Hellraisers Journal: More Striking Miners Deported from Cripple Creek; White-Cappers Chant “You Can’t Come Back”

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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 24, 1904
Cripple Creek, Colorado – Mob Warns Deported Miners: “You Can’t Come Back”

From The Rocky Mountain News of  August 21, 1904:

On August 11th, Mayor Shockey of Cripple Creek and Mayor French of Victor pledged themselves to uphold the proclamation of Sheriff Bell of Teller County which promised that:

The law will be enforce without regard to party in respect to these [law and order] matters and the lives and property of all citizens of this county shall and will be protected.

However, the following report from Mrs. Emma F. Langdon of Victor, Colorado, demonstrates just how well the Sheriff’s proclamation has been upheld by those in authority in the strike zone of Cripple Creek.

 MORE VANDALISM.

August 20, a wholesale deportation took place. The cooperative store in Cripple Creek, that had been opened under new management, was closed and partially destroyed. The authorities seemed powerless to do anything to restore order.

Between 5 and 8 o’clock p. m., above date, a mob of fully 1,000 armed men took possession of the store and the authorities. All the afternoon men had been congregating on the streets of Cripple Creek.

A little after 4 o’clock the various shifts of non-union miners gathered in the town and took places at the corner of Second and Bennett avenues. Everyone seemed to be in the dark concerning the purpose of the crowd. All were armed and it was easy to surmise that something more than ordinary was about to take place, although few words were spoken.

At 5 o’clock a crowd swept up Bennett avenue, like a great wave, toward the union store, that was just a half block away. No attempt was made to stop the rush of men on the store, which the mob soon reached. The leader yelled that the time had come for a final clean-up of the Cripple Creek district. That was their determination and if they did not carry it out, at least they showed their good will to do so.

The mob dashed into the store from the front and rear, ordering every one in the store to hold up their hands. The command was obeyed quickly, and within a very few minutes the employes of the store, together with General Eugene Engley, were led out prisoners. At once the work of destroying the store commenced. Canned goods were hurled through the plate-glass windows, all shelf goods were either thrown in the street or on the floor; all canned goods were in this manner either destroyed or carried away by the crowd that gathered. A car load of flour and almost as much sugar was totally ruined by being either poured out or saturated with coal oil.

No masks were worn by any member of the crowd. As they approached the store a couple of those inside attempted to escape by running up the stairs of an adjoining building, but they were soon caught. Mr. Heinerdinger, the manager of the store, was in the sheriff’s office, a few doors above but on the other side of the street, at the time, and told Under-Sheriff Parsons the store was to be raided. Under-Sheriff L. F. Parsons immediately left the office and went over to the store. He was quickly seized. Two guns were drawn on him and he was not permitted to go in. The under-sheriff did not even have an opportunity to address the crowd, which he claimed was his intention. He was taken up the street about one hundred feet, where he was detained. His guards then took him down the street to the corner of Second. There he was left and immediately retired to his office, where he found Frank J. Hangs, attorney for the W. F. M., who asked him for protection.

At this time Mr. Parsons was told that he was wanted in the rear office. No sooner had he entered the rear office than he was seized by a couple of masked men, who took him into the private office in the rear, where he was held a prisoner for over an hour. During the time the undersheriff was held prisoner the crowd began the work of searching for all the men marked for deportation. Committees were sent hither and thither to locate them. The men taken out of the union store were marched up Bennett avenue toward the county jail, where seventeen men were still confined for complicity in the riot in Victor June 6. In the middle of the block they were halted, and the crowd was ordered to fall back. Other searching parties began to return with other prisoners, and it did not take long to decide upon which road the men were to be taken out of the district.

A photographer stood opposite the county jail and attempted to take pictures but was prevented.

Michael O’Neill, the deputy county clerk and recorder, was one of the men sent for, and he, with others, was deported.

J. C. Cole, former deputy district attorney, surrendered to an officer, who guarded him to the best of his ability. Several men tried to take Cole from the officer, but he would not give him up, and finally reached the sheriff’s office with Cole in custody. There he asked for protection, but the under-sheriff was powerless. Attorney Cole was taken to where the other prisoners were. General Engley, while being marched between armed men, smiled a bitter smile at intervals, and occasionally strongly denounced those in command.

