In Colorado

Colorado's I. W. W. coal strike, current since October, ended last week. Wobbly Tom Connors, strike chief, announced that a statewide ballot (the second one cast within a month) was 88% in favor of returning to work. Another Wobbly leader gave the reason: "The slack season is upon us. It is foolish to strike when the bosses can meet the demand for coal by keeping a few scabs at work."

Both sides claimed victory, though the specific points at issue during the strike still awaited judgment by the Industrial Commission. The I. W. W. pointed to the perfection of an organization through which Colorado miners can exact higher wages when the slack season ends. Also, a Federal court decision in the strike's closing days restored to the strikers the right of habeas corpus, unconstitutionally denied them when Governor William H. Adams declared parts of Colorado to be in a "state of insurrection" (TIME, Dec. 5)

Colorado operators maintained that the strikers' morale had been undermined by loss of pay and the introduction of many new workers unsympathetic towards the I. W. W. But the largest operator, President J. F. Welborn of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., frankly admitted the injury done his own interests when he estimated that the four-month disturbance had cost Labor $3,000,000, railroads $4,000,000, affiliated industries $1,000,000 and Colorado's operators $10,000,000, not to mention markets which it would take years to recapture.