■I

mt&M

THE. CONFESS! AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

HARRY ORCHARD

llitiiiluilll

I

" ' IP

I I liiiii

1

LIBRARY

OF THE

University of California.

Class

A

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/autobconfessionsOOorchrich

THE CONFESSIONS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HARRY ORCHARD

.

HARRY ORCHARD

From a picture taken at the Boi.se Penitentiary in May, 1907.

THE CONFESSIONS

AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

HARRY ORCHARD

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK THE MoCLURE

MCMV

THE CONFESSIONS

AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

HARRY ORCHARD

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

THE MCCLURE COMPANY

MCMVII

Copyright, 1907, by The McClure Company

Published, December, 1907 n\C

■TO A

**%

f$>

Copyright, 1907, by The S. S. McClure Company

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.	My Early Life in Ontario .	PAGE 3
II.	Union Rule in the Cceur d'Alenes .	16
III.	We Blow Up the Bunker Hill Mill .	30
IV.	I Go to Live in Cripple Creek .	48
V.	The Big Strike of 1903 ....	55
VI.	The Militia Come to Cripple Creek	63
VII.	The Explosion in the Vindicator Mine	68
VIII.	My First Visit to Headquarters	88
IX.	How We Tried to Assassinate Governoi Peabody	i 110
X.	The Shooting of Lyte Gregory Befori the Convention . . .	122

XI. How We Blew Up the Independence Depot

During the Convention . . . .129

XII. How I Went to San Francisco and Blew

Up Fred Bradley 149

XIII. Our First Bomb for Governor Peabody,

and Other Bombs for Street Work . 167

219182

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIV. Our Further Plans for Governor Peabody and How I Set Bombs for Judges God-

DARD AND GaBBERT 181

XV. How I Started After Governor Steunen-

berg 196

XVI The Assassination of Governor Steunen-

berg 206

XVII. My Experience in Jail and Penitentiary 224

XVIII. My Reason for Writing This Book . .251

VI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Harry Orchard in 1907 .... Frontispiece

Executive Board of The Western Federation FApIge of Miners in 1905 92

James H. Peabody 118

Steve Adams . . . 150

The Two Steunenberg Bombs 208

Frank Steunenberg . . 218

Harry Orchard in 1906 226

James McParland 230

A PERSONAL NOTE OF INTRODUCTION

BY EDWIN S. HINKS,

Dean of St. Michael's Cathedral, Boise, Idaho

IN the month of June, 1906, I first met the au- thor of this autobiography. About six months prior he had made his full confession of crime, which was again given on the witness-stand. He wrote the account of his life, by his own volition, during the last half of the year of 1906, telling me many times that his object was to present a warn- ing to all who might read it against taking the first steps in a path of reckless living that so rapidly ends in ruin.

As I comprehend the transformation of Harry Orchard from reckless criminality to a penitent will- ing to tell the truth, I feel that the world should understand that his change of front was not in the order of religious conversion, then moral percep- tion, leading to confession. No ! it seems to me the order was first physical, second moral, and finally religious.

He was wretched behind stone walls, lonely as cut ix

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

off from freedom and old associations; hence he fairly craved the sympathy which he got in the un- burdening of his mind to McParland. He told me that at first he only told a little of the truth, and that several days passed before he divulged in full.

This confession, to my mind, evinces the first real, moral change in the man. He has told me that, though he had never in his life doubted the existence of a God, and positively believed in a future state, still he thought himself to be beyond forgiveness.

He sat from week to week brooding on his lost condition, convinced that a murderer could not be forgiven; and he had read the Bible which had been sent to him from the East, searching for light when I first met him.

He had attended the Sunday afternoon services at the penitentiary a few times, when he expressed a desire for me to visit him.

Almost immediately he came to the point on which he desired my expression of opinion, based on the words of Scripture: Was he, as a murderer, shut out from hope of God's forgiveness?

I explained to him that neither in the Old Testa- ment nor in the New Testament Scriptures was there a single word to preclude a penitent from an hon- est approach to God, whose forgiveness and par- don are full and free. I have only sorrow, not con-

x

A PERSONAL NOTE OF INTRODUCTION

tempt, for those who make distinctions in the Ten Commandments .

I know that " all unrighteousness is sin " with God, and am sure that many persons need to re- adjust their notions who play fast and loose with commandments seven and eight, with the delusive idea that when God gave the ten laws he made mur- der worse than adultery and dishonesty. I believe in the love of a forgiving God, and as the Scrip- ture defines God in this one word, " Love," I firmly believe in that radical change as possible for Or- chard as for the thief on the Cross of Calvary.

I would hardly go to Balzac for theology or doc- trine, but I quote him in the following words : " One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are for- ever changed."

I believe in conversion, no matter how it comes, nor to whom. I know it comes, sometimes quickly, at other times slowly, and that a man may be a devil to-day, and next week a man clothed, and in his right mind.

To me the New Testament is the world's greatest classic, and the Central Figure stands there present- ing to us the man dominated by the devil of his own lower self, a companion with hogs, sunken to the lowest level.

3d

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

Then does not Jesus Christ draw the vivid picture of the man " coming to himself," and would the scene be anything at all if it did not portray the open arms of love ready to forgive? Some say that Orchard should never have confessed, that he should have concealed any connection of others with his crime, or crimes. Presuming that he did " come to himself," with a terrific sense of responsibility to his Maker, and with an oath on his lips to tell the " whole truth," what could he do, and what would you do? We must look at this with right focus. What a wonderful tribute to the genuineness of Christianity is discerned in the fact that when the devils " Hogan " and " Orchard " had gone out of Albert E. Horsley, that he believed implicitly in the devotion of that noble, Christian wife whom he had deserted nine years ago in Canada, with a seven- months old baby in her arms.

He counted upon her fidelity and single devotion; he was banking upon her forgiveness, and he got it. I have seen some of her letters, and have personally met her, and I am sure that nothing but the super- human power of Jesus Christ can account for the calm, sustained spirit in this true, earnest wife, who has suffered so keenly since the truth came to her.

My conclusions as to the honesty and present xii

A PERSONAL NOTE OF INTRODUCTION

truthfulness of Albert E. Horsley are based upon my experience with human beings. I would not know how to make a psychologic test, according to the accepted scientific method, but I was gratified that, when Professor Munsterberg, of Harvard, had spent eight hours with Orchard, using every art known to his deep profession, he pronounced him to be normal, honest, frank, and straightforward.

In conclusion, I would say that any kind of pub- licity is objectionable to me, and that my associa- tion with this matter was not of my seeking, but accidentally came in the line of my duty. I sincerely trust that ere long the crimes of organized capi- tal and organized labor may cease. My deepest in- terest and sympathy lies with the honest wage- earner, possibly in large sense from a fellow-feeling. I know laborers where per diem pay exceeds my own.

I pray for the day when capital and labor shall be fair with one another, and when the men who pay out money shall be able to strike hands in fel- lowship with the American Federation of Labor, and when justice, fairness, and confidence shall take the place of suspicion, doubt, and variance, with the fraternal peace of heaven spreading its white wings above the discord of God's family on earth.

It will never come until Christianity enters into the souls of those who pay out money, as well as

xiii

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

into the souls of those who receive it, and the rug- ged manhood of the Carpenter of Nazareth is ac- cepted as the only standard worth considering.

Edwin S. Hinks,

Dean of St. Michael's Cathedral,

Boise, Idaho.

xiv

THE CONFESSIONS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HARRY ORCHARD

CHAPTER ONE

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

I WAS born in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada, on the 18th of March, 1866. My real name is Albert E. Horsley. My father was born of English parents, and my mother of Irish. I was brought up on a farm and received a common-school education, but as my parents were poor, I had to work as soon as I was old enough. I never advanced farther than the third grade. I was one of a family of eight children, consisting of six daughters and two sons.

While we were poor and had to work for a living, we always had plenty and dressed respectably. The country was prosperous, and poverty was a thing almost unheard of in the country at that time. Most everybody worked there at that time, either for themselves or for some one else, as the chief industry there was farming; and the people were happy and contented. The cost of living there then was much less than it is to-day, and the people dressed and lived much plainer then than now.

3

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

I was brought up to love and fear God and to believe in a hereafter. My parents usually attended church, and I was sent to Sunday-school and church, and always had to observe the Sabbath, as there was no manner of work practised there on the Sabbath except chores about the farms that were necessary to be done. Most of the people in that section of the country belonged to some church and usually attended it on Sunday.

I was next to the oldest of our family, and my brother next to the youngest. We bought a small farm when I was about ten years old, and I and my sisters used to work and help father all we could, as we used to raise garden truck for market. I used to work on the farm summers and go to school win- ters. As soon as I was old enough, I used to work out for some close neighbor, sometimes by the day and sometimes by the month, but my parents always got the benefit of my work until I was past twenty years old. When working away from home, I always looked forward to Sunday, as I would have a chance to go home and spend the Sabbath with my folks, and they always looked for us on that day if we were away from home. It makes me feel sad now when I look back over those happy days and think espe- cially of our dear loving mother and the anxiety she had for our welfare, and the many hard, weary days

4

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

she toiled and worked and underwent many priva- tions for us, as a loving mother will do for her fam- ily. We may not have had as nice clothes as some of our neighbors, but they were always clean and neatly mended. I always loved my mother very much and thought I was good to her, but I can look back now and see that I did not love her half as much as she did me, and I might have been much better to her. My dear mother is dead and gone many years ago, and I am glad in my heart on her account that she never lived to see me where I am to-day. My father also died since I left home.

When I was about twenty-one years old, I thought I ought to keep whatever money I earned myself, as my parents were not able to give me any- thing, and they did not object, so I worked away from home all the time then and saved all I earned. I had never been very far away from home and al- ways worked on a farm. When I was twenty-two, I think, I went to Saginaw, Mich., to work in the lumber woods, as wages were much more there.

I had been keeping company with a young lady at home and was engaged to be married. I went back home and went to work for a farmer I had worked for previous to going to Michigan. I had saved up a little money by this time and got married the next summer and went to keeping house a little time after.

5

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

My wife had worked in a cheese factory before we were married and learned how to make cheese, and as that was a great industry there and paid pretty well, we thought we would try to get a fac- tory and try cheese-making. We had no money to buy a factory, but that winter we succeeded in rent- ing one and moved there in the spring. The cheese- making was carried on only during the summer months, about six or seven months. We did not have any money left to start with, but got credit for what we needed and started out pretty well, It was an old factory we rented and pretty well run down, but we worked up a pretty good trade and had some good friends that helped us. Com- petition was keen, and a person had to under- stand the business perfectly to make a success. My wife understood it thoroughly, as she had learned with a man that was very successful, but I knew practically nothing about it. We did our own work at first and got along well, but I soon discovered there were many little tricks in the buying and many ways for the buyer to job the maker.

I will explain briefly how the cheese was mostly sold at that time. There would be a salesman for every factory, and they would meet at the most cen- tral city and had a regular cheese board of trade. The board met every week during the early sum-

6

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

mer, and after they had bought the cheese they would send out their inspectors to the factories they bought from. This would sometimes be several days after they had been sold, and often the market fluc- tuated a good deal, and if it happened to fall during the time the inspector was inspecting the cheese, he often culled them and would leave some of them on your hands or would take them at a reduced price. A maker did not like to have it get out that his cheese had been culled. That would give him a bad reputation and hurt his trade. I did not know what to do at first when an inspector culled some of our cheese, but he told me if I would weigh the cheese and knock off a pound or so on a cheese and make out two invoices, give our treasurer the short one and send him the correct one and also a copy of the short one, that he would accept them and no one would be any the wiser. I at first thought there was no harm in this, but I kept it to myself; I do not think I even told my wife.

It takes lots of patience to make cheese, and espe- cially if a person is not particular in taking the milk. The patrons will not all take good care of their milk, and it often comes to the factory tainted with some bad smell, either from the cows eating something or drinking bad water, and it often comes from the milk being kept in some filthy place, and it

7

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

takes a lot of work and time to get this out of the curd, often all day and part of the night; whereas, if you had all good, pure milk you could get through in eight or nine hours ; and I think after I had worked at the cheese-making a while I was not as particu- lar as my wife and often hurried it up to get done early. While we were bound to make a first-class cheese, we also had patrons bound to furnish first- class milk, but we did not have them bound to send any at all if they did not see fit, and as I have stated, competition was very keen, and a good many of the patrons were so situated that they could send their milk to different factories, and if we would send it home and tell them it was not good, they would often do it, and we had to take a chance on lots of milk that we ought not, especially in hot weather.

This throwing in a few pounds of cheese to the buyer by making the short invoices would seem all right, but if you did much of this you would run the average away up, and it would take too much milk to make a pound of cheese. As it takes about ten pounds of milk to make a pound of cheese, we had to keep pretty close to this to compete with other factories, and thus the only way to do this was to weigh the milk short. Still another difficulty con- fronted us, as a great many patrons weighed their milk at home, and if there was too much difference

8

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

they would kick, and so the man that did not weigh his milk at home suffered the most. We could usu- ally find this out through the man that hauled the milk. Our salesman and treasurer was on to all this, as he had been in the business a good while, and he said it was all right, and a maker hadn't ought to make up any deficiency at the price he got for mak- ing, and that they did not pay enough anyway. This man was a good friend of mine and helped me in many ways.

They used to most always contract the last two or three months' make about the middle of the sea- son, and often the market would fall, and this worked a great hardship on the maker, as the buyers were more particular. The first year we made cheese they contracted the last three months' make, and the mar- ket fell afterward, and they left several hundred dollars' worth of cheese on our hands, and I sold them to the man I rented the factory from. He failed to pay all for them, and I had to borrow about $400 to make up this, and I never got it from him, as he had sold the factory and was not worth it. I never did get it. We bought the factory after that and stayed there four years.

I just want to relate these circumstances to show the reader where I first fell and began to be dishon- est. This was the first business I had done for myself,

9

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and I was handling quite a lot of money, and it was quite a change from working for somebody on a farm sixteen or seventeen hours a day for $12 to $15 a month. As long as I stayed home with my wife and worked in the factory, I was all right, but I thought I would keep a team of horses and haul a milk route and haul away the cheese to the depot, and hire a man or girl to work in the factory to help my wife when I was not there. Then I got to buying the whey at the factory and keep- ing hogs there and feeding them, and all this took me away from home more and more all the time, and took me to the city a good deal, where I met a dif- ferent class of people from those I had been used to. I got to drinking some and spending a good deal of money and staying away from home longer than my business required, and I got mixed up in politics some, and to make a long story short, I got to liv- ing beyond my means and going in company that I was not able to keep up my end with. The patrons of our factory noticed this and talked a good deal about it, and I kept living a little faster all the time. My credit was good, and if I wanted money I could go to the bank and borrow it.

My wife did not like my being away from home so much, but she made no serious objection, but looked after things the best she could when I was

10

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

not there. For that part, she would do it better than I, because she understood it better and was more particular, and if I had attended to my business and done my work and saved the money, we would have been all right and could have saved some money. But I could not stand prosperity, and kept good horses and rigs, and lived a pretty fast life and did not deal very honestly with the patrons.

Where I made the greatest mistake of my life was in not telling my wife anything about my business transactions, or very little, and I think this was the cause of our first estrangement. I did not keep this from my dear wife because I did not love her, but I knew if she knew about how I was doing the business she would not stand for it, and would wonder what I was doing with the money. If she asked me about something I did not want to tell her, I would either tell her a falsehood or put her off some other way, and I think the truth began to dawn upon her, and she got so she did not ask me anything much about business matters at all. I thought at the time I was only saving her pain. I knew I was doing wrong, but still kept doing more to cover up what I had done, and so it was I kept on. I did not drink to excess, nor did I seem to spend any great amount of money. We made pretty good money through the summer, but nothing in the winter, and as I kept

11

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

two or three horses all the time and had to buy everything, the money got away, and after working there four years and selling the factory for about $400 more than we gave for it, I think I was some in debt yet, although most folks thought we had some money.

The way we came to sell the factory was like this : The patrons began to get dissatisfied, and the treas- urer and salesman advised me to sell, and found a buyer for me, and no doubt it was a good thing for me.

We moved from Cramahe the spring of 1892, and went to make cheese for a company at Wooler near my home. There was not as much money in this as we had been making. We had more work to do in the factory, as there was more milk to handle. I was at home more here, and as we were among my own folks I tried to lead a better life. We had an uncle who was a preacher, and we were close to his church and usually went to church. I had many good Christian friends there that gave me good advice and tried to get me to lead a better life, and I did try, but to no purpose. I only tried to keep my wicked life away from my Christian friends, and I would make some excuse to get away from home as often as pos- sible to the city or away hunting and fishing, any place to get away from home and have a little time,

12

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

as we called it. We stayed there three years, but the people did not like the way I lived, as most all the patrons were Christians, and my actions would get out.

I had some good friends that managed to keep the factory for me three years, but at the end of that time I lost it, and a friend of mine put up the money to buy a factory at Hilton, and I was to manage it and pay him back. That winter I started to build another factory a few miles from the one we bought, and this kept me away from home a good deal that winter. I stopped in a town called Brighton near where I was building the new factory. This was the beginning of my downfall. I boarded there with a man and became infatuated with his wife and she with me.

