Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894

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Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 was a successful five-month strike by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA. It is notable for being the only time in United States history when a state militia was called out in support of striking workers.

Contents 1 Causes of the strike 2 Events of the strike 2.1 Involvement of the state militia 2.2 The mine owners raise a private army 2.3 Waite intercedes 2.4 The state militia returns 3 Impact of the strike 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Causes of the strike

In 1894, Cripple Creek, with a population of 5,000, was the second-largest town in Colorado. Along with the towns of Altman, Anaconda, Arequa, Goldfield, Elkton, Independence and Victor, Cripple Creek lay in a deep valley about 20 miles from Colorado Springs on the southwest side of Pikes Peak.

Surface gold was discovered in the Cripple Creek area in 1891, and more than 150 mines were in operation within three years.^[1]

In 1893, a severe economic depression struck the United States. The price of silver crashed, and the silver mining industry was hit hard.

The depression did not affect the gold mining industry, however. The need for gold to replenish federal reserves was at an all-time high. As silver miners flocked to the gold mines seeking employment, they exerted significant downward pressure on wages. Desperate to keep their jobs, gold miners worked longer hours for less pay, and engaged in riskier work.

In January 1894, Cripple Creek mine owners J.J. Hagerman, David Moffat and Eben Smith, who together employed one-third of the area's miners, decided to take advantage of the economic dislocations caused by the depression. They announced a lengthening of the work-day to 10 hours from eight hours without raising wages. When workers protested, the owners agreed to employ the miners for eight hours a day—but at a wage of only $2.50, a 50-cent-per-day reduction in wages.^[2]

Miners, however, had expected just such pressure from the mine owners. Just a short time before, they had formed the Free Coinage Union. They immediately affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners, and became Local 19. The union was based in Altman, and had chapters in Anaconda, Cripple Creek and Victor.^[3]

Unfazed, the mine owners imposed the 10-hour day on February 1, 1894.

Union president John Calderwood issued a notice a week later demanding that the mine owners reinstate the eight-hour day at the $3.00-a-day wage level. When the owners did not respond, the nascent union struck on February 7. The Portland, Pikes Peak, Gold Dollar and a few smaller mines immediately agreed to the eight-hour day and remained open. But the bigger mines held out.^[4]

[edit] Events of the strike

The strike had an immediate effect. By the end of February, all smelters in Colorado were either closed or running part-time. At the beginning of March, the Gold King and Granite mines gave in and resumed the eight-hour day.^[5]

Mine owners still holding out for the 10-hour day soon attempted to re-open their mines. On March 14, they obtained a court injunction ordering the miners not to interfere with the operation of their mines. A limited number of strikebreakers were brought in. The WFM initially attempted to persuade these men to join the union and strike. When they were unsuccessful, the WFM resorted to threats and violence. The strikebreakers were so intimidated that few of them reported for work.^[6]

An event on March 16 changed the nature of the strike. An armed group of miners ambushed and captured six sheriff's deputies en route to the Victor mine. Shots were fired, and the miners and deputies engaged in a fistfight. Two of the deputies received minor injuries. An Altman judge, a member of the WFM, charged the deputies with carrying concealed weapons and disturbing the peace. Despite his union ties, the judge released the deputies.^[7]

[edit] Involvement of the state militia

After the assault on his deputies, El Paso County^[8] Sheriff M.F. Bowers wired the governor and pleaded for the intervention of the state militia. Governor Davis H. Waite, a 67-year-old Populist, dispatched 300 troops to the area on March 18 under the command of Adjutant General T.J. Tarsney. Tarsney found the area tense but quiet. Union president Calderwood assured Tarsney that union members would peacefully surrender for arrest, if that is what Tarsney wished. Convinced that Bowers had wildly exaggerated the extent of the chaos in the region, Tarsney recommended that the troops be pulled out. Waite concurred. The state militia left Cripple Creek on March 20.^[9]

In response to the recall of the state militia, the mine owners closed the mines. For seven weeks, the region was relatively calm. Bowers arrested Calderwood, 18 miners, and the mayor and town marshal of Altman (who had supported the miners). They were taken to Colorado Springs and quickly tried on several different charges, but found innocent. Occasional outbursts of violence, such as stone-throwing and fights with scabs, occurred. Stores and warehouses were broken into, and guns and ammunition stolen. But none of these incidents disturbed the peace in any significant way.^[10]

In early May, the mine owners met with representatives of the WFM in Colorado Springs in an attempt to end the strike. The owners offered to return to the eight-hour day, but at a wage of only $2.75 per day. The union rejected the offer.^[11]

