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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 28, 1900
President Boyce on Gen. Merriam: “pusillanimous tool…of the mine operators…”
From the Kansas City Labor Record of January 25, 1900:
THE WARDNER TROUBLE
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General Merriam Censured for his Persecution
of Union Miners. Not a Union Man
Allowed to Work.
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In the initial issue of the Miners Magazine President Boyce pays his respects to General Merriam in the following caustic manner:
The following interview with General Merriam by a reporter of the Rocky Mountain News was published in that paper Dec. 13th:
You can say for me,” said the general yesterday to a News man, “that the more Congress investigates the Coeur d’Alene troubles the better it will please me. I am pleased to know that such a movement is on foot.
“The constitution speaks for itself,” continued General Merriam. “Martial law was proclaimed by Governor Stuenenberg May 3d last. Three days after I was ordered to the scene. Arrests were made by the stale authorities, but I do not care to discuss the question. The records speak for themselves.”
Had this pusillanimous tool in the hands of the mine operators, clothed in the uniform of a general bearing the U. S. brand, been animated with no other desire than to do his duty when he reached the Coeur d’Alenes, there would be no need of a congressional investigation.
Did he not arrest every man in the country at the suggestion of the mine operators without cause or provocation and confine them in a filthy barn unfit for habitation, with instructions to shoot any man who showed his head, and denied them the right to consult with counsel?
Did he not examine and approve over his signature one of the most infamous proclamations that ever emanated from the brain of man, which denied every man the right to seek employment in the mines of Shoshone county unless he denounced organized labor and obtained a permit from Dr. France, the Bunker Hill and Sullivan company doctor, noted for his extreme prejudice against organized labor?