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Victor
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The
Cripple Creek
Strike:
a History of
Industrial Wars
in Colorado,
1903-4-5
By Emma Florence Langdon
pages 435 TO 449
EIGHT HOUR LAW.
A number of eight-hour bills were introduced in the legislature by both Democrats and Republicans. Those introduced by the Democrats were in accordance with the constitutional amendment providing for a law making eight hours a day's work for all persons employed in underground workings, mills and smelters. The eight hour bills introduced by the Republicans were in the interest of the employers of this class of labor, aiming to limit the persons to be benefited by the eight hour law to a small per cent of those actually so employed.
The corporations being in control of the legislature, succeeded in having the eight-hour bill of their framing passed.
The bill that was passed was not at all satisfactory to union people as it was an eight-hour bill in name only and not at all such as was intended by the voters of the state when they voted for the constitutional amendment granting an eight-hour law.
For the information of the reader I reproduce the constitutional amendment for an eight-hour law as carried by the voters and the eight hour bill passed by the corporation-controlled legislature :
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
"AN ACT—To submit to the qualified voters of the State of Colorado an amendment to article five of the constitution of the State of Colorado by adding thereto a section, to be known as Section 25 A, directing the General Assembly to provide by law and prescribe suitable penalties for the violation thereof, for a period of employment not to exceed eight hours within any twenty-four hours (excepting in cases of emergency where life or property is in imminent danger), for persons employed in underground mines or other underground workings, blast furnaces, smelters, and any ore reduction works or other branch of industry or labor that the General Assembly may consider injurious or dangerous to health, life or limb."
EIGHT HOUR BILL
Bill as Carried by Corporations.
"Section 1. All labor of miners in underground workings, and labor directly attending blast furnaces, either in smelters or in ore reduction works, in directly attending stamp mills, chlorination and cyanide processes and directly attending smelting furnaces producing metal or matte, which labor is in contact with noxious fumes, gases or vapors, is hereby declared dangerous and injurious to health, life and limb; and the period of employment in underground mines or other underground workings, attending blast furnaces either in smelters or in ore reduction works, stamp mills, in chlorination and cyanide mills, and attending smelting furnaces producing metal or matte, shall be eight hours per day, except in cases of emergency, where life or property is in imminent danger.
"Sec. 2. Every person, body corporate, agent, manager, superintendent, employer, president or director shall, in every case of such emergency, make to the commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics, within ten days after the commencement of such emergency, a report, according to the form which may be prescribed by him, verified by the oath or affirmation of such person, employer, agent, manager, superintendent, president or director; each report shall exhibit in detail the circumstances creating such emergency.
"Sec. 3. Any violation of this act shall constitute a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine of not less than $50 nor exceeding $300."
As the reader will note the constitutional amendment provided for an eight-hour law as a sanitary measure for persons employed in mines, etc. The eight-hour bill passed by the legislature which has become a law, as it was signed by Governor McDonald, granted eight hours only to persons who were actual miners and persons directly attending blast furnaces. As a consequence, only a small per cent of persons employed in places as provided by the constitutional amendment were benefited by this so-called eight-hour law for the reason that the greater number work as helpers. The inconsistency of the bill can readily be seen, when, by reason of its being unhealthy employment it grants eight hours to men who are actually miners but denies the same benefit to others working along side of them as helpers, who are subjected to the same unhealthy conditions. The same applies to those working in mills and smelters.
This was the "just, and equitable" eight-hour plank adopted by the corporation-controlled convention.
Having the Fifteenth Assembly so completely under their control the corporations did not fail to present numerous bills, aiming to restrict labor unions. If some of these measures had become laws, organized labor would have been helpless. The gubernatorial contest having consumed two-thirds of the time of the legislature was the means of preventing the passage of these vicious measures, as the time remaining was too short to put them through.
The only bill passed that can be considered seriously against the interests of organized labor was an anti-boycott bill. This bill made it a penalty to ask people not to patronize any establishment unfair to organized labor or to call employes from any job. Attorneys claim this law is clearly unconstitutional. The labor unions will test its constitutionality upon the first arrest made.
