Mr. WELBORN. The employment was made with the understanding or requestwas made with the understanding that the laws should be complied with when they were furnished.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. Was there any checking up of them to ascertain if the law had been complied with?

Mr. WELBORN. There was a checking up in the men that were employed regularly for that service-the men we employed at the beginning of the strike, not through Baldwin-Felts, but through other means, we were very careful as to that. But I will say that on Monday morning, October 27, when the sheriff started toward Ludlow in order that he might get into Berwind Canyon and give relief to the besieged there, men were picked up at Trinidad without regard to their former experience or citizenship. A man who was willing to go

up there, to walk, and willing to go and carry a gun, to get these women and children, was taken, and no other questions asked.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. The Baldwin-Felts people have a national reputation of handling mine strikes, have they not?

Mr. WELBORN. I don't know very much about them; very little.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. They were engaged in connection with the West Virginia strike?

Mr. WELBORN. I have seen a great deal in the newspapers to that effect. I know they have an office in West Virginia.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. One more question, Mr. Welborn.

Mr. WELBORN. Very good, sir.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. I think it was Mr. O'Connell who asked the question why it is that the number of killed and injured in the Colorado mines was twice as great as in other States, and if I recall your answer it was that that was not true?

Mr. WELBORN. Yes; that was not true. I understood his question to imply that twice the number were killed in Colorado than were killed in any other State; when he qualified that by saying that twice the number, the average in other States of the United States outside of Colorado I can not question those figures. I know that the record of our company in the past year or so compares favorably with most of the other States.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Now, in these bulletins, Mr. Welborn, that you handed to our chairman, signed by the policy committee of the United Mine Workers of America, these statements appear:

The total men in Colorado in 1910: In that year 14,768 men were employed; 319 were killed, or an average of 31.6 per thousand.

The average number of killed in the whole United States in that year was 3.92 for every thousand men employed, or one-seventh of the average number of fatalities in Colorado.

In 1911, out of the 14,315 employed, 91 Colorado miners lost their lives, or an average of 6.35 for every thousand men employed.

In 1912 there were 13,000 men at work in Colorado; of these, 95 lost their lives, or 7.31 for every thousand men employed.

This was twice the average number of men killed in the United States. Now, can you, for the information of this commission, discredit these figures?

Mr. WELBORN. The figures as to 1910 are explained by a statement I made to the other commissioner to the effect that there were three most unusual fatalities-catastropses-at coal mines in that year.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. That was in 1910?

Mr. WELBORN. Yes, sir; also the record of no other year approaches that in its horribleness, I will say, because the conditions were truly horrible, that there were three very bad explosions in that year. The last year's figures, I am inclined to think, present a very good showing. As I statedCommissioner WEINSTOCK. When you say "last year," you mean 1913? Mr. WELBORN. Yes; 1913.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Calendar year?

Mr. WELBORN. Calendar year, from the State coal mining inspector's report. Commissioner WEINSTOCK. What are the records, as you know them?

Mr. WELBORN. I don't recall them. His report came out very recently, but Mr. Weitzel will be able to give you some more accurate information on that point than I can when he goes on the stand.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Does that report give the comparative figures in other States as well?

Mr. WELBORN. I do not happen to know whether it does or not. Yes, it does, Mr. Weitzel tells me.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Has he the report convenient?

Mr. WELBORN. I had a copy of that Saturday, but I forgot to bring it in my papers. I will see that you get one immediately after luncheon.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. It is quite essential in this investigation to this commission to know whether these are the true facts as stated.

Mr. WELBORN. I am not in a position to dispute that statement as to the number of men killed in 1910. It was very large, I know. I should like, to express it as my opinion, however, that the number killed was not caused by the fact that the United Mine Workers of America were not in control of the mining operations here.

Chairman WALSH. Commissioner Ballard would like to ask some questions. Commissioner BALLARD. Mr. Welborn, perhaps you have heard a witness say that labor unions had never bought or shipped any arms or ammunition into the strike district?

Mr. WELBORN. Yes.

Commissioner BALLARD. Is that true, so far as you know?

Mr. WELBORN. I can not tell as to that. It is entirely possible that it is true. The arms and ammunition went into the district often times to union headquarters, according to the best information obtainable, and it is fair to assume that if not an official, some one with the knowledge of the official, made purchases and shipments of the arms.