I finished this factory and moved there about the opening of the cheese-making season. There was a dear little girl born to us this spring, and thus my dear wife was no longer able to look after the cheese- making as she had formerly done, and I had to de- pend altogether on hired help. I rented a nice house in town shortly after our dear little girl was born, and lived there. I was away from home most all the time now, and when I was not at the factory I was down-town. Our once happy home had lost all at- tractions for me now, and my dear wife would often

13

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

complain and plead with me to stay at home, or at least to come home early. To make a long story short, I lived away beyond my means and was some in debt, and my credit was not so good, and as I neg- lected to look after the making of the cheese and depended all on hired help, they did not turn out any too good, and my chief prop was not able to look after this as she had formerly done.

But I managed all right until we had to settle up in the fall of 1896, and this woman and I had planned to run away together, and I had to have money to do this. I was all right at Hilton; but at Brighton I had overdrawn my account several hun- dred dollars and was still in debt, and to cover up some other misrepresentations on the books, I burned the factory I had built and got the insur- ance. I had taken from $500 to $600 worth of cheese from the storehouse at Brighton and sold it and kept the money. The factory was insured in my name and the cheese in the name of the company. In the fire everything was destroyed, and the account books of the company were de- stroyed, with the record of my debt in them. I paid up my debts with the insurance money, and had about $400 left, and I left there a month or so afterward, and this woman followed me a short time later and met me in Detroit, Mich., and we

14

MY EARLY LIFE IN ONTARIO

went to Nelson, British Columbia. We stayed there and at Pilot Bay, about twenty miles away from there, for three months or so, and I found out that she had written home and her folks knew where she was, and I bought her a ticket, and she went home, and I left there and went to Spokane, Wash. I did not hear from her after that, only in an in- direct way. I wrote to a friend of mine about six months afterward. He told me she was living with her husband again and everything was all fixed up. He also told me my wife had written to him and wanted to know if he knew where I was. He said she said some pretty hard things and said he thought it would not be best for me to come back there. I had no notion of going back, and did not let him know where I was.

I was a very miserable man and began to see the great mistake I had made, but did not know how to repair it. I thought my wife would never forgive me, and I made up my mind to begin life over again and forget the past, but alas, that was not so easy to do, but I thought that was all there was left for me to do, and I started in to do it.

15

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN I had been in Spokane a few weeks I had only $50 left, and I saw that I would have to go to work. One day I noticed a card in the window of an employment agency. It was for a man to drive a milk wagon in the Coeur d'Alene mining country for a firm of the name of Markwell Brothers. I wrote them first and then went over there the next week and got the place. This was in April, 1897.

The Markwell Brothers had a milk ranch about two miles west of Wallace — the principal town there — a place of about two thousand people. Above this the valley that all the towns were located in split, and one branch of the Cceur d'Alene River went up to Mullan on the right, and one branch on the left, that they called Canon Creek, went up to Gem and Burke. There were big lead and silver mines at all these places but Wallace, which was a kind of market- place for the district; and down below it about ten

16

UNION RULE IN THE CCEUR D'ALENES

miles there was another big mining-camp called Wardner. Gem, Burke, and Mullan each had from seven to nine hundred people living in them, and there were probably fifteen hundred in Wardner. My work was to deliver milk at Burke, the town up at the end of Canon Creek.

The country seemed to me at first a kind of gloomy place to live in, especially Canon Creek and Burke. In the first place the canon was very narrow, and the mountains on both sides were very high and steep. They went up at an angle of maybe forty per cent, and they were about a thousand feet high, so that the days in there were very short. In the summer-time the sun would go down at about four o'clock, and in the winter there wasn't more than five hours of sunlight. Of course you would see the sun on the sides of the mountains long before it came up and after it went down; but I mean real sunlight. There was very little wind there, it was so deep and narrow; and in the winter-time, when it snowed, you would notice the snow came straight down, and not on a slant as it naturally does in other places.

The first impression you got of Burke was that it never stopped. It was going day and night and Sunday. The mines worked all the time, and it was the same with the saloons and such places. They

17

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

used to say that the only way you could tell it was Sunday in Burke was that you had a chicken dinner then.

The canon was only about one hundred and fifty feet wide at the bottom, so it was hard work to squeeze in the town. There was only one street, and the two railroad companies' tracks ran up through the middle of that to the Tiger-Poorman mill. The stores sat on the south side, and had to be built out over the creek, which they had to run through a flume. On the north side they had to cut away the hills to set the buildings in. There were maybe a dozen stores, barber shops, etc., but more saloons than anything else. There were six of these, and they had all kinds of gambling lay-outs in the back rooms — such as roulette, faro, and black-jack and stud poker. Beyond the stores there came the mill, and then the sporting-houses. There were about ten of these, with a dance hall in the center, and then came the residence section, without any break. The school-house was only about a hundred feet away from the red-light district, so that the children could hear the women singing and cursing down there. There wasn't any church in the town, nor any library or theater.

As I had been brought up and lived all my life in a farming country this place struck me at first

18

UNION RULE IN THE CCEUR D'ALENES

as pretty peculiar. But of course when you get to living in a place you get used to it.

Almost the first thing that Fred Markwell asked me when I applied for the job with him was if I had ever had any trouble with labor-unions. I told him no, and I didn't know anything about unions at that time. Then he warned me whatever I might see or hear about their going not to criticize them. He said they had driven his father out of business be- cause he talked against them.

I soon found out that nobody could live in the district, and especially CafSon Creek, and do any- tlunj^jvr say anything against the unions. There were two unions there. The men who worked above ground in the mines belonged to the Knights of Labor, and all the miners belonged to the Western Federation of Miners. This last union they said really started from this section, and this was the one that ran the district. They had all the mining towns but Wardner under their control, and if any man opposed them they " ran him down the canon."

The way they did this would seem peculiar to a stranger who was not acquainted with the country. There was a miners' union in every town, and each union had a gang of men who ran the non-union men out of the district. Every miner who would not join the union was warned to get out, and if he

19

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

didn't, he was " run down the canon " ; that is, this gang of men, with masks and Winchesters, would go up to his room some night and take him down on the railroad track and march him out of the canon. When they got him out, they warned him if he came back again they would kill him. They generally marched them out in front of them with guns. Sometimes it was claimed they put a halter on their necks and led them out. Several men who wouldn't leave were killed.

The unions were so strong that they weren't sat- isfied with only driving out the " scabs," but they did the same thing with bosses or superintendents they did not like. For instance, there was the case of Mr. Whitney, who was foreman of the Frisco mill. They sent a letter to him and told him to leave the camp or he would suffer the consequences; but he did not leave. Awhile after this a gang of masked men with Winchesters went to Mr. Whitney's room in Gem one night a little before midnight and started to drive him down the canon.

I talked with a woman who saw them taking him out. They came marching down the street at Gem under the bright electric lights, and when people began sticking their heads out of the windows, she said these men with guns told them to go back in again or they would shoot them. They took Whit-

20

UNION RULE IN THE CCEUR D'ALENES

ney down the railroad, and as he was a young man and rather spirited, he tried to get away from them down a little way below Gem. There were some box- cars down there, and he thought if he could run back of these in the dark he could escape. But they shot him in the hip and left him there, and somebody else got him and took him down to the hospital at Wallace, and he died there a few days afterward when they were operating on him. Mr. Whitney's rela- tives were wealthy people, and they and the State offered $17,000 reward for the men who shot him; but nothing ever came of it, and nobody was ever arrested, though a great many people must have known who did it. Nobody in Canon Creek ever dared to testify about a thing like this. They knew if they did they would be killed themselves.

It might seem a strange thing about that coun-*/^ try that nobody was ever punished for assaults or murder like this. But after you were acquainted there it was easy to see why this was. The fact was that all the peace officers — the sheriff and constables and deputies of the peace — were elected by the unions and were in with them. The miners made up their minds whom they were going to nominate and vote for, and when they did this, they voted almost solid for their men. The peace officers, of course, always sided with the unions. And whenever a non- 21

CONFESSIONS OF, HARRY ORCHARD

union man got into the camp and got beaten up and they took him before the justices of the peace, they would fine him or send him to jail. George A. Pettibone was justice of the peace at Gem back in 1892, and used to tell how he did this.

In fact, it was difficult to convict anybody who had friends in the canon of anything, even murder. It was strange how little account they took of mur- der in that country. I think for one thing the peo- ple got used to seeing men killed in the mines. They would get blown up in blasting, so that they had to be gathered up in a sack or basket, or sometimes they would get badly hurt. The men who were killed would be taken down to Wallace and buried, and the men who were hurt would be put onto a push- car on the railroad and slid down to the Wallace hospital. When they saw them being carried out, the miners would say, " It was too bad," and then everything would go on as if nothing had hap- pened. All this seemed to make human life cheap, and, of course, almost everybody had a six-shooter, although they didn't always carry them, and there was more or less shooting. I remember there were two murders besides Whitney that I knew of while I was there. One man was acquitted, and the other one was given a year in jail.

I worked steadily on my milk route and saved

UNION RULE IN THE CCEUR D'ALENES

some money during 1897, and that fall I bought a sixteenth interest in the Hercules mine near Burke — the mine that has made Ed Boyce, the former president of the Western Federation of Miners, and his wife so wealthy. They are said to be worth nearly $1,000,000 now, and my share, if I had kept it, would be worth over $500,000. It was only a pros- pect then, and I paid $500 for my share, a part down and the rest with a note, which I was to pay off in instalments.

I became tired of my milk route, and I gave it up on Christmas, 1897. Then I went to Burke and bought a wood and coal business there. I had to borrow $150 to do this. The business was a good one, and I would have made a big living out of it, if I had attended to it, but I soon got into bad habits. There didn't seem to be much else to do for amusement. A single man board- ing in that country would have a small room, gen- erally without a stove, which was very cold in the winter, and very close and hot in the summer. So everybody went into the saloons, where it was com- fortable. I have often thought that these million- aires who were giving libraries and such things might do a good thing if they would give a little to the mining-camps just to give the men some place to go to. It was the same with me as with hundreds

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

of others. I got started going into saloons, and finally I got to gambling.

I lost so much money at this that it kept me con- tinually broke, and in the spring of 1898 I had to sell my interest in the Hercules mine in order to pay my debts. Dan Cordonia bought it of me for about $700.

In the summer of 1898 I had to take in a partner. This was a Scotchman named James McAlpin. We were in partnership until about March, 1899. I stopped gambling and tried to straighten up. But I used up so much money paying off my old debts that when we made a settlement I found I had over- drawn my account several hundred dollars, and finally I offered to sell my share of the business to McAlpin for $100 in cash. He accepted this offer, and in this way I went out of business for myself.

The last of March, 1899, I got a job through Lewis Strow, a shift boss I knew well, as a " mucker " — that is, a shoveler — in the Tiger-Poor- man mine at Burke. I had to join the miners' union right away, and then for the first time I became acquainted with the workings of this union.

p When I first came to the Coeur d'Alenes I thought

/ — as everybody outside seems to think about the Fed- eration of Miners — that the whole union was respon-

\ sible for the outrages that were committed there.

V 24

UNION RULE IN THE COEUR D'ALENES

But that is a mistake, as a great part of the men knew no more about it than I did, and I did not know anything then. This is the case everywhere, as I have found since. The miners get the credit for all the leaders do. I can count the men who were really responsible for the troubles at Burke on the fingers of my hands, and the membership of that union must have been over four hundred.

It was common talk almost from the first in the Coeur d'Alenes that there was an " inner circle " which ran the district. There were unions at Gem, Burke, Mullan, and Wardner. All these sent dele- gates to a central union — that is, a board that was supposed to govern the whole district. But the u inner circle " was supposed to be a few men that were really back of the central union, and planned all the rough work, as they did later in the Federa- tion. George Pettibone was one of these when he was there in 1892, and later Ed Boyce and L. J. Simp- kins and Marion W. Moor, who later were in the " inner circle " of the Federation. I have no doubt they got this idea for the Federation from the Coeur d'Alenes, for the Federation started just after the first fight there, and a good many of the men in the Federation " inner circle ? came from there.

Ed Boyce, who was president of the Federation for a long while in its early years, had more to do

25

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

with getting it started than any other man. He be- gan the " Boyce policy " soon after he was elected ; that is, he advised that every union man should arm himself with a rifle, because they all might have to go out and fight the capitalists before long; and that nobody in the union should join the militia. The leaders of the different unions took this up, and I have heard it advised in unions time and time again by the officers that every union man should buy a good rifle and plenty of ammunition, for the time was coming when they would need it. And no- body would join the militia. It was considered a " scab " organization run by the mine owners.

When the leaders would give this radical talk, there would always be a number who would get up and applaud very loud. A great many of these radi- cal fellows were what we called " ten-day men " — that is, the men who only worked part time and lay around the saloons the rest. A good many of these men were regular saloon " bums." The conservative men, who worked hard and had homes, did not like this policy. I have often heard them talk against it privately. But these men did not attend the meetings the way the radical ones did, and generally they could not express their thoughts very well in public ; and if they started to talk against such an idea, they would hardly get on their feet before the radi-

26

UNION RULE IN THE CGEUR D'ALENES

cal element would begin to holler " Sit down," or " Put him out," and they would get rattled and stop talking. Then nobody else would dare get up and support them after seeing what happened.

But it is true that after a while even the conserva- tive ones got to thinking that what the leaders said was probably all right. In a town like Burke you heard nothing else and had no chance to. You couldn't even read anything else. I remember the unions boycotted the Spokane Spokesman, and they passed a rule so that you had to pay $5 fine to the union if you were caught reading it. We were all anxious to, too, especially when the Spanish War was on, as this was the only daily newspaper which came into the district the same day it was printed. Now anybody gets to feeling the same way when he hears nothing about the labor question ex- cept from people who talk about the millionaire mine owners, and how pretty soon we will all get to be like the cheap laborers of Europe, and peons, and how we must defend the unions by arms if necessary, because that is the only defense we have. It was just one thing they talked, and that was war.

When you look back at it all, the trouble did start in a kind of war — that is, the fight of July 11, 1892, when the miners blew up the Gem mill and drove out the " scabs," and hired deputies, and the United

27

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

States troops came in and put the miners in the " bull pen." They always celebrated the anniver- sary of the day every year at the union cemetery at Wallace, around the graves of the miners who were killed then. This celebration really took the place of the Fourth of July in that country. The mines would all close, and the union men would go down on special trains to Wallace and march out to the cemetery. A stranger might expect some sol- emn memorial service; but if they did they would be much mistaken; for there was only talk of the most radical kind by Boyce or speakers like him. They would start by reminding the miners how cruelly and cowardly their brothers had been mur- dered. Then they would go on to say that they, too, did not know how soon such a death might come to them, if they did not prepare themselves to resist it; and the only way to prepare was to get a good gun and plenty of ammunition and be ready to fight, and not wait until the other fellow shot you down as they had your brother.

A great many of the men really did arm them- selves— with rifles when they could. I think there was quite a number of guns left over from the fight of 1892, and I know there were some shipped in. George Pettibone has told me that he sent in rifles from Denver in 1899 for the union men. He sent

28

UNION RULE IN THE COEUR D'ALENES

a hundred of them in piano boxes, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition, and addressed it to Jim Young, who was sheriff at that time, and was in deep with the unions, Then in 1898, the guns which be- longed to the militia, that had disbanded at Mul- lan, were stolen one night by masked men. The union denied having done this, but a good many of the guns showed up in the hands of union men when we made our raid on the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill in Wardner, on April 29, 1899. All these guns which the union men used were cached in places known to the union leaders, so that when the time came to use them they could be dug up and given to the men.

29

CHAPTER THREE

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

ON the morning of April 29, 1899, I got up at six o'clock, as usual, expecting to go to work in the mine. As I was going to the place where I took breakfast I was told that there would be no work at any of the mines that day, and that there was going to be a meeting at the Miners' Union Hall at seven o'clock, and that every one must attend. The first notice that anybody had of the meeting was that morning. I think the central union did not dare to give it out before, because if they had, a great many of the conservative men would have left town before they took part in what they did that day.

After breakfast I went over to the hall, and it was crowded, and in a few minutes Paul Corcoran, the secretary of the Burke union, called the meet- ing to order and began to explain the object of holding the meeting at that unusual time. He told the men that the central union had held a meeting the night before at Gem, and had decided that the

30

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

unions should go to Wardner on that day and blow up the Bunker Hill-Sullivan mine, and I think he said hang the superintendent. I am not sure whether he spoke openly of the latter, but I know that it was generally discussed in the crowd. He told about the trouble the miners' union had always had with this mine, and said that the union men at Wardner were breaking away from the union and going to work there, and that scabs who had been driven out of the camp from time to time were coming back there. So the central union had decided the only thing to do was to go down and blow up the mill and end the strike once and for all. Then he explained to us about the plans for taking posses- sion of the Northern Pacific train and going down to Wardner that morning.

While he was doing this, Mike Devy, the presi- dent of the union, came in very angry and wanted to know why he had not been notified of the meet- ing, and what it was all about. When Corcoran had explained it to him, he talked strong against it. After he had done this a good many of the conserva- tive men backed him up. Corcoran answered that they had nothing to fear. He said the governor would not do anything, because they owned him, as the district had voted solid for him. The only thing to be afraid of was the Federal Government, and that

31

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

the only thing that could make it do anything was to interfere with the United States mail, and they had plans so as not to interfere with that.

