Porters

Last week, the Pullman Porter, most famed servant in the U. S., started to go on strike. Then, at the last moment, he changed his mind, "for obvious reasons." But he said he would strike some other day, soon, if his grievances were not adjusted. He had been getting in a position to strike for at least three years.

"Too many Uncle Toms" was the rallying cry of the Negro who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He, Asa Philip Randolph, a high-headed Florida man, mental product of Jacksonville's Cookman Institute and of City College of New York, editor of The Messenger, a Socialist in politics, undertook the promotion of the Pullman Porter as a matter of racial pride. He told the Pullman Company's employes that they were guilty of slave psychology in continuing to make berths, shine shoes, lug luggage and be called "George," for the wages the Pullman Company paid. He said they should decline tips and make the company pay the difference, and more than the difference.

Of the Pullman Company's 11,000 maids and porters in the U. S., some 7,000 harkened to Organizer Randolph and left a union which had been organized for them by the Pullman Co., to join the

Brotherhood, which was encouraged though not adopted by the American Federation of Labor. They said that the Pullman work-wage scale which they protested was: $72.50, plus $58 in tips, minus $33 expenses (shoeblacking, meals, uniforms), for a 400-hr. month. The scale the Brotherhood proposed was $150 for a 240-hour month. The porters also objected to "doubling out" assignments, where porters who have just finished a trip are ordered out on another trip before they have had time to refresh themselves with sleep, baths, visits home.

Answering the porters' protest, the Pullman Co. stated that $72.50 was the wage paid newly employed men. Oldtimers' wages are as high as $104 a month. In the company's judgment, tips run from $75 per month up. The company believed $33 a high figure for "on the road" expenses. It pointed out that one-third of the porters receive two free uniforms per annum.

The company also said: "No porter works 400 hours per month. Some work only 100 hours and the average is less than 300 hours. Porters have sleep periods while on long runs and long rest periods at the end of runs. For instance: three-day run to Pacific Coast (nightly sleep en route), then 24 or 28 hours off on the Coast. Three days back to Chicago and then a rest period of five and six days, with pay.

"Porters receive life insurance without cost to them, pensions on retirement . . . loans without interest, legal assistance, welfare work, etc."

The porters tried last year to get action by the Interstate Commerce Commission. But the I. C. C. declined to interfere, having no authority to intervene in a wage controversy. The strike order, issued last week, was calculated to obtain action from the U. S. Board of Mediation, which is empowered to decide when an "emergency" exists in the U. S. transportation world and to request the President to appoint an emergency investigating commission. But last week the Board found no "emergency" in the porters' threat, presumably because the Pullman Co. announced that its service would be impaired no jot or tittle by a general walkout. The company said that hundreds of white men had applied for the Brotherhood's jobs.

President William Green of the A. F. of L. was the one who advised the porters to postpone their strike "for obvious reasons." He sympathized, hoped they would win ultimately.

Citizens could understand the wisdom of averting a Pullman-porter strike at a time when hosts of potent politicians were boarding overnight trains for Kansas City and Houston.