Wednesday May 9, 1906
From Washington, D. C.: News on the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Case

From the Evening Star of May 7, 1906:

FOR STEUNENBERG'S MURDER.
-----
Moyer, Haywood and Others to Be
Tried Next Month.

A dispatch from Boise, Idaho, last night says: The appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, charged with the assassination of ex-Gov. Frank Steunenberg, will not delay their trial in the state courts.

The trials of these men and of Harry Orchard and Steven Adams before State Judge Smith will be held at the term of court that will begin at Caldwell, Canyon county, May 15. It will take some time for preliminary and dilatory motions to be disposed of, and it is believed that the taking of evidence will commence about June 11.

-----

From the Evening Star of May 1, 1906:

CENTRAL LABOR UNION
-----
BUSINESS TRANSACTED AT THE WEEKLY MEETING.
------

A large number of delegates representing the trades unions of this city were in attendance last evening at the weekly meeting of the Central Labor Union....

Action of Authorities Condemned.

Resolutions were adopted condemning the action of the authorities of Colorado and Idaho in "kidnaping" Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, members of the Western Federation of Miners, charged with complicity in the murder of former Gov. Steunenberg. Copies of the resolutions will be sent to the governors of Colorado and Idaho under the seal of the Central Labor Union...

From the Evening Star of April 8, 1906:

Terrence V. Powderly, former head of the Knights of Labor, wrote to Governor Gooding of Idaho, protesting the methods by which the officers of the Western Federation of Miners were transferred from Colorado to Idaho, and demanding that they be given a fair trial.

A VIGOROUS PROTEST
-----
Mr. Powderly Writes to the Governor of Idaho.
------
OPPOSES METHODS USED
------
Treatment of Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone.
-----
THEY ARE ACCUSED OF MURDER
-----
Suspected of Complicity in the
Assassination of Gov. Steunenberg-
Apprehension Criticised.
------

in protest against the treatment of Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone, the men accused of the murder of Gov. Steunenberg of Idaho, T. V. Powderly, former head of the Knights of Labor and now a resident of Washington, has addressed a letter to Gov. Frank Gooding of Idaho.

Mr. Powderly prefaces his letter with a reference to his own career, saying that he knows what it is to have a bad name given one and no chance to set the matter right. He remarks that there were four big strikes called while he was chief of the K. of L. and eleven hundred cases settled by mutual agreement that might have developed into serious strikes. The four strikes, he said, were described at length in long primer and the eleven hundred cases settled without a strike were dismissed with a scanty paragraph of nonparell. He says that he has been called an anarchist and an agitator, so he knows how it is, and, with this fellow-feeling for the men under discussion, he asks the governor to insure them their trial by fair and lawful means. He says in part:

Agitation Among Labor Men.

Last week you telegraphed Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, asking him to co-operate with John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers, in appointing a committee to investigate the conditions incident to the imprisonment of Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners. In your dispatch you said:

"Great agitation caused by the arrest of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners, among labor unions of the United States, and charges of conspiracy between state officials and mine owners of west to punish innocent men for assassination of Gov. Steunenburg [Steunenberg] has induced me to invite you and John Mitchell to appoint a committee to investigate the conditions here, etc."

Mr. Gompers very properly, and with becoming dignity, declined to accede to your request, for the duty you solicit at his hands should be exercised by a trial court. The appointment of a committee such as you suggest would, it seems to me, be traveling as far out of the path of the law as the officers of the law traveled in Colorado when they resorted to such primitive methods of securing the attendance of Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone before the courts of Idaho.

Haywood and Moyer may be guilty of the crime charged against them. If they are they should be tried by true process of law, but fairly tried. If convicted they should pay the penalty of their offenses as by law required. They may be innocent of the crime charged against them, but, innocent or guilty, they should receive fair play. Justice requires it; the whole country demands it; they are entitled to it. If what has been so far published of the proceedings in their cases is true they have not had fair play. The "great agitation" to which you refer in your dispatch to Mr. Gompers was caused, not by the arrest or imprisonment of these men, but by the manner in which these results were accomplished.

Legal Usages Disregarded.

An assassin seeks his victim by stealth and takes him at a disadvantage. No honorable, square man can emulate such practices and continue to be either honorable or square. If through error such a man does violence to another, or to the law, his is the duty of righting that wrong; he cannot delegate that duty to another, or to a committee appointed by another. Haywood et al. are charged with the practices of the assassin, and they in turn were taken at a disadvantage and removed from their lawful place of residence to a foreign jurisdiction without resort to the forms of law. That was wrong; it was a violation of law; it was a blow at the constitutional right of, not a Haywood and Moyer alone, but of all of us.

Course Pursued Condemned.

