I’m travelling to Monterey this week to look through court records from the early 1900’s involving James A. Murray’s lawsuits against famed artist Charles Rollo Peters. It appears Murray held a substantial mortgage against Peter’s Gate, the artist’s popular retreat. Hopefully the court records and local newspaper accounts of the trial will review the nature of thier partnership. I’m hoping there is more to the story than Murray’s typical loan sharking practices. This is the last loose end in my research on Murray’s activities in Monterey.
Rocky Mountain Radicals: Labor’s Rich & Powerful Allies
New in the Spring edition of Montana: The Magazine of Western History
The labor movement in the Gilded Age and New Deal era found an unlikely pair of allies in a wealthy miner and his nephew.
James A. Murray started his business empire with a few dollars in his pocket in 1863 prospecting in Rocky Mountain mining camps along Mullan Road. Over the next fifty-eight years he built a fortune that today would exceed $2.0 billion and stretched from Seattle to San Diego, and from San Francisco to Wyoming. Murray was a staunch advocate for labor and never stopped supporting their cause as anti-union corporations enveloped the American West. He funded a radical pro-labor newspaper affiliated with the Wobblies during the height of labor strife in World War I, and extended his radical legacy with a significant bequest to his equally radical nephew, future U.S. Senator James E. Murray. The younger Murray rose to the top of Eamon de Valera’s support group in the U.S. and became the Senate’s strongest proponent of labor and progressive politics from the New Deal Era until the dawn of the Civil Rights movement.
The story of the radical Murray family is told in depth for the first time in a beautifully illustrated twenty-page article in the Spring 2016 Edition of Montana: The Magazine of Western History. Copies of the Spring edition can be purchased individually from the Montana Historical Society. The publication is also available in over 700 libraries across the globe. Find a copy near you on the World Catalog.
Coming next year: The biography of radical Copper King James A. Murray will be published by Montana Press Publishing Company in the Fall of 2017.
My Unorthodox Query Letter is Rejected. But I Wouldn’t Have Changed it.
My brother’s query on a unique travel destination between Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. Tonapah was a roaring mining camp back in late 1800’s and through the turn of the century. There is a nice hotel in town that has been restored recently. It makes a great pit stop.
My query letter to National Geographic’s Traveler was just rejected. But I think I did the best I could. Here are the details. Perhaps you will be inspired to put your own off-the-wall query letter into the mail.
I proposed a travelogue to central Nevada, participatory tourism to discover turquoise at the Royal Royston claim outside of Tonopah. That was what my Rock&Gem (internal link) article was all about and I thought I might interest Nat Geo in a piece tailored toward their audience.
Since my article and query letter revolved around turquoise, I decided to confort the query letter editor with the real thing: real turquoise. I bundled up two samples, one rough, one finished, and sent them off. I included my magazine article and a photo of Kate Blanchett at the Academy Awards wearing a turquoise necklace. Just to show turquoise is in style. (See the image below.)
Alas, my…
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Coming in Fall 2017
Signed on today with Mountain Press Publishing Co to publish the biography of James A. Murray, a radical Western millionaire.
Murray built his fortune alone and unaided. The Irish immigrant was a fervent supporter of labor and Irish Nationalism, and fought at every turn against corporate capitalism. He operated his business empire, stretching from Seattle to San Diego and east to Colorado, out of saloons and hotel lobbies. He dined with hack drivers and prostitutes in Rocky Mountain mining camps, and Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell in New York City. During the Gilded Age he owned the most magnificent home on the California Coast and a five star resort at the edge of Yellowstone Park.
Our presidential contenders could all benefit from free college tuition when they were 18
Lilia Vega of the Daily Clog takes baby boomers on a walk down memory lane with her piece that details the history of tuition and fees in the University of California system since 1868.
