Tag: Commission on Industrial Relations

Hellraisers Journal: Chicago Trial: FW Big Jim Thompson Weeps as He Recalls Wheatland Hop-Pickers Strike of 1913

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Chicago IWW Trial, H George, p71-2, JP Thompson, June 25-26, 1918
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 29, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Big Jim Thompson for the Defense

James P. Thompson, known to his Fellow Workers as Big Jim Thompson, was the first witness called by the defense in the Chicago I. W. W. Trial. He was on the stand for two days and spoke of his many years as an I. W. W. organizer.

FW Thompson wept as he recalled the Wheatland hop-pickers strike of 1913 and the massacre of the improvised workers there, shot down by sheriff’s deputies for the crime of attempting to organize.

Hop Pickers, Durst Ranch, Wheatland, California, 1913
Hop Pickers, Durst Ranch, Wheatland, California, 1913

Through his tears, Thompson predicted:

Some day, when Labor’s age-long fight for life and freedom is ended, then will there be a monument raised over the graves of the Wheatland martyrs-and it will show the little water-carrier boy and his tin pail lying there on the ground mingling his blood with the water that he carried, and over him, in a posture of defense, the brave Porto-Rican with the gun he had torn from the cowardly hands of the murderers who had fired upon a crowd of women and children.

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Hellraisers Journal: Judge Landis Deals Hard Blow to IWW at Chicago Trial; George Vanderveer Opens for the Defense

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Quote Vanderveer re The Pyramid, Chg IWW Trial June 25, 1918
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 26, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Landis Rules Against I. W. W.; Defense Opens

From The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill.) of June 25, 1918:

HARD BLOW IS DEALT I. W. W.
—–
Judge Landis Declines to Admit Report
of Industrial Relations Committee.
—–

(By Associated Press)

George Vanderveer, larger, Chaplin Centralia

Chicago, June 24.-Federal Judge Landis dealt a hard blow to the defense in the I. W. W. trial today, counsel admitted, when he barred from evidence the eleven volume report of the federal industrial relations commission of which Frank P. Walsh was chairman.

On the commission’s report the I. W. W. based its entire course of dealing with the industrial situation, according to George F. Vanderveer, chief of counsel for the defense.

The attorney, in making his opening statement of the case of the defendants, who are charged with seditious conspiracy, denied that the I. W. W. organization had attempted to destroy the existing industrial system.

It was to lay the foundation of his case that the lawyer sought to submit in evidence the “I. W. W. Bible,” as published in 1915 [1916]. He declared the Walsh report was the “guiding light” of the I. W. W. members in all that they did.

Judge Landis refused to allow the defense to go into a general inquiry of industrial conditions.

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Hellraisers Journal: James P. Thomas on Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, Part I: Craft Unionism Creates Union Scabs

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Solidarity Forever
For the Union makes us strong.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 27, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism

From the January edition of the Review, we find the testimony of James P. Thompson given before the Commission on Industrial Relations at Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1914.

Industrial Unionism:
What It Is

By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part I.]

James P Thompson, IWW, ISR p366, Feb 1918

CALLED as a witness, before the Federal Industrial Relation Commission, he testified as follows: Mr. O. W. Thompson, Council for the Commission: Will you please give us your name? Answer: Mr. J. P. Thompson: James P. Thompson. Question: And your business address? Answer: 208 Second Avenue S., Seattle. Question: And your occupation? Answer: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World. Question: That is the organization with headquarters in Chicago? Answer: Chicago. Question: Of which Mr. Vincent St. John is general secretary ? Answer: Yes, sir. Question: How long have you been an organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World? Answer: I have been an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, that is drawing a salary from them as an organizer, since 1906. I was one of those who worked for it before it was born, I mean I helped organize it. Question: You say you helped work for it before it was born; you mean as a similar organization? Answer: I mean I was one of those who worked to have it formed and took steps in starting it. Question: How long have you been engaged in the work of propagation or agitation or whatever you want to call it, along that line? Answer: Well, let me see, I think I got to be a sort of an agitator when I was a fireman on the Great Lakes when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Question: As you look over the labor field and look into the condition of the workers and look at the organization then in existence, what was in your mind that gave you the idea that a new organization should be formed? What was the reason that led you to that conclusion?

