appreciate the consequences of this event, it is necessary to keep in
mind the fact that the plea for an "eight-hour day" was spurious. An
eight-hour day cannot be rigidly enforced on railroads; the workmen well
knew this, and indeed they did not really demand such working hours.
What they asked for was a full day's pay for eight hours and "time and
a half" pay for all in excess of that amount; that is, they demanded
an increase in wages. President Wilson, having failed in his attempt to
settle the difficulty by arbitration, compelled a Democratic Congress
over which his sway was absolute to pass a law-sponsored by Chairman
Adamson of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce--which granted
practically what the unions demanded. In passing this law, Congress
asserted an entirely new power which no one had ever suspected that
it possessed--that of fixing the wages which should be paid by common
carriers and possibly by other corporations engaged in interstate
commerce. The railroads immediately took the case to the United
States Supreme Court, which promptly sustained the law. This decision,
unquestionably the most radical in the history of that body, declared
virtually that Congress could pass any law regulating railroads which
the public interest demanded.

And thus, after fifty years of almost incessant struggle with the
public, was the mighty railroad monster humbled. It had lost power to
regulate the two items which represent the existence of a business--its
income and its outgo. The Interstate Commerce Commission was now fixing
railroad rates, and Congress was fixing the amounts of railroad wages.
It remained for the Great War to precipitate the only logical outcome
of this situation--government control. The steadily increasing
responsibilities of war soon told heavily upon all lines until, in the
latter part of 1917, the whole railroad system of the United States had
all but broken down. The unions were pressing demands for wage increases
that would have added a billion dollars a year to their annual budgets.
The fact that so large a part of the output of American locomotive works
was being shipped to the Allies made it difficult for the American lines
to maintain their own supply. Nearly all coastwise ships and tugs were
utilized for war work, a large part of them had been sent to the other
side, and this put an additional strain upon the railroads. The movement
of troops, the heavy building operations in canton