They took a vote after a while. They did this by dividing the men on either side of the hall and count- ing them, and it was very close. If it had been taken in the usual way, by raising hands, I don't think it would have been carried. A great many of the conservative men were bitter against it, and said it was a shame; yet, after they voted to go, there was not anybody who wanted to stay at home. Everybody went right out of the hall and began to get ready. We were all supposed to get a piece of white cotton and tie it around our arm, as this was the mark of the Burke union, and each one was also supposed to get some sort of a mask.

It is a peculiar thing to say, but when they were once started nobody seemed to think anything seri- ous was to be done. It was more like going on an excursion. I do not even remember myself which way I voted in the hall. When the Northern Pacific train left Wallace that morning at eight o'clock, all the telegraph wires had been cut, and when it left Burke, five or six masked men with rifles boarded the en- gine and directed the trainmen to put on extra cars. Paul Corcoran was in charge of the men who did this. The train was made up of box-cars and fiat-

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

cars, one or two passenger-cars and a baggage-car. The men got on board here, and we started down the canon. I was in one of the passenger-coaches. The train stopped at the Frisco Magazine, a mile from Gem, and about forty or fifty boxes of dyna- mite, each one of which weighed fifty pounds, were loaded in one of the box-cars, and the train then went down to Gem and stopped in front of the miners' union hall. A number of Burke men got off the train and went into the hall, where some new rifles and ammunition were distributed to them. Then they thought we would not have enough dy- namite, and they brought the train up again to the magazine, and put on forty or fifty more boxes. Then we ran back to Gem and stopped at the union hall again, and the men from Gem got on the train and we ran down to Wallace. The union men from Mullan had walked down to Wallace, which is about ten miles, and they got on the train there. We lost some time at Wallace, and then switched over on to the Oregon Railroad & Navigation track and ran on down to Wardner. They had no permission to run this train over another railroad's track, but the men in the engine compelled the engineer to do this.

The train was crowded, men sitting on top of the box-cars and crowding inside of them. While they

33

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

were going down from Gem a good many of the men put on masks, and still more after we left Wal- lace, but a great many of them did not mask at all. At Wallace Jim Young, the sheriff, and Tom Heney, former sheriff and then a deputy sheriff, got on the train at Wallace, and though I did not hear them, I was told they were advising the men on the way down to Wardner how best to do the work and not get into trouble over it. The sheriff got off in front of the crowd at Wardner and demanded that the mob should disperse and go home. Everybody knew this was a bluff, and that he really would make no attempt whatever to stop them, and they were laughing and joking about it.

When we reached the Wardner depot, where the Bunker Hill mill was, the men all jumped out of the train and got ready to attack the mill. W. F. Davis, who was a leader in the Gem union, had charge of them. The mill was about a half mile from the depot, and we got ready to attack it. Everybody supposed it was full of armed guards or militia, and Davis and the other leaders planned the attack on it. In fact Paul Corcoran had told us in the meeting that morning that there would be perhaps as many as four hundred militia at the mine, but he said we could easily whip them. The way they attacked this mill was foolish. They sent twelve men

34

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

with rifles up on the side hill to the south of the mill to fire at it and draw the fire of the guards, if there were any. Then they formed the men in line. All the unions were marked in a particular way, a piece of cotton cloth on their arms or in their buttonholes, etc. Davis and the other men started lining them up ; the men with Winchesters went first. They called out each union in turn for this; the Burke union first — " All men from Burke with long guns this way," and so on. There must have been about four hundred men with long guns. Then they lined up the men with revolvers after them. I sup- pose there were twelve hundred men in the crowd. Then they marched them right straight up to the mill, two by two. If there had been anybody in the mill they could have killed half a dozen at a time, shooting down through the line.

I didn't get into the line myself, as I waited at the depot restaurant to get something to eat. I had only a small revolver anyway and wouldn't have been any particular use. Pretty soon I heard them let loose shooting, and some of the fellows that were there with me said, " They've started at it," and we all ran out. It seems that Davis and the other men had sent the twelve men round above the mill with- out telling all of the crowd, and these men had be- gun shooting at the mill, and the crowd, thinking

35

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

they were scabs, began shooting at them. It was a queer thing to see the crowd break up and run and get behind cover when nobody had shot at them at all. The twelve men stood about three hundred yards away from the crowd, and about half the crowd began shooting at them. I could see, from where I stood at the depot, the stones and dirt fly- ing up all around them; but although there were probably two hundred people firing at them, they only hit one man named Smith. They shot him through the body, and he died right off. All he said was " I'm hurt," and fell over on his face, and the other fellows held up their hands, and the leaders told the crowd who they were, and they stopped firing.

The crowd caught a young Scotchman named John Cheyne, who was a watchman at the mill, and another man, and they told them that there was no- body in the mill. So they got ready and began to take the powder up and put it in under the mill to blow it up. About eighty or ninety of us who were at the depot, each took one of the fifty-pound boxes of the dynamite and carried it on our shoulders down to the mill. I remember even then I didn't un- derstand who those fellows on the hill were, and I said to Gus Peterson, who was carrying a box of dynamite beside me, " What do they let those scabs

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

stay there for ? They will be shooting at us and blow- ing up this dynamite before we know it." Then we left the dynamite down there and I stayed around near the mill.

While we were doing this the crowd that had cap- tured the two men shot Cheyne. I didn't see this, but as I heard it, somebody told them to hike and get out of the country, and they started to run away, and then somebody else began to holler, " Scab, scab ! " and a lot of the fellows somewhere else hol- lered, " Where, where, where ? " and began shooting at them. One of these men shot Cheyne in the hip, and grazed the lip of Rogers, the other man. Rogers ran and got away, and a woman came out and helped Cheyne and kept the men from killing him, but he died a day or two later in the hospital.

All this time the men were putting the powder into the mill, with Davis in charge. There was about forty-five hundred pounds of this, and they planned it all out, where would be the best place to put it. There was a charge on top, underneath the ore bin, where the ore comes into the mill, then there was another charge down under the tables in the middle, and then at the bottom, in the boiler room, there was the charge like what they call a lifter in a mine. Then when they got these all set they fired them with fuses so that the top would go first and the

37

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

middle next, and the bottom one last, so this would finish the job from the ground up.

When thej got the powder in the mill, they wanted volunteers to set off the fuses, and, though I was only a new hand in the mines, I was near by at the time, and I said I would set off one of them. So I went down in the boiler-room with another man, and after a while Davis came and put his head down through a trap-door, and called out to us to light our fuses, and we lighted them, and ran out of the building. We tried to go up a stairway first, but the door was locked, so we had to hurry and get out of a window, and run across a switch track, where some freight- cars were standing. Then the powder exploded and the building was blown all to pieces.

They also set fire to a big company boarding- house and the house of the superintendent and some others about the mill. I looked into the superin- tendent's house just before they set it going, and it was furnished up fine. They had thrown kerosene all over the inside and had set it off.

The men began to shout and shoot off their rifles after the mill blew up. A little while later we got on the train and started back to Wallace. I sat on the outside of a box-car. The men were all feeling pretty happy and still kept shooting their rifles. There was a big flume up the hill that carried the water to the

38

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

Bunker Hill concentrator, and they would shoot into this so as to see the water squirt out where the balls broke through into the wooden flume.

By and by there was the whistle of a locomotive down below, and the leaders stopped our train and made everybody stop firing. They said there might be troops on that train coming in from Spokane, and anyway they would very likely need the car- tridges if there was going to be any fight. This was about the only thing I heard that day about any- body coming in to trouble us. As I said, it was more like going on an excursion than anything else, and nobody seemed to be afraid of the consequences. We stopped at Wallace on the way back, but I don't remember much about that except that some of the men were drunk, though I think they had closed up the saloons before we got there. That evening I went back home and went to bed as usual without think- ing much about it.

I worked in the mine three or four days after this. There were all kinds of stories, and finally we knew the Federal troops were coming in. The men began to get out of town, most of them going over the trail to Thompson Falls, Mont.

I went down in the mine to work the morning the troops came, but I saw so few left that I had no heart to stay, so I quit and got my time. I could

39

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

not get my pay that day, so I went up on the hill on the north side of the town, as most of the snow was off there, and it was warm. There were a good many up there in the same fix I was.

About three or four o'clock the train came creep- ing up the canon loaded with Federal troops. We had made arrangements with a business man to give us a signal from his house, if it was safe for us to come down. But we got no signal, and we could see for ourselves what they were doing. They were rounding up men like a bunch of cattle, and loading them into box-cars. We sent two men down after it got dark to find out what we could. The town was all picketed with soldiers, but they managed to reach some of the houses, and learned from the women that they had arrested every man in the place, busi- ness men and all, even to the postmaster.

About fifteen or twenty of us slept in a miner's cabin that night, and part of us made up our minds we would leave the next morning for Thompson Falls. In the morning they all backed out, except Pat Dennison and myself, so he and I started about five o'clock. It was forty miles over there, and the snow was still deep. We made good headway for three or four hours, and then the sun had thawed the snow so that we would sink away down into it. But we were going down hill then, as we had crossed

40

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

the summit, and after we got down a ways the snow was all gone. We got to Thompson Falls about ten o'clock that night. We left the next morning on the three o'clock train for Missoula, Mont. When we arrived there, we found others there we knew, but we soon had to scatter from there, and we found out we had left Thompson Falls just in time, as they had sent soldiers over there to head any off that came across the range from the Cceur d'Alenes, and they did arrest some there. The soldiers that had been sent to Missoula had scab deputies with them that knew nearly everybody from that coun- try, and we left there and went up the Bitter Root Valley, and stopped there with a friend of some of the boys that were with us. There were about ten or twelve of us. We stayed there a few days, and one of the boys and myself went on up the valley about ten miles farther, as I knew a man up there who drove the milk wagon for Markwell Brothers before I took it and was running a farm there. We got him to go over to the Cceur d'Alenes, as he was acquainted there, and get our trunks and collect what money we had coming, and we worked in his place while he was gone. He told us how things were over there; that they had several hundred in the bull-pen, and were still looking for others.

We left there after he came back, and returned 41

CONFESSIONS OP HARRY ORCHARD

where we left the other boys, and later came to Mis- soula, where we stayed a few days, as the soldiers had all left, and from there we went to Butte, Mont. This was the headquarters of the Western Fed- eration of Miners, and we found hundreds of the miners there from the Coeur d'Alenes. I was taken sick going from Missoula to Butte, was sick sev- eral days after arriving there, and did not feel well all the time I was there.

I went up to the Western Federation of Miners headquarters and got a withdrawal card, so I could go into another union any time. The president, Ed Boyce, told us he wanted us all to come back to the Coeur d'Alenes as soon as the soldiers left, by all means. He said the trouble would soon blow over. I stayed in Butte about a month, and the trouble in the Coeur d'Alenes looked as though it had hardly started. They had about a thousand in the bull-pen, and about five thousand Federal troops scattered over the district, and had patrols day and night. The bull-pen was at Wardner, and they took them there from other parts of the district.

They were starting up the mines again, and had inaugurated a card system and an employment office, and all men looking for work at the mines had to go to this employment office and get a permit before they could get a job at the mines. The mine owners

42

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

of the Standard and Mammoth mines sent two rep- resentatives to Butte to hire 600 men and offered to pay the same scale of wages that had previ- ously been paid up the canon, which was the' union scale. They also wanted the Butte union to get them these men, and they would pay their fares over there and guarantee them all work. They wanted them to all have union cards and be in good standing. I was in the union hall at Butte the night this was brought before the union, and they would not have anything to do with it. They thought perhaps there might be some trick in it to get them in trouble through the permit system they had put in force in the Coeur d'Alenes, as they required every one taking out one of these permits to renounce all allegiance to the Western Federation of Miners, and make an affi- davit to that effect. Some wanted them to do that and to go, but others did not like it, as they thought there might be some catch in it. These men that came to hire them said there was no catch, but they would rather have union miners, as they had been instructed to come to Butte first, and they knew that practically all the miners in Butte belonged to the union. They said if they could not get them there they were instructed to go to Joplin, Mo., which was a non-union camp. As the Butte union would have nothing to do with the proposition, they

43

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

left for Joplin, and the next I heard from there they were sending men from there by the car-load.

I left Butte and went to Salt Lake City, stayed there a few days, and went out to Bingham, Utah, and went to work in the mines. I met a good many men that I knew from the Coeur d'Alenes, most of them going under an assumed name, for if it became known that a man was from the Coeur d'Alenes, he would have a hard time to get a job, as the Mine Owners' Association had sent out a black-list of the men that had worked in the Coeur d'Alenes the time the Bunker Hill mill was blown up and left there afterward. One of the mine superintendents that I knew in Bingham told me if it was known a man was from the Coeur d'Alenes he would have a hard time to get a job in any of the mining-camps. That was the chief reason for men changing their names. Some, no doubt, were afraid of being taken back, but it was soon known that the authorities were not looking for any one.

I worked in Bingham until the Fourth of July, and went from there to Salt Lake to spend the Fourth, as it is only twenty-four miles. There was no miners' union at Bingham at that time. I went out to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canon to work for some contractors that were sinking a shaft there, worked a couple of months, and then got in

44

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

on the contract. I worked there until Christmas, and then went back to Bingham and worked that winter. I worked in and around Salt Lake City until the next fall, and then went to San Francisco. I went up to Lake County, California, stayed that winter, took a trip from there to Los Angeles, and then went back to Salt Lake City. I drove a milk wagon there the next summer for the Keystone Dairy, went to Arizona the next winter, and worked in a mine there until about March, when I returned to Salt Lake City. I then went to Nevada and worked in the mines a short time at State line, then came back to Salt Lake again and took a short trip up into southern Idaho with a party to look at some prospects, but only stayed a short time.

During all this time I did not save any money, though I worked nearly all the time and always got the highest wages, and contracted some and made good money. I made many good resolutions, and often saved up a few hundred dollars and thought I would get into some little business for myself. When I would get away from town, as I often did, in some out-of-the-way place, I would save my money and make good resolutions; but how soon I would forget them when I would strike town and see a faro game running, or a game of poker ; my vmoney would burn my pocket. There were many other at-

45

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD tractions, and money always soon got away. I al- ways bought plenty of good clothes and lived well.

I will now relate the results of the Coeur d'Alene strike. There was martial law there for the best part of a year. I think there was only one tried, that was Paul Corcoran, secretary of the Burke union. He was sent to the penitentiary for seventeen years, and was pardoned in about that many months by a new governor. •^The fact is clear that the head officials of the I Western Federation of Miners did not have the best 1 interests of the union men in the Coeur d'Alenes at f heart. They surely must have known they could not forcibly take possession of a railroad train, and twelve or fifteen armed men run that train twenty miles and take dynamite from a magazine and de- stroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of prop- erty in broad daylight in a civilized country like this, and nothing be done about it. This was one of the best organized districts, with the exception of Wardner, that there was in the country. Mullen, Gem, and Burke, and all the mines close to these towns paid the union scale of wages and recognized the union, and all the secretary had to do to stop anybody from working that did not belong to the union was to tell the foreman at the mine, and if he went to work they would fire him; but there was

46

WE BLOW UP THE BUNKER HILL MILL

hardly anybody that attempted to go to work if he did not belong to the union. If he did not have the money to join, the secretary would take an order from him, and the company would hold the money for him and pay him pay-day. To be brief, they had everything they asked except at this one mine at Wardner, and they took this course to make them come to terms, and thus for revenge on this one mine they disrupted the best organized camps in the country; for they could not be more thoroughly organized. This strike broke up every union in the district for a good while. They have some unions organized there again now, but there is only one mine in the district, the Hercules, where a union man dare say he is a union man or attend a meeting, and hardly any of the old miners ever got work there again, except at the Hercules mine, and the man- ager of this mine was mixed up in this strike.

47

CHAPTER FOUR

I GO TO LIVE IN CRIPPLE CREEK

ABOUT the middle of July, 1902, I left Salt Lake City with Arthur Dulan for Cripple Creek, Col. On arriving in the district I stopped at Victor first. I only stayed there a few days, and then went over to Independence, and Mr. Dulan introduced me to Johnnie Neville, who ran a saloon. He was an old miner, and got hurt by a man falling on him in a stope, and so had to stop work, and went into the saloon business. Mr. Neville was a liberal and good-hearted fellow. He and I got to be quite good friends, and I boarded with him quite a while.

I will give a little account of the Cripple Creek district and its surroundings. This was then the greatest gold-producing camp in the world. It is about one hundred miles from Denver, and about thirty miles from Colorado Springs. It has three different railroads running to it, one from Flor- ence and two from Colorado Springs. The altitude is about ten thousand feet above sea level. The cli-

48

I GO TO LIVE IN CRIPPLE CREEK

mate is mild, and there is very little snow in winter. The country is not rough like most mining-camps. It is a long way to bed-rock — in some places nearly a hundred feet — so it is a pretty hard place to prospect. I think the district has a population of about thirty thousand.

