a procedure whereby he agreed to make his services available to help the parties somewhat in the capacity of a liaison officer between the parties and other Government agencies to find the facts as to what they might have been entitled to under the wage stabilization program on July 1, 1952, or thereafter.

Mr. LOOMIS. That is correct.
Senator MORSE. Section 11:

If the parties cannot agree on details of agreement or rules they shall be submitted to John R. Steelman for final decision.

Now we get into a grant of decisive authority.

Mr. LOOMIS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORSE. Within the limitations of that jurisdiction it was a grant of arbitration power.

Mr. LOOMIS. I would say that is correct.

Senator MORSE (reading):

The usual protections for arbitraries, miscellaneous rates, special allowances, and existing money differentials above existing standard daily rates will be included in the formal agreement.

The foregoing will not

That is an asterisk to your section 10 and I will not read that.

Mr. LOOMIS. That is correct.

Senator MORSE. It would appear to me that it is section No. 11 which caused this misunderstanding or at least the representation on the part of spokesmen for the brotherhoods that the agreement of December 21 was unacceptable to the General Chairmen, among other reasons, for the reason that this arbitration authority was granted to Dr. Steelman. Is that your understanding also of some of their representations?

Mr. LOOMIS. That is my understanding of some of their representations.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Loomis, nothing is said in this memorandum of agreement that in case Dr. Steelman was not holding his present office in 1952 or any time during the life of this agreement, that someone else would do the job.

Mr. LOOMIS. No, that is correct, Senator. I think probably it was not then discussed during those early morning hours. Thinking about it now or later I would be quite sure that if Dr. Steelman were no longer in office, whoever might be his successor, whoever was handling that sort of matters for the President, would be the man. After all this discussion, when we came to write the nonoperating agreement, because of these representations that had been made by some of the organizations and their representatives in the nonoperating agreement we wrote a similar provision, but that provision in the nonoperating agreement provided that the President or such person as he may designate. So we cured that possible hiatus in the nonoperating agreement.

Senator MORSE. I think it was only fair to Dr. Steelman to have that clarification put in the record at this point.

Mr. LOOMIS. I think certainly on our part there would be no objection to curing the hiatus here similarly in the formal or complete agreement.

Senator MORSE. In the memorandum that you read to me earlier today, which as I understand you testified was your understanding

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of the powers contemplated to be granted to Dr. Steelman, sections 10 and 11, I thought you read some notes that did say in effect that if Dr. Steelman was not in this office at any time during the term of this agreement, his successor, whoever was in the office, would perform the service. Am I correct in that recollection?

Mr. LOOMIS. I read that, Senator, from the interdivisional run memorandum which contains that specific provision that:

In the event Dr. John R. Steelman is no longer in Government service, then the parties shall request the President of the United States to appoint a neutral person to sit with and serve as a member of the committee herein provided for. Senator MORSE. That was consummated on the same date, was it not?

Mr. LOOMIS. Yes, sir; it was.

Senator MORSE. And the interdivisional memorandum agreement likewise referred to Dr. Steelman as the person who was to be designated to determine whatever issues within the range of jurisdiction the agreement allowed him, that he was to be the person to exercise that power. So in carriers' exhibit No. 9, consummated on the same date, it was specifically set out that in the event Dr. Steelman is no longer in Government service then the parties shall request the President of the United States to appoint a neutral person to do the work designated for Dr. Steelman to do under carriers' exhibit 9. Is it your testimony that it is your understanding that the same intention was in the minds of the parties with respect to the memorandum agreement of carriers' exhibit No. 8?

Mr. LOOMIS. I don't think I could say, Senator, that the same intention was in the minds of the parties at that time because I don't think we ever even discussed it. There is a little bit of difference between the two, I think. Going back to the all-night session and the fatigue which creeps up on people after a whole week of all-night sessions, the interdivisional run memorandum was written as something that would be put into the formal agreement and would continue. The memorandum agreement of December 21 was in effect a stopgap memorandum of principles, a basis for settlement, from which a complete formal agreement would be written. I think unquestionably as to some of the details the parties or Dr. Steelman or the National Mediation Board may not have been quite so careful in thinking of possibilities or details as they were in the question of the interdivisional run memorandum.