A great disappointment to the corporations was their failure to get through a bill appropriating $800,000 to pay Peabody's military war debt. The direct cause of the failure of this bill from passing was that it was so apparent a graft, some of the Republican legislators, whose votes were necessary for its passage, believed that a large per cent should be divided among them as payment for their votes. The failure of the bill to pass was due to the fact that they could not agree upon the spoils to be thus divided. It is to be hoped that future legislatures will repudiate this so-called military indebtedness. The Mine Owners' Association being the one served by the military, should pay the bills.
I might state that as far as any legislative body passing a bill to prohibit any man or body of men from going on strike if they really wish, I do not believe it could be made effective.
We are a nation of strikers. Our independence was established by a strike. I claim the first strike that was called in the United States of America was in '76 and the leader of that strike was no one of less note than George Washington. It will be remembered that there was a Boston tea party. Property was destroyed and by the strikers, tea was thrown overboard. King George called out his red-coated military to suppress the strikers but the strikers refused to be suppressed and since that time we have had handed down from generation to generation a document that we are pleased to call the "Declaration of Independence," which was the terms on which the first strike in this country was settled.
A similar but worse condition confronts us than confronted those patriots of '76. They struck for the abolishment of a tax and established a nation; we strike for the right to live under the banner of liberty that they fought to establish and to enjoy all the benefits it implies.
SMELTERMEN DECLARE STRIKE OFF.
The mill and smeltermen employed at the Globe and Grant smelter had been on strike for over twenty-one months prior to the passage of the eight-hour bill. The strike was called July 3, 1903, and the issue was an eight-hour workday. The men did not demand ten hours' pay for eight hours' work, but were willing to have the wage scale adjusted fairly between employer and employe.
It was not the amount of labor they did in their ten-hour shifts that caused the strike, but it was being confined so many hours in the presence of noxious smelter gases. The number of hours that were put in sent men to the grave and made many families destitute. Broken in health and spirit, the workers decided to make one last fight for their lives. While they have not won a decisive battle, they have won admiration by refusing to work without gaining at least one concession.
At a meeting of Mill and Smeltermen No. 93, W. F. M., at which a number of prominent speakers of the national organization were present, a resolution calling off the strike was adopted. The resolution stated that while the eight-hour bill did not include all the smeltermen they believed when it became a law it would give an eight-hour day to some of the employes.
SHERIFF BELL'S TROUBLES.
The sheriff of Teller county has his hands full keeping the mine owners' imported "gun-fighters" in order. Now that there are no more deportations taking place or union men to be murdered, this element had to occupy their time in some way in order to kill the monotony. Burglary and highway robbery are of frequent occurrence. Sheriff Bell is in a peculiar position regarding these men. They having rendered the Mine Owners' Association good service during the strike and election, and their services probably being needed in the near future when it is expected that the non-union miners will go on strike as it is rumored that their wages will be reduced and they will be asked to work ten hours per day. So Bell, being a mine owners' man, has to overlook a great deal from the mine owners' pets—the "gun men." As an example of how these ''law and order'' supporters, violate the law with impunity, I here give a little history of what took place in May.
The reader will remember a deputy by the name of Warford, who, on election day, murdered Chris Miller and wounded Ike Liebo, both union men. Warford and his partner, Kenley, were proud and boasted of having been chums of the notorious Tom Horn, professional murderer who was finally hung in Wyoming for murdering a boy.
Warford was finally arrested for the murder committed on election day and confined in jail, where he feasted royally at public expense. He was tried for murder at the February term of district court, and while the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming, he had enough of his "law and order" friends on the jury to cause a disagreement. He was returned to the jail to await another trial, but May 13, District Attorney Hamlin, who was elected on the "law and order" ticket of which Warford was a guardian angel, nollied his case and turned this red-handed murderer loose on this blessed "law and order" community.
Kenley and Chapman, another imported "gun man," were arrested on January 1 for the robbery of Daniels' assay office in Cripple Creek, and Sheriff Bell announced that he had "overwhelming testimony" of their guilt, in addition to their identification by Mr. Daniels, whom they captured when they stole the contents of his office. But both of these "law and order" shining lights had rendered the Republican party signal services in the campaign, and after lying in jail for four months, their cases were nollied by the "law and order" district attorney, without even the formality of a trial. And it is thus that "law and order" virtues are duly recognized in the Cripple Creek district.
