Ethelbert Stewart to Louis F. Post

Ethelbert Stewart to Louis F. Post

Stewart, Ethelbert, 1857-1936

WWP18188

1913 November 21

Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

WWP18193

ES--O
November 21, 1913.

Hon. L. F. Post,
Acting Secretary of Labor,
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. Post:

You have done me the honor to refer the letter written to the President of the United States by Mr. JF Welborn of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, with the request that I indicate whether or not I can corroborate the statements in that letter.
Taking the matters therein in their order: In the conference in Governor Ammons’ office October 9, there was no necessity for getting involved in a labyrinth of detail which had been thrashed over and over again. There were but two propositions to discuss; ie, would the managers meet the representatives of the organizations either formally or informally to discuss terms of settlement; second, had they any counter propositions to make to me to convey to those representatives. To each of these proposals, they entered a negative. As a matter of fact, I had heard Mr. Bower’s and Mr. Brown’s statement of the causes that led up to the strike. I had their reports to the Governor, and knew all they had to say, as well as what the other side had to say, and there was only one question to ask; i.
E., were they ready to take some step toward getting together, and certainly the step I asked them to take was the least offensive one possible. The managers all along insisted upon taking the position that I was sent there to investigate the strike statistically, as an Agent of the Bureau of Labor Statistics would do. I had emphatically told them to begin with that I was sent only to be helpful in securing a peace-pact or arbitration agreement. The only investigating I felt called upon to do, was to determine what compromises, if any, could be insisted upon, and which party ought to give or take the more¹. In other words, while I was there primarily to get the parties together upon any terms both would agree to, I did not feel warranted in making such a study of the situationnas would enable me to urge what seemed to me fair to both. I had made this investigation; the least that the managers could do, would be to meet the men in charge of the strike, officially if they would, if not then as informally as men. When the managers refused to do even this, there was nothing more could be done in the form of mediation.
To get at once to the heart of this matter Mr. Post, let me say that, in essence, it is a strike of the twentieth century against the tenth century mental attitude, as to the industrial relations that should obtain between employers and employees. The mines have been filled with the greatest possible conglomeration of nationalities — there being twenty-one languages spoken in one mining camp. That this had been done deliberately, was the statement to me of the highest official of this company located in Colorado. The purpose was, of course, to produce in advance a condition of confusion of tongues, so that no tower upon which they might ascend into the heavens, could be erected. The managers felt that the animosities of race, nationality, and religions, would prevent union upon any line. Then the men were subjected to armed guards while at work, and while in their daily life in the camps. These armed men were called “marshalls” by the companies; “gunmen”, by the workers. The real splinter under the skin, which caused the festering sore culminating in the strike, was this irritation caused by the “gunmen,” kept up for years. Theoretically, perhaps, the ecase² of having nothing to do in this world but work, ought to have made these men of many tongues, as happy and contented as the managers claim to think they were. To have a house assigned you to live in, at a rental determined for you, to have a store furnishedyyou by your employer where you are to buy of him such food stuffs as he has, at a price he fixes; to have a physician provided by your employer, and have his fees deducted from your pay, whether you are sick or not, or whether you want this particular doctor or not; to have churches furnished ready-made, supplied by hand-picked preachers whose salary is paid by your employer; with schools ditto, and public halls free for you to use for any purpose except to discuss politics, religion, trade-unionism or industrial conditions; in other words, to have everything handed down to you from the top; to be not only not / called upon, but prohibited from having any thought, voice, or care in anything in life but work, and to be assisted in this by gunmen whose function it was, principally, to see that you did not talk labor conditions with another man who might accidentiallyally know your language, - this was the contented, happy, prosperous condition out of which this strike grew. The companies created a condition which they considered satisfactory to themselves, and ought to be to the workman, and jammed the workmen into it, and thought they were philanthropists. That men have rebelled grows out of the fact they are men, and can only be satisfied with conditions which they create, or in the creation of which they have a voice and share. To illustrate: churches are usually built up from the people, - grow out of the contributions of many, many families. They develop with, for, and by the people around them, and these through the elected church organization select a minister. Not so in the “closed” mining towns of Southern Colorado. There, they are ready-made, “hand-me-down” institutions, preachers and all, so far as the miners and mine laborers are concerned. I talked with the ministers of some of these churches which are owned and operated as a part of the coal shafts in and around Trinidad.
