Western Federation of Miners - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a radical labor union

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...

that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines

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...

of the western United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district in 1903-04, and has been called the Colorado Labor Wars

Colorado Labor Wars

Colorado's most significant battles between labor and capital occurred primarily between miners and mine operators. In these battles the state government, with one clear exception, always took the side of the mine operators....

. The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World

Industrial 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, but left that organization several years later.

The WFM changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (more familiarly referred to as Mine Mill) in 1916. After a period of decline it revived in the early days of the New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

and helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations

Congress of Industrial Organizations

The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...

(CIO) in 1935. The Mine Mill union was expelled from the CIO in 1950 during the post-war red scare for refusing to shed its communist leadership. After spending years fighting off efforts by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to raid its membership, Mine Mill and the USWA merged in 1967.

Founding

After hard rock miners made sporadic and often unsuccessful efforts to organize during previous decades

History of hard rock miners' organizations

Hard rock miners' organizations have included fraternal and union organization of miners or mine workers formed for the purpose of addressing issues such as wages, health and safety, funeral arrangements of members, or widow's benefits...

, the Western Federation of Miners was created in 1893. The federation was formed with the merger of several miners' unions representing copper miners from 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...

, silver and lead miners from 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...

, gold miners from 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...

and hard rock miners from South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

, and Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

.

Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin have written,

The Western Federation of Miners was frontier unionism, the organization of workers who had become "wage slaves"
Wage slavery
Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate. It is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor, and to highlight similarities between owning and employing a person...

of mining corporations rather recently acquired by back-east absentee ownership. They built their union when they were not yet "broken in" to the discipline of business management. [The WFM] had the militancy of the undisciplined recruits ... From the founding of the Western Federation in 1893, its story for twelve years is that of a continuous search for solidarity ...

The miners who formed the union had already experienced a number of hard-fought battles with mine owners and governmental authorities: in the Coeur d'Alene strike

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892

There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: the labor strike of 1892, and the labor confrontation of 1899....

in 1892, after company guards shot five strikers to death, the miners disarmed the guards and marched more than a hundred strikebreakers out of town. In response 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...

asked for federal troops to restore order; President 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...

sent General John Schofield

John Schofield

John McAllister Schofield was an American soldier who held major commands during the American Civil War. He later served as U.S. Secretary of War and Commanding General of the United States Army.-Early life:...

, who declared martial law, arrested 600 strikers and then held them in a stockade prison without the right to trial, bail or notice of the charges against them. Schofield then ordered local mine owners to discharge any union members they had rehired.

During the confrontation, the Coeur d'Alene miners received considerable assistance from the Butte Miners' Union in Butte, Montana

Butte, Montana

, who mortgaged their buildings to send aid.

There was a growing concern that local unions were vulnerable to the power of 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...

s like the one in Coeur d'Alene. In May, 1893, about forty delegates from northern hard rock mining camps met in Butte, and established the Western Federation of Miners, which sought to organize miners throughout the West.

Cripple Creek, Colorado strike of 1894

Violence occurred in later strikes as well. At Cripple Creek, Colorado

Cripple Creek, Colorado

The City of Cripple Creek is a Statutory City that is the county seat of Teller County, Colorado, United States. Cripple Creek is a former gold mining camp located southwest of Colorado Springs near the base of Pikes Peak. The Cripple Creek Historic District, which received National Historic...

, after mine owners increased the working day from eight hours to ten, miners dynamited mine buildings and equipment. The county sheriff hired thousands of armed deputies, and then lost control of them. This 1894 struggle was one of the few strikes

Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894

The Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 was a five-month strike by the Western Federation of Miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA. It resulted in a victory for the union and was followed in 1903 by the Colorado Labor Wars...

in which a state militia was called out to protect striking miners from an armed group supporting mine owners. Further violence was averted by the owners' agreement to return to the eight hour day and improve miners' pay to three dollars a day – the standard that the union fought for across the west from that point forward. That success enabled the WFM to expand dramatically over the next decade, to the point where it had over two hundred locals in thirteen states.

