State, and the Republicans came into control and a number of measures were proposed, and some were put through, designed to provide-designed among other things, to provide offices for a number of deserving Republicans. It was in that way, I think, that the proposal first came forward. But after it was made, the association for labor legislation, which I represent, which had long been committed to the plan of an industrial commission as the body to administer the labor laws and the compensation law-that is, the Wisconsin plan-opposed the bill as it was introduced, and at the same time agreed to support a bill if it should be changed along lines that would eliminate politics from it so far as possible and insure the sort of organization of the department of labor, and the compensation commission, that seemed to us desirable, and the law, as finally passed, was the bill which was drafted under the auspices practically of the Association for Labor Legislation, and a very different bill from that that was originally proposed.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. But the effort was in the direction of making the compensation laws of New York less effective?

Dr. SEAGER. Not at all. I should say, on the contrary, to make them more effective. There was no change whatever made in the compensation law except to substitute for the compensation commission, as the body to administer the law, an industrial commission as the body to administer the law, and to charge this commission at the same time with administration of the labor law. The industrial commission consists of five members. It happened that the compensation commission consisted of four members, because one of the members had resigned, and only four were actually employed for the work of the commission. The four members of the compensation commission and the commissioner of labor constituted five persons, and the new commission consists of five persons, so the only result is the combination of the work of those two departments, both concerned in a very intimate way with the labor law, and it is likely to lead, in our opinion, to a much greater efficiency in the administration of the law by cutting out duplication as to inspection and so on and so on.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. Was not an effort made, and was it not successful, in allowing greater privileges in the optional

Dr. SEAGER (interrupting). There were attempts made to amend the compensation .law in a good many particulars, but that was entirely independent of the association bill, and all of them were opposed by the Association for Labor Legislation and all but one of them were defeated.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. Who were they supported by?

Dr. SEAGER. Supported, I imagine, by employers, although some of them were rather obscure, and also by casualty companies.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. Insurance companies?

Dr. SEAGER. Insurance companies; but practically all of those measures were defeated; only one of them passed, and that in a form that did not involve a very serious relaxation of the compensation law.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. Isn't it a fact that one of the evils that developed under the New York compensation law was that of compelling all settlements with injured workers to be done by and through the commission, resulting in the commission becoming, as it were, snowed under and delayed indefinitely the time when the injured worker could get compensation?

Dr. SEAGER. The law provided for that method of settlement, and as a matter of fact the commission was far behind in the settlement of claims.

Commissioner WEINSTOCK. And in order to remedy that the plan was finally adopted that settlement-a plan that has been employed practically with entire satisfaction in other States-of permitting the employer to make settlement with the injured worker subject to the approval of the commission?

Dr. SEAGER. Yes; that change was made. I would not say that operated to the entire satisfaction of both parties. There was a good deal of dissatisfaction with that method on the part of the workers; but that was entirely independent of the Association's Industrial Commission bill, and personally I was opposed to that change in the New York law. My own opinion was that a different method of handling claims would have enabled the commission to catch up with its business, and that on the whole, in the long run, having claims settled by the commission would be more satisfactory to both sides, assuming an impartial commission.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. The change you speak of, that was in the interest of the insurance companies?

Dr. SEAGER. Doubtless that bill was supported strongly by the insurance companies.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. Do you suppose their interest was that because the commission was not giving prompt attention to claims of individuals, they wanted a change?

Dr. SEAGER. Doubtless that aspect concerned them financially; that is, it was a financial disadvantage to them to have the settlement of these claims delayed. But it was the general impression that the stronger reason was the opportunity that might develop for making more favorable settlements from their point of view.

Chairman WALSH. That is all; thank you, Professor, very much, for your attendance and testimony.

Mr. Haywood, please.

TESTIMONY OF MR. WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD.

Chairman WALSH. Will you please state your full name?
Mr. HAYWOOD. William D. Haywood.

Chairman WALSH. Where do you reside, Mr. Haywood?
Mr. HAYWOOD. Denver is my home.

Chairman WALSH. Denver, Colo.?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes, sir.

Chairman WALSH. Where were you born?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Salt Lake City, Utah.

Chairman WALSH. And what is your age?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Born in 1869-February.