The UC system, one of two in California, and home to UC Berkeley and UCLA, started in 1868 with a goal of free tuition for all students. The system met that goal for over one hundred years. Here are the undergraduate tuition and fees that our presidential candidates would have paid if they entered the UC system when they were 18:
- Bernie Sanders, 1958-59: $70 per semester ($140 per year)
- Donald Trump, 1963-64: $178 per semester ($356 per year)
- Hillary Clinton, 1964-65: $202 per semester ($404 per year)
- Ben Carson, 1968-69: $322 per semester ($644 per year)
The above charges were fees for non-classroom expenses. Tuition was free. Adjusting these fees to today’s dollars, results in annual college costs for our candidates of $1,123, $1,348, $1,510, and $2,146.
And the cost for our next generation of leaders?
In 2015-16 our next generation is paying $5,006 per quarter ($15,000 per year) for the UC system. Of this amount, $3,740 per quarter is for tuition ($11,220 per year) and $1,266 is for fees ($3,800 per year). The new college catalogs address this with an entire section devoted to student loan programs, a feature missing in catalogs from the baby boom years.
Presenting this Weekend at the American Conference for Irish Studies Western Regional
The theme of the conference is Ireland: Memory and Monument. My presentation is about the potential meaning behind three monuments commissioned by James A. Murray, an Irish immigrant; a Celtic cross, a theater stage, and a pick and shovel.
Murray built a fortune in the American West with discipline, ruthless determination, deception, and colorful shenanigans that made him a favorite of the press. Murray’s accentuated personality included a remarkable radical streak unmatched by other Western millionaires. His radicalism first surfaced during the Irish Land League protests of 1883, and reached a zenith when Irish-American nationalism surged following the Easter Rising in 1916. Estranged nephew, NYU-trained lawyer, and future U.S. Senator James E. Murray served as elder Murray’s main political operative following The Rising. Elder’s money and younger’s ambition formed a powerful combination that rattled military agencies tasked with protecting wartime industries and filled coffers for Ireland’s revolution.
My paper explores the motivation behind Murray’s remarkable actions to support radical Irish organizations and labor unions, using three unusual monuments he commissioned over 100 years ago.
My Day, by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 5, 1953
FDR, Eleanor, and Senator Murray (University of Montana Mansfield Library Archives)
Senator James E. Murray was a prolific writer and speaker on all progressive issues. Here, Eleanor Roosevelt reflects on a speech Senator Murray gave on the importance of food and clothing in creating peace in the world. Roosevelt’s column is available on-line through George Washington University.
I have been thinking a great deal of late about a speech made some time ago by Senator James E. Murray of Montana when a Senate Joint Resolution was introduced on a nonpartisan basis to “provide for an international food reserve.” Members of both parties joined in backing this resolution and Senator Murray gave very good reasons why it should be backed by every farmer in America and by every processor and distributor of farm commodities because, he explained, “it would encourage abundant production of food and fibres and provide a constructive method of preventing market surpluses.”
Then he remembered to consider the consumer, the general public, you and I, who are usually forgotten in the press of special interest groups, and he said it would protect against “shortages and the consumer price increases which accompany shortages.” Finally he said this resolution would be of interest to the other nations of the world which produce or import agricultural commodities. He pointed out that food and clothing are two of the most vital weapons in mankind’s struggle for a happier and more peaceful world and for all these reasons he felt we should create at once an international food reserve.
It was an unusual thing to have a resolution of this kind come from the Senate and not through negotiation on the part of the executive branch of the Government first with other nations but, as the Senator pointed out, sometimes these negotiations on the part of governments come to nothing because they are not inspired or participated in by the Congress which in the long run does have to put the machinery in operation to bring anything of this kind about.
The resolution is simple. The first section indicates why an international food reserve is needed. The second section explains the purposes that will be served by an international food reserve, and the third section authorizes and directs our mission members in the U.N. to enter promptly into international negotiations for the purpose of preparing a specific plan. The fourth simply asks that this plan and the information pertaining thereto come to the Congress for approval. No funds are provided but the mere fact that the information supporting this resolution was before the Congress must have started much thinking, not only in our own country, but in the world and I hope that it will go on until something really constructive comes of it.
