THIRTY MURDERS BY ONE MAN.

NZ Truth, Issue 106, 29 June 1907, Page 5

THIRTY MURDERS BY ONE MAN.

AMAZING REVELATIONS.

Armed Workers Capture Mining Town.

Stamping Mill Blown Up.

All America has been, talking dur- ' ing the past few weeks o£ the amazing revelations which have been ! brought to light m Idaho m connection with a remarkable conspiracy that is probably without a parallel m the annals of crime. At present three men, Charles Moyer, William. Hay wood, and George Pettibone, president, secretary, and leading member, respectively of the Western federation of miners, stand charged with being accessories >to the assassination of Prank Steanenberg, a former Governor of the State, but the investigations have shown that this terrible crime is only, one of a long ''SERIES OF COLD-BLOODED' MURDERS and. dynamite outrages 'which have been committed as the outcome of a deadly feud between the Federation and the Mine Owners' Association and their non-union workmen. The arrests followed a confession by a miner named Harry Orchard, who .is stated to have told Detective James McParlahd, the head of the Western service of Pinkerton's —America's great detective agency— that he alone committed thirty mur-. ders ; that he acted as the agent of the Federation, and was paid, for his crimes. In defence the organisation say that the miner has made the confession m a cowardly 'endeavor to save his neck, arid that it is u perjury of •■•. the : , most outrageous kind." Whether - or not the confession be perjurous, however, appears to be quiite a secondary matter beside' the fact that t . MORE THAN A HUNDRED LIVES have been losl while mining property valued at considerably over a million sterling has been destroyed m the fight between^ employee and employer. The Federation, assert that the reign of crime is due to the lavish policy of the Association. Conditions had reached a 'paint where the re'eords of all miners were kept much as the police keep the, records of criminals, and no man could obtain work- unless he had a permit from the association. ' The employers reply that the murders and destruction "of property were the result' of a conspiracy m, the "inner circle" of the Federation, and. that they had to devise ■ means to protect their own interests. ,To. arrive .: at the cause of the mhny crimes, ut is necessary to go back to 1892, when the Western Federation of Miners was founded m the Coeur d'Alene country. The Mine Owners' Association ( soon followed to combat the union,, aiub the inevitable result was the springing up of a very bitter feeling between .the rival factions, THE BITTERNESS INCREASED, and the first encounter between the parties took place on- June 11, 1892, when five union and three nonunion men were killed! Scarcely .a month passed m winch a. v union or a non-union miner was, not killed. Occasionally a mine superintendent or a "shift boss" was found dead at the Bottom of a shaft, and although murder was suspected it could not be proven. For seven years this warfare Jcept up, and the union grew . stronger. - A Martial law was ' declared after the first fight, and there we're wholesale arrests of union members- Among those arrested was Pettibone. There were no prosecutions, however, and an armistice was agreed upon. On May 1, 1899, the Sullivan and Bunker mine at Wardner, which had hitherto been strictly union, announced that THE "OPEN SHOP" POLICY would prevail. This was taken as a declaration of war by the union leaders. A proclamation was put put declaring that none but union miners should be employed m the Sullivan and Bunker. Non-union men, under a heavy guard, were put to work m the mine. The next Sunday 1,000 armed men from all over the district seized a train on the Oregon Navigation Company Railroad and rode into Wardner. They quickly captured the town, and all the guards on the m^ne. All employees were warned to leave the town immediately. All obeyed but a watchman. He. was shot and killed. A detachment set five to the mine offices and the homes of 'the managers: The destruction of a big stamping mill, valued at £50,000, was quickly determined. A large box of dynamite was placed on a raft m a small stream that ran directly to the centre of the mill, and the fuse was prepared TO EXPLODE THE CHARGE at the moment the raft floated into the machinery. When the raft was sent oil its : voyage of destruction a volley of rifle shots warned everybody to fly up the mountain side put of the zone of danger. The miners ran back, and a thousand residents of the camp stood at their doors and witnessed the spectacular vandalism. The raft ran true, and a minute after it entered the mill there was an ex-

