relative to the work of the arbitration
boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit
to arbitration.

The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than
one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for
uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded
time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to
their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.

Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen
on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against
arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the
board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of
this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" on
the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with
several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.
Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the
eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.[64]
The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.

While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus shifting
their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the
other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good
fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and
"recognition." Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements
with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole,
however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a
precarious sort.

To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they
started about 1904 a movement for "system federations,"[65] that is,
federations of all organized trades through the length of a given
railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the
Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations
sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the
Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the
separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In
1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on
the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system
federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty
systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and r