Eleanor Roosevelt, September 5, 1953
Toward Revolution!
Next week I will be speaking on the campus of University of Wisconsin – La Crosse at the Midwest Section of the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS). The theme of the conference is “Towards Revolution,” and my contribution will be a paper on the path of James E. Murray to the top of Eamon De Valera’s support group, the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. Murray’s involvement with De Valera started when the Irish leader first toured America in 1919 and ended with the start of the Irish civil war in 1922.
Murray’s climb was promoted by the Butte Bulletin, a radical labor daily funded by his wealthy uncle. The paper, distributed to labor camps throughout the West, was backed by the IWW and championed labor, socialism, and the end of British Imperialism. New information will be presented at this conference on the relationship between Uncle Murray and the Butte Bulletin.
Book Review: When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards at the Local Level
When Mandates Work [1] is a good resource guide for use in cities and airports located in primary urban markets. Most of the research centers on San Francisco, which likely applies to cities like Seattle, Portland and San Diego and their airports. The content of the book is drawn from individual journal articles written by several different authors, so the content varies dramatically from chapter to chapter.
Part one of the book looks at living wage ordinances in cities and airports. Significant benefits are found in terms of reduced turnover rates and improved employee morale. For restaurants in one study, price increases of 2.8 percent occurred, which is remarkably similar to estimates on anticipated cost increases derived using MIT’s living wage models.[2] As an aside, I am confounded that there is not bi-partisan support for living wages at fast food restaurants across the country. Why any fiscal conservative would not want the fast food industry to stand on its own, and stop using federal subsidies to bolster worker’s living standards, is incomprehensible.[3] Every fiscal hawk should be wagging their finger at Ronald McDonald to get off the public dole!
Part 2 covers health care benefits and Part 3 provides execution strategies – including the use of Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs).
Anyone looking at CBA’s for their city should take a close look at the CBA negotiated with Twitter in San Francisco. The hearings on this document are readily available on-line in City archives. Twitter clobbered the City in negotiations. Adding insult to injury, the primary beneficiary of Twitter’s move to the City’s central business district (building owners) did not participate at all in the CBA.
If you are on a budget, review the table of contents and search for the individual journal articles that comprise this book which are relevant to your situation, and download those individually (most libraries provide patrons with access to JSTOR – the primary database for academic journal articles).
[1] Michael Reich, Ken Jacobs, and Miranda Dietz, eds., When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards at the Local Level (University of California Press, 2014).
[2] http://livingwage.mit.edu/
[3] McDonald’s has in the past directed employees to federal assistance programs through their employee hotline.
Historical Amnesia: The Humphrey-Hawkins Act, Full Employment and Employment as a Right (Ginsburg, 2011)
President Jimmy Carter signs Humphrey-Hawkins.
From the article abstract:
Economist William A. Darity has proposed a federal job guarantee with decent wages for all job seekers, an idea with deep, but largely forgotten, roots in US history. The article briefly explores some New Deal job-creation efforts and President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal for an Economic Bill of Rights. It then focuses on two major attempts to secure full employment through legislation. The Full Employment Bill of 1945 was defeated; the compromise, the Employment Act of 1946 did not have full employment as its goal. After years of struggle, a much-weakened Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 passed, but then was violated and virtually ignored. Full employment shifts power from capital to labor, so major opposition can be expected from efforts to obtain it. Proponents need more power and a strong movement, including at the grassroots level, pushing for jobs for all–not just jobs for me or my group. Publicizing the benefits of past job programs and reintroducing the idea of a decent-paying job as a right are suggested, as well as making decent jobs for all the center of economic policy. This requires a fundamental break with neoliberalism and reallocating political power away from big business and Wall Street toward middle and working-class people and the working- and non-working poor.
Link to full article: http://www.njfac.org/bpe-ginsburg.pdf
Bill Farley, Ph.D. 