Hellraisers Journal: Union Miners Deported from Cripple Creek District, Dumped at Alkali Sand Dunes Without Food or Water

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Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 17, 1904
Cripple Creek District, Colorado – Union Miners Deported to Kansas State Line

From the Huntington, Indiana, Daily News-Democrat of June 11, 1904:

UNION MINERS ARE BANISHED
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WORK OF DEPORTATION FROM
CRIPPLE CREEK BEGINS.
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TRAIN LOAD IS TAKEN AWAY
———-
Men will Probably be Taken to Kansas State Line
-Will Not Be Permitted to Land In Colorado Cities.
———-

Colorado Springs, Col., June 11-Acting under the orders of Adjt. Gen. Sherman Bell, of the state national guard, a special train was made up shortly after noon Friday [June 10th] in the Short Line yards at Victor for the deportation of 76 union miners. The train was composed of a combination baggage car and two day coaches. Almost immediately the work of loading the men began. They were marched to the train between heavy lines of military and deputies. A crowd of fully 1,000 people had collected to see the men placed on board. Among the spectators were wives and sisters, fathers and mothers of the deported men, and the scenes were very affecting.

Mayor Harris of this city, had been apprised of the decision to deport the men, and immediately took steps to see that none of them landed in Colorado Springs. Under his instructions a large force of officers and deputy sheriffs met the special train at 6:10 p. m. for that purpose. No attempt was made, however, to unload the men here, arrangements having previously been made to send them to Kansas state line, over the Santa Fe, because of protests made against taking them to Pueblo or Denver and leaving them there.

Kansans Indignant.

Syracuse, Kan., June 11.-Sheriff Brady of this county received a telegram from Sheriff Barr, of La Junta, Col., stating that a special train, carrying 140 deported miners from Colorado, would reach Coolidge and unload the miners in Kansas. Citizens of this county are indignant at this proceeding of the Colorado authorities, and an appeal has been made to Gov. Bailey to prevent Colorado from dumping her alleged undesirable citizens into Kansas.

Will Soon Be Rid of Agitators.

Cripple Creek, Col., June 11.-The woman’s auxiliary of the miners’ union has been forbidden by the military authorities to hold meetings.

“Within 48 hours this district will be rid of all agitators and other objectionable men.” said Gen. Bell, Friday. “One deportation after another will be made until none of the men who have terrorized the district so long will be left here”

[Emphasis added.]

Apparently, by “men who have terrorized the district so long” Gen. Bell meant striking union miners, and not the members of the Citizens’ Alliance who rampaged through the Cripple Creek Strike zone for several days, destroying union property, trashing the union relief stores, rounding up, beating up, and threatening union miners and local officials deemed too sympathetic to the union cause. The Western Federation of Miners, without any proof whatsoever, was blamed for the explosion at the Independence Station on June 6th, and thus provided Gen. Bell, the militia, and the Citizens’ Alliance with the excuse they needed for this final assault on union organization in the Cripple Creek District.

The wives and children of the deported miners are now left behind to manage as best they can. The union relief stores on which they depend for food and other necessities of life have all been destroyed.

The miners who were herded down the street on Friday by militiamen and Citizens’ Alliance “deputies” and then loaded into railroad cars and deported from the Cripple Creek strike zone, were found near the Kansas border on June 11th.

From The San Francisco Call of June 12, 1904:

EXILED MINERS, HUNGRY AND WEARY,
CAMP ON THE COLORADO BORDER
———-
Deported Men Are Taken to
the Kansas Line by Troops.
———-
Left on a Bleak Prairie Without
Food or Water Supply.
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SYRACUSE, Kansas, June 11.—The deported Colorado miners camped at Holly to-night, just across the Colorado line. They were notified to-night that a special train would be sent to take them all to Denver.

HOLLY, Colo., June 11. — With a parting volley of rifle bullets, fired over their heads by the militia and deputies to, warn them to “hike” eastward as fast as their legs could carry them and never again set foot on Colorado soil, ninety-one union miners from the Cripple Creek district were unloaded from a special Santa Fe train on the prairie this morning, one half mile from the Colorado-Kansas State line, and left to shift for themselves. The exiles were disembarked in haste and without ceremony. The guards and deputies were tired out and in ill humor from their long, tedious trip from the Teller County gold camp and were in no mood to extend any special courtesies or kindness to their unfortunate charges.

