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Friday February 23, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: Report on Mine Owners' Hired Gunthugs

The Appeal of February 17th offers this account of the results of the "law and order" campaign made by the Mine Owners' Association and the prominent gentlemen who supported that organization in its endeavors to make criminals of the metal miners of Colorado during the recent strikes in that state:

NO COLORADO MINERS CONVICTED.
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Readers of the APPEAL will remember that this paper repeatedly called attention to the fact that the mine owners of Colorado during the labor war is that state in 1904 employed thugs and criminals to carry out their nefarious ends. Since that time five prominent "law and order" gentlemen who fought under the flag of the Mine Owners' association and who were paid by the mine operators and railroads, have been sentenced to the penitentiary and are now serving behind the bars for various crimes. Three more of the delectable gang are in the toils of the law with chances good for their being sent to join their companions.

It is also a significant fact that with all the charges that have been made against the members of the Western Federation of Miners, not a single conviction has been made. And, mind you, the law is in the hands of the mine operators and they have been moving heaven and earth to convict some member of the miners' organization. These are facts which show on which side of the fence the real criminals operated and who were in reality the law-abiding citizens of Colorado. Gradually the inside history of that momentous struggle is being written, and when all the truth is known there will be disclosed the mangled reputations of a number of highly respected politicians.

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[Drawing by Ryan Walker added.]

From the Montana News of February 21, 1906:

FEDERATION OFFICIALS ARRESTED
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The laboring class have opportunity now as never before in American history to see the lengths to which a capitalist government will go against any organized resistance on the part of the workers. Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, W. D. Haywood, secretary of that organization, and G. A. Pettibone, a former member of the executive board [*], have been arrested on the direct charge of the murder of ex-Governor Steunenberg of Idaho, and taken to Boise. Vincent St. John, formerly president of the miners' union at Telluride, Col., has also been arrested on the same charge and taken to Boise. This action on the part of the mine owners is a diabolical conspiracy against labor, worthy only of Russia. The pretended "confession" against the union men charges them with all the crimes that have been committed in Colorado for years.

The intent is to hang the officials of the Western Federation of Miners if any courts can be gotten together subservient enough to do the dastardly deed. The evidence plainly came out in the Colorado cases, during the historic strike that the mine owners and their detectives were themselves the perpetrators of the crimes ascribed to the union men. Vincent St. John is one of the noblest characters that has ever emerged from labor ranks to fight the battle of his class. He was compelled to flee from Telluride because charged with the murder of Collins, a mine superintendent, although there was not a particle of evidence against him. The particular reason for the hatred against St. John is that he came within seven votes of being elected sheriff in Telluride. Had the working class elected him to office, the history of succeeding events in that district would have been vastly different.

[Drawing by Ryan Walker added.]

* Pettibone is a Denver business man; he is not a member of the Western Federation of Miners, although he is a friend of the organization.

The Montana News is the official voice of the Montana branch of Socialist Party of America.

SOURCES

Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Feb 17, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66993646/

Montana News
(Helena, Montana)
-Feb 21, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/77934142/

Bill Haywood's Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood
-by William D. Haywood
Greenwood Press, 1983
(Source for Pettibone not a member of WFM.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=SR1snQEACAAJ

IMAGES
Colorado Mine Owners Association with whip
-by Ryan Walker, Appeal to Reason, July 30, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/image/66990929/
Laws to the Highest Bidder, Colorado Mine Owners Association
-by Ryan Walker, Appeal to Reason, Aug 13, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/image/66990991

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