Annual Inter-Collegiate Debates (Volume 9) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914. Excerpt: ... PART II WILLIAMS VERSUS BROWN Won By Brown Resolved: That the Federal Government should require compulsory arbitration of labor disputes on interstate railroads, roads. First Affirmative Robert Noble Golding-, Williams 47. Public Demands that Strikes Be Prevented and Legal Means Must Be Provided to this End The appalling results of a railroad strike upon the very life of this nation are so apparent to all upon first thought, that I need not dwell upon them at length. With the interruption of railroad traffic, food and fuel become scarce and expensive; and, throughout the entire region affected by the strike, the whole people feels the pinch of want. Then that becomes privation, starvation. The anthracite strike of 1902 was deemed so serious as to make imperative the intervention of the President of the United States; but the stoppage of the supply of anthracite coal is not nearly so serious as would be the stoppage of railroad traffic, for in emergencies soft coal can take the place of hard, but under modern conditions nothing can take the place of the railroads. The peculiar relation of the railroads to the public is due to this one fact: nothing can take their place. Because of this peculiar relation, because of the vital importance of the railroad to the public, under conditions of great inconvenience--let alone starvation--the public would interfere by every means in its power to break the strike. Consider what happened in that great general strike of 1913 in New Zealand. The whole public stepped in and ran street-cars and trains, loaded ships, and broke the strike. In the great American strikes of 1877, 1886 and 1894, as soon as violence afforded an excuse, troops were sent, blanket injunctions were issued, in one case even Catling guns were us...