“Hurry up there, you fellows,” cried Lieutenant Cole, when the train stopped in the midst of the alkali sand dunes that dot the prairie in the vicinity of the eastern part of Powers [Prowers] County near the Kansas line. “We haven’t got any time to waste out here.”

WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER.

And no time was wasted. The special, which consisted of an engine, a combination baggage car and smoker and two day coaches, had no sooner come to a standstill than the car doors were unlocked and thrown open and the order given by Lieutenant Cole for the exiles to leave the train.

“Step lively, you fellows, step lively,” admonished Deputy Benton, who was in command of the civil forces of the expedition, and in less time than it takes to tell it the three cars were emptied of their passengers and the train was started on its way back to La Junta.

The men were dumped out on the cheerless prairie without food or water, for the soldiers and deputies, in their haste to get home, had forgotten to unload the small stock of commissary supplies the train carried when it left Victor yesterday afternoon.

SPIRIT OF MEN BREAKS

The exiles were a cheerless lot, indeed. Without even a light and miles from the nearest habitation, they huddled together in groups on either side of the Santa Fe track and discussed their plight. Warned to move eastward, on pain of being rearrested  and severely handled, and notified by the Kansas authorities that they would not be allowed to seek refuge in that State, the spirit of the men broke. Many of them walked  back westward on the railroad to Holly, the Salvation Army colony in Colorado, where the charitable inhabitants provided breakfast for them. Some of them later started to walk to Lamar, Colo.

Sheriff Jack Brady and forty deputies of Hamilton County were at the State line to prevent the deported men entering Kansas.

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CLAIMS TO HAVE MURDERERS.
———-
Bell Declares Independence Dynamiters
Are In Bullpen.
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CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo., June 11.-General Sherman M. Bell to-day made the following statement for publication:

“I have indisputable evidence in my possession which will lead to the conviction of  union men for the murder of non-union miners who were killed in the Independence explosion. We have between thirty-five and forty men in the bullpen who will swing for this crime. We are only waiting to capture three or four men before we tell what our evidence is.”

[Emphasis added.]

From The Rocky Mountain News of June 8, 1904:

From the Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette of June 9, 1904:

SESSIONS OF FEDERATION
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Denver, Colo., June 6.-The Western Federation of Miners will investigate the dynamite outrage at Cripple Creek. At the session of the federation convention, a committee consisting of C. C. Mitchell, of South Dakota; C. Mahoney, of Montana, and Harry L. Lane, of Nevada, was appointed to go to the Cripple Creek district and make a thorough investigation of the whole affair and to spare no one in its report.

The committee which was sent to Cripple Creek last week to report on conditions there, reported to the convention today. The report says that the mine workers admit that they are not getting anything like the returns they did before the strike. The committee found a great many men were employed, about as many as before the strike on some properties, but the returns were not nearly so large proportionately. The miners are determined to stand firm and the committee could suggest no change in the policy which had been pursued. The secretary of the Mine Operators association had made the claim that if the matter had been put to a referendum vote of the local unions there wold have been no strike, but the committee found that the local unions had considered the strike and referred the matter to the district union, which had advised the calling of the men.

By unanimous vote Salt Lake was chosen for the place of the next convention to be held beginning the fourth Monday in May, 1905. Denver was selected as the permanent headquarters of the federation.

The afternoon session was brief. A visit by “Mother ” Jones, of the United Mine Workers of America, and other prominent unionists outside the miners organization, during which labor conditions were discussed, was the feature.

Tonight the committee appointed to investigate the explosion at Findley station last night met at Federation hall. A statement will be given out tomorrow. The question of offering a reward or appropriating money for an independent effort to apprehend the guilty parties has not been decided.

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[Emphasis added.]

Campaign of Terror in Cripple Creek District

Since the horrific explosion at the Independence Station, a campaign of terror perpetrated by the Citizens’ Alliance, with the assistance of the militia, has continued unabated against the Western Federation of Miners. City and county officials deemed too friendly, or even too neutral, to the union cause have also been a target of vigilantism.

Mrs. Emma Langdon Reports from Victor:

TROUBLE AT CRIPPLE CREEK.

Before going more deeply into occurrences in the city of Victor and other towns in the district, let us for a moment see how fared the population of Cripple Creek.

