The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1917-04-28
INDUSTRIAL PEACE
IN COAL FIELDS
United Mine Workers Sign Con.
tract With Fuel Company
in Colorado.
BY DANTE BARTON.


NEW YORK, April 26.-Peace has
come to the troubled Colorado coal
fields. Almost certainly a lasting
peace has begun between coal mines
and coal mine owners in the very dis
trlcts where the terrible things hap
pened, eliminating in the Ludlow
massacre.
The United Mine Workers of Amer
lea have signed a contract with the
Victor American Fuel Company of
Colorado which recognizes the union.
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 ]. Hayes, vice presi-
dent of the organization, who signed
the present contract, was the chairman
OF the policy committed of the strik-
ers. And the president of the Victor
American Fuel Company, who now
recognizes the union is the same John
Z. Osgood who was the chairman for
the coal operators during the strike.
The Victor American Fuel Com
pany is the second largest coal mining
company in Colorado. It operates in
the same two counties Of Colorado.
Los Animas and Huerfano counties,
in which the two Rockefeller COM
panies, the Colorado Fuel and Iron
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 1913 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 Ludlow
tragedy was mistaken, it must un-
doubtedly follow that the Rockefeller
companies will cease their fight
against union organization.
Workers Paid Price.
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
distant coal owners formed the work.
ers to pay before they could get their
right to organize in .self-contrelled or
CARNATIONS. That price, as everybody
knows, was to- be driven to camps on
the mountain sides, to be bullied by
gun men and subsidized militiamen,
and many of them-even including
women and little children-to be
killed and many more to be shot and
beaten.
Then, in the progress toward the
better time which has come, the
United States Commission on Indus
trial Relations, of which Frank P.
Walsh was chairman, laid bare all the
crs had been subjected. It disclosed
the perversion of the state govern
ment and the county governments to
the Rockefeller interests. It built a.
fire OF public wrath under that cor
porate misuse of power and under
such agents of the corporations as
Jeff Farr, the notorious sheriff of
tlIuerfano county. That fire was re-
hindled by the supreme court of Colo
RADIO when it ousted from office Farr
and other agents of the old Rookie
judgment the proof given by the In
dustrial Relations Commission that
elections, as we'll as state and county
administrations, had been prostituted
and corrupted.
Passing of Authority.
The persistence of the mine work
ers and the passing of the political
authority in the counties from the
subsidized agents of the coal COM
panies to truly representative officials
of the people have now born their
first fruits. Without repetition of the
old fights, union organization viii! un-
doubtedly spread to all the Colorado
coal fields.
The Rockefeller interests had al
ready bowed to the public demand to
the extent that the younger Mr..
Rockefeller had visited the scene of
his distant sovereignty. He had set
up a controlled union of his own
among the workers, valueless except
as it was the first step in the ultimate
recognition of the miners right to set
up an uncontrolled union of their
own.
The dissatisfaction which exists and
grows among the men in a superin-
tended (and so miscalled) "uniQn,"
the competition of mines operated by
free men controlling their own lives,
and the admission of the old mistake
by President Osgood of the Victor
American company are all firm assur-
ances that the Colorado coal fields
will soon be completely organized by
the United Mine Workers Of America.
And that means the industrial
peace-the avoidance Of hatred and
bitterness and cruelty-which strong
union organization brings.
-D-