Okla-homey
11/23/2006, 07:57 AM
November 23, 1903 Colorado governor sends militia to Cripple Creek
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/8995/crip1740295cripplecreek1900cri.jpg
Cripple Creek Colorado as it appeared in 1900.
103 years ago, on this day in 1903, determined to crush the union of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the mining town of Cripple Creek thus opening the "labor wars" in Colorado.
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/9677/crippeabody0xf.gif
Governor James Peabody
The strike in the gold mines of Cripple Creek began that summer. William "Big Bill" Haywood's Western Federation of Miners which was a branch of the IWW or "Wobblies," called for a sympathy strike among the underground miners to support a smelter workers' strike for an eight-hour day (Imagine the nerve!);)
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/3888/criphaywoodsm2pa.jpg
William "Big Bill" Haywood, Secretary General of the "International Workers of the World." In 1906, after the "labor wars" out west, Haywood was framed and charged with murdering former Idaho Governor Steunenberg; he was acquitted. With the advent of World War I, the IWW came under fierce attack, for advocating that workers fight in the class war and not the war in Europe. In April, 1918, Haywood and ninety-two other IWW members were convicted of conspiracy, espionage, and sedition, for calling strikes during wartime. Haywood skipped bail while awaiting appeal and fled to the Soviet Union, where he died ten years later. Some of his ashes were buried under the Kremlin Wall and others next to the Haymarket martyrs in Chicago.
The WFM, which was founded in 1893 in Montana, had already been involved in several violent strikes in Colorado and Idaho. By the end of October, the call for action at Cripple Creek had worked, and a majority of mine and smelter workers were idle; Cripple Creek operations ground to a halt.
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/5342/cripasp21gd.jpg
Eventually, the gold and silver ran out. The area around modern Cripple Creek is rather "ghost town-ish" with homes and old mining facilities standing empty and silent.
Eager to resume mining and break the union, the mine owners turned to Governor Peabody, who agreed to provide state militia protection for replacement workers (AKA "scabs".)
Outraged, the miners barricaded roads and railways, but by the end of November 1903 more than a thousand armed men were in Cripple Creek to undermine the strike. Soldiers began to round up union members and their sympathizers -- including the entire staff of a pro-union newspaper, and imprison them without any charges or evidence of wrongdoing.
IOW, the governor of Colorado had suspended the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus presumably justifying the suspension under Article 1, Sec. 9, para 2 of the US Constitution which allows suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus during times of "rebellion, invasion or when he public safety may require it."
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4821/cripwfmbroadsideforlangdonbook.jpg
IWW-WFM poster decrying government excesses in breaking the strike
Now folks, its pretty clear here that Governor Peabody was more interested in busting up the miners union than keeping the peace, so I figure his wholesale policy of locking folks up without charging them with anything is just a lode (<---get it? pun?) of crap.
The bottomline was pretty well exposed when miners complained that the imprisonment without being charged with anything was a violation of their constitutional rights, one anti-union judge replied, "To hell with the Constitution; we're not following the Constitution!"
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/3792/crip1740041mainstreetcripplecr.jpg
Downtown Cripple Creek Colorado today. It's all about casinos and bars.
Public opinion had begun to turn in favor of the miners based on the way the miners were being oppressed by government forces. Unfortunately for the miners, they failed to take advantage of this shift in public opinion and instead did something phenomenally dumb.
The Colorado government's tyrannical tactics had allowed the more radical elements (AKA "Thugs") in the WFM to take over the union. In June 1904, Harry Orchard, a Canadian born professional terrorist who had learned his dynamiting skillz as a miner blew up a railroad station, which killed 13 strikebreakers. :eek:
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8105/crippharryorchard5pm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
IWW killer Harry Orchard. he was eventually convicted of various crimes, including killing the governor of Idaho on the order of "Big Bill" Haywood and spent the rest of his life in the Idaho state pen where he died in 1954.
This recourse to terrorism proved a serious tactical mistake. The bombing turned public opinion firmly against the union, and the mine owners were able to freely arrest and deport the majority of the WFM leaders -- many of whom were Irish immigrants.
They also rounded up US born strikers and either confined them in the infamous "bullpens" or took them under guard to the Kansas border and abandoned them there. General Sherman Bell of the Colorado National Guard shouted, "Habeus Corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems."
By midsummer, the strike was over and the WFM never again regained the power it had previously enjoyed in the Colorado mining districts.
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/2504/cripasp41yq.jpg
Despite its violent past and the scars of vast mining operations, the area is still absolutely gorgeous.
