The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-06-29
(By Dante Barton.)

NEW YORK CITY, June %
New assurance of the safe and AIDE
quate coal supply Of the nation fo
the war period was reached in Wash
ington Friday when the Council o.
National Defense, representing tn,
United States government, gave
complete recognition to the United
Mine Workers of America as al
equal factor with the coal owners il
the operation and supply of this ba.
sic national necessity.
81 believe that the best blow fol
the fundamental democracy at home
which the President is supporting
for the world and for the home ma
ton was struck at this conference
said President John P White of the
Mine Workers, at the close of the
conference.
The action was taken in quick re-
spouse to the recent statement of
President White condemning the one
sided personnel of the Defense Coun-
ellis original committee on coal pro-
! duction and presenting the unani-
nous resolution of the executive
board of the Mine Workers pointing
out that statement issued by this
committee of coal operators was un-
fair to union labor and would not
work.
At the conference, called at the
urgent invitation of Mr.. Frank S
Peabody, chairman of the committee
on coal production, and of Secretary
of Labor Wilson and Secretary of
War Baker, a harmonious under
standing was reached on the basis
that John P. White, President of the
United Mine Workers; Frank j.
Hayes, Vice PRESIDENT; William
Green, Secretary-T and John
L. Lewis, Chief Statistician, (the
four chief Officers of the interna-
tional union who were present at the
conference), James Lord, President
of the Mining Department of the
American Federation of Labor, John
Mitchell, of the Mine Workers, and
James Kerwin, secretary to Secre-
tary Wilson of the Department of
Labor, should be added to the Com
mittee on Coal Production, with au-
thority extending to every mining
section of the country.
This new agreement may have
come just in time to avert serious
disturbances that had been threaten
ing as the result of the first propos-
al of the Committee on Coal Produc-
ton to break down union standards.
While the conference was in pro-
gress, Frank j. Hayes, Vice Presi-
dent, who had conducted the Colora-
do strike of 1913 and 1914, received
news that the mine workers of Colo
RADIO had passed resolutions at the
Denver convention condemning the
Rockefeller plan for an imitation un-
ion controlled by Rockefeller super
intendents. The mine workers have
been vigorously and successfully or
the Colorado field and it
was recognized that arbitrarily to
place all of that field under the sole
control of a Rockefeller agent, J. F.
Welborn, of the Colorado Fuel and
Iron Company, would precipitate
new labor troubles and possibly re-
move that whole field from the to-
tai of production.
Also at the conference President
White and Vice President Hayes an
nounced that non-union operators in
the eastern Kentucky field, center
ing around Hopkinsville, had dis
charged 900 mine workers for join
ing the district organization The
significance of these facts as con-
nected with the action of the coal
conference Friday is that the Mine
Workers will continue their organ
ization work without hindrance and
without the express or implied OPP
position of the council of National
Defense. The same significance holds
true as to the great Southern or
Birmingham district, where the
unions are rapidly organizing the
workers in both the coal industry
and the closely connected steel in
dustry. Both of these industries
have been under the almost com
plete domination of the steel trust,
an avowed enemy to union organi-
cation.
In addition to changing the per-
sonnet of the committee and adding
the Mine Workers to it, the state
ment of policy issued by the Commit
tee on Coal Production as first con-
stituted was withdrawn and is to be
succeeded by new statement to be