Chairman WALSH. At what age did you begin work?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Nine years old.

Chairman WALSH. And in what industry, or what occupation?

Mr. HAYWOOD. In the mining industry.

Chairman WALSH. Whereabouts?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Utah-Ophir Canyon.

Chairman WALSH. Would you be kind enough, Mr. Haywood, just to sketch your history as a worker and miner, up to the time you became a member of the association of the Western Federation of Miners?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Well, after the first short period, we moved from there back to Salt Lake City, where I worked at different kinds of work until I went to the State of Nevada, when I was 15 years old.

Chairman WALSH. Well, now, in a general way, what sort of work did you work at, between the ages of 9 and 15?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Why, I worked at driving delivery wagons, as a messenger boy, in a hotel as elevator boy and bell boy. It was when I was in the latter part of it, the fifteenth year, that I went to Nevada, and went to work in the mines permanently.

Chairman WALSH. At the age of 15?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes, sir.

Chairman WALSH. Will you kindly pitch your voice a little louder; the reporters seem to have difficulty in hearing you, and there are a number of spectators who would like to hear you. So you will please speak a little louder.

Mr. HAYWOOD. I went to work for the Ohio Mining Co. in Willow Creek, Nev., and worked there until I was 19; and then drifted around into the different mining camps of Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and back to Nevada again.

Chairman WALSH. Are you familiar with the formation of the Western Federation of Miners?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes; being a miner, of course I kept acquainted with what the miners were doing and remember when that federation of miners was organized, and have since become acquainted with all of the circumstances that brought about the federation of miners.

Chairman WALSH. Will you please describe the conditions that led to the formation of the Western Federation of Miners?

Mr. HAYWOOD. It was organized as the result of a strike that occurred in the Coeur d'Alene.

Chairman WALSH. What form of organization did they have prior to that time, if any?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Local unions, and mostly branches or assemblies of the Knights of Labor.

The miners of the Coeur d'Alene had gone on strike against a reduction of wages, and the mine owners called in armed thugs, armed men from outside territory. There was a pitched battle between these guards and the miners,

and in the course of the fight there was a mill blown up. This was charged to the miners, and the mine owners called on the governor for the militia. The militia was sent in there and martial law was declared, and nearly 1,000 men were arrested and placed in what they called the "bull pen." That was a hurriedly erected two-story structure built out of rough lumber, and these men were crowded in there with scarcely room to lie down-so many-with cracks in the floor above permitting the excrement from the men to drop on those below. The result of that incarceration, there were many of them who sickened and died from the diseases that they caught there. At one period of this strike an injunction was issued and 14 of the leaders were arrested and sent to Ada County; 2 of them, I think, were sent to Detroit to serve terms.

It was while these men were in Boise that they conceived the idea of federating all of the miners of the West into one general organization. After they were released, being in jail for six or seven months, they called a convention, that was held in Butte, in May, 1893, and it was there the Western Federation of Miners was started.

Chairman WALSH. Had you been connected in any official capacity with any organizations that preceded the Western Federation of Miners?

Mr. HAYWOOD. No; there was no organization where I was working at that time.

Chairman WALSH. Had you belonged to any labor organization up to that time? Mr. HAYWOOD. No.

Chairman WALSH. Proceed, Mr. Haywood.

Mr. HAYWOOD. Following the organization, as it was started at Butte, came the first strike; that was in Cripple Creek in 1894. They went on strike to establish a wage of $3 a day and maximum hours of eight.

Chairman WALSH. What was the wage at that time, Mr. Haywood?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Three dollars, but there was an effort on the part of the min owners to reduce it, as they had tried to do in the Coeur d'Alene. The strike was against a reduction of pay.

Chairman WALSH. The strike was against a reduction of pay?

Mr. HAYWOOD, Yes; in the Couer d'Alene, and it was practically so in Cripple Creek in 1894.

The mine owner had a sheriff in office. I do not think there is any use of mincing words. You know when the mine owners have the sheriff and you know when the miners have him. You know when the mine owners control the court and you know when the others control the court. Well, they had the sheriff and he organized some 1,600 deputies. These deputies were proceeding against the miners who were picketed on the crest of Bull Hill. It was then perhaps the only time in the history of labor troubles in the country when the militia was used in the interests of the men. Gov. Waite went to the Cripple Creek district in Denver and learned of conditions as they existed there and he called out the militia. He put them in between the deputy sheriff's and the miners, and told the deputies to disperse or he would declare a state of insurrection.

