The Coal Miner Who Took the Capitol: Labor's 1911 Push in Olympia

ECHOES OF THE STATE FEDERATION OF LABOR CONVENTION. Random Thoughts Upon The Big Labor Conclave That Met In Olympia.

An honest confession is good for the soul. We are among the doubting Thomases who questioned the wisdom of taking the state federation convention to Olympia during a session of the legislature. And we were all wrong. The influence upon legislation of a convention of 400 thinking, determined men and women cannot be estimated too highly. After all, the members of the legislature and the state officials are our servants, and they are very human. Hitherto we have made considerable noise but it lacked concentration. It was more like the intermittent fire of a skirmishing party. This time the main body of artillery moved into action and our servants down there in the capitol caught a front view of the army and got a chance to count the guns. Result: a frantic endeavor to assure the army that they could have most anything they wanted. We believe they meant what they said and that real labor legislation will be enacted at this session.

Some of us who have attended previous conventions noted the absence of the fire-eaters, the fellows who were never happier than when they had the whole convention by the ears. In the main the convention was as devoid of unpleasantness as a Methodist love feast. And the influence of woman for good was strongly emphasized by the active participation of some of the highest type of refined, earnest womanhood. More than ever is she to be reckoned with now. She is a voter with knowledge of her power and a determination to use it rightly.

As a direct result of the convention three important pieces of legislation will undoubtedly be enacted. Direct legislation, women's eight-hour bill, workmen's compensation. You brothers who think the money your local has spent in affiliation is wasted, will you continue to think so? The enactment of any one of these measures as a direct result of federation activity will be worth all the money you have ever paid into the federation.

Those privileged to be present in the state house during the joint hearing of the senate and house committees on Labor will never forget the scene. The workmen's compensation measure was to be discussed. Upon the ability of its champions to present the merits of this bill hung perhaps the fate of industry. For men will not tolerate much longer an industrial system that sends men in the vigor of health to their work in the morning and sends them home a bleeding and mangled victim of industry, and makes the women and children of the victims objects of charity.

Last a common coal miner was to argue for the bill. He appeared on the floor. A quiet appearing little man, no different in appearance from the thousands of toilers of the pit who risk their lives daily to produce the generating force of commerce and industry. In his quiet voice he began to speak. He took up point by point the arguments of the opposition. In language correct but dispassionate, he shattered opposition. As he proceeded his voice took on the eloquence — not of the paid Fourth of July orator, but of the man who has LIVED the things he was trying to portray. Here was a man who had felt the shackles of industry; who had wiped the death damp from the brother killed in industry; who had borne the sad news home to the dependent ones who knew the coldness of a world's charity. There are men, Mr. Henrietty, who can sway an audience to tears or laughter by the magic wand of their eloquence. You are the peer of them all. When that measure passes, if to one man more than another credit can be given for its enactment, to the little, unassuming dynamo of the coal mines will go that crown.