. Certain privileges, such as the reading room, are free to the use of all railroad men, including employees of express, telegraph, and palace-car companies, and employees in the Railway Mail Service; the baths and other privileges are exclusively for members. All railroad employees, including those just specified, without regard to religious belief, are eligible to membership, and a membership ticket in one association usually carries with it free access to all the privileges of other associations at all other points. The active executive officer of each local association is the general secretary, who is a paid and trained official. A strong evangelical religious spirit prevails in the management and conduct of these associations. Many men professing no religious belief are members, but how far members of Roman Catholic, Unitarian, and other religious bodies not usually classed as evangelical are made to feel at home in the association it is difficult to say. The railroad associations are justified from the point of view of railroad officials, chiefly on purely economic considerations, and there is therefore a tendency on the part of the managers to avoid drawing religious lines too strictly. The desire is to make the association as broad as possible, at least in so far as consistent with the maintenance of a general religious tone to the organization. At the Tenth International Congress of these Railroad Associations, which your expert agent attended in the city of Philadelphia, a plea was made by President Baldwin, of the Long Island road, on this very point. President Baldwin said: "I believe, as a practical man, that the most effective work with real results can only be brought about by the work which you are doing, and it can only be brought about in the manner in which you are doing it. When I say the manner in which you are doing it, I mean the manner in which you think you are doing it, or ought to do it. It is not a false note for me to again suggest that you do not accomplish the greatest results, you do not do your work in a real high Christian spirit, unless you so conduct each branch and the whole organization as to welcome every man of every creed within your walls and make it so agreeable and so pleasant and so attractive (without leaving any sharp points sticking out) as not to keep out the Catholics, the Orthodox, the Hebrew, or the Mohammedan, or even (pointing to himself) the Unitarian. You are strong enough; you are sincere enough; you are bright enough, all of you, to let the true, bright Christian spirit prevail, so that we all may feel the effect, the inspiration of the work which you really mean to do." The highest encomiums have been passed upon this work by the leading officials of the railway profession. From the time the first railway branch was established in 1872, in Cleveland,' up to the present, when 68 of these associations occupy entire buildings, 45 of which are owned by the associations, the remaining 23 having been set apart for association uses by railroad companies or officials, almost a unanimous verdict on the good results in intellectual and moral improvement of the labor force has been freely rendered by railway corporations which have given practical expression to their opinion in liberal financial support. Most of the buildings referred to have 1 An excellent historical article on "The Young Men's Christian Association in its relations to railroad employees," by William Bender Wilson, and another article by the same author on the Pennsylvania Railroad department of the Young Men's Christian Association appeared in the Pennsylvania Railroad Men's News for October, 1900." been erected largely at the expense of the railway companies on whose lines they are located; 12 such buildings were erected during the year 1899, 11 of which were at points where associations were newly organized; 3 were put up by railway companies which bore the entire expense and 9 by joint contributions of the railroad men and the railroad companies. Of course money spent in this way by the railroad corporations must be justified to the stockholders on purely economic grounds. The directors would not be warranted in spending the stockholders' money for a purely charitable or religious enterprise no matter how laudable a purpose it subserved. It is an interesting feature of this work that though strictly religious in its essential characteristics, it has nevertheless stood the economic test, and this fact warrants its consideration in this report, and also promises larger development of such work in the near future, especially along educational lines. The late President Roberts, of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, was an active supporter of this work, and one of the finest buildings devoted to it in the country is that of the Pennsylvania Railroad Department of the Young Men's Christian Association at Philadelphia, a building which cost $175,000, chiefly contributed by the company and its officers and stockholders as individuals through the personal solicitations of Captain Cadwallader, Mr. William Bender Wilson, Mr. William A. Patton, and others in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. President Roberts at one time, in asking the board of directors to appropriate $10,000 to this work, said: "Gentlemen, I only want to say that if you vote this money for this purpose it means more to the Pennsylvania Railroad than the sum would if invested in steel rails.” Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt was so well satisfied with the work of the Railroad Y. M. C. A. in New York that he secured a secretary for the department and placed him on the pay roll of the company, and later erected a building at a cost of over $100,000. The associations form a common meeting ground for capital and labor, employer and employee, and for the promotion of mutual understanding and sympathy. This is no visionary dream, but is an ideal that has been realized, not in its perfection, but in greater measure than is found in any other organization where employers and employed come together. The association throws around railroad men a strong arm of protection from moral dangers peculiar to their calling, and extends to them a cordial and sympathetic hand in many cases of difficulty. It meets, perhaps, in a peculiar manner, the religious need of railroad men, who, by reason of Sunday labor, are deprived of the opportunity of availing themselves of the ordinary privileges of regular churches. Of course these organizations are open to certain dangers to which all religious organizations are liable, chiefly that of being carried away by waves of emotionalism. While they undoubtedly serve a useful economic purpose, from the point of view of the corporation, in making the men more contented