Ed Boyce
Encyclopedia
Ed Boyce was president of the Western Federation of Miners
, a radical American
labor organizer, socialist
and hard rock mine owner.
, Ireland
, in 1862 and was the youngest of four children. His father died at an early age. Young Boyce was educated in local schools. He emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 19.
He worked as a railway construction worker in Wisconsin
before moving to Leadville, Colorado
, in 1884. He joined the Leadville Miners' Union, an affiliate of the Knights of Labor
, but quit in 1886.
He worked at various mines in the Coeur d'Alene
district and in Butte, Montana
before moving to Wardner, Idaho
. He joined the Wardner Miners' Union in 1888 and was elected its corresponding secretary.
near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
. In January 1892, railroad companies serving the area increased the shipping rate of ore. The mine owners decided to close the mines for four months until a compromise with the railroads could be reached. This action threw 1,600 miners out of work.
The mines reopened two months early, but wages had been slashed by 15 percent. The miners struck. The owners offered to restore wages to their previous levels but refused to recognize the union, an offer Boyce and the other union leaders rejected. When three scab workers were forced to join the union by a mob of miners (a fourth fled the county), the Coeur d'Alene Mine Owners' Association
obtained an injunction
from the United States district court
at Boise, Idaho
, preventing anyone from interfering with the working of the mines. The mine owners began importing scabs at the rate of 16 workers a day from outside the region. Company militia
provided protection. (Idaho's state constitution contained a prohibition against the creation or use of private militia, but the law was not enforced.)
Random incidents of violence heightened the tension: A guard exchanged words with a miner and was whipped. Two drunk guards picked a fight with a group of miners in a local bar. Three guards armed with rifles threatened a miners' camp. Late in the evening of Sunday, July 10, the miners discovered that their union secretary, Charles Siringo, was a mine owner spy
hired from the Pinkerton Agency
. During that evening and into the early morning hours of July 11, armed miners surrounded the shuttered Frisco mill of the Gem mine. A firefight broke out. During the gun battle, miners dropped a barrel of gunpowder down the flume of the mill; the powderkeg exploded, destroying the mill and killing a non-union miner.
The mine owners demanded that Governor N. B. Willey
, a former mine manager, proclaim martial law
. Although violence in the region had ended, Willey called out the National Guard
. President Benjamin Harrison
ordered federal troops to back up the Idaho state troops. Martial law lasted four months.
Nearly 600 miners were arrested and confined in a large outdoor prison, or bullpen
. But since most of the local inhabitants were miners or sympathized with them, the state had little chance of obtaining convictions.
Several union leaders, however, were arrested for violating the district court's injunction—Ed Boyce among them. Boyce and the other union officials were confined in the Ada County
Jail.
. While the union leaders were still in jail, Hawley suggested that mine unions in the West
needed to form a united front, and the union leaders agreed. The Western Federation of Miners
(WFM) was formed in 1893 in Butte.
Boyce served a six-month jail term for contempt of court
for his role in the 1892 Coeur d'Alene miners' strike, and was blacklisted by the mine owners.
After his release in 1893, Boyce prospected for a time in the Bitterroot Mountains
in Montana before returning to Coeur d'Alene. He obtained work in the mines and was elected president of the Coeur d'Alene Executive Miners' Union, a post he held until 1895.
Although not present for its founding, Boyce attended the WFM's second convention in 1894 and was elected to its executive board. With its headquarters in Coeur d'Alene, nearly all the mines in the Idaho panhandle except for the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine
recognized the union. Still, the WFM barely survived the next three years.
as a Populist
from Shoshone County, Idaho
. Boyce battled for the eight-hour day
for miners, the establishment of an arbitration board to settle labor disputes, and an investigation of the 1892 mining war. He objected to appropriations for the state militia, charging that it was a tool used by the state and mine owners to suppress labor. He called for legislation to forbid employment of aliens, to outlaw yellow-dog contract
s and prohibit company store
s. In one of the most dramatic speeches he ever made, Boyce denounced the blacklist:
But the Populists were unable to pass the legislation they desired, and Boyce—disillusioned with the political process—quit after one term.
