The
Pinkerton Labor Spy
by
Morris Friedman

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CRIPPLE CREEK STRIKE CONCLUDED.

The explosion which wrecked the Independence depot, and sent over a dozen non-union miners to death, is one of those events which teach us more in one minute than we could otherwise learn in a lifetime. It is well to look into an occurrence of this kind by a fair and intelligent analysis.

There can be no doubt that the explosion was premeditated, and was the result of as infernal a conspiracy as has ever been hatched by human brains.

There can also be no questioning the fact that there must have been some motive, some incentive; and it is equally certain that the fiend who executed this conspiracy, did the work of ruin and death in consideration of a large sum of money. It is also an indisputable fact that if the dynamiting was the result of a conspiracy, the conspirators must have been either the heads of the Mine Owners' Association or the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners.

As the reader is aware, the Mine Owners promptly laid the crime at the door of the Federation, and with the assistance of the military, drove every union miner from the camp.

The fact that the Western Federation of Miners is a labor order, and the Mine Owners' Association is a society composed of millionaire mine owners and smelter magnates, should not stand in the way of an impartial review of the case.

At the time that the explosion occurred, the strike in the Cripple Creek and Telluride districts had already dragged on for a year. During this time the miners had seen and passed through enough to convince them that the entire Colorado State Administration was in an alliance with the mine owners, smelter trust and coal operators, and would do anything, whether lawful or unlawful, to break the strength of both the Federation and the United Mine Workers of America.

The miners had already had the bitter experiences that quiet, orderly behavior was no protection from the insults and attacks of the State militia. They had seen how their leaders were accused of every crime, and mercilessly persecuted, even after the proper courts had cleared and vindicated them. They had seen how the Mine Owners' Association, in their hatred of the Federation, stooped to conspire with a degenerate in a desperate effort to fasten the crime of attempted train-wrecking upon the union.

The miners were too well aware that they were under constant surveillance by the military, the mine owners, the Citizens' Alliance, and by private detectives. The miners knew that any acts of violence on their part would be revisited a thousandfold by the militia on their heads and on the heads of their families.

Knowing these facts as they did, and assuming Manager McParland's estimate of the Federation to be correct (that the terrible Molly Maguires were but children in comparison with the Federation), can we for a moment believe it possible that an organization so ably led would jeopardize the outcome of a long and bitter struggle so far successful, and imperil the immense interests of their order, by wrecking a petty railroad station, and slaughtering a small number of non-union men?

Is it not safe to assume that the leaders of the Federation knew the conditions in the Cripple Creek district well enough to understand that the murder of a few non-union men would but serve as an excellent excuse for the militia to take summary vengeance on them? Again, is it reasonable to assume that these leaders would give their enemies the very opportunity for which they had been vainly hungering for so many months?

Admitting it to be a fact that the Federation bitterly resented the calumnies and accusations of the allied forces, and also admitting it to be a fact that the Federation was anxious for public vindication from the many charges preferred against them, would it not be ridiculous to assume that the leaders of the Federation would commit an act which would tend to substantiate the charges and alienate that public sympathy and support which alone stood between them and the mailed fist of the military?

Clearly, there was no motive that could have actuated the union to authorize the fatal explosion. Common sense, self-interest, a desire to retain public sympathy, well-grounded fears of the military, alike forbade the serious consideration of such an insane scheme.

When we consider the possible connection of the Mine Owners' Association with the Independence explosion, we find that, although direct evidence cannot be adduced, there is data upon which a tolerably correct conclusion can be based.

Is it not a fact that such an explosion could only redound to the interests of the Mine Owners' Association? Is it possible that an infernal machine could have been placed under the depot, and a wire three hundred feet in length run from the depot to a point near the Delmonico mine, without the ever-vigilant mine owners and detectives discovering the intended outrage? Is it not a matter of significance that directly after the explosion, when popular feeling was at fever heat, the Mine Owners, instead of offering an immense reward for the capture of the assassin, and instituting a vigorous search, played mob law politics and seized the civil government; forced Sheriff Robertson to resign on pain of being hanged, and substituted in his place a member of the Mine Owners' Association; compelled every official connected with the civil government of Teller County to quit his office in favor of some member of their association—is it not like a well planned coup d'etat?

And is it not more significant still, that in a few months after these events, the Mine Owners' Association bent every energy to elect C. C. Hamlin, their secretary, as district attorney of Teller County, and succeeded in electing him to that important position?

Why did the mine owners take such extraordinary measures to subvert a county administration, when the great majority of the people of the Cripple Creek district and of the State of Colorado were staggered at the horrible death which met fifteen men at the station at Independence?

Was this a time for the millionaire mine owners to think of politics, while the bodies of the victims were still warm? Was this a time for the mine and smelter magnates to impede the judicial machinery of Teller County, when the blood of innocent men cried out from the earth to the high heavens? Yet in just such a black hour as this did the mine owners, with the help of the State militia, accomplish their political coup d'etat? And in just such a time of suffering and distress as this did the Mine Owners' Association take advantage of widows' cries and orphans' tears, to incite the mobs of militia and civilians against the members of the miners' union.

What evidence can we deduce from the foregoing, which would justify us in pointing an accusing finger at the Mine Owners' Association and saying: "We believe you are the ones responsible for the Independence explosion! We charge you with being the conspirators who sent fifteen innocent men to a terrible death!"

First: Barring the Federation, no one else except the mine owners, would have spent the large sum of money which the dynamiters must have exacted for their bloody work.

Second: If the mine owners had honestly believed that the Federation perpetrated this crime, they would not have deported, en masse, all the unionists from the district, knowing that the assassin or assassins would more than likely be among the men so deported.

Third: The Mine Owners' Association, which was always so ready to charge the Federation leaders with all crimes, whether they had any evidence or not, did not indict a single Federation leader or anyone else, for that matter, for the Independence horror.

Fourth: We hold that the reason the mine owners so completely subverted the civil government of Teller County, was the fear that the old county officials would do everything in their power to run down the conspirators and their tool; and they had particular reason to fear such action on the part of Sheriff Robertson.

Fifth: The election of Secretary Hamlin of the Association to the position of District Attorney of Teller County, goes to show that the mine owners, for obvious reasons, wished to control the office of the public prosecutor.

By acting as they did, the mine owners drove the Federation from the district, not leaving one in the camp who could accuse them of crime, and in addition secured control of the county government as a further safeguard against detection, trial and punishment.

Are we to judge people by what they say, when their acts belie their words? Are we to judge the mine owners merely by their denunciations of the Federation, or are we to judge them by a longer list of infamous acts than has possibly been charged even to the account of the Molly Maguires?

If we are to judge these wealthy mine owners by their talk, then the Western Federation of Miners is guilty of the Independence outrage; but if we are to base our opinion upon their actions, then it would seem that, if there was a conspiracy, the conspirators were none others than the leaders of the Cripple Creek District Mine Owners' Association.

Chapter XIV. Operative No. 36, George W. Riddell.