Denver labor bulletin., 1917-07-14
by LAURENCE TODD
Especial Washington Correspondent The
Denver Labor Bulietin.)

Especial Washington Correspondent The
Denver Labor Buiietin.)
WASHINGTON, July 9.-President
Wilson, alarmed at the spread of the
copper miners strikes, has begun the
sending both of federal troops and of
special mediators into the Arizona
camps, in an attempt to prevent fur
ther trouble. Mediators also are being
sent into New Mexico and Montana.
According to James Lord, president
of the mining department of the A. +.
of L., who has made two visits to Ari-
zona in an endeavor to restore peace,
there are three main causes of the
strikes. The first is the glaring dis
crepancy between the cost of produc-
tion of copper, including the present
wages, and the price the operators re-
ceive. Eight cents is a fair average
cost of production; the government
gets copper at bargain" at Is cents,
and the open market runs nearly dou-
BILE that figure.
This irritates the copper miners.
They want their share of the profit.
More than that, the Mexican revolu-
tion has created a new and very nu-
merous class of miners in Arizona,
made up of radical social revolution
list" workers who write political
pamphlets and histories of the Mexi-
can revolution, and make speeches in
their odd hours. These men are all
for taking control of the mines. Final
ly there is the American l. w. w.
element, which is being systematically
sent into Arizona from all over the
country.
Haywood Spreading Trouble.
"Bill' Haywood, who is running the
organization from Chicago, appears
to have come back into the game, and
to have decided to make an attempt
to get control of the Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers Union. formerly the
Western Federation of Miners. While
in Butte there is a dual organization,
Arizona the trouble all comes from
inside the regular organization. And
the trouble is growing worse.
Lord made several attempts to get
the miners in Arizona to agree upon
creating state district of their union,
and to settle all of their problems on
district basis. He found that they
were unable to reach any agreement,
even on this trade autonomy. In his
opinion they will have no trouble in
reaching a satisfactory basis of closed
whenever they are ready to show
united front.
Seamen Making Gains.
Andrew Furuseth, who has been
working at the problem of getting At
lantic seaboard shipowners to come to
terms of agreement with the Interna-
tional Seamen's Union, ever since he
secured the passage of the seamen's
act on March a, 1915, quotes another
Endorsement of his plans. Furuseth
has always claimed that if the United
States should force the foreign ship
owners to pay their crews the Ameri-
can scale of wages, the American mer-
chant marine would sweep the seas.
He has maintained that the seamen's
act, permitting the foreign sailor to
desert in our ports, would level up the
wages of foreign shipping.
Now comes the forty-frst annual
report of the legal aid society, of New
York, of which Charles f. Hughes is
president, and Leonard McGee attor
ney. McGee says, in part:
"Never before has the seamen's
branch been called upon to assist in
having construed so many questions
of law, owing to the changes in the
old statutes, due to the seamen's act.
The effect of the seamen's bill, as en-
forced, particularly as to the provis-
ions relating to advance notes or ad-
vance wages, and the right of seamen
to collect half their wages in Ameri-
can ports, as applicable to American
and foreign vessels, is by far the
greatest and most important of any
thing that has transpired in the ship
ping world for long time. Our acti-