Monday, May 15, Kenley and Chapman visited the down town office of Sheriff Bell to demand the arsenal of which each was divested when arrested. Some red hot words passed between the erstwhile "law and order" companions, when Sheriff Bell disarmed Kenley of one gun and ordered Deputy Underwood to take the culprit to jail, a little more than a block away. The two had proceeded only a few yards, however, when Kenley drew a second gun suddenly and compelled his official escort to hold up his hands. Sheriff Bell saw the occurrence and started to the aid of his deputy, but before he had gone many yards, he, too, was invited to hold up his hands and found himself looking into the barrels of two revolvers in the hands of Warford. Then Warford and Kenley marched the sheriff and deputy to the jail, one block away, the officers trying to scrape the clouds with their uplifted hands while they marched before their captors.
After Warford and Kenley had "shooed" the amiable sheriff and deputy to jail, they bade the officials a fraternal "law and order" farewell and started towards Anaconda. Soon the sheriff and a number of his deputies, reinforced by a platoon of Chief Sharpe's cossacks, started in pursuit. The "law and order" pets of District Attorney Hamlin were overtaken about a mile south of the city, and a battle ensued compared with which the conflict of General Bell at Dunnville was a mere skirmish. The fugitives were wounded and captured, largely through the aid of Chief Sharpe's braves, and marched back to the city, where their former admiring chief loaded them with chains and tossed them into the dark and dismal dungeons of Castle Bell. There they shall remain at the expense of the taxpayers until their wounds are healed and their spirits recovered, after which, doubtless, the district attorney will recognize their great "law and order" services to himself and the other Republican candidates during the last campaign, by nollying their cases once more. The district attorney displays a keen sense of gratitude, to say the least, and he seems ready to protect the "law and order" friends to whom he owes his election, regardless of consequences.
As I am writing the closing pages of this book, it is rumored that the "gun men" of the district are determined to liberate Warford, Kenley and Chapman even if they have to take the jail by force. From the foregoing it is evident that the sheriff can expect a strenuous time so long as the men of this class remain in the district.
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?
Nearly all the troubles depicted in this, Part II, resulted from the Independence explosion. As previously recorded, every possible effort was made by the Mine Owners' Association to fasten this crime upon members of the Western Federation of Miners. Numerous indictments were served against members of this organization, charging them with complicity in this crime.
Each and every one of them, when brought to trial have been acquitted. This is equally true of every case since the inception of the strike, including the Sun and Moon cases at Idaho Springs, spoken of in Part I. Not one member of the Western Federation of Miners has been convicted of any crime of which they have been accused. Since the mine owners and Citizens' Alliance, backed by the powers of the state, with unlimited use of detective agencies, a district attorney elected from their own organization, with all their hatred of the unions could not convict a member of organized labor for the Independence explosion, who, then, was responsible for this atrocious crime?
In order that the unprejudiced reader may be able to form an opinion as to which side to this industrial conflict had the most to gain from the perpetration of this terrible deed I will describe conditions as they existed just previous to the explosion.
At that time public sentiment was clearly in favor of the strikers, for the reason that the strikers had submitted patiently to all abuses heaped upon them by the mine owners, the Citizens' Alliance and the militia. In not one instance had a striker resisted arrest and in every case that came to trial where members of the unions were accused of crime, they were acquitted, in spite of the fact that the juries were composed mostly of men who were only too willing to find them guilty. The strikers were relying solely upon the justness of their cause to win and no one realized more fully than they, that the perpetration of crime upon their part, could only weaken their cause. Just previous to the explosion the supreme court had rendered its decision in the Moyer case, which decision gave the governor absolute power of life and death over persons the governor might declare in insurrection. This would serve as a check upon strikers meditating crime, as they knew they could look for no mercy. The union people of Teller county and especially of the Cripple Creek district had been taking a very active part in politics, in the hope of defeating their avowed enemy, Governor Peabody, for re-election.
