—————
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 9, 1903
Denver, Colorado – W. F. of M. Executive Board Addresses Colorado’s Labor Conflicts
From The Denver Post of December 5, 1903:
[Photograph added. Note: James Kirwin replaced T. J. McKean on the Executive Board during November.]
———-
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 20, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1910, Part II:
-Found in Washington D. C. Berating Author of Dick Military Law
From the Duluth Labor World of April 30, 1910:
MOTHER JONES RAKES OHIO’S
WATCH CHARM SENATOR
OVER COALS
——–
WASHINGTON, D. C., April 29.— Mother Jones, whose “boys” are working in every coal mine in Pennsylvania and every mineral camp of Colorado, met Senator Dick, of the notorious Dick military law, as that urbane member of the upper house was standing in the senate lobby of the [Capitol].
All smiles and gladness the senator acknowledged the introduction to the white-haired woman and offered his hand, but “Mother” dropped hers significantly to her side:
I’m fighting you, Senator Dick. It was your work that sent two thousand guns out to Colorado in the last big strike, and shot us up.
“You don’t look as if you had been injured, Madam,” flushed the senator.
“No thanks to your law and the guns that killed others while they missed me,” answered the woman whose appearance and participation in almost every miners’ strike during the last thirty years has earned for her the name of “stormy petrel.”
“But, madam,” argued Senator Dick, “don’t we need soldiers in time of revolution?”
[Flashed Mother Jones:]
In the revolution that drove King George back across the sea, yes. But do we need a law that will do for America what the Irish constabulary law did for Ireland? No, no. Senator Dick, I saw the brutal and bloody work of the militia in Colorado, and the truth is that the guns your law would place in the hands of the mine owners and the mill owners are loaded with bullets for the hearts of the workers.
———-
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 23, 1909
Washington, District of Columbia – U. S. Supreme Court Rules Against Moyer
From the Socialist Montana News of January 21, 1909:
Highest Court in the Land
Legalizes Bull Pen.
—–Washington, Jan. 18.-The supreme court of the United States today decided against President Moyer, of the Western Federation of Miners, in the damage suit brought by him against former Governor Peabody, of Colorado, on account of Moyer’s imprisonment on the governor’s orders because of his alleged connection with riots at Telluride, Col., in 1904.
In the course of his opinion Justice Holmes said:
Right to Call Troops.
We must assume that the governor had a right under the state constitution and laws to call out troops, as was held by the supreme court of the state. The constitution is supplemented by an act providing that when an invasion of or insurrection in the state is made or threatened, the governor shall order the national guard to repel or suppress the same.
That means that he will make the ordinary use of the soldiers to that end; that he my kill persons who resist, and of course that he my use the milder methods of seizing the bodies of those whom he considers to stand in the way of restoration of peace. Such arrests are not necessarily for punishment, but are by way of precaution to prevent the exercise of hostile power; so long as each arrests are made in good faith and in the honest belief that they are needed in order to hold the insurrection off, the governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action after he is out of office on the ground that he had no reasonable ground for his belief.
Individuals Must Yield.
When it comes to a decision by the head of the state upon a matter involving its life, the ordinary rights of individuals must yield to what he deems the necessities of the movement. Public danger warrants the substitution of executive process for judicial process.
[Newsclip added.]
Abolish the wage system, is our battle cry.
With an idea that is imperishable,
Organization and Education as our weapons,
we are invulnerable.
-Big Bill Haywood
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday August 15, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Haywood Takes the Stand, Part II
Asked if he did any violence in the Cripple Creek strike days [1903-1904], Haywood said he had not, but had received some upon his body, the marks of which remain today.
The Western Federation of Miners had issued a poster bearing a U. S. flag on every stripe of which was an inscription: “Habeas Corpus denied in Colorado”; “Free Speech denied in Colorado,” etc. Under the flag was a photograph of John [Henry] Maki, a union miner, chained to a telegraph pole in the snow by militiamen. Over the flag was the caption: “Is Colorado in America?” Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, was arrested at Telluride by militia for “desecrating the flag,” and kept in the bull-pen for one hundred and ten days. Haywood was in Denver, under arrest, but paying a deputy $5 a day to remain out “looking for $300 bail.”
