The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-04-27
(By Dante Barton)


orado coal fields. Almost certainly a
lasting peace has begun between
coal miners and coal mine owners in
the very districts where the terrible
things happened, eliminating in the
Ludlow massacre.
The United Mine Workers If Amer
lea have signed a contract with the
Victor American Fuel Company OF
Colorado, which recognizes the 'nion,
grants the closed shop, and meets
every other union demand such as
prevails in the most strongly organ
lied districts of the country.
The contract on behalf of the
United Mine Workers was made by
the same men who directed the
strike of two and three years ago
for the miners, Frank J. Hayes, vice.
president of the organization, who
signed the present contract, was the
chairman of the policy committee of
the strikers. And the president OF
the Victor American Fuel Co., who
now recognizes the union is the same
John C. Osgood, who was the chair
man for the coal operators during
the strike.
The Victor American Fuel Com
pany is the second largest coal min
ing company in Colorado. 1t oper-
ates in the same two counties of
Colorado, Las Animas and Huer-
fano counties, in which the two
Rockefeller companies, the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company and the
Rocky Mountain Fuel and Iron
Company, operate. Its president,
Mr.. Osgood, spoke, throughout the
great strike, for the Rockefeller
companies as we'll as his own.
Inasmuch as Mr.. Osgood and his
company have now granted all that
the miners demanded and struggled
for in 1918 and 1914, and inasmuch
as he and his company have acknowl-
edged by this action that what he
and the Rockefeller interests fought
against before and during the l.ud-
low tragedy was mistaken, it must
undoubtedly follow that the Rookie
teller companies will cease their light
lagainst union organization.
An exceptional awakening of the
public understanding and the public
conscience has helped the Mine Work
ers to win this great victory. The
roots of the present result for peace
and for industrial justice lie far back
in the ability and the courage with
which the present administration of
the United Mine Workers began and
conducted their struggle. Then fol-
lowed the terrible price which the
district coal owners forced the
workers to pay before they could get
their right to organize in self con-
trolled organizations. That price, as
everybody knows, was to be driven to
camps on the mountain sides, to be
bullied by gunner and subsidized
militiamen, and many more to be
shot and beaten.
Then, in the progress toward the
better time which has come, the
United States Commission on In
dustrial Relations, of which Frank
F. Walsh was chairman, laid bare all
the fearful tyrannies to which the
workers had been subjected. 1t dis
closed the perversion of the state
government and the county govern
ments to the Rockefeller interests
1t built a fire of public wrath under
that corporate misuse of power anG
under such agents of the corpora.
lions as Jeff Farr, the notorious
sheriff of Huerfano county. Thai
fire was rekindled by the Supreme
Court of Colorado when, in &
judgment entered of record, it oustec
from office Farr and other agent.
of the old Rockefeller regime ant
confirmed in its judgment the proc.
given by the Industrial Relations
Commission that elections, as wei
as state and county administrations
had been prostituted and corrupted
The persistence of the Min
Workers and the passing of the pol
itical authority in the counties iron