PINKERTONS AND COAL MINERS IN COLORADO — NO. 38, ROBERT M. SMITH.
Despite the fact that with the assistance of Operatives Strong and Smith, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company prevented their coal miners from organizing, the latter, nevertheless, managed to maintain a halfhearted, inactive union in the State, known officially as District No. 15.
The brave struggle put up by the Western Federation apparently instilled a little courage into the faint hearts of the coal miners, for at the convention held by them in Pueblo, September, 1903, there seemed to be a unanimity of purpose to do something definite to improve the conditions under which for so many years they had been oppressed and ground down.
Deeply interested as they were in the affairs and plans of the United Mine Workers of America, the Fuel & Iron Company and the Pinkerton Agency felt they would be doing injustice to themselves if they did not participate in the deliberations of the convention. To accomplish their benevolent purpose, Operative Robert M. Smith attended the convention as a delegate from a Southern local, and assisted his brother delegates as best he could. True, the convention was open; yet a report of the proceedings by a Pinkerton operative was more desirable and reliable, in the opinion of the Agency and the coal company, than a similar report from newspaper representatives.
The following reports of Operative Smith will give the reader a fair idea of what the coal miners of Colorado, in convention assembled, spoke, did and planned :^