In 1896, Boyce was elected president of the Western Federation of Miners. He served until 1902. James Maher was elected WFM secretary-treasurer the same year. Boyce and Maher worked well together. They pumped life into the faltering federation, and the WFM began a period of rapid growth.
William "Big Bill" Haywood
heard Boyce make a speech in that first year as president of the WFM, and Haywood decided to become a union member. Haywood later became WFM secretary-treasurer, and a major figure in the American labor movement.
In late 1899, Boyce established the WFM's journal, the Miner's Magazine. The first issue came out in early 1890.
in 1896 over a reduction in wages that had persisted since the depression of 1893. The Coronado Mine was re-opened with armed replacement workers during the strike, and an incident on September 21 resulted in shooting and dynamite explosions. After surface buildings were burned, the Colorado governor sent the Colorado National Guard
to Leadville. Boyce was one of twenty-seven union men who were jailed, but all of the union's leaders were released for lack of evidence.
, Boyce told his fellow union members to arm themselves:
Boyce quickly moved to abandon the conservative approaches practiced by most nascent mine unions at the time. He came to believe that class warfare made trade unionism obsolete and came out in favor of militant industrial unionism
.
the year he became WFM president. The affiliation lasted only until the spring of 1898. Samuel Gompers
had refused to give striking Colorado
miners strike benefits, and Boyce heatedly debated the issue with Gompers. But, convinced that the conservative and craft unionism
policies of the AFL were inadequate to the task of organizing workers, Boyce led the WFM out of the AFL.
In 1898, Boyce, a strong believer in industrial unionism, led the WFM to found the Western Labor Union
. The Western Labor Union (later the American Labor Union
) was established in direct opposition to the craft-oriented AFL, and included workers from all industries.
. The mine owners' response was to fire all union members. Militant union members then blew up the Bunker Hill and Sullivan ore concentrator in the town of Wardner
, at the time the largest ore concentrator in the world. Governor Frank Steunenberg
declared martial law and President William McKinley
ordered U.S. troops from Montana into the area. The miners were rounded up and once again herded into a bullpen. Some of the miners were released after denying that they belonged to any subversive organization.
Boyce was charged with conspiring to blow up the concentrator. Boyce had been in Wardner conferring with local union officers only a week before the explosion. In 1906, former union member and Boyce business associate Harry Orchard told a court that he knew Boyce had planned and approved the bombing of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine. Governor Steunenberg told a United States House of Representatives
Committee on Military Affairs that he was convinced Boyce had "inaugurated or perfected this conspiracy by, choosing 20 men from different organizations in that county and swearing them. These 20 men chose one each and swore him, and the 40 each chose a man and swore him, and the 80 each chose a man and swore him. In that way there were at least 160 men in this conspiracy to do this thing, sworn to secrecy."
Boyce denied the charges, and no indictment was ever issued. But the influence of the Western Federation of Miners in Idaho had nearly been destroyed, and its leaders dispersed.
New headquarters were established in Denver, Colorado
, where Idaho officials could not so easily extradite
and try WFM officials.
Beginning in 1900, Boyce also edited the WFM journal, Miners Magazine. He left the position when he retired as union president in 1902.
as its official economic policy. An ardent socialist, Boyce famously declared:
Boyce became an associate of Eugene V. Debs
, and endorsed the Socialist Party
platform.
Boyce also urged the WFM to slowly buy up mines and mining company stock, to replace the wage system with union-owned mines.
and lead
mines in the Coeur d'Alene region. The newlyweds honeymooned at the Boyce family home in Ireland
.
Eleanor worked part-time in the Denver headquarters of the WFM as a volunteer. She often wrote to her father about mining
or smelting
methods her husband had seen, suggesting that they might be useful at the Hercules mine. The Days and their business partners were friendly to labor organizations (although that attitude would change during World War I
), and Ed Boyce's marriage was a happy one.
Boyce declined renomination as WFM president in 1902. He had become disillusioned with mismanagement in some WFM locals. But strong opposition to his continuing presidency had emerged in the powerful Butte Miners' Union, Local 1 of the WFM. A dwindling union treasury convinced him that he could not fight the battles he wished any longer.
