Commissioner WEINSTOCK. That is all. Chairman WALSH, Commissioner Ballard would like to ask you a question or two. Commissioner BALLARD. You spoke of the men going out on strike. Was there any real underlying cause of dissatisfaction in the mines; were the workmen feeling they were badly treated, or what was the trouble? Mr. YOUNG. Well, now, I'll tell you. You take the Robinson mine while I was there. There were some of the officials there pretty fine fellows, and there were some of them not so fine. I lay a good deal of the dissatisfaction and the hard feeling in this trouble down there to the men that were handling the men under them. They did not treat them right. They did not talk to them right. If a man, a foreigner, would get to talking a little bit of English-hadn't done the right thing-the mine foreman or the superintendent would curse him and abuse him. Consequently there was a great deal of hatred between the two. See? Commissioner BALLARD. That is all. Mr. E. L. Doyle. You will be excused. TESTIMONY OF MR. EDWARD L. DOYLE. Chairman WALSH. Please state your name to the commission. Chairman WALSH. Where do you reside? Mr. DOYLE. 760 South Pennsylvania Street, Denver. Chairman WALSH. What is your age? Mr. DOYLE. Twenty-eight. Chairman WALSH. How long have you resided in Denver? Mr. DOYLE. Since February last. I have roomed in Denver up to that time. I got married in January and have made my home in Denver since. Chairman WALSH. How long have you been in Denver since? Mr. DOYLE. I have been working in Denver since April 1, 1912. Chairman WALSH. Prior to that time, where were you? Mr. DOYLE. Lafayette, Colo. Chairman WALSH. Prior to that, where were you? Mr. DOYLE. Spring Valley, Ill. Chairman WALSH. How long have you been in Colorado altogether? Chairman WALSH. You are a native of what place? Mr. DOYLE. Illinois. Chairman WALSH. I wish you would sketch, as briefly as you can, what you have done in the way of work, labor, all your life, beginning at the first, but of course not confining it to the particular jobs, but the localities and the character of your employment? Mr. DOYLE. I commenced work at the age of 12 in the mines of Illinois, in Spring Valley, Ill. Chairman WALSH. In what capacity? Mr. DOYLE. As trapper boy. Chairman WALSH. And what does a trapper boy have to do? Mr. DOYLE. He tends to the trapdoors. The current of air in a mine is controlled by doors, and also by canvas curtains; where the current is too strong, they use a door, and the trapper boys attend to those doors and permit the teams of coal to go through and act really as flagmen for drivers, etc. Chairman WALSH. Underground? Mr. DOYLE. Underground; yes, sir. Chairman WALSH. How long did you work at that? Mr. DOYLE. I should judge I worked at that-oh, about two years, when I was put on spragging. Chairman WALSH. Do your parents live at this place in Illinois? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir. Chairman WALSH. Was your father engaged in the same industry? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir. My father first went to work in the mines in England. when he was 9 years old, came to this country and worked the rest of his life, while he worked, in the mines. Chairman WALSH. When you were a trapper boy was your father a miner? Mr. DOYLE. No, sir. Chairman WALSH. Was he living at that time? 38819-S. Doc. 415, 64-1-vol 7-——59 Mr. DOYLE. He was disabled. Chairman WALSH. Was he disabled in the industry? Mr. DOYLE. Not exactly in the industry, but because of the hardship sur◄ rounding it, he lost his mind. Chairman WALSH. Now, then, you went to work at the age of 12? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir: 12. Chairman WALSH. Had you been to school prior to that time? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir: I was in school from 6 to 12. Chairman WALSH. In the local school at that place? Mr. DOYLE. Yes; the parochial school there. Chairman WALSH. Parochial? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir. Chairman WALSH. Now, then, sketch right along what your employments have been since you were trapper boy. Mr. DOYLE. After trapping at this place I got to spragging. That is a posi tion that boys of a little more experience than trappers are put to work on. I was put to spragging cars. That is what you call it; you might call it on a railroad, braking. I was spragging the wheels in order to keep them from running too fast, and to handle them, and so forth, from the places to the cage. After that I went to digging coal, mining coal with a brother of mine. First, with another party and then with a brother of mine. Chairman WALSH. How old were you when you began digging coal? Mr. DOYLE. I should judge 17. I was only getting a dollar and a quarter a day for spragging. I was very large for my age and wanted to drive à male--which was paying $1.75. Not getting it. I thought I could make more money, I believed by working perhaps-not hard-at mining coal on the tonnage basis than spragging, and secured a job of mining. Chairman WALSH. At the age of 17? