The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1915-03-02
PRIVATE ARMED
GUARD CAUSES
SERIOUS TR0UBLE
Committee of Congress De
nounces Armed Guards
at Colorado Mines
MIIITIAMEN FOUND
GRAVELY IMMORAL
Strike Breakers Came,
Bringing Machine Guns
and Armored Car

washington, March PA scathing
arraignment of the Colorado militia
for it's treatment of striking miners
and heir families is contained IN
volurninous report submitted to the
House today by the Mines and Min
ing sub committee, which invest
ed conditions in the Colorado coal
fields under a resolution adopted a
year ago in january. While scoring
conditions generally in the coal fields
and criticising many OF the acts OF
the mine operators, including alleged
violation of state laws, the commit
tee reports that no evidence was
found of a conspiracy in restraint OF
trade to limit the output Of the mines,
nor conclusive proof of the existence
of peonage.
The strike was settled long before
the committee completed its report,
SO no specific Recommendations are
made. The committee appeals,
however, for arbitration in<such sit
uatfons 1t declares that these dis
turbances are nationwide in their i'm
portance; that the federal govern
ment is the only power competent
to deal with them, and after refer
ring to the testimony of John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., who disclaimed re-
sponsibility for Colorado conditions,
adds:
Absentee owners or directors by
their absence from the scene of such
disturbances cannot escape their
moral resp onsibility for conditions in
and about properties in which they
are Interested
Liberal extracts from the 1000
pages of testimony taken by the com
rnittee are embodied in the report,
with this comment:
ut seemed the militia was on the
side of the operators in this CON
l.. ooT@4
citing the action of the governor in
calling out the state troops, land the
evidence seems conclusively to prove
such to have been the case. The
sooner men armd in the srVice of
tn state learn that the men with
whom they may deal may be poor
and ignorant and even violators of the
law, but are still human, the better
it will be for all concerned.
THE recruiting of mine guards as
members of the militia, in our judg-
ment, was q mistake, since intense
a.nimosity had existed for some time
between the mine guards and the min
ers and it was difficult or even i'm
possible for the miners to feel that
these men were neutral conservatOFs
of the peace. Some of the militia
men seized the opportunity, while
clothed with the authority Of the state
to engage in various la;wleSS acts.
of immoral kind and of such a
nature as to be unfit for publication in
this report. There were acts of
brutality testified to before the com
Tnittee which might be enum Grated;
men on Slight provocation were
thrown into Jail and kept there with
out the opportunity of proving their
innocence.
"a private guard system may be
thought necessary" the committee
here comments, ''but wherever it ex-
lists sooner or later trouble will oc-
cur, and proper officers of the. law
should be substituted, who will be i'm
partial in maintaining peace and or
der"
Testimony of present and former
county officials is quoted to show eff
forts of mine operators to control
elections in Los Animas and HueF-
fano counties and the committee re-
marks that the manner of selecting
Jur1es in those counties, where, ac-
cordnng to witnesses in one case at
least, seven out of twelve jurors were
deputy sheriffs, appears to be
against the provisions of the law
Some of the men brought into Col
orado by detective agencies employed
to guard the mines, the committee
finds, had been in the same kind of
service in West Virginia and they
brought with them the same machine
guns which had been used in an ar
mOred car against striker in that