In his farewell address, Boyce still remained the firebrand: "There are only two classes of people in the world. One is composed of the men and women who produce all; the other is composed of men and women who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth produced by others." Socialism, he still argued, was the only way "to abolish the wage system which is more destructive of human rights and liberty than any other slave system devised."
Boyce recommended that Bill Haywood and Charles Moyer
assume leadership of the rapidly growing organization.
in 1905, and testified on behalf of Haywood, Moyer and others at their 1907 murder trail.
But Boyce gradually separated himself from organized labor
, and eventually declined to discuss his part in the miners' union.
The Boyces moved to Wallace
, Idaho, and then in 1909 to Portland
, Oregon
. Boyce became an avid reader of social theory and Irish poetry. The Boyces lived quietly, often passing the whole day sitting in the same room reading. Eleanor Boyce took an interest in art and became a member of the Portland Art Association. The Boyces also donated freely to a number of local charities.
Ed Boyce invested in the luxurious Portland Hotel
Company in 1911, as well as in other real estate ventures in the city. He was the Portland Hotel's vice-president from 1920 to 1929 and its president from 1930 to his death 1941. In 1936, Ed Boyce was elected president of the Oregon Hotel Association. On December 31, 1923, the Hercules mine partnership was dissolved and the Hercules Mining Company (now Day Mines, Inc.) incorporated in Delaware
. Eleanor Day Boyce was the largest stockholder.
Ed Boyce died on December 24, 1941. He left an estate valued at slightly over $1 million.
Eugene V. Debs
wrote a month later that Boyce had been "virtually forgotten by the officials of the organization he served at a time when it required real men to speak out for labor."
Eleanor Day Boyce returned to Wallace after her husband's death, where she died on January 9, 1951.
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
, a radical American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
labor organizer, socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and hard rock mine owner.
Early life
Edward Boyce, more commonly known as Ed Boyce, was born in County DonegalCounty Donegal
County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, in 1862 and was the youngest of four children. His father died at an early age. Young Boyce was educated in local schools. He emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 19.
He worked as a railway construction worker in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
before moving to Leadville, Colorado
Leadville, Colorado
Leadville is a Statutory City that is the county seat of, and the only municipality in, Lake County, Colorado, United States. Situated at an elevation of , Leadville is the highest incorporated city and the second highest incorporated municipality in the United States...
, in 1884. He joined the Leadville Miners' Union, an affiliate of the Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly...
, but quit in 1886.
He worked at various mines in the Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Coeur d'Alene is the largest city and county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the principal city of the Coeur d'Alene Metropolitan Statistical Area. Coeur d'Alene has the second largest metropolitan area in the state of Idaho. As of the 2010 census the population of Coeur...
district and in Butte, Montana
Butte, Montana
Butte is a city in Montana and the county seat of Silver Bow County, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. As of the 2010 census, Butte's population was 34,200...
before moving to Wardner, Idaho
Wardner, Idaho
Wardner is a city in Shoshone County, Idaho, United States. The population was 188 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Wardner is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all the land....
. He joined the Wardner Miners' Union in 1888 and was elected its corresponding secretary.
Coeur d'Alene strike
In 1892, the 30-year-old Boyce became an active leader in a strikeStrike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Coeur d'Alene is the largest city and county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the principal city of the Coeur d'Alene Metropolitan Statistical Area. Coeur d'Alene has the second largest metropolitan area in the state of Idaho. As of the 2010 census the population of Coeur...
. In January 1892, railroad companies serving the area increased the shipping rate of ore. The mine owners decided to close the mines for four months until a compromise with the railroads could be reached. This action threw 1,600 miners out of work.
The mines reopened two months early, but wages had been slashed by 15 percent. The miners struck. The owners offered to restore wages to their previous levels but refused to recognize the union, an offer Boyce and the other union leaders rejected. When three scab workers were forced to join the union by a mob of miners (a fourth fled the county), the Coeur d'Alene Mine Owners' Association
Mine Owners' Association
In the United States a Mine Owners' Association, also sometimes referred to as a Mine Operators' Association or a Mine Owners' Protective Association, is the combination of individual mining companies, or groups of mining companies, into an association, established for the purpose of promoting the...
obtained an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
from the United States district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
at Boise, Idaho
Boise, Idaho
Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it anchors the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.As of the 2010 Census Bureau,...
