Introduction — Comment by webmaster

Chapter One — My Earliest Life In Ontario

Chapter Two — Union Rule in the Cœur d'Alenes

Chapter Three — We Blow Up The Bunker Hill Mill

Chapter Four — I Go To Live In Cripple Creek

Chapter Five — The Big Strike Of 1903

Chapter Six — The Militia Come To Cripple Creek

Chapter Seven — The Explosion In The Vindicator Mine

Chapter Eight — My First Visit To Headquarters

Chapter Nine — How We Tried To Assassinate Governor Peabody

Chapter Ten — The Shooting Of Lyte Gregory Before The Convention

Chapter Eleven — How We Blew Up The Independence Depot During The Convention

Chapter Twelve — How I Went To San Francisco And Blew Up Fred Bradley

Chapter Thirteen — Our First Bomb For Governor Peabody, And Other Bombs For Street Work

Chapter Fourteen — Our Further Plans For Governor Peabody And How I Set Bombs For Judges Goddard And Gabbert

Chapter Fifteen — How I Started After Governor Steunenberg

Chapter Sixteen — The Assassination Of Governor Steunenberg

Chapter Seventeen — My Experience In Jail And Penitentiary

Chapter Eighteen — My Reason For Writing This Book

 

THE CONFESSIONS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
HARRY ORCHARD

book image

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

OUR FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY,
AND OTHER BOMBS FOR STREET WORK

I KEPT pretty close for a time after arriving in Denver. I lived with Adams for a while, and I did not go out much except at night. I went over to Haywood's residence at night, and talked to him once in a while. He said he was better pleased to have Mr. Bradley maimed the way he was than to have him killed outright, for he was a living example, and he said Bradley knew himself where this came from all right. I think he said he would write and tell him sometime how it happened. I got money any time I wanted it; Haywood gave it to Pettibone, and he gave it to me, and they wanted us to work on Judge Gabbert and see if we could not bump him off, as they were very bitter against him—especially Moyer. Judge Gabbert was chief justice of the Supreme Court, and had decided against Moyer when they brought him to Denver from Telluride on a writ of habeas corpus, when he was in the hands of the militia. So Adams and I strolled around Judge Gabbert's residence some at night. They kept the blinds of the windows pretty close, and we could never see him at night, but would often see him in the morning or at noon while he was going or coming from the State Capitol, as he usually walked back and forth. The weather was cold and stormy part of the time, and we did not make any great effort to get him. We had plenty of money and lived good, and had plenty of beer to drink, and took things easy.

Haywood also wanted us to watch Mr. Hearne, manager of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. He said they had sent him out there from Pennsylvania to fix the legislature, as he had done there, and that he was a bitter enemy to organized labor. Adams and I strolled around his residence some, but did not make much of an effort to do anything to him. If we had seen him at night when we were around there, we would have shot him, no doubt, if it had looked favorable for us to get away.

This was the winter they had such a wrangle over the governorship, and there was some doubt about them seating Adams, the Democratic candidate, who was elected by 12,000 majority for governor over Peabody, but the Republicans were crying fraud. Haywood told us then to keep quiet and not pull off anything until we got Adams seated as governor, for if we bumped Judge Gabbert off then, it might hurt his chances for being seated. But when it looked almost sure that Peabody would be seated again, he wanted us to try and get him then. But they seated Adams, and then Peabody began proceedings to oust him, charging fraud in his election, and it came to a legislature investigation. When it looked like the legislature was going to seat Peabody and throw Adams out, Pettibone came to us, and wanted us to go after Peabody again and try hard to get him, so we would not have him for governor again.

We started in to watch Peabody nights, and carried our shot-guns part of the time, but we imagined he had guards around his residence at night, and once or twice we were followed, and we concluded we would not try it at night at his residence. We thought of lying up the street and waiting for his carriage, but it was too cold to lay around and wait long, and then, we had to be sure he was in it; sometimes there were only women in it. But Peabody always walked up to the Capitol in the morning while he was governor.

There came about six inches of snow one night, and it drifted up against the curbstone in some places, and was deeper there than in the streets. We made a big bomb and put about twenty-five pounds of dynamite in it, and we stretched a wire from Grant Avenue to Logan on Thirteenth Avenue. This bomb was shaped a good deal like the one I made for Bradley in San Francisco, only it was a good deal bigger, and made in a lead case that Steve Adams got fixed at a plumber's, instead of a lead pipe. Mr. Peabody usually walked up Grant Avenue to the Capitol between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, and we laid this wire in the evening before the streets were empty, and covered it up with snow, and then came back a little before daybreak, and looked again to see if we had it covered up well. There was a little space between the curbstone and street for the water to run through at the crossings, and we dug the snow out of this enough to lay the bomb in.

