President: That's a serious offense against our idea of law and order, and I, therefore, banish you from this district forever. Do not return if you value your life.
James Wilson is brought in.
President: Wilson, were you not talking to a member of the Western Federation of Miners at the time you were arrested.?
Wilson: I was.
President: Didn't you know that your doing so was against the provisions of the Articles of War?
Wilson: Perhaps that's so; but the man I spoke with was my own brother, Charles Wilson.
President: Enough! You admit your guilt. I sentence you to be deported from this district, and if you know wliat's good for yourself, you'll never return. Officer, take him away, and fetch the next prisoner!
This is about as near as one could describe the work of the Military Commission on Deportation. Everyone who was known to be a member of the Western Federation of Miners or a sympathizer of the Federation, was sentenced to deportation. Each day dozens of these men were roughly hustled into special trains, and railroaded out of the State of Colorado under heavy guard, to whatever points General Bell took a notion to banish them.
Hundreds of innocent men were in this way torn from their homes and their families, for na other crime than because they belonged to or sympathized with a union. The Portland miners shared the same fate as the rest of the Federation men, although General Bell had designated them specifically as "dangerous and lawless men." It is strange why these lawless and dangerous men were not held for trial instead of being deported and turned loose beyond the State line.