Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1904-07-08
Colorado's Dem0ralized Government.

COlOradO'S Den1Ofailzed government.
From the Topeka Capital (Rep
In defense of his kind of anarchy to suppress!
different kind-the murderous kind-Gen
Bell, of Colorado, explains that he is merely
carrying out the will of the people, which is
the highest law. Officials elected at the last
elections were forced, at the point of a gun and
the sight of coil of rope, to surrender theil
commissions, because public sentiment had
changed. Gen. Bell was simply executing the
popular will in advance of the regular vote,
but we'll knowing what that vote would be.
This explanation applies also to his deportation
of citizens and to his forcing the Portland mine
Gen. Bells violence to the principle of the
open shop was on par with that of the worst
of the unonists,
There is this fundamental difference between
Gen. Bells kind of anarchy and that of the
union miners and their sympathzers: that in
the latter case, the government of the state was
on the side of law, while III the case of Gen.
Bells high-handed performances, the govern
ment of the state co-operates. If citizens
were to be deported where no crime is charged
against them; for the sake simply of carrying
out the will of the people, Gen. Bell and Gov.
Peabody did not Gegin early enough. The
history Iof the mining and smelling troubles
can be briefly stated. An eight-hour law,
passed by the legislature, was declared uncon-
stitutional by the supreme court. An amend
mitted to the people, which would make the
law constitutional, The vote was for the
amendment by an overwhelming majority
10000 At the same time, the legislature was
elected, pledged to pass the bill. There was
no question about "the will of the people,"
but, owing to the smelling interests, lobbying
against the bill, it was defeated. Then the
employees of the smelters struck, and the miners
later struck in sympathy.
After that, the troubles became more serious
dav by day. No excuse can be offered for the
strikers; Nobody sympathizes with them in
their violence and lawless conduct They de-
served defeat. But if deportation was to be
resorted to at all in order to carry out "the will
of the people" why did not Gov Peabody and
Gen. Bell begin it when purchased legislature
refused to do its duty? They had just as much
right then to deport the members of the legis-
lature bodily from the state, and call new
legislature that would do the peoples will,
which would have settled the whole trouble be-
fore it had fairly begun, as to wait year and
drive from the state citizens whose only wrong
doing was to belong 10 hated labor union.
1t will be strange if mob rule under the pre-
tense of law in Colorado does not, in the end,
cost the state more and lead to worse conse.
quences than all the outrages committed by the
strikers. From first to last, the government of
Colorado has been as blameworthy as some of
its disorderly citizens, from the time the legis-
lature became the servant OF the smelling com
panies instead OF the people who elected it, to
the final surrender of the government and
resort to tyranny and brute force. close OBJ
server, Ray Stannard Baker, in McClure's
Magazine, goes straight to the roo. Of Colora-
dos decentralization when he says that the
trouble is general and growing disregard for
law in that state, and he attributes it to corrupt
and rotten government running over series
of years.