We had Billy Aikman get a horse and buggy and drive Adams and me over there about eight o'clock in the morning. I got out a block or so away from the place, and walked over there, and when there were no people in sight I motioned to them, and they drove up close as though they were talking to me, and they handed me the bomb, which we had done up in a cloth. There was a bottle of acid on top of it, with a cork that had a wire through it, with a hook on the end; so all I had to do was to loop the other wire we had laid in the night over this hook, and kick a little snow over it. This only took a minute or so, and then Billy drove on and waited two or three blocks away with the rig. We had two rifles and a shot-gun in the rig, and plenty of ammunition, and intended to fight it out as long as we lasted, if we got cornered; for, of course, there is more danger in your "get-away" with a bomb like this than there is with one that sets itself off like the one I had used with Bradley. Adams and I stayed on the street where we could see the governor and his body-guard when they came along. We had seen them so often, we could tell them more than a block away.

When we saw them coming, we went to the other end of the wire and waited until they were just stepping over the bomb, and then we intended to jerk this wire, and that would jerk the cork out of the little bottle of acid, when the bomb would explode instantly. There was an alley in the middle of the block, and while we were at the end of the wire, a large coal wagon came out of this and drove up toward us. This wagon was nearly opposite us when another came out, and there seemed to be about a dozen people coming along right close, and I think the last wagon was close behind the first, when the governor came over the bomb. So we did not dare to pull the wire until he was too far beyond it to be sure of getting him. We took the bomb up and carried it over to the rig, and drove back and got hold of one end of the wire, and pulled it in the buggy and coiled it up. We thought we would try it again another morning, but it got warm and melted the snow, and what was left was hard, so that we could not cover up our wire. We then tried digging into the sidewalk near his house, or at the edge of the walk; but the ground was frozen too hard. One night we thought a watchman was after us, and I threw away the spade I was carrying wrapped up in a paper, and went home.

A little while after we made this attempt with the bomb, Mr. Peabody moved his offices down in the Jackson Block, and did not walk up Grant Avenue as usual. Haywood said then that he thought we might set a bomb in under his desk, so that when he opened the desk it would explode it. He asked me what I thought about it. I told him we could if we knew for sure his desk, and that no one would open it but him; and he said he thought perhaps Peabody had a private desk, and that he would find out. He said the Federation wanted to move their offices, and he could easily go up in the Jackson Block looking for a location, and find out where Peabody's office was. But he never did, and we never made any further attempt on Mr. Peabody's life in Denver.

As the legislature investigation proceeded, it was thought until the very last that Adams would hold his seat; but they made a compromise to seat Peabody, with the understanding he was to resign in twenty-four hours, and the committee had his resignation before they voted to seat him. Then the office went to Jesse McDonald, the Republican lieutenant governor, and Haywood said we need not bother with Peabody for the present; that we could go down to Cañon City and get him any time.

Then they wanted us to get some of the Supreme Court justices. Judge Goddard had been appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Peabody before he retired. They were very bitter against Judge Goddard, as they said he had written up most of the opinion in the Moyer habeas corpus case, and had been instrumental in declaring unconstitutional the eight-hour law that had been passed by the legislature a few years previous, when he was on the Supreme bench before; and that he and Frank Hearne, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company manager, had influenced the Supreme Court in their decisions after he had got out. Haywood wanted us to see if we could not make a bomb that we could throw or drop out of a window. He thought we could make one and cover it with a big rubber ball. He said that Mr. David Moffat stopped at the Denver Club a good deal, and walked between his bank and there, and Haywood thought if we had a bomb we could drop or throw out of a window, that we could get a room along the street, and when Mr. Moffat came along, we could drop it out of a window close to him, and get away.

We had moved over near Globeville in January, 1905, close to Max Malich, and Max wanted us to blow up the Globeville smelter boarding-house. Malich was a leader among the Austrian workmen at the smelter. He kept a grocery store and a saloon, and they called him the King of Globeville. He had been Mayor of the town, and he was strong in politics because 'most all the Austrians would do what he wanted them to—though after that they got on to him, and he couldn't handle them so well. He belonged to the smelter-men's union, and they met in his hall, and, though he wasn't an officer, the Austrians and others in the union did about what he said at that time.

There had been a strike at this Globeville smelter for nearly two years then, and their union was affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners. The smelters were working all non-union men, and I think two or three hundred stopped in this boarding-house. Max said there was not much trouble to get in the cellar or up in the hall, as things had been quiet for some time, and they did not guard it very close. He had a man there that had boarded there before the strike, and knew the place well, and he said he would help us. We wanted some No. 1 powder, anyway, to make some bombs, or to experiment with making them. So we found out where the magazines were, and concluded to go out there and get what dynamite we wanted.

Adams and I started a little before dark one Saturday, and walked out to the magazines. There were a number of magazines out there on the prairie, and as soon as it was dark, we pried off a lock from one of them, and carried 600 pounds of powder out a little way from the magazine. Then we pried the lock off another little magazine, and got about fifteen boxes of giant-caps. Then Joe Mehalich came with the rig, and we loaded it all into the wagon, and brought it to where we lived, near Globeville, and buried it in the cellar.