The strike was settled by the governor of the State being the arbiter of the men, and a banker of the name of David Moffatt, since deceased,, as the arbiter of the mine owners. The $3 a day was granted and the eight-hour law was established. The eight-hour law had not passed the legislature of the State of Colorado at that time, and it only applied to those quartz camps where the union was strong enough to enforce it.

There was no further trouble in the Cripple Creek district for some 10 years, and the next big strike was in Leadville, in 1896. Again the miners went on strike there to prevent a reduction of wages from $3 to $2.50 a day, and, as had become customary, the mine owners asked for the soldiers. Gov. Waite had been defeated in the election previous, and there was a governor by the name of McIntosh. He sent the soldiers at once. There were hundreds of men arrested, bull pens established, old abandoned shaft houses used as prisons, and the men subjected to some cruelties. They lost the strike; the wages were reduced 50 cents a day.

In 1899

Chairman WALSH (interrupting). Were there any fatalities in that Leadville strike?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes.

Chairman WALSH. And was there any loss of life?
Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes; and there was some loss of life.

Chairman WALSH. Did imprisonment follow in any case?

Mr. HAYWOOD. There was no permanent imprisonment and no trials; with the end of the strike the strife was over.

In 1899 they had a strike in Lake City, and the militia was used again. I heard some talk this morning of gunmen being employed by union men, but the mine owners always had gunmen in the strikes with the Western Federation of Miners in the West, in the militia, when they could not get any other men.

In 1899 there was a strike in Lake City, and the same year the second great strike in the Coeur d'Alene. In that strike wages had been established at $3.50 a day in nearly all of the mining camps, with, I think, the exception of Bunker Hill; and the mine owners had generally said to the miners that if the wages at Bunker Hill were not increased it would be necessary for them to reduce their wages to that standard. A strike against the Bunker Hill was declared and became general throughout the district. The soldiers were called for; again a mill had been blown up, and they charged the miners with the destruction of this mill, and it probably was the miners who destroyed it. The soldiers came, this time Federal troops. They were the black soldiers, the same who were afterwards dismissed from the Army down in Brownsville, Tex. And the treatment afforded to white men and white women by those black soldiers; I do not mention the fact that they were black because I like white soldiers any better, because I put them all on the same level, but they were colored soldiers in this instance.

Another bull pen was established. This time it was an old rambling one-story building, fenced in wit. barbed wire, where between 1,000 and 1,100 men were held for many months, between 6 and 7 months, and a good many of the men died.

Chairman WALSH. Were they held on specific charges of crime?

Mr. HAYWOOD. They were arrested without warrant and without charge. Chairman WALSH. Were the courts not open or operating in the territory? Mr. HAYWOOD. The courts were open and operating, but a semistate of martial law prevailed.

I recall one instance of a man who died in prison. His name was Mike Devine, he was a Catholic in religion. He had been sick for a long while, and was sick during the strike. Coming out of the hospital he was met on the street by one of the negro soldiers and pushed off of the sidewalk, and when Mike resented this treatment he was arrested and thrown into prison and he had a relapse, and he felt that he was going to die and he asked for a priest, and one Lieut. Lyons, who was there under Gen. Merriam, said to Devine, "You can make your confession in hell." And Mike died without the benefit of a confession.

The result of that strike was that wages were maintained at the same standard as had existed before the strike.

In the Western Federation of Miners there is little difference between the wage of the skilled and the unskilled. A man who handles a shovel gets a minimum wage of $3 a day, while a man who runs a machine drill gets $3.50 a day.

I have tried to mention the strikes that the organization has been mixed up in.

Commissioner O'CONNELL. Did you go up into the strike at Lead, the strike at Lead?

Mr. HAYWOOD. There was a strike at Lead about this period-this was in 1899-but that did not become serious, and the strike, or rather it is a lockout that is on there now, began at a later date.