with their profession and in developing loyalty and fidelity to duty, it is not impossible to think of them in some great labor crisis giving sympathy and aid to interests opposed to those of the corporations that have built them up. There is also a tendency on the part of some associations to depart from the purely democratic spirit in which they were founded, and perhaps in this way to lose some of their usefulness. It is said that in some of the larger associations the men do not feel free to make use of the rooms in loafing hours when dressed in their overalls or uniforms, but are apt to visit the building only in the evenings or when off duty. These are the chief objections or criticisms of the work of the associations to which attention is usually called. Neither of them has gone far enough to constitute a serious drawback to the progress of this work, and all can be readily counteracted by forces already strong within the organizations themselves. The work is likely to grow in the future and to take on new proportions, especially in educational lines. Most of the associations offer courses of popular entertainments, which are largely attended by the members and their families; but in addition to this the real educational work is done in evening classes. A schedule of the P. R. R. department of the Y. M. C. A. of Philadelphia may be taken as typical of the best development in this direction. Instruction is given in arithmetic, book keeping, penmanship, grammar, spelling, stenography, mechanical drafting, and electricity. A charge of $1 for a study course is made for the entire season of six months, and the classes usually meet one night in the week for two hours, and a few special classes, those in mechanical drafting, shorthand, and telegraphy, meet twice a week. There is also a department of mechanical instruction for the special benefit of men in the train service and motive power departments. Lectures and demonstrations are conducted regularly for the study of mechanical appliances used on trains, unusual facilities being provided through the courses of the railroad company. A general idea of the amount of time devoted to this work and the subjects cov ered, may be obtained from the following announcement. There are also courses in music, instruction being given on the banjo and in vocal music: Air brake,-Plant in operation and demonstrations on alternate Monday and Friday afternoons and evenings during October, and on Friday afternoons and evenings during the remainder of the season. Steam heating.-Model and cut sections provided-demonstrations given on alternate Monday and Injectors. -Lectures-with models of Sellers' and Monitor injectors, Monday afternoons and even- The instructors will be experts on these subjects. The models, cut sections, charts, and other appliances will be at the service of all employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for inspection daily, except Sunday, from 9 a. m. to 10 p. m. No fee charged for instruction or use of appliances. $ 12. THE FEDERATION OF RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS AND THEIR RELATION TO OTHER LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. The history of the organization of railway employees in brotherhoods and orders has been sketched in section 10 of this report, from which it will be seen that the bond of union has been very largely the beneficiary features and the trade or craft feeling. The protective features have been for the most part later developments. As these have grown and the desire to utilize the railway orders and brotherhoods as instruments for improving the hours of labor or the wages of their members has been emphasized rather than the features of mutual helpfulness and personal development, the necessity for strengthening the organizations in numbers has been manifest. The idea of a federation of all railway employees' organizations has frequently been proposed and attempted with varying degrees of success. While the idea of federation has sprung primarily from the motive of aggressive action, either in support of larger demands or in defense of existing rights and privileges, rather than from the educational and philanthropic motives which gave rise to the separate organizations among specific classes of railway employees, a federation of some of these orders might conceivably greatly strengthen their usefulness along the original lines. This is felt to be true by many of their wisest leaders, yet the very fact that greater strength in numbers tends almost inevitably to emphasize the so-called protective features has led to opposition on the part of employers and on the part of the more conservative officers and members of the brotherhoods. In 1899 the United Orders of Railway Employees was formed by federation of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association, and the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors. The latter organization was established in 1888 by the conductors on Western railroads who objected to the nonprotective policy of the Order of Railway Conductors, the larger organization, and hence formed their own association, known as the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors. The Order of Railway Conductors, however, in 1890, voted to adopt the protective feature, and in 1891 decided to join the United Orders of Railway Employees. About the same time, however, a disagreement arose between two of the united orders, and that federation was abolished. Nothing further was done until 1895, when representatives of the existing brotherhoods got together and adopted what was known as "The Cedar Rapids Plan," by which the chairmen of the grievance committees of the several brotherhoods represented on any one railway system might constitute a general federated committee for that system. It was hoped in this way to secure a practical basis of larger. cooperation between the brotherhoods which might lead ultimately to a federation with better practical results than that of the United Orders of Railway Employees. The details of the plan are sufficiently clear from the articles of federation, as follows: (The Cedar Rapids plan.) ARTICLES OF FEDERATION. [As amended (in accordance with section 10) February 8, 1895.] SECTION 1. On any system of railway the members of any of the following named organizations, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Order of Railway Conductors, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and Order of Railroad Telegraphers, may federate through their general committees or boards of adjustment, as hereinafter provided, for the purpose of adjusting any complaint which may be presented, in accordance with the laws of the organization aggrieved. SEC. 2. A copy of these articles duly signed by the authorized