In
1899 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."
Frank Steunenberg retired from office
and on 30th December, 1905, he 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 Harry Orchard, a stranger
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. Harry
Orchard, because he had provided evidence against the other men,
received life imprisonment rather than the death penalty. Orchard
died in prison in 1954.
Charles Moyer, Bill Haywood,
and George Pettibone in 1907
(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.
(4) Charles
Darrow, comments on Trade
Unions during the trial of Charles Moyer,
William
Hayward and George Pettibone
(1907)
Let me tell you, gentlemen, if you destroy the labor unions in this
country, you destroy liberty when you strike the blow, and you would
leave the poor bound and shackled and helpless to do the bidding of
the rich. It would take this country back to the time when there were
masters and slaves.
I don't mean to tell this jury that labor
organizations do no wrong. I know them too well for that. They do
wrong often, and sometimes brutally; they are sometimes cruel; they
are often unjust; they are frequently corrupt. But I am here to say
that in a great cause these labor organizations, despised and weak
and outlawed as they generally are, have stood for the poor, they
have stood for the weak, they have stood for every human law that
was ever placed upon the statute books. They stood for human life,
they stood for the father who was bound down by his task, they stood
for the wife, threatened to be taken from the home to work by his
side, and they have stood for the little child who was also taken
to work in their places - that the rich could grow richer still, and
they have fought for the right of the little one, to give him a little
of life, a little comfort while he is young. I don't care how many
wrongs they committed, I don't care how many crimes these weak, rough,
rugged, unlettered men who often know no other power but the brute
force of their strong right arm, who find themselves bound and confined
and impaired whichever way they turn, who look up and worship the
god of might as the only god that they know - I don't care how often
they fail, how many brutalities they are guilty of. I know their cause
is just.
I hope that the trouble and the strife and the contention has been
endured. Through brutality and bloodshed and crime has come the progress
of the human race. I know they may be wrong in this battle or that,
but in the great, long struggle they are right and they are eternally
right, and that they are working for the poor and the weak. They are
working to give more liberty to the man, and I want to say to you,
gentlemen of the jury, you Idaho farmers removed from the trade unions,
removed from the men who work in industrial affairs, I want to say
that if it had not been for the trade unions of the world, for the
trade unions of England, for the trade unions of Europe, the trade
unions of America, you today would be serfs of Europe, instead of
free men sitting upon a jury to try one of your peers. The cause of
these men is right.
(5) Charles
Darrow, comments on the possible conviction and
execution of William
Hayward (1907)
He (William Hayward) has fought many a fight, many a fight with the
persecutors who are hounding him into this court. He has met them
in many a battle in the open field, and he is not a coward. If he
is to die, he will die as he has lived, with his face to the foe.
To kill him, gentlemen? I want to speak to you plainly. Mr.
Haywood is not my greatest concern. Other men have died before him,
other men have been martyrs to a holy cause since the world began.
Wherever men have looked upward and onward, forgotten their selfishness,
struggled for humanity, worked for the poor and the weak, they have
been sacrificed. They have been sacrificed in the prison, on the scaffold,
in the flame. They have met their death, and he can meet his if you
twelve men say he must.
Gentlemen, you short-sighted men of the prosecution, you men of the
Mine Owners' Association, you people who would cure hatred with hate,
you who think you can crush out the feelings and the hopes and the
aspirations of men by tying a noose around his neck, you who are seeking
to kill him not because it is Haywood but because he represents a
class, don't be so blind, don't be so foolish as to believe you can
strangle the Western Federation of Miners when you tie a rope around
his neck. Don't be so blind in your madness as to believe that if
you make three fresh new graves you will kill the labor movement of
the world. I want to say to you, gentlemen, Bill Haywood can't die
unless you kill him. You have got to tie the rope. You twelve men
of Idaho, the burden will be on you. If at the behest of this mob
you should kill Bill Haywood, he is mortal. He will die. But I want
to say that a hundred will grab up the banner of labor at the open
grave where Haywood lays it down, and in spite of prisons, or scaffolds,
or fire, in spite of prosecution or jury, these men of willing hands
will carry it on to victory in the end.
(6)
James
Hawley, prosecuting attorney, speech to the jury (1907)
I remembered again the awful thing of December 30, 1905, a night which
has taken ten years to the life of some who are in this courtroom
now. I felt again its cold and icy chill, faced the drifting snow
and peered at last into the darkness for the sacred spot where last
lay the body of my dead friend, and saw true, only too true, the stain
of his life's blood upon the whitened earth. I saw Idaho dishonored
and disgraced. I saw murder--no, not murder, a thousand times worse
than murder - I saw anarchy wave its first bloody triumph in Idaho.
And as I thought again I said, ‘Thou living God, can the talents
or the arts of counsel unteach the lessons of that hour?' No, no.
Let us be brave, let us be faithful in this supreme test of trial
and duty. If the defendant is entitled to his liberty, let him have
it. But, on the other hand, if the evidence in this case discloses
the author of this crime, then there is no higher duty to be imposed
upon citizens than the faithful discharge of that particular duty.
Some of you men have stood the test and trial in the protection of
the American flag. But you never had a duty imposed upon you which
required more intelligence, more manhood, more courage than that which
the people of Idaho assign to you this night in the final discharge
of your duty.
Last
updated: 1st August, 2002
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