You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday November 30, 1914
Washington, D. C. - President Wilson Appoints Colorado Coal Commission
Seth Low, of New York, Charles W. Mills of Philadelphia, and Patrick Gilday of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, were chosen by President Wilson last night to serve on his newly established Colorado Coal Commission. It is hoped that the Commission will be able to effect a settlement in the Coal Strike of southern Colorado which has now been on for over a year. In appointing the members of the commission, the President released a statement which we have reprinted below from today's New York Tribune.
Patrick Gilday
Seth Low
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From the New York Tribune, November 30, 1914
WILSON APPOINTS STRIKE ADJUSTERS
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New Body Is to Settle Colorado War
and Future Troubles.
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REGRETS FAILURE OF 3-YEAR PLAN
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Seth Low, Charles W. Mills and Patrick Gilday
Members of the Commission.
(From The Tribune Bureau.)
President Wilson
Washington, Nov. 29.-President Wilson to-night appointed Seth Low, of New York; Charles W. Mills, of Philadelphia, and Patrick Gilday, of Clearfield, Penn., as a commission to devise ways and means for settling the coal strike in the Colorado mining district, so that peace would be preserved for the next three years.
The President, in appointing the commission, said:
The strike of the miners in Colorado, which has now lasted for twelve months, has attracted the attention of the whole country and has been accompanied by many distressing and tragical circumstances. The mediation of the government of the United States was offered early in the struggle, but the operators of the mines were unwilling to avail themselves of it or to act upon the suggestions made in the interest of peace by representatives of the Department of Labor, authorized by statute to serve in such cases.
It became necessary to send federal troops to the district affected by the strike in order to preserve the peace, but their presence could of itself accomplish nothing affirmative; after long waiting, therefore, and the disappointment of many hopes of accommodation, I ventured, after taking counsel with representatives of the government who had been on the field and made themselves thoroughly familiar with all the circumstances of the case, to propose a plan of temporary settlement, to be put into operation for a period of three years and to afford means of amicable consultation and adjustment between the mine operators and their employes pending agreement upon such terms and arrangement as might be made the basis for permanently satisfactory relations between them.
The plan seemed to me obviously fair and sensible. The striking miners promptly accepted it, but the mine operators rejected it, saying in response to my earnest appeal that they objected to its most essential features, namely, the proposed arrangements by which the miners might state their grievances through a committee, and by which differences might be settled by reference to a commission appointed by the president of the United States. I think the country regretted their decision and was disappointed that they should have taken so uncompromising a position.
I have waited and hoped for a change in their attitude, but now fear that there will be none. And yet I do not feel that I am at liberty to do nothing in the presence of circumstances so serious and distressing. Merely to withdraw the federal troops and leave the situation to clear and settle itself would seem to me to be doing something less than my duty after all that has occurred. I determined, therefore, to appoint the commission contemplated in the plan of temporary settlement, notwithstanding the rejection of that plan by the mine operators, and thus at least to create the instrumentality by which like troubles and disputes may be amicably and honorably settled in the future, in the hope, the very earnest and sincere hope, that both parties may see it to be not merely to their best interest, but a duty which they owe to the communities they serve and to the nation itself, to make use of this instrumentality of peace and render strife of the kind which has threatened the order and prosperity of the great State of Colorado a thing of the past, impossible of repetition so long as everything is done in good temper and with the genuine purpose to do justice and observe every public as well as every private obligation.
The Honorable Seth Low, of New York; Charles W. Mills, of Philadelphia, and Patrick Gilday, of Clearfield, Penn., have most generously and unselfishly consented, at my request, to serve as members of the commission. I owe to these gentlemen my own warm thanks not only, but also, I believe, the thanks of their fellow citizens throughout the country. They will place themselves at the service alike of the miners and the operators of the mines in Colorado in case controversy between them should in the future develop circumstances which would render mediation the obvious way of peace and just settlement.
[photograph added]
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SOURCE
New York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-Nov 30, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
United States Congressional serial set,
Issue 7099, 1916
"Report of the Colorado Coal Commission"
(search with "labor difficulties colorado")
http://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
Seth Low
http://www.loc.gov/...
Patrick Gilday
(search: Patrick Gilday, & choose p.4)
http://books.google.com/...
President Wilson
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
President Wilson's Colorado Coal Commission
(search: low gilday mills, & choose p.13)
http://books.google.com/...
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Ludlow Massacre - Woody Guthrie
I never will forget the look on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day,
When we stood around to preach their funerals,
And lay the corpses of the dead away.
-Woody Guthrie
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