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Friday March 2, 1906
From the International Socialist Review: Defense Campaign Organized

An editorial in this month's Review describes the campaign being organized by Socialists and labor organizations to defend the officials of the Western Federation of Miners now held behind the bars of the Idaho state penitentiary:

Conspiracy to Murder.
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Every reader of the Review is doubtless familiar with the newspaper reports concerning the latest outrage against the Western Federation of Miners. On the 19th of last month Comrades William D. Haywood, Charles H. Moyer and several other officials of the Federation of Miners were arrested with secret extradition papers, and without opportunity to see their families or consult attorneys were hurried into a special train and rushed away to Idaho. Next the papers began to be full of an alleged confession by one, Harry Orchard. Just who this precious individual is some of our readers may not be aware. He is the spy to whose house the blood hounds went after the Independence explosion. At the time this took place, the capitalist press all denied or suppressed the facts and he was not arrested or in any way interfered with. Now, however, they are printing the story which they then denied only with the slight change, that they now allege that he was in the employ of the Western Federation of Miners. Then comes a grotesque story of a conspiracy in which the conspirators buried bombs, revolvers, rifles and other paraphernalia of assassination in various parts of the state of Idaho where they could be found by the police in accordance with a pre-arranged "confession."

Next comes the wife of this alleged spy who swears that he died in Death Valley six weeks before the date on which it is claimed he made the confession. Then the officials of the penitentiary where it is claimed he is confined give out word that he is dying of pneumonia or consumption and can not be expected to live until the trial. Meantime we are assured, however, that the confession which it is claimed consists of from seven hundred to one thousand pages (according to the power of imagination of the man who seems to be telling the story) is ready for presentation to the court. Under these conditions we are not surprised that the prosecuting attorney of Idaho has announced that unless some of the talking is stopped he will drop the whole case. Were it not for the terrible fact that the lives of these men were at stake the whole thing would remind one of comic opera.

There is not the slightest doubt, however, that this is all part of a deliberate plot to railroad these innocent men to the gallows. This plot will succeed unless there is such an uprising of the working class of America as to frighten the conspirators away from their murderous intention. Having removed Heinze, their only competitor, the Standard Oil forces found themselves in absolute control of industrial and political conditions in the Rocky Mountain states. Between them and unbounded profits stood only the resistance of the class conscious working class organization, the Western Federation of Miners. In spite of all the lawless outrages that have been perpetrated against that organization during the years just passed it had continued to grow in strength, solidarity, and aggressiveness. Every effort to fasten upon its leaders the crimes committed by the Employers Alliance had failed. No jury could be found sufficiently corrupt in the state of Colorado, capitalist ridden as that state is, to send them to the penitentiary or hang them without at least some shadow of evidence. So it was determined to spirit them away to a state where courts and juries were thought to be even more subservient.

The response of the working class of America to this attack has been the most striking and gratifying event that has happened in America in recent years. The capitalist forces were depending largely for success upon the antagonism which was known to exist between the Western Federation of Miners and the old pure and simple Unions and especially the United Mine Workers. They felt especially sure of the hostility of the U. M. W. or at least of its helplessness at this moment when that organization is threatened with the largest strike in its history. Judge what must have been their astonishment when, without a moment's debate and by a unanimous vote, the very organization upon which they had depended to assist them in their battle against those men whom they sought to murder voted $5000.00 for their defense.

The I. W. W. took up the work of agitation at once and prepared and sent out to working class organizations throughout the U. S. thousands of copies of a manifesto calling for the organization of protest meetings and preparation for active assistance in every way. They also secured the services of Clarence S. Darrow to assist in the defense of the accused men. All the socialist papers responded promptly to the occasion with an editorial denunciation and with calls for action. The National Secretary sent the following telegram to Comrades Moyer and Haywood:

The Appeal to Reason arranged for a special correspondent to be on the field during the trial and has promised to use all its energies in placing the truth before the American workers. Meantime developments in the West would seem to indicate that the capitalists were just beginning to awake to a realization of what they were stirring up and that already the conspiracy was falling to pieces.

If it is made evident to the capitalists of the entire country that further prosecution of these men will mean the capture of a half dozen cities and perhaps some states by the socialists with a good bunch of socialist members in congress this fall there is no doubt but what the hanging will be interfered with. This is the strongest response that can be made. The outrage is naturally one which is arousing thoughts of meeting, violence with violence and it is certain that if these lawless and murderous tactics are long pursued that the working class of America will be aroused to the point where the campaign of assassination on the part of the capitalists will be met by open revolt on the part of the workers.

At the present time, however, all talk of armed resistance is foolish. There are not enough men inspired with the feeling of independent revolt in this country as yet to do anything effective. Until more have been roused to the point where they know enough to vote straight, it is pretty certain that their shooting would not be strikingly accurate. The same is true of the utilization of the general strike. Without one half the provocation which has existed in Colorado, Italian laborers tied up the industries of that entire country until the wrongs were righted. At the present time, however, with the larger portion of the labor organizations of the United States in the hands of men who are in secret or open alliance with the capitalist class any effective concerted national action is out of the question.

General strikes for defense of working class rights are not planned at Civic Federation banquets. The only immediate action which can be taken is to arouse an indignation which can later be directed into intelligent channels of revolt and to gather funds which may be used to fight for the lives of these men at the moment. It may be true that the "blood of martyrs is the seed of the church" but comrades Haywood and Mover are too good men to be looked at in any such cold way as this. Seldom has the labor party produced two finer men than these. We have no doubt but that the other men who are arrested are equally worthy of confidence and esteem, but it so happens that only the first two are known to us personally. We can not believe that any jury which would look into their faces would fail to see that whatever else they might be guilty of, a secret conspiracy to hire any one else to do murder would be absolutely out of the question.

[Photographs and paragraph breaks added.]

SOURCE
The International Socialist Review, Volume 6
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
Charles H. Kerr & Company, J
July 1905-June 1906
https://books.google.com/books?id=d1dIAAAAYAAJ
ISR-March 1906
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=d1dIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Editorial: Conspiracy to Murder
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=d1dIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

IMAGES
ISR, Mar 1906, Vol VI No 9
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=d1dIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
ISR, Mar 1906, Editoral
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=d1dIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
ISR, Mar 1906, Letter from SPA Sec Barnes to Moyer Haywood
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=d1dIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
Harry Orchard
http://idahoptv.org/productions/specials/trial/resources/manyfaces.cfm
Charles Moyer, Darrow Collection
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/photo.php?pid=1384
Big Bill Haywood, Darrow Collection
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/photo.php?pid=1385

See also:

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

The Darrow Collection, Haywood Trial
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/trials.php?tid=3

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