June 6, found excitement as high in Cripple Creek as I have described in Victor.

June 7, was without doubt one of the most strenuous days in the history of that city. The spectacle of large bodies of armed men, many mounted, parading the streets with members of the Western Federation of Miners and other members of organized labor as prisoners, kept the populace on the qui vive all day.

The first noteworthy occurrence of the 7th happened sometime between twelve and two o’clock, a. m. An excited, apparently insane mob of nearly two hundred men made an assault on the hall of Miners’ Union No. 40, on Bennett avenue. Fortunately the building was not occupied at the time. Not finding members of the union in the building, the mob satisfied themselves with completely destroying the handsome furnishings, smashing in the windows of the reading room and secretary’s office, breaking in the doors in the interior and demolishing the typewriter and everything that could be destroyed. A few special police officers reached the scene of the attack, but they were powerless to cope with the superior force. The mob finally dispersed and no arrests were made.

The hall presented a sorry aspect after the visit of the mob. The battered structure was guarded by a couple of soldiers who had positive orders to admit no visitors or curiosity seekers. Acting under orders from Sheriff Bell, Deputy Tom Underwood searched the building thoroughly and confiscated the charter of the union and all printed matter that could be found. A dray was backed up in front of the hall and loaded with paraphernalia belonging to the union and Trades Assembly. This material was stored at the headquarters of the Citizens’ Alliance. A number of charters of other unions that met in the hall were taken to the First National bank, where they were carefully scrutinized by a curious crowd.

The union store was destroyed in the same manner as were the Victor, Anaconda and Goldfield stores.

At the first break of dawn little groups of men began to gather on the avenue and bright and early the streets were crowded with people who assembled purely out of curiosity to witness expected stirring scenes. And they were not in the least disappointed.

The town was virtually in control of a large force of armed deputies under the direction of Tom Underwood and Henry Benton, who searched every nook and corner of both business and residence sections in quest of union men who were slated for deportation from the district. Hundreds of non-union miners were pressed into service as deputies. The homes of many union miners were visited and searched for male occupants. A dozen or more arrests resulted, the prisoners being taken to the county jail pending final disposition of their cases.

Committees were appointed to call on Chief of Police Graham and Night Captain Fred Harding and demand their immediate resignations from office. The committee found Chief Graham at the city jail and briefly stated the object of their call, at the same time presenting a written resignation for him to sign. Graham lost no time in appending his signature to the document. Harding was seen by the committee a few minutes later and was likewise relieved of his job. The committee which waited upon the officers was composed of Cliff Newcomb, cashier of the First National bank; Broker Harry Shepherd, John Russel, Dr. Funk and Editor W. H. Griffith of the Cripple Creek Times.

The demand for a change of administration extended even to the judiciary, Justice of the Peace C. M. Harrington being selected as the first victim. Harrington was waited upon by a committee composed of Sam Vidler, Frank Pinson, Dr. McCowan, J. Gaffney and an old soldier named Harcourt. It was stated that Sam Vidler held a revolver against the judge’s abdomen as he presented the demand for his resignation. The judge reluctantly acceded to the demand, his protests being unavailing. Justice Thomas of Victor, was deposed from office in a similar manner.

It was stated by the Citizens’ Alliance committee that Albert F. Frost, county judge, and Frank P. Mannix, county clerk and recorder, who were then in attendance at a Democratic convention which was in session at Pueblo, would be compelled to likewise give up their offices. This applied to Deputy District Attorney J. C. Cole, who was also out of the city.

On the night of June 7 the city council of Cripple Creek accepted the resignations of Chief of Police Graham and Night Captain Harding. Charles Crowder was elected to succeed Graham; a successor to Harding was found in C. E. Wiley. The mayor had previously appointed Floyd Thompson as night captain, but he was later seen by a committee from the vigilantes who objected to Thompson. Accordingly Wiley was substituted. Mayor Shockey laid particular stress upon the fact that the appointments were only temporary.

Secretary R. E. Croskey of the Trades Assembly, who was supposed to have made his escape from the district after being apprised that he was booked for deportation, was arrested by a number of deputies and taken to the county jail with the balance of the union prisoners.

