Today I received a letter from Mr. Edwin T. McCoy, of Phoenix, Arizona. He is secretary of the Legal Rights Committee created by the convention of the Arizona State Federation of Labor for the purpose of making secure the rights to which the workers of Arizona are entitled under state law, as well as under the laws of our Government, in an endeavor to help bring to justice the men who were so flagrantly guilty of assuming the functions of a government, functions neither recognized by the laws of Arizona nor of the United States, powers denied to the governments of our country and of that state.

It is not necessary that I should enter into a presentation of these matters. You are fully acquainted with them, and they are more particularly set forth in the findings and recommendations of the Mediation Commission created by the President of the United States, the commission of which the Honorable William B. Wilson, Secretary of the Department of Labor, was Chairman.

Mr. McCoy in his letter to me encloses a copy of the letter he addressed to you under date of January 13th, and which more than likely you have received today by the same mail as his reached me. In this instance I therefore simply desire to supplement and endorse the request made that the subject matter of the President's Mediation Commission's recommendation be given early consideration by your Department. Surely no body of men even in the Vigilante days ever assumed such powers of private invasion of constitutional right, trial and execution, as did the so-called Liberty League of Bisbee, Arizona.

Yesterday when I had the courtesy of your consideration I brought to your attention the charge of Judge Elliott to the jury, sitting in the case against the United Mine Workers of America, and further that after the jury had been out two days without coming to an agreement, that Judge Elliott called for the jury, expressed his opinion that the jury should bring in a verdict for the plaintiff against the miners, and by his statement that he would keep the jury until they reached a verdict, practically sentencing the jurors to permanent imprisonment, the jury under that duress brought in a verdict against the miners, mulcting them in the sum of Two Hundred Thousand Dollars under the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Law, triple damages, making it Six Hundred Thousand Dollars.

In addition I presented to you the contrast of the treatment accorded by the Supreme Court of the United States in the cases of the International Harvester Company, the Eastman Kodak Company, and others, and the request made that these trusts be not prosecuted at this time.

And on the other hand, the citation by the Supreme Court of the officers of the United Mine Workers to show cause on March 4, 1918, why they should not be punished as for contempt of court.

That all these matters are creating a feeling of unrest, the discriminatory course of the judicial branch of our government when it has to deal with the men of wealth, the corporations, on the one hand, and the workers on the other.

You have done me the honor of expressing your confidence in my desire to be of service to our country, and that confidence simply spurred me to further effort to the very best of my ability. Frankness compels me to say that unless there is fairer consideration given to the workers of our country in this crucial time, it is bound to create discontent and unrest, and the influence I may be enabled to exert to help stabilize that good will, will be greatly minimized.

It has been a great source of satisfaction to me when you have on several occasions expressed your earnest desire to distinguish between the bona fide organized labor movement and its honest effort to promote the rights and interests of the workers, and those elements which make for destructive rather than constructive principles, and I am therefore constrained to place the entire situation as indicated above before you for your consideration and for such action as you may deem wise and necessary in the premises.