“Couldn’t you get $300 bail?” asked Vanderveer.
“Sure,” was the reply, “but as long as I paid that deputy $5 a day while looking for bail, I would not have to go to Telluride where the militia ruled.”
We think such people [Plutocrats]
ought to work for what they get.
We do not want to take away what they have,
but we want to prevent them from taking
anything more away from us.
-Big Bill Haywood
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday August 14, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Haywood Takes the Stand, Part I
It was 12:30 p. m., [Friday] August 9, when [Defense Attorney] Vanderveer called: “Mr. Haywood.” Reporters broke for the door to release the word that at last William Dudley Haywood, termed by them “Big Bill,” and charged with being “chief conspirator,” had taken the stand in defense of himself and of the organization of which he was the General Secretary-Treasurer. In a few minutes the press table was crowded with writers and cartoonists flocking in to “cover” the story of the big man in the chair. For the major part of four hot days the big man sat there, wiping away perspiration, answering questions with that remarkable memory of his; now smiling, now placid, now and again on cross-examination overawing the petty-souled [Prosecutor] Nebeker, as his heavy voice rose in defiance against the accusers of “The One Big Union.” During those four days the spectators’ benches were full, among the crowd being faces familiar to labor. There were Scott Nearing, Anton Johanssen, “Mother” Jones, and the loved old battler, ‘Gene Debs.
Link up in one socialist company;
Evil must perish!
Only together and united!
Long live the Western Federation of Miners!
-Alex Obremski
In 1907, Alexander Obremski was a union organizer for the Western Federation of Miners, working in the very dangerous field of the Trinidad area of southern Colorado. The field was considered to be so dangerous that organizers took the precaution of traveling in pairs.
On the evening of May 18, 1907, Brother Obremski was shot down in a saloon in Rugby, Colorado, near Trinidad, by Juan Espinosa, “a Mexican allegedly hired by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) for this purpose.” [See below.]
A large funeral was held in Trinidad on May 22nd to honor the intrepid union organizer. He was survived by two brothers who lived in Starkville, Colorado.
According to M. E. White who had charge of WFM headquarters in Trinidad:
Much credit is due for the three hundred members initiated here in the last five months, and at Pueblo, to the faithful and diligent work of your organizer, Brother James Peretto, and the late Brother Obremsky who took their lives in their hands in the work of educating the slaves of this district.
SOURCE I
Essays in Colorado History, Issues 5-10
Colorado Historical Society, 1987
(Search with “alex obremski” reveals signature: “Alex. Obremski.”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=_ngjAQAAIAAJ
Note: not available online except in snippet view. By using various search-words, I was able to bring up some relevant information. I will be attempting to track down this source in a library.
Page 55-
Alexander Obremski (1876-1907)
Correspondence from Trinidad, Colorado
Published as “Korespondencje. Trinidad, Colo.” in Robotnik Polski
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday May 30, 1907
Boise, Idaho – William D. Haywood on Trial for Murder
From Harper’s Weekly of May 25, 1907:
THE MURDER CHARGE AT A
LABOR UNION’S DOOR
BY THE CONFESSION OF ONE OF ITS MEMBERS, THE WESTERN
FEDERATION OF MINERS IS CHARGED WITH HAVING INSTIGATED
TWENTY-SEVEN MURDERS, INCLUDING THE ASSASSINATION, IN 1905,
OF FORMER GOVERNOR STEUNENBERG, OF IDAHO. FOR COMPLICITY
IN THIS CRIME, W. D. HAYWOOD, OF THE FEDERATION’S
“INNER CIRCLE,” IS ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE
AN attempt to learn the truth about the most serious charge that ever has been laid at the doors of organized labor is now being made at Boise City, Idaho. William D. Haywood, secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, is on trial in the District Court, charged with the murder of Frank Steunenberg, former Governor of Idaho. Two other officers of the Federation are jointly accused, but they will be tried separately. One remarkable fact which provokes arguments for and against the organization is that the evidence upon which Haywood and his associates have been indicted is based upon the confession of a member of the Federation who is reported since to have lost his reason.