A few days before the army of militia, deputies and strikebreakers, gained complete control in Cripple Creek, under instructions of the tool of the mine owners, Governor James H. Peabody, A. E. Carlton, president of the First National bank of Cripple Creek, and a shining light of the Mine Owners’ Association, approached City Marshal Wm. Graham, and said:

“Billy, you and [I?] are warm friends, and I come to you as a friend to tell you to resign and the sooner the better. I know you have been fair through this strife in the district and have not at any time shown partiality to either side. I feel this is a great injustice to you, but we, the Mine Owners’ Association and Citizens’ Alliance, do not want a neutral man as city marshal. Our faction will not be responsible for you a minute. The marshal we choose must be in sympathy with us completely. We have outlined work for him that would not be agreeable to a man like you or any other except the kind we appoint.”

Carlton then offered him $100 and a ticket to Kansas City, stating that many hard things would be done from that date on.

Bear in mind, reader, this conversation took place a few days before the explosion…

MORE VANDALISM.

While the mob at Cripple Creek destroyed all valuable property of the Western Federation, in Victor property was also either totally destroyed or confiscated.

June 7, Engineer’s hall No. 80, W. F. M., was visited and the entire furnishings destroyed, including charters of many organizations that met in the hall. A beautiful new piano that was the pride of the Maccabees, was totally destroyed, being turned over and the sides smashed in. Many magnificent portieres were stripped from the windows, and after being torn in rags were piled in a heap on the floor.

The library in this elegant hall was estimated at $1,000, The entire contents of the bookcases were hurled from the windows to the sidewalk below.

The brussels carpet and rugs on the floor were torn and bayoneted, chairs broken, banners torn in shreds, and all charters made into fit material for the “rag man.”

The engineers owned a beautiful silk banner which cost $185, and was prized very highly by the local. This artistic piece of work was made a special target by this destruction dealing mob.

In the reading room and secretary’s office, desks, chairs and tables were overturned and demolished. All official records and books of Engineers No. 80, W. F. M., and other organizations that met in the building, were taken to military headquarters.

On the blackboard in the reception hall of the building, after the horde had left the hall, was found the following threat, written in the blood of one of their victims:

For being a union man, deportation or death will be your fate.

Citizens’ Alliance.

Reader, keep this in mind—this destruction was wrought by the National Guard of the fair state of Colorado by a “law and order” for what they claimed was a “military necessity.”

Women who were members of fraternal societies that held meetings in the hall, took heart-broken looks at their cherished banners, that, in many cases, represented months of tedious needle work, thus ruthlessly turned to mere useless rags, and many were seen to shed bitter tears.

Will the reader be surprised if I add, that so many things of an even more serious nature were being perpetrated in different sections of the district, that the foregoing seemed to appear common place to the majority.

The co-operative store in Victor was raided by a mob and totally destroyed, groceries torn from the shelves and thrown into the streets, coal oil poured over the flour, sugar and other groceries that could be destroyed in that manner. The groceries that were not rendered useless were “confiscated” by the Citizens’ Alliance.

Many people who witnessed this disgraceful scene say that Newcomb, cashier of the First National bank, led this lawless crowd of military and civilians. The other co-operative stores were raided in a similar manner.

James H. Murphy, superintendent of the Findley mine, was the chief of the mob that tyrannized over women, children and unarmed men in the little towns of Altman and Independence. Murphy was seen to tear a woman’s clothing from her body and then kick her until half dead because she was known to be a union sympathizer. A fine specimen of the Peabody gang that has stained the name of Colorado and trampled under foot the document our forefathers gave their lives to establish.

A. E. Carlton, banker, led the mob that destroyed the union hall in Cripple Creek, and vented his spleen by kicking out windows. Fine work for a would-be representative of “law and order.”

But even worse was to follow, as succeeding pages will show.

By the evening of June 7, 150 men were prisoners and 100 others had been arrested and released and twenty-seven shipped out of the district.

Miners’ Union hall, owned by local No. 32, was among the property partially destroyed and furnishings confiscated. The building itself cost $30,000. The hall was rendered absolutely useless. It was one of the most handsomely furnished halls in the state and was occupied every night as a meeting place for some fraternal society. Later on the military moved from their former quarters, Armory hall, and turned Miners’ Union hall into an armory. Reason given—more comfortable quarters.