At the primary elections held to elect delegates to the county conventions which would select delegates to attend the Democratic state convention, the union voters elected two-thirds of the delegates from the ranks of organized labor, thus proving conclusively that organized labor at this time was in a position to control politically.
The day the explosion occurred, a state convention of the Democratic party was being held at Pueblo, at which it was well known that strong resolutions would be adopted condemning Governor Peabody's method of dealing with the strikers. These facts go to show that the strikers had everything to gain by maintaining the law and all to lose by the perpetration of crime that would be sure to bring public sentiment against them. If the crime was committed by a union man it could only have been done by one driven insane through persecution of himself and family.
Upon the other hand, the mine owners and their sympathizers, had expended thousands of dollars, and in spite of having the aid of the militia, were at that time far from being successful in their undertaking of destroying the miners' union. They saw public sentiment against them, the majority of the people of the state and nation condemning Peabody's methods and organized labor in the county in control politically. What could change these conditions? Some crime that could be laid at the door of organized labor and give excuse for deportation. Every attempt had been made to provoke the strikers to violate the law, without success, so what more natural than to cause some crime to be committed and lay it to organized labor? Dear reader, do you believe this to have been impossible? Remember the plot that was fully exposed in court in the attempt to fasten the crime of attempting to derail a passenger train on the F. & C. C. railroad upon union men at which McKinney confessed to being hired by detectives in the employ of the Mine Owners' Association to commit this crime, in order to fasten it upon the strikers.
McKinney also testified at this same trial that he would kill two hundred and fifty human beings for $500. Remember, McKinney was at this time a free man, having been set free at the suggestion of the attorney for the mine owners. Having one such man as McKinney in their employ may they not have had others? Desperate as I know the mine owners and the Citizens' Alliance to have been at this time on account of their failure to defeat the strikers and wipe out the W. F. M. I do not believe they would have deliberately planned such a crime at so great a sacrifice of human life even to throw odium upon the strikers. It has been suggested that some one acting for the mine owners gave orders to some desperado in their employ to cause an explosion and destruction of property so as to give further excuse for persecution of the strikers and that the hired tool overdid the job.
It is significant that for a week prior to the explosion quite a number of toughs and professional thugs had made a re-appearance in the district who had been visitors before, about the time of the other outrages. The re-appearance of these men was quite generally remarked and wondered at by the union men. About this time railroad men had reported the arrival of large consignments of the latest improved fire arms that were taken to the Citizens' Alliance headquarters at Victor.
On the morning of the explosion it was noticed that the mine owners and their allies were in no way embarrassed but conducted their business of getting all their men together and arming them, as though the whole program had been prearranged and rehearsed. This was especially remarked and commented upon by others than union men and to say the least was very significant.
In my opinion they came near to detecting the criminal when one of the bloodhounds led the searchers to the door of the dwelling place of one of the mine owners' detectives and was at once called off of the scent. They went back and took another bloodhound and put him on the scent and he, too, went to the same house, but was called off when he reached the gate.
It is to be hoped that some day the truth of this matter will be known and if that day ever comes I am convinced the criminal will not be found to have been a union man.
A COMPARISON.
The conditions that have existed in Colorado since the strike was called in the Cripple Creek district reminds one of events that transpired centuries ago which caused the French Revolution.
Tyranny and democracy can not dwell together. The conflict between the tyrant and those over whom he tyrannized has often been long and bitterly fought in all ages. The French Revolution was an effective struggle for the abolishment of despotism. This historic event, so filled with suffering, to the modern thinker, shows the evolution of the principles that build up or wreck nations. Take the fall of the bastile for instance: At that time with four towers looking toward St. Antoine and four upon Paris, the famous French Bastile with impenetrable walls surrounded by an impassable defense stood defying with proud scorn the murmurs of the people. Though at first only a local prison, the fortress finally became the common jail for all accused, guilty or innocent. A just trial was unknown. Mere suspicion meant a life sentence. Pious priests, brilliant authors and gallant generals were incarcerated to please court minions. The great Voltaire without the semblance of a (law) trial, was committed to the dungeon, and while there he penned his famous "Henriade," which fired the hearts of thousands to resist to the.death the imposition of a heartless nobility; the intrepid Labowrdrannais triumphant at Madras over his country's ancient enemy, the "Man in the Iron Mask," whose face was hidden for a quarter of a century and whose name shall remain a mystery forever—these and a host of others, innocent of wrong, imprisoned in dark loathsome cells, were lost—lost to their friends and the world, forgotten by the ruling nobility into whose hands fate had consigned the life and property of the people.
