Friday April 20, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: George Shoaf on Idaho Frame-Up, Part III

Over the past few days, Hellraisers has published part one and two of an article from the pen of correspondent George Shoaf who is on the ground in Idaho. Shoaf here describes in full the conspiracy to hang the officers of the Western Federation of Miners and, thereby, destroy the mighty union of some 40,000 miners and smeltermen.

In part three, which concludes the article, Shoaf tells of the crimes committed by the Mine Owners' Associations of Colorado and Idaho in order to crush and disrupt the free-association of the metal miners within their chosen organization, the Western Federation of Miners.

From the Appeal to Reason of April 14, 1906:

DESTRUCTION OF FEDERATION
PURPOSE OF CONSPIRACY
-----

Mine Owners' Association Seeks to Make Moyer, Haywood and
Pettibone Vicarious Victims for Capitalistic Crimes in Order to
Disrupt Organization and Crush Socialism.
-----
PINKERTON CRIMES LAID BARE
-----
Lawless Methods of Organized Thugs Operating Under Cloak
of Detective Agency Are Mercilessly Exposed.
-----
BY GEORGE H. SHOAF.
-----
[Part III]
-----

On the other hand, what is the Mine Owners' association, and of whom is it composed?

Purpose of Mine Owners.
-----

It is an easy thing to give the names of all the members of this capitalistic order; practically every mine owner in the states of Colorado and Idaho belongs to it. In order to name the gentlemen all that is necessary is to turn to the year book issued regularly by the association and point them out. Many of these men are engaged exclusively in the mining of gold and silver ore, while many others are not only mine owners, but they are largely interested in smelter works, railroad enterprises, cattle ranches, banks, municapal-utility corporations, etc.

A. E. Colburn one of the most prominent members of the association, is an extensive dealer in Denver real estate and interested in other Denver enterprises. Dave Moffatt, another member, is president of the largest banking institution in the West. Simon Guggenheim is not only a mine owner, but he is president of the smelter works, is a Wall Street manipulator, and is a candidate for the United States senatorship from Colorado.

But for the present it is unnecessary to name every individual allied with the Mine Owners' association; they are all millionaires and capitalists and natural enemies of the Western Federation of Miners. Nor is it necessary to point out particularly the objects and purposes of the association; it is plainly apparent that these gentlemen have organized, as is their right, to conserve their interests, promote their prosperity and destroy and wipe out any obstacle that would tend to retard or block their progress.

Part of their program is to gain political control of the state in order that laws favorable to themselves might be passed and executed. And how successfully has this part of the program been carried out! By reason of their compact organization the mine owners dominate absolutely the political administrations of both Colorado and Idaho! They control the courts, judiciary, governors, police, constabulary and state militia! Before this organization the people stand confused, disorganized and helpless!

Chief Criminals Named.
-----

But it is not of the association as a whole, so much, that I desire to write; it is the "inner circle" that commands attention now. I am loath to believe that all the mine owners of the West are leagued together in the bonds of crime; that all of them would deliberately steep their hands in human blood. The men I want the public to consider are the men who are at the head of the organization. They are the men who dictate the policy of the order, handle its money, cabal in secret, plot conspiracies, plan crimes, and hire detectives to pull off the crimes concocted.

I have named the members of this "inner circle" once, and I will do it again. They are S. D. Crump, A. E. Carlton, C. C. Hamlin, Bulkeley Wells, General Reardon, Floyd Thompson, Governor McDonald, and, some say, Governor Gooding. James McPartland [McParland], of course, is the chief executive agent of the combination. It is through this precious scoundrel that muderers are hired to do the dirty work, explode dynamite bombs, derail trains and perpetrate assassinations.

These Murder for Money.

Sherman Bell, Sheriff Bell, K. C. Sterling, Charles M. McKinney, D. C. Scott, Tom Underwood, Robert Bemore, Harry Orchard, and one or two others, are merely the hired tools of the "inner circle." On the witness stand Charles M. McKinney admitted that he was hired to derail one train, and that he would be paid fifty cents a head for every man he killed. K. C. Sterling has a private graveyard to his credit, and is a proved murder. Sherman Bell lives in the city of Denver, has no visible means of support and it is popularly supposed that he is living on blood money earned while adjutant-general of the Colorado state guard. Sheriff Bell still holds his old job and is quick to divine the purposes and carry out the schemes of the "inner circle." Scott, Underwood and Bemore claim Cripple Creek as their home and can be found there, when they are not out on some mission for their employers. Orchard, of course, is in prison "confessing" his sins to Detective McPartland.

It is the consensus of opinion that Crump is the brains of the "inner circle." He, Carlton, Hamlin and Floyd Thompson are supposed to comprise the quartette that furnished the schemes which resulted in the Cripple Creek deportations. It is believed that these men are the ones who first thought up the project of dynamiting the Independence depot. The suspicion is freely circulated throughout Colorado that they were the ones who first suggested the assassination of ex-Governor Steunenberg. The other members, by reason of their positions and influence, are valiant allies and are ready to assist wherever necessary. Ex-Governor Peabody might be included in the "inner circle." He was an active member once, but the truth is he is such a mental weakling that in actual conspiracy work he is a hindrance rather than a help. For the present he has retired to the shades of private life.

Long List of Crimes.
-----

It were useless to enter into the conspiracies of this "inner circle." The deeds it has fostered speak for themselves. During the past four years the "inner circle" of the Mine Owners' association has perpetrated the following crimes;

With bribery it defeated the eight-hour law.