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Hellraisers Journal: Part I-Report on Everett’s Industrial Warfare by E. P. Marsh, President Washington State F. of L.

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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 15, 1917
From Everett Labor Journal: Report on Industrial Warfare, Part I

Over a period of three weeks, from January 26th to February 9th, The Labor Journal of Everett, Washington, published the “Report on Everett’s Industrial Warfare,” by E. P. Marsh, President of the Washington State Federation of Labor, which report he had delivered on the first day of that bodies annual convention, Monday January 22, 1917. Hellraisers Journal will republish the entire report, in three parts, beginning today with Part I:

EVERETT’S INDUSTRIAL WARFARE, PART I

EVERETT’S INDUSTRIAL WARFARE
—–

SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT BY PRESIDENT MARSH
—–

E. P. Marsh, Pres WA FoL, Everett Labor Journal, July 23, 1915, small

For several reasons I have thought best to cover the stirring industrial events transpiring in the city of Everett during the past year in a separate report from that printed and mailed to the delegates prior to the opening of this convention. The main part of my annual report was prepared early in December. This report was prepared one month later that it might bring the situation as near as possible up to date. The seriousness of the situation, the tragedies and clashes that marked the struggle, has attracted the attention of the entire United States and the situation deserves to be dealt with quite apart from any other subject.

To relate in circumstantial detail each step of the conflict that has soiled the pages of Everett’s industrial history, would require more printer’s ink than I am at liberty to use in the Federation proceedings. It shall be my task to attempt to give you a word picture of the restless, resistless forces at work in this community which have produced near anarchy, lessened respect for constituted authority, wounded nigh unto death the community spirit which ought to prevail in every hamlet, city and town, and brought bloodshed and death in their wake. It will not be a pretty picture to look upon, but it is drawn with the hope that it will be truthful rather than fanciful, may point the way toward a different viewpoint upon the part of those who have hitherto held aloof from the industrial struggle, holding the eternal conflict between capital and labor to be no particular concern of theirs.

The labor interests, the manufacturing and commercial interests; the business and professional interests, all played a part, some unwittingly, in the weaving of their drama which ended in tragedy, and all have suffered alike from the misunderstandings, the cupidity, the bigotry, the hatred, which, mixed in the alchemy of class conflict, brought forth class hatred and its handmaiden, the law of physical force, as an arbiter of human problems. If this report shall be some times narrative, sometimes argumentative, it is with a very definite end in view. Dame Rumor shall play small part in this report, but I shall try to set forth clearly established facts. You may not agree in the end with the deductions I shall draw from the struggle, but I intend that at least none shall successfully dispute the statement of facts set forth.

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Hellraisers Journal: Published! 10,000 Copies of Eleven-Volume Sets of Testimony Submitted to Congress by Commission on Industrial Relations

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Let the voice of the people be heard.
-Albert Parsons

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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.)

Commission on Industrial Relations, Original Members ab 1913

Frank P Walsh from Harper's Weekly of Sept 27, 1913, w name

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.

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Hellraisers Journal: Judge Hilton Defends Plea Deal in Mesabi Cases, Lauds IWW Men and Praise Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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MN16, ON Hilton speech, LW, Dec 23, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 23, 1916
Mesabi Range, Minnesota – Plea Agreement & Vindication Meeting

Today’s Duluth Labor World discusses the issues of Justice surrounding the plea agreement reached last week which led to the release of I. W. W. organizers Tresca, Scarlett, and Schmidt:

MN16, Tresca Scarlett Schmidt Released, LW, Dec 23, 1916

OTHER DEFENDANTS DRAW
INDEFINITE TERMS
———-

Tresca Scarlett Schmidt, ISR, Nov 1916

Tresca, Scarlett and Schmidt are freed. Last Friday they were let out of the dingy, over-crowded St. Louis county jail and given their liberty.

