You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Wednesday July 6, 1904
Denver, Colorado - Moyer to be Freed after 102 Days as Military and Civil Prisoner
As reported in yesterday's
Wichita Daily Eagle:
MOYER TO BE FREE
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President of the Western Federation
in Denver.
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CHEERS GIVEN HIM
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Prosecution Is Based on the
August Spies Case.
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Denver, Colo., July 4.-In charge of Sheriff Edward Bell of Teller county and a deputy, Charles H. Moyer president of the [Western] Federation of Miners, arrived in this city from Cripple Creek tonight. Moyer was brought here for the purpose of securing his freedom on bonds. None of the officers of the federation were at the depot to greet him although a crowd was gathered on the depot platform, in which was a group of deported Cripple Creek and Telluride miners. The only demonstration occurred as Sheriff Bell and his charge were stepping on a street car. Three cheers for Moyer were called for and given with zest. The party went at once to a hotel and registered. Sheriff Bell said that nothing would be done in the matter of Moyer's bond until tomorrow. It is understood that all preliminaries to supplying the bond for $10,000 have been arranged and that tomorrow the formal signing of the bond will occur and Moyer be set free.
Moyer has been confined as a military and civil prisoner for 102 days. He is at present charged with murder and conspiracy and assault with intent to commit murder as a result of the riot at Victor, Colo., the day following the Independence explosion. The informations filed against Moyer are the outgrowth of a circular issued by the old executive board of the Western Federation of Miners and are based on the Illinois case against Spies, who though far away from the scenes of the Haymarket riot was held equally guilty with the actual participants because of certain writings and speeches which it was claimed incited others to riot. Sheriff Bell has a half dozen or more warrants against other federation officials whose names he refuses to disclose, which, he says, he will serve tomorrow. It is the understanding that the persons concerned have arranged to furnish bond immediately after service of the warrants.
[paragraph break added]
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Moyer was originally arrested for flag "desecration" on poster asking:
Is Colorado in America?
The same issue of the Wichita Daily Eagle
further reports on events concerning the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado:
WILL BE LET ALONE
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Harry A. Floaten Returns to His Home at Telluride.
Telluride, Colo., July 4.-Harry A. Floaten, manager of the People's Supply company's store in this city, who has twice been deported by the Citizens' alliance, supported by the military authorities, returned today. He was not molested on alighting from the train.
"I am going to stay here and defend myself and my rights," he said. "I have the best legal advice and was told to stand on my constitutional rights as a citizen and not submit to the tyranny and oppression of the Citizens' alliance."
The only accusation ever brought against Mr. Floaten was that he transacted the financial business of the Miners' union. It is generally believed that he will now be permitted to remain here.
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TO FURNISH BAIL
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Moyer Has Been Taken to Denver by the Sheriff.
Cripple Creek, Colo., July 4.-Sheriff Edward Bell will take Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, to Denver today, where he will be permitted to furnish sureties in the sum of $10,000 on the information charging him with murder and conspiracy to murder in connection with the Victor street riot on June 6, in which two men were killed. Sheriff Bell also takes capiases for William J. [sic] Haywood, secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation; A. G. Haut, secretary of the Cripple Creek Miners' union, and all the members of the executive board of the federation, who are also accused of responsibility for the Victor violence. It is not known whether Moyer will be released after furnishings bonds or be brought back to Cripple Creek on some new charge.
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From the Appeal to Reason of June 25, 1904
Part II of Report by G. H. Shoaf
from the July 2nd edition of the
Appeal to Reason:
EVIDENCE ACCUMULATES SHOWING
THE GUILT OF THE MINE OWNERS AND THEIR ALLIES
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
Cripple Creek, Colo., June 22.-The authorities are making no effort to inquire into the facts of the Independence depot affair. Circumstantial evidence pointing to the probable guilt of parties not members of the Western Federation receives no attention whatever. I have followed up every clue and done every thing possible, with the help of a few loyal women, but every one is so closely watched that it is impossible to do much. Marshal Moore, of Goldfield, has handed out the following notice, which speaks for itself:
WOMEN AND CHILDREN MUSTN'T TALK TOO MUCH.
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Marshal Moore, of Goldfield, has given notice to all men, women and children in that city, that they must keep civil tongues in their heads and not indulge in incendiary language. Warning is given that any infraction of the rules will certainly result in imprisonment. The marshal says murder might results from too much talking at this time.
Moore has long been a spotter for Mine Owners' Association and is a well-known disreputable character. He was serving a 14 year sentence for raping a young white girl when the strike was called last August, but through the intervention of A. E. Carlton he was released. Since then he has been on the pay-roll of the Mine Owners' Association.
Here are some additional circumstances connected with the Independence disaster:
A. E. Carlton is the principal owner of the Findlay mine. James Murphy, the manager, is his close personal friend. It was from this mine the men came who were blown up.
MacNeill of the Colorado city reduction plant, where the strike first started, interviewed all the mine owners in the Cripple Creek district the week preceding the explosion and from them obtained permission to enter into negotiations with the miners' union looking to a settlement. A.E. Carlton, alone, objected. Nothing short of the complete destruction of the miners' union would satisfy him and the Citizens' Alliance.
Carlton, Sterling, McKenney, Marshal Moore of Goldfield and Harry Bemore of Independence are all close friends, and cold-blooded scoundrels.
At various times during the month prior to the explosion, Sterling and the others named would warn scabs to avoid leaving for home from this or that depot, intimating that some thing was going to happen. They pretended they were onto a scheme the union men were concocting to blow up some one of the depots in the near future. They kept up these warnings continuously until the scabs were driven into a high pitch of desperation.
Mine manager Murphy, the morning of the explosion, held back part of the men, permitting only a few to proceed to the depot. One man who always rode, walked home after leaving that shift. The day following he alleged as his reason for doing so that he "saw blood on the moon."
Mrs. Jack Allen, whose husband is a well known spotter and strike breaker, and who is now a company detective, the morning of the explosion was seen crying and acting hysterically. When asked as to the nature of her trouble, by Mrs. McCune, next door neighbor, she replied that her husband had been out all night and had not returned. This, she said, was contrary to his usual custom and she was "terribly afraid that something had happened to Jack." Several hour later when Mrs. Carrie Reiley inquired if she had found her husband she replied that he was over at the depot caring for the wounded.
Several persons whose names have been mentioned elsewhere in this paper have already given an account of how the bloodhounds trailed the scent from the end of the wire at the Delmonico shaft to Harry Bemore's house and thence to the Vindicator Powder Magazine. There are several other little things connected with the crime which the union people regard as valuable in disproving the theory held by the Citizens' Alliance that the deed was committed by union men.
None of the things outlined in the foregoing narrative have been investigated by the sheriff or his aids. Public reference to them would result in the immediate imprisonment of the man who dared state his suspicions. Marshal Moore's notice to keep quiet makes the situation plain.
Fraternally,
G. H. Shoaf.
SOURCES
The Wichita Daily Eagle
(Wichita, Kansas)
-of July 5, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-of July 2, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
1). Charles Moyer, President of Western Federation of Miners
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/...
2). Facsimile of Western Federation of Miners' Poster
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
3). Drawing from the Appeal to Reason of June 25, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
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There Is Power In A Union-Street Dogs
Now I long for the morning that they realize
Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us
But who'll defend the workers, who cannot organize
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone
What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child
There is power in a union
-Billy Bragg
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