Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Railroaders' Next Step, Amalgamation (1922).djvu/30

Rh under what is known as the Cedar Rapids Plan, but it did not get wide application until within the last fifteen years.

The system federations have done much to break down the intense sectionalism of the brotherhoods. Tending to make the crafts better acquainted with each other, they have checked jurisdictional quarrels and produced a better co-operation all around. Naturally their component unions greatly increased in power from the extended scope of solidarity. This was clearly manifested in the big strikes on the southern Pacific (1913), the Delaware & Hudson (1914), and the Chicago Belt (1915). All three were cleancut victories. In each case the four organizations struck almost to a man and compelled the companies to grant their demands.

While the system federations were spreading throughout the country, the transportation unions, responding to the ever-present urge to get together, still further extended their scope of action by means of territorial or divisional organizations and movements. In order to make it clear what these important developments signify it is necessary to explain that the Government, the railroad companies and the workers consider the railroads of the United States as falling into three "territories" or divisions: Western, Eastern and Southern. The Western Territory, or Division No. 1 comprises all the railroads West of and including the Illinois Central; the Eastern Territory, or Division No. 2, all those East of Chicago and North of the Chesapeake & Ohio; the Southern Territory, or Division No. 3, all those East of the Illinois Central and South of the Chesapeake & Ohio, including the latter system.

The divisional type of organization enlarged the fighting unit of the crafts from the one system basis to that of the scores of roads that are to be found in each division,