BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER.
We will now give a brief summary of the causes leading up to one of the greatest struggles between capital and labor that ever disgraced the country.
On August loth, 1903, the Cripple Creek miners were called out on strike, and all mines closed down, in order to shut off the supply of ore from the smelter trust, and thus force them to concede the just demands of the Colorado City and Denver smeltermen. Shortly after, the miners of San Miguel County also went on strike in order to force the trust to treat justly with the smeltermen in their county. Thus, to a great extent, the quartz mining industry of the State was at a standstill.
But in order to understand the real reason why capital made such an extraordinarily desperate struggle against the Western Federation of Miners, we must go back to the month of May, 1903.
During this month the Federation held its annual convention in Denver, and among the things discussed were, the discrimination of the mill trust against the smeltermen, the trouble at Colorado City, the readiness of Governor Peabody to farm out the state troops to any corporation that would pay for them, and the refusal of the legislature to enact an eight-hour law as demanded by a majority of 46,000 voters of Colorado.
It was the sense of the convention that labor had nothing to expect from Governors and legislators who were sold, body and soul, to the trusts. Therefore, after a warm discussion, the convention endorsed Socialism, and decided that henceforth the Western Federation of Miners would take an active and independent part in politics.