THE CRIPPLE CREEK STRIKE — CONCLUDED.
The explosion which wrecked the Independence depot, and sent over a dozen non-union miners to death, is one of those events which teach us more in one minute than we could otherwise learn in a lifetime. It is well to look into an occurrence of this kind by a fair and intelligent analysis.
There can be no doubt that the explosion was premeditated, and was the result of as infernal a conspiracy as has ever been hatched by human brains.
There can also be no questioning the fact that there must have been some motive, some incentive ; and it is equally certain that the fiend who executed this conspiracy, did the work of ruin and death in consideration of a large sum of money. It is also an indisputable fact that if the dynamiting was the result of a conspiracy, the conspirators must have been either the heads of the Mine Owners' Association or the leaders of the Western Federation of Miners.
As the reader is aware, the Mine Owners promptly laid the crime at the door of the Federation, and with the assistance of the military, drove every union miner from the camp.
The fact that the Western Federation of Miners is a labor order, and the Mine Owners' Association is a society composed of millionaire mine owners and smelter magnates, should not stand in the way of an impartial review of the case.
At the time that the explosion occurred, the strike in the Cripple Creek and Telluride districts had already dragged on for a year. During this time