THE STORY OF THE GOLDFIELD LABOR "RIOTS"
A large force of miners was discharged from the Goldfield Consolidated properties. The action of the company in laying off its men at such a distressful period was denounced. It was alleged that Senator Nixon's Goldfield bank could not afford to pay out the money on deposit to the credit of the company because it was required for bank purposes. The money was apparently being hoarded during the money stringency to help the bank out of a tight place. After-events appeared fully to confirm this theory.
Right in the teeth of the panic, during the depressed and troublous days of the latter part of November;—when current finance was deeply affected; when Goldfield Consolidated was selling below the $4 point and the entire Nevada share list had suffered an average depreciation of about 85 per cent. from the "highs" reached during the Goldfield boom of the year before; when the State of Nevada was racked from end to end by the serious losses incurred by citizens through the failure of the Nye & Ormsby County's and the State Bank & Trust Company's chain of banks, totaling nearly $6,000,000, and it appeared that the credit of the State had already been shattered almost beyond repair—a fresh blow was administered.
Government troops were reported to be en route to Goldfield from San Francisco "to preserve the law." It had been represented to the President of the United States that Goldfield was in a state of anarchy. Goldfield wasn't. As a matter of fact, the situation in Goldfield with the miners, from the standpoint of law and order, was never good, but it was as good then as it had been in eighteen months. True, there had been some lawlessness, but no riot, and the sheriff of the county had made no call whatsoever on the Governor for any aid.
During the first days of the panic Nixon and Wingfield's Goldfield bank, John S. Cook & Company, had tendered the miners the bank's unsecured scrip in lieu of money for the payment of wages. The miners refused acceptance. They were willing to take time-checks of two, three or four months, bearing the mining company's signature, but balked at the idea of becoming creditors of the bank.
It has been stated to me by a number of Goldfield brokers who were present in the camp at the time that the miners had even decided to concede this point, when an outsider secured by intrigue and money sufficient voting power at a meeting of the executive committee of the Miners' Union to pass a resolution objecting to the bank's scrip. The refusal to accept the bank's scrip was at once made an excuse by the Goldfield Mine Owners' Association, which was dominated by George Wingfield, to determine upon a lockout and simultaneously to demand Federal intervention.
If Messrs. Nixon and Wingfield's bank needed money, as the tender of unsecured scrip indicated all too plainly, the complete shutdown which left with the bank as available resources approximately $2,000,000 in the account of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company, was a perfect stop-gap; and the need of the presence of troops was a fine coincidental excuse for the shutdown. Incidentally, it would rid Goldfield of the Miners' Union, which voted to a man against Senator Nixon's Republican candidates for office, and would permit the importation of foreign labor, an expedient which was afterward successfully resorted to.
Senator Nixon brought pressure to bear at Washington. He invoked the good offices of Uncle Sam and urged that Federal troops be sent to the State. He was assisted by Congressman Bartlett in laying the matter before the departments. The wires between Goldfield, Reno, Carson City and Washington were kept hot with an interchange of views. President Roosevelt finally informed the Senator he could not send the soldiers unless the Governor of Nevada wired that a state of anarchy actually existed which the State itself was powerless to put down.
Governor Sparks, honest as the day was long and unsuspecting of any trickery or jobbery, listened to a Goldfield committee and permitted a dispatch to be sent to Washington over his signature representing that such conditions existed.
Thereupon Brigadier-General Funston, at the head of two thousand troops, was ordered to Goldfield. The State being without any militia and the representations made by Governor Sparks in his dispatches being strong on the point that a state of anarchy actually existed in Goldfield, the President finally succumbed.
The maneuver was as swift as it was unexpected. Nevada people at first could not understand what it was all about. Dispatches from Goldfield to Reno said the town was quiet. The nearest approach to an overt act of recent occurrence that had been chronicled was the alleged theft a few days before of a box or two of dynamite, about 300 feet of fuse and a quantity of caps that were said to have been clandestinely removed from the Booth mine in Goldfield. The theft, if theft there was, was charged to the miners, but proof was lacking.
On the arrival of the troops in Goldfield the Goldfield Consolidated announced a new wage scale, reducing the miners' wages from $5 to $4 and in some cases from $5 to $3.50. This was a new move, calculated to rouse the ire of the wage workers and to prolong the lockout. Messrs. Nixon and Wingfield's bank in Goldfield announced at the same time that it would thereafter discharge all of the pay-rolls of the company in gold. But there were no pay-rolls of any consequence then, the mines being shut down.
General Funston on his arrival in Goldfield interviewed mine operators, union miners and citizens generally with a view to determining the necessity for maintaining Government troops there. He discovered that the Administration had been buncoed. The General wired the President his opinion. President Roosevelt quickly dispatched a commission to Goldfield to conduct a public inquiry. This commission consisted of Charles B. Neal, Labor Commissioner; Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations, and Lawrence O. Murray, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor. They heard testimony day and night for a week.
They reported to President Roosevelt that there was no occasion for the presence of troops in Goldfield and that the statements telegraphed to President Roosevelt by Governor Sparks, indicating the existence of a state of anarchy, were without justification. The report was given to the Associated Press and received wide publicity. The President also issued a broadside backing up the findings, which was telegraphed far and wide.
Eastern editorial writers poured out torrents of abuse on Governor Sparks. Senator Nixon went unscathed.