Commissioner BALLARD. Did the striking miners pay for them, or were they paid for by the union officials?

Mr. WELBORN. I can not give any information on that; but the striking miners were drawing only $3 per week benefits, and it is hardly probable that they were able, unless they did it from their savings while at work, to spend much money for guns.

Commissioner BALLARD. Well, as I have understood from the testimony, these tent colonies were established about the time of the strike or very soon after.

Mr. WELBORN. Yes.

Commissioner BALLARD. In perhaps strategic and commanding positions between the railroad stations and your mines?

Mr. WELBORN. Yes.

Commissioner BALLARD. So that everything had to pass them. Who established these tent colonies?

Mr. WELBORN. The general assumption is that it was the mine workers' organization. Those men were not in a position individually to establish them, and there will be some direct statements to the effect that the United Mine Workers' organization established them.

Commissioner BALLARD. NOW, Mr. Welborn, as one of the commissioners told you, our work is to find the real fundamental causes of industrial unrest. Your companies in Colorado seem to have made a firmer stand than any other part of the United States to resist unionization of their mines by the United Mine Workers. Now, what, in a general way, are your objections to having your mines unionized by that organization?

Mr. WELBORN. The experience of other operators, as recited to me time after time, is that where operators are working under a contract with the United Mine Workers of America the organization absolutely dominates the business. It indirectly, if not directly, controls the men that you may employ and discharge. The statement of the Central Pennsylvania Coal Operators' Associa tion, which I read into the record the other day, is one point or one proof of that general information that comes to me. We have had nearer at home the experiences in certain districts, more particularly northern Colorado, of operators who could not conduct their business and live under the union domination. In this last strike we were influenced, in addition to the reasons that I have given, by the fact that our men themselves did not belong to the union and did not want to. However willing we might have been to join forces with the United Mine Workers of America, we could hardly have done it and have forced our employees to join the organization or leave Colorado.

The fact is that I think we would have lost a great many men had we complied with the request of the officers of this organization, and entered into a contract with them, such as is universal where they operate. It is fair to assume that hundreds, perhaps thousands-undoubtedly thousands of the coal miners in Colorado came here because of the open-shop conditions. It is not at all unusual for the new workmen who come in to express dissatisfaction with the union districts in which they may have worked, or with the union

conditions, rather, under which they may have been working, and to make bold announcement that they never will have anything more to do with it. Sometimes the inquiry is made by the applicant for work as to whether or not they will be permitted to stay in our employ and outside of the union. Commissioner BALLARD. That is all, Mr. Welborn.

Mr. WELBORN. The officers-I would just like to add to that, though it was included in another statement-the officers of the organization in Colorado have made it their practice for years, whenever they were before an audience, to tell of the horrible things the operators did to the men, and the large amount in coal that they robbed the men of, and in other ways have attempted to set us in an unfavorable light-place us in a most unfavorable light-not only before the workmen, but before the public. Unfortunately a good deal of the public, or a considerable portion of the public, has believed a good many of those statements.

Commissioner BALLARD. That is all.

Chairman WALSH. You will be excused now, Mr. Welborn, with the understanding that after you have consulted counsel with reference to the statement of that individual, you may be recalled; but I will say, however, that inasmuch as we have an engagement to go over that correspondence at 4.30 this afternoon, you need not give it any more attention until that time.

Mr. WELBORN. I should like to defer it until that time. I have some work to do in the office.

Chairman WALSH. Very well.

At this point the hearing will stand adjourned until 2 o'clock this afternoon.

AFTER RECESS-2 P. M.

Chairman WALSH. The commission will please be in order.
Prof. James H. Brewster.

TESTIMONY OF PROF. JAMES H. BREWSTER.

Chairman WALSH. Please state your name.

Prof. BREWSTER. My name is James H. Brewster.

Chairman WALSH. And where do you reside?

Prof. BREWSTER. I reside at Boulder, Colo.

Chairman WALSH. How long have you resided in Boulder, Colo.?
Prof. BREWSTER. Since June 6, 1910.

Chairman WALSH. What is your profession?

Prof. BREWSTER. My profession is the law; I am a lawyer.

Chairman WALSH. Do you hold a position with the University of Colorado, the State university?

