The labor giant has slept long,
but is now awakening.
-Eugene Victor Debs
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 14, 1907
From The Industrial Union Bulletin: Roosevelt’s “Square Deal”
The official publication of the Industrial Workers of the World yesterday discussed the remarks of President Roosevelt regarding the citizenship qualities of Comrades Debs, Moyer and Haywood, and included the statement of Bill Haywood, made in response to being termed an “undesirable citizen” by the President of the United States on the eve of his trial.
IS THIS A “SQUARE DEAL”?
Nothing has happened in Theodore Roosevelt’s career as president of the United States that so entirely discredits his fitness for that position as the recent reference by him to Debs, Moyer and Haywood, as being “undesirable citizens.” The two latter are soon to appear in court and stand trial for their lives, yet the “chief magistrate” of the nation, oblivious to the ordinary rule that anyone charged with crime is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proven, has made public an opinion that must be prejudicial to their interests. It is an outrage that ranks with the unlawful acts of the mine owners and McParlands of Colorado. Neither of these men has ever been convicted of any crime, yet their case is prejudged in advance of their appearance in court. It is a shameful and brutal spectacle.
The facts are these: The president addressed a letter to Congressman James S. Sherman in which certain matters in dispute between himself and the railway magnate, E. H. Harriman; entirely without warrant and apparently with the sole purpose of creating prejudice against Moyer and Haywood, he denounced the conduct of Harriman in the following terms:
It shows a cynicism and deep-seated corruption which make the man uttering such statements, and boasting, no matter how falsely, of his power to perform such crime, at least as undesirable a citizen as Debs, or Moyer or Haywood.
Fellow-worker Haywood, awaiting his trial in Idaho, gave out the following statement:
I do not desire to make an extended statement with regard to President Roosevelt’s reference to me in his letter to Congressman Sherman.
The president says that I am an “undesirable citizen,” the inference being that, as such, I should be put out of the way. His influence is all-powerful, and his statement, coming as it does, on the eve of my trial for my life, will work me irreparable injury, and do more to prevent a fair trial than everything that has been said and done against me in the past.
President Roosevelt is the leading exponent of the doctrine of “fair play and a square deal,” but his reference to me in his letter to Sherman demonstrates that he does not practice what he preaches.
———-
From the Duluth Labor World of April 6, 1907:
EUGENE DEBS RESENTS KIDNAPING
OF MINERS
—–
Greatest of Labor Writers Discusses
Status of Idaho Conspiracy.
—–
Presents Virile Pen Picture of Most
Brazen Crime Against Justice
—–[The following article by Comrade Debs was taken from the
American Press Association.]
The Trial of Charles H. Moyer, William D. Haywood and George H. Pettibone, national officers of the Western Federation of Miners, on the grave charge of complicity in murder, is pregnant with great possibilities for the labor movement.
That three men so high in official station and so widely and favorably known in labor circles should be accused of the crime of murder is in itself sufficiently extraordinary, but when to this are added the sensational kidnaping of these men by armed force and their secret abduction by the governors of two sovereign states it can be readily understood why the whole world of organized labor is aroused as never before in all its history and why the trial promises to mark distinctly an important epoch in the labor movement.
It is to present this case briefly to the labor unions of the country and to show them that there is in this conspiracy an insidious and dangerous attack upon organized labor that this article is written.
Conspiracy Against Labor.
It is well understood that there has long been a state of active warfare between mine owners and the organized mine workers of Colorado and other western states. This warfare has been marked by a long series of outrages and crimes, most of which the mine owners have sought to fasten upon the mine workers, but not one of which has ever been successfully proved in the courts or otherwise against the unions or their leaders.
On the other hand, a number of crimes against labor have been proved against the organized mine and smelter owners, the western allies of the Standard Oil company, chief of which was their bold and bodily purchase of the legislature of Colorado, which has been commanded by a popular majority of almost 47,000 votes to enact a law providing an eight-hour work day for men employed in and about mines and smelters. This law had been enacted by a previous legislature, but declared unconstitutional by the supreme court at the behest of the mine owners. It was then submitted to the people of the state in the form of a constitutional amendment, and the election returns show that it was carried by an overwhelming majority, but in spite of this the following legislature, instead of giving heed to the voice of the people, basely betrayed its trust, and it is a matter of common notoriety that the cause of their apostacy was their cash purchase at so much per vote by the mine and smelter combine.
Mine Owner’s Crimes.
