Harry
Orchard was born in Ontario in 1867. Orchard worked on his
father's farm before leaving to find work in the United
States.
In 1899 Orchard was working as a miner in Burke, Idaho. At that time
Idaho was hit by a series of industrial disputes. The governor, Frank
Steunenberg, took a tough line and declared martial law and asked
President William McKinley to send federal
troops to help him in his fight with the trade
union movement. During the dispute over a thousand trade unionists
and their supporters were rounded up and kept in stockades without
trial.
The unions felt betrayed as they had mainly supported his campaign
to become governor. Activists were particularly angry about Steunenberg's
attempts to justify his actions: "We have taken the monster by
the throat and we are going to choke the life out of it. No halfway
measures will be adopted. It is a plain case of the state or the union
winning, and we do not propose that the state shall be defeated."
During this period, Orchard joined the Western
Federation of Miners and later claimed that during industrial
disputes he took part in acts of violence. On one occasion he admitted
blowing up the Bunker Hill concentrator that resulted in the deaths
of two men.
On 30th December, 1905, Frank Steunenberg,
the former governor of Idaho, went out for a walk. On his return,
when he pulled a wooden slide that opened the gate to his side door,
it triggered a bomb, that killed him.
James McParland, from the Pinkerton
Detective Agency, was called in to investigate the murder. McParland
was convinced from the beginning that the leaders of the Western
Federation of Miners had arranged the killing of Steunenberg.
McParland arrested Orchard who had been staying at a local hotel.
In his room they found dynamite and some wire.
McParland helped Orchard to write a confession that he had been a
contract killer for the WFM, assuring him this would help him get
a reduced sentence for the crime. In his statement, Orchard named
William Hayward (general secretary of
WFM) and Charles Moyer (president of WFM). He also claimed that a
union member from Caldwell, George Pettibone, had also been involved
in the plot. These three men were arrested and were charged with the
murder of Steunenberg.
Charles Darrow, a man who specialized
in defending trade union leaders, was employed
to defend Hayward, Moyer and Pettibone. The trial took place in Boise,
the state capital. It emerged that Harry
Orchard already had a motive for killing Steunenberg, blaming
the governor of Idaho, for destroying his chances of making a fortune
from a business he had started in the mining industry.
During the three month trial, the prosecutor was unable to present
any information against Hayward, Moyer and Pettibone except for the
testimony of Orchard. William Hayward,
Charles Moyer and George Pettibone were all acquitted. Orchard, because
he had provided evidence against the other men, received life imprisonment
rather than the death penalty. Orchard died in prison in 1954.
(1)
Harry Orchard, confession to James McParland
(February, 1906)
I awoke, as it were, from a dream, and realized that I'd been
made a tool of, aided and assisted by members of the Executive Board
of the Western Federation of Miners. I resolved, as far as in my power,
to break up this murderous organization and to protect the community
from further assassinations and outrages from this gang.
(2)
Oscar King Davis, The New York Times
(6th June, 1907)
For three hours and a half today Harry Orchard sat in the witness
chair at the Haywood trial and recited a history of crimes and bloodshed,
the like of which no person in the crowded courtroom had ever imagined.
Not in the whole range of "Bloody Gulch" literature will
there be found anything that approaches a parallel to the horrible
story so calmly and smoothly told by this self-possessed, imperturbable
murderer witness.
Orchard in his first day on the stand told the details of these crimes.
In 1906 he with another man placed a bomb in the Vindicator Mine at
Cripple Creek, Colorado, that exploded and killed two men. Later he
informed the officials of the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad
of a plot of the Western Federation to below up one of their trains,
because he had not received money for work done for the federation.
He watched the residence of Governor Peabody of Colorado and planned
his assassination by shooting. This was postponed for reasons of policy.
He shot and killed a deputy, Lyle Gregory, in Denver. He planned and
with another man executed the blowing up of the railway station at
the Independence Mine at Independence, Colorado which killed fourteen
men. He tried to poison Fred Bradley, manager of the Sullivan and
Bunk Hill mine, then living in San Francisco, by putting strychnine
into his milk when it was left at his door in the morning. This failed,
and in November, 1904, he arranged a bomb which blew Bradley into
the street when he opened his door in the morning.
Orchard spoke in a soft, purring voice, marked by a slight Canadian
accent, and except for the first few minutes that he was on the stand
he went through his awful story as undisturbed as if he were giving
the account of a May Day festival. When he said, "and then I
shot him," his manner and tone were as matter-of-fact as if the
words had been "and then I bought a drink."
