Commission On Industrial Relations - Investigation

Investigation

The Commission's responsibilities were to:

"inquire into the general condition of labor in the principal industries of the United States, including agriculture, and especially in those which are carried on in corporate forms ...; into the growth of associations of employers and of wage earners and the effect of such associations upon the relations between employers and employees ..."

The commission held 154 days of hearings. Walsh's leadership of the Commission attracted media attention and publicity. Some of the commission findings included:

1. The Commission found that lumber workers in the Northwest labored at their jobs for ten hours a day at only twenty cents an hour.
2. Seasonal unemployment effected tens of thousands of people in Pacific Coast cities. Only the fortunate averaged more than a meal a day.
3. In California, migrant laborers work in fields with temperatures up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit on farms where growers refused to supply them water in the fields.
4. One Paterson, New Jersey silk mill fined workers fifty cents for talking and fifty cents for laughing while at work.

"In an era of...muckraking, the raised the technique to an unprecedented height."

The commission studied several major strikes which occurred during its investigations, including:

1. The Paterson, New Jersey silk mill strike (1911–1913), led by the Industrial Workers of the World,
2. New York City garment workers strike (1909–1910),
3. Illinois Central and Harriman lines struggles with the railroad shopmen (1911–1915),
4. The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company strike, where the Ludlow Massacre occurred (1913).

When Walsh embarrassed President Wilson, and suggested investigating the southern states, U.S. Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia attempted to cut Walsh's budget 75 percent. The vote failed, and Walsh promptly sent investigators to Smith's state, making lasting and powerful enemies.

Journalist Walter Lippman stated there was "an atmosphere of no quarter" when Walsh subpoenaed then questioned John D. Rockefeller, Jr. about the Ludlow massacre. For three days Walsh publicly chastised Rockefeller.

Historian Montgomery stated that the commission found:

"repression by police, judicial, and military agencies, which envisaged themselves as the defenders of society's "good people." And in each case but Philadelphia, where the public as a whole was irate over the general conduct of the transit company, the "good people" in turn indorsed the repression. Small wonder that in all these strikes, and above all in the sanguinary three-year conflict on the Illinois Central Railroad, workers simply took the law into their own hands."