Leadville, Colorado strike of 1896-97

However, a struggle against mine owners in Leadville

Leadville 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...

served to radicalize WFM leadership.

Representatives of the Cloud City Miners' Union (CCMU), Local 33 of the Western Federation of Miners, asked for a wage increase of fifty cents per day for all mine workers not already making three dollars per day. The union felt justified, for fifty cents a day had been cut from the miners' wages during the depression of 1893. Negotiations broke down and 968 miners walked out. Mine owners, who had formed a Mine Owners' Association

Mine Owners' Association

with a secret anti-union agreement, locked out

Lockout (industry)

A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.- Causes :...

another 1,332 mine workers.

The owners hired labor spies

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....

to spy on the union, and additional spies to report on replacement workers.

Just days after union leaders publicly warned against violence, a violent incident occurred at the Coronado Mine.

At least four union miners and one fireman were killed. Colorado Governor McIntire

Albert Washington McIntire

Albert Washington McIntire was an American Republican politician. He was the ninth Governor of Colorado from 1895 to 1897...

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.

Shortlived alliance with the American Federation of Labor

The WFM affiliated with the American Federation of Labor

American 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...

in 1896, but WFM delegates came away from the AFL convention in Cincinnati,

...not only disappointed with the refusal to aid their big fight in Leadville, but with a feeling that they had not been associating with union men, or with men possessing the moral or intellectual fibre ever to become good union men.

The WFM withdrew from the AFL the following year. With the support of other organizations, including the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana, which issued a proposition to organize a new federation

November 1897 proclamation

The November 1897 proclamation of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana was a reflection of western labor's assessment of the struggle between labor and capital after the failed Leadville Colorado, Miners' Strike...

, the WFM created its own alternative to the AFL, 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...

(WLU). The WLU was formed in 1898 at a convention in Salt Lake City

Salt 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...

. Its goal was organizing all workers in the West.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho confrontation of 1899

Another violent confrontation in Coeur d'Alene

Coeur 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....

was marked by violence.

The profitable Bunker Hill Mining Company

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...

at 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....

fired seventeen workers believed to be union members. On April 29, 250 angry miners seized a train and rode it to a $250,000 mill at the Bunker Hill Mine

Bunker Hill Mining Company

in Wardner. The miners then set off three thousand pounds of dynamite in the mill.

At Idaho 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...

's request, 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...

sent the military to indiscriminantly round up 1,000 men and put them into bullpens.

Emma Langdon

Emma F. Langdon

Emma Florence Langdon was born in Tennessee in 1875. She moved to the gold mining district of Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1903. She was an apprentice linotype operator who wrote that "women's place should be in the home and not in public life." In spite of such sentiments, she played a very visible...

, a union sympathizer, charged in a 1908 book that Governor Steunenberg deposited $35,000 into his bank account within a week after troops arrived in the Coeur d'Alene district, implying that there may have been a bribe from the mine operators. J. Anthony Lukas later confirmed the donation in his book Big Trouble,

In 1899, when the state needed money for the Coeur d'Alene prosecutions, the 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...

had come up with $32,000—about a third of it from Bunker Hill and Sullivan—handing $25,000 over to Governor Steunenberg for use at his discretion in the prosecution. Some of this money went to pay [attorneys].

Idaho miners were held for "months of imprisonment in the 'bull-pen' — a structure unfit to house cattle — enclosed in a high barbed-wire fence." Some of the miners, never having been charged with any crime, were eventually allowed to go free, while others were prosecuted. Hundreds more remained in the makeshift prison without charges.

The Coeur d'Alene mine owners developed a permit-based hiring system to exclude union miners.

Growing radicalism

At their 1901 convention the WFM miners agreed to the proclamation that a "complete revolution of social and economic conditions" was "the only salvation of the working classes." WFM leaders openly called for the abolition of the wage system. By the spring of 1903 the WFM was the most militant labor organization in the country.