Prof. BREWSTER. At present I am filling a vacancy in the law faculty of the University of Colorado. The vacancy was caused by the sudden death, by drowning, of Mr. Pease. And I was on the ground and had been familiar with the work-my work at the University of Michigan had made me familiar with some of the subjects that he taught, and I was asked to take his place at the beginning of this year, this academic year. So I am, as they say, acting professor of law in the University of Colorado, teaching real property. Chairman WALSH. When were you admitted to the bar, Professor?

Prof. BREWSTER. I have been admitted to the bar of New York, of Michigan, and of Colorado. In New York in 1881; Michigan, 1883; and Colorado, I think, in 1911 or so, on motion.

Chairman WALSH. I wish that, first, you would state what, if any, study you have given to the industrial situation of Colorado, when you began, and the circumstances under which you took it up.

Prof. BREWSTER. My attention was first directed to the industrial conditions in Colorado in 1904; that is, first actively and personally. I was introduced to the subject-then on a three months' visit here just after the strike of 1903-4 in the metalliferous and coal mines. Before that I had always taken an interest in industrial matters, so far as a lawyer in practice and in teaching law could have time to do so. In 1904 I was here on a three months' visit. And what particularly impressed and interested me then was the complacency with which very many of my friends viewed what seemed to me as a lawyer and as a citizen the wholly unconstitutional, unlawful acts that had been resorted to by both sides in the so-called Cripple Creek disastrous strike. And I made them as earnest a study as I could of that subject. I followed it by correspondence

with my brother later, and in coming here in 1910, expecting at that time to die within two months, I took an interest in the local strike just to keep myself interested in something alive the strike that was then going on in Boulder County. And curiously, as many people have done who have come to Colorado, I disappointed both myself and friends, and lived. And my study continued, and it furnished a means, I think, of my recovery, because it gave me something to live for. That is the way I became interested in industrial conditions in Colorado, if you ask me.

When the strike of 1913-14, this present southern strike was instituted, I was not occupied with other things and had sufficient health to devote my attention to a citizen's duties, and I began then to think, in spite of the history for 34 years of Colorado, that there might be some chance of peace in the future. So among other things, not to make a long story of it, in October, 1910, I was one of a committee from the Boulder Commercial Association to come in and interview the striking miners, or their representatives, the United Mine Workers of America, and the operators, and in that interview I learned, of course, great deal more than I had before.

In the first week in October this committee called upon the United Mine Workers of America at their offices; we called upon Mr. Brown and Mr. Shumway, of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Co., at their offices, as they were more espe cially interested in the northern coal fields, and that was what interested our particular committee more at that time than anyhing; and we also called upon the governor.

In that investigation we were in then it was very evident that there were at least two sides to this question, and some of us were impressed with the fact that there was an important third side to it. While we were at Mr. Brown and Mr. Shumway's office, and while we were talking with the governor, it was impressed upon us that all citizens should take a greater interest in this matter, and we were asked, if we had any suggestions to make, to make them. I therefore took the liberty, on the 10th of October, 1913, to address a letter to Mr. Shumway, to Mr. Welborn, whom I did not know, to Mr. Osgood, whom I did not know, and I sent copies of my letters to the governor, suggesting that as other strikes had been settled upon what is known as the basis of "the preferential union shop," notably the cloak makers' strike in New York in 1910, that it might be possible to settle this strike upon that basis. Besides writing to the operators, I wrote the same kind of a letter, practically in the same words-though each letter was dictated from notes, and there are slight variations in each letter-I wrote the same letter to the United Mine Workers of America. I then had a very slight acquaintance with the officials-Lawson, McLennan, and Doyle, of that organization-having met them at this previous interview at their office when we were in a few days before.

I received a letter from the governor, in which he expressed his satisfaction at the suggestion made, and his appreciation of the fact that we were taking an interest in that matter, and he wanted to know what Mr. Shumway replied. As a matter of fact, Mr. Shumway never replied at all, but Mr. Welborn and Mr. Osgood wrote me very courteous letters. I ought not to try to give the substance without giving

Chairman WALSH. I was going to ask

Prof. BREWSTER. I have copies of all that correspondence, but it may not be worth while now, as it has been in the past; but it is here.

Chairman WALSH. Will you please hand it to the commission so that we may look it over.

