Hellraisers Journal: Striking Miners of Telluride Attacked and Deported From Their Homes at Night by Citizens’ Alliance

The Citizens’ Alliance organ, the Journal, in its evening edition, stated that there would be a meeting of great importance to citizens and taxpayers. It was a stormy one, completely dominated by its most radical members, such men as A. M. Wrench, cashier of the First National Bank—short, suave, urbane, treacherous, vindictive, malignant in his hate of everything connected with unionism—the man of whom Assistant Attorney-General Melville, after hearing him harangue the Citizens’ Alliance, said: “That man is a genuine anarchist. Take away his polish and education, put him at work among the miners and he would blow up the county roads.”

Another was Chas. F. Painter, proprietor of the Telluride Journal, a man whom brother Masons on a grand jury were compelled to bring in an indictment against for insuring property and converting the premium to his own use; a man whose scurrilous screeds and bitter invective of unionism and union men is born of his own slimy heart and whose vicious influence is only limited by the putrescent mendacity of a degenerate intellect. These were the men whose words contributed very largely to move men to madness. They went to their homes or stores for arms and met again at the First National Bank armed largely with the weapons of the local military company.

The elite of labor’s enemies were there, as were those whose support comes from the half-world. John Herron, manager of the Tom Boy, Bulkely Wells, manager of the Smuggler-Union and military commander, Chas. Chase, superintendent of the Liberty Bell; Shockley of the Four Metals; W. B. Vannatta, Kracan, Rittmaster, Adams and others, leading business men, Walt Kenley and Willard Runnels of the sheriff’s office—these are illustrative of the mob of a hundred men who drove men from their wives and homes with jeer, and curse and insult. Antone Matti was compelled to get up from his bed, his wife insulted before him.

When a group was gathered together they were taken to a store that had been used as a commissary by the military and put under guard there. The mob rained curses upon the men and frequently dealt blows. But one mask was seen; many seemed proud of the part they were playing. Sackett, proprietor of the foundry, said that the cooler ones had great difficulty in preventing a wholesale killing.

A. H. Floaten’s account of his deportation gives a very clear idea of the mob spirit:

On Monday night I was at home with my wife. She had retired, and I was partially disrobed. I had taken off my shoes and was just getting ready for bed when I heard the knock on the door. I knew what was coming, for I had heard a number of men in the alley at the rear of the house. The man did not knock at the door with his hand, but with the butt of a gun. They broke in the glass panel of the door, and then my wife, who was upstairs, demanded to know who was there. The people outside said they wanted the man who was in the house.

When my wife demanded to know who they were and what they wanted of me, they gave her no reply, but broke the lock open and came in, searching the house. I stepped into the bedroom downstairs, and then into the clothes closet, in hopes that they would not find me. I was discovered by Walter Kenley, who shoved a revolver into my face. I said: “For God’s sake, have you come to kill me!” Kenley, who is the same man who assaulted Attorney E. P. Richardson a few weeks ago, answered: “You get up and come with us.” I asked him if he had a warrant for me, and he answered that he had. I told him to read it, and then he said that he did not need any warrant for me; that I would have to come anyway.

He and his companion pushed me out of the bedroom into the hall. I asked him to let me put my shoes on. Then without warning he struck me over the head with a revolver, cutting a gash about an inch deep in the left side of my head, at the same time telling me that I did not need any shoes. They then pushed me out onto the sidewalk, and my wife came out after them, begging to let me put on my shoes and hat. She had my shoes and hat in her hand, but they would not allow me to put them on. Just as my wife was trying to give me my shoes someone in the crowd, which had gathered, struck me on the head again with a gun. Kenley then took me by the arm and marched me up the alley from my house to a vacant lot near the city hall. The ground was frozen with mud and ice, and my feet were bleeding before I had taken a dozen steps. I was being pushed by one man and then another.

Before we had gone a block we came to a large pool of water in the alley, and someone in the crowd yelled: “Shove the ———— through the water!” which Kenley did. When we got to the first street I asked them to let me walk on the sidewalk, but they continued down the alley. At this time Kenley was walking directly behind me.

Again without warning he struck me on the head with a revolver, and at the same time someone yelled: “Shoot him!” with an oath. When we got to the vacant lot near the city hall I found that there were a number of others there in almost my predicament. We were surrounded by armed men, some having guns, some revolvers and some both. We were forced to remain there until midnight. Then we were taken to an empty store room, where we were kept until 1:30 a. m. By this time over sixty men had been gathered there, and we were all marched to the depot, where a special train was waiting for us. As I entered the car, bleeding profusely, with my head tied up in handkerchiefs, someone shouted: “If that fellow tied up in white ever comes back to this town he will be hung.”

When the train started a fusillade of about 200 shots was fired by the mob as a parting salute. Fifteen members of the mob accompanied us to Ridgeway, forty-five miles out, where we were ordered to get off the train. Fifty-three of us then walked from Ridgeway to Ouray, a distance of eleven miles, where we arrived at 6 o’clock in the morning. The other men remained at Ridgeway, being unable to continue on the journey.

There is but one reason why I did not defend my family and my home, and that is because of the union rule which was laid down at the beginning of the strike, to the effect that we must submit and not resist, so as to give them no excuse to do violence. There has not been one cent’s worth of property destroyed during this strike.

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