Commission on Industrial Relations
Encyclopedia
The Commission on Industrial Relations (also known as the Walsh Commission) was a commission created by the U.S. Congress on August 23, 1912. The commission studied work conditions throughout the industrial United States between 1913 and 1915. The final report of the Commission, published in eleven volumes in 1916, contain tens of thousands of pages of testimony from a wide range of witnesses, including Clarence Darrow
, Louis Brandeis
, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Theodore Schroeder
, William "Big Bill" Haywood
, scores of ordinary workers, and the icons of capitalism, including Daniel Guggenheim
, George Walbridge Perkins, Sr. (of U.S. Steel
), Henry Ford
, and Andrew Carnegie
.
.
In 1910 two leaders of the Structural Ironworkers Union, the McNamara Brothers dynamited the Los Angeles Times
building, killing twenty people. There was public outcry as a result and so President William Howard Taft
proposed and Congress approved the creation of a nine-person investigative committee called the Commission on Industrial Relations. The Commission on Industrial Relations got its name from a petition presented to President Taft on December 30, 1911, entitled "Petition to the President for a Federal Commission on Industrial Relations", signed by twenty eight prominent people, Members of the Committee on Standards of Living and Labor of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, many who were charity workers involved with Survey magazine began a petition drive calling for a federal commission set up to investigate the causes of industrial violence.
Shortly before the Commission's final report, Commissioner Delano resigned, and was replaced by Richard Aishton, vice-president of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.
Congress had authorized the Commission shortly before the 1912 presidential election
, in which incumbent President Taft was defeated by New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson
. Four Commissioners ultimately confirmed were originally named by President Taft in December 1912, one month after his defeat: Commissioners Delano, O'Connell, Garretson and Lennon. Taft also nominated five other persons, but the Senate failed to confirm them. Those failed nominees were U.S. Senator George Sutherland
of Utah (who was Taft's proposed chairman), Connecticut state legislator George B. Chandler (American Book Co.), Charles S. Barrett (Farmers' Union); Adolph Lewisohn
(investment banker, copper magnate, and philanthropist); and F. C. Schwedtman (electrical engineer).
Two months after entering the White House, President Wilson nominated replacements for Taft's five failed nominees.
The commission held 154 days of hearings. Walsh's leadership of the Commission attracted media attention and publicity. Some of the commission findings included:
"In an era of...muckraking, the [commission] raised the technique to an unprecedented height."
The commission studied several major strikes which occurred during its investigations, including:
When Walsh he embarrassed President Wilson, and suggested investigating the southern states, U.S. Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia attempted to cut Walsh's budget 75 percent. The vote failed, and Walsh promptly sent investigators to Smith's state, making lasting and powerful enemies.
Journalist Walter Lippman stated there was "an atmosphere of no quarter" when Walsh subpoenaed then questioned John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
about the Ludlow massacre
. For three days Walsh publicly chastised Rockefeller.
Historian Montgomery stated that the commission found:
The report signed by Chairman Walsh and Commissioners Lennon, O'Connell and Garretson, written by attorney Basil Manly, was much more provocative and accusatory in its tone and conclusions. Its centerpiece was a call for industrial democracy.
That report explained the conditions of agricultural estates:
Regarding conditions in company towns, the Manly report observed that they displayed "every aspect of feudalism except the recognition of special duties on the part of the employer."
A separate supplemental statement joined only by Commissioners Lennon and McConnell opposed the creation of an agency-administered system of mediation and arbitration, in favor of strengthening trade unions (and employer associations). Their statement concluded:
observed that the commission had gone well beyond its duties to investigate the "cause and cure" of labor unrest. In promoting industrial democracy, it offered a "tonic" for American democracy itself. The Seattle Union Record exclaimed that the report was "an indictment against organized capital. The journal The Masses
stated the report signaled "the beginning of an indigenous American revolutionary movement.
Others criticized the report. The New York Herald
characterized the Commission's president as "a Mother Jones in trousers." In 1916, Republican Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes
called the commission "one of the tragic incidents of the present administration" which had "accomplished nothing". The president of the Pittsburgh Employers' Association stated publicly that Walsh "should be assassinated."
