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Executive Order 11169 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02) 📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations

Executive Order 11169—Creating an Emergency Board to Investigate Disputes Between the Carriers Represented by the National Railway Labor Conference and Certain of Their Employees

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson
•
Tuesday, August 18, 1964
•
5 min read (1,024 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 5 min read (1,024 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

I hereby create a board, to be appointed by me, to investigate these disputes.

View all 3 directives ↓
⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
Framers' constitutional debate ↓
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants
Inspect unabridged text ↓

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 18, 1964, this order concerns Creating an Emergency Board to Investigate Disputes Between the Carriers Represented by the National Railway Labor Conference and Certain of Their Employees. I hereby create a board, to be appointed by me, to investigate these disputes. No member of the board shall be pecuniarily or otherwise interested in any organization of railroad employees or any carrier. The board shall report its findings to the President with respect to the disputes within thirty days from the date of this order.

Constitutional Assessment: This action represents an orderly exercise of Article II administrative discretion, managing the internal machinery and personnel of the executive branch without abridging the ancient liberties of the people.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

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I hereby create a board, to be appointed by me, to investigate these disputes.

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

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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 the carriers represented by the National Railway Labor Conference, or by their employees, in the conditions out of which the disputes arose.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants

Policy Areas & Topics

🏷️ Infrastructure & Transportation 🏷️ Labor & Employment
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The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight)
§

"When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"Power is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." — Federalist No. 48 (1788)

Madison would view this order with watchful scrutiny. Operating in the 'Zone of Twilight' where Congress is silent, each such directive establishes an administrative precedent that steadily expands the executive perimeter at the expense of legislative primacy.

Madisonian Stance: Vigilant / Cautionary
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government." — Federalist No. 70 (1788)

Hamilton would view this directive as the natural and indispensable functioning of administrative leadership. Without the power to coordinate agencies, manage personnel, and resolve operational ambiguities, the modern presidency would be reduced to an impotent figurehead.

Hamiltonian Stance: Defends Vigor & Dispatch
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
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Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
30 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Low Friction

Operates within delegated statutory execution without modifying legislative appropriations or taxing powers.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Low Friction

Exercises standard supervisory executive authority to faithfully execute existing statutes.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Moderate Friction

The order relies on inherent Article II executive discretion, civil service management, or foreign diplomacy where Congress has neither expressly approved nor prohibited action.

Benchmark: Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
ℹ️
How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
1,024
7,252 characters
Estimated Read Time
5 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
32.6
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
+0.02
Constitutional Neutral
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

WHEREAS disputes exist between the carriers represented by the National Railway Labor Conference, designated in List A attached hereto and made a part hereof, and certain of their employees represented by the Six Cooperating Railway Labor Organizations functioning through the Railway Employes' Department, AFL-CIO, labor organizations, designated in the List B attached hereto and made a part hereof; 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 to a degree such as to deprive the country of essential transportation service:

