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 EIGHTEEN

MY REASON FOR WRITING THIS BOOK

I HAVE been severely criticized by a certain class for writing this awful story of mine, and I want to make a little explanation here why I do so. I have not written it through any malice or prejudice against any individual or organization, but knowing all that I did through my connection with the Western Federation of Miners, after I had been brought into the light in and through the tender mercies of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I felt it a duty that I owed to God and humanity to do all that laid in my power to expose and stop these crimes and outrages. I hope I will be excused for these broken words, but let the reader remember that my education is very limited. By the help of God I have undertaken to put these facts before the public, that it may enlighten the great masses of the laboring class, and especially the members of the Western Federation of Miners, so that the rank and file of this organization may know just what sort of leaders they have been following all these years, and also what a great amount of their money has been spent for. I know that these outrages and crimes look too horrible to be believed, and most of them would appear to do more harm than good to the organization, but this is the very point, for this helped them to get out of many of the charges that have been laid at their door, and they always have succeeded in making it appear that the mine operators had hired men to commit these outrages so as to persecute them.

I believe that a very small percentage of the Federation know or believe these crimes have been committed from time to time with the sanction and at the request of the head officers of their organization. These leaders were always very particular to get men on the executive board that favored this work, and if they were not active they favored it by their silence. I have no doubt but some of them kept silent out of fear for their lives, but many were very active in advancing this work. You may say that the books were always audited at every convention, but the executive board had gone over them first, and they had them fixed so no auditing committee could find out anything about this emergency fund, and it would take months to go over these accounts during some of the time when there were strikes. A half a million dollars or thereabouts have been handled during a year, and several stores run, and relief dealt out to thousands in small amounts—so you must see at a glance how impossible it is for any auditing committee to audit these accounts in a few days. As the delegates are all miners and not experts at this work, they could not find out much about the accounts, and would run over the accounts in three or four days and hand in their reports, which were more a form than real auditing. The leaders in these conventions had no trouble in running the convention, and the local unions usually sent their leaders to these conventions as delegates.

Now I know during the last four years that there has been a vast amount of money spent for this work. I have received about $4,000 myself, besides $1,600 paid to Miller by Pettibone and Simpkins to defend me; but what has been paid to us tools to actually do the work has been only a small amount of it. The bills of the attorneys that have been employed to defend the men engaged in this work, and also the officers from time to time, will run up perhaps in the hundreds of thousands.

Now I have told my story on the witness-stand in the trial of Haywood—not because I wanted to take him or any of these men down with me, but because I could see no other way for me to do what I believed was my solemn duty. I never felt that I would be forgiven by God until I fully decided on this course. I know many men that were marked for death, and had every reason to believe that sooner or later the plan to kill them would be carried out, and perhaps some other man would find himself in the same position that I am in to-day. This work had been going on before Haywood and Moyer were at the head of the Western Federation of Miners, and before I knew anything about it, and I had every reason to believe that it would continue. I could see no other way that I could make earthly restitution to society for my wrong-doing, except to publicly confess all, regardless of the consequences of myself or any one else. My sympathy is with all those that were connected with me in these horrible outrages against God's creatures. I pray continually for them that they may see the error of their way before it is eternally too late.

I have told the truth in this awful trial. God alone has given me strength to openly confess to those crimes. My conscience is clear. I know I have done what was right and made all the earthly restitution that is within my power. Mr. Haywood has been acquitted. I can truthfully say I would far rather see him acquitted than hanged. I believe the trial will do much good, as I do not believe these leaders of the Federation will take a chance again with any one for the sake of revenge upon those that oppose this organization. My earnest prayer is in closing this awful tale, that it will be the means of stopping this kind of work forever.

THE END

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