Newspaper Page Text
STSSiS9
i
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION OPENS
INQUIRY NEW CODE FOR EMPLOYERS
BY GILSON GARDNER
Washington, D. C, May 19.
Quietly, almost noiselessly, but none
the less certainly, the machine creat
ed by congress in 1912, and which be
came effective only last October,
known as the Industrial Relations
Commission, is moving to a frontal
attack on 'the most momentous hu
man question of the hour.
That question is
Why is industrial war?
Why is Colorado, Michigan, West
Virginia, Lawrence. Patterson?
Why is the hop-pickers' riot?
Why is the I. W. W.?
Why is John D. Rockefeller, Jr.?
Why do the few grow rich and
ever richer, while the many grow
relatively poor and ever poorer?
Beginning today in New York, the
Industrial Commission will hold a
series of carefully planned hearings
which will include every large in
dustrial center in the United States.
After spending four weeks in New
York, the commission will probably
go to Patterson, N. J and Philadel
phia. Following these will be Bos
ton, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Cleveland,
Chicago, and so on west to the coast.
The program at New York is typi
cal of the lines of inquiry. Three
days will be given to employment of
fices and unemployment; two days
devoted to the activities of the Amer
ican Federation of Labor, the So
cialist Party and the Industrial
Workers of the World; one day to
state mediation and arbitration of
industrial disputes; following these,
special inquiries into the building
trades of New York city, industrial
education, 'apprenticeship, and the
administration of child labor laws;
the men's garment trade of New
York; the dock workers, and the de
partment stores of New York city.
There are big men on the com
mission. President Wilson could not
have selected a better man for the
chairman of this commission than
Frank P. Walsh of Kansas City
With him, representing the public,
are John R. Commons, professor of
political economy of the University of
Wisconsin, and Mrs. J. Borden Harri
man of New York city. Representing
the employers are Frederick A. De
lano of Chicago, Harris Weinstock of
San Francisco and S. Thurston Bal
lard of Louisville, Ky. Representing
organized labor are Austin B. Garret
son, president of the Railway Con
ductors; John B. Lennon, treasurer of
;j7C -H? &S p$ M
vi
P-Wzlsh
the A. F. of L., and James O'Connell,
vice president of the A. F. of L.
Walsh, Commons, Weinstock and
O'Connell. These are the backbone
of the commission. They are the men
on whom the public may rely to get
to the bottom of the problems.
The commission has nearly a year
and a half before it submits its re
port to congress. It has decided on
four broad lines of inquiry: (1) Un
skilled labor problem; (2) private
agencies, the A. F. of L.r the National
Association of Manufacturers; in
short, organizations of labor and of
capital; (3) public agencies, such as1
legislative bureaus and commissions,
in the states and in the federal gov-
SM,-.., mmmmmM