Colorado strike of 1903-04

The plan to organize the mill workers led to even fiercer battles with the refinery companies, who paid their workers half what miners earned for a ten to twelve hour day. When smelter workers went on strike in Colorado City, Colorado

Old Colorado City

Old Colorado City, formerly Colorado City, is a national historic district in the city of Colorado Springs. Its approximate boundaries are U.S...

in 1903 it appeared that they might be able to win their demands without a serious fight, since the Cripple Creek miners were striking in sympathy

Sympathy strike

Secondary action is industrial action by a trade union in support of a strike initiated by workers in another, separate enterprise...

with their demands. However, when one of the smelter operators refused to accept the deal brokered by the Governor of Colorado, James Hamilton Peabody

James Hamilton Peabody

James Hamilton Peabody was the 13th and 15th Governor of Colorado, and is noted for his public service in Cañon City.-Family background:...

, the Governor called in federal troops.

Peabody was a fierce opponent of unions and of any social legislation that limited businesses' right to run their own affairs as they saw fit. The crucial issue in Colorado was the eight hour day. When the Legislature had enacted a statute limiting the workday in hazardous industries, such as mining and smelting, to eight hours, the Colorado Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. The voters of Colorado then passed a referendum authorizing the eight hour day, but the smelter owners and Republican Party fought any efforts to pass a new statute implementing the amendment, while Peabody declared that he would undo it "if it requires the entire power of the State and the Nation to do it".

That power took the form of Colorado's 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...

, whose salaries were paid by the business community, not the State. Their commanding officer, General Sherman Bell

Sherman Bell

Adjutant General Sherman M. Bell was a controversial leader of the Colorado National Guard during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-04. While Bell received high praise from Theodore Roosevelt and some others, he was vilified as a tyrant by the leadership and the miners of the Western Federation of...

, began arresting union leaders, strikers, and local public officials by the hundreds. Bell prohibited local newspapers from printing any material unfavorable to the military and ordered the arrest of the entire staff of a newspaper whose editorial had offended him. In Bell's words, "Military necessity recognizes no laws, either civil or social". When a lawyer for the union sought to free the prisoners on a writ of habeas corpus, Bell responded, "Habeas corpus

Habeas corpus

is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...

, be damned! We'll give 'em post mortems

Autopsy

An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...

!"

The violence on both sides only intensified. After a mine explosion on November 21, 1903 killed a superintendent and foreman, Bell announced a vagrancy order that required all strikers to return to work or be deported from the district. When a bomb exploded at the Independence Depot near Victor, Colorado

Victor, Colorado

Victor is a Statutory City in Teller County, Colorado, United States. The population was 445 at the 2000 census.Victor is in the heart of Colorado's gold country, home to two of the major gold mines in the Cripple Creek mining district...

on June 6, 1904, killing thirteen strikebreakers, Sheriff H.M. Robertson went to investigate. The situation became very volatile, with throngs of angry men gathered in the streets.

The Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association

Mine Owners' Association

and an anti-union vigilante organization, the Cripple Creek District Citizens' Alliance

Citizens' Alliance

The Citizens' Alliance is a defunct political party in Trinidad and Tobago. Former finance minister Wendell Mottley was leader and businessman Peter George was deputy leader...

, called a meeting at the Victor Military Club to formulate a response to the violence. A short time later Sheriff Robertson, whom the Mine Owner's Association deemed too tolerant of the union, was confronted and ordered to resign immediately or be lynched. Robertson was replaced with Edward Bell, a member of both the Mine Owner's Association and the Citizen's Alliance.

In a hostile environment ripe for provocation, the Mine Owner's Association and the Citizen's Alliance called a public meeting in a vacant lot across from the Western Federation of Miners union hall

Western Federation of Miners union hall

The Western Federation of Miners Union Hall is a historic building in danger of collapse in the Victor Downtown Historic District of Victor, Colorado....

in Victor. Speeches against the union gave way to arguments, followed by fist fights and shooting. Two were killed and five others were wounded in the melee.