Senator MORSE. In point of time during the negotiations on December 21, when was carriers' exhibit No. 9 initialed by the representatives of the brotherhoods and the carriers, and when was carriers' exhibit No. 8, the so-called memorandum of agreement of December 21, signed by the representatives of the brotherhoods and the carriers, after or before? Was carriers' exhibit No. 8 signed after or before carriers' exhibit No. 9?

Mr. LOOMIS. I do not recall the exact sequence. To the best of my recollection carriers' exhibit No. 9 was initialed first, but I can't be too positive of that. Only one copy was initialed. The copy that bears the actual initials is in Dr. Steelman's possession. The memorandum of agreement, carriers' exhibit 8, was not signed jointly. The brotherhoods had signed it when it was brought in to us for signature, but my recollection is that the interdivisional run memorandum we

initialed together in the conference room, and to the best of my recollection we did that before we signed the carriers' exhibit 8. But I can't be positive of that.

Senator MORSE. That is all right. It is your testimony that carriers' exhibit 8 was not signed jointly. When it was first laid before you it had already been signed by the representatives of the brotherhoods?

Mr. LOOMIS. That is correct.

Senator MORSE. In another room?

Mr. LOOMIS. That is correct.

Senator MORSE. So you can give no testimony as to any conversation that took place between Dr. Steelman and the chairmen of the brotherhoods at the time of the signing of carriers' exhibit 8?

Mr. LOOMIS. No, I cannot.

Senator MORSE. You do not know, then, whether at the time of actually affixing their signatures to carriers' exhibit No. 8 any of the brotherhoods indicated to Dr. Steelman that their signature on the agreement was, of course, subject to the ratification of the agreement by their general wage chairmen at a later date?

Mr. LOOMIS. I do not. I had planned to discuss that in some detail and I might just as well do that now.

Insofar as the status of the matter of the authorization, Mr. Robertson, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, had stated from outset that his organization would not give his committee authority to make a final settlement. In fact, when the original conferences opened, according to my recollection, he had some trouble in even forming a committee. But that was understood right straight through, that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen had not given final authority to Mr. Robertson or his committee.

In the White House conferences which started on Sunday and ran into the small hours of every night up until the all-night session Wednesday night with respect to discussions with Mr. Robertson he told us a number of times that if we reached a settlement he didn't think he would have any trouble whatever in securing ratification, that he thought he could simply telegraph the general chairmen the terms of settlement and get approval by telegraph and not even have a meeting. As to the other three, we never heard any question whatever with respect to their authority to make an agreement until toward the end of the press conference, when Mr. Shields, I believe in response to a question from a reporter, stated that the agreement would be subject to ratification by the general chairmen. As to the other three organizations, that was the first time that the carriers heard any discussion of the necessity of ratification or of any question about the authority of the agreement. That was some 2 hours after it had been signed.

With respect to the agreement, while we are on it I think it is possibly well to go into a few details. The original draft of the memorandum of agreement I would say was prepared after the allnight discussions, prepared between 6 and 7 on the morning of the 21st, to the best of my recollection.

Senator MORSE. Who prepared it?

Mr. LOOMIS. So far as I can say, either Dr. Steelman or Mr. Edwards or Mr. O'Neill, or all three of them.

Senator MORSE. Neither a representative of the carriers nor a representative of the brotherhoods submitted it?

Mr. LOOMIS. Not as such. We worked on the draft, and I am going to point that out.

So far as I can recall-and I should state, first, that before anything was prepared, sometime around 6 o'clock Dr. Steelman returned from a long session with the organizations. I guess we had had coffee and hamburgers in the meantime together. He outlined the terms of the proposal for settlement. At that time the carriers had still stood on the White House proposal of August 19 which I put into the record yesterday, although there had been discussions back and forth about additional increases for roadmen and considerable argument on that question. I would suppose it was around 6 o'clocksomewhere between 6 and 7-that Dr. Steelman came in and said he was now going to make a proposal for settlement. That proposal consisted of giving the yardmen an additional 2 cents per hour on January 1, 1951, and also of adding 4 cents if and when the 40-hour week actually became effective. That was new. There had been discussion, but no concrete proposal. We discussed all these things, of course, for weeks.

