There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Sunday July 9, 1916
From the American Socialist: Adolph Germer on Jeff Farr
From the American Socialist of July 8, 1916:
Jeff Farr Dethroned
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By ADOLPH GERMER.JEFF FARR, for twenty years the Sheriff (King) of Huerfano County has been kicked from his throne by the Supreme Court of Colorado. For twenty years Farr’s gang of deputy sheriffs (mine guards) has been the terror of the county. It was Farr’s gang of deputized mine guards that shot into the Pryor tent colony during the recent strike and who killed three defenseless men on the streets in Walsenburg. it was Jeff Farr who told the federal Commission on Industrial Relations that he issued deputy sheriff commissions upon request from the coal companies; that he never inquired into their reputation and character and that for all he knew the men he deputized might be “red hand murderers”.
Farr himself was a physical coward. When the first shooting occurred at Ludlow, at my suggestion he was asked to accompany the District Attorney, myself and others to the tent Colony to make an investigation. I requested a party to call on him and invite him along. The reply I got was that he (Farr) wouldn’t go down there for a million dollars. Of course, Ludlow is not in his county, but as the Chief Peace Officer it was important for him to know who was responsible for the shooting and use such information to the end that a similar occurrence might be avoided in his jurisdiction. Again, when his underlings shot three men in Walsenburg, Farr was not to be seen on the streets for some weeks. He kept himself closeted in his dungeon known as the County jail and the Court house where he had some eighty ruffians armed with pistols, rifles and machine guns.
Stole One Election Too Many.While Farr was a coward, he had around him a gang as daring and desperate as ever walked in shoe leather. They were not men of intelligence. Such persons could not qualify. They were men of the most brutal instincts, who took special pride in torturing and agonizing those who had a mind of their own. The record made before the above named commission is full of recitals from people who suffered from the lash of King Farr.
But now the despot has fallen. He stole one election too many.
In 1912 E. L. Neelley, a hardware dealer at Walsenburg was a candidate against Farr on a Democrat-Progressive fusion ticket. He was defeated, according to Farr’s returns, by more than one thousand votes. In 1914 Neelley again was nominated. The striking miners, by whom Neelley stood at the risk of his business and his life, in turn stood by him to a man. Farr’s returns showed Neelley defeated by 329 votes. But now the miners were organized and there was a co-ordination of the different elements that wanted Farr dethroned. It was easily established that more than 500 illegal votes had been cast for Farr. These illegal votes were cast by Rockefeller’s imported strike breakers. The case was taken into the Supreme Court and the following telegram tells the story:-
Denver, Colo, June 21, 1916.
Adolph Germer,
Mount Olive, Ill.Supreme Court of Colorado handed down decision today ousting Jeff Farr and his crowd from office.
John McLennan.
Every Dog Has His Day.Thus is interrupted, if not ended forever, the career of one of the most soulless political despots that ever disgraced an office of trust. It is further proof that every dog has his day.
Now that he has fallen, the way is open for the complete organization of the several thousand miners in Huerfano County.
—–
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SOURCE
American Socialist
(Chicago, Illinois)
-July 8, 1916, page 3
pdf! https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/american-socialist/v2n52-jul-08-1916-TAS.pdf
IMAGE
Hundreds of company gunthugs, such as these, were made Deputy Sheriffs in the Kingdom of Farr, Colorado 1914
https://archive.org/stream/ludlowmassacrere00finkrich#page/28/mode/1up
See also:
Neelley v Farr, Supreme Court of the State of Colorado
-June 21, 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=IMxGAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA485
Life and Labor, Volume 6
National Women’s Trade Union League, 1916
“Sheriff Farr and the Supreme Court”
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=ls49AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA135
Hellraisers Journal: Walsenburg, Colorado-Mine Guards and Deputies Kill Three More Strikers
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/25/1250411/-Hellraisers-Journal-Walsenburg-Colorado-Mine-Guards-and-Deputies-Kill-Three-More-Strikers
Hellraisers Journal: They call it the Kingdom of Farr, through the influence of the CF&I Company
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/11/1350811/-Hellraisers-Journal-They-call-it-the-Kingdom-of-Farr-through-the-influence-of-the-CF-I-Company