Denver labor bulletin., 1915-09-25

io"inS language;
1 have never seen situation to my
mind more despicable and damnable
1t Is an oligrachy that is con
The direct cause of the strike. says
the report, was the refusal of the mine
pany, to grant conference to represen-
tatives of the strikers. The report says
owners. led by the Rockefeller com
after relating at length efforts of the
union officials to obtain conference
during the summer of 1913 and prior to
the strike:
Spies and local officials had kept the
operators fully informed of the unrest
existing in the coal camps. That this
unrest was of long standing is shown by
MIR. Bowers letter of September 10, 1918,
to Mr. Murphy, in which he tells Of the
steps taken within the preceding year or
two to forestall agitation. Before the
strike began Mr.. WELDON wrote to a
director in New York, Mr.. j. II. Nc
Clements, expressing the writer's anxiety
and predicting that most of the men
would go out if a strike were called.
Declined to Hold Conference.
In his letter of September 10 to Mr..
Rockefeller's office, Mr.. Bowers makes
the significant admission that the opera
tors believed they could avoid the strike
by merely granting conference to the
unions officials. He writes:
The strike is called for the 23rd,
but it is thought on the part of a good
many operators that the officials, antici.
pating being whipped, will undertake to
sneak out If they can secure even an
interview with the operators. which so
far as they have been unable to do,
thus boasting before the public that they
have secured the principal point, namely,
recognition of the union
1t was three days before the date of
this letter that Mr. Rockefeller in New
York had declined to see Mr.. Ethelbert
Stewart OF the United States depart.
ment of labor and instead had directed
his attorney. Mr.. Murphy, to receive Mr..
Stewart and to refer him to the execu-
tive officials in Colorado
In the light of Mr.. Bowers admis.
sion that mere conference would have
prevented the strike, the operators re-
fusal to grant such a conference must be
regarded as making them responsible for
all the disasters that followed. For IL
was a policy opposed to the spirit and
the practice of the times. and the state
of mind which dictated it can only be
explained on the theory that the habit
of arbitrary power had fastened itself
on the men who ruled the coal mining
counties from their offices in Denver"
The report charges Mr.. Rockefeller and
other operators with misreprcsenting the
facts regarding conference with strik-
ing employees held in Governor Ammons'
office on November 90, 1919. This con-
ference led to the plan of settlement con-
tanned in Governor Ammons' letter of
November "a. The report says,
Bad Faith of Operators.
''Ihe effort is made TO convince the
public that in meeting their men and
accepting the governors proposition the
operators conceded all that reasonable
men could ask. and that the strikers in
rejecting it became responsible for an
unjustifiable continuance of the strike.
Therefore it is important to arrive at a
correct conclusion regarding the validity
of the operators action as an effort In
good faith to meet the strikers half way
and as modification of their previous
arbitrary refusal to yield an inch.
But the most conclusive evidence re-
garding the bad faith of the operators in
this alleged consent to meet their men
il contained in the following extract
from the examination of Mr.. Ivy i. Lee
at Washington. in May, 1915. Mr.. Lee
had visited Colorado and had become,
since the strike. director representing
Mr.. Rockefeller in the Colorado Fuel and
Iron company.
:. Commissioner weinstock: Are You
aware of the fact, Mr.. Lee, that II was
brought out in the testimony here, that
the operators did meet with representa-
tives of the strikers in the office of the
governor some two months after the
strike took place?
"'Mr. Lee: Yes, that has been brought
out. Mr. Weinstock; but i cannot say
that have been impressed with the
fact that the representatives OF the men
who met the operators were truly repre-
sentative.
you explain in what way they did and
did not represent the meni
Mr.. Lee; Well, just give you my
impression. I have not been impressed
with the representative character Of that
committee.
Commissioner weinstock: Do you
recall who the members were?
Mr.. Lee: do not. simply give
you general impression. My feeling is
that that was one serious mistake.
Commissioner Weinstock: Meeting
Mr. Lee: 1t was the failure to
meet the real representatives and talk
II over with them.
Commissioner Weinstock: You
don't know how these men were chosen
that met in the governors officcff
"'Mr. Lee: No. I simply give you my
impression as to their general standing"
Created a delicate Situation"
Discussing the company's rejection of
President Wilson's plan of settlement,
the report quotes a letter from Mr..
Murphy, Mr.. Rockefeller's attorney, to
President Welborn as follows:
"The fact that the president of the
United States has suggested a plan of
settlement and has given it out to the
n11hlic nrodlcea delicate situation