WFM members took refuge in their hall, but Company L of the National Guard surrounded the hall and laid siege, firing into the building from nearby rooftops. Forty union members eventually surrendered, with four of them sporting fresh wounds. The Citizen's Alliance entered the building and trashed it. Vigilantes subsequently destroyed every union hall in the area, while General Bell used the National Guard to deport hundreds of strikers. General Bell closed the Portland Mine, owned by James Burns, because it had come to an agreement with the WFM.

Aftermath of the strikes

Although the courts eventually acquitted all union members charged with the bombing of the railroad station during the 1903-04 strike and awarded damages to those who had been deported, the strike and the union were broken in Cripple Creek; similar measures were resorted to in Telluride, Colorado

Telluride, Colorado

The town of Telluride is the county seat and most populous town of San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River in the western San Juan Mountains...

. The actions effectively drove the WFM out of many of the mining camps in Colorado.

Michigan copper strike, 1913-1914

In July 1913, locals of the Western Federation of Miners called a general strike against all mines in the Michigan Copper Country

Copper Country

The Copper Country is an area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States, including all of Keweenaw County, Michigan and most of Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties. The area is so named as copper mining was prevalent there from 1845 until the late 1960s, with one mine ...

. The strike was called without approval by the national WFM, which was extremely low on funds after the recent strikes in the west. The union supported the strike, but faced great difficulties providing pay and supplies to the strikers. Hundreds of strikers surrounded the mine shafts to prevent others from reporting to work. Almost all mines shut down, although the workers were said to be sharply divided on the strike question. The union demanded an 8-hour day, a minimum wage of $3 per day, an end to use of the one-man drill, and that the companies recognize it as the employees’ representative.

The mines reopened under National Guard protection, and many went back to work. The companies instituted the 8-hour day, but refused to set a $3 per day minimum wage, refused to abandon the one-man drill, and especially refused to employ Western Federation of Miners members.

On Christmas Eve 1913, the Western Federation of Miners organized a party for strikers and their families at the Italian Benevolent Society hall in Calumet

Calumet, Michigan

Calumet is a village in Calumet Township, Houghton County, in the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, that was once at the center of the mining industry of the Upper Peninsula. Also known as Red Jacket, the village includes the Calumet Downtown Historic District, listed on the National...

. The hall was packed with between 400 and 500 people when someone shouted "fire." There was no fire, but 73 people, 62 of them children, were crushed to death trying to escape. This became known as the Italian Hall Disaster

Italian Hall disaster

The Italian Hall Disaster is a tragedy that occurred on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan...

. Shortly after the disaster, WFM president Charles Moyer was shot and then forcibly placed on a train headed for Chicago. The strikers held out until April 1914, but then gave up the strike. The WFM was left with almost no funds to run its operations or future strikes.

Founding the IWW

The WFM's defeat led it to look for allies in the battle with employers in the Rockies, a struggle the union didn't want to concede. The Western Labor Union had renamed itself 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...

in 1902. The WFM now sought to join with other advocates of 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...

and socialism

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,...

to found a national union federation, the Industrial Workers of the World

Industrial Workers of the World

, in 1905.

The WFM had adopted a socialist program in 1901. "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...

, who joined the union as a silver miner in Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

, put the union's objections to capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

in the simplest terms: he took the side of workers against the mine owners who "did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!"

Haywood was the first chairman of the IWW; he defined its work as "socialism with its working clothes on". But factional differences the following year between the "revolutionists" and "reformists" within the IWW, which also divided the leadership of the WFM, led to the departure of the WFM from the IWW in 1907. The WFM rejoined the AFL in 1911.

Trial of Haywood, Pettibone and Moyer

When Frank Steunenberg

Frank Steunenberg

, a former governor of Idaho

Idaho

, was murdered on December 30, 1905, the authorities arrested 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...

