THE CONFESSIONS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
HARRY ORCHARD

CHAPTER FIVE

THE BIG STRIKE OF 1903

I HAD never taken any particular interest in unions up to this time. I had never worked anywhere, since leaving Burke, Idaho, where there was a miners' union till I came to Cripple Creek. W. F. Davis and W. B. Easterly had come to me when I first went to work in the district, and asked me to join the Altman union. I knew Davis from the Cœur d'Alenes. He was the man that had command of the union men when we blew up the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill. He was president of the Altman union now, and Easterly was secretary. So after I had a pay-day I went up and joined this union. Still, I never took much interest in it till the strike.

The Cripple Creek district was considered a union district, notwithstanding there were a good many men working there that did not belong to the union, and part of the mines ran on the open-shop principle. The big mines on Bull Hill all recognized the unions, and this end practically controlled the unions of the district. There were eight unions in the district—one miners' union at Victor, one at Cripple Creek, one at Anaconda, and one at Altman; one engineers' union at Victor, one at Cripple Creek, and one at Independence; and a mill- and smeltermen's union at Victor. These unions each selected one or two delegates, and the delegates composed the district union.

The Victor union was the largest and most conservative. The men belonging to the Free Coinage union at Altman, where I was a member, used to often be called "the Bull Hill dynamiters." This was only the third largest miners' union in the district, but they had always had very radical leaders. Dan McGinley had been a former leader. He had been looked up to as a great man, and although dead they used to keep his memory alive by having his picture hanging in the union hall.

The Cripple Creek district was so large that the unions could not control it the same as they did the Cœur d'Alenes, and non-union men were pretty safe in big towns like Victor and Cripple Creek, but the Free Coinage union had the vicinity of Bull Hill well under their control, the same as in the Cœur d'Alenes, and there was hardly a man both working and living on Bull Hill that did not belong to some of the unions. There had been a great many men beaten up and run away from there because they did not join the unions, or pay their dues, or because they were suspected of being spies. The Free Coinage miners' union kept a "timber gang," as they called them, to do this work. Easterly, who was ex-secretary, and Sherman Parker, who was secretary when the strike came, had helped to do this kind of work before they became officers of the union. Steve Adams, Billy Aikman, "Slim" Campbell, H. H. McKinney, Billy Gaffney, and Ed Minster and others were in the gang. These men hardly ever worked and always seemed to have plenty of money, and Steve Adams has since told me they were ready for any old thing, from running men out of the district to killing them, as long as they got the money.

This strike in August, 1903, was called because the Standard mill in Colorado City discriminated against union men, and the miners at Cripple Creek were called out in order to cut off the ore supply from the Standard mill and force a settlement. The Telluride mill was also closed at Colorado City. The Portland mine was the only big mine that was not called out, as it had its own mills and granted the union's demand. There were a few smaller mines working, but only a few. One strike against the mills was called in February, and some of the miners went out for a short time in March. Then there was a settlement for a while, but in July the mill-men were called out again, because it was claimed Mr. MacNeill, the manager of the Standard mill, was not keeping his agreement; and on August 10th the Cripple Creek miners went out again.

I knew this whole thing had been arranged at the Western Federation of Miners' convention at Denver in May and June of 1903. And while I do not think the convention acted on it officially, the leaders on the executive board and some of the local leaders in Colorado agreed to make Colorado a "slaughter ground," as W. F. Davis later expressed it to me— that is, to call out all the miners, mill-men, and smelter-men in Colorado, and force all the managements to give them all an eight-hour day and a recognition of the union. Most places in the mines and mills of Colorado had the eight-hour day— though the smelter-men and the Leadville miners and perhaps some others did not. But there were many conditions which the Federation leaders did not like, and they meant to change them at this time. Haywood and Moyer and others of the labor leaders have told me that they took advantage of the legislature failing to pass an eight-hour bill after the State had voted for it the year before by such a large majority, to make all the mines, mills, and smelters, where unions were organized, recognize the unions and pay the union's scale of wages all over Colorado. At the same convention, they passed a resolution allowing the head officers of the union to call a strike if they thought best to, when they wanted to support another strike.

Mr. Moyer and Mr. Haywood have always denied that they had anything to do with calling this Cripple Creek strike, because this resolution did not take effect for six months, until after it was indorsed by the local unions. They claimed that the district union of Cripple Creek called the strike there. This is true, they did call the strike, but they were acting on advice, and you might say orders, from Moyer and Haywood. The district union in Cripple Creek was mostly composed of men that were controlled by Moyer and Haywood, and it appointed three men on the committee to see about calling the strike, and they approved of it. Sherman Parker and W. F. Davis of the Altman union were on this, and Charles Kennison of Cripple Creek, all radical men; and the Victor union, that was the largest miners' union in the district, and was conservative, had no representative at all, while the most radical one and the next to the smallest, at Altman, had two. If this sympathetic strike had been left to a referendum vote of the miners of the district, it never would have passed, and the men who favored this strike knew this. I never will think it is wise to call out four or five thousand men to enforce the demands of a hundred and fifty or two hundred. And I know that many quit against their will when the order came.

Some will ask, "What did they quit for?—they did not have to." There are several reasons why men quit against their will. In the first place, the unions were in the great majority, and had most of the local peace officers on their side. Men had been run out of the district and beaten up because they would not join the union, and they could not expect much protection from the local authorities, and again men did not like to be called "scabs" and to have their names, and in many instances their photographs, sent to every miners' union in the country, for miners travel around a good deal. The secretaries of the unions post up these names in the union halls, and also the photographs, if they have them. There is 'most always some one in every camp that knows these men, and many men have disappeared in mysterious ways, and others have been killed in various ways while working in the mines. These are always reported as accidents, and some of them no doubt are, but I know of some that were not, and have been told by reliable sources that many are not, and I know there are many ways to get away with a man working in the mines and make it appear an accident. So, after taking all these things into consideration, one can readily understand why men quit work and go on a strike when ordered to do so by their officers.

As I have said, it was the intention of the Federation leaders to call the miners out all over the State, and tie up the mines, mills, reduction works, and smelters. They called out the smelter-men at the Globe and Grant smelter works at Denver. They also tried to call out all the miners in the San Juan district, as they were well organized there, but most of the miners in this district had agreements with the mine operators and would not break them. However, at Telluride they found a way around this. Most of the men went on strike for an eight-hour day for a few mill-men there, although many of the mill-men did not quit themselves, but were forced to by the closing of the mines. The Smuggler-Union miners did not strike, but they got the cooks and waiters at their boarding-houses to leave, and this gave the miners an excuse to quit, as they would not board where there were non-union cooks and waiters. Telluride was the only camp in the San Juan district where they succeeded in getting the unionists to quit work. I think they had from ten to twelve hundred men in the miners' union at Telluride.

C. H. Mover, president of the Western Federation, tried to get the miners out at Ouray, but they finally decided not to come out, after he had got them once to vote to do so. At Silverton the largest union in the district absolutely refused to come out. Most of the coal-miners in Colorado went on strike, too, about this time.

But, as I have stated, in Cripple Creek the men practically all quit work when ordered to do so, and there was a strike committee appointed, and there was a circular sent out from headquarters to all kinds of unions throughout the country soliciting money for a fund which they called the "eight-hour fund." And they also sent men all over the country soliciting aid for the strikers. They got up great public sympathy because the legislatures refused to pass the eight-hour bill, as they should have done when the people of the State voted so strong for it. But, as I have explained, the big strike at Cripple Creek had nothing to do with the eight-hour law, and this was the case at Telluride, so far as the miners themselves were concerned.

NEXT: The Militia Come To Cripple Creek