Among the effects confiscated from Miners’ Union hall and taken to Citizens’ Alliance headquarters, were a number of photographs of miners. There were about forty of these pictures altogether and they were marked and checked up so as to show who in each picture were the non-union men. Over each nonunion man was placed a number and on the back the name of the man was written with the corresponding number. This was at once claimed by the mine owners and Citizens’ Alliance to be damaging evidence against the union miners, as they claimed that the persons represented by the photographs of the non-union men were marked for death by the striking miners. The truth of the matter was that the Western Federation of Miners had for many years adopted the system of photographing the miners in union camps in groups. This included the union and non-union miners, the purpose being that in the event of a union miner proving a traitor, his picture was reproduced in the Miners’ Magazine as a notification to miners in other union camps.

A meeting of the Citizens’ Alliance was held. Some of the union miner prisoners were examined.

Frank Cochran, secretary of No. 32, Victor, was brought in under heavy guard. He declared that he did not know who the men were or when the pictures were taken; that they were all taken before he became a member of No. 32, and that he knew nothing of any man ever being marked for slaughter.

“Make him confess,” yelled a man at the meeting, and things became exciting. Two new ropes with running nooses, lay on the table before Cochran.

“Put a rope around his neck,” called out another, and similar remarks were heard all over the room.

Cochran protested, saying that all he knew about the photographs was that they were taken for “scab” pictures and that in this way the non-union men could be kept track of. He could not be coerced into changing his story.

Other miners were brought in and underwent a similar sweating, with the same results.

K. C. Sterling, secret service officer for the mine operators, sweated several union men during the day and as a result claimed that he had secured valuable testimony. What this testimony was he would not divulge…

The state armory that had been converted into a “bull pen,” at Third and Diamond avenues, was surrounded with sightseers. There was frivolity and sorrow, tears and jeers, and with every phase an extreme emotion was shown in the vast crowd. Wives and sisters and children of the imprisoned miners were lined up opposite the armory watching their friends and relatives who crowded the windows and smiled and looked seriously on the upward gazing crowds below.

The men were well fed, many of their wives bringing them good meals. Dan McPhee, one of the prisoners, was quite ill, and Mrs. McPhee brought him hot coffee and rolls and a warm blanket. Judan Pha was mourning his fate. He said he was a Spaniard and arrived in Victor Monday, to look for a long lost brother, when he was seized in Goldfield and taken to the bullpen.

Two shots were fired about four o’clock, and for a moment another riot was feared, but the shots were only to keep the crowd back. Then the train, consisting of a single coach, was drawn up, and Sheriff Bell took a paper with a list of names, and the men who were to be deported were lined up. With bluecoats on every side, they marched silently down out of the armory to the train between immense crowds. Every hill and neighboring building was black with spectators. Everything passed in silence as the men mounted the steps of the train; the militia on each side and it steamed away, destination then unknown. The next day [Wednesday] it was learned that they landed safely in Denver.

At seven o’clock in the evening, the same day, the usurper sheriff with a number of guards, loaded fifty men on a F. & C. C. train and took them to Cripple Creek, where they were held at Citizens’ Alliance headquarters until the mine owners and this “law unto itself”, the Citizens’ Alliance, would decide whether to release, hang, torture or deport them.

I will not give the names of each of these men and what they were forced to undergo, but among the fifty was the deposed marshal of Victor, Michael O’Connell.

[Emphasis added.]

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SOURCES & IMAGES

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

The Labor History of the Cripple Creek District
A Study in Industrial Evolution
-by Benjamin McKie Rastall
University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1908 
(search: miners deported Kansas) p88-9
https://books.google.com/books?id=wRpSAAAAMAAJ

Daily New-Democrat
(Huntington, Indian)
-June 11, 1904
https://www.newspapers.com/image/39422617/

The San Francisco Call
(San Francisco California)
-June 12, 1904
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1904-06-12/ed-1/seq-22/

The Rocky Mountain News
(Denver, Colorado)
-June 8, 1904
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-146DD1354B74E838@2416640-146C2B2989FA5240@2-146C2B2989FA5240

Prowers County CO
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prowers+County,+CO/@37.5963638,-103.7584907,7z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x870e9f82a3e28f31:0x1934f6289fb20f3!8m2!3d37.8433756!4d-102.2547919!16zL20vMG5fdng?authuser=0&entry=ttu

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There Is Power in a Union – Street Dogs
Lyrics by Billy Bragg