This corruption of the legislature and defiance of the people’s expressed will was the starting point of most of the troubles, including the strikes, which have occurred in Colorado during the past few years, one of the incidents of which was the kidnaping of the officials of the Western Federation of Miners not because they were guilty of crime, but to fasten infamy upon their names, discredit their union and thus destroy organized labor.
These men have been charged with complicity in the assassination of ex-Governor Steunenberg of Idaho in December, 1905. As a matter of fact, they could have had no possible motive in the commission of such a crime, and they were almost a thousand miles from the scene of its execution.
Not withstanding this fact an affidavit charging them with being on the ground when the crime was committed was made by the prosecuting attorney as a basis for a secret requisition for the extradition of the defendants from their homes in Denver to the place where the crime was committed and where the greatest prejudice had been aroused against the Western Federation and its officers by the public officials, including the governor of the state, who were well known to be in sympathetic alliance with the Mine Owners’ association.
Infamy of Prosecution.
The requisition thus issued was honored in secret by Governor McDonald of Colorado, himself a mine owner and intensely hostile to organized labor, and, awaiting a favorable opportunity, the secret service men of the two governors pounced upon the three labor officials in the dead hours of the night, and without giving them a chance to ask a question, utter a protest, consult a lawyer or even send word to their families they were secretly locked in separate cells of the county jail, and at 5 o’clock in the morning a Union Pacific special train which was provided by the railroad company rushed them at a high rate of speed to Boise, Idaho, where they were placed in separate cells of the state penitentiary under a heavy guard.
This is the story in a very brief form, but every word of it is absolutely true and can be easily verified. Indeed, there has been no attempt to deny it, even by the kidnaping governors themselves or any of their numerous mercenaries.
The constitution of the United States was flagrantly violated when these men [were] seized and deported by armed force and denied all the privileges guaranteed to citizens under the law of the land.
Deprivation of Justice.
The simple reason for this is that they could not be lawfully connected with the crime with which they had been charged, for had they been guilty or believed guilty they could and would have been proceeded against in the usual manner provided by law.
As the bias of this whole infamous persecution conducted in the name of prosecution there is a false affidavit, an infamous lie, and this is clearly set forth in the magnificent and patriotic dissenting opinion rendered by Justice McKenna of the supreme court of the United States, which should be read by every workingman and indeed by every good citizen of the nation.
The secret of this whole affair lies in the malign purpose of the western mine owners and their corporate allies, the Standard Oil company, to crush organized labor, and this is why the case has special interest for and appeals directly to the whole body of labor unionists throughout the land.
Labor Law Abiding.
It is not that we object to the lawful punishment of crime; not at all. The precise contrary is true. We are opposed to the commission of crime, especially in the name and under the forms of law.
Kidnaping is kidnaping whether the criminal happens to be Pat Crowe of Nebraska, Governor Gooding of Idaho or Governor McDonald of Colorado. Indeed, when the kidnaper is clothed with high official authority he becomes not only infamous, but monstrous and execrable.
We protest against the kidnaping of our fellow workers in the name of organized labor, in the name of law and in the name of justice and humanity.
We are quite sure that if these three citizens had been prominent capitalists instead of mere workingmen and had been thus seized by force and violently deported from their homes all the powers of government, the army and navy included, would at once have been set in motion to effect their release.
There is in this very point food in plenty for meditation.
It appears quite plainly even to the most unthinking that this government is dominated by the great capitalists in their own interest and without the slightest regard to the interests of the working class or the welfare of the people.
The trial of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone will be watched as no trial has ever been before by the working class in the history of this country. It is a safe prediction that no packed jury will be allowed to send innocent men to the gallows, as was done the victims of the Haymarket two decades ago.
The labor giant has slept long, but is now awakening.
[Photograph added.]
SOURCE
The Industrial Union Bulletin
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Apr 13, 1907
(Also source for images of text.)
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iub/v1n07-apr-13-1907-iub.pdf
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Apr 6, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1907-04-06/ed-1/seq-11/
IMAGE
HMP, Pettibone Moyer Haywood, AtR, Feb 16, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586811/
See also:
The Journal of the Switchmen’s Union
of North America
(Buffalo, New York)
-May 1907
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=DvQoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA385
The same article by EVD appeared under title: “The Accused Miners. Kidnapped in Colorado and Hurried to Idaho-Attack on Organized Labor.” The Journal notes that the article was “taken from the American Press Association.”
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=DvQoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA389
Pat Crowe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Crowe
Remembering the Haymarket Martyrs
by X341968
https://iww.org/branches/US/CA/lagmb/lit/haymarket.shtml