There was nothing theatrical about the appearance on the stand of
this witness, upon whose testimony the whole case against Haywood,
Moyer, and the other leaders of the Western Federation of Miners is
based. Only once or twice was there a dramatic touch. It was a horrible,
revolting, sickening story, but he told it as simply as the plainest
narration of the most ordinary incident of the most humdrum existence.
He was neither a braggart nor a sycophant. He neither boasted of his
fearful crimes nor sniveled in mock repentance.
Through all the story ran the names of the men for whom he worked
and those who helped him in his wretched tasks. Haywood as the master.
It was he who gave most of the orders. Pettibone, too, gave directions,
furnished money, and once started out as if to help, but made excuse
and turned back. That was in the Gregory murder. Haywood was the source
of the money. Even what Pettibone gave him came from Haywood. Moyer
he named occasionally, but not often. Moyer knew of some of the crimes,
for he talked to Orchard about them and joined in Haywood's declaration
that this or that "was a fine job."
But Haywood was the master, with Pettibone as the chief assistant,
and then there were W. F. Davis, the old Coeur d'Alene comrade, and
Sherman Parker and Charley Kennison of the district union, with W.
B. Easterly Financial Secretary of Orchard's own union. Parker is
dead now, shot a little while ago in Goldfield.
The defense professed to be pleased with the story as one that disproved
itself. The prosecution, however, is sure it can be corroborated.
Without question it produced a tremendous effect, and throughout its
recital there ran a growing conviction of its truth.
(3)
Charles Darrow, comments on Harry
Orchard during the trial of Charles Moyer, William
Hayward and George Pettibone (1907)
Gentlemen, I sometimes think I am dreaming in this case. I sometimes
wonder whether this is a case, whether here in Idaho or anywhere in
the country, broad and free, a man can be placed on trial and lawyers
seriously ask to take away the life of a human being upon the testimony
of Harry Orchard. We have the lawyers come here and ask you upon the
word of that sort of a man to send this man to the gallows, to make
his wife a widow, and his children orphans--on his word. For God's
sake, what sort of an honesty exists up here in the state of Idaho
that sane men should ask it? Need I come here from Chicago to defend
the honor of your state? A juror who would take away the life of a
human being upon testimony like that would place a stain upon the
state of his nativity--a stain that all the waters of the great seas
could never wash away. And yet they ask it. You had better let a thousand
men go unwhipped of justice, you had better let all the criminals
that come to Idaho escape scot free than to have it said that twelve
men of Idaho would take away the life of a human being upon testimony
like that.
Why, gentlemen, if Harry Orchard were George Washington who had come
into a court of justice with his great name behind him, and if he
was impeached and contradicted by as many as Harry Orchard has been,
George Washington would go out of it disgraced and counted the Ananias
of the age.
I am sorry to say it, but it is true, because religious men have killed
now and then, they have lied now and then. Of all the miserable claptrap
that has been thrown into a jury for the sake of getting it to give
some excuse for taking the life of a man, this is the worst. Orchard
saves his soul by throwing the burden on Jesus, and he saves his life
by dumping it onto Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone. And you twelve men
are asked to set your seal of approval on it.
I don't believe that this man Orchard was ever really in the employ
of anybody. I don't believe he ever had any allegiance to the Mine
Owners Association, to the Pinkertons, to the Western Federation of
Miners, to his family, to his kindred, to his God, or to anything
human or divine. I don't believe he bears any relation to anything
that a mysterious and inscrutable Providence has ever created. He
was a soldier of fortune, ready to pick up a penny or a dollar or
any other sum in any way that was easy to serve the mine owners, to
serve the Western Federation, to serve the devil if he got his price,
and his price was cheap.
If Harry Orchard has religion now, that I hope I never get it. I want
to say to this jury that before Harry Orchard got religion he was
bad enough, but it remained to religion to make him totally depraved.
Hawley will picture him as a cherubim with wings growing out from
his shoulders and with a halo just above his head, and singing songs
with a detective on one side of him and McParland on the other. I
don't know yet how Borah will picture him, but everybody will picture
him according to how they see him. My picture is not these, none of
these. I see what to me is the crowning act of infamy in Harry Orchard's
life, an act which throws into darkness every other deed that he ever
committed as long as he has lived. And he didn't do this until he
had got Christianity or McParlandism, whatever that is. Until he had
confessed and been forgiven by Father McParland, he had some spark
of manhood still in his breast.
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