Making the case for social ownership and workers’ control of rail. A case can still be made…

‘Why the Railroad Workers Should Control and Mange the Railroads’ by Locomotive Engineer from Solidarity. Vol. 6 No. 291. August 7, 1915.

Realizing the evils arising from privately owned and controlled railroads, and the unbearable conditions it has bestowed upon the railway workers and the public in general, it behooves the railway workers to bind themselves together for one specific purpose, that of control and management of the great railroads by the railway workers.

Thousands are today out of employment, due to the fact, that improved machinery, larger locomotives, increased hauling capacity and new methods of management are ever on the increase.

The railway workers–like men and women in all other industries–are denied the opportunity to secure for themselves and those dependent upon them, food, clothing and shelter.

The present mode of ownership and management has automatically DENIED THE RIGHT OF OPPORTUNITY TO WORK.

We have been separated from the industry that affords us the only means, whereby we can secure an existence.

This worn-out and corrupt system offers no promise of improvement. The moment we no longer yield the maximum of profits, we are thrown upon the scrap pile to starve.

All experience has shown that so long as the control and management of the railroads are in the hands of exploiters of labor, robbery of the people, starvation of the masses, thievery, murder, suicide will exist and increase.

Inefficient management, due to the greed for higher dividends, results in overwork of those who have a job, and starvation of the many. Wrecks, injury and loss of life, destruction of property, lack of proper and safe maintenance and construction of machinery, bridges, rolling stock, road-beds, etc.–all that higher dividends may be paid.”

The railroad magnates have stolen the land from the people; they have debauched our courts, bribed the awake and the touch of a pen have made themselves billionaires and the mass of the people their slaves.

Two hundred and forty per cent is paid on their investments. One railroad president gave a check for $100,000 to a president of the United States as a campaign fund.

President E.F. Kearney of the Wabash in a recent address stated there is only one body of men responsible for the great majority of troubles with which the railroads are so sorely afflicted today, and that body of men is made up of railroad officers of this and past generations, and that they did not understand the power for good or evil which rested in their hands. While the present evils exist, humanity will suffer.

Humanity demands and necessitates that the present order of things must be changed. All railway workers must bind themselves together in One Big Union to control and manage the railroads. Our demands are to expropriate the bourgeoisie of all their holdings in the transportation industry. We, the railway workers, deem the right to abolish the method to which profit mongers are accustomed, and replace it with a more safe and sane system of control and management.

We, the railway workers, being trained in that particular industry, know and are the only ones who are capable of dictating how the great railroads must be operated and managed.

We, the railway workers, demand the right to elect our officials from among experienced men.

Every railroad official should be placed in office on his merit; should he not manage his department in the interest of all railway workers and the general public, he must be recalled by the railway workers.

The question may be asked if it is right, moral and just for the railway workers to control and manage the railroads. It is both moral and just that the workers in any particular industry, being trained in that industry, should control and manage the industry in which they are employed for the benefit of all of society.

We, the railroad workers, must take–YES, we are going to take, the railroads, for three very good reasons:

Because we need them, because we want them and because we have the power to get them.

L.T. Loree, President of the Delaware & Hudson Company, issued an estimate of the amount of American railroad securities held abroad.

The total of over $2,500,000,000 was arrived at with the cooperation of 145 railroads in the United States. Mr. Loree finds that $800,000,000 in railroad stock, while $1,700,000,000 in bonds and other interest-bearing issues are owned by foreign investors.

We hear some workingmen complain about the foreigner who comes to the United States to look for a job.

Is it not time for us to complain about this enormous amount of wealth that we produce and is going to the foreign dukes, lords, counts and no-counts?

My fellow railroad workers, arise from your slumbers, organize in the One Big Union, take, own, control and manage the railroads in the interest of your own class, you hold the power to rule the world in the interest of all humanity. Use that power and use it now.

LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1915/v06-w291-aug-07-1915-solidarity.pdf