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir. Chairman WALSH. What were your wages mining? What did you earn as a miner when you began? Mr. DOYLE. Well, I don't remember exactly. I know that the biggest pay as a trapper I got, I could not make in a half month over $9.75. Chairman WALSH. And then as a spragger? Mr. DOYLE. As a spragger I made $1.25 a day. Chairman WALSH. And as a miner? Mr. DOYLE. As a miner we were paid 76 cents a ton, I believe. It was later increased to 824 cents, if I remember correctly. Chairman WALSH. Did you stay at Spring Valley all the time until you came to Colorado? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir. Chairman WALSH. And you worked in the mines in Spring Valley from the age of 12 until what age? Mr. DOYLE. Well, I worked at the mining until about 18 or 19, when I went to driving a mule. And I practically drove a mule then until-oh, I should judge, a year, perhaps, when I was elected checkweighman by the miners at that mine. And then I drove again after that. after quitting the checkweigh man. Mr. WALSH. How long did you act as checkweighman? Mr. DOYLE. About a year, if I remember correctly. We were elected every quarter, and I was elected four times. Chairman WALSH. Proceed, sir. Mr. DOYLE. Then I drove a mule again for a while and came out to Colorado in September of 1907. Chairman WALSH. Now, did you belong to any organization in Illinois? Chairman WALSH. At what time did you join the organization? Mr. DOYLE. I joined the organization right after I commenced trapping. The organization existed, but all miners were not members there, having been beaten some few years before, and just shortly after I got the job of trapping I joined the organization. Chairman WALSH. They took in trapper boys? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir; they took everyone in and around the mine, and that included trapper boys, and they treated the boys under the age of 16, after a complaint was made, as half members. I was the committee appointed by the trappers to go to the mine committee of the union and demand that we be considered half members, or that the dues of the men be increased. The dues were 75 cents a month, just the same as the trapper's day's wages, and the dues was 75 cents a month for the men, and I demanded, representing the trappers, that the dues be made $1.75, a day's wages for the men, or else the trappers be reduced. Chairman WALSH. Was that done? Mr. DOYLE. That was done; yes, sir. That is, the trapper's dues was reduced; they did not increase the dues of the men. Chairman WALSH. What was that organization at Spring Valley, III.? Chairman WALSH. Before you came to this country, did you hold any official position with the organization? Mr. DOYLE. I had been a vice president of the local union of which I was a member. Chairman WALSH. Did you hold any office in the national organization? Chairman WALSH. Have you ever? Mr. DOYLE. No, sir. Chairman WALSH. Now, then, just detail what your activities have been since you came to Colorado-what was that date again, please? Mr. DOYLE. September 10, 1907. Chairman WALSH. September 10, 1907? Mr. DOYLE. I came here on the 10th, and I believe I started to work on the 12th of September, that year. I had a brother driving a mule in a mine that had just been opened up, the Vulcan mine at Lafayette. They needed another driver, and that was my reason for going to work so soon. They were short of men at that time. I drove a mule there two weeks and was elected checkweighman at that mine. The men naturally, having known my brother before, and having known through talking to him that I had had previous experience at checkweighman, when they were about to select one, I was chosen, although driving a mule. That is the last work I done underground-that two weeks driving of that mule. I was glad that it was. The driving in this country was not similar to that of driving I had done in the East. I weighed coal there until the 15th of January, 1908. Chairman WALSH. How long was that altogether? Mr. DOYLE. From the 1st of October to the 15th of January. And during that time I had some experience that it might me pretty well for this commis. sion to know, and that is pertaining to the weights of coal. The reason these men demanded a checkweighman was that they claimed they were not getting full weight. This mine was operated by the Northern Coal & Coke Co.; the Rocky Mountain Fuel Co. are now successors to that company; and there were only 22 or 24 men in the mine mining coal, and still they believed it would pay them to contribute their share toward a special checkweighman in order to that individual would pay himself by saving the coal that was being deducted from them. The first two days I did not interfere with the scales-they were automatic scales--but took the total weights of coal as given me, as credit was given to the miners, and the total weights as was shown by the railroad scales. The mine was loading mine-run coal, and I compared those weights; and if I remember correctly it was something like 7 tons-I believe I can get the figures here to about 14 tons per day the miners were losing at that mine. That is, of the total production of the mine. And about the third day