ement. On the
19th of March, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the law, and the
trouble subsided. But in the following November, after the declaration
of war, clouds reappeared on the horizon, and again the unions refused
the Government's suggestion of arbitration. Under war pressure, however,
the Brotherhoods finally consented to hold their grievance in abeyance.

The haste with which the eight-hour law was enacted, and the omission of
the vital balance suggested by the President appeared to many citizens
to be a holdup of Congress, and the nearness of the presidential
election suggested that a political motive was not absent. The fact
that in the ensuing presidential election, Ohio, the home of the
Brotherhoods, swung from the Republican to the Democratic column, did
not dispel this suspicion from the public mind. Throughout this maneuver
it was apparent that the unions were very confident, but whether because
of a prearranged pact, or because of a full treasury, or because of a
feeling that the public was with them, or because of the opposite belief
that the public feared them, must be left to individual conjecture.
None the less, the public realized that the principle of arbitration had
given way to the principle of coercion.

Soon after the United States had entered the Great War, the Government,
under authority of an act of Congress, took over the management of
all the interstate railroads, and the nation was launched upon a vast
experiment destined to test the capacities of all the parties concerned.
The dispute over wages that had been temporarily quieted by the Adamson
Law broke out afresh until settled by the famous Order No. 27, issued
by William G. McAdoo, the Director General of Railroads, and providing
a substantial readjustment of wages and hours. In the spring of 1919
another large wage increase was granted to the men by Director General
Hines, who succeeded McAdoo. Meanwhile the Brotherhoods, through
their counsel, laid before the congressional committee a plan for the
government ownership and joint operation of the roads, known as the
Plumb plan, and the American people are now face to face with an issue
which will bring to a head the paramount question of the relation of
employees on government works to the Government and to the general
public.

CHAPTER VIII. ISSUES AND WARFARE

There has been an enormous expansion in the demands of the unions
since the early days of the Philadelphia co