"Cooperation, not individualism.

"Maximum output in place of restricted output.

"The development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity."

And he thus expressed his vision of the future of industry, and, as he indeed believed, the future of science and art:

The time is coming when all great things will be done by that type of cooperation in which each man performs the function for which he is best suited, each man preserves his own individuality and in his particular function, and each man at the same time loses none of his originality and proper personal initiative, and yet is controlled by and must work harmoniously with many other men.

Mr. Baker says:

But Mr. Taylor's system, or something closely resembling it, must increasingly become the basic method of controlling industry. The moment competition disappears in any branch of human activity the need of a new scientific basis for measuring values becomes imminent. The especial difficulty in all Government work to-day is the absence of standards. No one knows how much work a man should do, or how he should do it most efficiently, or what should be the fair relationship between a given task and the compensation paid for it. It is not without significance that few managers have seized upon the Taylor system with such alacrity and satisfaction as the able engineers in control of Government arsenals and navy yards.

EDWARD E. BROWNE

64TH CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 1st Session.

HOURS OF SERVICE OF RAILROAD EMPLOYEES.

MAY 17, 1916.—Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.

Mr. CULLOP, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 9216.]

The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 9216) to amend sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 of an act entitled "An act to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by limiting the hours of service of employees thereon," approved March 4, 1907, having considered the same, report thereon with amendments, and as so amended recommend that it pass.

Amend the bill as follows:

Page 2, line 16, after the word "stations," insert a comma and the words "continuously operated night and day."

Page 2, line 18, strike out the words "of more than two cars." Page 2, line 23, strike out the word "again" and insert same after the word "duty," same page and line.

Page 3, line 3, strike out the word "branch."

Page 3, line 5, strike out the word "branch."

Page 3, line 25, strike out the words "to train and engine employees."

Page 4, line 14, correct the spelling of the word "violation."
Amend section 5 to read as follows:

SEC. 5. That this act shall take effect six months from and after its approval. Extensive hearings have been had on this bill, both by the railroads and employees, at this session of Congress, and also in the Sixty-second Congress, when the same subject was under consideration, and in each instance your committee came to the same conclusion. It is proper here to say that in the Sixty-second Congress the bill then under consideration, after having been reported favorably by the committee, on account of the congested condition of business on the calendar previously reported, no opportunity was afforded jor action by the House on the question.

THE HOURS-OF-SERVICE ACT.

The hours-of-service act, as it is commonly called, applies to two classes of railway employees: Employees who move trains, such as engine and train men, etc., and employees who direct the movement of trains, such as train dispatchers, operators, towermen, lever men, telephoners, and interlocking-switch men, etc.

Provision is made for both classes of employees in section 2 of the original act, the provision relating to train dispatchers and operators, etc., being found in the proviso inserted therein during the course of the passage of the act through the Fifty-ninth Congress. The part of the section relating to engine and train men is not affected by the pending bill; therefore reference will be made only to the proviso which affects train dispatchers, telegraph operators, etc.

Under the provisions of the law as it now stands, operators in day offices may be worked a period of 13 hours in each 24 hours, and in day and night offices a period of 9 hours in 24 hours. Either of these classes may be worked 4 additional hours per day on not exceeding 3 days per week. Owing to the failure of Congress in the enactment of the law to make consecutive the hours on and off duty of these employees, as was done in the case of the engine and train men, many railways divided the daily period of labor into two shifts so that, for instance, an operator may be on duty 6 hours, then off 3 hours, then on again 3 hours. Instances of divisions of its shifts might be multiplied indefinitely, whereby the purpose of the law has been thus evaded. This practice was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the United States v. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. (220 U. S., 37). The opinion in that case is brief and so clearly illustrates the point under consideration it is herewith submitted:

This is an action to recover penalties for violation of the "act to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by limiting the hours of service of employees thereon," March 4, 1907 (ch. 2939, secs. 2, 3; 34 Stat., 1415, 1416). The Government had a verdict in the district court, subject to exceptions, and the judgment was reversed by the circuit court of appeals (177 Fed. Rep., 114; 100 C. C. A., 534).

