Commission on Industrial Relations

The final report of the Commission, published in eleven volumes in 1916, contain tens of thousands of pages of testimony from a wide range of witnesses, including Clarence Darrow, Louis Brandeis, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Theodore Schroeder, William "Big Bill" Haywood, scores of ordinary workers, and the titans of capitalism, including Daniel Guggenheim, George Walbridge Perkins Sr. (of U.S. Steel), Henry Ford, and Andrew Carnegie.

There was public outcry as a result, and President William Howard Taft proposed the creation of a nine-person investigative committee called the Commission on Industrial Relations, which was approved by Congress[5] to be formally created April 23, 1912.

The Commission on Industrial Relations got its name from a petition presented to President Taft on December 30, 1911, entitled "Petition to the President for a Federal Commission on Industrial Relations," signed by 28 prominent people,[6] Members of the Committee on Standards of Living and Labor of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, many of whom were associated with Survey magazine, such as Paul Underwood Kellogg and John A.

However, an explosive report by Grant "Violence in Labor Disputes and Methods of Policing Industry"[10] was never published and is only available in draft form from the National Archives and Wisconsin Historical Society.

Congress had authorized the Commission shortly before the 1912 presidential election, in which incumbent President Taft was defeated by New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson.

The largest private fortune in the United States, estimated at $1 billion [Rockefeller], is equivalent to the aggregate wealth of 2.5 million of those who are classed as 'poor,' who are shown in the studies cited to own on the average about $400 each."

1 p. 80): "The final control of American industry rests in the hands of a small number of wealthy and powerful financiers," fewer than 60 men altogether.

The report signed by chairman Walsh and commissioners Lennon, O'Connell and Garretson, written by attorney Basil Manly, was much more provocative and accusatory in its tone and conclusions.

"[21] A separate supplemental statement joined only by Commissioners Lennon and O'Connell opposed the creation of an agency-administered system of mediation and arbitration, in favor of strengthening trade unions (and employer associations).

Graham Adams Jr. argues and Louis Galambos agrees that the Commission's hearings and reports influenced the passage of such labor legislation as the Adamson Eight-Hour Act.

[15] David Montgomery states: On the other hand, LaFayette Harter argues that the commission had been established to determine the roots of labor problems, but its liberal leanings caused Congress to ignore its findings.

[27][28] George Brooks, reviewing Adams' book, contends that despite the fact that Frank P. Walsh later became cochairman, with William Howard Taft, of the War Labor Board during World War I that "it is an exaggeration to assume that the Commission was the principal, or even a major, cause of subsequent developments and to attribute to it, as [Adams] does, the development of "a more steeply graduated tax structure, promotion of collective bargaining, minimum wage scales, and the eight-hour day...