Cripple Creek is the largest town, and Victor next, and there are several other smaller towns. Goldfield, Independence, Altman, and Midway are on Bull Hill. Then Elkton and Anaconda lie between Victor and Cripple Creek, and Cameron lies on the north side, at the foot of Bull Hill. There is an electric-car system all over the district, and you can ride from Cripple Creek to Victor for ten cents, and the cars run every half-hour. The steam roads also run suburban trains, so you can ride practically all over the district. It is more like living in a city than a mining-camp. They have a fine opera-house at Victor, and also one at Cripple Creek, and nearly all the good plays come there. There are good hotels. There are no company boarding-houses or stores. All work at the mines is eight hours. The wages run from $3 to $4 per day, and without an exception this is the finest mining-camp to work at that there is in the country, if not in the world. I think they employ about six thousand miners. There are hardly any foreigners there, and no Chinamen at all.

49

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

Mr. Neville introduced me to some of the mine managers, and I got a job in a few days in the Trachyte mine. I had learned to mine pretty well by this time, and ran a machine drill. I worked at the Trachyte about four months, and then had a little trouble with the engineer and quit. I got a job right away at the Hull City mine. I worked in the Hull City altogether three or four months. Then I went over to the Vindicator No. 1 with Mr. War- ren, the contractor I was working for at the Hull City. I worked for them till the strike in August, 1903.

When I was working here at the Vindicator I got to " high grading." Most of the miners were look- ing for high-grade ore or " glommings " — " some- thing good for the vest pocket," they called it. The other ore they called " company ore." 'Most all the paying mines there had more or less " high grade " in bunches. Some places in the ore chutes you would find sylvanite that was almost pure gold. There was plenty of ore that would run $2 or $3 a pound. There were two of us working alone in the stope when I started. We would put high-grade screenings be- tween our underclothes and pants legs, down where they were tucked into our shoes. I remember once of carrying out a little over fifty pounds stored away in my clothes. My partner said to me, if I fell down,

50

I GO TO LIVE IN CRIPPLE CREEK

I would not be able to get up again. Still, altogether, I did not get so much as many did. In all I must have made not to exceed $500 " high-grading " while I was in Cripple Creek.

I believe there have been hundreds of thousands of dollars taken out of these mines this way. I know of one man that it was said made about $20,000 in two years, and smaller amounts are accredited to others. There was a superintendent at Independence that some of the miners have told me they stood in with, and had to divide up with. He was a gambling fiend, and used to lose twice as much as his salary was every month gambling. There were plenty of assayers that made a business of buying stolen ore. There were four assay shops in the little town of Independence, and besides the pro- ducing mines had their own assayers. These outside assayers were mostly all there to buy high-grade ore from the miners. The miner would steal it from the mine, and when he took it to the assayer to sell it, the assayer would steal about half of it from the miner, and the miner could not say anything, and the assayer knew this. The only thing he could do was to take it to another assayer, but I never found any difference. They were all alike, and had an understanding with each other, and they would all give about the same returns. They would buy any-

51

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

thing that would run fifty cents or over a pound, and some would buy a lower grade. There were sev- eral of these assay offices blown up in Cripple Creek — once, I think, seven in one night. This was laid to the mine owners, and no doubt they had it done, thinking this would scare the assayers out, and the miners would have no place to sell the ore and would not steal it. The mine owners used to watch pretty close, and in some mines made the miners change their clothes down to their underclothes at the mines, but there was always some way to get " high grade " out.

I worked around the mines on Bull Hill about a year before the strike, spending my money as fast as I earned it. I worked pretty steadily and got good wages — $4 per day of eight hours most of the time, and the " high grade " on the side. Still I was a very unhappy man, and seemingly had no mind of my own and no purpose in life, and often wished I was dead, and often thought to end my mis- erable existence. I tried to be cheerful, and think perhaps I made a good showing on the outside, but if any human mortal could have read my inner thoughts as God can, they would have had a dif- ferent story to tell.

I often drank to stop and deaden my thoughts, for sometimes my past life would rise up before me

52

I GO TO LIVE IN CRIPPLE CREEK

as fresh as though it was but a day ago, and, try as hard as I could, I could not get it out of my mind. I would think of my dear wife and little girl, and wonder if they were still living and how they were getting along. At such times I would go to the saloon and drink to drown the sorrow, as I thought I must forget that they were anything to me. I often thought I would take a trip back there and disguise myself and see what had become of them, but I never got started. I used to go out in company some, but never enjoyed myself.

I met a lady in Cripple Creek and kept company with her a short time that spring, and asked her to marry me, and she consented. She was a widow and was keeping house; her husband was killed in the mines there a few years before. Her name was Ida Toney. I saved up a little money, and we were mar- ried. I think this was in June. I did not mean any- thing wrong to her, and thought the past dead to me, and thought if I had some place I could call home I would be more contented. I was going under an assumed name, and it was about seven years since I had heard from home. I had never met any one I knew, and as I had changed a great deal during that time, I did not think any one would recognize me.

This was a good, true little woman, and while I 53

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

might not have loved her as a man ought to love the woman he is going to make his wife, still I loved her as much as I could love any one, and thought enough of her to be good to her, and intended to take care of her welL I had worked about two months after we were married when the strike was called in August, 1903. In that short time after we were married, I had saved up a little money and bought some furniture, and had it almost paid for, and fixed up the house some. Mrs. Toney owned the house herself.

54

CHAPTER FIVE

THE BIG STRIKE OF 1903

I HAD never taken any particular interest in unions up to this time. I had never worked anywhere, since leaving Burke, Idaho, where there was a miners' union till I came to Cripple Creek. W. F. Davis and W. B. Easterly had come to me when I first went to work in the district, and asked me to join the Altman union. I knew Davis from the Coeur d'Alenes. He was the man that had command of the union men when we blew up the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill. He was president of the Altman union now, and Easterly was secretary. So after I had a pay-day I went up and joined this union. Still, I never took much interest in it till the strike.

The Cripple Creek district was considered a union district, notwithstanding there were a good many men working there that did not belong to the union, and part of the mines ran on the open-shop prin- ciple. The big mines on Bull Hill all recognized the unions, and this end practically controlled the unions

55

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

of the district. There were eight unions in the dis- trict— one miners' union at Victor, one at Cripple Creek, one at Anaconda, and one at Altman; one engineers' union at Victor, one at Cripple Creek, and one at Independence; and a mill- and smelter- men's union at Victor. These unions each selected one or two delegates, and the delegates composed the district union.

The Victor union was the largest and most con- servative. The men belonging to the Free Coinage union at Altman, where I was a member, used to often be called " the Bull Hill dynamiters." This was only the third largest miners' union in the district, but they had always had very radical leaders. Dan Mc- Ginley had been a former leader. He had been looked up to as a great man, and although dead they used to keep his memory alive by having his picture hanging in the union hall.

The Cripple Creek district was so large that the unions could not control it the same as they did the Coeur d'Alenes, and non-union men were pretty safe in big towns like Victor and Cripple Creek, but the Free Coinage union had the vicinity of Bull Hill well under their control, the same as in the Coeur d'Alenes, and there was hardly a man both working and living on Bull Hill that did not belong to some of the unions. There had been a great many men

56

THE BIG STRIKE OF 1903

beaten up and run away from there because they did not join the unions, or pay their dues, or be- cause they were suspected of being spies. The Free Coinage miners' union kept a " timber gang," as they called them, to do this work. Easterly, who was ex-secretary, and Sherman Parker, who was sec- retary when the strike came, had helped to do this kind of work before they became officers of the union. Steve Adams, Billy Aikman, " Slim " Camp- bell, H. H. McKinney, Billy Gaffney, and Ed Min- ster and others were in the gang. These men hardly ever worked and always seemed to have plenty of money, and Steve Adams has since told me they were ready for any old thing, from running men out of the district to killing them, as long as they got the money.

This strike in August, 1903, was called because the Standard mill in Colorado City discriminated against union men, and the miners at Cripple Creek were called out in order to cut off the ore supply from the Standard mill and force a settlement. The Telluride mill was also closed at Colorado City. The Portland mine was the only big mine that was not called out, as it had its own mills and granted the union's demand. There were a few smaller mines working, but only a few. One strike against the mills was called in February, and some of the miners went

57

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

out for a short time in March. Then there was a settlement for a while, but in July the mill-men were called out again, because it was claimed Mr. Mac- Neill, the manager of the Standard mill, was not keeping his agreement; and on August 10th the Cripple Creek miners went out again.

I knew this whole thing had been arranged at the Western Federation of Miners' convention at Den- ver in May and June of 1903. And while I do not think the convention acted on it officially, the leaders on the executive board and some of the local leaders in Colorado agreed to make Colorado a " slaughter ground," as W. F. Davis later expressed it to me — that is, to call out all the miners, mill-men, and smelter-men in Colorado, and force all the manage- ments to give them all an eight-hour day and a recognition of the union. Most places in the mines and mills of Colorado had the eight-hour day — though the smelter-men and the Leadville miners and perhaps some others did not. But there were many conditions which the Federation leaders did not like, and they meant to change them at this time. Hay- wood and Moyer and others of the labor leaders have told me that they took advantage of the legis- lature failing to pass an eight-hour bill after the State had voted for it the year before by such a large majority, to make all the mines, mills, and smelters,

58

THE BIG STRIKE OP 1903

where unions were organized, recognize the unions and pay the union's scale of wages all over Colorado. At the same convention, they passed a resolution allowing the head officers of the union to call a strike if they thought best to, when they wanted to sup- port another strike.

Mr. Moyer and Mr. Haywood have always denied that they had anything to do with calling this Crip- ple Creek strike, because this resolution did not take effect for six months, until after it was indorsed by the local unions. They claimed that the district union of Cripple Creek called the strike there. This is true, they did call the strike, but they were acting on advice, and you might say orders, from Moyer and Haywood. The district union in Cripple Creek was mostly composed of men that were controlled by Moyer and Haywood, and it appointed three men on the committee to see about calling the strike, and they approved of it. Sherman Parker and W. P. Davis of the Altman union were on this, and Charles Kennison of Cripple Creek, all radical men ; and the Victor union, that was the largest miners' union in the district, and was conservative, had no repre- sentative at all, while the most radical one and the next to the smallest, at Altman, had two. If this sympathetic strike had been left to a referendum vote of the miners of the district, it never would

59

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

have passed, and the men who favored this strike knew this. I never will think it is wise to call out four or five thousand men to enforce the demands of a hundred and fifty or two hundred. And I know that many quit against their will when the order came.

Some will ask, " What did they quit for? — they did not have to." There are several reasons why men quit against their will. In the first place, the unions were in the great majority, and had most of the local peace officers on their side. Men had been run out of the district and beaten up because they would not join the union, and they could not expect much protection from the local authorities, and again men did not like to be called " scabs " and to have their names, and in many instances their photographs, sent to every miners' union in the country, for miners travel around a good deal. The secretaries of the unions post up these names in the union halls, and also the photographs, if they have them. There is 'most always some one in every camp that knows these men, and many men have disappeared in mysterious ways, and others have been killed in various ways while working in the mines. These are always reported as accidents, and some of them no doubt are, but I know of some that were not, and have been told by reliable sources that many are not,

60

THE BIG STRIKE OF 1903

and I know there are many ways to get away with a man working in the mines and make it appear an accident. So, after taking all these things into consideration, one can readily understand why men quit work and go on a strike when ordered to do so by their officers.

As I have said, it was the intention of the Fed- eration leaders to call the miners out all over the State, and tie up the mines, mills, reduction works, and smelters. They called out the smelter-men at the Globe and Grant smelter works at Denver. They also tried to call out all the miners in the San Juan district, as they were well organized there, but most of the miners in this district had agreements with the mine operators and would not break them. How- ever, at Telluride they found a way around this. Most of the men went on strike for an eight-hour day for a few mill-men there, although many of the mill-men did not quit themselves, but were forced to by the closing of the mines. The Smuggler-Union miners did not strike, but they got the cooks and waiters at their boarding-houses to leave, and this gave the miners an excuse to quit, as they would not board where there were non-union cooks and waiters. Telluride was the only camp in the San Juan district where they succeeded in getting the unionists to quit work. I think they had from ten

61

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

to twelve hundred men in the miners' union at Tel- luride.

C. H. Mover, president of the Western Federa- tion, tried to get the miners out at Ouray, but they finally decided not to come out, after he had got them once to vote to do so. At Silverton the largest union in the district absolutely refused to come out. Most of the coal-miners in Colorado went on strike, too, about this time.

But, as I have stated, in Cripple Creek the men practically all quit work when ordered to do so, and there was a strike committee appointed, and there was a circular sent out from headquarters to all kinds of unions throughout the country soliciting money for a fund which they called the " eight-hour fund." And they also sent men all over the country soliciting aid for the strikers. They got up great public sympathy because the legislatures refused to pass the eight-hour bill, as they should have done when the people of the State voted so strong for it. But, as I have explained, the big strike at Cripple Creek had nothing to do with the eight-hour law, and this was the case at Telluride, so far as the miners themselves were concerned.

63

CHAPTER SIX

THE MILITIA COME TO CRIPPLE CBEEK

AT first, after the strike was called at Cripple Creek, things went on pretty orderly for two or three weeks. The sheriff was a union man be- fore he was elected, and the union men expected him to protect them. There were some non-union men brought in, and some of them were deputized, and the union men were after the sheriff to make him arrest the non-union men for carrying concealed weapons, and the mine operators were after him to disarm the union men. 'Most every one went armed, and there were several arrested on each side. If a non-union man was brought up before a justice of the peace that was a union sympathizer, he would be fined the limit, and if a union man was brought before a non-union sympathizer, he would be fined the limit. The justices were nearly all either union men or sympathizers, and they would let the union men go as light as possible, but the non-union justices did the same for their men. The mine opera- tors were after the sheriff to call upon Governor

63

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

Peabody for the militia, and the union men were after him not to, but to deputize all the men he wanted, and they would furnish them, and he was between two fires. There had been no depredations committed this time, and the strike committee as- sured the sheriff there would be none.

The last of the month there was a non-union man brought before a justice of the peace in Anaconda, named Hawkins, for carrying concealed weapons, and he was let off with a light fine or none at all, I have forgotten which. A few days afterward this justice was over at Altman one afternoon, and Ed Minster and " Slim " Campbell, of the Altman " tim- ber gang," slugged and beat him up some, and this was the real beginning of hostilities. Right after this there was an old non-union carpenter named Stewart taken out of his house at Independence at night, beaten up and shot and left for dead. This was done by the Altman " timber gang." The strike committee and union leaders were always advising the rank and file of the unions publicly to be quiet and not commit any acts of violence, but secretly they were having these things done. I did not know that then, of course. The mine operators appealed to the sheriff to call on the governor for troops, but he said he would not, as he said he was able to handle the situation.

64

THE MILITIA COME TO CRIPPLE CREEK

So the Mayor of Victor and some of the leading citizens of Victor and Cripple Creek petitioned the governor for troops, and he sent a committee to investigate, and the troops followed the next day. This was on September 4th, I think. The troops were in charge of Sherman Bell, adjutant-general of Colorado. I think there were between a thousand and twelve hundred of the State militia. They did not declare martial law at first, but the troops acted with the civil authorities.

I just want to say a word in regard to the State militia, and especially when they are mustered in on short notice. Every place I have seen them, there has always been a low, hobo element among them, and while there is, no doubt, plenty of good men, this low rowdy element always take advantage of their position and commit many disgraceful things, and the whole body are blamed for them. It is not my purpose to wrongfully criticize either party, but I want to give the facts as they occurred. There were several deputies there, working with the militia, that were men who had just recently been paroled or pardoned from the State penitentiary, and had come almost direct to Cripple Creek and been deputized. Some of these men were well known in the district, and had been sent to the penitentiary from there, and they were considered all-round bad

65

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

men, and showed no signs of reform. When I saw some of these miltia and ex-convicts going around to men's houses searching for firearms — sometimes at night after men had retired ; and I knew some of them had no respect for the privacy of the wives and families — it made me angry. This, of course, did not happen much, but it happened enough to create a very bitter feeling.

In this strike, as in most others, the real issue at stake was soon lost sight of. Especially if the militia is called upon, a strike soon narrows down to a personal enmity between the militia and the non- union men on one side, and the union men on the other. As frictions arise, as they surely will, most of the strikers forget the real cause of the strike, and although a man at first might not have been in sympathy with the strike, and might have known it was wrong, as he sees the non-union men being shipped in and herded by the militia like cattle, he forgets all about this, and he hates these men and hates the militia, and they become more and more bitter toward each other. The union men call the militia " scabs n and " scab herders," and the militia call the union men anarchists and dynamiters, and the breach widens as the strike proceeds, and it is more like two hostile armies — only the strikers know they cannot f ght in the open. After they are prod-

66

THE MILITIA COME TO CRIPPLE CREEK

ded around with a rifle and bayonet a while, they begin to think up some way to get even, and men will do things at such times, and feel justified in, that they would not think of at ordinary times.

When the militia first arrived in the Cripple Creek district, they were divided into three camps — one near Anaconda, one between Victor and Goldfield, and the other on Bull Hill between Independence and Altman. There had been no disturbance there since Stewart had been beaten up and shot, and there wasn't much for the militia to do that way at first. Their first work was to guard the mines, as fast as they got non-union men to start them up. During August there were union pickets armed with six- shooters around the mines, but there were no union pickets placed at the mines after the militia arrived. The militia patrolled the district day and night with cavalry, and there were guards stationed at all the non-union mines.