, preventing anyone from interfering with the working of the mines. The mine owners began importing scabs at the rate of 16 workers a day from outside the region. Company militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
provided protection. (Idaho's state constitution contained a prohibition against the creation or use of private militia, but the law was not enforced.)
Random incidents of violence heightened the tension: A guard exchanged words with a miner and was whipped. Two drunk guards picked a fight with a group of miners in a local bar. Three guards armed with rifles threatened a miners' camp. Late in the evening of Sunday, July 10, the miners discovered that their union secretary, Charles Siringo, was a mine owner spy
Labor spies
Labor spies are persons recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, typically within the context of an employer/labor organization relationship....
hired from the Pinkerton Agency
Pinkerton National Detective Agency
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired...
. During that evening and into the early morning hours of July 11, armed miners surrounded the shuttered Frisco mill of the Gem mine. A firefight broke out. During the gun battle, miners dropped a barrel of gunpowder down the flume of the mill; the powderkeg exploded, destroying the mill and killing a non-union miner.
The mine owners demanded that Governor N. B. Willey
N. B. Willey
Norman Bushnell Willey was the second Governor of Idaho from 1890 until 1893.Willey moved to California at the age of 20 where he began his career in the mining industry...
, a former mine manager, proclaim martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
. Although violence in the region had ended, Willey called out the National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
. President Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States . Harrison, a grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at age 21, eventually becoming a prominent politician there...
ordered federal troops to back up the Idaho state troops. Martial law lasted four months.
Nearly 600 miners were arrested and confined in a large outdoor prison, or bullpen
Bullpen
In baseball, the bullpen is the area where relief pitchers warm-up before entering a game. Depending on the ballpark, it may be situated in foul territory along the baselines or just beyond the outfield fence. Also, a team's roster of relief pitchers is metonymically referred to as "the bullpen"...
. But since most of the local inhabitants were miners or sympathized with them, the state had little chance of obtaining convictions.
Several union leaders, however, were arrested for violating the district court's injunction—Ed Boyce among them. Boyce and the other union officials were confined in the Ada County
Ada County, Idaho
Ada County is a county in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2010 Census, the county had a population of 392,365. The county seat and largest city is Boise, which is also the state capital. Other cities in the county with over 10,000 residents include Meridian, Eagle,...
Jail.
Formation of the WFM
The Coeur d'Alene miners had received financial assistance from miners' unions in Butte, Montana, who had also paid legal fees for their attorney, James H. HawleyJames H. Hawley
James Henry Hawley was the ninth Governor of Idaho from 1911 until 1913. Hawley also served as mayor of Boise from 1903 to 1905.-Biography:...
. While the union leaders were still in jail, Hawley suggested that mine unions in the West
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
needed to form a united front, and the union leaders agreed. The Western Federation of Miners
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
(WFM) was formed in 1893 in Butte.
Boyce served a six-month jail term for contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
for his role in the 1892 Coeur d'Alene miners' strike, and was blacklisted by the mine owners.
After his release in 1893, Boyce prospected for a time in the Bitterroot Mountains
Bitterroot Range
The Bitterroot Range runs along the border of Montana and Idaho in the northwestern United States. The range spans an area of 62,736 square kilometers and is named after the bitterroot , a small pink flower that is the state flower of Montana.- History :In 1805, the Corps of Discovery,...
in Montana before returning to Coeur d'Alene. He obtained work in the mines and was elected president of the Coeur d'Alene Executive Miners' Union, a post he held until 1895.
Although not present for its founding, Boyce attended the WFM's second convention in 1894 and was elected to its executive board. With its headquarters in Coeur d'Alene, nearly all the mines in the Idaho panhandle except for the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine
Bunker Hill Mining Company
The Bunker Hill Mining Company was a mining company with facilities in Wardner, Idaho and surrounding areas.-History:When the mining boom began in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho mining district, the area was lightly inhabited...
recognized the union. Still, the WFM barely survived the next three years.
