STORY OF A GREAT CRIME.

Evening Star, Issue 12764, 17 March 1906, Page 10

STORY OF A GREAT CRIME.

"MOLLY MAGULRE" METHODS,

There was no surprise when Harry Orchard was arrested for the murder, of Mr Fra.uk Steunenberg, former Governor of Idaho. Nor was it at all astonishing that Orchard was demanded by the Colorado authorities for an even greater crime —the blowing up of the railroad station at Independence, in the Cripnle Creek district, during the last big strike, when thirteen innocent men were hurled to destruction and others maimed for life. Mr Steunenberg was Governor during the bitter Coeur d'Alene strike, and his acts at that time, when he called for United States troops to do the work his militia and civil officers could not perform, undoubtedly led to his violent death. That dynamite was used and plotters of no mean ability used it at once directed suspicion to the remnants of the.now widely scattered band of malcontents and criminals known as " Molly Maguires." Driven out of Pennsylvania after a period of violence that appalled the nation, these men, wherever they have gone in search of a safe refuge, have left a trail of wreck, rain, and murder. At every stopping place they placed a stick of giant powder to blow into eternity and destroy the property of those who had the temerity to oppose them. They blazed a path with sanguinary axes to • Colorado, to Idaho, and Montana, and back a>gain to Colorado, where they made their last open stand at Crinple Creek and the contiguous mining districts. Defeat met them everywhere—thanks to such men as Steunenberg—and it would seem that the spirit of the " Molly Maguires" would die, but not so. Where one died or was put away in prison another was there to take his place. Secret recruiting was going on constantly. In every mining camp where criminals sought safety from the laws of the East there were found willing recruits to attend midnight meetings, characterised by inky darkness, masks, black gowns, terrible oaths, and vows of vengeance on traitors to the cause of "labor" and "humanity." Thus the propaganda spread, and thus the ranks of the dynamiters were kept full to repletion—until they encountered Federal bayonets. Lives of men counted for nothing. The property of their employers they treated as their own, to do with as they please. Tp make themselves more secure they entered politics—when permitted to remain in a place long enough to become voters. With State officers behind them, they nlanned to make themselves immune from punishment for their acts of crime. —A Chapter of Intrigue.— A dark chapter of events led up to the assassination of Mr Steunenberg. He had barelv been re-elected Governor—as a Democrat—when the miners began showing their discontent. In the Tirevious year they had sent out " feelers" to ascertain how the Governor would stand in case of trouble, and they had found no reason to think that their acts would not be condoned, or that the Governor and courts would not be on their side. As a matter of fact, Steunenberg had never gone further than to say that, as chief executive of a growing State, and as a union man, too, he wanted to see labor better itself. Never a word about violence or the means to l)e employed in lifting up the working man. Certainly nothing about ftftine hini by <tenajni£e. go the sfadk~

was declared -'in\,iffi}9. ! At a tatesr date, r during a Congressional inquiry, 500 witnesses told a story of lawlessness, and crime that equalled/ if it did .not exceed, the black history of the;" Molly Maguire" ascendancy in Pennsylvania; Ad- , missions by the labor men themselves at! this inquiry showed -Uiat inoffensive men .were assassinated, nine bosses and. superintendents were , killed in the night, and hundreds of thousands'of dollars' -worth of property destroyed—all in the .name of organised labor.. This organised labor consisted of the •Miners' Union of Burke, Gem, Wardner, and Mullatn, all camps in the' d'Alene district.. The uuions were, tributary to the Western Federation of Miners that came upon the scene as a parent organisation after the' decay, of the Knights of Labor. There were twelve mines employing 2,500 men in the region which the unions assumed to control. Agitators began their activities by 'trying to unionise the laibor engaged in these twelve mines, and to enforce an equality of wages without reference to the comroarative ease or difficulty of the work in them. * —A-Labor War.—

The union miners made easy conquests in most of the mines, but they found a hard nut to crack when they came to deal with the managers of the Helena-Frisco at Gem, and the Last Chance and the Bunker Hill mine® in the Wardner territory. The Gem Company closed down rather than to yield, and, after parleying ineffectually with the locked-out union men, imported new men from Lake Superior and other places. The advent of these non-union men was the signal for a general attack all along the line. The newcomers were subjected to all kinds of torture, but the company held out until one. night the water was drawn from the flume of the mill, and 2001b of stolen dynamite was slid down the penstock to the water wheel. The explosion that ensued blew the mill into kindling wood and 'scattered the forty non-union men like rabbits. As. they ran they were shot down like dogs by the. 500 union men lying Jn ambush for them. Five or six- were killed A fight of non-union men from the country was the sequel. The triumph-swollen union men, not content with having driven them away, pursued chem to visit more punishment upon them. Many like outrages followed, and a reward of £2,000 offered for the arrest of the murderers brought not a single revektion. —The Crowning Outrage.—

It was not long before tbe reign of terror caused every mine in the district, with one exception, to yield to the demands of the strikers Only tbe BunkerHHil t welliuiined, remained obdurate. The mine be.longed to the Crockeis, the M'Gormicks, of Chicago, and D. 0. Mills, of New York. The superintendent, named Burbridge, resolutely refused to deal with the - union. The company paid dearly for their contumacy. A succession of acts of violence compelled Burbridge to organise his men into a militia company, and to drill them for action. The State supplied the rifle? l . Burbridge, in the oyes- of the strikers, became the most obnoxious man in the district. Htre came the climax of lawlessness in the Coeur d'Alene. Before daylight, one April morning the miners met in a darkened room, and received masks and revolvers. Then they marched. seven miles in solid column to a field, where rifles were handed out. The next step was to seize an early morning train on the Northern Pacific Railroad, running between Wallace and Burke. The train crew- were forced to go to G-tm and Wardner, the latter oj) another railroad, and pick up crowds of strikers, and take on eighty boxes of dynamite. There were 2,000 men in crowded box cars at Wardner. Three hundred of them wore masks and carried rifles. Then began the advance- on i Bunker Hill mine. Sheriff Young, when the crowd disembarked, read the Riot Act. Only jeers answered this formality, and then the Sheriff was seized and marched to a box, in which he made to stand in a corner with his face to the wall. This done, the union strikers deployed, and scouting parties were sent to corral nonunion men trying to escape. An unsigned despatch had warned Burbridge of the attack, and he had advised his men to run. In the meantime eighty boxes of dynamite had been carried to the mill. There was a. terrific explosion that shook the hills, and the £50,000 mill went up in the air in splinters of match size. A few prisoners had been brought in from the foothills, and these were told to run for their lives, th* strikers shooting at them as they scampered away. One fleeing man named Cheyne rolled over in the dust, dead. The next morning the dynamiters were at their places in the mines, acting as if nothing had happened. The lawlessness that culminated in this outrage could no longer be tolerated. Governor Steunerib; rg sent Bartlett Sinclair, the State Auditor, and a trusty, brave man of -his own calibre, to make an investigation. Sinclair had power to act, and he allied for Federal troops, which were sent under General Merriam, These troops picketed the mines, and by a firm but patient policy the mine-owners again came into their own. To for ever break up the organisation that had so long terrorised the Cceur d'Alene district Governor Steunenberg took a step far in advance of anything ever attempted. He issued a proclamation forbidding the mineowners employing union men and requiring every man who entered the mines to have a permit from General Merriam. The matter aroused such widespread interest that a Congressional inquiry was ordered. The Republican members of the Commission made a report upholding Governor Steunenberg, although a Democrat, and the action of President M'Kinley in sending the troops. The Democrats, under the leadership of Representative Sulzer, made a minority report cansuring the State and national administration.