While this terrorism of the powerful was in full sway in Colorado, the entire world was being told through the newspapers of the infamous crimes being committed daily by the Western Federation of Miners. Countless newspaper stories were sent out telling in detail of mines blown up, of trains wrecked, of men murdered through agents of this federation of toilers engaged day in and day out at a dangerous occupation in the bowels of the earth. Not loafers, idlers, or drunkards, but men with calloused hands and bent backs. Stories were sent around the world of these laborers being arraigned in court charged with the most infamous and dastardly crimes. Yet hardly once has it been reported in the press of the world that in "every trial that has been held in the State of Colorado during the present strike where the membership has been charged with almost every perfidy in the catalogue of crime, a jury has brought in a verdict of acquittal." [(40)] On the other hand, a multitude of murders, wrecks, and dynamite explosions have been brought to the door of the detectives employed by the Mine Owners' Association. It was found that many ex-convicts and other desperate characters were employed by the detective agencies to commit crimes that could be laid upon the working miners. The story of Orchard and the recital of his atrocious crimes have occupied columns of every newspaper, but the fact is rarely mentioned that many of the crimes that he committed, and which the world to-day attributes to the officials of the Western Federation of Miners, were paid for by detective agencies. The special detective of one of the railroads and a detective of the Mine Owners' Association were known to have employed Orchard and other criminals. When Orchard first went to Denver to seek work from the officials of the Western Federation of Miners he was given a railroad pass by these detectives and the money to pay his expenses. [(41)] During the three months preceding the blowing up of the Independence depot Orchard had been seen at least eighteen or twenty times entering at night by stealth the rooms of a detective attached to the Mine Owners' Association, and at least seven meetings were held between him and the railroad detective already mentioned.
Previous to all this—in September and in November, 1903—attempts were made to wreck trains. A delinquent member of the Western Federation of Miners was charged with these crimes. He involved in his confession several prominent members of the Western Federation of Miners. On cross-examination he testified that he had formerly been a prize-fighter and that he had come to Cripple Creek under an assumed name. He further testified that $250 was his price for wrecking a train carrying two hundred to three hundred people, but that he had asked $500 for this job, as another man would have to work with him. Two detectives had promised him that amount. An associate of this man was discovered to have been a detective who had later joined the Western Federation of Miners. He testified that he had kept the detective agencies informed as to the progress of the plot to derail the train. The detective of the Mine Owners' Association admitted that he and the other detectives had endeavored to induce members of the miners' union to enter into the plot; while the railroad detective testified that he and another detective were standing only a few feet away when men were at work pulling the spikes from the rails. An engineer on the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad testified that the railroad detective had, a few days before, asked him where there was a good place for wrecking the train. The result of the case was that all were acquitted except the ex-prize-fighter, who was held for a time, but eventually released on $300 bond, furnished by representatives of the mine owners. [(42)]
On June 6, 1904, when about twenty-five non-union miners were waiting at the Independence depot for a train, there was a terrible explosion which resulted in great loss of life. It has never been discovered who committed the crime, though the mine owners lost no time in attributing the explosion to the work of "the assassins" of the Federation of Miners. When, however, bloodhounds were put on the trail, they went directly to the home of one of the detectives in the employ of the Mine Owners' Association. They were taken back to the scene of the disaster and again followed the trail to the same place. A third attempt was made with the hounds and they followed a trail to the powder magazine of a nearby mine. The Western Federation of Miners offered a reward of $5,000 for evidence which would lead to the arrest and conviction of the criminal who had perpetrated the outrage at Independence. Unfortunately, the criminal was never found. Orchard, a year or so later, confessed that he had committed the crime and was paid for it by the officials of the Western Federation of Miners. The absurdity of that statement becomes clear when it is known that the court in Denver was at the very moment of the explosion deciding the habeas corpus case of Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. In fact, a few hours after the explosion the decision of the court was handed down. As the action of the court was vital not only to Moyer but to the entire trade-union movement, and, indeed, to republican institutions, it is inconceivable that he or his friends should have organized an outrage that would certainly have prejudiced the court at the very moment it was writing its decision. On the other hand, there was every reason why the mine owners should have profited by such an outrage and that their detectives should have planned one for that moment.[AF]
The atrocities of the Congo occurred in a country without law, in the interest of a great property, and in a series of battles with a half-savage people. History has somewhat accustomed us to such barbarity; but when, in a civilized country, with a written constitution, with duly established courts, with popularly elected representatives, and apparently with all the necessary machinery for dealing out equal justice, one suddenly sees a feudal despotism arise, as if by magic, to usurp the political, judicial, and military powers of a great state, and to use them to arrest hundreds without warrant and throw them into "bull pens"; to drive hundreds of others out of their homes and at the point of the bayonet out of the state; to force others to labor against their will or to be beaten; to depose the duly elected officials of the community; to insult the courts; to destroy the property of those who protest; and even to murder those who show signs of revolt—one stands aghast. It makes one wonder just how far in reality we are removed from barbarism. Is it possible that the likelihood of the workers achieving an eight-hour day—which was all that was wanted in Colorado—could lead to civil war? Yet that is what might and perhaps should have happened in Colorado in 1904, when, for a few months, a military despotism took from the people there all that had been won by centuries of democratic striving and thrust them back into the Middle Ages.
