Industrial Relations: Final Report and Testimony: Volume 9

Industrial Relations: Final Report And Testimony by United States. Commission on Industrial Relations. This volume compiles the 1915 hearings and testimony of the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations concerning labor-management relations in the Southwest and in the Colorado coal fields. In Ellis County, Texas, tenant farmer Levi Thomas Stewart and his wife Beulah describe mobile tenancy, debt through store credit and chattel mortgages, and the social burden of housing, health costs, and family life. Economist William E. Leonard provides macro analysis of Ellis County's tenant base, credit systems, and the barriers to land ownership, while the narrative also highlights gendered labor responsibilities. The report includes broader policy debates about tenancy, credit practices, rent, and migration, and presents a spectrum of landlord practices from benevolent to exploitative. A parallel set of local summaries discusses the Colorado coal strike, company towns, union rights, scrip, checkweighmen, militia involvement, and critiques of private influence and philanthropy in education and public life. Together, the document surveys the conditions of industrial relations and offers reform proposals grounded in detailed testimony and economic analysis.