THE CONFESSIONS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
HARRY ORCHARD

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY
AND HOW I SET BOMBS
FOR JUDGES GODDARD AND GABBERT

I WAS down in Pettibone's store a few days after this, and a man came in that had worked for him a good deal, and said he had a better graft now—that he had been out writing life-insurance, and had made about $800 in a month. Pettibone wanted me to go and get a contract, and that would be a good bluff if I wanted to go to any small place. As they wanted me to go to Cañon City and get Peabody, I thought the insurance scheme would be good, and then I thought I could make good at it, too. So I went down to the Mutual Life office and had a talk with John L. Stearns, the manager for Colorado.

He wanted me to give him some references, and I gave him Pettibone, Horace Hawkins, of the law firm of Richardson & Hawkins, James J. Sullivan and Henry Cohen, the law firm, and John Sullivan, president of the State Federation of Labor. I knew Horace Hawkins pretty well, as he was the attorney that defended the boys at Cripple Creek. I went and saw him, and told him I wanted to get a contract with the Mutual Life-Insurance Company to write insurance, but did not want to give them my own name. I told him my name was Thomas Hogan, and I said I had given him as reference, and would like him to give me a send-off, and he said he would. I saw John Sullivan and told him, and Pettibone saw James J. Sullivan and Henry Cohen. I was only slightly acquainted with the latter two, and that through Pettibone, as they were great friends of his. Mr. Stearns wrote to these in regard to me, and in a couple of days after he wrote me to come down to his office. I went down, and he said my references could not be better, and he would make a contract with me, and he fixed it up right there and advanced me $25 then, and a little later $25 more. I told him I would go to the southern part of the State, and would start in at Cañon City and Florence.

A few days later I went to Cañon City, and did start in to talk life-insurance, and canvassed some. But I could no more get my mind on insurance than I could fly. I had located Mr. Peabody's residence, and noticed he had no guard around it at night, but went around the same as any private citizen, and I discovered he usually sat near a window on one side of his house next to an open lot at night, and did not pull the blind clear down. At first I stopped at the hotel, but later I got a room only about a block away from Mr. Peabody's residence, on the same street, so I could watch him. Then I figured out a plan to make a big bomb, and fix it to go off with an alarm-clock. I thought I could lay this on the window-sill where he sat, and set the alarm-clock to go off in a few minutes, and I could have time to go to a saloon, and be there when the bomb exploded, and take a chance of Mr. Peabody moving away from the window in the mean time.

I think I stayed there about a week, and on Saturday I told the old lady where I roomed that I was going to Denver to stay over Sunday, but would keep my room and would be back the first of the week. I took the train and went to Denver, and told them what I was going to do, and I went over to Max Malich, and got fifty pounds of No. 1 powder and a box of giant-caps. This was the powder we took from the magazine, and Adams and Mehalich sold it or gave it to Max, and he had it buried in his driveshed. I put this in a suit-case and brought it over to Pettibone's store. I went to a plumbing shop in Denver, and told them I wanted a lead bucket made about eight or nine inches across by fourteen inches high. I told the plumber I wanted it for a cactus-plant, so I could bore holes in it to let the flowers come through.

He made this for me, and put a bottom in one end of it, and I hammered it flat on one side, so it would lay on a window-sill, and packed this as full of powder as I could, and fitted a wooden end on the top, and hammered the lead over it, so it would not come out. I cut a hole in the top side of it and took out a little powder, and filled this space full of giant-caps, and wired an alarm-clock on the end of the bomb, and took off the alarm-bell. Then I had a little bottle of acid, so I could wire it over the giant-caps, and set the alarm, and had a fine wire so it would wind up around the key which wound up the alarm, so that when the alarm went off, and this key started turning, it would pull the cork out of the bottle and let the acid run on the giant-caps. I fixed this up later, after I went back to Cañon City. Except for the clock, it wasn't fixed much different from the bomb I used when I was after Bradley in San Francisco, only it was a great deal bigger, and was made in this lead case instead of a pipe. There was about twenty-five pounds of dynamite in this, and if it had gone off, I suppose it would have blown that side of the house all to pieces, as Pettibone and I figured we ought not to take any chances of missing Peabody when I set this off.

