The Trail of Gold and Silver

by Duane A. Smith

  Although safety and health issues increasingly drew attention, the labor/management struggles of the 1890s, at Cripple Creek, Leadville, and smaller districts such as Lake City, had not solved the basic issue of who would dominate. Once management became organized, the tide turned in its favor, which made outspoken union leadership more determined than ever. Feelings ran deep on both sides. Militant unionists fought entrenched management—first with words, then with strikes, fists, guns, and dynamite. Management responded to activities of the “un-American” unions with company guards, spies, the National Guard, blacklisting, conservative courts, the generally pro-management Colorado government, and violation of their opponents’ civil rights.

  Between 1901 and 1904, labor struggles cost the state of Colorado a conservatively estimated $750,000. The state acquired a reactionary, violent reputation, and its major mining districts suffered severe setbacks from which some mines and individuals never recovered. Death, destruction, and damage followed in the wake of these contests. It was the worst of times for relations between miners and owners.

  In May of 1901, the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), which had gained a stronghold in the San Juans—with locals at Ophir, Rico, Ouray, Durango, Silverton, and Telluride, for example—called out its members at the Smuggler-Union Mine above Telluride. Management insisted that the contract, or fathom, system be adopted instead of daily wages. The union responded that under this system, miners could not earn even the $3 daily wage current in the district. Further, in the hurry to mine a fathom (6 feet by 6 feet and as wide as the vein), the possibility of an accident increased dramatically.

  Unlike previous strikes, this one ostensibly had nothing to do with raising or lowering wages, but instead focused on mining methods. Union leadership offered to submit the dispute to arbitration, which management stubbornly and shortsightedly refused. Thus at an impasse, the strike entered its second month.

  The Smuggler-Union’s manager, the experienced, anti-union Arthur Collins, then hired nonunion miners at $3 for an eight-hour day, something he had refused to grant union members. The WFM countered by trying to induce the “scabs” to quit. That tactic failed, so on July 3, approximately 250 miners and supporters organized to confront the night shift as it came off work.

  John Barthell, a striking union miner, stood up and shouted for the scabs to come out. Company guards immediately opened fire, killing Barthell and igniting a shoot-out. When the smoke cleared, two more were dead, six wounded, and eighty-eight nonunion men had been captured, beaten, and brutally driven from the district. Each side blamed the other—small consolation for the dead and injured. There was no traditional July Fourth celebration that year in Telluride, nor did Governor James Orman accede to the owners’ demand that the Colorado National Guard be sent in; instead, he sent an investigating team to Telluride to hold hearings. The result was a conference at which the $3 wages and eight-hour day were conceded for underground miners, but not for surface workers and millworkers.

  The strike was called off, but both sides remained bitter, edgy, and angry. Telluride’s local emerged as one of the strongest in Colorado and served notice that it behooved miners to join. The owners responded to this threat by organizing the San Juan Mining Association covering San Juan, Ouray, and San Miguel Counties.

  Telluride became a hotbed of contention as both sides jockeyed for dominance. The union boycotted the vehemently anti-labor Daily Journal and threatened any business that would not display a “fair card” in its window and join with a union boycott. A Business Men’s Association responded by supporting the paper and pro-management businesses.

  Then, on November 19, 1902, Collins was assassinated at his home. With no proof whatsoever, the owners blamed the union and had its leadership arrested, while the real murderer—unknown to this day—escaped. Of course, the union leadership denied any involvement in the murder. The accusations and counter-accusations growing out of Collins’s murder further inflamed an already volatile situation. The line had been crossed: The union would either be destroyed or would control the district—and the owners were not about to let the latter happen.

  Collins was replaced by the flamboyant, controversial Bulkeley Wells—a ruthless anti-union man, much admired and much hated. Both sides braced for a final round, which came in September 1903 when the WFM attempted to gain an eight-hour day for millmen. The managers stood firm, preferring to keep their plants closed rather than “submit to the [union’s] dictates.” Wells confidently predicted, “The strike here and elsewhere . . . promises to be an absolute failure.”

  When the union at Cripple Creek went out on strike concurrently with Telluride, the labor/management struggle had turned the state’s two leading districts into battlegrounds. At Telluride, the prolonged strike spread to nearby Ophir, while armed guards and armed union pickets stared each other down. Among those who arrived was Robert Meldrum, a professional killer imported by the mine owners, who reportedly made his local debut at the Cosmopolitan Saloon by ordering a drink and announcing to startled patrons: “I’m Bob Meldrum. You can always find me when you want me. Now, if any son of a bitch has anything to say, spit it out; otherwise, I’m going to take a drink—and alone.” According to local legend, the room promptly cleared, with people leaping out windows and dashing through the swinging front door.

  The WFM countered by hiring a gunfighter of its own, Joe Corey. With the owners in control of San Miguel County, the county sheriff promptly deputized Meldrum and several of his fellow guards, giving them the considerable advantage of delegated legality over the strikers and their supporters.