Historian Adams argues and historian Galambos agrees that the Commission's hearings and reports influenced the passage of such labor legislation as the Adamson Eight-Hour Act
. Historian Rayback explains that the commission's report influenced the decisions of the War Labor Board and the authors of New Deal labor legislation.
Historian Montgomery states:
On the other hand, historian Harter argues that the commission had been established to determine the roots of labor problems, but its liberal leanings caused Congress to ignore its findings.
Historian Brooks, reviewing Adams book, contends that despite the fact that Frank P. Walsh
later became cochairman, with William Howard Taft
, of the War Labor Board during World War I that "it is an exaggeration to assume that the Commission was the principal, or even a major, cause of subsequent developments and to attribute to it, as [Adams] does, the development of "a more steeply graduated tax structure, promotion of collective bargaining, minimum wage scales, and the eight hour day... ." There is nothing in [Adams book] which would support the view that the Commission ever had the importance of the La Follette or McClellan Committee
s."
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
, Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...
, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Theodore Schroeder
Theodore Schroeder
Theodore Schroeder was a controversial author who wrote on issues pertaining to freedom of expression. Schroeder was perhaps one of the first authors to challenge the state of freedom of speech in the United States, claiming that the US government may be a tyranny and that the way Americans view...
, William "Big Bill" Haywood
Bill Haywood
William Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...
, scores of ordinary workers, and the icons of capitalism, including Daniel Guggenheim
Daniel Guggenheim
Daniel Guggenheim was an American industrialist and philanthropist, and a son of Meyer Guggenheim.-Biography:...
, George Walbridge Perkins, Sr. (of U.S. Steel
U.S. Steel
The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...
), Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
, and Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
.
Predecessors
In 1871, there was a failed attempt to create an Industrial Commission. There was also the Hewitt committee hearings of 1878-79, the three-year study of the Blair committee which ended in 1886, and a probe conducted from 1898-1902 by the United States Industrial Commission, appointed by President William McKinleyWilliam McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
.
Origins
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
building, killing twenty people. There was public outcry as a result and so President William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
proposed and Congress approved the creation of a nine-person investigative committee called the Commission on Industrial Relations. The Commission on Industrial Relations got its name from a petition presented to President Taft on December 30, 1911, entitled "Petition to the President for a Federal Commission on Industrial Relations", signed by twenty eight prominent people, Members of the Committee on Standards of Living and Labor of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, many who were charity workers involved with Survey magazine began a petition drive calling for a federal commission set up to investigate the causes of industrial violence.
Commission members
The Commission was made up of nine commissioners, all nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. All but one served from beginning to end. The original nine Commissioners were:- Chairman Frank P. WalshFrank P. WalshFrancis Patrick "Frank" Walsh was an American lawyer. Walsh was especially noted for his advocacy of progressive causes, including decent working conditions, decent pay for workers, and equal employment opportunities for all, including women. He was appointed to several high-profile committees...
, Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
labor lawyer and activist (who once told a friend "I hate like hell to be respectable"), - James 'O Connell, of the American Federation of LaborAmerican Federation of LaborThe American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(A.F.L.), - Austin B. Garretson, of the Order of Railway Conductors,
- John Brown LennonJohn Brown LennonJohn Brown Lennon was an American labor union leader and general-secretary of the Journeyman Tailors Union of America . In 1890, he was elected treasurer of the American Federation of Labor and served in that capacity until he was defeated by Teamsters president Daniel J. Tobin in 1917...
, of the A.F.L., - Frederic A. DelanoFrederic Adrian DelanoFrederic Adrian Delano was an American railroad president born in Hong Kong, China of the Delano family. He was the uncle of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Frederic Adrian Delano was Chairman of the Committee on the Regional Plan for New York and Its Environs, which released the...
, President of the Wabash RailroadWabash RailroadThe Wabash Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including trackage in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri and Ontario. Its primary connections included Chicago, Illinois, Kansas City, Missouri, Detroit,...
(and uncle of Franklin Roosevelt), - Florence Jaffray HarrimanFlorence Jaffray HarrimanFlorence Jaffray "Daisy" Harriman was an American socialite, suffragist, social reformer, organizer, and diplomat...
, a New York socialite and social activist, - John R. CommonsJohn R. CommonsJohn Rogers Commons was an American institutional economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.-Biography:Born in Hollansburg, Ohio, John R. Commons had a religious upbringing which led him to be an advocate for social justice early in life...
