"Anarchy cannot continue under our American form of government, and the people of this State breathe free in the knowledge that they are entitled to lawful protection, and when the laws are enforced, can obtain it/'
The Pinkerton Labor Spy. 169
According to his proclamation placing Las Animas County under martial law, the United Mine Workers of America, like the Western Federation of Miners, were a
"Class of individuals which are fully armed and are acting together resisting the laws of the State, and that at different times said persons and individuals have committed various crimes, and that from time to time attempts have been made by said parties to destroy property," etc., etc.
Despite the fact that in the above proclamation he painted the coal miners as black as the coal they mined, the governor, in his message, never mentioned one word about his outrageous campaign against them, a campaign which for cruelty and brutality could not, we believe, be paralleled even in the annals of Ivan the Terrible. .
Assuming that the governor said nothing about the coal miners' strike, because of the great wrongs he had done them; also considering that he proclaimed them as outlaws in the same manner that he had outlawed the quartz miners; knowing as we do, that whatever crimes were committed in the Southern coal fields, were on the persons and property of the strikers, — it follows that the governor's proclamation affecting the coal miners is as black a fabrication as the hearts of the officials of the coal company.