page_title: Anti-union violence in the United States
section_title: Colorado labor war, 1903-1904
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-union violence in the United States / History / Colorado labor war, 1903-1904
caption_attribution_description: Depicted person&#58; &#32;Sherman Bell&#32;– American army commander
context_page_description: Anti-union violence in the United States is physical force intended to harm union officials, union organizers, union members, union sympathizers, or their families. It has most commonly been used either during union organizing efforts, or during strikes. The aim most often is to prevent a union from forming, to destroy an existing union, or to reduce the effectiveness of a union or a particular strike action. If strikers prevent people or goods to enter or leave a workplace, violence may be used to allow people and goods to pass the picket line.
  Violence against unions may be isolated, or may occur as part of a campaign that includes spying, intimidation, impersonation, disinformation, and sabotage. Violence in labor disputes may be the result of unreasonable polarization, or miscalculation. It may be willful and provoked, or senseless and tragic. On some occasions, violence in labor disputes may be purposeful and calculated, for example the hiring and deployment of goon squads to intimidate, threaten or even assault strikers.
context_section_description: A study of industrial violence in 1969 concluded, "There is no episode in American labor history in which violence was as systematically used by employers as in the Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904."
  About the middle of February, 1904, leadership of the Colorado National Guard became concerned that the Mine Owners were failing to cover the payroll of the soldiers. General Reardon ordered Major Ellison to take another soldier he could trust to "hold up or shoot the men coming off shift at the Vindicator mine" in order to convince the mine owners to pay. The implication of the secrecy was, the incident would then be blamed on the union.
  However, Major Ellison reported that the miners took a route out of the mine that would not make ambush possible. Reardon ordered Ellison to pursue an alternative plan, which was shooting up one of the mines. Major Ellison and Sergeant Gordon Walter fired sixty shots into two mine buildings. The plan worked, and the mine owners paid up. Ellison would later testify (in October 1904) that General Reardon informed him 
  Adjutant General Sherman Bell and Colorado Governor James Peabody knew about the plan. Major Ellison's testimony about the shooting plot, and about the staged attacks on striking miners, was corroborated by two other soldiers.
caption: General Sherman Bell. Photo from The Pinkerton Labor Spy, published in 1907.
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