Something over a year ago Charles Moyer, William Haywood and George Pettibone, of Colorado, leading officials of the Western Federation of Miners, were overpowered and kidnaped by a gang of thugs and torn from their families at night by conspiracy of two degenerate governors and another notorious criminal acting for the Mine and Smelter Trust, one of the most stupendous aggregations of force and plunder in all America.
Every decent man and woman was "horrified" by this infamy and the whole working class of the nation cried out against it.
Was Roosevelt also "horrified"?
Yes!
Because the Mine and Smelter Trust had kidnaped three citizens of the republic?
Oh, no!
The three citizens were only working cattle and he never had any other conception of them.
He was "horrified" because the Mine and Smelter Trust, unclean birds that feather their nests, especially in Colorado, with legislatures and United States senatorships, had not killed instead of kidnaping their victims.
Then and there Theodore Roosevelt disgraced himself and his high office, and his cruel and cowardly act will load his name with odium as long as it is remembered.