representatives of each of the organızations represented in the federation of any system, accompanied by a certified statement from the chairman and secretary of the general committee of each organization that these articles have been adopted by a two-thirds vote of the members of the organization, employees of that system, shall be forwarded to the chief executive of each organization, and receive his approval before becoming effective, and no member of this organization shall engage in, or be a party to, any federation or alliance, except as herein provided. SEC. 3. In event of any general committee or board of adjustment failing to adjust a complaint in accordance with the laws governing their organization, the secretary of such general committee or board of adjustment shall forward to the chief executive of the organization interested, signed by the committee, a full and complete statement of the complaint and action taken. When directed (in person, by writing, or by telegraph) by the chief executive officer of the organization, copies of this statement with notice of time and place of meeting shall be forwarded by the secretary to the chairman of the general committee or board of adjustment of each organization party to the federation. SEC. 4. The chairman of any general committee receiving statement as provided in section 3, from the chairman and secretary of any general committee, representing any organization participating in the federation, shall answer such call in person, mecting the others at such time and place as is designated, and when so convened the several general chairmen shall constitute the general federated committee of that system, and shall proceed to organize by the election of a chairman and secretary, who shall serve until their successors are duly elected. After such organization they shall, if they approve the complaint, exert every honorable effort to adjust the same. SEC. 5. When the federated committee have, after exhausting all honorable efforts, failed to adjust the complaint referred to them, and when the chief executive officer of the organization aggrieved is prepared to approve a strike, he shall immediately convene the chief executives of all organizations represented in the federation, and in the event of it becoming necessary to inaugurate a strike, the same shall be authorized only by a two-thirds majority of the federated committee and the consent of the chief executives of the organizations represented. SEC. 6. Should a strike be inaugurated, the chief executive of the organization aggrieved shall be the recognized leader, and shall have power to declare the strike off with the consent of the general federated committee, together with the approval of the chief executives of the organizations embraced in the federation, as provided in section 5. SEC. 7. The expenses incurred in the settlement of any complaint (or in case of a strike) shall be paid by each organization in accordance with the provisions of their respective constitutions and by-laws. SEC. 8. Any organization that is a part of this federation failing to comply with the rules and regulations contained herein shall not receive any support or recognition from any organization embraced in this federation on the system upon which the violation occurs; but no organization will be deprived of the benefits of this federation by reason of the acts of its representatives, or its individual members, until such time as they have approved of the action by failure to discipline the parties at fault, and then only after proper trial and conviction by a two-thirds vote of the federated board, subject to an appeal to the executives of the organizations, parties hereto. SEC. 9. If a federation is formed on any system which does not include all the organizations herein named, the others shall be eligible to membership, and may file application for such membership with the secretary of the federated board. Upon receipt of such application he will forward the same to the chairman of each general committee, party to the federation, who will in turn submit it to his associates. Upon receipt of the vote of his associates, he shall file with the secretary of the federated board the vote of his organization in accordance therewith, and the organization applying for membership shall be admitted, if a majority of the organizations party to the federation vote in favor of such admission. SEC. 10. These articles may be revised, altered, or amended by the executives of the organizations. parties hereto. E. P. SARGENT, Grand Master B. of L. F. P. M. ARTHUR, Grand Chief Engineer B. of L. E. This plan is still in operation, although for a time it was practically superseded by a more ambitious scheme of federation, established April 1, 1898, and known as the Federation or American Railway Employees. This was dissolved on February 1, 1900, and the employees of most of the brotherhoods given permission to revert to the former, or Cedar Rapids, plan of system federation. The biennial conventions of conductors, firemen, trainmen, and telegraphers each appointed a committee, which met at Peoria, Ill., October 12, 1897, to confer with the representatives of other brotherhoods and to formulate a general plan for more substantial federation. The plan adopted was formulated in the following articles of federation governing the Federation of American Railway Employees, which went into effect April 1, 1898: ARTICLES OF FEDERATION GOVERNING THE FEDERATION OF AMERICAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES, AS AMENDED UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF SECTION 13 SECTION 1. When ratified by the proper authority in four or more of the following-named organizations-Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Order of Railway Conductors, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and Order of Railroad Telegraphers, and so certified by the executives of those organizations--an alliance for the mutual advancement and protection of the interests of the railway employees of America, to be known as the Federation of American Railway Employees, and to be governed by the following rules, will be formed and in effect: SEC. 2. If the Federation is formed between four of the organizations named, the fifth will be admitted upon filing with the secretary of the executive committee notice of their ratification of the plan and desire to become a member. SEC. 3. No organization participating in this Federation shall be or become a part of any other federation, organization, or alliance of railway employees while holding membership in this one. SEC. 4. The affairs of the Federation which do not involve or pertain to the interests of the employees of any particular or individual railway company shall be conducted by an executive |