Freedom is never given; it is won.
-A. Philip Randolph
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Monday April 5, 1915
Chicago, Illinois-Walsh Commission to Probe Wages of Pullman Conductors & Porters
Frank P Walsh, Chairman
Commission on Industrial Relations
``````````
The
Commission on Industrial Relations, is now conducting a probe into the wages and working conditions of the employes of the
Pullman Sleeping Car Co.. The probe will be conducted under the keen questioning of Chairman Frank P. Walsh, "the two-fistedest Irishman that ever hit Kansas City."
Appearing before the Commission today, at the Hotel Sherman, is L. S. Hungerford, general manager of Pullman Company. Hellraisers will report further on this testimony in tomorrow's edition.
Also expected to testify is R. W. Bell, secretary of the Federation of Pullman Conductors and Porters. Hellraisers has learned that the conductors and porters, who earn $27.50 a month, are forced to purchase their uniforms exclusively from Marshal Fields at the cost of $24.50 for each uniform, nearly a month's pay. Pullman has a contract with Marshall Field & Co. requiring all 6,500 porters and all 2,500 conductors to do so. We have also learned that many of these men are "let go" soon after having spent hard-earned money on an expensive uniform that then becomes useless to them.
New men are then hired who must then purchase new uniforms. A very good deal for Marshall Fields & Co., but it looks a bit like a corruption to us.
We hope to see this little known business arrangement between Pullman and Fields exposed to the light of day by the Walsh Commission.
Below the fold, our readers will find two articles from recent editions of the Chicago Day Book which will help to set the stage for the upcoming sessions of the Commission on Industrial Relations.
From The Day Book of April 1, 1915:
LOCAL MILLIONAIRES ARE CALLED BY
THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION
Robert T Lincoln
``````````
Chauncey Keep, trustee of the Marshall Field estate and lifelong friend of Mr. Marshall Field, has been subpoenaed by the U. S. industrial relations commission as a witness at the hearing to be held in the Hotel Sherman next week. Keep is a member of the board of directors of the Pullman Co. He will be asked about labor unrest and about high profits and low wages paid by the Pullman Co.
Robert T. Lincoln, multi-millionaire son of Abraham Lincoln, civil war president of the United States, was served with a subpoena Saturday at his winter home in Washington, D. C. As chairman of the board of directors of the Pullman Co. Lincoln has more to say than anybody else about the wages, working conditions, security of employment and hopes of decent living among the 6,000 negro porters and 2,000 white men who are conductors on the Pullman cars.
A strange, lonely, shadowy figure-cut off absolutely from the mobs and crowds and common people his father loved to mix with-when Robert T. Lincoln takes the witness stand next week he will be a target of curious eyes. It is years since he made any public speech. Once in a while some college of city celebration of the memory of Abraham Lincoln has been able to get the son to go out and show himself and say a few words. But the words have always been polite, perfunctory, after the style of a corporation lawyer who delivers an address without saying anything.
What sort of thoughts there are on the labor question inside the head of R. T. Lincoln may become known from the examination of him on the stand. It is known that he doesn't like the idea of coming to Chicago and facing a quiz from Chairman Frank P. Walsh of the industrial commission. General Solicitor Daniels of the Pullman Co. has made inquiries of members of the commission with a view of finding out whether the appearance of R. T. Lincoln can't be called off.
R. W. Bell, secretary of the Federation of Pullman Conductors and Porters, 437 S. Dearborn st., said to day that their organization has been going nearly two years now. Some of the members will testify. Not in person, however. They won't show their faces and their names won't be known. They will be known, like convicts, by numbers and their testimony will be entered in the form of sworn statements with the names of the signers kept in the secret records of the industrial commission.
The Illinois Central and Harriman lines strike of shopmen will get attention. C. H. Markham, president of the I. C.; Julius Kruttschnitt, chairman board of directors Southern Pacific, and other officials have been subpoenaed.