  As positions hardened, tension mounted, threats turned to violence, and in the owners’ minds anarchy was imminent. The call went out for the National Guard. This time, ardently anti-union James Peabody sat in the governor’s chair, and he did not hesitate. In marched six companies of infantry, supported by two cavalry companies. They deployed at Telluride, Ames, Pandora, and at various individual mines. These troops unequivocally represented the owners against the strikers. To ease the financial burden on the cash-strapped state, overjoyed owners furnished meals and quarters for the troops until permanent camps could be established.

  The change in the power balance soon became obvious to everyone. The owners hired scabs to replace strikers, and striking miners, “mostly foreigners, were arrested and charged with vagrancy and told to go to work, to jail, or to leave.”4 Gambling houses and saloons were boarded up and on the surface Telluride became a ghost town. Civil rights went out the window; people were guilty until proven nonunion in membership and loyalty. Union leaders were seized for threatening nonunion miners. By the end of December, all seemed quiet—but underneath, the community seethed.

  On January 3, 1904, Peabody, who had thus far resisted declaring martial law, suddenly did so, claiming that San Miguel County was bordering on insurrection and rebellion. The owners had been pushing for this move, and Peabody, convinced by hearsay and “threats,” took action. So did the owners, who organized their own private troops, mustered them in, and volunteered them for state service. This amazing turn of events resulted in a complete victory for the owners. Striking miners were deported, soldiers patrolled the streets, passes were required to be out and about, guns were confiscated, and Bulkeley Wells assumed command of the district. All this was accompanied by selectively enforced press censorship.

  The victorious owners, now certain of their absolute dominance, continued to deport union miners. Finally, with only a few remaining, martial law was lifted on March 11. After the militia left, however, not twenty-four hours passed before Wells organized a “citizens’ alliance.” When some of the deported men returned, the alliance promptly put them on a train, where they were joined by about sixty-five of their supporters. All were ordered not to return.

  Grateful friends honored Wells with a victory banquet on March 17. It proved a bit premature, however. When armed men promised to aid returning strikers, Peabody again sent in the guard: Troop A,
Wells’s handpicked Telluride supporters. They “cleaned up” remaining union members and backers, stopping returning strikers, jailing a few, and concluding a general roundup of “undesirable men in the district.” The second reign of martial law was ended on June 15, giving final and total victory to the owners and their backers—but nobody had really won. The spirit that distinguishes an exuberant, prospering community from a stressed and worried one died that year in Telluride.

  Colorado’s adjutant general, the pompous Sherman Bell, proudly boasted that peace and good order had been fully restored. That was true only in the sense that mills and mines returned to full operation after their owners seized absolute control. The decimated Western Federation of Miners finally conceded in November, calling off the strike. Management did hand the miners a pyrrhic victory when it unilaterally granted employees an eight-hour day, but the concession came at terrible cost: human trauma, monetary losses, violation of civil liberties, brutal repression, and severe damage to the district’s reputation.

  Bell, meanwhile, played a much larger role in Colorado’s more newsworthy dispute: the strike at Cripple Creek, a district still enjoying more than $10 million annually in gold production, a thriving economy, and national fascination with its goings-on. For the miners, the old days, when they could tramp on to another camp or a new district and make their individual fortunes, were but a memory. Corporations now ruled, and that was as clear at Cripple Creek as in Telluride.

  Cripple Creek was such a big player on the mining scene that, like Leadville before it, it had its own mining stock exchange. Cripple Creek’s most famous millionaire, Winfield Scott Stratton, had built the Mining Exchange Building in Colorado Springs, where the association kept its offices. The 1907 report listed thirty-one pages of companies and promised its readers that:

  All properties listed upon the Exchange are passed upon by the Listing Committee and the Attorneys for the Exchange. Titles, development, location, future prospects and management are examined. Every stock is registered with a responsible Bank or Trust Company.

  The report also listed each company’s officers (including their salaries), capitalization, dividends property, shares, plant and machinery, people employed, and taxes paid, and stated whether the firm faced any indebtedness or litigation. Investors must have been reassured by such a complete summary, especially considering the number of crooked mining investment schemes being perpetrated at the time. Of course, no one could tell what the future might bring or what might be hidden in the statistics.5

  Investors may have rested easy, but in Cripple Creek itself matters were not going quite so well, at least from the owners’ viewpoint. In a district that was literally a union camp, almost all labor sectors—including the porters and dance-hall girls—were organized into various unions. The upset owners, who well remembered their 1894 embarrassment, were eager to break the unions’ growing strength.

  The trouble did not originate with the miners; instead, it was the mill-workers who stirred the pot. The mill owners had stubbornly resisted all efforts to organize workers at the reduction works for Cripple Creek, which were located at Colorado City rather than in the gold fields themselves. It was there that the WFM eagerly moved to organize the workers. In March 1903, the workers struck against two mills that operated closed shops, and in came the militia. The pattern followed was strikingly similar to what was transpiring at Telluride.