Public service
In 1894, Boyce was elected to the Idaho state senateIdaho Legislature
The Idaho Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Idaho. It consists of the upper Idaho Senate and the lower Idaho House of Representatives. The Idaho Senate contains 35 Senators, who are elected from 35 districts...
as a Populist
Populist Party (United States)
The People's Party, also known as the "Populists", was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1891. It was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away...
from Shoshone County, Idaho
Shoshone County, Idaho
Shoshone County is a county located in the U.S. state of Idaho. The county was established in 1864, named for the Native American Shoshone tribe. The population was 12,765 at the 2010 census. Shoshone County is commonly referred to as the Silver Valley, due to its century-old mining history...
. Boyce battled for the eight-hour day
Eight-hour day
The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions...
for miners, the establishment of an arbitration board to settle labor disputes, and an investigation of the 1892 mining war. He objected to appropriations for the state militia, charging that it was a tool used by the state and mine owners to suppress labor. He called for legislation to forbid employment of aliens, to outlaw yellow-dog contract
Yellow-dog contract
A yellow-dog contract is an agreement between an employer and an employee in which the employee agrees, as a condition of employment, not to be a member of a labor union...
s and prohibit company store
Truck system
A truck system is an arrangement in which employees are paid in commodities or some currency substitute , rather than with standard money. This limits employees' ability to choose how to spend their earnings—generally to the benefit of the employer...
s. In one of the most dramatic speeches he ever made, Boyce denounced the blacklist:
Senate bill fifty six provides for no class, no special legislation, but under its provisions those relentless persecutors, known as corporations, are prevented when they discharge an employee from following him with a blacklist and depriving him of the means of earning an honest living in another part of the state….Why do you not produce some argument against it to show that it should not become a law? No, it is not necessary: you of the Republican party have the votes to kill the bill and that is all you desire. But remember these words: the laboring men of Idaho have asked you for bread and you give them a stone: we ask you for justice and you treat us with scorn, but the day is fast approaching when your action will be condemned by every man who has one drop of manly blood in his veins.
But the Populists were unable to pass the legislation they desired, and Boyce—disillusioned with the political process—quit after one term.
WFM presidency
While serving in the Idaho legislature, Boyce resigned as president of the Coeur d'Alene Executive Miner's Union in 1895, and took a job as a general organizer for the WFM.In 1896, Boyce was elected president of the Western Federation of Miners. He served until 1902. James Maher was elected WFM secretary-treasurer the same year. Boyce and Maher worked well together. They pumped life into the faltering federation, and the WFM began a period of rapid growth.
William "Big Bill" Haywood
Bill Haywood
William Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...
heard Boyce make a speech in that first year as president of the WFM, and Haywood decided to become a union member. Haywood later became WFM secretary-treasurer, and a major figure in the American labor movement.
In late 1899, Boyce established the WFM's journal, the Miner's Magazine. The first issue came out in early 1890.
Leadville, Colorado miners' strike
The Cloud City Miners' Union (CCMU), Local 33 of the WFM went on strikeLeadville Colorado, Miners' Strike
Silver was discovered in Leadville, Colorado in the 1870s, initiating the Colorado Silver Boom. The Leadville miners' strike in 1896-97 occurred during, and as a result of, rapid industrialization and consolidation of the mining industry. Mine owners had become more powerful, and they resolved not...
in 1896 over a reduction in wages that had persisted since the depression of 1893. The Coronado Mine was re-opened with armed replacement workers during the strike, and an incident on September 21 resulted in shooting and dynamite explosions. After surface buildings were burned, the Colorado governor sent the Colorado National Guard
Colorado National Guard
The Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is a state agency of the Government of Colorado. It supervises both the Colorado National Guard , and non-military state safety agencies.The Department consists of the Department of Military Affairs, and the Division of Veterans' Affairs, and...
to Leadville. Boyce was one of twenty-seven union men who were jailed, but all of the union's leaders were released for lack of evidence.
Radical positions
Boyce's radicalism as president of the WFM knew few boundaries. At the 1897 WFM convention in Salt Lake City, UtahSalt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
, Boyce told his fellow union members to arm themselves:
I deem it important to direct your attention to Article 2 of the Constitutional Amendments of the United States—'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' This you should comply with immediately. Every (local) union should have a rifle club. I strongly advise you to provide every member with the latest improved rifle, which can be obtained from the factory at a nominal price. I entreat you to take action on this important question, so that in two years we can hear the inspiring music of the martial tread of 25,000 armed men in the ranks of labor.
