The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-06-08
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1904
A STATE OF ANARCHY

Colorado is in a state of anarchy.
The long contest there between law
defying organization of workingmen on
the one side and law defying COM
bination of corporations on the other
has wrought out its legitimate result.
Non-union men have been killed and
the lives Of innocent persons taken to
assert the right of a labor organiza-
ton to forbid men to labor unless they
We're members of it. On the other
hand, the military forces of the state,
under the orders of the governor, ride
rOughshod over civil rights, shooting
down or imprisoning whom they please,
and for the time being suspend and
supersede the operations of the courts.
Fearful as is this anarchic condition,
we are rather glad to have the public
furnished with an object lesson of the
evils which it's dumb submission to un-
American ideas has been for so long
inviting. The Western Federation of
Miners, for it's part, is a lawless or
ganization. In more than one state it
has ruled by the red hand of terror, and
many life has gone to pay the price
of its evil existence. Whatever may be
its disclaimers now, in the face of an
aroused public opinion, it has ruled by
violence, and no mans life was safe
who dared defy its power within the
circle of its influence.
No one who has read recent maya
zine articles setting forth impartially
conditions in Colorado will attempt to
deny that on the side of the authori-
ties there is plentiful iniquity. In that
state, as in others, constituencies cor
porations have sought to control the
executive power and WELD it for their
own benefit. Nothing could have aided
them to accomplish this end so power
fully as the existence there of organi-
cations pledged to principles subversive
of public order and of American lib
support of a large conservative ele
ment, which secretly condemned cor
rupt practices and would gladly have
opposed them openly had it not felt
that its only alternative was to ally it.
self with forces representing the de-
NAL of individual liberty and going
hand in glove with outrage and muir
der.
Now the end of this sort of thing in
all times and in all places is the ma, on
horseback. There has been no escape
from it in all history, and there will be
none for US. If we are not brave and
honest and patriotic enough to main
tain our institutions, they will fall.
When it comes to an organization of
men on one side ready to condone anv
act of violence to sustain their order.
which they place above all laws of God
or man, and an organization on the
other equally Indifferent to everything
but the use Of the power of the state
to promote private interests, then there
will be sooner or later the bloody clash
of interests and of forces, and the in
stervention of military power will nut
an end to intolerable conditions. Colo
RADIO is simply an extreme and frightful
example today of what will come to
every commonwealth in this country
that does not heed the warning.
We must get rid of the Idea that
there is anything more sacred than
American citizenship and the right of
the individual. We must cease to toll
crate the intolerable claim that the
right to honest labor should depend