Untitled

THE OLDEST ANARCHISM 303
in the period from 1894 to 1904. The climax of the
long-drawn-out battles there was perhaps the most unadulterated
anarchy that has yet been seen in America.
It was a terrorism of powerful and influential anarchists
who frankly and brutally answered those who protested
against their many violations of the United States Constitution
: 'To hell with the Constitution!" (37) The
story of these Colorado battles is told in a report of an investigation
made by the United States Commissioner of
Labor (1905). The reading of that report leaves one
with the impression that present-day society rests upon
a volcano, which in
favorable periods seems very harmless
indeed, but, when certain elemental forces clash, it
bursts forth in a manner that threatens with destruction
civilization itself. The trouble in Colorado began with
the effort on the part of the miners' union to obtain
through the legislature a law limiting the day's work
to eight hours in all
underground mines and in all work
for reducing and refining ores. That was in 1894. The
next year an eight-hour bill was presented in the legislature.
Expressing fear that such a bill might be unconstitutional,
the legislature, before acting upon it, asked
the Supreme Court to render a decision. The Supreme
Court replied that, in its opinion, such a bill would be
unconstitutional. In 1899, as a result of further agitation
by the miners, an eight-hour law was enacted by
the legislature
— a large majority in both houses voting
for the bill.
By unanimous decision the same year the
Supreme Court of Colorado declared the statute unconstitutional.
The miners were not, however, discouraged,
and they began a movement to secure the adoption of a
constitutional amendment which would provide for the
enactment of an eight-hour law. All the political parties
in the State of Colorado pledged themselves in convention