NOW, THEREFORE, #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, to be appointed by me, to investigate these disputes. No member of the board shall be pecuniarily or otherwise interested in any organization of railroad employees or any carrier. The board shall report its findings to the President with respect to the 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 the carriers represented by the National Railway Labor Conference, or by their employees, in the conditions out of which the disputes arose. LYNDON B. JOHNSON The White House, August 18, 1964. List A EASTERN RAILROADS Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railroad Company Ann Arbor Railroad Company Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad Company Staten Island Rapid Transit Railway Company Strouds Creek and Muddlety Railroad Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad Boston and Maine Railroad Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal Buffalo Creek Railroad Canadian National Railways Lines in the United States Great Lakes Region Canadian Pacific Railway Company Central Railroad Company of New Jersey Central Vermont Railway Chicago Union Station Company Cincinnati Union Terminal Company Dayton Union Railway Company Delaware and Hudson Railroad Corporation Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad Company Detroit Terminal Railroad Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad Company Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Company Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company Indianapolis Union Railway Company Lehigh and Hudson River Railway Company Lehigh Valley Railroad Long Island Rail Road Company Maine Central Railroad Company Portland Terminal Company Menon Railroad Monongahela Railway Company Montour Railroad Company New York Central System New York Central Railroad Company New York District Grand Central Terminal Eastern District Boston & Albany Division Western District Northern District Southern District Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Company Chicago River & Indiana Railroad Company Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Lake Erie & Eastern Railroad Company Cleveland Union Terminals Company New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company New York Dock Railway *New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad Pennsylvania Railroad Company Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railway Company Reading Company Philadelphia, Reading & Potts. Teleg. Company Toledo Terminal Railroad Company Washington Terminal Company Western Maryland Railway Company WESTERN RAILROADS Alton and Southern Railroad Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway Belt Railway Company of Chicago Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway Camas Prairie Railroad Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Chicago & Illinois Midland Railway Company Chicago and North Western Railway (Including the former CStP&MO, M&StL, L&M, MI and Railway Transfer Company of the City of Minneapolis) Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Chicago Great Western Railway Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Chicago, West Pullman and Southern Railroad Colorado and Southern Railway Colorado and Wyoming Railway Denver arid Rio Grande Western Railroad Des Moines Union Railway Duluth, Misabe and Iron Range Railway Duluth Union Depot & Transfer Company Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific Railway Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Fort Worth and Denver Railway Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad Great Northern Railway Green Bay and Western Railroad Houston Belt & Terminal Railway Illinois Central Railroad Illinois Northern Railway Illinois Terminal Railroad Joint Texas Division of the CRI&P Railroad and FtW&D Railway Kansas City Southern Railway Kansas City Terminal Railway Kansas, Oklahoma & Gulf Railway Midland Valley Railroad Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad Lake Superior Terminal & Transfer Railway Los Angeles Junction Railway Louisiana & Arkansas Railway Manufacturess Railway Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern Railway Minnesota Transfer Railway Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company Missouri Pacific Railroad Missouri-Illinois Railroad Northern Pacific Railway Northern Pacific Terminal Company of Oregon Northwestern Pacific Railroad Ogden Union Railway and Depot Company Peoria and Pekin Union Railway Company Port Terminal Railroad Association Pueblo Joint Interchange Bureau St. Joseph Terminal Railroad St. Louis-San Francisco Railway St. Louis, San Francisco & Texas Railway St. Louis Southwestern Railway Saint Paul Union Depot Company San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway Sioux City Terminal Railway Soo Line Railroad Southern Pacific Company (Pacific Lines) Southern Pacific Company (Texas and Louisiana Lines) Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway Oregon Trunk Railway Oregon Electric Railway Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis Texas and Pacific Railway Abilene and Southern Railway Fort Worth Belt Railway Texas-New Mexico Railway Weatherford, Mineral Wells and Northwestern Railway Texas Mexican Railway Texas Pacific-Missouri Pacific Terminal Railroad of New Orleans Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad Union Pacific Railroad Union Railway (Memphis) Union Terminal Company (Dallas) Wabash Railroad Western Pacific Railroad Wichita Terminal Association SOUTHEASTERN RAILROADS Atlanta & West Point-Western Railway of Alabama Atlanta Joint Terminals Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Clinchfield Railroad Georgia Railroad Gulf Mobile & Ohio Railroad Jacksonville Terminal Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Louisville & Nashville Railroad Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Norfolk Southern Railway Norfolk & Western Railway Richmond Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Seaboard Air Line Railway List B International Association of Machinists International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers Sheet Metal Workers' International Association International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America International Brotherhood of Firemen, Oilers, Helpers, Roundhouse and Railway Shop Laborers * In trusteeship. Any commitment subject to court approval.

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Scholarly & Legal Citations 

Exec. Order No. 11,169 (Aug. 18, 1964), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-11169-creating-emergency-board-investigate-disputes-between-the-carriers.