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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 28, 1899
Cincinnati, Ohio – Presidents Samuel Gompers and Edward Boyce Speak
From The Indianapolis Journal of October 27, 1899:
MILITARISM DENOUNCED
—–PROTEST AGAINST THE TREATMENT OF
COEUR D’ALENE MINERS.
—–
Mass Meeting at Which Samuel Gompers Spoke,
and Strong Resolution Were Adopted.
—–
CINCINNATI, Oct. 26.-An enormous meeting was held to-night at Music Hall, the officers of which were of the Central Labor Council of Cincinnati and the speakers were Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, and Edward Boyce, of Butt Mont., president of the Western Federation of Miners. Fully 6,O00 men remained during the two long speeches. The announced purpose of the meeting was to protest against the treatment of prisoners held in the Couer d’Alene region in the “bull pen.”
Before the speaking began the resolutions were read. The first resolution was a demand of the President of the United States to enforce the Constitution, especially in the sixth section, which, they claim, has been violated. The second resolution demanded of the President the withdrawal of the United States troops from Shoshone county. The next resolution demanded a court-martial of General Merriam and his subordinate officers. The last resolution was that all the federal, the military and civil officers responsible for the alleged illegal acts committed by them should be held to the strictest accountability.
President Gompers said the present afforded a great opportunity for laboring people. He said this enormous attendance and the passage of these resolutions would have a far-reaching effect and would do much to relieve the oppressed in Idaho and to bring the oppressors to Justice. President Gompers said that he was in the mountain region near the scene of the uprising in Shoshone county but a few days before it occurred. He said that by conversation with men who knew about the situation he learned the condition of affairs at Wardner, Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines. He vehemently denied that labor organizations had anything whatever to do with that uprising. The labor unions had been locked out by the operators, who went outside and brought in inferior and dangerous nonunion men and set them to work in the mines. These ignorant miners, unused to the ways of the union, demanded union prices and were denied.
Mr. Gompers related a story of what followed, including the dynamiting of the property. Some one in the audience shouted, “Good.” Mr. Gompers responded, “No; not good. Organized labor cannot stand for such acts of violence. Organized labor is the great conservator of peace.” He described the bull pen and said it utterly ignored the sanitary wants of those corraled in it, and that it stinted them in food and exposed them to the weather. It would go down in history as the black hole and the Andersonville of Idaho. He said that the charge of the operators that the violence was the work of labor organizations was maliciously false. The operators were compelled to make that charge to screen themselves from being the cause of the violence by bringing ignorant nonunion desperadoes to take the places of union men. The case in Idaho, he said, is but a symptom of militarism and despotism which met with prevalent favor on the part of capitalists and the great money powers. He asked the question: “How can we preserve the liberty of this country?”
A voice in the audience said “Elect Jones.” The voice was promptly squelched.
After Mr. Gompers’s speech Edward [Boyce], president of the Western Federation of Miners, gave a plain, straightforward, exhaustive history of the troubles, covering seventeen or eighteen years among the miners in Shoshone county. After his speech, which was finished very late, the resolutions were adopted with a roaring aye and then with a standing vote.
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[Emphasis and photograph added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Ed Boyce re Manly Blood, 1892, per Gaboury 1967
https://digitalatlas.cose.isu.edu/geog/mining/minewars.htm
The Indianapolis Journal
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Oct 27, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1899-10-27/ed-1/seq-2/
IMAGE
Edward Boyce, Prz WFM, SL Hld p5, May 6, 1899
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058130/1899-05-06/ed-1/seq-5/
See also:
Tag: Wardner ID Bullpen of 1899
https://weneverforget.org/tag/wardner-id-bullpen-of-1899/
Statement of WFM President Edward Boyce, Oct 15, 1899
“To the Members and Friends of Organized Labor Everywhere”
http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/documents/Boyce_Crime_Century_Doc_25.pdf
-wherein Boyce responds to “baseness displayed by John L. Kennedy, member of the Industrial Commission as shown by his false and malicious interview in the Washington Post August 20, where he brands the union miners of Shoshone County as murderers, and lauds their oppressors for their tyranny” with “a brief history of the present conflict between organized capital and the miners in that county from its earliest inception.”
Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Dec 14, 1899
Statement of WFM President Edward Boyce Ordered Printed by U.S. Senate
Report of Industrial Commission, Mining Industry, Vol XII
WDC, Government Printing Office, 1901
https://books.google.com/books?id=yCovAQAAIAAJ
List of Commissioners
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yCovAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PR2
Review of Evidence-Coeur D’Allene Strike and Riot of 1899
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yCovAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PR16
III. Coeur d’Alene Strike and Riot of 1899
(Testimony taken in Idaho in July, 1899)
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yCovAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PR85
Testimony Taken in Idaho during July 1899
-begins on page 389 and continues to page 568
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yCovAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA389
For more on Wardner Bullpen:
The Labor Record
“Official Organ of the Trades Assembly
of Kansas City, Kansas, and Vicinity.”
-Oct 12, 1899
Wardner Bullpen “Like Andersonville” Reprint from Idaho State Tribune
The Labor Record
“Official Organ of the Trades Assembly
of Kansas City, Kansas, and Vicinity.”
-Oct 19, 1899
“Wardner Bull Pen,” Article by Henry O. Morris from Pueblo Courier
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Working Man (The Miners Song) – David Alexander
Lyrics by Rita McNeil