Accordingly the people came to regard the bastile as the stronghold of tryanny. What wonder then that it became the first object of attack when the populace rushed for vengeance. The king styled himself the state. The clergy and aristocracy were relieved from duty and supported by the government and were exempt from taxation, while the artisan must labor without remuneration, without protection and without hope. Peasants were robbed by the lord of the manor, by priest and king, barely existed, half starved and poorly clad.
The people began to move impatiently under this system. A revolutionary spirit was kindled. The king increased the taxation but in spite of this he could not meet the expenses; his failure to pay his soldiers and especially the rumor that he had dismissed Neckar, a minister and possible savior of France, fanned the spark.
Sunday, July 12,1789, the cup of iniquity became full to overflowing and judgment was at hand. Busts of Neckar and D'Orleans covered with mourning were carried through the streets by a suffering throng, crying: "To arms! To arms!" The ever increasing multitude with axes, staves and pikes, surged hither and thither. maddened by the wrongs of a century, despoiled by unjust and oppressive laws, and when darkness fell, Paris found itself in the throes of revolt and anarchy. The next morning the city awakes, not to its week-day work, but to the work of righting the wrongs of suffering humanity. The laborer turns soldier.
The multitude demands its own. Hungry and bitter, with little regard for its own miserable life, it breaks through the cobwebs of artificial legislation; the hedges of authority and pretended rights fall apart like rotten timbers. Meanwhile the tide rises. The unpaid soldiery takes up the cause of the people. Not a protesting hand is raised. Justice and right was on the side of the people and woe to the nobles and the lords of the manor. A revolution can not go backward. This day ye shall do or die. "Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! Give me liberty or give me death."
With the first ray of light on the morning of the fourteenth, the sleepless and trembling king heard the cry now frantic and fearful.'' Give us arms, a hundred and fifty thousand!'' At nine o'clock the national volunteers march to get the one thing needful and the passionately desired arms are secured. Then, as by common consent, all turn toward the Bastile, the seeming incarnation of their wrongs. Like a raging lion, Paris sprang upon its hated foe.
Neither the strong defenses nor the massive walls could hold the multitude. On, on to the rescue of the innocents. The crackling of the musketry, the volley of grape shot from the castles serve only to intensify the madness. The great chain of the outer gate gives way under the fierce onslaught. Goaded by cruel wrongs and dreadful suffering, infuriated Paris halts not in her course of destruction, until the grim walls of the Bastile fall with a thunderous crash—a sound heard round the world, making tyrants quake and monarchs tremble in their capitols.
It seems but yesterday that Louis XIV reveled in careless debauchery and fancied that he was the state because he happened to stand for a short time on the throbbing necks of a patient people. But the shadow of his castle of terrors, the Bastile, suddenly crumbled and disappeared. The conceited despot had hardly closed his eyes when French aristocracy felt the ground crumbling beneath their feet. The Bastile ruins were drenched with the blood of royalty and aristocracy.
The Bastile of France is no more. But the American Bastile has come. The French Bastile stood amid a people who had come through centuries of feudal oppression. It worked noiselessly and secretly. Its victims disappeared over night and were heard from no more. Bayonets, guillotines, draconic laws, chambers of torture, and a network of police spies held down every deep breath of the people. Yet the inexorable hand of social evolution pushed new methods of production, new social classes, and new ideas into this mass of vassals, and the feudal house of cards was blown into oblivion.
The American Bastile has been erected in Colorado. Its vietim is union labor. Since the French people, several years ago, overthrew the Bastile, think you that the American people of the twentieth century would be any more tolerant of its counterpart—the "bull pen?" True, we have no tyrant king in America today, but we are fast raising an element as arrogant and dangerous to the happiness and prosperity of the masses as any monarch. The gigantic and soulless trusts of today are the menace of our government, and if not restrained will bring on a repetition of the French Revolution. God forbid that day should ever come. The intelligent use of the ballot by the masses is the only remedy to restrain the trusts and corporations. It is to be hoped that the citizens of our great nation will realize this before it is too late.