The three men charged with conspiracy and murder are Haywood, Charles H. Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners, and G. A. Pettibone, formerly a member of the supreme governing body of the organization. These three are men of unusual intelligence and high executive ability.
Hellraisers Journal, Monday March 4, 1907
Telluride, Colorado – The Strike of 1903-1904 Remembered
Yesterday’s Hellraisers Journal featured an article by Comrade Debs from the Appeal to Reason in which was recounted the reign of terror perpetrated upon the members and supporters of the Western Federation of Miners by the Mine Owners, through the powers acting on their behalf, during the bitter strike of three years ago. Today we remember the striking miner who was chained to a telegraph pole on a cold winter day, which incident, along with many like it, left the miners wondering: “Is Colorado in America?”
From the Albuquerque Morning Journal of March 3, 1904:
FRESH TROUBLE BREAKS OUT IN
TELLURIDE STRIKE
—–
Striker Chained to a Telegraph Pole
—–
BY VINDICTIVE DEPUTY
—–
The Thermometer Was Near Zero and
the Western Federation of Miners
Is on Its Ear.
—–
Denver, Colo., March 2.-The headquarters of the Western Federation of Miners in this city was thrown into a fever of excitement late this afternoon by a report of ill-treatment of a striking member of the Miners’ union under arrest on a charge of vagrancy at Telluride, by the civil authorities there. The information came in a telegram from Secretary Forbes of the Telluride union to Secretary Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, as follows:
See Peabody. One of our men shackled to a telegraph pole. Are we going to stand this any longer? All arrests by civil authorities.
Secretary Haywood immediately replied he had instructed E. E. Richardson, attorney of the Western Federation of Miners to go to Telluride at once and institute legal proceedings in the name of the union for the protection of the strikers under arrest. He also advised the officials of the Telluride union to insist upon their rights and use every means at their command to protect themselves.
He said he would make no appeal to Governor Peabody. Mr. Richardson left for Telluride tonight. The local papers have been unable to get any news of conditions in Telluride tonight because of the rigorous censorship prevailing. However, the following version of the affair today was sent out by Captain Bulkeley Wells who is in charge of the local military.
“Five of the men convicted under a vagrancy charge by the civil authorities yesterday, were put to work this morning by order of the sheriff, filling in an excavation. One of the men, Harry Maki, refused to work and was handcuffed to a telegraph pole by the deputy sheriff in charge. This action on the part of the civil authorities has caused great indignation among the strikers.”
[Note: Many of the miners were convicted as vagrants because they had committed the crime of going out on strike.]
Both Captain Wells and Sheriff Rutan disclaimed any responsibility for the action of the deputy sheriff in his treatment of Maki. As the weather at Telluride just now is very cold, the barometer being in the neighborhood of zero, the officials of the Western Federation of Miners in this city feel certain the chaining of Maki to a telegraph pole was an unnecessary hardship. It is understood that Maki was finally released from his uncomfortable position and returned to prison.
[Drawing of Brother Maki added.]
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 2, 1906
Denver, Colorado – U. S. District Court Upholds Autocracy
From the Appeal to Reason of December 1, 1906:
THE “BULL PEN” LEGALIZED!
—–Decision of Federal Judge Invests
Governors of States with
Autocratic Power.
—–
WHEN an insurrection is declared by the governor to exist in any part of Colorado a citizen of the district affected by the proclamation of the chief executive of the state may be imprisoned and detained at the will of the military authorities, according to an opinion handed down by Judge R. E. Lewis in the United States district court in Denver, Colo., Monday, November 19. Such action by the military authorities is declared not to be a violation of the fourteenth amendment, or of the law providing for the writ of habeas corpus.
This decision, which is one of the most important announced in a Colorado court in recent years, was handed down in the case of Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, vs. James H. Peabody, former governor of Colorado, Sherman Bell, former adjutant general, and Bulkeley Wells, now adjutant general, but at the time of the commission of the act of which plaintiff complained an officer in the Colorado national guard. Mr. Moyer had sued for $100,000 damages for alleged false imprisonment during the strike troubles in San Miguel county two years ago. The demurrer of the defendants was sustained.