I balanced the scales. And from that day on the way boss had continual complaints from the superintendents of the mine that the miners were getting more than was coming to them, when, in fact, they were getting only that which they were entitled to. The second day I weighed, on the 2d day of October, when the weigh boss arrived that time, he said, "I have been over to the office last night to turn in my report, and the clerk remarked, if you and I get along as well every day together as we did yesterday there will be no complaint." I asked him, “How did we come out?" That is, in the comparison of weights between the total given credit to the miners and the total as weighed on the railroad scales, the weights for which the company sold the coal. And he said, "I don't remember exactly, but I believe it was 95 pounds difference." Well, I smiled to myself, and I made up my mind that he was either mighty ignorant or thought I didn't know anything about weighing coal, and I told somebody afterwards that if you were to weight two or three hundred tons of coal in a drug store and carried it across the street and weighed it again, the loss would be more than 95 pounds. So I knew the man was either very ignorant in the weighing of coal or endeavoring to mislead me; and for that reason I watched the man very closely. So finally complaints were made by the company to this weigh boss that the parties whom they had sold this coal to were complaining that the reported tonnage on the car when it left the mine was not upon the car when received at its destination, and he would be compelled to make affidavit to the effect that it was there. And I watched them very closely, and I found that he was giving this weigh to keep himself a good fellow as he had already made himself by either deliberately weighing the coal 14 to 17 hundredweight more going out on the cars than actually went to the people the coal was sold to, and thus could credit certain ones with more than they actually got on the car, and therefore he didn't have any complaints. Thus he was giving more coal to the credit of the company than it actually came to, and they had to get the fellow to sign a paper to the effect that the coal was on the car when it left the mines. Chairman WALSH. Do I understand that he could also control the railroad scales? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir; he weighed the coal. Suppose a flat car of coal was loaded with mine-run coal, he weighed the car before it left the railroad scale to bill it. Chairman WALSH. Then the railroad company did no weighing at the mine? Mr. DOYLE. No; the railroad company took the weights of the mine company. In the last few years there has been what is called the Western Weighing Association, formed by these men sworn into that association, and those weights, if I understand correctly, are advocated by legal counsel of the Western Weighing Association, if questioned on arrival at final destination. Chairman WALSH. How long did you act as checkweighman there? Mr. DOYLE. Until the 15th of January. Chairman WALSH. Then what did you do? Mr. DOYLE. Why, that was the time of the panic, and the mine was compelled to lay off most of the force, and laid off all but eight miners, and there wasn't enough then to support a checkweighman, and there was a checkweighman wanted at an independent mine called the Strathmore, and I proceeded to weigh there. The committee sent for me, and I weighed there for about three weeks, when that mine also laid off a portion of its force. I had when I quit the Vulcan mine $15 more than my wages amounted to. My wages are paid by the miners, me deducting a certain percentage per ton, according to the tonnage allowed to each man for each half pay, and based according to the number of days I worked at $3 a day; and through an error-I always carried an account with the miners and adjusted it every two weeks, what I had on hand or what they owed me; and I had $5-there was always a little one way or the otherand I had $5 there, and by an error I also had $10, making $15 which was really due the miners. In fact, I checked off $15 more than was my wages up to the time I had quit. I held that, expecting that mine would start up again. and naturally I wanted to turn it over to the committee there to be used in paying the next checkweighman if it should be some one else than myself; and after I was laid off at the Strathmore mine because of the force being reduced the men-these eight miners-were complaining bitterly that they were being robbed. And they were loading the coal mostly for wagons, to be used around the town and on the farms, etc. And I told them that I had $15 and that if it was agreeable to them to test it out I would use the $15 and work five days. So it was agreeable. I thereupon Chairman WALSII (interrupting). Is the salarly received by a checkweighman $3? Mr. DOYLE. That was at that time in that mine. If it is a bigger mine they can pay a little more; but $3 was the salary at that time. And I appeared upon the scene to weigh out the five days, and I got a very cold reception from the same weigh boss the first morning. And one