, president of the union, Bill Haywood

Bill Haywood

, its secretary, and George Pettibone

George Pettibone

George Pettibone was an Idaho miner. He was convicted of contempt of court and criminal conspiracy in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899....

, a former member, in Colorado and put them on trial for Steunenberg's murder. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Harry Orchard, who claimed that the union had directed him to plant the bombs that killed supervisors and strikebreakers during the second Cripple Creek strike and that Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone had hired him to assassinate Governor Steunenberg.

The prosecution had depended heavily on the investigative work of James McParland

James McParland

James McParland,There are various spellings of James McParland's name. His stenographer, Morris Friedman, wrote a book about him — as "McParland." The Pinkerton Labor Spy, New York, Wilshire Book Co., 1907). also known as James McParlan,The Corpse On Boomerang Road, Telluride's War On Labor...

who, acting as an operative

Labor spies

for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, had helped convict the Molly Maguires

Molly Maguires

The Molly Maguires were members of an Irish-American secret society, whose members consisted mainly of coal miners. Many historians believe the "Mollies" were present in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania in the United States from approximately the time of the American Civil War until a...

three decades earlier, and felt confident that it would convict all three.

McParland persuaded Orchard that he could avoid the gallows if he testified that an "inner circle" of Western Federation of Miners leaders had ordered the crime. The prosecution of that "inner circle" of the union was then funded, in part, by direct contributions from the Ceour d'Alene District Mine Owners' Association to prosecuting attorneys who were, ostensibly, working for the state rather than for private interests. Upon hearing of this circumstance, President Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

issued a particularly stern rebuke to Idaho Governor Frank Gooding

Frank R. Gooding

Frank Robert Gooding was a Republican United States Senator and the seventh Governor of Idaho. The city of Gooding and Gooding County, both in southern Idaho, are named for him....

, describing such a state of affairs as the "grossest impropriety":

[Idaho's government would] make a fatal mistake—and when I say fatal I mean literally that—if it permits itself to be identified with the operators any more than with the miners... If the Governor or the other officials of Idaho accept a cent from the operators or from any other capitalist with any reference, direct or indirect, to this prosecution, they would forfeit the respect of every good citizen and I should personally feel that they had committed a real crime.

Roosevelt's strong words came in spite of the fact that he had already concluded the WFM leaders were guilty. Governor Gooding's response to the President provided a severely distorted account of the financial arrangements for the trial, and a promise to return money contributed by the mine owners. Gooding then:

...kept the narrowest construction of his promise to the president... [He then proclaimed publicly and often that] no dollar has been or will be supplied from any private source or organization whatsoever, [and then] went right on taking money from the mine owners.

In addition to Idaho mine owners, powerful and wealthy industrialists outside of Idaho were also tapped in an effort to destroy the Western Federation of Miners. Donations for the prosecutorial effort estimated in the range of $75,000 to $100,000 were simultaneously solicited and forwarded from the Colorado Mine Owners' Association and other wealthy Colorado donors. Mining interests in other states — Nevada and Utah, for example — were approached as well.

The defense hired Clarence Darrow

Clarence Darrow

Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...

, the most renowned lawyer of the day, who had represented 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...

several years earlier. In spite of the combined efforts of state and local governments in Idaho and Colorado, the Mine Owners' Associations, the Pinkerton and Thiel Detective Agencies, and other interested industrialists, the jury acquitted Bill Haywood. Pettibone was also acquitted early the next year, and all charges against Moyer were dropped. In a separate prosecution, Orchard was convicted and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted, and he spent the rest of his life in an Idaho prison. Orchard died in prison in 1954.

Mine Mill

The failure of later strikes and the depression of 1914 brought about a sharp decline in the WFM's membership. In 1916 the union changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. The union had become largely ineffective, riddled with members who passed information on to their employers, and unable to win substantial gains for its members for most of the next two decades.

