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VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
to support such a measure. In the general election of
1902 the constitutional amendment providing for an
eight-hour day was adopted by the people of the State
by 72,980 votes against 26,266. This was a great victory
for the miners, and it seemed as if their work was
done. According to all the traditions and pretensions of
political life, they had every reason to believe that the
next session of the legislature would pass an eight-hour
law. It appears, however, that the corporations had determined
at all cost to defeat such a bill.
They set out'
therefore to corrupt wholesale the legislature, and as a
result the eight-hour bill was defeated. After having
done everything in their power, patiently, peacefully, and
legally to obtain their law, and only after having been
outrageously betrayed by corrupt public servants, the
miners as a last resort, on the 3d of July, 1903, declared a
strike to secure through their own efforts what a decade
of pleading and prayers had failed to achieve.
I suppose no unbiased observer would to-day question
that the political machines of Colorado had sold themselves
body and soul to the mine owners. There can
surely be no other explanation for their violation of
their pledges to the people and to the miners. And
to this time
further evidence of their perfidy was given on the night
of September 3, 1903, at a conference between some of
the State officials and certain officers of the Mine Owners'
Association. Although the strike up
had been conducted without any violence, the State officials
agreed
that the mine owners could have the aid
of the militia, provided they would pay the expenses of
the soldiers while they remained in the strike district.
Two days later over one thousand men were encamped in
Cripple Creek. All the strike districts were at once put
under martial law the ; duly elected officials of the people