Industrial Relations: Final Report and Testimony Submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations Created by the Act of August 23, 1912

Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1916. First Edition. Eleven volumes; thick octavos (23cm.); publisher's tan double-ruled cloth, spines lettered in black. Ex-Willard Library with their contemporary bookplates to front pastedowns, cloth and textblocks a bit dust-soiled, spine cloth slightly darkened, else a Very Good, sturdy set. Issued as Senate Documents Vols. 19-29 for the 64th Congress, 1st session, December 6, 1915-September 8, 1916, Document 415. Comprehensive report of the labor struggles and laws at the turn of the 20th century, subsantially devoted to the Colorado Labor Wars. The Commission was first created in 1912 in the wake of a wave of labor disputes, and was headed by Woodrow Wilson's appointee, the progressive lawyer Frank P. Walsh. The Report, completed four years after the Commission first began its research, reached a total of 11,260 pages, the first 265pp. consisting of the report, the remaining text devoted to testimonials. Listed among the testimonials are those of Samuel Gompers on the American Federation of Labor, the Socialist Party, and the Industrial Workers of the World; and chapters on the mining conditions of Butte, Montana; the industrial relations of Seattle, Washington; collective bargaining in California; the "smuggling of Asiatics"; the and the Colorado Coal miners' strike (Vol. VII, pp. 6345-6990, Vol. VIII, pp. 6991-7425 and 7761-8013; Vol. IX, pp. 8015-8948), whose opening testimonies include those of two coal miners' wives, Mrs. Pearl Jolly and Mrs. Mary Hannah Thomas, the former's husband having been laid off after travelling to Trinidad, Colorado, one weekend, the trip coinciding with a United Mine Worker's convention, though according to his wife he was only there "to do a little shopping" (p. 6348). Contents also include several testimonies made by Pullman employees (Vol. X, pp. 9543-9695) with detailed descriptions of the duties of a Pullman porter.