IT IS TIME.
In this age, when gold is king, sitting on a brazen throne;
When it is the proper thing, rating men by what they own;
When the brute is more and more and the spirit less and less;
When the world Is lorded o'er by corruption and excess—
It is time that men of worth boldly step into the van
With this message to the earth: Down with Mammon, up with Man.We have seen the idler boast while the toiler lacked for bread;
We have seen the king and priest rob the living and the dead;
We have seen the thief arrayed in the purple robe of state,
While the honest man was made to beg succor at his gate.
It has ever been the same since our human world began;
Let us stay the sickening game—Down with Mammon, up with Man.Earth is far too wise and old for a lordling or a slave;
For to heed a ring of gold on the forehead of a knave;
Far too old for war and hate—old enough for brotherhood;
Wise enough to found a state where men seek each other's good.
We have followed self too long—let us try a better plan,
Keep the right, subdue the wrong—Down with Mammon, up with Man!—J. A. Edgerton.
THE POWER OF THE BALLOT.
It is evident that the conflict between capital and labor will, in the future, to a large extent, be fought in the legislative halls of our country. The employers of labor are and will endeavor to procure legislation restricting the rights of labor unions. They will undertake to make it a criminal offense to strike or boycott. In order to procure legislation of this nature the organized employers elect legislators whom they can control. We, working people, have been too indifferent to matters of legislation. Being vastly in the majority, we could by concerted action elect men from our own ranks as law-makers.
I, although never having taken an active part in politics, have, nevertheless been amazed at the little value placed on the right of franchise by the middle and working classes; most of us seem willing to allow the professional politician to look after our affairs politic, seeming to be glad to shirk this responsibility.
My friends, when we consider that the whole fabric of our government practically rests upon the ballot, that whether men elected to high office be fit to conduct the affairs of office in the interest of the masses of the people rests with ourselves who, by the ballot, determine who our officers shall be. I sometimes think that it would be a good thing for the working classes if they were denied for a time the right of franchise. Were it a fact that none but large property holders were allowed to vote, you can imagine what the principal agitation would be. The present day agitation for more wages and shorter hours would give way to the agitation for the right of franchise.
Probably after a great deal of effort we had again secured the right of franchise we would value this great boon at its true worth, and would never again trust our interests to the professional politicians, who invariably work in the interest of the corporations, whose only patriotism lies in the making of money at the expense of the masses.
Friends, arouse. Hold voting as a sacred duty to yourselves and your fellow workers, and be assured that if you but take proper interest in public affairs there is nothing you complain of politically or anything that you desire in the way of just legislation but what can be procured by wise and united use of the ballot, and rest assured if you do not look after your own interest the corporations will not do so for you.
I stood upon the sidewalk, and viewed the passing throng
Of union men in uniform, who proudly marched along,
With flags and banners flying, how sweet the hands did play—
It was a scene that once a year occurs on Labor Day,
The thousands who were looking on kept up a constant cheer
As union after union passed, how fine they did appear.
I thought while gazing on the scene, I'm thinking yet today—
Why don't they vote together as they march on Labor Day?
The Allied Printing Trades passed by, a splendid set of men.
Their mettle has been tested and they stood together when,
The outlook seemed extremely dark, and yet they never flinched.
The people had a welcome for the men who build the town—
The unions in the Building Trades have often won renown.
I thought as they went marching by, I'm thinking yet today—
Why don't they vote together as they march on Labor Day?
The boys from mill and factory, comprising every trade
Which goes to make a city great, were in
No one could help but be impressed at such a splendid sight.
For all admire the men who stand for justice and for right.
Fraternalism reigned supreme, 'twould do a person good
To see the workers marching on in one grand brotherhood.
I thought while gazing on the scene, I'm thinking yet today—
Why don't they vote together as they march on Labor Day?—Thomas H. West.