NO. 42, A. W. GRATIAS.
Manager MacNeill openly violated his agreement with the W. F. of M. from the very start. He compelled his men to work ten and twelve hours a day, refused to increase their wages, and only reinstated such of his former employees as were willing to quit the union.
Mr. Moyer sent a committee to Mr. MacNeill to straighten matters out; but it met with signal failure, as Mr. MacNeill was absolutely immovable.
Another thing which created a very bitter feeling throughout the state was the refusal of the legislature to enact an eight-hour law. Both great political parties had the law in their platforms, and the people, by a majority of 46,000, had declared in favor of a constitutional amendment making eight hours a legal workday in mines and smelters. Yet Governor Peabody did not even mention the matter in his message to the legislature, and that body flatly ignored the wishes of a majority of the people of Colorado in deference to the orders of coal operators and the smelter trust.
The employees of the American Smelting & Refining Company at Denver, after this treachery of the legislature, sent a letter to General Manager Guiterman recjuesting an eight-hour day at all the smelting plants in Denver. The men said they would accept a reduction in wages, but they insisted on an eighthour day. Mr. Guiterman refused the demands, which resulted in Mill & Smeltermen's Union No. 93 declaring a strike in July, 1903, on the Grant and Globe Smelters. Union No. 125, at Colorado City, at about the same time, declared a second strike on the Standard Mill.