  A well-organized, equally determined Mine Owners’ Association, along with Colorado’s unwavering anti-union governor, Peabody, stood in adamant opposition to the workers. This time they were well prepared. They controlled many local government offices (though not the sheriff). The companies had a fairly substantial war chest, which would hold out if the strike was not too prolonged, and the mine owners guaranteed that they would underwrite some of the expenses, which made it easier for the nearly bankrupt state to intervene.

  The strike went through several phases. Initially, it was about recognition of the union. After some hesitation, the 3,500 Cripple Creek miners marched out in a sympathetic strike against the mines supplying the two closed-shop mills. This forced management to make concessions, and the matter seemed settled in April 1903. Then the millworkers walked out, initially against a mill they claimed had not lived up to the agreement. On August 10, unionized labor in Colorado City and Cripple Creek went on strike again, called out by William “Big Bill” Haywood, the union’s radical executive secretary. No one knows how many miners actually supported the strike, as no vote was taken.

  The strike nearly paralyzed mining operations and was potentially hazardous for all concerned. The district’s prosperity depended solely on uninterrupted gold mining, because there were no other industries to fall back on as a safety net. A prolonged dispute might prove catastrophic to the nearly 50,000 people residing in the district. Nor was the union, despite its strength, in a position to withstand a long siege. Union president Charles Moyer optimistically hoped the owners would help bring the smelter people to their senses before the strike went on too long. That plan failed and the strike dragged on. As August slipped into September, any possibility of compromise almost vanished, and both sides prepared for a long, hard struggle.

  Not only owners but merchants as well battled the union. Fearful of carrying customers’ debt, the shopkeepers initially pressured the striking miners by demanding cash-only sales (typically, credit was offered until the end-of-the month payday). The union countered by opening its own store. Only “traitors” traded with the other side’s merchants. Positions hardened, friendships evaporated, and communities became split.

  Violence, terrorism, and a mine fire ended any hope of a peaceful settlement. A petition was rushed to Denver to alert Peabody to the problems, while owners demanded that the sheriff hire extra deputies whom the owners would select and pay. In September, Peabody, the “law and order” governor, after sending an investigating committee to assess the situation, responded predictably. In marched nearly a thousand guardsmen “to protect all persons and property from unlawful interference.” Colorado thus had two districts under military control.

  What that meant in reality was a pro-owner resolution, under the guise of seeing “public peace and good order . . . preserved upon all occasions.” The sheriff and others, including Victor’s city council, protested that the situation did not warrant such action, but they were crying unheard in the wilderness. By the end of the month, troops patrolled the principal roads and guarded the mines, and the district was virtually divided into two camps, pro- and anti-union. The WFM faced a grossly uneven fight against the owners, the conservative courts, most local newspapers, the vast majority of Colorado public opinion, and the power of the state government.6

  The Cripple Creek Times (September 8, 1903) reported that the Mine Owners’ Association blamed the strike on a “few irresponsible agitators” whose methods were “inimical to the rights and obligations” of everyone. Further jobs in the district, it stated uncompromisingly, would be given to nonunion men only. Both sides used such propaganda. The owners and their backers claimed that the “militant” union and its leaders were lawless and un-American. The union fired back with salvos about tyranny, the workers’ plight, and the rights of Americans. Meanwhile, the union’s resources dwindled as it tried to keep two major strikes going. The owners had a huge advantage in what became a war of attrition.

  During this largely one-sided struggle, a campaign of harassment against the strikers gained momentum, with Adjutant General Sherman Bell personally supervising operations. In the name of “military necessity,” local government was ignored, the pro-union Victor Record was eventually “captured” and destroyed, and civil courts were superseded by military courts. Civil rights were trampled again, pro-union businesses boycotted, and union members blacklisted. Vagrancy was so broadly defined that the law could be used against striking miners to force them either back to work or out of the district.

  By February 1904, all the pro-management efforts ap
peared to have succeeded. The few remaining troops were placed under the authority of local officials, and were completely withdrawn in April. Then, on June 6, the uneasy calm that had settled over the district was shattered by the desperate union. Violence erupted anew when Harry Orchard, a professional terrorist, dynamited the Independence railroad depot just as the night shift left work. Thirteen men died, and many other nonunion miners were injured. The Cripple Creek Times that day accused the WFM of “cold blooded murder,” and the public generally agreed. This ghastly event brought back the guard, martial law, wholesale arrests, deportation, the wrecking of the Victor union hall, and mob harassment of union members. Meanwhile, Bell took extraordinary measures to destroy what was left of the union.

  On July 27, troops were finally withdrawn again. This led to one more violent outbreak, this time by the owners’ henchmen, in what the New York Times (August 7) called a “reign of terror.” A union store was ransacked, mobs seized prisoners and abused them with impunity, union sympathizers were terrorized, and Peabody refused to intervene. What remained of the union disappeared, leaving the owners in complete control.

  These events spelled the end of the Western Federation of Miners in Cripple Creek and throughout the state. To the public, press, and government, it seemed that everything the owners claimed was true: The union was violent, un-American, radical, and opposed to law and order and the constitution. More importantly, the labor disputes were costing taxpayers and the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.