Chaotic political and industrial conditions are, of course, occasionally inevitable in modern society—torn as it is by the very bitter struggle going on constantly between capital and labor. When this struggle breaks into war, as it often does, we are bound to suffer some of the evils that invariably attend war. Certainly, it is to be expected that the owners of property will exercise every power they possess to safeguard their property. They will, whenever possible, use the State and all its coercive powers in order to retain their mastery over men and things. The only question is this, must people in general continue to be the victims of a commerce which has for its purpose the creation of situations that force nearly every industrial dispute to become a bloody conflict? When men combine to commit depredations, destroy property, and murder individuals, society must deal with them—no matter how harshly. But it is an altogether different matter to permit privately paid criminals to create whenever desired a state of anarchy, in order to force the military to carry out ferocious measures of repression against those who have been in no wise responsible for disorder.
If we will look into this matter a little, we shall discover certain sinister motives back of this work of the detective agencies. It is well enough understood by them that violence creates a state of reaction. One very keen observer has pointed out that "the anarchist tactics are so serviceable to the reactionaries that, whenever a draconic, reactionary law is required, they themselves manufacture an anarchist plot or attempted crime." [(43)] Kropotkin himself, in telling the story of "The Terror in Russia," points out that a certain Azeff, who for sixteen years was an agent of the Russian police, was also the chief organizer of acts of terrorism among the social revolutionists. [(44)] Every conceivable crime was committed under his direct instigation, including even the murder of some officials and nobles. The purpose of the work of this police agent was, of course, to serve the Russian reactionaries and to furnish them a pretext and excuse for the most bloody measures of repression. In America "hireling assassins," ex-convicts, and thugs in the employ of detective agencies commit very much the same crimes for the same purpose. And the men on strike, who have neither planned nor dreamed of planning an outrage, suddenly find themselves faced by the military forces, who have not infrequently in the past shot them down. That the lawless situations which make these infamous acts possible, and to the general public often excusable, are the deliberate work of mercenaries, is, to my mind, open to no question whatever.
Anyone who cares to look up the history of the labor movement for the last hundred years will find that in every great strike private detectives and police agents have been at work provoking violence. It is almost incredible what a large number of criminal operations can be traced to these paid agents. From 1815 to the present day the bitterness of nearly every industrial conflict of importance has been intensified by the work of these spies, thugs, and provocateurs. "It was not until we became infested by spies, incendiaries, and their dupes—distracting, misleading, and betraying—that physical force was mentioned among us," says Bamford, speaking of the trade-union activity of 1815-1816. "After that our moral power waned, and what we gained by the accession of demagogues we lost by their criminal violence and the estrangement of real friends." [(45)] Some of the notable police agents that appear in the history of labor are Powell, Mitchell, Legg, Stieber, Greif, Fleury, Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, Schroeder-Brennwald, Krueger, Kaufmann, Peukert, Haupt, Von Ehrenberg, Friedeman, Weiss, Schmidt, and Ihring-Mahlow. In addition we find André, Andrieux, Pourbaix, Melville, and scores of other high police officials directing the work of these agents. In America, McPartland, Schaack, and Orchard—to mention the most notorious only—have played infamous rôles in provoking others, or in undertaking themselves, to commit outrages. There were and are, of course, thousands of others besides those mentioned, but these are historic characters, who planned and executed the most dastardly deeds in order to discredit the trade-union and socialist movements. The space here is too limited to go into the historic details of this commerce in violence. But he who is curious to pursue the study further will find a list of references at the end of the volume directing him to some of the sources of information. [(46)] He will there discover an appalling record of crime, for, as Thomas Beet points out, hardly a strike occurs where these special officers are not sent to make trouble. There are sometimes thousands of them at work, and, if one undertook to go into the various trials that have arisen as a result of labor disputes, one could prepare a long list of murders committed by these "hireling assassins."