67

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

I THOUGHT at first I would not have anything to do with the strike, and I had taken no part in it up to the time the militia came. I had been " high-grading," and had a little money saved up, and had not asked for any relief from the union. A few days after the militia arrived, Johnnie Neville and myself went to Denver, and went from there over to Routt County hunting, and were gone about a month.

There had nothing unusual occurred then. But soon after we left, the militia made several arrests of men active in the union — most of them from the Bull Hill end of the district. Some of these men, whose names I remember, were Sherman Parker, W. F. Davis, W. B. Easterly, H. H. McKinney, Tom Foster, Paddy Mulaney, " Slim " Campbell, and Vic- tor Poole. The militia established a " bull-pen " at Goldfield. This was nothing like the " bull-pen " in the Cceur d'Alenes. It was a small affair. I do not think they ever had had more than twenty arrested

68

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

at once up to that time. They used a small jail at first, and afterward they built a special house. This was not over twelve by twenty feet, I should say.

We thought perhaps the strike would be settled by the time we came back from hunting, but we found out when we came out from the hills that it was far from settled, and was getting worse all the time. If I had not been married there, I would not have gone back, but I went back about the middle of October.

While we had been gone, the civil courts and the militia officers had been fighting over the union leaders they had in the " bull-pen." The judge of the district court had issued habeas corpus papers to compel the militia officers to bring these men into court and show cause for holding them. The officers were satisfied they ought to hold these men, but they knew they could not prove anything against them and did not want to take them into court. But they were finally brought into court, and the judge ordered them released or turned over to the civil authorities. The officers refused at first to do this, and the union leaders wanted the judge to have the sheriff enforce his order, and the sheriff to deputize enough men and arm them to carry it out. This would have meant much bloodshed, as it would not have been much trouble to get men to fight the militia, and the miners

69

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

had a good many arms and plenty of ammunition. But the lawyers advised the judge not to do this.

Now, nothing could have happened to suit the head officers of the union any better than this, un- less it would have been for the judge to direct the sheriff to enforce his order. This looked to the pub- lic like persecution, and as if these militia officers wanted to hold these men in the " bull-pen " just because they were union men and leaders. But finally the governor ordered the union men released, and there was no more trouble then.

After this first clash between the civil officers and the militia, things went along pretty quiet for a time. The militia released the men, and after that they and the civil officers worked more in harmony. I did not take any active part. I attended the union meetings and felt more in sympathy with them, as I, like 'most every one else, thought they were per- secuting these men because they were active union men, and I hated the militia more than I did the non-union men. But I hated them all, and felt more bitter against them all the time. Some of the militia were camped at first not more than a hundred yards from our house. There were some kids among them that did not look to be more than fifteen years old. They would be peddling ham and anything else they had to the saloons for whisky, and the better ac-

70

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

quainted they got with the people, the more officious they got. I am speaking of these things to show the reader how such bitter feelings get worked up between men at such times. There were some of the militia that lived, or had lived, in the district, and they sometimes had some old score to settle with the union men, as none of the union belonged to the militia.

During the quiet time I went to " high-grading " again in the Vindicator mine. This was a little risky, as the shaft we had to go down was only about a hundred feet from the shaft house, where some of the militia were camped; but as this shaft had no shaft house over it, we could get out of sight pretty quick. This "high-grading" was no easy job, as we had to climb down an old man-way 900 feet, where the ladders were out in some places, and then go through old stopes and drifts 2,000 or 3,000 feet, dig out our load, and pack it back. This would take us nearly all night. We would pack all the way from forty to eighty pounds. Sometimes this would not be very high grade ; we got from fifty cents to a dollar a pound for it. When it got below that, we quit.

During our trip into this mine, we discovered they had stored about a car-load of dynamite in a cross- cut on the eighth level of the mine. I met Davis, the

71

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

president of the Altman union, right after that, and, more as a joke than anything else, I said there was a car-load of powder down in the mine, and if they wanted to do anything, they could go down and blow that up. But he seemed to take it seriously, and talked about how we could do it. A few days afterward they started this mine up, as they were starting the mines as fast as they could get men. The strike leaders would report to the unions every week that the mines had only a few men, and would soon have to settle with the unions, but it was very evident that, while the mine owners might not be getting first-class men, they were getting all the men they wanted, and that they had no intention of yielding to the demands of the union.

Davis came to me a few days afterward and wanted to know if I would go down and set that powder off when the shift was at work. He said he would get " Slim " Campbell to go with me, and give me $200. After he had talked a while, he said he would have to go and get this money at Federa- tion headquarters, and it might take him three or four days after we did the job, but he would be sure to get it. He said we would have to do something to scare these " scabs " away, and scare our men and keep them in line, or the strike was lost.

Now, when Davis talked this way to me, it was 72

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

the first time I ever knew that the head officers of the Federation were responsible for the many dep- redations that had been laid to the Western Fed- eration of Miners. I did always believe that these crimes were caused by union men, as the victim was invariably some one opposed to the union, but I always supposed some hot-headed union man did these things of his own accord, and 'most all of the union men believed this, for if it had been known the strike leaders were responsible for any such violence, the union would not have tolerated it for a minute. But after Davis proposed to me to blow up the Vindicator mine, and said he would have to go to Denver to get the money for me, I then began to real- ize that the head officers must be behind these things. Now, only looking at one side of the question, and having no money — as the little I did have I depos- ited in the First National Bank of Victor, and that institution had failed and left me without a cent — the resentful feeling I had against these " scabs," who were taking our places, together with the offer of money, influenced me. I told Davis I would go down and set off the dynamite, but I would rather go alone than with " Slim " Campbell. He said if I would he would give me $200. Of course, if we set this car-load of powder off, it would blow out the whole mine and kill everybody in it.

73

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

I afterward thought I would go and ask Joe Schultz, who had been down there " high-grading " with me, and see what he thought about it. He also knew the powder was there, as we had gotten two fifty-pound boxes of it, and carried it up and sold it to some leasers we knew. After I told him about it and about the money, he said he thought we would be justified in doing it. He was a quiet, conservative fellow, but this strike had made him feel just as I did. So we got our things ready, and went down in the mine, and waited until we thought the night- shift had gone up to lunch at twelve o'clock. We had to go by the station on the shaft in the eighth level to go where the powder was. We went out pretty close to the station, and waited about ten minutes, and thought sure they had all gone up, and we knew we had to hurry, as they took only a half -hour for lunch.

We started out to the station, which was all lighted up with electric lights, and as we got close to it there was a eager there, who said, " Hurry up, boys, this is the last cage." He thought we were some of the miners at work, and had been late getting out. This so surprised us that we began to back up in the dark, as we were not masked and he might know us. But he got his light and began to follow us, and as we had our light out, we could not go very fast

74

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

in the dark, and we had to make him go back. We took a couple of shots at him, as we both had six- shooters. We did not hurt him, but he went back in a hurry, and we knew we had to get out of the mine as quick as possible, and we did not bother to look for the powder. We told, or at least I told, Davis afterward it was not there. I told him we went on across to where it was after we shot at this fellow, and they had moved it — which proved to be true, as we found out afterward they had moved it up into the magazine the first day they began work. We knew nothing about this when I told Davis, but I wanted to make out how brave we were, and they, of course, believed us, after they learned it had been moved.

But, to tell the truth about myself, I was pretty badly scared, and I think my partner was in the same fix. We had to go up a hundred feet to the stope, and then go a couple of thousand feet or so through a drift, and then go down through another old stope on the timbers, and crawl on our stomachs in some places through a narrow passage we had dug out when we were " high-grading," and climb about nine hundred feet up an old, wet man-way, where the ladders were out in some places. The militia were camped out over a hundred feet from where we came up, and the place was well lighted up with electric

75

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

lights. We came up as fast as we possibly could, and made good headway, as we knew the way well and were used to climbing out of there with a load, but still it took us about half an hour. My partner wanted me to tell them, if we were caught, that we were down counting how many machines there were running; but I told him he could do as he pleased, I was going to shoot my way out and take a chance if the shaft was guarded, as we expected it would be. I knew this was our best chance to get out, for if we waited until the next day, and we were missed, they would surely guard every possible place, al- though there were a dozen or more places we could get out. Although they had a half-hour to set guards, there were no guards at this shaft, and we came out unnoticed. After we got away so we were out of danger, the world never looked quite so large to me before, and surely kind Providence was with us, for they had every other entrance guarded, and kept them all guarded for some days, thinking we were still somewhere in the mine. I reported our experi- ence to Davis and Parker the next day.

This caused no little excitement at the mine, as the eager reported it, and none of the men would go down to work again, but all went home, and they had the sheriff and some of his men over there and kept the soldiers down in the mines for guards. After

76

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

the excitement subsided a little, the officials reported they believed the eager was lying and just made up his report, and they fired him. Whether the officials believed this or not, I do not know, or whether they just told it so the men would not be afraid to work in the mine, for a good many were quitting. But it soon died out, and many believed it was only a story gotten up by the mine operators to keep the soldiers there.

I went to Davis after this and wanted him to let me have $35. I wanted this to pay some taxes for my wife (Mrs. Toney), on some mining property she had in South Park. He said first he would see if he could get it, but he said no more about it. I then asked Sherman Parker, the secretary of the Altman union, about it, and he said he was going to Denver in a short time to get some money from the Federation headquarters, as he had to pay some others for some work they were on. He said he supposed he would have a hard time to make them dig up, as nothing had been done. He spoke of the failure they had made in blowing up the pow- der plant at Colorado Springs, and he said all the attempts they had made to pull off something had failed, and luck seemed to be against them. He said he hated to ask headquarters for more money until we pulled off something. He said if we could

77

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

have killed that fellow we shot at in the mine we could easily have gotten all the money we wanted, so I said nothing more at that time. Parker and Davis talked to me again about blowing up the Vin- dicator or the Findley mine, and wondered if we could not get some kind of a trap by the shaft, so when the cage came down with the " scabs " it would set off a bomb. But I thought this was not a good idea, for if the cage was to set it off, they might run the cage down empty — for they often did this — and so we would not get anybody. Parker came to me and told me he would give me $500 if I would fix some- thing in either mine to kill some of them so as to scare the rest and make them quit, and keep our men from going back to work, and scare outside men from com- ing in there to work. I thought this looked easy. I knew I could go down after the shift went off at night and set this, if they did not have guards in the mine.

I got Easterly, who knew all about these things, and we went up in an old vacant building, and shot a six-shooter into some giant caps to see if this would set them off, and it did. So we conceived the idea of fastening a six-shooter on the timber of the shaft at the station, and fastening a wire to the trigger of the six-shooter and to the guard rail, so that when they raised the guard rail it would pull

78

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

the trigger; we would have the powder under this buried in the dirt, and a box of giant caps right close to the muzzle of the gun. These guard rails are always raised by the men as they get out of the cage, and then lowered again to prevent any one or anything from falling into the shaft. Easterly did not go with me, because none of these active labor leaders did anything themselves, if they could help it. They always managed to be in some con- spicuous place when anything was likely to happen. I went to Schultz, who had been with me when we started to blow up the powder, and asked him if he wanted to try it again. He said no, he did not care to take another chance when there was nothing in it if it failed, and besides he was working then for some leasers. I told him I did not think I wanted anything to do with it either. I said this so he would not think I did it if it happened. I told Parker he did not want to go, and he spoke of Billy Aikman, and said he was not afraid of a little blood either. I knew this man, and asked him if he wanted to help do a little job, and he said yes, he did. I think Parker had spoken to him in the mean time. So I went and rustled some powder from Joe Craig, Mrs. Toney's brother, who was a leaser, and he thawed it out for me. I thought we ought to have a man to stay at the mouth of the shaft, or a little down in it, while

79

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

we went down and set this. So I got Billy Gaffney, and also got some more powder from him, and we went to his house, which was not far from the shaft, and got everything ready.

When the shift went off, about 2.30 in the morn- ing, we took about fifty pounds of dynamite, and went down the shaft of the Vindicator mine, and across in a drift to the main shaft No. 1. We were on the fourth level then, and we climbed down the main shaft to the sixth level, and we looked around and thought this was the seventh level. I had not worked on the seventh level of this mine, and had been off there only a time or so, and it looked to me like the seventh level. We hurried to set this as I have described, and I used my own six-shooter. Then we got out as soon as we could. This was not the same way we usually came in, but Aikman said this was the best way, and besides we thought they might be guarding our former passage or have closed it up, as it came from another property. When we came to the surface, we could not find our watcher, and we suspicioned there was something wrong, but we could not hear or see anything, and we came out unmolested. We found Gaffney later, and he said he got to coughing, and thought he had better leave. We had some turpentine which we poured along in our tracks after we started away from the mine,

80

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

so they couldn't follow us with dogs, and got home all right.

Davis came to my house the next morning before I was up and wanted to know if we had set the bomb. I told him we had, and he said there was no excite- ment about the mine. I got up about noon and went down to the house of Billy Aikman, and he had heard nothing, so we thought it must be another failure, and we watched around the mine to see if we could find out anything, but we could not see anything unusual, nor did we hear anything for a week.

During the time that elapsed between our setting the bomb and the explosion, I tried again to get some money from Davis and Parker, and the latter told me he was going to Denver in a day or two, and he would try to get some from the Federation head- quarters, but he also told me they were trying to pull something off, and if it came off it would be no trouble for him to get money. He told me they had made an attempt a night or two before to ditch the Florence and Cripple Creek train that left Mid- way for Cripple Creek at 2.30 a. m. He said their tools broke, and they had to leave the job partly finished, and that H. H. McKinney, one of the men that had made the attempt, had walked along by the place that day, and there were two men standing looking at what they had done. Parker told me they

81

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

were going to work at a different place, on one of the high banks between Victor and Cripple Creek. This early morning train carried the night-shifts of non-union miners that lived on Cripple Creek and worked on Bull Hill to and from their work. Most all of these non-union men that worked there then lived in Cripple Creek or Victor, because it was safer there for them than anywhere else.

There were a good many union men working in the Portland mine. The reader will remember that this mine was not affected at this time by the strike, and there were five or six hundred men working there, and all supposed to be union men. Some thirty or forty of these union men that were working on the night-shift lived in Cripple Creek and rode on this night train, and if they ditched this train they would be likely to kill the union men also. But a few days before they were going to ditch this train, they made arrangements for a car with the electric road, and the union miners of the Portland were supposed to ride on the electric car. Whether this arrangement was made to protect them and keep them off the steam train they were going to wreck, I do not know, as none of them ever told me and I never asked them, but I supposed that was what it was for.

When Parker told me this, we were in the union

82 o

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

hall at Victor. He told me how they intended to work the job, and said he had gotten the men some good tools in place of the ones they had broken, so he thought it would be a go all right this time, and he said, " If it comes off to-night, there will be martial law here to-morrow."

After he told me this, I felt somewhat jealous and angry. I hate to write this, but I cannot tell any- thing but the truth, and I must not try to favor myself. Yes, I was jealous to think they would go and get some one else to do an easy job like that, after I had taken such chances down in the mine, and right under the very noses of the soldiers. This looked like an easy thing to me beside what they wanted me to do, and I was angry because, after I had gone through all the worst part and taken all the chances, they should go and get some one else to do an easy job like that, and would not give me a pleasant look, or at least would not give me a few dollars. I had used my own six-shooter and rustled fifty pounds of powder, and they knew I did not have a cent. I felt pretty sore, and made up my mind right there to go to Cripple Creek and notify the railroad authorities and block their game, and quit the out- fit and expose them. I also meant to tell them about putting that trap in the Vindicator mine, for I felt sure they had found it by that time. But when we

8B

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

started to go home from Victor that night, it was snowing pretty hard, and Parker said they would not be able to pull that off to-night, and he said, " It's more hard luck, everything seems to be against us." I felt sure they would not attempt it, as they could be easily tracked in the snow, and so I did not go to Cripple Creek that night, because I thought the next day would do just as well.

The next afternoon I went to Cripple Creek. I knew one of the conductors on that road, and I talked to him on the way over and asked him who the proper authorities would be to go to, and, in fact, I told him there might be some plot to wreck the train. He said, " They did try to do something last night, did they not ? " And I said I did not know but I thought not. He said he thought they did, but he told me to go to D. C. Scott, who was their secret-service agent, and I think he introduced me to Scott. Scott's office was over the depot at Cripple Creek.

I talked with Mr. Scott and told him all the de- tails I knew, and when I had told him everything, he said he believed me. He said he was one of the two men standing by the rail when McKinney went by, and he also told me that McKinney was now under arrest, and they were looking for his partner. He also told me they had made a second attempt the

84

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

night before, and had taken the outside rail clear out; this was over between Elkton and Victor. I was surprised at this, for that was the first time I knew they had made the attempt, as I thought the snow would hinder them; but they figured on get- ting to Victor, and they could not track them in the city, as the snow would all be tracked up there. I told him I would not tell him how I knew this, at this time, at least; I told him I just happened to find it out by accident through a friend of mine. He thanked me and wanted me to come over and see him again, and I told him I would, and I intended to tell them more and quit the gang.