When I was in Denver this time, I stopped at the Belmont Hotel. I was well acquainted there, and they wanted to know what I was doing, etc. I told them I was writing life-insurance. Some of them wanted to know how I was making it, and I told them I was making all kinds of money; and a man that I had met there a great deal, and a great friend of Pettibone's, said he thought he would try that, too, as he had written insurance before. His name was William J. Vaughan. He went right down and saw Mr. Stearns, and got a contract in a day or two. I left in the mean time, and took my bomb and went back to Cañon City. I told Vaughan he could come down there, if he liked; that there was room enough for both of us.

After I got back to Cañon City, Mr. Peabody started to repair his house, and I could not see him at the window; and Vaughan came there in the mean time, and I thought if he did room with me that would make it all the better for me, for, if I could see Mr. Peabody at this window, I could make an excuse to go out, and not be gone over five minutes, and Vaughan would not notice it. I used to keep the little alarm-clock running, and he asked me one day where that clock was ticking. I told him it was a bomb I had in my grip, and he half believed it. Mr. Peabody had his house all torn up, and I could not see him, and Vaughan did not write any insurance, and also knew that I did not either, and he felt pretty well discouraged and his money got short. I gave him some money and told him to brace up. He wanted me to go down in the Arkansas Valley with him, and probably we would do better down there among the farmers, and I thought that would be a good way to get rid of him and I could come back again. We got ready, and I left my suit-case with the old lady, and set it away under a table where she said she would have no occasion to move it. I told her I had it full of insurance papers for advertising. I thought I would be gone only a few days, and it was so heavy I did not take it with me. It must have weighed close to fifty pounds.

Vaughan and I left and went to Rocky Ford, about 100 miles or so away in Arkansas Valley, and got a rig and started out to canvass insurance. We had been out only a day or so before we met a man writing hail-insurance—that is, insuring a farmer's crop against hail. A man named Peterson, who was general agent of the company, was in Rocky Ford, and offered us a good thing to go to work for him, and we took him up. We went down to Las Animas, which is about thirty miles from Rocky Ford, and we worked there about a week and did a fine business. I got quite interested in this, I guess because it was crooked. We made from about $20 to $30 a day at the start, and later made as high as $100, but the latter only a couple of times.

I had promised Max Malich to be in Denver on a certain day to help him on a job he had, and so I went up to Denver one Saturday afternoon the last part of May to do this. But Max Malich said he was not ready to have this job done. I saw Pettibone, and he said they wanted something pulled off before the Western Federation convention met at Salt Lake.

Haywood had told me this before; he said it would look bad for the executive board if we didn't do something, as we had used so much money during the winter, and not a thing to show for it. He said after he and Moyer left for Salt Lake he did not care what we blew up, so long as we made some showing.

Haywood and Moyer had been gone to Salt Lake some little time now to get ready for the convention, and Pettibone said he was going to the convention, too, but he wanted to pull off something first. I told him I did not like to do anything with Peabody just then; that Vaughan mistrusted something, and that I might not be able to do it in a hurry.

He said he would rather get Judge Gabbert than any one else. We had watched Judge Gabbert, and, as I have before stated, he usually walked back and forth to the Capitol, and when he went down in the morning, he walked down Emerson Street to Colfax Avenue. There is a vacant lot in one corner on Emerson Street and Colfax Avenue, and a foot-path across the same, and Mr. Gabbert usually took this cut-off. We made a bomb and buried it in this path. We had it fixed with a little windlass, with a fine wire wound around this with a loop on the end of it. We left this loop just enough above the ground so we could see it, and had a stiff wire run through the little windlass, so it would not turn over until we took this out, and we fixed this wire so we could just see it above the ground. We made this in a two-quart tin molasses-can, so the little windlass and the acid in the giant-caps were all protected from the dirt, and we made little holes to run the wires through. We put this a little to the edge of the path, and were careful in digging so it would not be noticed by any one walking across there, but we knew just where to find it.

