Free Press

HOW THEY AVOID A BLACK LIST.

The Industrial Commission Hears About Peculiar Letters of Recommendation.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9.—E. A. Mosely, secretary of the interstate commerce commission was a witness to-day before the federal industrial commission. He cited the difficulty in proving a blacklisting system, explaining that many railroads, after the Debs strike, had freely given letters of recommendation to former employees, but had phrased them so as to notify the sympathizing companies that the recommended man had been blacklisted.

He recommended legislation prohibiting the courts from attempting to enforce personal performance of labor contracts by mandatory process, citing an instance from the Ann Arbor road where Lennon, an engineer, had been fined and imprisoned for refusing to take out his locomotive after the court had ordered him to return to work, the judge having been transported in a private car and having issued his injunction in the company's office. He referred to the fact that the safety appliance act, passed in 1893, did not go into effect until 1898 and that all except about 30 per cent of the roads had installed the master car builders' coupler. He referred to the railroad man as in a measure a public servant and declared that a railroad strike here, if large enough, might starve an entire section of the country.