AN AMERICAN SENSATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8778, 8 June 1907, Page 5

AN AMERICAN SENSATION.

The Miners' Federation

Grave Charges Preferred

Murder and Outrages

Blood Money

Extraordinary Disclosures

(Received Last Night, at 1q.42 v,.)>i..\ NEW YORK, Yesterday,

Widespread interest is being taken in America in the trial at Borso City (Idaho) of Tom Moyer, president, and William Haywood, secretary, of the Miners 1 Federation, on a charge of murdering ox-Governor Steunenberg.

A man named Harry Orchard, who had previously confessed that lie had been promised tWC.O dollars to kill Sfe.uneuberg, and that he had tied a bomb to Sfeuuenberg's gate, where it exploded with fatal results, testified how, at Haywood's instance," he and smother man named Steve Admns wrecked the Providence railway station in order to prevent a split in the Miner's Convention by providing a counter excitement. There were twelve or fourteen killed at that oxplosion. Later on Orchard asked Haywood for 300 dollars. Haywood sent tho .'SOO dollars through a man named Pottibone, while Adams received 200 dollars.

Orchard narrated how the innrdor of a detective was planned by Pettibone, who paid him £100 sterling to carry it out. Moyer and Haywood paid him in connection with the fatal mine wrecking. Orchard also testified as to Pettibone paying him to kill Steuuonborg. Pettibone had also paid for the fruitless endeavours to kill the Public Prosecutor for thwarting the plans of the Western Miners' Federation.

The men concerned iv the above trial aro Charles H. Moj'er, William D. Haywood, aud George A. Pettibone. president, secretary, and oxboard member, respectively, of the Western Federation of Miuprs. It is twelve months since these men wore arrested. The Socialistic section of Labour is becoming restive. Some newspapers are preaching what is closely akin to revolution. The Appeal to Reason (Kansas) lias printed a "Kidnapping Edition" of :2?O,USW copies, and all have been sold. Eugene A". Debs, the Socialist candidate for the Presidency at" , the last election, has cancelled all engagements in order to light for the release of the accused. The whole agitation is conducted on charateristic American linos. Pages, relieved by coloured headlines, are devoted to a history of tlie case. Well-known Socialist advocates appeal to their comrades, and denounce the accusers of the alleged murderers. The temper of the people of Idaho and neighbouring States is certainly strained. It lias been asserted, for instance, that on the lirst day of the trial of Moyer, Haywood, aud Pettibone. a mighty army of workers will march through the streets of Greater New York, thundering in the ears of John D. Rockefeller: "If Moyer, Haywood, aud Pettibone die, 20,000.000 working people will know the reason why." Debs, in one of his many newspaper articles, asserts: —"Never before has the whole mass of organised labour in tho United States been so spontaneously, so completely, and so resolutely set in motion as it Ims been by the disclosures made by the labour press of the iniquitous conspiracy, under the cloak of law, to crush out tlie spirit of organisation aud destroy its usefulness by fastening the. odious crime of assassination upon its official representatives and trusted leaders. Whatever other differences may divide the organised workers of America, upon this vital point they are all agreed, that the secret arrest and deportation of Charles Moyer, William Haywood, and George Pettiboue is not only an infamous outrage upon law-abiding American citizens, but that the solo cause for the brutal persecution of these men is their official connection with a labour union, whose rigid integrity, steadfast devotion and unceasing activity to better the moral and material condition of its members baffled all attempts of the master class to encompass its disruption and destruction.

One of the most, tone ,, ing incidents in the agitation is the publication of tho photo of winsome Henrietta Haywood, daughter of one of the accused, with a large headline, "Will Papa Die?" followed by a set of verses to be sung to the tune of "Hold the fort, "