The next morning Pettibone was going to watch, and I was going to walk around on this corner, or sit down there and pretend to be reading, and when Judge Gabbert came out of his house, which was only a block away, Pettibone was going to give me the signal, and I was to walk along this path and hitch a lady's handsatchel or large pocket-book to the wire on the bomb. We had a hook all ready fixed in this pocket-book, and all we had to do was to hitch it in the little wire that was wound around the windlass, and pull out the other wire which held the windlass upright. We tried this the next morning, but some one cut in between Judge Gabbert and us, and he was too close for me to fix the pocket-book after they passed. I think we watched two or three mornings, and I was afraid to touch the bomb after it had stood that long, for the little windlass swung very easily, and if anything had touched the wire at all before we came there, the least touch might turn it over. Pettibone had to go to this convention at Salt Lake then, and he wanted me to work on this job until I caught a morning when there was no one coming on the sidewalk but the judge. I could tell him as soon as he came out of his house from this corner.

As I was afraid to touch this old bomb, I made another one. I went to Pettibone's store, and in the basement he had some old eight-day clocks. I took the spring of one of these, and practised with it to see if I could get it so it would break those little vials that I had with sulphuric acid in for the bombs. I had tried a few vials with it, and it broke them every time. Then I made this new bomb in a wooden box, and fixed it with this spring. I fastened the spring along the under side of the cover, and bent the spring back, and held it there with a piece of stiff wire that went down through the box. I had a little eye in the top of the wire to hook the pocket-book on, and left this so I could see it. When this wire was pulled out, it let the spring hit a couple of half-dram vials that were filled with acid, and broke them, and the giant-caps were right under these. This wire pulled out very easily, and I knew the spring was sure to break the bottles.

I buried this second bomb as close to the first as I dared, and not touch it. The next morning I found the sidewalk clear when the judge was coming, and had Pettibone's bicycle, and rode along, and stopped at the bomb and hooked on the pocket-book, and rode away. I listened, and knew that something had happened to it, or else he did not see it, for I did not hear it go, and I did not have time to get more than a block away by the time he would be there. However, I was afraid to go back there for fear some one had been watching me, or for fear something might have happened that it did not go, and they had discovered the bomb. Anyway, I was too big a coward to go back, and made up my mind I would let it go. I did not think the judge would walk over it and not notice the pocket-book.

I went on down-town, and about an hour afterward I heard the bomb go off; but it was not the judge that got it, but another poor unfortunate man by the name of Merritt W. Walley. There were about ten pounds of dynamite in each of these bombs, and they both went off. It blew this poor fellow to pieces and broke the glass in the windows for many blocks around. There were many theories advanced in regard to the cause of this explosion, but not any of them came anywhere near the truth. Some thought that a yeggman had buried nitroglycerin there and Walley stubbed against it. I have been told since that Judge Gabbert saw a friend on the corner and followed the walk around instead of going across the vacant lot that morning. I thought when this failed I was out of luck sure, and that there would not be any chance to work there any more, as I did not suppose Judge Gabbert would go across there for the present. So I gave up trying to do him any harm for the present at least, but I thought I would make one more attempt, nearly on the same line, with Judge Goddard.

I made a little square wooden box that would hold about ten pounds of dynamite, and fixed this out with a little bottle and a cork which would pull out and spill the acid on the giant-caps, like the one did on the bomb I made for Bradley. I told Max Malich about this, and took it over to his place in Globeville, and stayed there all night. And just a little before daybreak the next morning, he sent his rig with a man to drive me over there. As I have told you, Max had a lot of these Austrians around him that would do anything he said, and this man did not ask me any questions, but drove where I told him. So we drove over to Judge Goddard's place just before it was light, and I got out and dug a square hole with a sharp spade I had for the purpose, and was careful to take the sod off so I could replace it again, and it would not be noticed. I made this hole right up against the gate-post, but on the outside. The gate opened both ways, but it looked as though they usually opened it on the inside. I put a little screw-eye in the bottom of the gate, and spread it enough so I could slip a loop of a small cord in the eye. I buried this bomb, and fixed the sod back carefully, and pulled some green grass over it, and had the cord long enough so I could hook it in the little screw-eye later. This cord was attached to the cork in the little bottle at the other end. This cord was a greenish color like the grass, and I scattered a little grass over the loose end of it. Then I went back to Malich's place and got breakfast.

