The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1900-01-31
Despotism Il Idaho

printing a series of letters from
the Occur d'Alene mining dis
trict in Idaho, which, although
obviously retained and con-
servative in tone, tell a story
of official despotisln worthy OF
France III the midle of the
Dreyfus agitation. This is the
story told without color and
without enthusiasm: The Occur
d'Alene is one Of the richest
mining regions in the world.
It's mines, discovered by strug-
Cling prospectors, have, after
the usual course, passed into
the hands Of millionaire cor
porations, Of which the Stand
ard Oil crowd form a do
minant part. Profits are huge,
and out of the rugged hills men
who never go into the gloomy
confines of the canyons at Burke
or Wardner draw enormous
profits. The miners have for
years been organized into the
Western Federation of Miners.
The men who work above
ground-in concentrators, mills
and the like-afiliate with the
Knights of Labor. Union rates
of wages were for underground
men, So. so and for surface men,
50 a day. Perhaps the rate
seems high to workers in other
sections, but conditions of work
in the Occur d'Alene are diff
cult and dangerous, and the
cost of living high. One mine
only in the district has long re-
sisted the union influence and
refused to pay the union scale.
The Bunker Hill and Sullivan
mine, owned by the Standard
Oil Company, stood for years as
a menace to all other corpora
tons that paid union wages.
The story of the difficulties
which grew out Of this situation
is a long one and need not be
retold here. They eliminated
in an outbreak of miners, who
blew up with dynamite the con
centrator of the Bunker Hill
mine. In the turmoil two men
were shot and killed. The cor
respondent whom the World
sent to the scene reports that in
this opinion the outrage on the
company's property was per
petrated by union mines princi-
pally, but not by the union as
an organization. Be that as it
may-and the facts are much
disputed-there can be nothing
but reprobation for the act,
which was lawless and muir
derous. But the state Of
Idaho aided and abetted by
the federal authorities and
the war department, has
since that outbreak adopted
measures Of representation so
much more lawless, so much
subversive of the principles OF
American constitutional liberty,
than anything the miners in
their most lawless moments did,
/ that the crime Of eight months
AGO is forgotten in contempla-
ton of the crime which is in
progress today. On appeal OF
the owners Of the mine, the
state declared martial law.
Federal troops-negro soldiers,
as it happened-were rushed
into the district, and arrested
men by the wholesale. In the
little town of Burke two COM
panies of dismounted cavalry
swept up and down the single
street that ran between the
beetling hills either side and
caught all the inhabitants as in
a drag-net. Some three hun
dred men were thus caught,
among them the commercial
travellers who had just arrived
in town, and all were put in
box cars and thus imprisoned
for periods ranging from two
to three weeks. In time, as the
number of prisoners increased.
a stockade like that at Ander-
sonville was built for their in
generation. Mark you, not
one of these men was indicted:
not one arrested by the regularly
constituted county authorities.
All were taken in charge by
federal soldiers, and some OF
them stayed in the stockade, OF
bull pen. as it was called, fol-
seven months, without trial, and
were discharged without vindi-
cation. Today IN Soshone
county, Idaho, no man can seek
for employment without a per,
nit issued by state deputy
whose authority is backed by
federal bayonets. If his later
actions offend the deputy whc
gave him permission to look fol
a Job, he will be turned cut,
| however satisfactory his work
be to his employers. The
authorities say that martial law