Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman on the Railroad Situation

Statement of Senator Harry s. Trunan on the Railroad Labor Issued at Washington, D. on O October 12, 1938. It was a very great diseppointment to me when the management of the railroads injected wages into the plans that were being worked out for the rehabilitation of the carriers. Sincere efforts were being made by members of the Senate, the House, and by the President, himself, and his advisors to & work out a plan to save the railroads from disaster. Then the rail management "IMATIONA came forward with a demand for a 15% cut in wages. N ARCHIVES SERVICE ASC In my opinion, a wage cut will not save the situation. Railroad labor is the most efficient in the country, and I do not believe these men are overpaid. Transportation is the chain by which the whole country carries on its business, and the railroads are still its most important link. Every heavy industry in the country is absolutely dependent on efficient and speedy trans- portation. The men who work for and run the reilroads are of the highest type of labor and are among our most patriotic citizens. The difficulty with the reilroads is one of long standing, and came about through banker management. Every road in the country was built by sub- sidies furnished either by the Federal Government or by the states, cities and counties through which it ran. It has been the policy of the financial managers of the railroads to load them with all the debt that they can possibly carry in times of prosperity and then run them through expensive reorganizations, out of which they usually come with debts bigger than before. No intelligent plan for debt retirement has ever been followed by the Wall Street bankers who control the reilroads. They have taken it for granted that all inlend transportation is a monopoly and that the railroads will forever carry it, and that if the public and the