There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 16, 1906
Boise, Idaho – Adams to No Longer Corroborate Orchard’s Confession
From the Appeal to Reason of September 15, 1906:
ADAMS, CHIEF WITNESS, DISCLOSES CONSPIRACY
—–
Startling Developments in Moyer-Haywood Case
Dumfound the Prosecution.
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Miserable Plot is Laid Bare, and Mine Owners are Raising
Slush Fund of One Million Dollars to Defeat
Haywood for Governor of Colorado, Now That His
Election Seems Assured as a Result of Revelations Involving
the Governors of Two States in Unlawful Intrigue.
—–
By Telegraph to The Appeal to Reason.
Denver, Colo., Sept. 9.-The above statement, sworn to by Stephen Adams and witnessed by his wife, was made public in the district court in Boise, Ida., Saturday afternoon, September 8th.
Adams, it has been claimed by the prosecution in the Steunenberg murder cases, would corroborate Harry Orchard’s confession, charging that the assassination of the former governor was committed by the officers of the Western Federation of Miners.
Adams told the story of his experience since his arrest last February, and if what he says is true, almost all of which is confirmed by his wife and uncle, some of the state officials of Idaho and Colorado will find themselves in a pretty tight place.
He said:
When I was arrested in Oregon and brought to Idaho, I secured a lawyer to look after my case. I had been in the penitentiary but a few days when I was persecuted into admitting the truth of some of the statements made by Orchard in his confession to McPartland [McParland], first by the threats of the governor that there was a mob waiting to hang me in Colorado, where they would send me if I did not do as they demanded, and second, because it was promised that I would go clear if I followed directions. After I had been in jail about three weeks a Pinkerton detective was sent to my place in Oregon and he brought my wife and two children, confining them in the female ward of the penitentiary, where I was allowed to live part of the time.
Last June I was asked if I knew of a certain location near Telluride, being a spot designated by Orchard as the burying place of a man named Burnham, said to have been killed there. I said I did and was then informed that I was to go down and pick out the place. The detective took me in a wagon across the country to the siding called Orchard Station, where I was put on the train. Adjutant-General Bulkley Wells and Deputy Sheriff Bob Mellrum [gunthug], or Colorado, took charge of me and we went to Telluride, remaining there three days. I found the place described, but there was no grave. I think they expected to find some evidence against Vincent St. John, but, after staying there three days, I was returned to Idaho and put back in the penitentiary. During the time my wife has been in the penitentiary we have been held and treated the same as convicts.
We were not allowed to see any one unless a guard was present, and we had to give the letters we wrote to the warden unsealed. Letters addressed to my wife were opened and read by the warden before being delivered to her. Last Monday, J. W. Lillard, an uncle, came to see me, and I asked him to get me some lawyers who would secure my release. I gave him written authority to act, and he secured Ex-Governor Morrison, Clarence Darrow and John F. Nugent, the last two being attorneys for Moyer and Haywood. They brought the application for habeas corpus, and yesterday afternoon I was called on by Mr. Hawley, chief counsel for the prosecution. Hawley urged me not to see any lawyer and tried to induce me to sign a statement discharging the attorneys employed by my uncle. This I refused to do. Hawley said: “There’s nothing against you, Steve; you are not held as a prisoner.” I then asked if I could leave the penitentiary. He said, “No”; so I waited to see my lawyers. After they left, the deputy warden had me taken to the cell formerly occupied by a man who was hanged three weeks ago and after being strapped and searched, I was locked up. I was glad to give my wife the statement to take away with her when she was permitted to leave the penitentiary, for when I was taken to a murderer’s cell I was afraid something would happen to me.
Mrs. Adams corroborated much of her husband’s story. She and her husband had taken a homestead near Baker City and just moved to the land when he was arrested. After she was brought to Boise, her uncle endeavored to secure permission from the governor for Adams to visit the land office and make an affidavit, explaining why he was not on the land so that he could get a leave of absence, but this was refused, though Lillard offered to give a hundred thousand dollar bond.
Clarence Darrow and John F. Nugent, attorneys employed to defend Moyer, Haywood and other members of the Western Federation of Miners, are now in charge of Adams’ defense, and it is said a number of sensational proceedings are soon to be brought in which several of the prominent officials of the state will be called on to explain somme embarrassing actions on their part. The federal grand jury is to meet in Boise Monday morning and it is said Mrs. Adams will go before that body with a complaint that her mail was opened by some one connected with the penitentiary and several actions for damages will be brought for unlawfully detaining Mrs. Adams and her children in the prison without any authority.
After making the statement in which he said he had been held in the Idaho penitentiary without due process of law, Adams was given his freedom by the court. Immediately after his release, however, he was rearrested, charge with the murder of Lyte Gregory in Denver on the night of May 15, 1904. Gregory was waylaid and shot to death with buckshot, and at the time of his death the murder was charged to the Western Federation of Miners. Gregory was a detective in Reno’s gang employed to guard mine property, deport striking miners, assault women relatives of union miners and commit other depredations characteristic of Pinkertonism. He was highly connected in Denver, and it was known that he had commenced to weaken in his criminal career at the time of his death. It is believed that he was about to quit Reno’s gang. Thousands of people in Colorado claim that M. H. Reno himself killed Gregory in order to prevent a possible squeal by the detective.
Extradition papers are being forwarded to Boise from Denver, and it is understood Adams will be brought here. Other charges have been filed against Adams by the prosecution, and he is named as the murderer of two miners in northern Idaho, Walley and Tyler. These men were in the employ of L. J. Simpkins, member of the W.F. M. executive board, and it is believed that they were killed by Pinkerton men in order that their deaths might be charged against Simpkins. They were personal friends of Simpkins, and he had nothing against them. How Adams can be connected with these killings is not known.
As a result of the developments of the last four days, prominent members of the Mine Owners’ Association in Denver are panic-stricken and James McPartland is white with rage and can hardly contain himself.
From reliable sources it is learned that the Denver Republican and the Denver Post have been advanced additional money to increase their diatribes against the Western Federation of Miners. The unexpected turn in affairs has enhanced Haywood gubernatorial stock 1,000 per cent and the damning disgrace of his imprisonment is the subject of remark on every hand. From an official high in the state house, personally friendly to union labor, I learn that the Mine Owners’ Association is preparing to throw $1,000,000 into the campaign to defeat Haywood’s candidacy for the governorship. Prominent republican politicians say Haywood must be defeated at any cost. McPartland’s generalship is beginning to be doubted in many quarters, and today the men connected with the prosecution appear to be confused and confounded.
G. H. SHOAF.
[Photographs and paragraph breaks added.]
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Sept 15, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66994470/
IMAGES
Adams Statement, AtR, Sept 15, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66994470/
Steve Adams, Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case of 1906-07, Darrow Collection
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/photo.php?pid=356
Mrs. Steve Adams, Darrow Collection
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/photo.php?pid=757
George H Shoaf, p.391, Common Cause, Vol 2, 1912
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=Q_E-AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA391
See also:
Who Blew Up the Independence Depot?
-by George H. Shoaf.
(Originally published in the Appeal to Reason of May 26, 1906,
-later released as a pamphlet.)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66994081
pdf! http://debs.indstate.edu/s5593w5_1906.pdf
Hellraisers Journal: George Shoaf for Appeal to Reason on Crimes of Mine Owners’ Association
http://www.caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-george-shoaf-appeal-reason-crimes-mine-owners%E2%80%99-association
Steve Adams (Western Federation of Miners)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Adams_(Western_Federation_of_Miners)
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