plosion that shook the s«rrouading hills, and the £50,000 mill was blown to scrap iron.. Many of the huts m the camp were 'levelled, artd all lost windows, so violent was the concussion. The miners immediately left on the impressed train.. As soon as the facts reached -Governor Steunenberg, he declared martial law. He had the support of men. of all political parties. President McKinley was asked to send m troops. A : negro regiment under the command of General Merrfam, was quickly moved to the scene. B*rtlett Sinclair, State Auditor; was sent forward as the representative of the Government. The subsequent ACTS OP, RETALIATORY OUT- , RAGES ; committed by . the military were done with Sinclair's* consent. He acted without consulting the Governor, and established the "permit system. ' ' No man could get work or apply for work m the district with-' out setting Sinclair's permit, aVuThe : permits which applicants *¥tfi!e requested to sign sqt forth that the outrages m Coeur d'Alene were encouraged and fostered by the -Min-j ers' Union, and the applicant renounced all unions. Amid the geheral chaos the negro troops took the law into their own hands, and m all parts of the country arrested; hundreds of miners, who were boiiridi together with ropes, and driven Unto town like so many cattle. Sinclairwinked at their excesses, q,nd ordered them to summarily arrest every) miner without troubling to, discriminate between the guilty or innocent.. At Wardner there was erected a high; stockade, surrounded by barbed wire, and patrolled night and day byj black troops, and m this enclosure the whole, of the miners were imprisoned the whole of the summer,During that time they were SUBJECTED TO HUMILIATING INDIGNITIES by their black taskmasters, while ai word of protest meant a clubbing or, a thrust from a bayonet. This degrading state of affairs continued until the whole State was' aQame with indignation, and Governor. Steunenberg and Sinclair then deemed it prudent to release the men., Despite many threats made againsti miners with a view to their ; implicating . others m the dynamite jriut-< rage, the ringleaders were never revealed. Although the black troops were sent out of the State, the'rig-i or of Governor Steumenberg?s iron rule, was never relaxed ; the enmity be^ tween the rival factions became even more acute, while cold-blooded <mtirders and "dynamite outrages continued; to, increase. Steunenberg, who was a man of exceptional physique and force of character— he stood nearly 7ft high— had been warned that he was a "marked man," but he would laughingly scoff" at the fears of his friends, and say that he feared no foe who would give him half a chance. It was his misfortune, however, not to have any] chance at all, and on December 30 1905, HE WAS BLOWN TO PIECES by a bomb. The explosive consisted!, of 21b of dynamite, with 100 fulminating caps placed around the dynamite. v Over these cotton, saturated with cyanide of potassium and sugar was placed. Slanting over the cotton was a bottle filled with sulphuric' acid. Attached to the cork m the bottle was a pin, to which was attached a thin wire that led to the gate. When he opened the gate the action drew the cork out o£ the bottle. The acid, mixed with the cotton, • iginited the Caps,, and exploded the dynamite. Iron, nerve was required of the dynafaiiteri, A small jerk would have prematurelyj exploded the bomb. Orchard, m his alleged confession, has stated that he made the infernal machine, and! that he received 3,800d01s for the assassination of Steunenberg. It isj further alleged that he had" ■ .7 $([ADE TWO PREVIOUS AT- ♦• TEMPTS ) on his life. Orchard also told of the blowing up of the Independence" depot, where he said forty, persons had been marked for death. Fifteen pounds 06 dynamite were used. Martin Gleason, the Crimple Creek mine superintendent, was shot, and his hodyi thrown down the shaft to give the appearance of an accident. In! blow-^ ing up the Vindicator mine, the object was to Vfiet" "shift boss" Beck and foreman McCormick, both 06 whom were killed. Orchard and Neville, who it is asserted, was involved with him m the Independence explosion, left Colorado, artd went to Utah. Later they were m GoldfiefcE* Where .'Neville, wfeo showed signs that his conscience was troubling; him, * 1. '. WAS QUIETLY POISONED to prevent him making a confession to the detectives. Whether Moyer, Hay wood, ami Pettibone be guilty or not guilty of the" extraordinary charges which have been made against them, the "aVi m which they have been tr&afed'bv the American authorities is' certainly one which does not commend itself to the Britisher's love of fair play. It is now more than a year, ago since the three men were arrest-*' ed m Denver, Colorado, and hurried by special train, under ARMED ESCORT, TO GAOL m Idaho. Their lhdictm&i " • J * £J " i their arrest. An unsuccesr^ was- jna.de to release* a writ of habeas corpus/ cision of the local coi/ held by the Supreme/! One dissenting voice, M£" Kjenha, whose opinion/P "States, of Idaho f. " . through, their otf ed the accused I: tutional right, arf of kidnapping." jM' that, the Americ: tions have seized tie cry m their er a fair trial for 1 fight for life aj and all-powerful wealthy Trusts^