Things changed, however, in 1934 when miners and smeltermen revitalized the union. Returning to its militant roots, the union spread throughout the west from its base in Butte, and then into the South and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. There were also union locals in non-ferrous smelters in New Jersey — in Perth Amboy at the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO), and in Carteret at the U.S. Metals Company. The union was one of the original members of the Committee for Industrial Organizing, which later transformed itself into the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The union also returned to its radical political traditions, as members of the Communist Party USA

Communist Party USA

The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....

came to hold the presidency of the union in the late 1940s. That, however, sparked further disagreements over leadership and expenditures and, as the postwar red scare picked up momentum, prompted raids by the United Steelworkers of America, the United Auto Workers

United Auto Workers

The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...

and other unions, particularly in mining in the South, where the CIO encouraged predominantly white miners' locals to defect. The CIO formally expelled the union in 1950 after it refused to remove its communist leaders.

The union soldiered on for another seventeen years, finding itself increasingly outmatched in its battles with employers. While it defeated all of the Steelworkers' efforts to replace it in its western strongholds in the 1950s, it had a harder time holding on to its outposts in the South. In addition, more conservative members, uneasy with the union's foreign policy and with the increasing number of African-American and Mexican-American unionists, tried to take their locals out of the union, opening up fissures that weakened the union's strikes against the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1954 and 1959. The union eventually merged with the Steelworkers in 1967 after losing locals to it in Butte and Canada

Canada

. Only Local 598 in Sudbury, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, which had a contentious and sometimes violent history with the city's Steelworkers locals, voted against the merger — it remained autonomous until 1993, when it merged with the Canadian Auto Workers

Canadian Auto Workers

The Canadian Auto Workers is one of Canada's largest and highest profile social unions. While rooted in Ontario's large auto plants of Windsor, Brampton, Oakville, St...

Salt of the Earth

The 1954 movie Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in communist politics....

, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, a member of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, portrays a year-and-a-half long strike by New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

miners who belonged to Mine, Mill; many of the actors were rank-and-file members of that union. The producers found it difficult, however, to recruit Anglo actors to play strikebreakers or deputy sheriffs; those who disliked the union wanted nothing to do with it, while those who sympathized did not want to be seen switching sides, even as actors.

The movie's star, Rosaura Revueltas

Rosaura Revueltas

Rosaura Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican star of screen and stage, and a dancer, author and teacher.-Early life:...

, was deported during the shooting of the film, requiring the producers to use a double in some scenes and to shoot film of others and record her narration in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. The home of one of the union members/actors and the union hall were burned down shortly after the end of shooting. Clinton Jencks, the Mine, Mill organizer depicted in the film, was thereafter convicted of falsely stating he was not a communist on the affidavit required of all union representatives under the Taft-Hartley Act

Taft-Hartley Act

The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...

; his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in Jencks v. United States
Jencks v. United States
Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657 , is a U.S. Supreme Court case.The petitioner, Clinton Jencks appealed, by certiorari, his conviction in a Federal District Court of violating 18 U.S.C...

, 353 U.S. 657

Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...

(1957).

The producers were unable to find a post-production house in Hollywood willing to process the film or skilled editors willing to work on it, other than under pseudonyms or at night. The film was shown at only a few theaters; most theaters rejected it, including some that had originally agreed to show it. Union projectionists refused to show it at some theaters that had accepted it.

The struggle to produce the film, pictures and information about the original strike, along with the film itself in its entirety, is available on DVD from www.Organa.com. The Special Edition also includes the film Hollywood Ten.

External links

Western Federation of Miners history (Colorado Labor Wars)

Founding

Cripple Creek, Colorado strike of 1894

Leadville, Colorado strike of 1896-97

Shortlived alliance with the American Federation of Labor

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho confrontation of 1899

Growing radicalism

Colorado strike of 1903-04

Aftermath of the strikes

Michigan copper strike, 1913-1914

Founding the IWW

Trial of Haywood, Pettibone and Moyer

Mine Mill

Salt of the Earth

See also

External links

Archives

Further reading