You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Tuesday October 6, 1914
From the Appeal to Reason: The Truth about the Salary of Mother Jones
Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron Company is behind the lies spread by various newspapers around the country regarding the salaries of Mother Jones and other officials of the United Mine Workers of America. In this week's
Appeal, the plain and simple facts are stated:
Rockefeller's hirelings are circulating reports in the capitalist press that fabulous sums are being paid to Mother Jones and other organizers of the mine workers of Colorado. The truth is all mine organizers receive but $4 a day while at work. During the whole period Mother Jones was in prison she did not receive a cent of pay because she wanted the money to go to the strikers' fund.
Rockefeller's Lies
We first find Rockefeller's lies regarding the salaries of various officials of the United Mine Workers of America printed in the September 10th edition of The Iola Register of Kansas. This was eleven days before the publication of a pamphlet by the Committee of (Colorado) Mine Managers. We believe the lies actually originated with the unnamed author of that pamphlet, "Facts Concerning the Struggle in Colorado for Industrial Freedom." And, speaking of the facts, the Register has miss-identified the union conducting the coal miner's strike as the Western Federation of Miners.
MALEVOLENT CREED
----------
In recent comments upon the labor war in Colorado the Register has expressed the opinion that at the bottom of the trouble lay the greed of the officers of the Miners' Union who ordered the strike in order to force all the miners into the Union in order that they might be enriched by monthly dues which they could then force the mine owners to collect for them.
Policy Committee of District 15, UMW , John McLennan, District 15 President; Ed Doyle, District 15 Secretary-Treasurer; John R Lawson, International Board Member from District 15; Frank J Hayes, UMWA Vice-President
That opinion seems to be pretty fully justified by the official report of the Secretary-Treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners wherein are given the salaries of the officers of the Union. From this report it is shown that Frank J. Hayes, chairman of the committee in charge of the strike in Colorado, received $4,052.92 cents as his salary for NINE WEEKS! In addition to that sum he drew $1,667.00 as his expenses for those same nine weeks, making the total of this particular patriot's grab into the treasury over $90 a day, or at the rate of over $32,000 a year. It isn't hard to understand why Mr. Hayes should be anxious that Union membership should keep up and Union dues be promptly paid.
Another member of the strike committee was John McLennan and his official report shows that he was paid for this same period of nine weeks $2,683.55 for salary and $1,469,55 for expenses-a total of $66 a day.
Mother Jones, whose self-denying devotion to the cause of the miners has been made so much of, is shown by this report to have been paid during the nine weeks in question a salary of $2,668.62-$42 a day-and her sole duty was to go about and agitate, tell the poor miners how they were abused and how she loved them. Somewhat costly affection, the official reports show!
There is still civil war in Colorado. The Democratic governor of the state has confessed his impotence to deal with the situation, and for months the Federal government has been under the necessity of maintaining a guard of regular soldiers at all the storm centers in order to protect property and lives. The situation is so bad that it has at last provoked President Wilson to address a sharp remonstrance to governor Ammons, calling his attention to the fact that it is the duty of the State and not of the National authorities to maintain order and protect the citizens of the State in their rights. It is too bad that the President did not see fit to give out over his own signature such facts as the foregoing, which he undoubtedly has in his possession, and address his remonstrance, not only to the timid and faltering Governor, but also to the conscienceless and greedy criminals who, in the sacred name of the Rights of Labor have robbed laboring men of the highest of all their rights, the right to labor upon their own terms, have brought death by violence to scores of laboring men's homes, and have plunged a whole state into the black shadow of civil war-all with no higher or better motive than to enrich themselves.
[photograph added]
----------
SOURCES
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-of Oct 3, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Iola Register
(Iola, Kansas)
-of Sept 10, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Mother Jones in Cold Cellar Cell of Walsenburg, Colorado
https://archive.org/...
Policy Committee of District 15
https://archive.org/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Monday October 6, 2014
More on Rockefeller's Campaign of Anti-Union Propaganda and Lies
Frank P Walsh, Chairman
Commission on Industrial Relations
Jesse Welborn
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````
In the December 7, 1914, edition of The Indianapolis News we find Jesse Welborn, president of Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, being grilled by Frank P. Welsh, Chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations:
PAMPHLET FIGURES IN COLORADO INVESTIGATION
----------
DISTRIBUTED BY FUEL AND IRON COMPANY.
----------
AUTHOR'S NAME WITHHELD
----------
DENVER, December 5.-"Facts Concerning the Struggle in Colorado for Industrial Freedom," a pamphlet which J. F. Welborn, president of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, said his corporation had caused to be written, were investigated by the federal commission on industrial relations today. The committee inquired both into the responsibility for the publication of the pamphlet and the truth of the statements therein contained.
Welborn testified that the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company published the document at an expense of $12,000 and distributed forty thousand copies to ministers, legislators, educators and the public. Welborn said that several paragraphs should be qualified, that of the truth of others he had no evidence and repudiated responsibility for still other statements.
The witness declined to give the name of the author of the pamphlet, who, he said, came to Colorado to write the book after a conversation with an eastern director of the company. He did not know who was to pay the writer for his services....
Alleged Sums Paid to Miners.
Walsh called the attention of the witness to a table appearing in the pamphlet, giving the sums alleged to have been paid to national officers of the United Mine Workers. According to this table, sums paid out in nine weeks were as follows: Frank J. Hayes, $4,502 plus $1,667 for expenses; John McLennan, $2,683 plus $1,469 for expenses; John R. Lawson $1,773; Mary Jones, $2,668.
"Do you accept personal responsibility for this?" asked Walsh.
"For as much of the published statement as has not been denied," replied Welborn.
"If it is true that McLennan gets $4 a day will you correct it?"
"Just as soon as I believe it is wrong."
Welborn said the statement was published first in a newspaper. In response to questions by Walsh he said he had not seen certain denials that were cited.
From Green's Report.
"Did you look for a repudiation."
"No, I had a great deal else to do."
Welborn reiterated that the statement had been published on the authority of the newspaper in which it first appeared.
"Of course, if the newspaper statement is incorrect, this statement is incorrect," he said.
Commissioner O'Connell said that the figures given were from the report of William Green, secretary of the United Mine Workers, and covered total salary and expenses for one year, not nine weeks.
"Of course I had no access to Mr. Green's report," said Welborn.
The statement in the pamphlet which alleged that the delegates to the Trinidad convention that called the strike were selected and sent there by the officers of the union, Welborn declared he could not substantiate. He knew of not a single delegate who had been sent there by the officers of the union and did not know that any delegates to the convention had not been chosen by vote of his fellow workmen.
"I repudiate responsibility for the statement," he said....
Mr. Welborn could "repudiate responsibility" to his hearts content, however, it is also a fact that his name appears first as one of the members of the Committee of Coal Mine Managers which "issued" the pamphlet:
----------
SOURCES
The Indianapolis News
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-of Dec 7, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Facts Concerning the Struggle in Colorado for Industrial Freedom
Issued by the Committee of Coal Mine Managers.
Denver, 1914
https://archive.org/...
https://archive.org/...
IMAGE
Jesse Welborn
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Frank P Walsh (search link with name)
http://books.google.com/...
Members of the Committee of Coal Mine Mangers
https://archive.org/...
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Which Side Are You On? - Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks ain't got a chance
Unless we organize.
-Florence Reese
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````