Before dealing with the Independence horror, we wish to say that up to date the fiends who committed this crime have not been apprehended, — nay, more, no real effort has ever been made by the Mine Owners' Association to capture them.
On the evening of June 6th, District Union No. i of the Western Federation of Miners, adopted resolutions denouncing in unmeasured terms the outrage, and offering assistance in capturing the murderers.
The military, mine owners and people in general, seemed to have gone mad. Yet, despite the apparent confusion and anarchy, everything seemed to be done deliberately and systematically. The Mine Owners' Association knew that the explosion had aroused popu-
The Pinkerton Labor Spy. 107
lar feeling to fever heat, and lost no time in taking advantage of it.
It will be noted in Operative Londoner's report that most of those who constituted the yelling, threatening crowds that surged up and down the streets of Victor were desperate characters, mine owners, mine managers and militiamen. It will also be noted in Operative Londoner's report that the mine owners, instead of devising means to capture the fiends who committed the crime, forced Sheriff Robertson of Teller County to resign, by threatening to lynch him on the spot if he refused. Almost all the regularly elected judges, commissioners, and other civil officers of Teller County were forced to resign, and their places, from sheriff down, filled with mine owners and mine superintendents.
After the civil government had been thus violently subverted by the Mine Owners' Association, every union miner in the Cripple Creek district was arrested and thrown into the bull pen.
On the night of June 8lh, a number of heavily armed men raided the office of the Victor Record, smashed the entire plant, including the