Prof. BREWSTER. The substance of their communications was that if Mr. Osgood said that he was too busy to attend to the matter, and Mr. Welborn, in substance, said that if we could get rid of Mother Jones and Mr. Frank Hayes there would be no trouble.

I do not know whether you care for this now, Mr. Chairman; perhaps some of you know the principles upon which the cloak makers' strike

Chairman WALSH. We would like to see how you presented it.

Prof. BREWSTER. Very well. This is dated October 10, 1913, Boulder, Colo.: "Mr. E. E. SHUMWAY,

"DEAR SIR: I am one of the Boulder people who called at your office the other day. I understood you and Mr. Brown to say that you would be pleased.

if any suggestion could be made which would lead toward more peaceful conditions in the coal camps. Permit me to call your attention to the following:

"In 1910 the very bitterly contested strike in the cloak-making industry was adjusted in New York with subsequent gratifying results to both employers and employees. In that case, after some preliminary negotiations had been had through the mediation of disinterested parties, the stumbling block was found to be recognition of the union,' the manufacturers insisting upon an open shop and the employees insisting upon a closed shop. When a treaty was finally made the Manufacturers' Protective Association had 123 firms as members and the employees numbered 15,000, and now number, I am told, between forty and fifty thousand. Among the latter were thousands of recent immigrants of divers nationalities. That wasteful strike was finally adjusted by the adoption of the principle of the preferential union shop.' In the adoption of this principle there need be no sacrifice on either side of independence or of what the parties view as basic principles. In order that there may be an effective treaty of this kind there needs to be an association of operators. This, I believe, you already have. There also needs to be some organization among the miners, in order that their representatives may agree to the treaty. I call this general agreement a treaty to distinguish it from contracts which may be made a particular mines supplementary to the general agreement and in conformity therewith. Let this treaty provide for a general scale of wages and for other conditions of work. Then let one section of the treaty provide as follows: Each member of the operators' association is to maintain a union mine, and by a "union mine" is understood one where union standards as to working conditions, hours of labor, and rates of wages as herein stipulated prevail, and where, when hiring men, union men are preferred, it being recognized that since there are differences in degrees of skill among those employed in mining, the operators shall have freedom of selection as between one union man and another and shall not be confined to any list nor bound to follow any prscribed order.

"It is further understood that all existing agreements and obligations of the operators, including those to present employees, shall be respected. The operators, however, declare their belief in organization of employees and their belief that all who desire the benefit of organization should share in its burdens.'"

Prof. BREWSTER. That is, I will say in parenthesis, taken from the cloak makers' treaty or protocol. [Continuing:] "This treaty should then provide for a grievance committee and for a board of arbitration, on which latter board it would seem the general public might be represented. In the event of any dispute it should be agreed that no strike or lockout because of the matter in dispute should occur until that matter has been considered by this board of arbitration. Of course there are other details necessary to such an agreement, but if this fundamental proposition is agreed to they can all be worked out easily.

"I am informed that the results accruing from the treaty made three years ago between the cloak manufacturers and their employees have been wholly satisfactory. Now, can not something like this accomplish good here? Surely what man has done man can do. I remain,

"Very truly, yours,

I wrote a similar letter to Mr. E. M. Doyle, secretary-treasurer, District 15, to Mr. Welborn and, as I say, to Mr. Osgood. I took the liberty of introducing myself to Mr. Osgood in this way. The substance of the letter is the same, but I said:

"Please pardon my seeming intrusion, but being one of the committee recently appointed from this city to see if it were not possible to bring about an amicable adjustment of the affairs in the coal camps, and being also deeply interested as a citizen in the welfare of Colorado I venture to remind you of the following facts."

Then practically going on the same way as to the suggestions for the protocol and the special treaty. I wrote to Dr. Corwin because I had friends who knew him, and I introduced myself in that way. I also wrote to Mr. Welborn. Chairman WALSH. Who is Dr. Corwin?

Mr. BREWSTER. Dr. Corwin is the very efficient head of the somewhat celebrated Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.'s hospital at Pueblo. And I had friendsamong them my wife-who knew Dr. Corwin, and I knew he was a gentleman of the highest type of character and, feeling that every means should be taken to bring about a settlement, I introduced myself in that way to him.