I will have to say that this was not from any re- morse of conscience I had. I would to God I could say it was, but I cannot, for I had no conscience, or, if any, it was seared so with sin it would not act. No, I was prompted to do this from purely a selfish and jealous standpoint, although much good might have come out of it. I would have no doubt exposed those two men as soon as I had been assured of pro- tection, if it had not been for the following incident :

I went home that night and told Mr. Scott I would come back over and see him again in a day or so, but a day or two after, I think about noon, as I was going to Victor, I heard that the Vindica- tor mine was blown up and a lot of men killed. I

85

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

went on to Victor, and in a little while word came that Charlie McCormic and " Mel " Beck, the su- perintendent and shift boss, were killed and the station on the sixth level was wrecked. Then we soon figured how the trap had been there for so long and not set off. I have before told you we intended to put this on the seventh level and thought we had until now, as we knew they were not working above the seventh level, but we made the mistake and got this on the sixth level instead of the seventh, and it happened no one got off the cage on this particular level during the time since we had set this bomb. But it seemed the superintendent and shift boss were going in on the sixth level to see about starting up some work, and they were the first to raise the guard rail, and both got killed and blown to pieces right there.

Now, when I heard this I was very sorry that I had told Scott what I had, for I thought I had to stand pat then, and I was afraid to see Scott for fear he would suspect me of knowing more than I told him, and I was afraid I would act nervous if he sent for me, which I felt sure he would, and I was nervous at first when I heard these men were killed. I had no thought of killing them ; I thought it would kill a cage-load of non-union men, as the men always went down first going on shift. I knew both McCor-

86

EXPLOSION IN THE VINDICATOR MINE

mick and Beck, and they were good fellows, and good men to work for. As I expected, Mr. Scott sent me a letter to come over to Cripple Creek, he wanted to see me right away. I felt nervous and was afraid to go for fear he would notice it. This was the first of anything like that I had been mixed up in, and I was afraid it would haunt me, and I rather wished I had not done it at first. I saw them when they took the bodies to the coroner. But I saw Davis and Parker, and they braced me up and said it was all right.

87

CHAPTER EIGHT

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

THE Vindicator explosion happened on a Sat- urday, when we were all over to Victor. Davis and I went home, and I intended to stay there that night. But after supper Davis came to my house and wanted me to go over to Victor with him to the union meeting. Davis was on the strike com- mittee, and was going over to make the weekly re- port the committee had to give every union about how the strike was going. I told him I had better not go, and that it would be better for me not to be seen with him, as they might mistrust me. He said there was no good of being afraid. He said to look at Parker ; that he was liable to be lynched for the explosion. And that was right ; I knew they were talking about it. Anyway, I got ready, and we went to the meeting. After the meeting Parker and Davis and I walked home together as far as the lower end of Independence, and I told them I was not going to be seen any more with them. I told Parker and Davis they ought to give me some money, so if I had

88

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

to hike out I could. I told them they were likely to be arrested, and I would not have a cent if I wanted to go away. Parker told me he would give me some the next day. He said it would be no trouble to get money now from headquarters. So we parted, and I went up through Independence and on home.

On Monday, the second day after, D. C. Scott, the railroad detective, sent for me to come to Crip- ple Creek, and, as much as I dreaded going, I thought it best to go and play innocent and put on a bold front. So I braced up the best I could and went over, and Scott said K. C. Sterling, the mine owners' detective, wanted to see me. Mr. Sterling came down to Scott's office, and I talked to him an hour or so, and he wanted to know if I knew any- thing about the Vindicator explosion, or if I mis- trusted any one. I told him I did not know a thing about it, and that I did not mistrust any one. I fur- ther said that I thought it must be an accident. Sterling wanted me to tell him who told me about the attempt to wreck the train, but I told him I would not.

They kept sending for me every little while after the Vindicator explosion, and I wished many times I had never said anything to them. But I knew I had to play the string through now, and I always went over when they sent for me. Mr. Scott had

89

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

given me $20 in money, and wanted me to go to work for them and they would pay me $100 a month. I told them I was a union man at heart, and did not like to double-cross those men, and I did not believe they were responsible for this Vindicator outrage. But I said I would tell them anything of importance I found out on the quiet. Of course, I never intended to tell them the truth.

There was a lot of wrangling about these men they had arrested. The militia held some of them, and some were in the county jail. Those that the militia held had no charges placed against them, and the civil courts would issue writs of habeas cor- pus, and the militia would take them into court, and when they were released would hold them; but, finally, they were all released but six of them — Parker, Davis, and Kennison, the members of the strike committee, and Steve Adams, Foster, and Mc- Kinney.

I kept pretty quiet all this time, but I was rather uneasy, for it was reported that McKinney had made a confession and had implicated Parker and others, and, in fact, Scott told me he had. I knew McKin- ney, but had never had anything to do with him, but I was afraid Parker might have told him who set the bomb in the Vindicator. I had tried to get into jail to see Parker and Davis, but the sheriff

90

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

would not let me in, and I asked Mr. Scott if he would arrange for me to get in and see the boys. He asked me what I wanted to see them for, and I told him I just wanted to say hello and give them a bottle of whisky and some cigars. So he telephoned up to the sheriff, and I went up, and he let me in ; but I could not get a chance to ask Parker or Davis anything about McKinney, because a guard was with us all the time.

I found out from Scott that Easterly had been to Denver and Pueblo, and that Frank Hangs, one of the Federation attorneys, had been in and seen McKinney and got him to make a statement. They also had a detective in to see him, and Scott wanted me to go to Denver with him and see Billy Easterly, and find out, if I could, what they got out of Mc- Kinney. This just suited me, as I thought Easterly knew Moyer and Haywood, the president and secre- tary of the Federation, and could get me some money from them. Mr. Scott got me transportation, and gave me some money to pay my expenses, and we went to Denver the next afternoon. We were not to be seen together, and we did not stop at the same hotel.

I went up to the Federation headquarters the next morning, and introduced myself, as I only knew them by sight. They said they knew me by reputa-

91

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

tion, as Easterly had told them about me. I asked them where Easterly was, and they told me he was in Pueblo, but would be back in a day or two. They wanted me to wait until he came back, and told me if I wanted any money they would give me some. I told them I had a little, and Moyer gave me $20. We did not go into any details about what had hap- pened in Cripple Creek, but only spoke of it in a general way at that time.

I went and met Mr. Scott over at his hotel, and reported to him that Easterly was in Pueblo, but they expected him back in a day or so, and he said we would wait for him. I forgot what I told him they said to me ; I made up something and told him, and I cannot remember a falsehood like I can the truth. However, Mr. Scott had to go home before Easterly came back, and he wanted me to stay until he came, and I think he gave me some more money. In all, I got not to exceed $40 from Scott, and I never got any money at all from Sterling.

Easterly came in a day or two, and we were there a few days longer together, and Moyer, Haywood, Easterly, and myself discussed the strike and the chances of the boys who were in jail. Haywood and Moyer said that was a fine job we did at the Vin- dicator. Haywood said we got two good ones, and they were the kind to get, and said a few like them

	be * ~
	"2 a fl
	fi J5 3
	co ^ £
	•> co O
K5	sac
e	'M -S C
OQ	as «;
	a ^ 1
„	^^ B
X 2	a "* £>
g	£>8 1
3	J s I
fc	ft fl ^
0 0	I 5 fi i S 1
<	1 ^ * .2 £S
w	R ^ .
Q En 2 p H SO	a-* a
	§51 c« w o
H	•* S^3
0	i-s
0	S -a ,1 FH O ""0
ps	■m fl G
3	to 3 CD -M 5?
0 N	s i b.
	W - 2
H	~ *f -fl
>	i'.j.^
	.spI 1
d	+* 9 8
	53 fa w
H	o 3 <?
	** s
	5P o .
	J Affl

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

and we would have everything our own way. He said they would rather have one of the bosses than a car-load of " scabs," for when you took away the cause you had it all. They wanted me to stay in Denver a few days and enjoy myself, and to go back and tear something loose. They said we could not get too fierce to suit them, and Haywood said he would like to have some of the tin soldiers made an example of, as none of them had been hurt. He said we could get all the money we wanted if we would keep up the night- work. They asked me how much money I wanted, and said not to take too much, as I could get more any time I needed it. I told them I wanted $300 when I went home, and in a day or so afterward Haywood gave me the $300, and I went back. He told me to be careful and not to make any show of the money. So I left them and returned to the district.

I had never said anything to the men that went with me at the Vindicator about getting any money, or at least any amount. I think I told Billy Aikman, the man that went down in the mine with me, that we would make them put up a piece of money for the job. When I got back I gave him $50, and in a few days I gave him $25 more, and in all I think I gave him $100 or more. I did not tell him how much I got or where I got it. I used to give Billy

93

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

Gaffney, the fellow we left at the mouth of the shaft, a dollar or two once in a while. I was afraid to give him any money to speak of, as he was drunk all the time when he had the price. He did not know I got any money at all. I gave most of this money to my wife to keep.

After I got back from Denver I went over to Cripple Creek and saw Mr. Scott, and told him I could not get much out of Easterly. I told him Easterly told me about seeing Mrs. McKinney at Pueblo, and some other stuff I made up. I have for- gotten just what I did tell him, but I did not tell him the truth, and after that he did not bother me much more. The fact was, Easterly was sent down to see McKinney and his wife, to brace him up and get him to go back on his confession.

I did not try to do anything for a while. Then, some time in January, I got some roofing-pitch and melted it, and took a dozen sticks of giant-powder, and tied them up in some burlap, and wound them tight with twine, and put them in a bucket, and ran this melted pitch around it, and let it get cold, and hacked it up a little, so it looked like a chunk of coal. I made a black-powder fuse and filled it full of giant-caps and bored a hole into the powder, and put this fuse in it and sealed it over so it would not be noticed. I made a couple of these — Owney Barnes

94

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

helped me do this — and I got a man to throw one of them into the coal-bunkers of the Vindicator mine. This was an old man named Dempsey. He was an old-timer, and the soldiers did not pay any attention to him, but let him go in and out as he pleased. But Billy Aikman said he was all right; he was a thor- oughbred; and that he was one of the men that shot the deputies in 1894. So Billy Aikman gave him one of these bombs, and he promised to throw it into the coal-bunkers. I don't know personally what he did do, except he called me up later that night over the telephone, when I was in Aikman's saloon, and said he had delivered those goods. He was drunk at the time, and I shut him off quick for fear he would get to talking, and I felt sore at Aikman for getting that sort of a man to do the job.

A short time after this all the men in the jail were released on bail of from $15,000 to $20,000 each, and we dared not do anything then on their account. I should say all but McKinney ; he was not released then.

Foster, Parker, and Davis went on trial together. Davis was released soon after the opening for lack of sufficient evidence, but Parker's and Foster's trials went on jointly. Foster was charged with the first attempt to wreck the train near Anaconda. McKin- ney was a witness against them, he having turned

95

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

state's evidence, and he swore that he and Foster had been hired by Parker to wreck the train, and they had made the attempt, but failed on account of breaking their tools. The prosecution had these tools, as McKinney and his wife had told them where they had been thrown, down an old shaft and into an outhouse at Foster's home.

The defense that they put up was an alibi. I don't know how many people — I think a dozen or so — swore Foster was in a saloon in Altman all the night in question, and that he was carried home drunk about seven or eight o'clock in the morning. Now, there is no doubt Foster was drunk this morning we speak of, and some of his friends had to help him home from this saloon ; but there is no doubt, either, that he wasn't in the saloon all night, but came in there after they had tried to wreck the train, and they made up a fake alibi for him. I know this because I helped to make it. While I was not a wit- ness myself, I helped to get the witnesses, and we would take them up to Frank Hangs's office in Crip- ple Creek. He and Mr. Hawkins were Parker's and Foster's attorneys. These witnesses were told what they were wanted to swear to before we took them up there, and Mr. Hangs and Mr. Hawkins went over their testimony. There were women that were told what to swear to.

96

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

That alibi was made out of whole cloth, and they made it stick, as they usually have for twelve or fif- teen years. I was to be a witness once in a case of this kind, but I didn't have to, because the case was dismissed against the man. I have often heard the union leaders laugh and tell how easy it was to get out of such things, and, as the judges in these camps are usually elected by the miners, they favor them all they can, and it is seldom that a man charged with an offense connected with the union — such as beating up a man or even murder — is ever convicted. I have often talked with Haywood about these things, and he has told me the more they ar- rested the union leaders — as long as they could clear them in the courts — the better it suited them, as this would make the public and the rank and file of the unions believe it was persecution. And the system was to get men to swear to whatever best fitted the case.

Now, after they had failed to wreck the train and Foster got drunk, McKinney reported this to Parker, and Parker suggested another man to help him, or McKinney did — I have forgotten which. Anyway, this was a man called Beckman, who was really a detective in the employ of the mine opera- tors, and he had been in the " bull-pen " with Parker, McKinney, and others when they were first thrown

97

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

in there. This man Beckman was a German, and had joined the Federation at Murray, Utah, and had his card, and after coming to Cripple Creek he went into the Victor union. Parker called him a fool Dutchman, but he had the wool pulled over their eyes all right, and they thought he was an anarchist. I guess he proposed some of these outrages to them ; anyway, he got into their confidence, and his wife belonged to the ladies' auxiliary. So McKinney and Beckman made it up to make the second attempt, and I know Parker got McKinney a spike-puller and wrench, because he told me so after the trial.

McKinney told his story at the trial, and Beck- man told all his connection with the thing, and also some things Parker had told him and sug- gested to him, and also of Parker's giving him money to leave the district just after this, and prom- ising him more. But McKinney had sworn to two statements, the one just the opposite to the other. When he was first arrested, they took him to Canon City and kept him at the penitentiary awhile, and then took him to Pueblo and kept him in jail there. During this time they did not let any one see him, and he made a confession to Scott and Sterling, and told them all, and connected Parker, Foster, and Beckman. But afterward Frank Hangs and a de- tective in the employ of James Burns, manager of

98

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

the Portland mine, got into jail to see McKinney, and induced him to deny what he had told Scott and Sterling, and Hangs dictated another statement re- futing the former confession, and he swore to that also. The reason they took Mr. Burns's detective in was that Mr. Burns had the only big mine that was open to union men, and the Federation leaders had to convince Mr. Burns that McKinney was lying and that the union did not try to wreck the train. When the trials came up, McKinney swore on the witness-stand that his first confession was right, and that the statement Hangs had dictated and he had sworn to was false.

But I have told you the methods used, and that both men and women swore that black was white and white was black, and the lawyers for the defense made it seem plain that it was a detective's job from start to finish. They killed McKinney's evidence to a certain extent by his having sworn to two state- ments, and they brought such strong evidence that Foster had not been connected with the first attempt, and the last one looked so much like a detective's job, that the jury was out only about twenty min- utes, and brought in a verdict of not guilty, and all the men that had charges against them were dis- missed.

I used to go in every day and listen to this trial, 99

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and Mr. Moyer was there, too, and I got to know him a good deal better, and I learned more about the way he felt about the strike. Now, there are a great many people who will claim that Moyer and Haywood just started this strike so they could get to handle a lot of money and take out some of it for themselves, and that they stirred up all this trouble to do that. But I do not think so myself. I know that both Moyer and Haywood were talking to the rank and file of the union to be quiet and not commit any outrages when the strike began, and I know Haywood was mad at that time because Ed Minster and " Slim " Campbell got loose and beat up Hawkins and Stewart, and gave the mine owners a chance to call in the militia. And it is only reason- able to believe this, because the mine owners wanted to get in the militia. They couldn't get non-union men to come in and work for them any other way, for if the militia did not come in, all the union men had to do was to sit there and wait, because not many of the non-union men would dare to go to work in the mines while they were there — for it was known all over the United States what the unions would do to " scabs " in these mining-camps. But after the militia came in the non-union men got to work, and then the only way to get them out of the district was to commit secret outrages; and as

100

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

time went on and the strike kept going against them, they kept growing stronger and stronger, until they didn't care whom they killed.

Mr. Moyer was a good deal worried during the McKinney trial, and particularly once when Mc- Kinney was giving his testimony, and told about Parker telling him about a fluid that would burn like fire when thrown upon or against anybody or anything. Mr. Moyer said he expected every minute to hear his name brought into it then, but for some reason the lawyers for the prosecution did not' ask McKinney anything about this ; and, of course, we told our lawyers not to ask anything, and it was only referred to slightly in the direct examination. But Moyer was very much provoked at Parker for talking and telling so much to people he did not know, and said he did not know but we ought to put him out of the way. I had asked Parker before if he had told McKinney anything about my being connected with the Vindicator explosion. He said he had not, and I was pretty sure he had not, as Scott and Sterling had told me before they knew nothing about who caused it.

Now, I did not want to do any of this busi- ness with Davis and Parker, myself, after this. And I knew, besides, that they used to hire men to com- mit these outrages, and keep about half the money

101

-/■■*■• ** rwe a

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

they collected from headquarters and not give it over to the men that did the job. Steve Adams has told me since they did this with him. So I told Mr. Moyer that whatever I did after this would be with him and Haywood, and he said he would not have anything more to do with Parker in that line himself. So after that I did business with headquarters direct. Moyer had given me $150 while he was at Cripple Creek.

