~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday January 9, 1916
From The Labor World: Rebuke of Walsh Report by The Survey Taken as Vindication

Apparently, the professional philanthropists do-gooders of The Survey are concerned that the employing class has not been given a fair shake by the Manly Report, prepared as a summary of the findings of the Commission on Industrial Relations. This report has been signed by all three of Labor's representatives on the Commission as well as by its Chairman, Frank P. Walsh, to his everlasting credit.

One might consider that impartiality is no longer called for after hours and hours of testimony from plain-spoken working men and women who described the daily despair of working long hours at starvation wages. Not to mention the horrific testimony which followed upon the Ludlow Massacre, the Roosevelt Massacre, and the shooting down of working people in strikes too numerous to mention here. Nevertheless, The Survey, through the pen of John A. Fitch, rebukes the Manly Report as sounding too much like "an extended editorial in the labor press."

Perhaps Mr. Fitch is concerned that the employing class with its company controlled governors who control the state militias, the county sheriffs who deputized the company gunthugs, and the major newspapers, owned and operated by the employers for the employers, have not adequately represented the interests of the class which rules America.

The concerns of the professional philanthropists are duly noted
in the January 8th edition of The Labor World:

WALSH REPORT GIVEN FINAL VINDICATION IN THE FORM OF REBUKE
AND CONDEMNATION BY PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPISTS' ORGAN

"WASHINGTON", Jan. 6.—The report of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations has received a final vindication in the form of rebuke and condemnation by "The Survey," a semi official organ of professional philanthropists, published at the United Charities Building in New York.

After delaying comment four months, The Survey devotes practically its entire issue of December 18 to an elaborate attempt to discredit the Manly report just when that report, representing the findings and conclusions of the Commission's staff is before Congress for action.

The job of rebuking Walsh, Manly and the labor members of the Commission is done by John A. Fitch, an associate editor. He devotes the first installment to the Manly report, and without denying a single fact or conclusion contained in that epoch-making document he manages to discredit it to his own satisfaction as doubtless to the satisfaction of those more enlightened exploiters of labor for whom The Survey is a sort of hired conscience.

Because he has been much in the field and is conscientious in small things, Mr. Fitch knows that the Manly findings are true. He says:

"It will be readily inferred by many that the Manly report is one of great value, and they will be right. Never before has any agency of the federal government issued a pronouncement that so breathed the spirit and the bitter resentment of organized labor. Not only has it been officially endorsed by the two million members of the American Federation of Labor, but the great railroad brotherhoods have accepted it, and it has been joyfully received by the spokesmen of the I. W. W. The fact in itself that it has been hailed with unanimity of feeling by the leaders of different labor groups that in method and philosophy are opposed, gives it vast importance.

No wonder The Survey condemns it!

The Committee on Industrial Relations will not look for any better statement of the reason why the Manley report should be printed in a large edition and made available for every man or woman in the United States who wants a copy.

If it voices labor's protest, if it serves notice on the country that industrial tyranny and exploitation must cease, if it breathes the wrath of the workers against a system that blights and kills thousands to enrich a few, then it accomplishes the one thing that most needed accomplishment.

"The Manly report," says Mr. Fitch, "breathes the spirit of labor." The spirit of labor will conquer. It is the spirit of freedom and humanity. It will conquer with or without the aid of those impartial men who sit apart, obsessed with fairness toward the oppressor, unmoved as they peer, calmly, through microscopes, at the sweat and blood and tears from which labor's wrath and labor's aspiration have been distilled.

[Photographs of Frank P. Walsh and Basil M. Manly added.]

SOURCES

The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Jan 8, 1916
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1916-01-08/ed-1/seq-1/

Hellraisers Journal: Frank P Walsh States His Commission Has Completed Its Work, Is Fixing Up Report by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/6/11/1392159/-Hellraisers-Journal-Fra...

Hellraisers Journal: Mary Petrucci fled burning tent as militia fired upon her and her children.
by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/2/7/1362630/-Hellraisers-Journal-Mary...

DK Tag: Commission on Industrial Relations
http://www.dailykos.com/news/CommissiononIndustrialRelations

IMAGES
Roosevelt NJ meeting with Mother Jones, Jan 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1915-01-22/ed-1/seq-16/#
Frank P Walsh from Harper's Weekly of Sept 27, 1913
http://books.google.com/books/reader?id=i2wyAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover...
Basil M Manly, Director of Research for CIR, Day Book, Aug 13, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/image/77854180/
The Survey, Cover, Dec 18, 1915
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=bLU5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Survey Associates, Inc, March 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=0UQ5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

See also:

Commission on Industrial Relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Industrial_Relations

Report of Basil M. Manly
(This report was signed by Chairman Walsh, along with the three Commissioners who represented Labor on the CIR, John B. Lennon, James O'Connell, and austin B. Garretson.)
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=WdseAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=WdseAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

The Survey, Volume 35
October 1915-March, 1916
Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, 1916
https://books.google.com/books?id=0UQ5AQAAMAAJ&dq=editions:tvKR4SKr8YAC&...
The Survey
(New York, New York)
-Dec 18, 1915
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=bLU5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
"Probing the Causes of Industrial Unrest
A Series in Three Installments Reviewing the Reports Issued
by the United States Commission on Industrial Relations"
-by John A. Fitch, Member of the Staff of the Survey
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=0UQ5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Note: Fitch's main criticism of the Manly report seems to be that it read as if it were an editorial in defense of Labor and did not give the employing class a fair shake:

Another distinctive feature is the vigor and feeling which mark its pages. There is none of the colorless, on-the-fence style that characterizes too many government reports, but the hot indignation that animated the author and enlivened his pen is apparent. The result, as the excerpts published in the following pages show, is an intensely readable document.

If this report could be treated as if it were an extended editorial in the labor press it would be easy to approach its main findings without searching criticism, for its classification of the causes of unrest are logical and true. Its generalizations on the relation of employer to employe and the status of workers before the law are such as will in the large commend themselves to students of the labor problem, and the recommendations are as a whole neither so original nor are they so fantastic as newspaper critics would have us believe.

The Manly report is not an editorial, however, nor is it to be judged by journalistic standards. The commission had twenty-two months to formulate its conclusions and it should not have found it necessary to worry about press-day. Its responsibilities, furthermore, were greater than those of any editor—and there is nothing light about the responsibility of editors of integrity—for it had an assignment from all the people of the United States, not from any single element of the population, and it was under the most solemn of obligations to discover the exact truth with regard to industrial relations and to report all the truth discovered, without regard to its effect, political or industrial.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
The Ballad of Petrucci at Ludlow - Tom Breiding