The Labor enquirer., 1883-06-02
DENVER, COLORADO. SATURDAY, JUNE Q, 1883. 4

political key of our country; full of
churches and church Christians, a factor
so important in elections that she gives
color and shape to the federal govern
ment. Her legislature indorsed whole
sale bribery and perjury in her halls
during the. period Of which I write
| 1876, and a few years each side of it.
Honest Harry Hoyt," as remember,
was the governor who presided over this
infamy, and triune eyewitness told me
that he conducted his campaign by dis
porting himself nude with two married
ladies in evening costume of the same
cut, the parties 80 drunk that they didn't
| know their windows were uncurtaineG
| The police broke up the orgie to save
| votes.
Surely the devil of late has turned his
worst imps loose on the political world.
| At the time1 write of the coal fields of
that state were the paradise of monopoly.
Thousands of people in these fields, of
| which Scranton City is a center, were
kept ON diet of mush, made of mo
| nopoly meal, coarse, musty and black,
with or without salt, with little or no
change, month in and out. Meat was
not tasted by many for months; pota-
toes were delicacies. Starvation slew on
the right hand and on the left; men
went fasting to work worked hard all
day without food. and when lifted to air
tainted and were carried home to die,
the doctors said of exhaustian. Children
wilted like frosted flowers; mothers
sank broken-hearted. Men who faced
batteries in the Rebellion without
finching, quailed and paled at the cry
of their hungry children. They tramped
the state over looking for work, to find
themselves BLACK listed" and the door
of every hope shut in their faces The
legislature, their votes had created. rose
with holy hands to arrest and Danish
them as ''tramps;" !" the press cackled the
prosperity o. the coal regions and the
fat salaries of the miners, and the clergy
poured double dose of hell and dam
nation over their riotous ingratitude :;
while blazing call far 800 miners, with
good pay and steady work in these
fields, was kept posted in the emigrants'
face on landing in Castle Garden.
A few years of this devils deal brought
the people to think. Labor organized
on double-qulck; every man of brains
or lit to lead, was peryerting the nation
and was banished. Retribution went to
rest ON monopoly fears; a posse conf
tatus, armed to the teeth, was stationed
at the company's store, in the midst of
which bald-headed monopoly bill-danced
like a puppet.
One morning in August labor men,
900 strong, met on the river bank to
discuss the situation. When returning
! 10 hnir oaI
| into by Bill and his gallant gang, and
the sidewalk The Sabbath following
doctors of divinity made God and the
Bible party to it. A telegram now
flashed to the state capital for troops to
protect life and property. Blood had
been shed at midday in the streets of
Scranton. A gatling gun was mounted
to shoot Molly Maguires and miners who
had waxed fat on big pay, and kicked,
and the press rooster CrOwed a grand
victory.
Soldiers came and were met by ghosts
of men and miners skeletons by thous-
ands Sunken eyes, hollow cheeks and
blackened visage appalled, the soldier
and arraigned their maker They held
hasty conference with head miners
and in storm of profanity demanded
the cause of their horrible spectacle.
Cold, hunger, thirst, nakedness, peril,
death told a story of crucifxion that
Calvary only shadowed. Mans ex-
tremity is Gods opportunity"
The troops notified their officers it
would be useless to call them out against
these men, no matter what they might
do; for their guns and lives should pro-
tect them. They at once set to feeding
the poor starved creatures, and shared
their last cracker with them. They in
structed women and children to reap
monopoly fields geese, chickens and
pigs were soon at a premium, and a
grand soldiers and citizens picnic was
the order Of the day. Six weeks closed
this engagement, and the press an
nounced rooster No. 2. They had COM
ing from Philadelphia a regiment, the
very cream of capital no man in it was
worth less than $4,000 in his own right.
They would shoot right and left into
this throng of the great unwashed."