[84] The railway officials claimed that the demand for the
reduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' pay
and a time and a half rate for overtime was not made in good faith.
Since, they said, the employes ought to have known that the railways
could not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covert
attempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which were
already in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the other
hand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their direct
negotiations with the railway companies and in the public press that
their demand was a _bona fide_ demand and that they believed that the
railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an
eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration
the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The
brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past
disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the
whole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day.
When the efforts at mediation by the United States Board of Mediation
and Conciliation came to naught, President Wilson invited to Washington
the executives of the several railway systems and a convention of the
several hundred division chairmen of the brotherhoods and attempted
personal mediation.
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