The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-17
sUFFERINGs OF MINERS.
Imprisoned Miner Describes Expert
ence In Bul-pen.

ence In Bul-pen.
President Edward Boyce of the West
ern Federation of Miners has received
a letter from a friend who was among
the miners rounded UP after the Ward
ner Qda-) riots, and penned up for sew
Grad DAYS on suspicion of participation
in those riots. The letter gives a
graphic description of the treatment
received by the miners at the hands or
the Twenty fourth infantry during the
days of their imprisonment, and Is,
perhaps, the first authentic description
by one of the miners themselves.
1t describes the arrival of the regu-
lars at Burke, and how the miners We're
made prisoners as they came up out
of the mines off shift. Without being
given the privilege of changing their
clothes or Of getting anything TO eat.
they We're herded into box cars and
taken down the canyon to Wardner
Junction. There they We're kept stand
ing in their wet clothes until midnight,
and then driven to "a big barn, called
the bull pen" Between $50 and 400
men were here confined in a space
about 40 by so feet, all without food.
and some with wet clothes. Not until
noon did the prisoners get anything TO
eat Then they We're divided into
SQUADS of twenty-five, and each squad
was given pail of what the author of
the letter describes as ''Swill," and told
to eat it. Some had not had anything
to eat for nearly thirty-SiX hours, and
even then could hardly down the food.
I'VE asked for soap and towels To
clean ourselves a little" the letter goes
on, but the authorities did not seem
TO think the Canyon creek people
needed such luxuries, for they would
not give them TO US, so, with grease
and dirt sticking to us, we We're driven
back to our Sty.'
The dire plight the imprisoned miners
We're in was, after two days, relieved
through the good offices of the women
of Burke, who sent down to Wardner
q quantity of soap, towels, blankets,
food. tobacco and dry clothing.
After three days of life in the bull
pen," the writer of the letter was re-
leased, but there were hundreds who
were not freed for many more days
While the miners We're imprisoned, he
says, the deputies from the Bunker Hill
had terrorized the camp. Insults We're
offered to wives and sisters, furniture
destroyed, jewelTy stolen. children
abused, young girls threatened with ar
rest and the lockers and paraphernalia
ropms of fraternal societies smashed
and broken open.
There is no use CT the state authori-
ties or the Spokesman Review trying
10 make Oul lilal int men GFTtSlGu dIe
in any way connected with the blowing
up of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan mill,
for you know as well as / do that the
men that planned and performed that
work were out of the country long be-
fore the soldiers ever got into it. The
authorities themselves have acknoWl-
edged that most of the men held were
innocent men,
The writer severely criticises the con-
duct of the negro soldiers. and says
that their treatment of the miners was
cruel and inhuman in the extreme.
Dysentery broke ont among the prison.
ers one OF the first nights of their in
and when their guards
were appealed to, they simply swore
at the miners and refused to anything
for them.
Now. all friends of labor and labor
the letter concludes. in
the name of our birtnright. let us stand
together TO fight the principle now be-
ing pursued by the governor of Idaho
and the Bunker Hill company that if
they cannot find the guilty, they will
make the innocent suffer. as they must
be reVenged."