When we told Haywood and Moyer that Max wanted us to blow up this boarding-house, they said not to do it, and we thought no more about it. But we now had powder to practise making bombs to throw. We made these bombs by taking plaster-Paris and making a little ball. We stuck this full of giantcaps, and let it get hard, and then stuck a wire nail in each of these caps, point inward; and shived the nail up with slivers of wood, so as not to let the nail press upon the powder in the caps. But a little jar, like throwing it against anything, would drive the nail into the powder, which is in the bottom of the giant-cap, and set it off. After we made this frame with the plaster-Paris, giant-caps, and nails, we took a large rubber ball, cut it open, and slipped it around the outside of the nails. Then we filled it with dynamite, and sewed up the rubber. We tried two or three of these throwing-bombs, and they exploded instantly when they were thrown and hit anything hard. Adams and I took one of them out near Riverside Cemetery, and Steve threw it up against a big cottonwood tree that was there, and it exploded and tore out a big hole in the trunk. Steve was back of another tree when he threw it, but it shook him up badly when it went off, and the nails and caps flew everywhere. This one must have weighed four or five pounds.

We told Haywood and Pettibone then that we could make these work all right, but they did not want us to use them just then, but to see if we could not shoot Judge Goddard through the window of his residence, as he lived pretty well out, and they said the police were not often around there. We had long overcoats, and each carried a sawed-off pump shot-gun hung at our sides under our arms by a shoulder-strap. We worked awhile, but never saw him but once, and then we thought we would wait until it was a little later, as it was Sunday night, and there were quite a number of people on the street; but we could never see him again; we could see some of the rest of the family, as they hardly ever pulled the blinds clear down, and the house was built up flush with the sidewalk on one side, and only a few feet back on the other, for it was on the corner of the street. Mrs. Adams went with Steve and me sometimes for a bluff, as we thought the police were watching sometimes. There had been a drug store held up about this time not far from there, and there were extra police around, but we thought they wouldn't be so likely to suspect us with a woman along.

Sometime the last of January, Adams had gone down-town and got drunk, and was put in jail for stealing a bicycle. We did not know where he was for a week or more, and looked all over for him, and thought some one had killed him, for he had had a fight with a man just before that. After he got out and came home, we gave him a good lecture, but it did not do much good, as he got drunk again some little time after, and had to be helped home. Haywood and Pettibone did not like the looks of this, and we didn't know but we had better get rid of Adams, as he knew too much to be around drunk that way.

I left Adams's house about the last of March, and got a room only two blocks from Judge Goddard's residence, so I could watch him. We could always see him leave on the car in the morning and go down, but could never see him at night. Soon after I quit living with Adams, he had some dispute with Haywood and Pettibone, and told me they would not give him money enough, or only a few dollars at a time, and he was angry at me and blamed me, too. I told him there must be some mistake about it, and that he had no reason to blame me, and I told him I was going away, and that he and Joe Mehalich could work together after that, as they chummed together, and the women visited back and forth. I told him I was going down to Cañon City or Colorado Springs to get MacNeill or Peabody. He said all right, he would go with me; but I didn't encourage this, as I wanted to get rid of him.

Steve went down to get some money, and Pettibone gave me a few dollars, and said that was all he had left out of the last Haywood gave him. Adams sent Pettibone down to Haywood's office to get some more, and Haywood would not give it to him. He told Pettibone he had given Mrs. Adams, I think, $40 the day before, and that ought to be enough for a while. Adams went down and saw Haywood, and they had some words, and Haywood did not give him any money, and when I saw Adams he would hardly speak to me. I told him we were the last ones that ought to have any trouble, and that he had no reason to feel hard at me. He said they had used him dirty mean, and that he was through with them. I told him it was his fault—that he had no business getting drunk so much, and that was the reason I quit him, and that they were afraid to give him much money at a time for fear he would be drunk. He said they would use me the same when they got through with me. I told him they wouldn't, for I wouldn't stand for it— not if I was where I could get to them.

I would say that Haywood was always very close and stingy with the money for this work, and would always be putting you off and saying he would pay you next week, and we had to look to Pettibone to get it for us. But we could always get it from Pettibone all right, as he would go down and tell Haywood he had got to have it, and Haywood would give it to him. But, of course, with Steve getting drunk the way he did, none of us wanted to do any business with him, and, in fact, wanted to get him out of the country.

Adams and Joe Mehalich got ready to go away then, and I went over to Globeville to see them the day they left, as I did not want them to leave feeling hard toward me, if I could help it. I did not ask them where they were going, as they did not tell me, but I called Adams to one side and had a little talk with him, and told him I was not to blame, and he had not ought to have any hard feelings toward me. He said he felt sore at everybody, and that perhaps he had no reason to feel hard toward me, but that he had thought I had run him down to Haywood. I told him that Haywood knew about him getting drunk without my telling him.

Adams said they were going to beat their way, as they had no money to pay their fare. I only had a little money with me, but I borrowed $20 from Max Malich and gave it to him, and I told Max to give the women what they wanted to live on from his grocery store, and send the bill to Haywood and make him pay it. It was some time in April, 1905, I think, that they went away. I found out later they went to Park City, Utah, and afterward went to eastern Oregon on a land claim. But that was the last time I saw Steve until they arrested him in Oregon in February, 1906, and brought him to Boise, Idaho. I paid Max Malich the $20 back the next day.

NEXT: Our Further Plans For Governor Peabody And How I Set Bombs For Judges Goddard And Gabbert