Salt Lake Tribune | 1915-02-05 | Page 1 | Federal Commission Probes Shooting

FEDERAL COffilSSl PROBES SHOOTING Director of Chemical Company Com-pany Called as Witness; Striker Testifies. FOUNDATIONS SCORED Morris Hillquit Asserts the Rockefeller Gifts Are Business Busi-ness Enterprises, NTCTV YORK, Feb. 4. An inquiry into the strike at the Chrome and Roosevelt, N. J., plants of the American Agricultural Agricul-tural Chemical company, which resulted In the recent shooting and killing of strikers, was today inaugurated by the federal commission on Industrial relations. rela-tions. The commission had before it one of the strikers and one of the directors of the company. The striker was Anton! Wialter, who testified that he tried to support a wife and live children on a wage of $1.60 a day, and failed. Even with additional money his wife was able to earn, he could not pay for the bare necessities of life, he said, so he ran into debt. The director was A. Barton Hepburn, who is also chairman of the board of directors di-rectors of the Chase National bank of New York City and one of the trustees of the Rockefeller foundation. Admits Ignorance. Mr. Hepburn said he knew nothing abdut the condition of the employees of the chemical company and he had never visited the plants in New Jersey. He first learned that strikers had been shot when he read It in the newspapers. He then called up an official of the company and was toid that the men were on strike 'for more wages and shorter working hours." The official also told him he believed the strike would be of short duration, as there were many men looking for 1 he places the strikers had vacated. As a stockholder, the witness did not consider himself responsible for the conditions condi-tions at Roosevelt. He defended the Rockefeller foundation, its purposes and policies, and said he did not know that among the securities held by It were those of the American Agricultural Chemical Chem-ical company. Hillquit Talks. Other witnesses today were George W. Klrchwey, professor of law at Columbia university; Morris Hillquit, Socialist writer, and John R. Lawson, executive board member of the United Mine Workers Work-ers of America. Professor Kirehwey today to-day gave it as his opinion that there was some doubt that the charters of the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations were constitutional, as they failed prop--erly to define the scope and purposes of the institutions. Mr. Hlilquit assailed the philanthropic foundations as being "at the bottom, business enterprises," founded by capitalists, capital-ists, not to relieve the suffering of their fellow men, but as a means of strengthening strength-ening their own social and economic position. posi-tion. While the Rockefeller relief ships for Belgium were being loaded, he said, thousands of American workers were suffering suf-fering from hunger within one mile of 26 Broadway.