Boyce quickly moved to abandon the conservative approaches practiced by most nascent mine unions at the time. He came to believe that class warfare made trade unionism obsolete and came out in favor of militant industrial unionism
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
.
AFL and WLU
Boyce led the WFM to join the American Federation of LaborAmerican Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
the year he became WFM president. The affiliation lasted only until the spring of 1898. Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
had refused to give striking Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
miners strike benefits, and Boyce heatedly debated the issue with Gompers. But, convinced that the conservative and craft unionism
Craft unionism
Craft unionism refers to organizing a union in a manner that seeks to unify workers in a particular industry along the lines of the particular craft or trade that they work in by class or skill level...
policies of the AFL were inadequate to the task of organizing workers, Boyce led the WFM out of the AFL.
In 1898, Boyce, a strong believer in industrial unionism, led the WFM to found the Western Labor Union
Western Labor Union
The Western Labor Union was a labor federation created by the Western Federation of Miners after the disastrous Leadville strike of 1896-97. The WLU was conceived in November, 1897 in a proclamation of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana, and gained support from the WFM's executive...
. The Western Labor Union (later the American Labor Union
American Labor Union
When the Western Labor Union , a labor federation formed by the Western Federation of Miners, decided to overtly challenge the American Federation of Labor in 1902, it changed its name to the American Labor Union . The ALU was created because the WFM wanted a class-wide labor body with which to...
) was established in direct opposition to the craft-oriented AFL, and included workers from all industries.
Bunker Hill mine bombing
In April 1899, WFM officials demanded that the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine recognize the unionCoeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in Coeur d'Alene: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899....
. The mine owners' response was to fire all union members. Militant union members then blew up the Bunker Hill and Sullivan ore concentrator in the town of Wardner
Wardner, Idaho
Wardner is a city in Shoshone County, Idaho, United States. The population was 188 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Wardner is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all the land....
, at the time the largest ore concentrator in the world. Governor Frank Steunenberg
Frank Steunenberg
Frank Steunenberg was the fourth Governor of the State of Idaho, serving from 1897 until 1901. He is perhaps best known for his 1905 assassination by one-time union member Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association...
declared martial law and President William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
ordered U.S. troops from Montana into the area. The miners were rounded up and once again herded into a bullpen. Some of the miners were released after denying that they belonged to any subversive organization.
Boyce was charged with conspiring to blow up the concentrator. Boyce had been in Wardner conferring with local union officers only a week before the explosion. In 1906, former union member and Boyce business associate Harry Orchard told a court that he knew Boyce had planned and approved the bombing of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine. Governor Steunenberg told a United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Committee on Military Affairs that he was convinced Boyce had "inaugurated or perfected this conspiracy by, choosing 20 men from different organizations in that county and swearing them. These 20 men chose one each and swore him, and the 40 each chose a man and swore him, and the 80 each chose a man and swore him. In that way there were at least 160 men in this conspiracy to do this thing, sworn to secrecy."
Boyce denied the charges, and no indictment was ever issued. But the influence of the Western Federation of Miners in Idaho had nearly been destroyed, and its leaders dispersed.
New headquarters were established in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, where Idaho officials could not so easily extradite
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
and try WFM officials.
Beginning in 1900, Boyce also edited the WFM journal, Miners Magazine. He left the position when he retired as union president in 1902.
Adopting socialism
In 1901, Boyce successfully led a campaign to have the WFM adopt socialismSocialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
as its official economic policy. An ardent socialist, Boyce famously declared:
There can be no harmony between organized capitalists and organized labor. Our present wage system is slavery in its worst form. … Advise strikes as the weapon to be used by labor to obtain its rights, and you will be branded as criminals who aim to ruin the business interests of the country. Change from the policy of simple trades unionism that is fast waning, and you will be told that your action is premature, as this is not the time. Pursue the methods adopted by capitalists and you will be sent to prison for robbery or executed for murder. Demand, and your demands will be construed into threats of violence against the rights of private property calculated to scare capital. Avail yourself of your constitutional rights and propose to take political action, and you will be charged with selling out the organization to some political party. Counsel arbitration, and you will be told that there is nothing to arbitrate. Be conservative, and your tameness will be construed as an appreciation of the conditions thrust upon you by trusts and syndicates. Take what action you will in the interests of labor, the trained beagles in the employ of capital from behind their loathsome fortress of disguised patriotism will howl their tirade of condemnation.