, a labor economist at the University of Wisconsin–MadisonUniversity of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
, - Harris Weinstock, a progressive CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
businessman, and - S. Thurston Ballard, a KentuckyKentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
democratic flour mill owner.
Shortly before the Commission's final report, Commissioner Delano resigned, and was replaced by Richard Aishton, vice-president of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.
Congress had authorized the Commission shortly before the 1912 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1912
The United States presidential election of 1912 was a rare four-way contest. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican Party with the support of its conservative wing. After former President Theodore Roosevelt failed to receive the Republican nomination, he called...
, in which incumbent President Taft was defeated by New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
. Four Commissioners ultimately confirmed were originally named by President Taft in December 1912, one month after his defeat: Commissioners Delano, O'Connell, Garretson and Lennon. Taft also nominated five other persons, but the Senate failed to confirm them. Those failed nominees were U.S. Senator George Sutherland
George Sutherland
Alexander George Sutherland was an English-born U.S. jurist and political figure. One of four appointments to the Supreme Court by President Warren G. Harding, he served as an Associate Justice of the U.S...
of Utah (who was Taft's proposed chairman), Connecticut state legislator George B. Chandler (American Book Co.), Charles S. Barrett (Farmers' Union); Adolph Lewisohn
Adolph Lewisohn
Adolph Lewisohn was a German-Jewish immigrant born in Hamburg who became a New York City investment banker, mining magnate, and philanthropist. He is the namesake of the former School of Mines building on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University, as well as the former Lewisohn Stadium...
(investment banker, copper magnate, and philanthropist); and F. C. Schwedtman (electrical engineer).
Two months after entering the White House, President Wilson nominated replacements for Taft's five failed nominees.
Investigation
The Commission's responsibilities were to:- "inquire into the general condition of labor in the principal industries of the United States, including agriculture, and especially in those which are carried on in corporate forms ...; into the growth of associations of employers and of wage earners and the effect of such associations upon the relations between employers and employees ..."
The commission held 154 days of hearings. Walsh's leadership of the Commission attracted media attention and publicity. Some of the commission findings included:
- The Commission found that lumber workers in the Northwest labored at their jobs for ten hours a day at only twenty cents an hour.
- Seasonal unemployment effected tens of thousands of people in Pacific Coast cities. Only the fortunate averaged more than a meal a day.
- In California, migrant laborers work in fields with temperatures up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit on farms where growers refused to supply them water in the fields.
- One Paterson, New Jersey silk mill fined workers fifty cents for talking and fifty cents for laughing while at work.
"In an era of...muckraking, the [commission] raised the technique to an unprecedented height."
The commission studied several major strikes which occurred during its investigations, including:
- The Paterson, New Jersey silk mill strike (1911–1913), led by the Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
, - New York City garment workers strike (1909–1910),
- Illinois Central and Harriman lines struggles with the railroad shopmen (1911–1915),
- The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company strike, where the Ludlow Massacre occurred (1913).
When Walsh he embarrassed President Wilson, and suggested investigating the southern states, U.S. Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia attempted to cut Walsh's budget 75 percent. The vote failed, and Walsh promptly sent investigators to Smith's state, making lasting and powerful enemies.
Journalist Walter Lippman stated there was "an atmosphere of no quarter" when Walsh subpoenaed then questioned John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...
about the Ludlow massacre
Ludlow massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914....
. For three days Walsh publicly chastised Rockefeller.
Historian Montgomery stated that the commission found:
- "repression by police, judicial, and military agencies, which envisaged themselves as the defenders of society's "good people." And in each case but Philadelphia, where the public as a whole was irate over the general conduct of the transit company, the "good people" in turn indorsed the repression. Small wonder that in all these strikes, and above all in the sanguinary three-year conflict on the Illinois Central Railroad, workers simply took the law into their own hands."
Commission conclusions
Unable to agree on many points, the Commission published three different final reports. One of the reports — primarily written by Commissioner Commons, with Commissioner Harriman — was signed by a bare majority of five Commissioners. Instead of calling for "industrial democracy," the Commons' report instead advocated the creation of impartial labor boards. It did not characterize conflict between labor and management as an inevitable and permanent condition. Commons' report expressed fear that the Commission's report would "throw the [labor] movement into politics."The report signed by Chairman Walsh and Commissioners Lennon, O'Connell and Garretson, written by attorney Basil Manly, was much more provocative and accusatory in its tone and conclusions. Its centerpiece was a call for industrial democracy.