[edit] The mine owners raise a private army

The mine owners then resolved to break the strike through force. Shortly after negotiations with the union ended, the mine owners met secretly with Sheriff Bowers in Colorado Springs. They told Bowers they intended to bring in hundreds of strikebreakers, and asked if he would be able to protect such a large force of men. Bowers said he could not, for the county lacked the financial resources to pay and arm more than a few deputies. The mine owners then offered to subsidize an initial force of a hundred or so men. Bowers agreed to raise the required number of recruits, and immediately began contacting ex-police and ex-firefighters in Denver. ^[12]

News of the mine owners' meeting with Bowers soon leaked out, and the miners organized and armed themselves in response. Calderwood was leaving on a tour of the WFM locals in Colorado to raise funds for the Cripple Creek strike. He appointed Junius J. Johnson, a former U.S. Army officer, to take over strike operations in his absence. Johnson immediately established a camp atop Bull Hill, which overlooked the town of Altman. He ordered that fortifications be built, a commissary stocked and the miners be drilled in maneuvers.^[13]

On May 24, the strikers seized the Strong mine on Battle Mountain, which overlooked the town of Victor.^[14]

Violence broke out on May 25. At about 9 a.m., 125 deputies arrived in Altman and set up camp at the base of Bull Hill. As they started to march toward the miner's camp, miners at the Strong mine blew up the shafthouse of the Strong mine, hurling the structure more than 300 feet into the air. A few moments later, the steam boiler was also dynamited, showering the deputies with chunks of timber, bits of iron and pieces of cable. The deputies fled to the rail station and left town.^[15]

A celebration broke out among the miners. Liquor warehouses and saloons were broken into, and a drunken revel began. That night, some of the miners loaded a flatcar with dynamite and attempted to roll it toward the deputies' camp. It overturned short of its goal and killed a cow. Other miners wanted to blow up every mine in the region, but Johnson quickly discouraged them. Frustrated, several drunken miners then stole a work train and steamed to the nearby town of Victor. They caught up with the group of deputies, and a gun battle broke out. A deputy and a miner died, a man on each side was wounded, and six strikers were captured by the deputies.^[16]

Calderwood returned during the night and restored calm. He asked saloons to close, and he imprisoned several miners who had instigated outbursts of violence.^[17]

The mine owners, however, decided against a similar display of restraint. On May 26, they met with Sheriff Bowers in Colorado City. The owners agreed to ante up more cash to allow the sheriff to raise 1,200 additional deputies. Bowers quickly recruited men from all over the state. Bowers established a camp for the newly deputized men in the town of Divide, about 12 miles away from Cripple Creek on the north slope of Pike's Peak.

[edit] Waite intercedes

Warned about the size of the force Bowers was raising, Gov. Waite interceded again in the strike. He issued a proclamation on May 27 in which he called on the miners to disband their encampment on Bull Hill. In a development unparalleled in American labor history, he declared the force of 1,300 deputies to be illegal and ordered the group disbanded. He also ordered the state militia to be on the alert for a possible move on Cripple Creek. The governor then personally visited the miners on May 28. After meeting with the governor at their camp on Bull Hill, the miners authorized Waite to negotiate on their behalf.^[18]

An initial meeting on May 30 nearly ended in disaster. Waite and several local civic leaders called union president Calderwood and mine owners Hagerman and Moffat to a conference in a meeting hall on the campus of Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Talks were under way and proceeding well when a mob of local citizens attempted to storm the building. Blaming Calderwood and Waite for the violence in Cripple Creek, they intended to lynch both men. As a local judge distracted the mob, Calderwood and Waite escaped out a rear door and onto the governor's waiting train.^[19]

Negotiations resumed in Denver on June 2, and the parties reached an agreement on June 4. The agreement provided for resumption of the $3.00-per-day wage and the eight-hour day. The mine owners agreed not to retaliate against any miner who had taken part in the strike, and the miners agreed not to discriminate against or harass any strikebreaker who remained employed in the mines.^[20]

[edit] The state militia returns

But 1,300 deputies remained in Cripple Creek, and Sheriff Bowers was no longer able to control the private army he had created. On June 5, the deputies moved into Altman in what seemed to be a prelude to storming Bull Hill. The deputies also cut the telegraph and telephone wires leading out of town, and imprisoned a number of reporters. Aware that the paramilitary force might get out of hand, Waite had already dispatched the state militia, under the command of General E.J. Brooks, to Cripple Creek.^[21]