Some little time before this trial there had been a convention called to meet in Denver by the State Federation of Labor. They sent out a call to every branch of the labor-unions. The real object of this was a political move, although it was not so stated at the time. I was elected one of the delegates from the Altman union to this convention, and I think nearly every branch of labor in the State was repre- sented. We met in Denver and talked over our griev- ances, especially those of the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers, the latter being coal-miners, who were also on strike. The two miners' organizations were by far the largest, and they reminded the other organizations very forcibly that it was their interest to support the miners. But the real object of the convention was to raise money for a campaign fund, and to support the strikers, and form organizations all over the State to take

102

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

in every branch of labor, and levy assessments on the members, so much a week or month, and get so well organized that we would be strong enough to say to one of the political parties, " If you don't recognize us and let us name the head of the ticket, we will run an independent ticket."

I was elected on the Ways and Means Committee, and there were men chosen to organize these clubs in every town and district in the State. We were requested to attend a meeting one night during this convention over at Western Federation headquar- ters. Mostly all that were there were Western Fed- eration men, I think about twenty. It was discussed there which would be the best policy, to try to unite with one of the old political parties or run an inde- pendent ticket. The Republican Party seemed im- possible and the Democratic was the only possible party. Some thought the latter would give us recog- nition if we got well organized, and others thought we could elect an independent labor ticket. Mr. Hay- wood said he did not think it would be advisable to run an independent ticket, but that it would be bet- ter to fuse with the Democratic Party. John M. O'Neill, the editor of the Miners9 Magazine, thought the same, and said if we ran an independent ticket it would be sure to elect Governor Peabody again. Mr. Moyer said if we did not run an independent ticket

103

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

he would vote the Socialist ticket, as he did not be- lieve there was much difference between the Demo- cratic and Republican parties, as they were both against organized labor. But there was not any talk to speak of for the support of the Socialist ticket. The meeting was pretty evenly divided when a vote was taken, and we thought the best thing to do was to go ahead and get organized, and not let it be known at present that this was purely a political move, or at least not give it out in the convention this way, as many would object to the assessment if they knew it was going to be used for a political purpose. The convention broke up harmonious, and all these committees went to work, and most of the unions levied an assessment on their members of from twenty-five cents to a dollar a month.

After the meeting we had at the Western Federa- tion headquarters, during this convention, I met George A. Pettibone. This was the first time I had met him to know him, although I knew of him. I talked freely to him and he did to me, and he told me about the Grecian fire Moyer told me about, and some other things, and wanted me to come over to his store the next day, and said he would show me something that would beat a revolver for setting off a bomb. Moyer said yes, I had better go over and see the " devil," as he called him. He used to call

104

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

Pettibdne this because he was always making ex- periments with chemicals, and Moyer said he was never so happy as when he was doing something of that kind.

So I went over, and Pettibone showed me how to mix chloride of potash and sugar together, and set it on fire with sulphuric acid, and this would set off giant-caps. He also told me about this " hell- fire," as he called it. This is made up of the follow- ing mixture : Stick phosphorus, bisulphid of carbon, benzine, alcohol, and spirits of turpentine. After this is mixed together properly, when thrown on anything with force so as to break the bottle, it will immediately be a flame of fire. I don't think they knew about this very long before this time, and Haywood told me they got the receipt out of a little book he had that was gotten out by an Irish chemist who was an anarchist. You can mix this so that it will be a longer or shorter time in taking fire.

This " hell-fire " has to be handled with care when being mixed. If it gets on your clothes or hands it will burn, and it seems to go right through cloth. Pettibone told me about getting it on his shoes, and when he began to scrub them on the floor of his cellar it started to burn all over. He told about how Marion Moor, who was on the executive board, went out on the prairie with him to learn how to mix it,

105

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and return them after the strike was over. I don't know how many were turned over. They published in the papers that there was a great number, but I think this was only a bluff. I never heard of any one that gave up his firearms, but they began to search houses again for them, and this made people very indignant.

There were a good many of the old miners in the district then, and we all were feeling pretty ugly. After the union miners had been deported from Tel- luride we organized in Cripple Creek, and especially on Bull Hill, and planned so we wouldn't be taken by surprise. We were going to blow a whistle on one of the mines for a signal, so we would not be taken by surprise. We were well armed, and the unions had quite a number of rifles shipped in. The Altman union got about forty rifles up from the Telluride union at the beginning of the strike, and a lot more from Denver. In all there must have been not less than a hundred of these anyway, mostly thirty-thirty and thirty-forty Winchesters. They distributed these arms among the men who didn't have any of their own. I know I got a rifle and a six-shooter. And there was a password, where you would say " Gold," and the answer would be " Field." And if they had tried to run the union men out at that time, there would have been more trouble than

108

MY FIRST VISIT TO HEADQUARTERS

there was when they did run them out. This was not until some months after, and at a time when most of the union leaders were out of the district attend- ing the Federation convention at Denver.

Moyer was in Victor about this time, and the militia made an attempt to arrest him, but he was secreted away at night. I did not attempt to do any- thing, as I did not want anything to do with Parker, and he said if we did anything and did not tell him there would be trouble.

109

CHAPTER NINE

HOW WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE GOVERNOR PEABODY

ABOUT this time a mob and the militia ran some more of the union men out of Telluride, Col., in the night, and forbade them to re- turn on pain of death. Moyer sent for me to come to Denver, so I got ready and went. I met Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone at Federation headquar- ters, and they wanted me to go down to the San Juan district with Moyer. They had two pump shot-guns, sawed off so they would go in our grips when they were taken down, and plenty of shells loaded with buck-shot. The reason for this was some one had told Moyer or sent him word if they caught him they would use him as they had the United Mine Workers' officers. Some of the latter had been taken off a train and beaten up and nearly killed. They laid this to the deputies the mine operators had employed.

The next night Moyer and I started for Mon- trose, where they had sent John Murphy, the Fed- eration attorney, to get an injunction from Judge

110

WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE PEABODY

Stevens against the militia and citizens of Telluride to compel them to let the union miners return to their homes peaceably and not to interfere with them. We had three six-shooters, and two shot-guns in our grips, which we left unfastened in the seats in front of us, and we sat near the middle of the car ; but no one troubled us. We arrived at Montrose and met Mr. Murphy, and he had the injunction all ready. We went on to Ouray, where most of the men were that had been deported, and the next day Moyer sent a telegram to Governor Peabody in- forming him of the injunction, and wanted to know if these men would have the protection of the militia if they returned peaceably to their homes, and he got an answer that all law-abiding citizens would be protected. Moyer said when he sent his telegram to the governor, that he had promised himself that he would never ask him for anything again, and he hated to do it, but this would be the last time. Moyer sent a few men back on the train the next morning, but they were met at a station some distance from Telluride, and forced off the train by militia and armed men, and threatened with death if they at- tempted to come into town. Sherman Bell, the ad- jutant-general, had arrived in Telluride, and martial law was declared, and Bell disregarded the order of the court in regard to the injunction,

111

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

After these men were sent back from Telluride, Mr. Moyer was angrier than ever, and he began to advise the men that they could not expect any pro- tection from the State, and the only way was to take the law in their own hands, and go back to Telluride in a body and clean out the town. There were some methods discussed as to the best way to proceed. The first thing that we thought necessary was to get concentrated at the most convenient place, and get what arms and ammunition and other material we would need. We also spoke of filling beer-kegs with dynamite, and attaching a time-fuse, and roll- ing them down the mountainside into Telluride, as the town was in a canon with high mountains on either side. Another plan spoken of by Moyer was to poison the reservoir where they got their water for Telluride with cyanide of potassium. This is easy to get around the mills where they use the cyanide process, and of course it is deadly poison and kills any one taking the least particle of it in- stantly. But Moyer only started to carry out the first of these plans when he was arrested.

After Bell disregarded the injunction, Moyer sent over to Silverton, which is thirty miles from Ouray, for Frank Schmelzer, the president of the San Juan district union. He wanted to confer with him about what to do with these men who were deported, as

112

WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE PEABODY

there were about a hundred of them stopping at the hotel at Ouray, and paying about $1 a day there, and he said the Federation could not afford that. Mr. Schmelzer came over the next day, and they talked the situation over. There were some more of these deported men over at Silverton. The final outcome of the conference was that they decided to lease one or more of the idle mines up at Red Moun- tain. This is about half-way between Ouray and Sil- verton on the divide, and not far from Telluride, I think less than twenty miles. Another man came down from Red Mountain with Schmelzer; his name was Tom Taylor. He had a partner at Red Moun- tain, and he said there were some large boarding- and lodging-houses there, and he thought there would be no trouble in renting them, as almost every- thing was silver mines around there and they were closed down on account of the low price of silver. The object of getting this out-of-the-way place was to have some place to concentrate the men and keep them together, and this place was just where they wanted them, and the lease was all a bluff. The real object was to send these men up there and arm them all, get a car or two of provisions, and send all the outlaws they could get hold of up there, too.

They were going to try to get Vincent St. John to go up there and drill these men and be their

113

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

leader, as they all knew him, and it was said they would do anything he told them or follow him any place. These men were mostly all foreigners — Aus- trians, Finns, and Italians. They thought if they could get enough men up here in this out-of-the- way place, and have them well armed, and keep them there until the snow got settled in the spring so they could walk on it, some night they could march them over the hill to Telluride and clean out the town. This was the plan, but it was not told except to a very few, and they were well satisfied with it. If we had had another day these arrangements would have been finished, and perhaps we would have been away from there.

But the morning that we might have finished up and left later in the day, before we got up, the sheriff rapped at the door and wanted to see Moyer. I was sleeping with Moyer, and we got up and dressed, and when we went out the sheriff arrested him. He said they had wired him from Telluride to hold Moyer, and that the sheriff from San Miguel County was on his way with a warrant. Moyer wired his attorneys at Denver and wanted to know if the sheriff at Ouray had any right to hold him without a warrant. I think they told him he had; anyway, he did hold him, and about noon the sheriff and two deputies arrived and took him to Telluride.

114

WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE PEABODY Moyer had given me some papers and his six-shooter before the sheriff from Telluride arrived, and the Ouray sheriff did not search him or lock him up, but let him stay in his office. The charge they ar- rested him on was desecration of the American flag. The Federation had sent out by the thousands posters imitating the American flag, with advertis- ing on them. They only arrested Moyer on this as an excuse. They took him to Telluride, and he was released on bail, but the militia rearrested him right away.

I left Ouray that night and went to Silverton with Schmelzer to escape arrest, and Moyer telephoned me from Telluride in a day or so, and wanted me to fetch his things and meet him at Durango, but be- fore we got through talking they cut us off. He was telephoning me just after he was let out on bonds, and while he was talking they cut off the connection, and the militia arrested him right afterward and held him for over three months. That was the last I saw of him for nearly a year.

I stayed at Silverton a few days, and then went back to Denver and reported to Haywood. The lawyers from Denver had gone to Telluride in the mean time, but they could not get Moyer out, as the militia held him under military necessity. A few days after he was arrested, Sheriff Rutan of Telluride

115

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

came to Denver to arrest Haywood on the same charge, but Haywood blocked his plans by getting a friend in Denver to swear out a warrant on the same charge, and a justice in Denver that was friendly to him put him in the custody of the deputy sheriff, who stayed with him all the time ; and he had his case continued from time to time.

Pettibone and Haywood decided we ought to teach them a lesson for sending Rutan up there, and Pet- tibone and I were laying for Rutan the evening he went to take the train in Denver for home. We waited in an alley off Seventeenth Street, just before you got to the depot, and Pettibone was going to hit him with some brass knuckles, and we were going to drag him into the alley and finish him. But he had seven men with him on his way to the depot, and we couldn't get him.

Haywood and Pettibone were pretty warm under the collar about this time. They said they could not get any justice in the courts, that Peabody was hold- ing Moyer down there under martial law, and that he had no right to, and the only way they knew of to get any justice was to take the law into their own hands and put Peabody out of business. So they decided then they wanted me to get away with the governor. Pettibone told me where he lived, and they wanted me to take a look around his residence and

116

WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE PEABODY

see what the chances would be to get away with him. I took a look around there, and told him I thought a man could lay alongside a stone fence in a vacant lot that was on one side of his house, and shoot him with buck-shot when he came home at night. I went and sat around the capitol building and read until I saw him, so I would know him and learn his habits, and I told Haywood I thought he could be gotten all right, but that I ought to have some one to help me. It is better to have two men on a job of this kind, so that one can watch, and of course two men could hold up the police better than one, if you had to. Besides, you get half crazy thinking of a job of this kind, when one man is alone.

Haywood said Steve Adams was the best man he knew of to go in a job of that kind, only he said he was so well known. But we thought if he came down there in the city, and did not go around in the daytime much, he might not be known. So I left there and went back to Cripple Creek, where Steve lived. I had never had anything to do with him at this time, and was only slightly acquainted with him. I went and saw him, and told him what they wanted, and he said he was ready for any old thing.

I made arrangements with Adams to come to Den- ver in a few days, and I went right back to Denver, and told Haywood and Pettibone that Adams would

117

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

be there soon. I kept a watch around the governor's place, and learned all I could about his habits, and learned he usually came home in a hack quite late at night. Adams came down to Denver in a few days, and Haywood gave him money to get some new clothes and fix himself up some, and we got rooms out of the main part of the city a little, and each got a sawed-off shot-gun from Pettibone, and kept a lookout for the governor. We had a place fixed in Pettibone's lot back of the house to hide our shot- guns after we had shot the governor, if we got a chance, as Pettibone lived only a short distance from the governor and there was a dark street we could take part of the way to get there, and Pettibone was to take the guns and clean them up and put them away.

We worked on this for some time, and never hap- pened to catch the governor coming home at night, and we conceived the idea of planting a bomb under the edge of the sidewalk, and stretching a fine wire across some vacant lots that were there, and hiding it in the grass, and setting it off by pulling the cork out of a bottle filled with acid. When the acid touched the giant-caps it would explode the bomb. We expected to pull this wire when Governor Pea- body came along there in the morning on his way to the State-house. It was his habit to walk from his

118

JAMES H. PEABODY

Ex-Governor of Colorado, whom Orchard repeatedly attempted to assassinate.

WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE PEABODY

residence to the State-house every morning between nine and ten o'clock. Adams went up to a little min- ing-camp not far from Denver to a friend he knew, and that knew about some of these outrages, and got about fifty pounds of powder and brought it back in a grip. He took it over to Pettibone's store, made a box and put the powder into it, and fixed a lid so we could bury it and leave a wire out of the ground a little, so we could attach another wire to it.

About the time we got this ready, and were going to bury it under the sidewalk some dark night, the executive board of the Western Federation of Min- ers met to make arrangements for the annual con- vention. It was now some time in May. The board were gathered in Denver and were going over the books, as the custom is, just before the convention, and Haywood stopped us from using a bomb at this time, as he thought it might be laid to some of the executive board.

We had seen Mr. Peabody coming home late at night in a hack, and one night we had our pump shot-guns all ready, and waited across the street opposite in a yard under some trees, and when we saw his carriage coming, we got out on the street, and as the carriage slowed up we followed up behind it, and were only about thirty or forty feet behind

119

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

it when they got out. We had our guns leveled at them to shoot as soon as we saw the governor. We had watched so we could tell him, and it was also quite light there. But there were only three women got out, and the carriage began to turn round, and we put our guns down quick and got on the side- walk and started down the street. The carriage driver let his horses walk and kept looking at us, and the women kept watching us too, and stood on the porch as far as we could see them. We took the first cross street and got out of sight as quickly as possible. We noticed the next day in the papers that the governor had gone out to Fort Logan with some military men and did not return till the next day.

However, Haywood said he had been studying up, and had come to the conclusion that Dave Moffat was behind the whole thing, and that Governor Pea- body was often closeted with him in Moffat's private office, and he said Mr. Moffat had been mixed up in the Leadville strike some years ago, and he wanted us to leave off Peabody and see if we could not get Moffat. We went to watching Mr. Moffat's habits, but we could not get much track of him. We knew where his residence was, but we could never see him coming or going from it, and we worked along on this for some time without ever being able to see

120

WE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE PEABODY

Mr. Moffat around his house. Haywood would tell us when he was in the city, as he did his banking at Mr. Moffat's bank, and was there every day, and while he said he hardly ever saw Mr. Moffat, he could always tell when he was there, as he always kept a guard at the door of his private office. Hay- wood furnished us with money all this time.

121

CHAPTER TEN

THE SHOOTING OF !LYTE GREGORY BEFORE THE CONVENTION

THE executive board had met and were having a pretty stormy time, and James Murphy from Butte would not sign the emergency bill — that is, for the expenditures out of the emergency fund. During one of their sessions it was reported by Foster Milburn, a Federation man from Idaho Springs, that Lyte Gregory — who had been a de- tective in the Idaho Springs labor troubles, and had been a deputy and a leader of the deputies in a strike down in the Southern coal-fields, several depredations being laid at his door — was in the city, and that Milburn met him the morning he arrived in Denver. Milburn told Pettibone about him, and Pettibone went over to the Federation headquarters, where the executive board was in session, and told them about Gregory, and they said there ought to be something done with him. That afternoon Petti- bone saw Adams, and wanted him to go out with him that night, and take Gregory and mutilate him,

122

THE SHOOTING OF LYTE GREGORY

as they claimed he had helped do that to an old man down in the coal-fields. And a little later they saw me and told me about it, and wanted to know if I would go along, and we fixed up to go.