That report explained the conditions of agricultural estates:
- "It is industrial feudalism in an extreme form. Such estates are, as a rule, the property of absentee landlords, who are for the most part millionaires, resident in the eastern States or in Europe."
Regarding conditions in company towns, the Manly report observed that they displayed "every aspect of feudalism except the recognition of special duties on the part of the employer."
A separate supplemental statement joined only by Commissioners Lennon and McConnell opposed the creation of an agency-administered system of mediation and arbitration, in favor of strengthening trade unions (and employer associations). Their statement concluded:
- "Where (labor) organization is lacking, dangerous discontent is found on every hand; low wages and long hours prevail; exploitation in every direction is practiced; the people become sullen, have no regard for law and government, and are, in reality, a latent volcano, as dangerous to society as are the volcanoes of nature to the landscape surrounding them."
- "We hold that efforts to stay the organization of labor or to restrict the right of employees to organize should not be tolerated, but that the opposite policy should prevail, and the organization of the trade unions and of the employers' organizations should be promoted...This country is no longer a field for slavery, and where men and women are compelled, in order that they may live, to work under conditions in determining which they have no voice, they are not far removed from a condition existing under feudalism or slavery."
Public response
The New RepublicThe New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
observed that the commission had gone well beyond its duties to investigate the "cause and cure" of labor unrest. In promoting industrial democracy, it offered a "tonic" for American democracy itself. The Seattle Union Record exclaimed that the report was "an indictment against organized capital. The journal The Masses
The Masses
The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...
stated the report signaled "the beginning of an indigenous American revolutionary movement.
Others criticized the report. The New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
characterized the Commission's president as "a Mother Jones in trousers." In 1916, Republican Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
called the commission "one of the tragic incidents of the present administration" which had "accomplished nothing". The president of the Pittsburgh Employers' Association stated publicly that Walsh "should be assassinated."
Longterm influence
The influence the report had on US politics is debated.Historian Adams argues and historian Galambos agrees that the Commission's hearings and reports influenced the passage of such labor legislation as the Adamson Eight-Hour Act
Adamson Act
The Adamson Act was a United States federal law passed in 1916 that established an eight-hour workday, with additional pay for overtime work, for interstate railroad workers....
. Historian Rayback explains that the commission's report influenced the decisions of the War Labor Board and the authors of New Deal labor legislation.
Historian Montgomery states:
- "The uniqueness of the efforts of the Commission on Industrial Relations between 1913 and 1915 lay in its staff of Wisconsin-trained experts and in the steadfast refusal of its nine members to allow any diversion of their attention from immediate problems of industrial relations. These very qualities paradoxically imparted to the commission a political significance greater than that of all previous investigations combined, for out of its work emerged both a labor program for the Democratic party in 1916 which shattered the narrow limits of its 1912 platform and, through the minority report of John R. Commons and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, a series of proposals that were to become widely infused into the welfare capitalism of the 1920's."
On the other hand, historian Harter argues that the commission had been established to determine the roots of labor problems, but its liberal leanings caused Congress to ignore its findings.
Historian Brooks, reviewing Adams book, contends that despite the fact that Frank P. Walsh
Frank P. Walsh
Francis Patrick "Frank" Walsh was an American lawyer. Walsh was especially noted for his advocacy of progressive causes, including decent working conditions, decent pay for workers, and equal employment opportunities for all, including women. He was appointed to several high-profile committees...
later became cochairman, with William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States...
, of the War Labor Board during World War I that "it is an exaggeration to assume that the Commission was the principal, or even a major, cause of subsequent developments and to attribute to it, as [Adams] does, the development of "a more steeply graduated tax structure, promotion of collective bargaining, minimum wage scales, and the eight hour day... ." There is nothing in [Adams book] which would support the view that the Commission ever had the importance of the La Follette or McClellan Committee
United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management
The United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management was a select committee created by the United States Senate on January 30, 1957, and dissolved on March 31, 1960...
s."