of the boys called his attention to the fact that I had come down for a few days, and he, in a very angry manner, said he didn't care; it didn't make any difference to him. So when the first coal started to come out of the mine I noticed by looking at the bulletin of the day before that the weights had been greatly reduced-that is, the average weight-and this car was thirty-three hundred and some odd pounds at that mine, and the bulletin for the day before showed that the highest car was 2,900, and the average would run about 2,600. And I knew they were either loading cars much smaller since I had been gone, for perhaps a month and a half, or that there was something wrong with the weights. So I proceeded to pay very close attention, and the first car-I should judge the first that came up was what we call a car of slack, machine cuttings; they are wet; and it weighed 2,900, and the man's bulletin the day before showed he hadn't anything higher than 2,600, and I put it down 2,900, and the weigh boss stopped it and spoke of its being wet, and said that he would go to the superintendent. He says, “I am going down and tell the superintendent that they are purposely wetting their coal to-day to show that they ought to get more weight." And it 'was laughable, of course. But nevertheless we went along. And while they were changing railroad cars one car stood on the scales and weighed down 3,300 pounds. Now, there hadn't been 3,300 pounds on the bulletin for at least a week back, and I judge I looked at that many bulletins back. And it stood there while they were changing the railroad cars. And as it was dumped he said, "This man's coal weighed 2,900." I says, at the same time, "No; it didn't; haven't you any eyes to see?" He says, Oh, well, he never allowed cars with 3,300 pounds." You know, each mine keeps a bulletin and each man carries a check. And he says, I never put down 3,300." And he put it down 2,900. So at the noon hour we got to discussing it, and I says, "It is going to be 3,300, and that is all there is to it. It weighed 3,300 and the men are going to get 3,300." He says, "Well, it would not look so good." I asked him, "What have you been doing since I have been gone?" He says if a man loaded an extra big car he didn't get it put on that, and if he loaded a small car he added to it, so it wouldn't look like there was so much difference. I objected to that condition of affairs and insisted that the car be corrected to show that 3,300 pounds, and the men got full weight for that five days. What happened after that I don't know, but I presume he kept up his practice after that. Chairman WALSH. After you left the mine where did you go? 66 66 Mr. DOYLE. After leaving there I went to the Strathmore and worked three weeks there weighing coal; and they did not have an automatic scale there, but they had two old beam scales; and I weighed the cars Chairman WALSH (interrupting). Say, Mr. Doyle, I believe I will get you first to state the different places where you were employed, and then take them up later on and go into details as to checkweighman. We have a separate line of questions on that. Mr. DOYLE. I see. Chairman WALSH. Now, just sketch for me, first, where you were employed and in what capacity and on down to the present time. Mr. DOYLE. After leaving them at the Strathmore, I worked those five days at the Vulcan. I was then notified to do some checkweighing at the Standard mine at Lafayette, the former checkweighman being away on account of a death in his family. I weighed there 13 days, when I was called east on account of the death of my father. I returned to Colorado-that was in April, 1908, and I returned in May, 1908-and brought mother and the children with me; and I worked for a short while in a planing mill near Lafayette; I should judge two or three months, and then in September, on September 5, 1908, I commenced checkweighing at the Capitol mine, or what is known as the Rankin wine at Lafayette, operated by the Colorado Capitol Coal Co. I weighed there until April 1, 1910, the date of the northern coal strike. After the strike I took a trip to the western coast and worked there near Seattle at a mine four months. I worked there a few months running a hoisting engine, and returned to Colorado in August, 1910, and was on the strike since August, 1910, except what time I spent in jail for alleged contempt of court, until I was elected sec retary of the miners, and I took the position April 1, 1912, in the Denver office, and have since been holding that position. Chairman WALSH. You are the present secretary-treasurer for the United Mine Workers? Mr. DOYLE. Yes, sir; secretary-treasurer for the district organization; not for the national Chairman WALSH (interrupting). When were you in jail for contempt of court? Mr. DOYLE. The first time on December 23, 1910; and the second time July 14, 1911. Chairman WALSH. How long were you in the first time? Mr. DOYLE. Two months. Chairman WALSH. And the second time? Mr. DOYLE. Four months. Each time I was sentenced a year, and the second time it was a year and $500 fine. Chairman WALSH. Briefly, in what did the contempt consist? |