By military intimidation it unseated Alva Adams, the rightfully elected governor, and gave the reins of authority to Jesse F. McDonald.

It openly bought the supreme court, and admittedly controls the state legislature by the same foul means.

It compelled the resignation of the duly elected officers of the Cripple Creek district at the point of the bayonet, and filled the vacated offices with men of its own choosing.

It inaugurated a reign of terror in the Cripple Creek district, during which time its hired thugs looted stores, destroyed a printing press, invaded the homes of union miners, outraged their wives, intimidated their children, arrested the male members of the family, and, after subjecting them to the brutality of the bull pen, nailed them into box cars, railroaded them out of the district, and dumped them helpless and hopeless, on a hot, blazing, desert prairie, miles away from water or human habitation.

It has harbored gamblers, ex-convicts, desperadoes and other criminals, knowing them to be such, and has employed these men to act as agents, spies, deputy sheriffs, guards and detectives in Cripple Creek, Telluride and elsewhere in Colorado and Idaho.

Boast of their Misdeeds.

Its immediate members have not only committed crimes themselves, for which they could and should be prosecuted and punished, but they openly boast and approve of the crimes which they have instigated and committed. When cited the law and constitution by citizens whose reason and sense of justice had not entirely gone, they replied, "Damn the law, and to hell with the constitution!"

It has directly instigated, or is held responsible for, the taking of the lives of not less than 851 men who have been murdered in and around the mines during the last four years.

Finally, it is the universal verdict of the common people of the West that ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg met his death by assassination at the hands of an infamous wretch hired by the "inner circle" to perpetrate the dastardly and damnable deed.

Let the "inner circle" refute these charges, if it dare!

Now is the time for it to come into court and prove its innocence!

It is a murderous band of assassins, a cowardly coterie of perjurers, a pack of hounds, whose trail is slippery with human blood, whose object is to destroy freedom of thought speech and action, and all that life holds dear, and whose end is as surely hell as it is destined to discovery, defeat and damnation.

Contrast Is Striking.
-----

Such are the membership, objects and purposes of the two antagonistic organizations-the Western Federation of Miners and the Mine Owners' association. Such are the methods employed by either side in their efforts to attain the mastery of the industrial situation in the West. The miners stand for high wages, short hours, better conditions under the present system, looking forward to the day when the working class will become sufficiently strong and intelligent to abolish the present, and inaugurate a grander and more glorious civilization; the mine owners stand for low wages, long hours, slavish conditions for their employes, and are plotting and planning for the coming of the day when they will encounter no opposition to their own will from either trade union or Socialist sources. The one seeks by peaceable agitation, education and organization to elevate the standard of life; the other adopts the methods of fraud and force to control the government and subdue the aspirations of man to be fee.

By assassinating Steunenberg the "inner circle" of the Mine Owners' association hopes to persuade Idaho to hang Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone for the crime, after which it expects to commence the active work of disrupting and destroying the Western Federation of Miners, preliminary to a combined assault, with the other capitalistic organizations of the country, on the Industrial Workers of the World, and the general Socialist movement.

Will these hopes be realized?

[Photographs and paragraph breaks added.]

SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Apr 14, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66993900/

IMAGES
Haywood, Moyer, Shoaf, AtR, Apr 14, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66993900
George H Shoaf, p.391, Common Cause, Vol 2, 1912
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=Q_E-AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Colorado Mine Owners Ass by Ryan Walker, AtR, Jul 30, 1904
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66990929/
C. C. Hamlin, S. D. Crump, Cripple Creek Strike 1903-04, Langdon
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/langdon20.html
Miners Being Deported from Cripple Creek District
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/rastall18.html
Moyer and Haywood, Wilshire's Magazine, 1906
pdf! http://darrow.law.umn.edu/documents/Wilshire_Mag.pdf

See also:

Parts I & II of Shoaf's article in Appeal to Reason of April 14, 1906
Hellraisers Journal: Destruction of W. F. of M. Is Purpose of Mine Owners’ Association Conspiracy
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-destruction-w-f-m...
Hellraisers Journal: Western Federation of Miners & Industrial Workers of the World vs A. F. of L.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-western-federatio...

The crimes of the MOA are thoroughly covered by Emma F. Langdon
-the book is a long one, but I highly recommend it:
The Cripple Creek Strike
-by Emma Florence Langdon
Denver, 1904-05
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/langdon00.html
Appendix, April 1908
(Coverage of Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case)
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/langdon29.html#dedication

Who Blew Up the Independence Depot?
-by George H. Shoaf.
(Originally published in the Appeal to Reason of May 26, 1906,
-later released as a pamphlet.)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66994081
pdf! http://debs.indstate.edu/s5593w5_1906.pdf

The "Red Book" released Aug 2, 1904
Criminal Record of the Western Federation of Miners
from Coeur D'Alene to Cripple Creek, 1894-1904
- by the Mine Owners' Association of Colorado
The Association, 1904
http://books.google.com/books?id=tQUtAAAAYAAJ

The "Green Book" released Aug 27, 1904
Reply of the Western Federation of Miners
to the "Red Book" of the Mine Operators' Association
-by The Western Federation of Miners
Denver, Colorado, 1904
pdf! http://darrow.law.umn.edu/documents/Category%20of%20Crime.pdf

DK Tag: Cripple Creek Strike of 1903-04
http://www.dailykos.com/news/CrippleCreekStrikeof1903-04

DK Tag: Telluride Strike of 1903-04
http://www.dailykos.com/news/TellurideStrikeof1903-04