Months ago The Labor World made the prediction that the cases against these men would never come to trial; that as soon as the trouble on the ranges blew over these men would be let go. Our prediction was correct, although we have no inclination to claim the virtues of a prophet.

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Hellraisers Journal: Biwabik Times Advocates Everett-Style Murder for the Miners of Mesabi Should They Dare to Strike Again

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday December 5, 1916
Minnesota Mesabi Iron Range – Bullets for Striking Miners?

The Duluth Labor World recently addressed the grave concern displayed by the Biwabik Times for the poor picked-upon Steel Trust. The Times believes that the Lumber Trust of Washington set a good example on the care and treatment of labor agitators when their deputized company gunthugs committed mass murder on Everett’s Bloody Sunday.

From The Labor World of December 2, 1916:

BIWABIK TIMES ADVOCATES MURDER!

MN Miners Strike, Get Out IWW, Cartoon

The Biwabik Times in its issue of Nov. 24 openly
advocates murder!

Think of it! That staunch defender of the poor unprotected steel trust!

It, advocates and even urges the citizens of Biwabik to take human life!

The Times is really worried over the plight of the poor unprotected steel trust. It isn’t fair to call another strike. So naturally the Times has its first convulsion when it learns that a strike of miners will be called on April 1, 1917.

Here is their recommendation:

“To the Times there is apparently but one way to stop this outrage, and that is to just as did the citizens of Everett, Washington.”

The Everett tragedy, contrary to the statements made by the Biwabik Times, is a sad commentary upon the characters and names of the Everett business men who promoted it.

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Hellraisers Journal: George P. West Reports: Strikebreaking Agencies Import Criminal Gunthugs, Often Deputized

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 28, 1916
From the Everett Labor Journal: Criminal Strikebreakers

EX-CONVICTS PREFERRED AS STRIKEBREAKERS
—–

Rockefeller, God save my dollars, Minor, ISR Sept 1915 “God save my dollars.”

The following relating to strike-breaking methods in New York will show to what lengths open shop advocates will go to accomplish their ends:

Dante Barton, of the Industrial Relations Committee, in a statement just issued, points out the record of the strike-breaking firm of Bergoff Bros. & Waddell, which is supplying the traction trust with strike-breakers. The statement follows:

Bergoff Bros. & Waddell, who have supplied the thousands of strikebreakers now being housed in car houses and shop buildings by the Interboro, is today the largest and most notorious strike-breaking agency in the United States. It is an amalgamation of Bergoff Bros. and the old firm of Waddell-Mahone.

Almost exactly a year ago this firm was investigated by the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, in connection with an investigation of the strike at the Bayonne refinery of the Standard Oil Company. The investigation was conducted by George P. West and C. L. Chenery, agents of the commission.

In a statement issued recently by the now unofficial Committee on Industrial Relations, Mr. West said:

Waddell, the most experienced member of this firm, admitted to Mr. Chenery and me that he had no prejudice against ex-convicts, but on the contrary, finds many of them particularly valuable for the work in hand.

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Hellraisers Journal: George P West on Mesabi Iron Range Strike: 1000 Gunthugs Deputized by Sheriff Meining

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal: Thursday September 7, 1916
International Socialist Review: George P. West on Minnesota Strike

THE MESABA STRIKE
By GEORGE P. WEST

masonovich-p-m-boarders-isr-sept-1916

The following are extracts from a report on the strike of iron miners now in progress on the Mesaba range in northern Minnesota which has been submitted to the Committee on Industrial Relations by George P. West, author of the report of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations on the Colorado strike. It is based on a field investigation.

The City of Duluth, the County of St. Louis, and the State of Minnesota, as represented by Governor Burnquist and other public officials, have joined hands in a relentless effort to crush out the strike of 15,000 iron miners now in progress on the Mesaba range, 70 miles north of Duluth.

With the support and good will of the United States Steel Corporation and affiliated interests as the stake, Governor Burnquist, Sheriff John R. Meining of Duluth, County Prosecutor Green and the Duluth Chief of Police are playing at ducks and drakes with the most sacred rights of the foreign workmen who mine the ore that goes down to the ships at Duluth for shipment to the Pittsburgh mills.

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