Let the voice of the people be heard.
-Albert Parsons
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 31, 1917
Washington, D. C. – Government Printing Office Publishes Reports
From The Labor World of January 27, 1917:
COMPLETE REPORTS ARE BEING PRINTED
—–
Commission on Industrial Relations
Issues Volumes on Testimony
Submitted to Congress.
—–(By DANTE BARTON.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 25.—There has just been issued from the government printing office in Washington the completed volumes of the testimony submitted to congress by the United States Commission on Industrial Relations of which Frank P. Walsh was chairman.
One of the first of the important industrial acts of the Wilson administration was the appointment by President Wilson of this Industrial Relations Commission with the following membership selected by him. Frank P. Walsh of Missouri, chairman; John R. Commons of Wisconsin and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman of New York, representing the general public; John B. Lennon of Illinois, James O’Connell of Washington, D. C., and Austin B. Garretson of Iowa, representing organized labor; and Frederick A. Delano of Kentucky, representing employers. Upon the resignation of Mr. Delano, to accept a place on the Federal Reserve board, the president named Richard H. Aishton of Illinois, who finished out the term. [Note: The Labor World here neglects to name Harris Weinstock of California and S. Thruston Ballard of Kentucky, both representing employers.]
When the European war was in its beginning and at its height of public interest the news of it was shared on the front pages of all the daily newspapers throughout the country by the news of the hearings conducted by the Walsh commission. Of such tremendous importance were the facts brought out by the commission, so thorough, so inclusive of all phases of the national life and so all embracing in the character and interests of its witnesses were the hearings that the proceedings of the commission were as vital and absorbing of the public interest as was the contemporary news of the greatest world conflict in history.
Here now, in the published volumes of the verbatim testimony, questions and exhibits, is an encyclopedia of the industrial, economic and political life of the American people in their present cycle of development.
The inspiration of public demand and of public knowledge, out of which grew the chief acts of the Wilson administration for greater industrial justice, was in these hearings of the Industrial Relations commission. It is impossible to understand not only the economic policy of the national government of this period but the very spirit and temper and drift of the industrial United States without linking them up with the searching investigations of the commission.
It is an incidental tribute to the living character of the work performed that members of the British government’s “Committee on Commerce and Industry” to reconstruct British trade and industrial organization during and after the war (the Reconstruction Committee it is called) have sent urgent requests to the Committee on Industrial Relations for sets of the testimony to aid in the study and solution of Great Britain’s problems.
The quality of the commission’s inquiries which distinguished it particularly was its assurance to workers and to the economically least fortunate that the full power of the Federal government would be used, to uncover injustice and iniquity rather than to cover them or apologize for them. The “judicial poise” which would balance one interest and viewpoint, and thus produce a vacuum of non-understanding and inaction, was expressly discarded by chairman Walsh. While a chief support was given to the chairman by the labor members of the commission, Mr. Lennon, Mr. O’Connell and Mr. Garretson, there was a generally prevailing and notable harmony among all the commission as to the course the inquiries should take and as to the conduct of the hearings. For the fundamental and searching thoroughness of the commission’s hearings great credit has been given by all the members of the commission to Basil M. Manly, who worked to the front as director of research and investigation for the commission and who prepared and directed the most important of the hearings.
In these eleven volumes of testimony and exhibits are presented the direct testimony of the chief or the representative actors in all the industrial disputes and in all the industrial life of the United States. The opinions and viewpoints, consciously or unconsciously exposed, of those same actors in the industrial drama are presented and preserved as are the judgments and points of view of representative commentators upon, and critics of, industrial relations. The whole range of industrial problems and facts, from the Colorado coal strike to the tenant land situation in Texas, from the influence of enormous “foundations” to the effect of collective bargaining among workers, from the comfortable ignorance of industrial problems enveloping John Pierpont Morgan jr. to the uncomfortable knowledge of them penetrating the young sweatshop mother, Mary Minor-all is covered in these volumes recording the inquiries and work of the commission. No brief or reasonably lengthy review of this vital document could enumerate its disclosure even in dictionary fashion.