In 1901 there was a strike in Telluride, Colo. There the company brought in scabs, strike breakers, and there was a fight between the union men and the scabs, and the union men came out best. The strike was won without much court proceedings.

In 1902 and 1903 came the strike that is so well known as the Cripple Creek strike, and that strike was in the nature of a sympathetic strike. The men who were working in the mills in Colorado City, although entitled to the benefits of the 8-hour law, which had been passed in Colorado at that time, were working 12 hours a day, 11 hours a day shift and 13 hours night shift. This condition prevails in the smelting plants of Colorado at the present time, and in some of the milling plants. They went out on strike in September, I think, 1902.

Chairman WALSH. Was the attention of the authorities called to the condition—that is, that the law was being violated with reference to the hours of labor?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Oh, yes, indeed.

Chairman WALSH. Was the law inoperative, or why didn't they prosecute the officials?

Mr. HAYWOOD. The smelter officials, or mine owners, do you mean?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.

Mr. HAYWOOD. Did you ever hear of a mine owner or of a manufacturer being prosecuted for violation of a law? Well, they were not, anyway. The courts

don't work that way.

In the following March the miners of Cripple Creek who were producing the ore that was reduced at Colorado City, went on strike.

Chairman WALSH. Was the law being observed as to them; were they working?

Mr. HAYWOOD. They were the ones who first established the law.
Chairman WALSH. They established the law during the following strike?
Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes.

Chairman WALSH. And they were having the benefits of the law?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Yes; they never lost the effects of the first strike. They went on strike on the 17th of March, striking in sympathy and for the benefit of the men in Colorado City, and at that time strikes became very general through Colorado, there being some 10 or 15 camps, and included the smelters of Denver. The State was pretty well tied up, and most of the southern coal fields were on strike.

They were striking, as they struck 10 years before, for the enforcement of a State law. The laws at that time were inoperative at Cripple Creek. The militia ran the district. They threw the officers out of office. Sheriff Robinson, I remember, had a rope thrown at his feet and was told to resign or they would hang him; and other officers were treated in the same way, and some 400 men were deported from their homes. Seventy-six of them were placed aboard trains and escorted by soldiers over into the State of Kansas, where they were dumped out on the prairie and told that they must never come back. Habeas corpus was denied. I recall Judge Seed's court, where he had three men brought in that were being held by the militia. While his court was in session it was surrounded by soldiers who had their gatling guns and rifles trained on the door. He ordered those three prisoners released, and the soldiers went after them, and they were taken back to jail. That strike was not won. It was not altogther lost. There were some places where the eight-hour day was established and increases of wages were granted, but for the smelter men, as I said before, the 12 hours pretty generally prevailed among the laborers. Commissioner LENNON. What hours prevail in Utah?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Eight hours.

Commissioner LENNON. In the smelters?

Mr. HAYWOOD. Not in all the smelters; no. There are part of them who work eight hours, but there is an eight-hour law nevertheless. That was the first one that was carried to the United States Supreme Court, and it was a similar law that was passed in the State of Colorado that was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court of that State. There is not much to be said about the courts in connection with that strike other than the writ of habeas corpus was denied; free speech was also denied; free assemblage also; bull pens were established; 1,600 men were arrested in Victor and put into the Armory Hall; 1,600 men in one room, and this in the heat of June. There were also women arrested, and during the strike the Western Federation of Miners established stores for supplies for relief of the strikers and did business with people who were not strikers. These stores, which proved to be splendid establishments, were broken into, looted, and safes broken open, scales and such things destroyed and carried off. They carried away fruit by the ton, and things that they could not carry away they destroyed; for instance, cutting open sacks of flour and sugar and dumping them on the floor and pouring kerosene oil over the quarters of beef, and such as that. This was done by members of the militia and of the Citizens' Alliance. Remember that you have a report here in Washington of that, written by Walter B. Palmer, that goes into the details of the labor disturbance in Colorado; also some Senate documents, statements by the Western Federation, and statements by the Mine Owners' Association.

It was during the period of those strikes that the Western Federation of Miners realized the necessity of labor getting together in one big union. We were on strike in Cripple Creek, the miners; the mill men were on strike in Colorado Springs. There were scabs in the mines and scabs in the mills, and there were union railroaders that were the connecting link between those two