The pecuniary interest of the detective agencies in provoking crime is immense. It is obvious enough, if one will but think of it, that these detective agencies depend for their profit on the existence, the extension, and the promotion of criminal operations. The more that people are frightened by the prospect of danger to their property or menace to their lives, the more they seek the aid of detectives. Nothing proves so advantageous to detectives as epidemics of strikes and even of robberies and murders. The heyday of their prosperity comes in that moment when assaults upon men and property are most frequent. Nothing would seem to be clearer, then, than that it is to the interest of these agencies to create alarm, to arouse terror, and, through these means, to enlarge their patronage. When a trade or profession has not only every pecuniary incentive to create trouble, but when it is also largely promoted by notorious criminals and other vicious elements, the amount of mischief that is certain to result from the combination may well exceed the powers of imagination.
And it must not be forgotten that this trade has developed into a great and growing business, actuated by exactly the same economic interests as any other business. With the agencies making so much per day for each man employed, the way to improve business is to get more men employed. Rumors of trouble or actual deeds, such as an explosion of dynamite or an assault, help to make the detective indispensable to the employer. It is with an eye to business, therefore, that the private detective creates trouble. It is with a keen sense of his own material interest that he keeps the employer in a state of anxiety regarding what may be expected from the men. And, naturally enough, the modern employer, unlike a trained ruler such as Bismarck, never seems to realize that most of the alarming reports sent him are masses of lies. Nothing appears to have been clearer to the Iron Chancellor than that his own police forces, in order to gain favor, "lie and exaggerate in the most shameful manner." [(47)] But such an idea seems never to enter the minds of the great American employers, who, although becoming more and more like the ruling classes of Europe, are not yet so wise. However, the great employer, like the great ruler, is unable now to meet his employees in person and to find out their real views. Consequently, he must depend upon paid agents to report to him the views of his men. This might all be very well if the returns were true. But, when it happens that evil reports are very much to the pecuniary advantage of the man who makes them, is it likely that there will be any other kind of report? Thousands of employers, therefore, are coming more and more to be convinced that their workmen spend most of their time plotting against them. It seems unreasonable that sane men could believe that their employees, who are regularly at work every day striving with might and main to support and bring up decently their families, should be at the same time planning the most diabolical outrages. Nothing is rarer than to find criminals among workingmen, for if they were given to crime they would not be at work. But with the great modern evil—the separation of the classes—there comes so much of misunderstanding and of mistrust that the employer seems only too willing to believe any paid villain who tells him that his tired and worn laborers have murder in their hearts. The class struggle is a terrible fact; but the class hatred and the personal enmity that are growing among both masters and men in the United States are natural and inevitable results of this system of spies and informers.
How widespread this evil has become is shown by the fact that nearly every large corporation now employs numerous spies, informers, and special officers, from whom they receive daily reports concerning the conversations among their men and the plans of the unions. Thousands of these detectives are, in fact, members of the unions. The employers are, of course, under the impression that they are thus protecting themselves from misinformation and also from the possibility of injury, but, as we have seen, they are in reality placing themselves at the mercy of these spies in the same manner as every despot in the past has placed himself at the mercy of those who brought him information. It may, perhaps, be possible that the Carnegie Company in 1892, the railroads in 1894, and the mine owners in 1904 were convinced that their employees were under the influence of dangerous men. Very likely they were told that their workmen were planning assaults upon their lives and property. It would not be strange if these large owners of property had been so informed. Indeed, the economics of this whole wretched commerce becomes clear only when we realize that the terror that results from such reports leads these capitalists to employ more and more hirelings, to pay them larger and larger fees, and in this manner to reward lies and to make even assaults prove immensely profitable to the detectives. So it happens that the great employers are chiefly responsible for introducing among their men the very elements that are making for riot, crime, and anarchy.