The Colorado state troops arrived in the Cripple Creek region early on the morning of June 6, but more violence had already broken out. The deputies were exchanging gunfire with the miners on Bull Hill, but so far no one had been hurt. Gen. Brooks quickly moved his troops from the train station to the foot of Bull Hill. Sheriff Bowers and Gen. Brooks then began to argue about what course of action to take. The deputies took advantage of the lull and attempted to charge the miners on Bull Hill.^[22] The miners sounded the whistle at the Victor mine, alerting Gen. Brooks to the deputies' charge. Soldiers of the state militia quickly intercepted the deputies and stopped their advance. Brooks ordered his men to invest the top of Bull Hill, and the miners offered no resistance.^[23]

Prevented from attacking the miners' camp, the deputies invaded Cripple Creek instead. They arrested and imprisoned hundreds of citizens without cause. Many inhabitants of the town were seized on the street or pulled from their homes, then clubbed, kicked or beaten. The deputies formed a gauntlet and forced townspeople to pass through it, spitting, slapping and kicking them. But with Bull Hill in his possession, Gen. Brooks turned his troops on the deputies. By nightfall, Brooks had seized the town and corralled all the deputies.^[24]

Waite threatened to declare martial law, but even that was not enough to get the mine owners to disband their private army. Gen. Brooks then threatened to keep his troops in the region for another 30 days. Faced with paying for a paramilitary force which could only sit on its hands, the owners capitulated. The private army, which Gen. Brooks had dispatched via rail to Colorado Springs, began dispersing on June 11. The Waite agreement became operative the same day, and the miners returned to work.^[25]

Union president Calderwood and 300 miners were arrested and charged with a variety of crimes. They submitted peacefully. Only four miners were convicted of any charges, and were quickly pardoned.^[26]

[edit] Impact of the strike

The Cripple Creek strike was a major victory for the miners' union. The Western Federation of Miners used the success of the strike to organize almost every worker in the Cripple Creek region—including waitresses, laundry workers, bartenders and newsboys—into 54 local unions. The WFM flourished in the Cripple Creek area for almost a decade, even helping to elect most county officials (including the sheriff).^[27]

The Cripple Creek strike also helped strengthen the Western Federation of Miners enormously. The year-old union, weak and penniless, became widely admired among miners throughout the West. Thousands of workers joined the union over the next few years. Politicians and labor officials throughout the country became steady allies of the union, and the WFM became a political force throughout much of the Rocky Mountain West.^[28]

But the WFM's success at Cripple Creek also created a significant backlash. The WFM was forever tarred as a dangerous and violent organization in the eyes of the public. Never again would the WFM have in a local strike the level of public support it enjoyed at Cripple Creek. Indeed, when the union struck the Cripple Creek mines again in 1898, its public support did not last once violence broke out. During a third strike in 1904, the union found that the public had completely turned its back on the miners.

The union's success also altered the course of Colorado politics. Colorado citizens blamed Waite for protecting the miners' union and encouraging violence and anarchy. The backlash led to Waite's defeat at the polls in November 1894 and the election of Republican Albert McIntire. The progressive movement in Colorado never recovered.^[29]

The Cripple Creek strike also hardened the attitudes of mine owners. Colorado's mine owners rarely capitulated quickly to union demands, as they did at Cripple Creek. Under Gov. McIntire, the government of Colorado formed a political alliance with the mine owners. Mine owners increasingly turned to the Thiel Detective Service Company and Pinkerton National Detective Agency for spies, increased the use of strikebreakers, and implemented the lockout and blacklist as a means of controlling union members. Whenever these tools proved ineffective, the government supported the mine owners against the union. When the WFM struck the Leadville mines in 1896, Gov. McIntire called out the state militia and broke the WFM's power in Colorado.^[30]

The Cripple Creek backlash indirectly influenced the direction of American labor history. The collapse of the 1896 Leadville strike caused the WFM to sever its relationship with the American Federation of Labor. Subsequently, the WFM turned strongly to the left politically, which in turn led the union to form the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905. Although the IWW's heyday was short-lived, the union was symbolically important and the ideals embodied by it continue to deeply influence the American labor movement to this day.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States: From the Founding of the A.F. of L. to the Emergence of American Imperialism. 2nd ed. New York: International Publishers, Co., 1975. ISBN 0-7178-0388-0
• Holbrook, Stewart. The Rocky Mountain Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1956.
• Jameson, Elizabeth. All That Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple Creek. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. 1998. ISBN 0-252-06690-1
• Philpott, William. The Lessons of Leadville, Or, Why the Western Federation of Miners Turned Left. Monograph 10. Denver: Colorado Historical Society, 1994.
• Smits, Angel Strong. 'Sam Strong: Cripple Creek's notorious millionaire.' Wild West. August 2001.
• Suggs, Jr., George G. Colorado's War on Militant Unionism: James H. Peabody and the Western Federation of Miners. 2nd ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8061-2396-6

[edit] External links

• Cripple Creek History
• Fire in the Hole, a production of KUED-TV.