Boyce became an associate of Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
, and endorsed the Socialist Party
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
platform.
Boyce also urged the WFM to slowly buy up mines and mining company stock, to replace the wage system with union-owned mines.
Marriage and retirement
On May 14, 1901, Ed Boyce married Eleanor Day in Butte, Montana. Eleanor was the daughter of Henry L. Day, a former bookkeeper who had become a wealthy mine owner. Day and Fred Harper, a local prospector, had discovered the Hercules mine, one of the richest silverSilver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
and lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
mines in the Coeur d'Alene region. The newlyweds honeymooned at the Boyce family home in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Eleanor worked part-time in the Denver headquarters of the WFM as a volunteer. She often wrote to her father about mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
or smelting
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
methods her husband had seen, suggesting that they might be useful at the Hercules mine. The Days and their business partners were friendly to labor organizations (although that attitude would change during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
), and Ed Boyce's marriage was a happy one.
Boyce declined renomination as WFM president in 1902. He had become disillusioned with mismanagement in some WFM locals. But strong opposition to his continuing presidency had emerged in the powerful Butte Miners' Union, Local 1 of the WFM. A dwindling union treasury convinced him that he could not fight the battles he wished any longer.
In his farewell address, Boyce still remained the firebrand: "There are only two classes of people in the world. One is composed of the men and women who produce all; the other is composed of men and women who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth produced by others." Socialism, he still argued, was the only way "to abolish the wage system which is more destructive of human rights and liberty than any other slave system devised."
Boyce recommended that Bill Haywood and Charles Moyer
Charles Moyer
Charles Moyer was an American labor leader and president of the Western Federation of Miners from 1902 to 1926. He led the union through the Colorado Labor Wars, was kidnapped and accused of murdering an ex-governor of the state of Idaho, and shot in the back during a bitter copper mine strike...
assume leadership of the rapidly growing organization.
Later life
After his retirement from the WFM, Ed Boyce attended several more WFM conventions. He supported the WFM's creation of the Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
in 1905, and testified on behalf of Haywood, Moyer and others at their 1907 murder trail.
But Boyce gradually separated himself from organized labor
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, and eventually declined to discuss his part in the miners' union.
The Boyces moved to Wallace
Wallace, Idaho
Wallace is a historic city in the Panhandle region of the U.S. state of Idaho and the county seat of Shoshone County in the Silver Valley mining district...
, Idaho, and then in 1909 to Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. Boyce became an avid reader of social theory and Irish poetry. The Boyces lived quietly, often passing the whole day sitting in the same room reading. Eleanor Boyce took an interest in art and became a member of the Portland Art Association. The Boyces also donated freely to a number of local charities.
Ed Boyce invested in the luxurious Portland Hotel
Portland Hotel
The Portland Hotel was a late-19th-century hotel in Portland, Oregon, United States that once occupied the city block on which Pioneer Courthouse Square now stands. It closed in 1951 after 61 years of operation.-History:...
Company in 1911, as well as in other real estate ventures in the city. He was the Portland Hotel's vice-president from 1920 to 1929 and its president from 1930 to his death 1941. In 1936, Ed Boyce was elected president of the Oregon Hotel Association. On December 31, 1923, the Hercules mine partnership was dissolved and the Hercules Mining Company (now Day Mines, Inc.) incorporated in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
. Eleanor Day Boyce was the largest stockholder.
Ed Boyce died on December 24, 1941. He left an estate valued at slightly over $1 million.
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
wrote a month later that Boyce had been "virtually forgotten by the officials of the organization he served at a time when it required real men to speak out for labor."
Eleanor Day Boyce returned to Wallace after her husband's death, where she died on January 9, 1951.