324 ROBERT H. THURSTON 



states it was found necessary to enact special laws forbidding 

 discrimination against union men for thus exhibiting their 

 patriotism. Patriotism was by large bodies of citizens made 

 a crime, and treason was encouraged and upheld. 



The report of the commission appointed by the president 

 of the United States with the later endorsement of congress, 

 which body appropriated the needed funds for its compensa- 

 tion, was made only after a long, careful, and minute study of 

 the case, and after receiving the testimony of all available 

 witnesses and hearing the arguments of both parties to the 

 dispute, represented by the ablest counsel. It covered all 

 the specific questions raised, and a discussion of the details 

 of the testimony and of the principles involved from the point 

 of view of law and of equity, as well as of economic and 

 criminal law. It was decided that it would be right to raise 

 somewhat the wages paid in the anthracite coal fields, to 

 shorten, in some cases, the length of the working day, and to 

 adopt, in other cases, a sliding scale of payment of coal pro- 

 duced, basing the scale upon the prices obtained for the coal 

 at tide water in New York harbor. It was reported that the 

 pay previously given was not by any means as low compared 

 with that of other vocations as had been claimed, and that 

 the workers in the mines were able to adopt a scale of living 

 fairly comparable with that attained by labor of similar grade 

 in other occupations or in other coal fields. It provided for a 

 conciliation commission to settle disputes that might later 

 occur, and that the agreements made under the award should 

 hold until 1906, the advances dating from November, 1902. 

 This should be followed by other and new agreements made 

 by mutual understanding. The decision forbade discrimina- 

 tion between union and non-union men, abolished the "Coal 

 and Iron Police" employed and paid by the mine owners, 

 recommended new and better laws against the employment 

 of children, and advised state and national laws providing 

 for compulsory investigation, but not of arbitration, of future 

 contests of a similar sort. 



The conclusions reached by the commission as just sum- 

 marized were given broadest statement in the final sections 

 of the report in which the general principles involved were 



