Cripple Creek
Yesteryear's "traditions" have faced serious questioning lately around the United States.
Boycotts and protests are hitting South Carolina because of the refusal of that state's leaders to take the Confederate Flag down from the capital.
Also, protests are beginning to be commonplace against business organizations such as the WTO, whose American reps and a majority of the other delegates condone child labor and seriously repressive labor laws abroad, although long illegal here.
Despite this, there is one state that fully embraces its institutionalized lawlessness of the past and actively strives to return to those corporate glory years when no rights existed for working people.
God bless Colorado and its state's representatives adherence to its labor "tradition".
The representatives of this state have long condoned assaulting the safety and financial livelihoods of its workers. The roots of this bash against us trace back to the 1800s but really took hold during the Cripple Creek strike of 1903-1904.
A major focal point of the Cripple Creek strike was the eight-hour day for workers.
Colorado Governor James Peabody was set against an eight-hour standard. "I will not permit it if it requires the entire power of the state and the nation to prevent it," he commented.
The mine owners tested the governor's resolve by requesting sending the state militia to Cripple Creek to quell the strike despite the fact the Board of County Commissioners, the mayor and the sheriff, later forced to quit under threat of death and replaced with a mine owner appointed sheriff, insisted that the milita wasn't needed. Even the Attorney General of Colorado said that he saw no disturbances during a visit to Cripple Creek and commented that it was as quiet as Denver on a Sunday. (Remember this was 1903)
Despite this finding, the attorney general concluded that the militia was needed.
The militia, headed by General Sherman Bell, was called out by the governor but it was the mine owners who covered the expenses of the militia. Bell's words on the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), the leaders in the eight-hour fight and the union representing Cripple Creek mine workers were prophetic, "I came to do up this damned anarchistic federation."
Instead of bargaining, the mine owners were going to use Bell and his men to violently crush the union.
Along with mass arrests and deportation of union people, he arrested a Justice of the Peace, the Chairman of the County Commissioners and the editor and four employees of the Victor Record (the local paper) for printing union statements. The militia also would later destroy the offices of the Victor Record because of harsh anti-militia indictments.
Condemnation of Bell and the militia, basically mercenaries for the mine owners since their pay was provided by the them and not the state government , came from everywhere. Public Wrath pic
"It was a rank perversion of the whole theory and purpose of the National Guard and more likely to incite disorder than prevent it. The arrangement virtually placed the troops...in the relation of hired men to the mine operators and morally suspended their function of state military guardians of the public peace," wrote the Army and Navy Journal about Bell's actions.
The solidarity of the miners didn't break and soon the mine owners tried more desperate and costly measures to break the union.
Three separate sabotage incidents, an attempt at derailing a train and two explosions, were blamed on union men. Desperate searches by the militia and the police yielded no evidence implicating the miners in any of the three incidents. Three miners were found not guilty in the derailment case. However, one mine detective was brought up on perjury charges when he admitted on the stand that he and another detective for the mine owners were the ones who pulled the spikes up to derail the train. Evidence recovered relating to the explosions pointed a finger at the mine owners.
Nevertheless, Governor Peabody used the incidents to declare martial law in Cripple Creek. (Here for a picture) Lawful assembly was outlawed, guns were ordered turned in (the militia only kept the arms of the union members and supporters while they registered and returned the others), and the Victor Record was ordered censored. Writ of habeaus corpus was also suspended, (Here for picture) which allowed the military to arrest people who had, according to Peabody, "been released by the civil courts on flimsy or whatever pretexts." (Miners imprisoned in the Bull Pen) It was a total end to American rights.
William Haywood, leader of the WFM, said the governor could have avoided these drastic measures had he called an extra session of congress to pass an eight-hour law.
(What is a scab? Original flyer of the WFM)
In 1902, Colorado voters passed an eight-hour amendment to the state constitution. However, the legislature couldn't agree on specifics in the 1903 session and adjourned without passing an eight-hour law.
Instead of forcing representatives to uphold the public vote and pass the law in the 1903 session, Peabody said that it couldn't be done and didn't have a special summer session.
In the end, the eight-hour day was made law and Peabody was ousted decisively.
However, the striking miners were blacklisted from working Colorado mines but ended up finding work in Nevada where mine owners had their hands extended out to greet them.
Colorado labor history runs deep with episodes such as the Ludlow Massacre and the flagrant violations of the law in Cripple Creek and, more recently, Oregon Steel (CF&I) in Pueblo. Each one of those incidents ended with this state or a Colorado corporation supressing labor one way or another.
It's that "tradition" that is still embraced by our state reps. Our state lawmakers here lead the way in attempting to legislate the destruction of workers' rights with laws such as Right-to-Work and Paycheck Protection. They are already successful in attacking our workman's compensation protections by constantly chiseling away at its more worker-friendly provisions.
Do we really want to give more up to these companies by way of our government?
Union busting: Still the biggest corporate fad going.
Read more about it: Labor's Untold Story by Boyer and Morais, A Report on Labor Disturbances in the State of Colorado by the U.S. Labor Bureau, The Labor History of the Cripple Creek District by Benjamin McKie Rastall, The Cripple Creek Strike by Emma F. Langdon.
