page_title: Charles Moyer
section_title: Colorado Labor Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Moyer / WFM presidency / Colorado Labor Wars
caption_attribution_description: Is Colorado in America?, "Signed" by Charles Moyer and William D. Haywood
context_page_description: Charles H. "Charlie" Moyer was an American labor leader and president of the Western Federation of Miners from 1902 to 1926. He led the union through the Colorado Labor Wars, was accused of murdering an ex-governor of the state of Idaho, and was shot in the back during a bitter copper mine strike. He also was a leading force in founding the Industrial Workers of the World, although he later denounced the organization.
context_section_description: Moyer's push for industrial union organizing involved the union in what came to be known as the Colorado Labor Wars. In August 1902, the WFM organized mill workers in Colorado City, Colorado. The employers planted a labor spy in the union, and 42 union members were fired. Negotiations over the dismissals dragged on into 1903. On February 14, 1903, the WFM struck. The employers claimed a riot was in progress, and Governor James Peabody called out the Colorado militia to suppress the strike. Miners in Cripple Creek and Telluride also struck, and the militia was deployed in those cities as well.  Mass arrests began in September 1903 which finally broke the strike.
  One of those arrested was Moyer. He had gone to Telluride to protest the mass arrests and deportation of miners. While there, he lent his signature to a WFM poster decrying the arrests.  Moyer was arrested on March 28, 1904, for desecrating the American flag.  He was released on bail, but re-arrested the following day on the orders of Adjutant General Sherman Bell of the state militia on charges of "military necessity". When Moyer successfully petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, the Colorado State Attorney General and the local district attorney refused to release him. Moyer appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court On June 6, 1904, the court ruled in In re Moyer, 35 Colo. 163, that it could not question the governor's finding that insurrection existed in Colorado and that Moyer had not been arrested or imprisoned in violation of his rights. Moyer appealed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Missouri, and obtained a writ of habeas corpus on July 5, 1904. Alarmed by the writ, Governor Peabody revoked the finding of insurrection the same day and ordered Moyer released by 3:45 p.m. (before the federal writ could be served). Moyer was released, but his case continued to the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 18, 1909, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court in Moyer v. Peabody, 212 U.S. 78.  Writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. refused to question the governor's assertion of facts which led to the declaration of martial law or grounds for Moyer's arrest. Concluding that the governor's good faith would protect a person's constitutional rights, Holmes held that Moyer's civil liberties had not been infringed.
caption: The poster "Is Colorado in America?", with signature by Charles Moyer (bottom, left), which led to his arrest in 1904.
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