Executive Order 9874—Creating an Emergency Board to Investigate Disputes Between the Southern Pacific Company (Pacific Lines), the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Company and the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway Company and Certain of Their Employees

WHEREAS disputes, consisting of approximately 531 cases listed in "Official ballot" dated January 6, 1947, exist between the Southern Pacific Company (Pacific Lines), the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Company, and the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway Company, carriers, and certain of their employees represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a labor organization; and

WHEREAS these disputes have not heretofore been adjusted under the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, as amended; and

WHEREAS these disputes, in the judgment of the National Mediation Board, threaten substantially to interrupt interstate commerce within the States of Arizona, California, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington to a degree such as to deprive that portion of the country of essential transportation service.

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended (45 U.S.C. 160), I hereby create a board of three members, to be appointed by me, to investigate the said disputes. No member of the said board shall be pecuniarily or otherwise interested in any organization of railway employees or any carrier.

The board shall report its findings to the President with respect to the said disputes within thirty days from the date of this order.

As provided by section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, from this date and for thirty days after the board has made its report to the President, no change, except by agreement, shall be made by any of the above-named carriers or their employees in the conditions out of which the said disputes arose.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 18, 1947