After breakfast I came back on the street-car from Globeville, and about half past eight I walked along in front of Judge Goddard's place, dropped a newspaper carelessly, and stooped down to pick it up, and hooked this cord with the loop into the screw-eye in the gate. I took a car and went down-town, and I expected to hear this go before I got down-town, as I waited within about fifteen minutes of the usual time that the judge came out and took the car to go down-town. I did this so there would not be so much danger of some one else opening the gate first. But I never heard anything from it, and did not know what had become of it. I thought perhaps they had noticed me when I hooked in the cord, although I was only a moment and the gate is right close to the sidewalk, so I did not go along there for a good while afterward; but when I did I noticed the grass was dead over this bomb, and then I figured out what had happened.

I had fastened the cord to the bottle by a pin which I put through the cork, and made into a hook on the outside. I had put this pin in two or three days before, and left the bottle full of acid, and evidently the head of the pin on the inside had been eaten off, and allowed the pin to pull through the cork, and so none of the acid had come out, as the rubber cork would close up after it. Then afterward, as they were watering the lawn all the time, the water had soaked through and spoiled the giant-caps, for these are no good when they are wet. And after this the acid would have no effect on the caps if it did eat the cork out, and so could not set the bomb off. This was the only reason I can give for its not going off.

Well, I thought at the time that I was clear out of luck and everything was against me, and I left Denver and went down to the San Luis Valley, where Vaughan was writing hail-insurance, and went to work again with him. We worked there about two weeks and made good money. They all came back from the Federation convention at Salt Lake about the 1st of July, 1905, Haywood and Moyer both being elected again, and I told Haywood the hard luck I had had, and he thought I had better lay off for a while. Haywood and Moyer left right away again for Chicago, where they went to form a new organization which they called the Industrial Workers of the World.

I did not do anything for a time—not until Haywood came back from Chicago in July. I left this grip down at Cañon City with the bomb in it so long that I was afraid to go after it, for fear they had found out what was in it and might arrest me; but we had concluded to let Peabody alone for the time being, and do some work in Denver, so I went down to Cañon City one day and got the grip all right; and the old lady said it had never been moved. I told the old lady some yarn about leaving the grip there so long, and came away and brought the bomb to Pettibone's house, and put it in his cellar, but a little later took it out and buried it.

Pettibone and I told Haywood if we had a good horse and buggy we would do some work in Denver. Pettibone wanted to get Judge Gabbert, Judge Goddard, or Sherman Bell, and Haywood sent up to Cripple Creek and had them bring a team and wagon down from those the Federation had at their stores there, and we tried these horses,but they were all used up and were no good for drivers. He sent them back again, and then bought a horse and buggy from a colored man. I had a barn rented about a block and a half from Pettibone's residence, and Pettibone and I took the rig there and started in to assassinate Sherman Bell. This was in August, 1905.

We drove around there nights, and I would go by his place in the daytime and see if I could see him. He lived right on the edge of Congress Park, and the shrubbery came right close up to his back yard, and I was going to crawl up as close as I could and see if I could not see him through the window. I tried this several times, but they had some little dogs that used to bark when they heard a noise, and I never got any closer than the back-yard fence. I was trying to get between his house and the one next to it; the house next to his was empty, and they did not pull the blinds down at the windows on this side of Bell's house. I was working to get in between these houses, but these dogs always made a racket. Some one would come out, but I could not tell in the dark who it was. I had a pump shot-gun loaded with buck-shot, and could have shot this man; but I was not sure whether it was Sherman Bell or not, as I had seen another man there. Pettibone kept the rig and waited for me out in Congress Park, a little way behind the house.

NEXT: How I Started After Governor Steunenberg