[24] I took Mr. Gompers' words verbatim.
On April 6, 1917, the Council and Advisory Commission approved a declaration of the attitude of American labor toward the war presented by Mr. Gompers' Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission. This action was directed toward the maintenance of existing standards of employment, and provided, among other things, that the Council should issue a statement to employers and employees in industrial plants and transportation systems advising that neither employers nor employees should endeavor to take advantage of the country's necessities to change existing standards; and providing further that when economic or other emergencies might arise requiring changes of standards, the same should be made only after such proposed changes were investigated and approved by the Council. It likewise provided that the Council urge upon the legislatures of the States, as well as upon all administrative agencies charged with the enforcement of labor and health laws, the great duty of rigorously maintaining the existing safeguards as to the health and welfare of workers, and that no departure from such standards in State laws and State rulings affecting labor should be taken without a declaration of the Council that such departure was essential for the effective pursuit of the national defense.
MERGING THE RAILROADS
On April 7, 1917, the Council directed Chairman Willard of the Advisory Commission to call upon the railroads so to organize their business as to lead to the greatest expedition in the movement of freight and troops. The response of the railroads was literally splendid. Their executives came to Washington, conferred with Mr. Willard, and passed the following resolution:
Resolved, That the railroads of the United States, acting through their chief executive officers here and now assembled and stirred by a high sense of their opportunity to be of the greatest service to their country in the present national crisis, do hereby pledge themselves, with the Government of the United States, with the governments of the several States, and one with another, that during the present war they will coördinate their operations in a continental railway system, merging during such period all their merely individual and competitive activities in the effort to produce a maximum of national transportation efficiency. To this end they hereby agree to create an organization which shall have general authority to formulate in detail and from time to time a policy of operation of all or any of the railways, which policy, when and as announced by such temporary organization, shall be accepted and earnestly made effective by the several managements of the individual railroad companies here represented.
COÖPERATING COMMITTEES
The first of July, 1917, found the Council and Advisory Commission directing the operation of the following boards and committees:
Aircraft Production Board.
Committee on Coal Production.
Commercial Economy Board.