The first party deported was composed of the following distinguished gentlemen: General Eugene Engley; J. C. Cole, former deputy district attorney; Frank J. Hangs, attorney for the W. F. M.; H. N. Heinerdinger, James Redd, J. W. Higgins and others. The party, which was composed of about ten, was escorted a distance of about four miles from Cripple Creek and there left. Before reaching the place where the mob halted, they discovered that Mr. Higgins had a revolver and began to assault him. Higgins drew his gun to defend himself but before he could use it he was struck over the head with a gun and otherwise badly injured.

The spokesman of the mob warned the men in the following language:

“You have been disturbers! If you come back, there will be a bullet or a rope ready for you. Keep on going. Remember, you are not coming back!”

Some demon, in human form, in the party suggested that the men being deported should be forced to remove their shoes but another objected.

T. H. Parfet, the former manager of the union store at Cripple Creek, Michael O’Neill and F. J. Hall composed another party of victims, they were taken another route.

Undoubtedly the cause for the foregoing despotic action, was the fact that it was reported in the district that Messrs. Hall and Heinerdinger, managers of the Interstate Mercantile Company, of Butte, Montana, were backed by the Western Federation of Miners. A few days previous, the two papers of Cripple Creek had refused advertising space to the company, one of the papers accepted advertising matter and the next day refused to run the matter. By the above the reader can plainly see that the merchants who belonged to the Citizens’ Alliance, were afraid to compete with a co-operative store and employed radical methods to prevent the same being re-established. It would probably be well to mention here that when the store was wrecked the second time and during the trouble that followed, Sheriff Bell was out of the county. Not only was this the case on this date but it either was deliberately planned so or by chance, that on other occasions he returned just a few hours too late to prevent trouble.

Many of the mob that resorted to the lawlessness I have attempted to portray, wore buttons upon which were the words:

“You can’t come back.”

The men deported August 20, reached Denver sometime during the following day. They were all tired, but Mr. Higgins was especially so, being very weak from loss of blood caused by the wound on his head. After being refreshed and somewhat recovering himself he talked of the affair. In order that the reader may realize the brutality of the methods adopted and show clearly who the anarchists were, I could not do better than to run the following statement made by Mr. Higgins which appeared in the Rocky Mountain News [of August 22nd]:

I was at home, when my little girl came in and said there was trouble in town, and I went down to see what it was. When I walked up to the crowd A. E. Carlton, the banker, pointed at me and said: “There is one you want,” and the next instant they had me fast. Carlton and Nelson Franklin were directing things.

About a week ago Carlton came to me and asked me to withdraw from the bond of William Graham, one of the imprisoned miners, and I refused to do so. This is the offense for which I was deported. J. K. King, a well known man there, shoved a gun in my face and told me not to make any resistance. William Carruthers, deputy county clerk, was also leading the mob. It was a little after 5 o’clock when the mob got me and about 6 o’clock when the leaders started up over the mountains. They rode along with guns, talking in insulting language, saying: “Have you the ropes?” “How many ropes do we need?” “Oh, one is enough.” “Will it be hanging or shooting or dropping them into a pit?”

We walked along silently, and had gone most of the distance, when two of the guards saw my gun. I had not tried to use it when they jumped on me, although it was reported that I tried to do so. One of them grabbed at me and the other the gun. He did not quite get hold of it, and I reached for it, too, and had I secured it I would have begun shooting. One of them struck me with a six-shooter. I tried to aim, but they got the gun away, struck me on the head a fierce blow, hit me on the shoulders and chest and kicked me. They did not help me in any way after I was wounded, and as I walked along I bled profusely from the cut, the blood running down my clothes and into my shoes. When we had gone out three or four miles they stopped on the crest of a hill, and the leader, said: “Gentlemen, this is the last time we will ever give you any show at all. If you ever return it will be a bullet or a rope.” They went off yelling: “They can’t come back!”

Former District Attorney J. C. Cole, made a similar statement as to the treatment accorded the party by the mob. He, also, stated that Carlton and Franklin were directors, and that a number of deputies and ex-militia were recognized among the white-cappers.

[Headline from Rocky Mountain News and emphasis added.]

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/3

Unions and the Law – Street Dogs