I submit that if the wage-system is to have a fair trial it must be humanized and not terrorized, and that this is the essence of the Colorado fight - to get the wage-system of the twentieth century ourt from under the mental attitude toward labor that obtained in the tenth century, before the wage-system was instituted.
I submit that under a gunman regime, the company does not know whether their men are 10 per cent organized, or 80 per cent; that under such a system, the sullen worker tells the gunman what he thinks he wants him to say, lies about being satisfied, lies about belonging to the union, lies whenever he says anything about his relations to the company.
I submit that the gunman as a spy and a detective, is an ideal system to keep the officers of the company constantly deceived as to the real feelings of the men. Admittedly, the men signed papers stating how happy they were, and within two days struck work.
I submit that under the methods that have obtained in the Colorado Coal mines, no statement of the attitude of the men on any subject coming from the company officials, is competent or valuable as furnishing possible facts.
I submit that the wages earned in coal mines by miners, as stated by the companies, is open to serious doubt; besides, Mr. Hayes stated to me that if the company could prove such earnings he would ask the men to withdraw their demand for 10 per cent increase in tonnage rates. That the day rates should follow the Wyoming rather than the Kansas scale, seems fair to me, but could be easily adjusted in any event.
The claim that the men after the strike, or even before, got guns, may be true. I do not know. If Calaban learns his master’s language, and uses it to curse him, the blame can not all be Calaban’s. For Calaban will and must learn something, and the only language common to all, and which all understand in Southern Colorado, is the voice of the gun, and Calaban did not invent or introduce it.
Frankly, Mr. Post, I can not find it possible with my knowledge of the situation to corroborate any of the statements in Mr. Welborn’s letter; certainly not in the terms and tone of his statements. He states that many of the demands of the men are already a part of the State law. It is not the first time men have had to strike for what the law, but not their employer, conceded them. The right to have unions has been the law since 1908, and certainly Mr. Bowers, Mr. Brown, numerous mine superintendents, State officials, and common knowledge assured me in the early days of this strike, that unionism had been forbidden always in the mines of Southern Colorado. The State has good mining laws with no machinery for their enforcement. A good agreement with a strong union, having within itself the machinery for enforcement of the agreement, said agreement to cover no more than is now written into the laws of Colorado, would, in my judgment, be accepted by the men, and end the strike in an hour. In other words, if the managers would make such an agreement directly with the men, as they offer to make with Governor Ammons to hand down to the men, the men would accept it, and end the strike. But here is precisely the trouble. The managers will agree to anything with the Governor, but will not come into direct touch with the parties directly in interest. They can not be brought to admit that fuedalism is no longer acceptable, and that Southern Colorado is, or eventually will be - if not under their ownership, then the title must change - placed industrially where it is geographically, as a part of the United States, and not of the Hanseatic League.
Neither the Governor nor the State has any machinery in the mines for carrying out the agreement or the laws. The union is such machinery for the men. Collective agreements are the rule in the coal mines of the United States; they spell a humanized wage-system and peace. The whole subject, with the details Mr. Welborn refers to, would make a letter too long for perusal, and I can only hope that some time when you can find it convenient, we can give an hour to personal discussion of the Colorado situation.While in Colorado, of course, I heard the cry of the suffering of the innocent public, but I confess I was not deeply impressed, or convinced of the massive innocence of a public that sits supinely by for thirty years, and sees the finger fungi³ of mediaevalism overspread the industries of the State without a protest. To be sure, there has been some protest against Peabodyism in politics, but no protest against the same thing in industry, and it was the gunman in industry that produced Peabodyism in politics, and the evils that are permitted to generate, unmolested in industry, must always, sooner or later, assert themselves in politics, or cry out to the military arm of the State for defense.

I am, very truly yours,
Ethelbert Stewart

Letter

Post, Louis F. (Louis Freeland), 1849-1928