1. Frank Morrison  (1859-1949) served as secretary of the AFL from 1897 to 1935 and as its secretary-treasurer from 1936 to 1939.  A native of  Frankton, Ontario, Morrison and his family moved to Walkerton, Ontario, in 1865, where he became a printer. Beginning about 1883, he worked at his trade in Madison, Wis. In 1886 Morrison moved to Chicago, where he joined International Typographical Union 16. From 1893 to 1894 he studied law at Lake Forest University, becoming a member of the Illinois bar in 1895. During World War I Morrison chaired the wages and hours subcommittee of the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense. 

2. John Phillip White (1870-1934) served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1911 to 1917. White was born in Illinois and later moved with his family to Iowa, where he entered the mines at age fourteen. He also served as secretary-treasurer (1899-1904) and president (1904-7, 1909-10) of United Mine Workers of America District 13 (Iowa) and as vice-president (1908) of the United Mine Workers. White was later adviser to the U.S. Fuel Administration (1917-19). He died in Des Moines, Iowa.

3. William Green (1870-1952) was secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers from 1913 to 1924. Born in Coshocton, Ohio, he left school after the eighth grade and, at the age of fourteen, became a water boy for track layers on the Wheeling Railroad. At sixteen Green joined his father in the coal mines. In 1888 he joined the local chapter of the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers, which later became local 379 of the United Mine Workers of America. Green held various offices in his local--secretary, business agent, vice-president, and president--and served as president of subdistrict 6 of United Mine Workers' district 6 (Ohio; 1900-1906), as president of district 6 (1906-10), and as statistician (1911-13). In 1910 and again in 1912 Green was elected to the Ohio senate, where he introduced a workers' compensation law and supported such measures as the limitation of hours for women workers, the income tax, and the direct election of U.S. senators. In 1914 he became a member of the AFL Executive Council and, after SG's death in December 1924, he became AFL president. He served in that office until his death.

4. The United Mine Workers of America was organized in 1890 when the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers and the Knights of Labor National Trade Assembly 135 joined forces.

5. On Dec. 1, 1913, a Pueblo, Colo., federal grand jury indicted president White, secretary-treasurer Green, vice-president Frank Hayes, and twenty-two other members of the United Mine Workers on charges of attempting to maintain a monopoly of labor and conspiracy in restraint of interstate commerce in connection with their actions in support of the striking Colorado miners. The indictments were eventually dropped.

6. The Sherman Antitrust Act, signed into law on July 2, 1890 (U.S. Statutes at Large, 26:209), prohibited combinations or conspiracies in restraint of interstate or foreign commerce.

7. The 1913 AFL convention met in Seattle, Nov. 10-22.

8. A reference to identical House and Senate bills endorsed by the AFL--H.R. 1873 (63d Cong., 1st sess.) introduced by Democratic congressman Charles Bartlett of Georgia on Apr. 7, 1913, and S. 927 (63d Cong., lst sess.) introduced by Democratic senator Augustus Bacon of Georgia on Apr. 15--to limit the use of injunctions and to exempt labor organizations from the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The bills were not reported out of committee but were superseded by legislation introduced by Democratic congressman Henry Clayton (H.R. 15,657, 63d Cong., 2d sess.).

9. On Dec. 16, 1913, SG testified before the House Committee on the Judiciary on the need for the Bacon-Bartlett bill.

10. The United Mine Workers' convention met in Indianapolis, Jan. 20-Feb. 2, 1914.

11. On May 8, 1913, members of the Light and Power Council of California--an industrial federation of utility workers in the San Francisco Bay area formed earlier in the year--struck the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. At issue were the wages of the company's electrical workers, affiliated with the seceding Reid-Murphy faction of the international union. When the company responded on May 21 by signing a three-year agreement with electricians from the McNulty faction of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, recognized by the AFL as the only legitimate union in the trade, the strikers turned to sabotage and violence, cutting transmission lines and dynamiting substations. SG went to San Francisco on Nov. 25, where he and other members of the AFL Executive Council negotiated an agreement between the McNulty electrical workers and the Pacific District Council of the Reid-Murphy faction. The Light and Power Council called off the strike on Jan. 13, 1914.

12. SG left San Francisco on Dec. 6, 1913. He addressed several conferences and met with labor representatives in New York City between Dec. 10 and 15 before returning to AFL headquarters.

13. The AFL chartered the San Francisco Labor Council in 1893.

14. The Labor Council supported the Reid-Murphy electrical workers' strike at the Pacific Gas and Electric Co and was censured for this by the AFL Executive Council in July 1913. Speaking before the Labor Council on Dec. 5, SG emphasized the need for unity in the labor movement and condemned factionalism, asserting that "when an international determines on a course of action it must be the law if we hope to progress" (Labor Clarion [San Francisco], Dec. 12, 1913).

WEB Accessibility