The case is this: By section 2 it is made unlawful for common carriers subject to the act to permit any employee subject to the act to be on duty "for a longer period than 16 consecutive hours," or after that period to go on duty again until he has had at least 10 consecutive hours off duty or 8 hours after 16 hours' work in the aggregate: Provided, That no telegraph operator and the like shall be permitted to be on duty for a longer period than 9 hours in any 24-hour period in all towers, offices, places, and stations continuously operated night and day, nor for a longer period than 13 hours in all towers, offices, places, and stations operated only during the daytime," with immaterial exceptions. By section 3 there is a penalty of not exceeding $500 for each violation of section 2. The defendant was subject to the act. It had a station and telegraph office at Corwith, in the outer limits of Chicago, which was shut from 12 to 3 by day and by night but open the rest of the time. The Govern ment contends that this was a place "continuously operated night and day." At this station the same telegraph operator was employed from half past 6 o'clock in the morning until 12, and again from 3 p. m. to half past 6, or 9 hours, in all, of actual work. The Government contends that when 9 hours have passed from the moment of beginning work the statute allows no more labor within 24 hours from the same time, even though the 9 hours have not all of them been spent in work. According to the Government's argument the operator's nine hours expired at half past 3 in the afternoon. These questions on the construction of the statute are the only ones that we have to decide.

We are of opinion that the Government's argument can not be sustained, even if it be conceded that Corwith was a place continuously operated night and day, as there are strong reasons for admitting. The antithesis is between places continuously

operated night and day and places operated only during the daytime. We think that the Government is right in saying that the proviso is meant to deal with all offices, and if so, we should go farther than otherwise we might in holding offices not operated only during the daytime as falling under the other head. A trifling interruption would not be considered, and it is possible that even three hours by night and three hours by day would not exclude the office from all operation of the law, and to that extent defeat what we believe was its intent.

But, if we concede the Government's first proposition, it is impossible to extract the requirement of 15 hours' continuous leisure from the words of the statute by grammatical construction alone. The proviso does not say 9 "consecutive" hours, as was said in the earlier part of the section, and if it had said so, or even "for a longer period than a period of 9 consecutive hours," still the defendant's conduct would not have contravened the literal meaning of the words. A man employed for 6 hours and then, after an interval, for 3 in the same 24 is not employed for a longer period than 9 consecutive hours. Indeed, the word consecutive was struck out when the bill was under discussion on the suggestion that otherwise a man might be worked for a second 9 hours after an interval of half an hour. In order to bring about the effect contended for, it would have been necessary to add, as the section does add in the earlier part, a provision for the required number of consecutive hours off duty. The presence of such a provision in the one part and its absence in the other is an argument against reading it as implied. The Government suggests that if it is not implied, a man might be set to work for 2 hours on and 2 hours off alternately. This hardly is a practical suggestion. We see no reason to suppose that Congress meant more than it said. On the contrary, the reason for striking out the word consecutive in the proviso given, as we have mentioned, when the bill was under discussion and the alternative reference in section 2 to "16 hours in the aggregate" show that the obvious possibility of two periods of service in the same 24 hours was before the mind of Congress, and that there was no oversight in the choice of words.

Judgment of circuit court of appeals affirmed.

Other cases using this as a precedent have followed the principle enunciated by it.

It was clearly not the intent of Congress, by the enactment of this legislation, that the 9 and 13 hour days, with the privilege of making these 13 and 17 hour days on three days in each week, were to be still further extended in the manner shown above, and the object of the legislation defeated, but all doubt is removed by the proposed amendment, which provides that the hours, both on and off duty, shall be continuous.

While doubtless it is true that Congress, by the omission of the word "consecutive" in the proviso pertaining to telegraphers, etc., when it is contained in the provision relating to train and engine men, gives foundation for the contention of the Supreme Court that Congress intended that the operators' period of employment could be divided in the manner mentioned in the above decision.

By reverting to the history of the legislation it could be made to appear clearly this was not the intention of Congress by the passage of the law. However, sometimes the law as written does not fully express the intention of the law-making body, and in this instance we have a very impressive example as an illustration of this fact.

The practice complained of which has been a great source of friction between employers and employees will not be permissible under the proposed amendment, and will produce harmony in this great field of important industry.

The proposed law establishes a straight eight-hour day in all offices operated continuously night and day. Many employees are affected by the hours-of-service act, approximately more than one half of whom are already, by the regulations of the railway companies, or by agreement between the companies and their employees, on the eighthour basis, and it is not disputed that the great majority of the remainder enjoy shorter hours of labor than provided by law.