For more than three months, Congress searched in vain for a formula to head off a railroad strike. Last week it faced the urgent task of ending one.
Defying the Administrationjust as it had during last summer's $3 billion, 45-day airline strikethe militant International Association of Machinists triggered a walkout that laid off 600,000 rail employees and paralyzed 95% of the nation's 216,000-mile rail network. Lyndon Johnson, in no mood for a repetition of the airlines debacle, called the strike a "national crisis" and urged Congress to take immediate action. Swiftly, the...