Samuel Gompers Papers

1. Daniel Willard (1861-1942), president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (1910-41), was a member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense (1916-18) and served as its chair from March 1917 until October 1918 when he was commissioned for a short time as a colonel of engineers in the army. He also served briefly (November 1917-January 1918) as chair of the War Industries Board.

2. Frank Hoffstot to Willard, n.d., Files of the office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 91, frame 109, AFL Records. Hoffstot was president of the Pressed Steel Car Co. from 1908 until 1933.

3. SG to John Williams, Apr. 20, 1917, Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 83, frame 351, AFL Records.

4. John Williams  was president of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers from 1911 to 1919.

5. In reference to the calling of this conference, which met in Washington, D.C., on Apr. 23, 1917, see also B. E. V. Luty to Bernard Baruch, Apr. 16, Baruch to SG, Apr. 19, and SG to Baruch, Apr. 20 (Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 83, frames 281, 283-87, 291).

6. William Cox Redfield (1858-1932) was U.S. secretary of commerce (1913-19). He had previously served one term as a Democratic congressman from New York (1911-13).

7. William Bauchop Wilson was the first U.S. secretary of labor, serving from 1913 to 1921.

8. M. Grant Hamilton, a member of the AFL Legislative Committee (1908, 1912-13, 1915-18).

9. Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers' vice-president Walter Larkin. Also attending the conference was James Sullivan, representing the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense.

10. Some seven hundred workers at the Yorkville, Ohio, mill of the Wheeling Steel and Iron Co. struck on Apr. 11, 1917, demanding reinstatement of a discharged worker and recognition of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers' local 81 of Yorkville, which had been organized the week before. Federal mediators Hywel Davies and William Fairley assisted the two sides in reaching a settlement on Apr. 21, under which the company agreed to pay the union wage scale--a pay increase of about 10 percent.

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