Shopmen tried to get from the Harriman lines a recognition of their Federation of Federations, a big union taking in all of the crafts in the shops of the lines. Markham and Kruttschnitt were active in refusal to recognize the union. They have never had to answer in any public and responsible way the question:
What's wrong about workingmen who want to organize? Why should they not have the right to get together. Why does your railroad discharge and blacklist these union workmen?
The Western Union and Postal Telegraph policy of discharging and blacklisting all known union men will be asked investigated, as well as wages and working conditions in the stockyards.
----------
[Photograph added.]
From The Day Book of April 3, 1915
RAILROAD MEN'S CONDITION TO BE PROBED
BY U. S. COMMISSION
----------
Industrial Relations Body to Take Up Trouble With Railroads-
Millionaires Uneasy as They Are Summoned
----------
Chicago is to be the storm center of the labor world of the United states the next two weeks.
Powerful masters of labor-men who fire and hire thousands of workingmen every year-men whose money runs into dizzy millions-will come before the U.S. industrial relations commission, headed by Frank P. Walsh, at the Hotel Sherman. J. Ogden Armour, Robert T. Lincoln-and still other mysterious figures whose names are not known - have been subpoenaed.
These men who are close-mouthed, who keep bodyguards to follow them on their travels, will face Chairman Walsh, sometimes called "the two-fistedest Irishman that ever hit Kansas City."
Secret sessions begin Monday with the west railroads wage arbitration board. Between now and April 20 the six men on that board are expected to hand down an award. They will fix the wages and working conditions of the 65,000 engineers and firemen on 98 western railroads.
Inside the engineers and firemen's brotherhoods there is suppressed excitement over the whole arbitration game. The overwhelming vote in favor of a strike last summer was a declaration against arbitration. Warren S. Stone, grand chief, stated to the arbitration board that the men are all through more radical than the officers and it's all the grand officers can do to keep the men from kicking over and putting an end to arbitration. Stone said:
I want to say, neither in the way of explanation nor excuse, that the grand officers of this organization, instead of taking the lid off, try to keep the brake on. If the men did not come to us with grievances we would not be here with them. The thing we have always tried to do is to keep dissension down, if possible, instead of adding to it. If we simply take the brake off and let the men go it would be a whole lot more radical than it is.
If any fault has been found with the executive officers of this organization it is because they have been too conservative and have allowed the railroads to capitalize that conservatism and have not gotten the results that the rank and file think they should have gotten.
In his argument yesterday that closed the four-months' hearing in the federal building, Stone said:
I desire to impress upon you the importance of this case. I question if any body of men in the world ever decided a case that will have as far-reaching an effect. I feel, gentlemen, that it depends largely on your decision in this arbitration, whether or not, we have reached the opening of a new industrial era or whether we are going back to the old days again.
Those who know the line-up in the railroad world now know that what Stone means by this is:
If you don't hand down a decision giving a good raise in wages the rank and file members of the brotherhoods will throw away all hopes of ever getting anything from arbitration. they will strike and destroy property and commit violence and go the same old route they did in the old days before anybody heard about arbitration.
The program of the U.S. industrial commission is for these hearings:
April 5 and 6-Pullman company (car service employes).
April 7 to 10-Shop strike on Illinois Central and Harriman lines.
April 12 and 13-Commercial telegraphers' dispute with companies.
April 14-Chicago stockyards.
April 15-Michigan copper country strike.
----------
[Photograph added.]
---------------
SOURCE
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Apr 1, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
-April 3, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Frank P Walsh
http://books.google.com/...
Robert T Lincoln
http://rogerjnorton.com/...
Graphic from International Socialist Review of April 1915
accompanies article by Carl Sandburg:
"Fixing the Pay of the Railroad Men."
https://books.google.com/...
See also:
Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations,
-Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 10: 9057-10,066
https://books.google.com/...
9543-9695-Pullman Employes
https://books.google.com/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Pullman Porters Ride Again
Eye On The Prize - Sweet Honey In The Rock
This diary is dedicated to R. W. Bell and the Federation of Pullman Conductors and Porters. I could find very little on this union man, nor on his union. I figure that the union was beat down to nothing and disappeared. But the struggle continued and another great union was built up and, through much struggle, took its place.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````