There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday March 3, 1907
From the Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs on Government by “Mob”
Note: The events described below, took place January-March of 1904.
AT the time of the late labor war in Colorado Governor Peabody, of unsavory memory, called upon President Ruzvle for federal troops to help the state militia that was helping the mine owners defeat the miners and destroy their union. The result was that President Ruzvlt dispatched Carroll D. Wright, then national labor commissioner, to Colorado to investigate thoroughly and report fully on the situation in that state. The investigation was duly made and the report, a volume of 365 pages, has been issued by the government.
This report is filled with detailed accounts of the most terrible outrages perpetrated by the mine owners and their murderous minions upon perfectly innocent men, women and children, for no other reason than that they were in sympathy with the miners.
On page 200 is recited the revolting story, familiar to all who follow the progress of labor events, of the seizing of five miners, at Telluride, by thugs in the employ of the mine owners and the forcing of them into a horrid cesspool to shovel its contents into an excavation. This outrageous indignity of the alleged “authorities” upon wholly unoffending men, quite sufficient to provoke murder, was expected to serve as a lesson to miners to submit without protest to the iron rule as well as to the exploitation of their masters.
One of the men, Harry Maki [also known as Henry Maki in some accounts], a union miner, refused to work in the cesspool and was handcuffed by the thugs “in the service,” and, at the command of the mine owners, was chained to a telephone pole on a public street. The report says that he was thus pilloried from 11:20 a. m. to 12:45 p. m [of March 2, 1904].
An outrage so brutal as this would precipitate and armed revolt if workingmen were not the most patient and submissive creatures on earth.
Suppose five rich mine owners were seized by union miners and forced into a public privy vault and ordered to shovel out its contents simply to outrage their manhood, and that one of them balked and was then chained to a telephone pole in a public street, what would happen? The whole country would roar with rage, the press would thunder its denunciation, the soldiers, state and federal, would rush to the scene, and, from President Ruzvlt to the last governor, the powers of government would be freely used to avenge the crime and punish its perpetrators. But, the victims being merely workingmen, the matter is so trifling that it does not even cause a ripple on the surface.
When the criminals are capitalists and the victims wage-slaves it is “law and order” in Colorado and Idaho.
All readers of the APPEAL, know, by name at least, Comrade A. H. Floaten and his wife, formerly of Telluride , now of Ft. Collins, Colo.; and right here let it be said that if ever there were specimens of perfect nobility in manhood and womanhood they are to be found in these two persons. Every one who knows them has for them the most affectionate attachment. Honest, kindly, whole-hearted, high-principled, superbly true in every personal and social relation, one would imagine these two white souls secure anywhere, but they were not immune against the beastly thugs who were doing the bidding of the Mine Owners’ association.
The Floatens were in business and had the largest store in Telluride. They sympathized with the honest, rugged miners, and the miners in turn loved and trusted them. This tells it all. Now read what follows, and if you have any doubt about this tale of horror, procure Commissioner Wright’s report to President Ruzvlt and turn to page 201 and you will find the following:
On the night of March 14th about 100 members of the Citizens’ Alliance (?) held a meeting at Red Men’s Hall, after which they armed themselves, searched the town, and took into custody about 60 union men and sympathizers. In some instances the doors of residences were forced open. The men who were captured were brought to a vacant store and about 1:30 o’clock in the morning were marched to the depot and loaded into two coaches. As the special train bearing them departed a fusillade of shots was fired into the air by the mob. Among the leaders of the mob were Bulkley Wells, manager of the Smuggler-Union mine, and John Herron, manager of the Tom Boy mine.
One of those deported was A. H. Floaten, the local leader of the Socialist party and manager of the People’s Supply company, the largest store in town. The door of his residence was broken open and he was found partly undressed, his wife having retired. A revolver was presented at him and he was wounded in the head by being struck with the butt of the weapon. He was marched from home without being allowed to put on his shoes or hat. Fifteen members of the mob accompanied the train to Ridgway, where the prisoners were ordered to get off, and further ordered never to return to Telluride. During the next few days a number of other union men were forced to leave Telluride.
What do you think of it, reader? And how would you like to be treated like that? Many a man will answer by saying that he would kill a dastard who would thus outrage him and his wife, and he would be morally justified in the act; but the victims submitted to it all with a patience past belief.
If John D. Rockefeller, James J. Hill, or Andrew Carnegie and their wives, were outraged by a mob of workingmen as the Floatens and countless others were outraged by the capitalist criminals and their hired cut-throats, every one of them would be shot dead in their tracks like mad dogs by the police, militia and regular troops.
Let it be noted that Commissioner Wright in his report repeatedly refers to these “law and order” capitalists as a “mob.” This is the same mob that ruled under Peabody military law and under the mine owners’ administration.
Let the fact be well remembered, for the day of reckoning will come as certain as the sun is in the skies, and these mine-owning criminals and conspirators and their subservient hirelings will settle dollar for dollar and cent for cent by the books.
Another fact to note with care is, that Bulkley Wells headed the mob. This is the same Bulkley Wells, adjutant general of Colorado, who was leader of the mob that kidnaped Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, put them in irons and rushed them to Idaho.
Bulkley Wells, the mine owner, not only supervised this kidnaping job, but, with a gang of his pals, put our comrades aboard the waiting special, took charge of the train and personally supervised the prisoners until they were safely lodged in penitentiary dungeons in Idaho.
Connect these two incidents, and like two clouds charged with lightning they flash into light.
These two incidents coupled together pour a flood of light upon the kidnaping conspiracy. Bulkley Wells, the head of the “mob,” as Carroll D. Wright calls it, that drove the miners out of Colorado, was also head of the mob that kidnaped Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone from the same state.
Bulkley Wells, mine owner and adjutant general, is also Mob Leader and Kidnaper.
He did not dare to tackle Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone as he had other poor fellows without number. But he was determined to get them out of the state. The mine owners had decreed it, and, for fear they might come back, it was conveniently concocted to have them hanged.
Dead men do not resist deportation by a mob.
Bulkley Wells had tried Haywood alive once and he didn’t want to have to try him again.
So the Mob Leader became Kidnaper and two governors had a willing confederate in this cowardly assailant of defenseless men and helpless women.
Bulkley Wells, the Mob Leader and Kidnaper, and his criminal crowd, are quite equal to any atrocity, from buying a legislature to plotting assassination.
EUGENE V. DEBS.
[Paragraph break and photograph of deportation added.]
SOURCES
A report on labor disturbances in the state of Colorado, from 1880 to 1904, inclusive, with correspondence relating thereto.
-Prepared under the direction of Carroll D. Wright, commissioner of labor.
-January 27, 1905.
(See especially pages 199-206.)
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008599021
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-March 2, 1907
(Also source for images of text.)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586821/
IMAGE
WFM Colorado Strike 1903-1904, Telluride deportations
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/photo.php?pid=608
See also:
The Cripple Creek Strike:
a History of Industrial Wars in Colorado
-by Emma Florence Langdon
Denver, about 1908
(Probably published about 1908,
since this edition includes Appendix which covers the
Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case.)
(Use links on left to find more info on Telluride Strike.)
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/langdon00.html