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/1715/insane7zo4nh.jpg
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/8995/crip1740295cripplecreek1900cri.jpg
Cripple Creek Colorado as it appeared in 1900.
103 years ago, on this day in 1903, determined to crush the union of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the mining town of Cripple Creek thus opening the "labor wars" in Colorado.
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/9677/crippeabody0xf.gif
Governor James Peabody
The strike in the gold mines of Cripple Creek began that summer. William "Big Bill" Haywood's Western Federation of Miners which was a branch of the IWW or "Wobblies," called for a sympathy strike among the underground miners to support a smelter workers' strike for an eight-hour day (Imagine the nerve!);)
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/3888/criphaywoodsm2pa.jpg
William "Big Bill" Haywood, Secretary General of the "International Workers of the World." In 1906, after the "labor wars" out west, Haywood was framed and charged with murdering former Idaho Governor Steunenberg; he was acquitted. With the advent of World War I, the IWW came under fierce attack, for advocating that workers fight in the class war and not the war in Europe. In April, 1918, Haywood and ninety-two other IWW members were convicted of conspiracy, espionage, and sedition, for calling strikes during wartime. Haywood skipped bail while awaiting appeal and fled to the Soviet Union, where he died ten years later. Some of his ashes were buried under the Kremlin Wall and others next to the Haymarket martyrs in Chicago.
The WFM, which was founded in 1893 in Montana, had already been involved in several violent strikes in Colorado and Idaho. By the end of October, the call for action at Cripple Creek had worked, and a majority of mine and smelter workers were idle; Cripple Creek operations ground to a halt.
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/5342/cripasp21gd.jpg
Eventually, the gold and silver ran out. The area around modern Cripple Creek is rather "ghost town-ish" with homes and old mining facilities standing empty and silent.
Eager to resume mining and break the union, the mine owners turned to Governor Peabody, who agreed to provide state militia protection for replacement workers (AKA "scabs".)
Outraged, the miners barricaded roads and railways, but by the end of November 1903 more than a thousand armed men were in Cripple Creek to undermine the strike. Soldiers began to round up union members and their sympathizers -- including the entire staff of a pro-union newspaper, and imprison them without any charges or evidence of wrongdoing.
IOW, the governor of Colorado had suspended the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus presumably justifying the suspension under Article 1, Sec. 9, para 2 of the US Constitution which allows suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus during times of "rebellion, invasion or when he public safety may require it."
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4821/cripwfmbroadsideforlangdonbook.jpg
IWW-WFM poster decrying government excesses in breaking the strike
Now folks, its pretty clear here that Governor Peabody was more interested in busting up the miners union than keeping the peace, so I figure his wholesale policy of locking folks up without charging them with anything is just a lode (<---get it? pun?) of crap.
The bottomline was pretty well exposed when miners complained that the imprisonment without being charged with anything was a violation of their constitutional rights, one anti-union judge replied, "To hell with the Constitution; we're not following the Constitution!"
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/3792/crip1740041mainstreetcripplecr.jpg
Downtown Cripple Creek Colorado today. It's all about casinos and bars.
Public opinion had begun to turn in favor of the miners based on the way the miners were being oppressed by government forces. Unfortunately for the miners, they failed to take advantage of this shift in public opinion and instead did something phenomenally dumb.
The Colorado government's tyrannical tactics had allowed the more radical elements (AKA "Thugs") in the WFM to take over the union. In June 1904, Harry Orchard, a Canadian born professional terrorist who had learned his dynamiting skillz as a miner blew up a railroad station, which killed 13 strikebreakers. :eek:
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8105/crippharryorchard5pm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
IWW killer Harry Orchard. he was eventually convicted of various crimes, including killing the governor of Idaho on the order of "Big Bill" Haywood and spent the rest of his life in the Idaho state pen where he died in 1954.
This recourse to terrorism proved a serious tactical mistake. The bombing turned public opinion firmly against the union, and the mine owners were able to freely arrest and deport the majority of the WFM leaders -- many of whom were Irish immigrants.
They also rounded up US born strikers and either confined them in the infamous "bullpens" or took them under guard to the Kansas border and abandoned them there. General Sherman Bell of the Colorado National Guard shouted, "Habeus Corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems."
By midsummer, the strike was over and the WFM never again regained the power it had previously enjoyed in the Colorado mining districts.
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/2504/cripasp41yq.jpg
Despite its violent past and the scars of vast mining operations, the area is still absolutely gorgeous.
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/1715/insane7zo4nh.jpg