I have discussed this question with laboringmen, professional men of all kinds, merchants and manufacturers. I found not one who favored bomb throwing or anarchy, murder or destruction of property. Neither did I find one who favored the course taken with regards to Haywood and Moyer. They were a unit in condemning the course pursued in arresting and taking them away from their homes without giving them a chance to invoke the law of the land in their behalf. The people demand that they receive fair play.

Therefore, in the hope that it is not too late I appeal to you to reverse the proceedings in this case, retrace your steps and bow to the law, thus setting an example to all who would violate it. Give Haywood and Moyer fair play, a fair trial, and you will not hear a dissenting voice from labor, organized or unorganized, but they must have fair play.
Respectfully yours,
T. V. POWDERLY.

[Photograph added.]

SOURCE
Evening Star
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-May 7, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/146413071/
-May 1, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/146399559/
-Apr 8, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/146358432/

IMAGES
Moyer and Haywood, Wilshire's Magazine, 1906
pdf! http://darrow.law.umn.edu/documents/Wilshire_Mag.pdf
T. V. Powderly (1849-1924)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_V._Powderly

Chicago, Ill.
May 9-1906

T. V. Powderly
502 Quincy St., N. W.
Washington, D. C.
My own Dear Comrade;

You no doubt wonder why you have not had a reply to your letter before this time. When I left you I went to Indianapolis spent a day or two there and proceeded to Danville, Ill., and was laid up for a month in the home of a Physicain friend and he patched me up for the work again.

Strange that I should have been thinking of you, and the work you did in the past, the day before and that day that I reached Chicago and found your letter awaiting me. Some how I felt that you would rebuke Gooding and their method. When I read your letter and read the clipping from the News Paper it brought tears to my eyes, and I thought of the days when we were together in battle, how they had accused you and maligned you, and how patiently you bore it all for the cause so dear to you.

I saw Darrow yesterday, he tells me he thinks it will be a long drawn out trial, and it will need a great deal of finance to carry it on, and we must have it. He had a letter from Bolton Hall, he gave him much incourgement and every guarantee of assistance. I wanted to go to Denver to have a long talk with the boys at the head of the Federation, but Darrow advised me not to go, for possibly there would be some charge trumped up against me and I would be put behind bars out there, so I took his advice and will stay away, believing that I can do more good out of Jail than in it.

I must tell you something. Robert Hunter, the man who wrote "Poverty" went to Washington to see the "Big Stick" and the "Big Stick" said, "so you are the man who wrote "Poverty" are you?" Hunter said yes, and of course Teddy did not like that because he had been swinging the circle in a Special Car telling all about the wonderful prosperity. He passed up and down the Cabinet Room, and said "every one of the Western Federation of Miners ought to be hung, they are nothing but a gang of criminals" and then he said the "Beef Trust ought to be hung also." If I had been there I would have told him to go down to the Senate of the United States, and take a rope with him, and hang some of those commercial pirots.

I regretted to learn from your letter that you were not feeling well. Courage, Comrade, the day is dawning, as you say, and out the darkness will come the light. The world needs more like you. Do not let any incident of the past distress you, you are the same honest T. V. Powderly of years ago, when the present Labor Lords were not heard of. You broke up the clay, and sewed the seed, and they are now reaping some of the harvest, and whatever comes or goes, whatever the dark day may be I shall always see you in the shadows of the past when you worked so faithfully, and patiently in labors cause. Some day the unwritten history will be given to the children yet unborn, and it is possible that they will make pilgramages to your grave and plant flowers there on. We live not for to day, but for the ages yet to come, and the children yet unborn.

I expect some time soon to get to Washington and write up that book I promised you would be written.

Poor Douglas Wilson, go to see him some time, it will cheer him up. I have always had a warm spot in my heart for him, he has been true to the cause. It is sad sight for me to go Washington and look upon that once magnificent frame, what a total wreck it is.

I expect to go to Oklahoma in a few weeks to do some work down there, and I would like to hear from you and above all keep cheerful and the future will be ours.

I have no words to express my appreciation for your rebuke to Gooding.

I am as ever yours faithfully and loyally for the Social Revilution.

Take care of yourself write a line, let me know how Douglass feels. Send me that book we talked about if you can, cheer up.

Mother Jones

[Photographs added.]

SOURCES

Mother Jones speaks: collected writings and speeches
-ed by Philip Sheldon Foner
Monad Press, 1983
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ

The Correspondence of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985
https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ2xAAAAIAAJ

IMAGES
Mother Mary Harris Jones, Miners Angel
http://www.biography.com/people/mother-jones-9357488
Big Stick Cartoon by William Allen Rogers, 1904
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology

"Song for the Knights of Labor" from "Iron & Gold"
-by Lauren & Mark Arnest
http://millionmonkeys.us/iron-gold/
Soloist: Erik Bryan.