The hearings there recorded, and made a living presentation of American industrial life, were held in the following cities: Washington, New York, Paterson, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Lead (S. D.), Butte, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Dallas. Of witnesses affiliated with employers there were 230, of those affiliated with labor there were 245, and “the general public” was represented by 265 witnesses.
In response to a tremendous demand of libraries, publicists, writers, workers, and labor organizations, agricultural groups and citizens generally and from the press in all parts of the country, congress, without a recorded dissenting vote, authorized the printing and distribution of these eleven volumes of testimony and exhibits and also of the final report of the commission. But the resolution for printing provided for only 10,000 sets of the testimony, all allotted among members of the house and senate-each senator getting only 26 sets and each representative only 16. This supply does not at all meet the demand. A great pressure is already bearing upon congress to get out a new and larger edition both of testimony and of the final report. These later editions, which would be printed from the plates already set up, would cost a comparatively insignificant sum.
[Photographs added.]
SOURCE
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Jan 27, 1917
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1917-01-27/ed-1/seq-3/
IMAGES
Commission on Industrial Relations, Original Members ab 1913
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2008002397/
Frank P. Walsh from Harpers Weekly of Sept 27, 1913
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=i2wyAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.RA2-PA24
Commission on Industrial Relations, ISR, June 1915
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=7Ko9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA714
See also:
Hellraisers Journal of June 11, 1915:
Frank P Walsh States His Commission Has Completed Its Work, Is Fixing Up Report
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/6/11/1392159/-Hellraisers-Journal-Frank-P-Walsh-States-His-Commission-Has-Completed-Its-Work-Is-Fixing-Up-Report
Commission on Industrial Relations
-The Manly Report
Final report of the Commission on Industrial Relations, including the report of Basil M. Manly and the individual reports and statements of the several commissioners
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
https://books.google.com/books?id=NU2vAAAAIAAJ
Commission on Industrial Relations
Report on the Colorado Strike by George P West
https://books.google.com/books/about/Report_on_the_Colorado_Strike.html?id=0eoCAAAAMAAJ
Industrial relations: final report and testimony submitted to Congress
by the Commission on Industrial Relations.
Washington, D.C., Gov. Print. Office, 1916.
-The Eleven Volumes of Testimony
Volume 1: 1-1024
https://books.google.com/books?id=WdseAQAAMAAJ
Volume 2: 1025-2050
https://books.google.com/books?id=IdweAQAAMAAJ
Volume 3: 2051-3032
https://books.google.com/books?id=luYeAQAAMAAJ
Volume 4: 3033-4096
https://books.google.com/books?id=POceAQAAMAAJ
Volume 5: 4097-5086
https://books.google.com/books?id=z-ceAQAAMAAJ
Volume 6: 5087-6000
https://books.google.com/books?id=d-geAQAAMAAJ
Volume 7: 6001-6998
https://books.google.com/books?id=x-geAQAAMAAJ
Volume 8: 6999-8014
https://books.google.com/books?id=0-keAQAAMAAJ
Volume 9: 8015-9056
https://books.google.com/books?id=o-oeAQAAMAAJ
Volume 10: 9057-10,066
https://books.google.com/books?id=PuseAQAAMAAJ
Volume 11: 10,067-11,260
(Note: page 11,225 = Index of Subjects & page 11,227 = Index of Witnesses)
https://books.google.com/books?id=PeweAQAAMAAJ
From Hathi Trust: Volumes I-XI
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011451867
Testimony of Mother Jones-10618
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=PeweAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA10618
U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, 1912-1915
Unpublished Records of the Division of Research and Investigation:
Reports, Staff Studies, and Background Research Materials.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001077052
https://books.google.com/books?id=2J0WAQAAMAAJ
Re publication of “Unpublished Records” of CIR:
Choice: Publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries,
a Division of the American Library Association, Volume 23, Issues 1-6
Association of College and Research Libraries., 1985
(search: “unpublished records”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=IP48AQAAIAAJ