The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-07-22
BY VERN SMITH.


wood and Pettibone were arrested
in Denver, Colorado, and struggled
out of town on a special train to
Boise, Idaho. They were charged
with the murder, by bomb explo-
sion, of Ex-Governor Stuenenberg of
Idaho.
The trip to Idaho was kidnap-
ping, illegal, criminal and all of
that. No extradition papers were
sought, and the sole purpose of this
man-stealing raid by the state adj
ministration of Idaho was to get
hold of leaders of great strike
movement in the Rocky Mountain
district, under the leadership espe-
cially of Haywood.
They Were Militants.
The Western Federation of Min
crs, Of which Charles K. Meyer was
president, William D. Haywood sec
retary-treasurer, and Pettibone vice
president, had led series of strikes
of unprecedented militancy in that
part Of the world; Cripple Creek,
Telluride, Occur d'Alenes and the
strikes around Butte and Denver
were SO hard fought that even
pitched battles were frequent.
In all of these Haywood, espe-
cially, and Meyer and Pettibone to
lesser but important degree, We're
recognized as leaders.
That was why they had to be
killed, if possible. AS many at
tempts to quietly assassinate them
had failed, the mine owners set one
of their state governments on them,
to do the job legally.
In exactly this way, Fred Beal
and % other textile strikers and
organizers in Gastonia have been Sc
lected for trial, and Is of them
picked for execution. The most
serious crime against the capitalist
class is to actually interfere with
its profits, to lead strike movements
that are likely to force some en-
ployers to pay larger wages.
It Had to Be Idaho.
The mine leaders were kidnapped
to Idaho because that was the near
est state in which prominent man
had been killed, and therefore the
logical place to frame up the mine
leaders.
Most of the defendants in the
much later Gastonia case were in
North Carolina and did not have to
be kidnapped, but the kidnapping
angle enters even in the Gastonia
case. One striker, Delmar Hamp-
ten, had gone to Gaffney, South
Carolina. He was arrested there,
and, as in Haywood's case. was i'm
modiately rushed out of the state
without extradition by officers sent
to get him by the mill owners. The
fact that such kidnapping is itself
a crime means nothing in matters
of this sort. The employers, with
their intentions fixed on killing, de-
termined to have their spies swear
mems lives away, will not stop at
lesser thing like kidnapping. Their
purpose is always to "get the lead
ers."
The Haywood case, besides bring
ing the tactic of kidnapping into
the science of the frame-up, no part
Of which is ever forgotten by the
American capitalist class, developed
to the highest degree known at that
time the use of the stool-pigeon wit
ness.
The trial started before Judge
Woods, in May, 1907. with the now
Senator Borah as chief prosecutor,
and barrow chief defense counsel
The Perfect Provocateur.
Practically the only evidence
against Meyer, Haywood and Petit
bone was that of Harry Orchard.
This Orchard was labor spy
suspected by Haywood a couple of
years before and distrusted. He
suddenly famed forth like meteor
at the Boise trial, with an incred-
ible tale of burning a cheese fac
tory in Canada, blowing up the Bun
ker Hill and Sullivan mill in the
Occur d'Alenes, taking a job as
stool-pigeon in the Western Fedora
ton of Miners national office in
Denver, from which he reported reg
ularly to Detective Scott and the
Citizens Alliance Ia fascist organ
ization), trying with two other
fstool-pigeons to wreck train and
kill 200 men in Cripple Creek, plot
ting the Vindicator and Indepen-
dence Depot explosions, which cost
many lives, and trying to assassin
ate long list of noted persons, end
ing with the killing of Stuenenberg.
Orchard accused the w. F. M. Of
ficials, of course, of hiring him to
kill Stuenenberc, and CT taking part
in some Of his explosions. But he
made his story so good that when
the three on trial were acquitted,
Orchard became drug on the stool
pigeon market. His employers had
to pretend to believe his crimes were
real, and, on his own testimony, he
was sentenced to the penitentiary,
where he still is. But the breed
continues and will undoubtedly be
prominent in the Gastonia case.
Quote From Writings.