Colorado Labor Wars

Throughout 1903 and 1904, Colorado's gold and silver country became a battleground between mine and mill workers, organized under the Western Federation of Miners, and the mine owners and business interests arrayed against them at every site of conflict. Backing the operators was the state government of Colorado itself. What made these strikes so notorious was the bloodshed that accompanied them, along with the Colorado National Guard's imposition of martial law to crush the movement.

At nearly the same time, coal miners in both the northern and southern fields of the state walked out, and this too drew a military response from the Guard.

The fiercest clashes between labor and capital in Colorado's history unfolded in the mining industry, and in nearly every instance the state government threw its weight behind the operators rather than the workers. Beyond the Guard, often known simply as the militia, other forces entered the fray: private detective agencies including the Pinkertons, Baldwin-Felts, and Thiel outfits, along with assorted labor organizations, Mine Owners' Associations, vigilante bands, and business-backed groups such as the Citizens' Alliance.

The conflicts recognized as part of this broader struggle include the WFM actions at Colorado City, which ran from March to April of 1903 and then again from July of that year through June 1904; the Cripple Creek mining district, active from March to April 1903 and August 1903 into June 1904; Idaho Springs, spanning May through September 1903; Telluride, from September to December 1903; Denver, lasting July through November 1903; and Durango, covering August and September of 1903.

Reflecting on this period, two scholars who studied violence in American labor history observed that no other episode saw employers wield violence so methodically as during Colorado's 1903-1904 conflict. They noted, too, that the WFM itself turned to harsher strike methods, pushing the movement into one of the most rebellious and violent chapters American labor had ever witnessed.

Anti-union forces in Colorado

Mine owners in Colorado watched the WFM's socialist rhetoric with genuine unease, since the union now sought nothing less than an end to private ownership of the mines.

James Peabody built his run for governor around a promise to bring back a conservative administration friendly to commerce and industry, yet during his time campaigning in the Cripple Creek District he spoke warmly about unions. Labor groups remained unconvinced and worked against his campaign, but the Republicans still took control of the statehouse after Democrats and Populists divided the reform-minded vote between them.

Peabody regarded the Western Federation of Miners as a danger not just to his own economic interests but to private property, to democratic government, and to the country as a whole. In his inaugural address he vowed to make the state secure for investment capital, even if that meant deploying the full authority of Colorado to do so.

Meanwhile, a broader movement among employers nationwide was building momentum against union power. George Suggs, Jr., in his 1972 study Colorado's War On Militant Unionism, noted that antiunion employer groups in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin had already succeeded in curbing union growth through open shop drives.

At the National Association of Manufacturers' 1903 convention, David M. Parry gave a speech condemning organized labor in the harshest terms, warning that union aims would lead to "despotism, tyranny, and slavery." He called for creating a massive national federation dedicated to fighting unions under NAM leadership, and the NAM moved forward with exactly that plan.

James C. Craig, president of the Citizens' Alliance of Denver, attended the Chicago meeting where these plans took shape. His own organization, founded on April 9, grew astonishingly fast, signing up close to 3,000 members, both individuals and corporations, within just three weeks, along with a treasury approaching $20,000. The Alliance held firmly to the idea that employers should have total, unchecked authority over their businesses, and Craig became a leading figure in the statewide campaign against organized labor. Critics noted the group's "clandestine character" and described its inner operations as shrouded "in deep secrecy," fueling suspicion that it might resort to "extralegal action against all organized labor." The Alliance inserted itself directly into labor conflicts, and among its first notable feats was blocking peaceful settlements between firms and their unions. Other employer alliances that formed across Colorado modeled themselves on the Denver group's constitution.

James McParland, who had earned notoriety years before for helping convict the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania, headed the Pinkerton agency's Denver office. From there he oversaw dozens of undercover operatives planted inside the Western Federation of Miners. Charles MacNeill, who served as general manager of the USRRC refining company, had already been a Pinkerton client since 1892.

Eight-hour day issue

When miners in the Cripple Creek District ended their 1894 strike, the settlement they reached guaranteed them an eight-hour workday. Building on this, the WFM pushed further, insisting that long shifts underground or in smelters endangered miners' health and that Colorado should enshrine the eight-hour standard into law for all mine and mill employees. This proposal met resistance from Republicans, who turned to the state's highest court for guidance. The justices responded that such legislation would violate the constitution.

Utah lawmakers subsequently enacted a comparable statute, and when challenged, it survived scrutiny before the nation's Supreme Court. Hoping to replicate that success, Colorado legislators copied the wording of Utah's law nearly verbatim. Yet the state's high court struck it down once more, this time citing conflicts with Colorado's own constitution rather than the federal one. Only a formal amendment to that document could satisfy the justices' objections.

Remarkably, all three major political parties in the state, Republican, Democratic, and Populist alike, backed the proposed constitutional change. Colorado's legislature agreed to let citizens decide the issue directly, placing it before voters as a referendum. On the fourth of November in 1902, the electorate responded overwhelmingly, approving the measure by a margin of 72,980 votes to 26,266, meaning over seventy-two percent supported it.

Despite this decisive mandate, carrying legal weight equivalent to a constitutional amendment, the matter still required one more step: formal enabling legislation from the state assembly during its 1903 session. Yet mining interests exerted considerable influence, and lawmakers simply disregarded what voters had decided, refusing to pass the necessary bill. Governor Peabody, whose election had been backed by business interests, held the power to salvage the amendment's intent but chose inaction instead. Years later, in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt condemned this failure, calling Peabody's refusal to enact the eight-hour measure "a grave error" and declaring it "unpardonable."

Written by Aubrey Research from Colorado Labor Wars on Wikipedia, cited as a reference and not reproduced.

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