The settling of the rules hadn't changed any from the previous situation, either the 40-hour week rule or the others.

He stated that he was proposing that we grant to roadmen an additional 5 cents January 1, 1951, that we grant to dining car stewardsthat we change their time and one-half basis. Bear in mind, the Emergency Board had recommended that while they would go on at a 205-hour month, the time and one-half rate would not accrue until after 240 hours. Dr. Steelman's proposal changed that to pay time and one-half, effective February 1, after 220 hours.

With respect to item 10, I think that reopening clause had been jointly discussed in the conference room between the carriers, the employees, Dr. Steelman, and the mediators. The carriers' stand had been for a flat moratorium until October 1, 1953, such as was included in the switchmen's union and the railroad yardmaster's agreement. The organizations wanted a reopening clause. To the best of my recollection, the reopening clause was pretty much worked out in joint conference between the carriers, the employees, Dr. Steelman, and the mediators in the conference room in the East Wing of the White House and was a joint clause.

With respect to the phrase that appears on page 3

the usual protections for arbitraries, miscellaneous, special allowances, and existing money differentials above existing standard daily rates will be included in the formal agreement

at the time that that was adopted the carrier representatives and the organization representatives were working separately. Dr. Steelman and the mediators were with the organization representatives in the conference room. Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Edwards both, I think-anyway, one or both of the mediators-came into the office in which the carrier representatives were quartered, presented that clause to us, and said the organizations would like to have that included in the agreement and did we have any objection to it. And as I remember it, we looked it over and said of course we contemplated including it in the formal and complete agreement. We had about the same pat

tern for application of wage increases that we have used in every contract for a good many years, but if they wanted to put it in the memorandum we had no objection to it.

The next clause, with the asterisk:

The foregoing will not debar management and committees on individual railroads from mutually agreeing upon changes in rates, rules, and working conditions of employees covered by this agreement.

I can't state positively whether that was brought to us in Dr. Steelman's office when we were having separate meetings, or whether it was handed to us in one of the joint sessions in the conference room. I am quite certain in my recollection that it was proposed by Mr. Shields. It came from the brotherhood side in any event, and whether it was presented to us in the conference room or separately I can't be positive, but we were asked if we had any objection to including it and we said "No," we would be perfectly willing to include it.

Senator MORSE. Isn't that a common proposition in railroad agreements anyway?

Mr. LOOMIS. You see, that was to go with the moratorium which prevented the serving of notices for changes in rules. It is a little different situation from what we have had before.

Senator MORSE. It was just a question of whether the moratorium would be a blanket moratorium.

Mr. LOOMIS. Whether it would freeze things or whether the parties could agree on changes. The effect of it would be, Senator, that anything the parties could agree on it was perfectly all right to go ahead, but if they couldn't agree during this period there was to be no fight over it.

Senator MORSE. That is right. It is a common provision even in your national agreements that if a particular carrier and the brotherhoods representing the employees of that particular carrier agree, that is perfectly satisfactory.

Mr. LOOMIS. The assumption is whatever agreement we make, if a carrier and its employees want to change it, that is perfectly within their rights.

Senator MORSE. Let's dwell a little bit on section 11. It is my understanding that in the negotiations that finally resulted in the memorandum agreement of December 21, it was the position of the brotherhoods that they just didn't want to have anything to do whatsoever with the proposals of the carriers for rule changes; that they just didn't want any rules changes as offered by the carriers. Am I correct in that?

Mr. LOOMIS. No: that statement is not correct, Senator. I think it is fair to say that they didn't want any rules changes, and I think now is probably a good time to go into the history of that.

In the Sunday sessions, December 17, which started some time Sunday afternoon and ran into about 3 o'clock Monday morning, rules were discussed very, very extensively. In the sessions on Monday, the 18th, which lasted until about 3:30 Tuesday morning, rules again were discussed very, very extensively. Both sides at various times over these weeks and months prepared any number of drafts of rules. Finally the Mediation Board itself, and principally Mr. Edwards, tried his hand at a set of drafts which tried to reconcile the conflicting views of the parties. I can't say with certainty, and I am