We three — Pettibone, Adams, and myself — all went over on Curtis Street, where Gregory, Milburn, and another man were in the back part of a saloon talking, and we went in and got a drink, and saw them, so we would know them. Then we came out and stood across the street in front of the St. James Hotel, where we could see them when they came out. Milburn understood what we were going to do, and stayed with them to find out where they were going, and while we stood there watching for them, Petti- bone made an excuse to go some place, and said he would be back in a few minutes. But while he was gone they all three came out, and Gregory and this other man took a street-car. Adams and I took the same car, and followed them when they got off. They went down to a saloon on Santa Fe, near Tenth Street South, and Milburn came out on the next car. He had been up to see some men in the Granite Block, where a good many men we knew were, so he could establish an alibi. The man that came with Gregory was also from Idaho Springs, and ran a poker game in the saloon they went to. After Mil- burn came he told us all about this. Gregory and

123

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

some others sat down in the main saloon and went to playing cards, and we thought we would give up our former plan and kill him outright.

It was now about ten o'clock at night. I went out to our room two or three miles away, and left the rest watching him. We were going to shoot him through the window of the saloon as he sat at the table. I got a sawed-off shot-gun, and brought it back in pieces under my coat. But when I got back with the gun, they had moved into a little room in the back part of the saloon, and we could not see them, though we could hear them from the street through a window. But this window had the blinds so closely drawn that we could not see them. I went in once and bought a bottle of beer, to see if I could see where they were, but the door was closed, and I could see nothing, and we concluded to wait until Gregory came out.

A little after twelve o'clock he came out and started up the street alone, and we three followed him. We had to cross the street to get on the same side he was on. In doing this we ran into some wires stretched on the outside of the sidewalk to protect the lawns, and when we stumbled into these we at- tracted his attention, and he started to reach for his gun and back up toward the fence. When he did this, I shot him three times in quick succession be-

1M

THE SHOOTING OF LYTE GREGORY

fore he fell, and then ran down the alley, as we were just opposite it. We separated as soon as we got out of the alley. I discharged another shell acciden- tally, before we got out of the alley, in taking the shells out of the gun. All the shooting, including this, took place within a minute or so, and we saw no one and no one seemed to be following us.

I took the gun down and put it under my coat, and we made our way to Pettibone's house — that is, Adams and I. Milburn went by himself. We left the shot-gun at Pettibone's in the place that had been previously arranged while we were working on the governor, and we went on to our room on Downing Avenue. Adams and I put some turpentine on our shoes, so they couldn't follow us with dogs. They did try to follow us the next day with some blood- hounds they got from Pueblo, but they went just the opposite direction from the way we went.

The next morning the papers had the account of the murder in them. We did not go down-town until the afternoon, and then went to the Granite Block to Jack Simpkins's and Kirwan's room, they both being members of the executive board. This was Sunday and the board was not in session. Haywood and Pettibone came up there a little while later, and Haywood, Pettibone, Simpkins, Adams, and myself talked over the murder, and they told us that we

125

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

did a fine job. Haywood said he had run across Arm- strong, the sheriff and chief of police in Denver, and he said Armstrong said that whoever " bumped off " Gregory had done a good job, and that his men would not look very much for any one. Haywood said the detectives had had Milburn over and had questioned him, but did not arrest him, though they told him they wanted to see him again. He said Mil- burn was a cool, level-headed fellow, and that he had given an account of where he went after leaving Gregory at the saloon on Curtis Street, and they had gone and seen these parties that he was with, and they had told the same story. I don't know, but I think this had been previously arranged. They had Milburn up a time or two afterward and questioned him, but did not arrest him. There was a lot of news- paper talk about this, but that was all; there was never any one arrested for it.

Haywood told me some time afterward that some of the members of the executive board were up at the office the next morning after this happened, and Simpkins took the paper with an account of this murder in and handed it to Murphy, and that Mur- phy looked at the head-lines, and put the paper behind him and would not read it. I don't know whether it was before or after this — but I think it was after — that they handed Murphy the emergency

126

THE SHOOTING OF LYTE GREGORY

bill and told him to sign his name the first one. I think at first he refused, and Haywood told him that he (Murphy) would sign it, and say that he liked it. This was the bill that Murphy had refused to sign, but Haywood told me that he signed it and they had no more trouble with him; Haywood said if he had not signed it he would not have left the room alive, and he said he guessed he thought of Gregory.

A short time after this Adams got on a drunk, and some of his friends sent him back to Cripple Creek. Then the annual Federation convention met. I attended this most of the time, and they had a pretty stormy session. Many of the delegates were dissatisfied with the strikes that had been called and the large amount of money that had been spent — nearly half a million dollars — and they were talking of electing new officers. James Murphy, the repre- sentative on the executive board from Butte, had been down to Telluride and had seen Moyer in the " bull-pen " there, and it was said that Moyer had made some deal with Butte and was going to turn Haywood down, and it was thought there was going to be a split and some of the districts would with- draw from the Federation.

Moyer always seemed to be jealous of Haywood, and he had some reason to be, as Haywood always seemed to run the office. And when Moyer was in

127

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

jail at Telluride their relations became more strained than ever. Moyer used to send what letters or other business he had connected with the Federation to his wife, and had her get Copley of the executive board to attend to them. This made Haywood pretty angry. It was also reported that Moyer had shown the military officers at Telluride great respect. This also made Haywood angry, and when Murphy went down to see Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone thought there was some job being worked up by Moyer and Murphy to oust Haywood ; and Pettibone and Hay- wood thought Moyer was weakening, and we talked of putting him out of the way. After Moyer got out, he explained that the reason he was so friendly to the militia officers was that he was sick and thought they would use him better. But he and Haywood were not very good friends afterward. Moyer was in jail over three months, and when he came back to the office again after he was released from the " bull-pen," Haywood and he just spoke to each other, as if he had only been out a day.

128

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOW WE BLEW UP THE INDEPENDENCE DEPOT DURING THE CONVENTION

THEN W. F. Davis, Parker, and Pettibone wanted me to go to Cripple Creek and pull off something, and stir up the delegates, so they would quit this quarreling, and be united, and finish up their business and go home. The different factions were having their little meetings nights. During this wrangle Pettibone, Davis, and Parker said I had better go to Cripple Creek and blow up something, as that would not only unite the conven- tion, but if it happened when all the union leaders were out of the district, they would not know who to lay it to. I told them it would not be much trouble to blow up the Independence depot. We had talked of this before. The idea was to get the night shifts of non-union miners that got on the £.30 train there every morning. They said that would be all right. Haywood said he did not want me to get mixed up in a job like that, and wanted me to get some one else to do it, as he said he had some heavier

129

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

work for me to do. He said as I had never had my name mixed up with the Federation, and they had never suspected me, I could do this work better than some one that had been written up in the papers in connection with some of this work. I told him I would not get mixed up ; that I would get some one else to do it, or I would set it off with an alarm-clock.

Pettibone was doorkeeper at the convention hall, and Parker, Davis, Pettibone, and myself were talking this over, and they wanted me to go up to the district that afternoon. The convention had just assembled after lunch, and Haywood came in while we were talk- ing, and we asked him about it, and he said no doubt it would be a good thing, and that anything went with him. He gave me some money, and told me to be sure and not get mixed up myself.

I bought an alarm-clock and went to Cripple Creek that afternoon.

I went and asked Billy Aikman if he wanted to help do a little job. He told me he did not see how he could get away, as he had bought a half-interest in a saloon at Independence and was tending bar nights, and he thought he might be missed if he wasn't there. I did not tell him what we were going to do. Then I went and told Adams they wanted a little job done, and he said all right, he was ready for any old thing, or words to that effect. I told Billy Easterly what

130

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

we were going to do, and he said all right, if we wanted any help he would help us. I went and saw Floyd Miller, where he was working on a lease, and asked him if he would get me a hundred pounds of powder and two boxes of giant-caps. He said he would, and I gave him the money to get them.

I got Adams and went over that night after the powder, where Miller said he would leave it, but it was not there. Adams and I went over to see Miller the next day, and Miller said they did not deliver it, but that he had ordered it and thought it would be up sure that day. We went over that night, and car- ried it over to Independence, and hid it in an old cellar in the back of a cabin that Adams had a key to. I think this was on Thursday evening, and we intended to use the powder on Saturday night.

A good while before this, Johnnie Neville and my- self had planned to go out on a camping and hunting trip, and as his saloon had not paid him since the strike, he said he would close it up, and I said to him that he had better burn it up. So he got the sa- loon insured after this, and we took out some of the liquor and buried it in a dump. So when I went to Cripple Creek to get Steve Adams to go after Gov- ernor Peabody, we set the saloon on fire. I took five bottles of the Grecian fire and poured it round in the upper rooms of the saloon, and shut the doors and

131

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

went away. I got these bottles in the dump by Eas- terly's cabin. He told me where they were when I saw him in Denver. The saloon was all in flames a short time later, and no one could get near it, and it burned up completely.

Now, after Adams and I had fixed up everything to blow up the depot, I thought it would be a good plan to go off with Johnnie Neville on this camping trip. I figured it would be a good thing for me to go away from there in the daytime with him, and then come back at night on horseback and do the job; and as Neville had a good reputation and was well thought of, I took advantage of the saloon fire and thought he dare not go back on me. Neville wanted to go with me, and we looked around for a team and wagon, as we intended to drive through the country. We bought a team and wagon from Joe Adams, Steve's brother. We got all ready and intended to leave on Saturday, and I intended to come back on horseback Saturday night and blow up the depot and ride back to where we camped.

But Friday evening Billy Easterly came to my house and told me Parker was up from Denver and wanted to see me. I went down to Parker's house in Independence, and he told me the convention had ap- pointed a committee to come up and investigate the strike, and to see the mine operators' representative

132

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

and get both sides of the story. The Haywood faction did not want this committee appointed, and after it was appointed Parker said they did not want them to come up alone, and they decided to have him come with them. I told them we were all ready, and intended to finish the job Saturday night, but he wanted us to wait, until they got away. He said they would hang him if anything like that happened when he was there, but he said if it was going to make any particular difference to go ahead, and he would take his chances, and would rather like to catch this committee up there, so they would get a touch of high life. I told him we would wait until they left, so Parker and this com- mittee went and had a conference with the secretary of the mine operators, and the committee were favor- able to some kind of a settlement.

Now, Haywood and the strike committee and some, if not all, of the executive board did not want this committee to make any settlement or interfere with the strike, and Haywood said they had spent too much money to let them settle with any one else, and that when they wanted to settle they would have to come to them. Malcolm Gillis from Butte was on this com- mittee, one man from Wyoming, and one from British Columbia. The Haywood faction were sore at Gillis, and said he was chairman of the Republican State Central Committee of Montana and stood in with

133

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

the mine operators. The fact was that Gillis was a bright and, I think, reasonable man, and they were afraid he would open the way for settlement, and they would have no hand in it, and lose the glory.

After the conference with the secretary of the mine operators, the committee made some further inquiry about the district, and visited the union at Victor Saturday evening, and left Sunday for Denver. Sun- day evening, Neville and I and his little boy Charlie left Independence with a team and wagon, and drove down the road toward Colorado Springs a few miles — I think six or eight miles — and camped for the night. I told Neville I intended to go back and do a little work that night. I told him I would make some excuse before Charlie, and if anything happened that I was ever mistrusted, I was supposed to be there all night with them. I had gotten a saddle from Tom Foster before I left, and had made arrangements with Adams to meet me where we left the dynamite.

A little after dark, I saddled one of the horses and rode back within a mile of the depot, and tied my horse in some bushes, and walked the rest of the way to the cabin, and found Adams already there. This was about ten o'clock. He had a candle, and we stayed in there about an hour, making a little wooden wind- lass to set off the dynamite with. We fastened two little vials on the cross-piece of this with a strip of

134

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

leather, so when you pulled on the windlass these bot- tles would turn over and spill sulphuric acid on the giant-caps we had put in the powder.

About eleven o'clock, when 'most everybody around there had gone to bed, we took the two fifty-pound boxes of powder with us and went over to the depot. This depot had been closed for some time, and they kept no operator there, though the train stopped there for people to get on and off. The depot was built on a side-hill, with a long platform in front of it. We walked under this platform, and I crawled under where the plank came right close to the ground. I dug away a little place in there, and buried the two boxes of dynamite in the ground close up to the planks, put in the giant-caps and set up the wind- lass on one of the boxes, and filled the two little bot- tles with sulphuric acid from another bottle I had it in. This was ticklish business, as it was very dark in there, and I had to fill these little bottles without see- ing them ; and though I kept a pasteboard over the giant-caps and the dynamite while I was filling this, yet a drop of the acid would have set the whole thing off. We had a mixture of sugar and potash on the caps, too, that the acid would set fire to immediately.

Then we stretched a wire out from the windlass about two hundred feet on to a spur track, and tied a chair-rung to the end of it. We went back to an

135

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

old ore-house beside the spur track, and waited. It had been dark and lowery that night, but about two o'clock it began to lighten up. We were a good deal put out by this, as there was a small moon and it got quite light. The train we were waiting for came in every evening about 2.30, and it generally was on the dot. We heard the men come on the platform talking, and finally we heard the train. Then we got down to the end of our wire and took hold of the chair-rung, and when the train was within about a hundred feet of the depot, we each had a hold of one end of this chair-rung which the wire was attached to, and pulled it and kept right on going. We intended to take the wire with us, but forgot that part, as the rocks and debris were falling around us pretty thick, although neither of us got hurt. I do not know how many men were on the platform at the time, but I think there were thirteen killed outright and some others were maimed and crippled for life.

We ran as fast as we could, and soon got up on the railroad and followed it around nearly to the old Victor mine on the north side of Bull Hill, and then separated. Adams went on around to Midway, where he lived, and I went down to where I left my horse, on the Colorado Springs road, and rode back to our camp as fast as possible, and got there just at daybreak.

136

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

Mr. Neville and Charlie were awake, and I crawled up in the wagon and went to sleep for a while, or at least tried to sleep.

Mr. Neville asked me what we had blown up. I told him nothing at first, or put him off with some evasive answer. He said there were two reports and they shook the ground there. He then asked me if it was the Find- lay mine ; I told him I was not there, and this was rea- sonable enough for him to believe, for the explosion was at £.30 and it was only a few minutes after three when I got to the camp. But it was all down grade and my horse was cold standing so long — for it was a cold night for that time of year, with a frost — and I ran him most of the way at full speed, only slacking a couple of times close to two houses, so they would not hear the horse running.

We got our breakfast and started on down the road toward Colorado Springs about eight o'clock. We did not meet or see any one who said anything to us until about four o'clock in the afternoon, when we got close to Colorado Springs, and a man asked us if we were from Cripple Creek. We told him we were, and he asked when we left, and we told him the day before, and he began to tell us about the explosion, and said there were sixty men killed and several hurt, and the depot was blown to atoms, and some of the people living close by were thrown from

137

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

their beds. This startled Mr. Neville and Charlie, as Neville's house was only about a hundred yards from the depot, and I had to tell him I knew his folks were not hurt. I did not let Charlie hear me tell his father this, but I told him I was not more than a hundred feet from it when the explosion occurred, and this somewhat pacified him. When we got to Colorado Springs we got some later papers and found that the first reports were exaggerated and that none of the people living around the depot were seriously hurt, and we bought some things in the city that we needed, and went on about four miles beyond the Springs and camped that night. The next morning I walked back a ways until I reached a street-car line, and went into the city and got the morning papers and came back. We found in the paper where a piece of plank had gone through the roof of Mr. Neville's house, and a sliver had struck Mrs. Neville on the breast while she was in bed, but had not seriously hurt her. This re- lieved me a whole lot, for I realized my position if any of his family had been hurt.

We started on again, and drove a few miles beyond Palmer Lake, and camped the next night, and the next afternoon we reached the suburbs of Denver and got a little barn to put our horses and wagon in. It was only a little way from the end of the street-car line, and after we put our horses up, we took the car

138

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

and went into the city. We got there a little before dark.

I left Mr. Neville and started to go to Jack Simp- kins' s room in the Granite Block. I met Simpkins on the street, and we went up to this room together, and Kirwan was there, and a little later Haywood and Pettibone came in, and while we were talking Steve Adams came in. Kirwan did not take any part in the conversation; I think he left the room soon after Simpkins and I came up. They were all greatly pleased with the job, and they said it was the only thing that ever saved the Federation from being split up. They said every delegate there wanted to get through as soon as possible, and there was no more kicking and no more new candidates for office, as no one wanted the offices, but wanted to get away as soon as possible for fear something would fall. They told us everything was on fire up in the district, or words to that effect, and they had declared martial law and had established a " bull-pen," and were deporting men, but still they did not think anything of this. They were well pleased to think they had all been elected again, except one member of the board, and they did not want him. They said the dogs had fol- lowed my trail several miles down the canon, but Haywood said he did not think they were on to any- thing. Adams had stayed home and the next day went

139

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

over to Cripple Creek, and his friends advised him to leave the district, and Monday night after dark he started to walk to South Park, and he caught the train there and came in to Denver. He did not leave any too soon, for that night or the next day, I have forgotten which, there was a mob of about a hundred men came to his house, and if they had found him there is no doubt but they would have lynched him, as he had the name of being a dyna- miter.

Haywood and the others asked us what we intended to do, and I told him I was going up through Wy- oming on a prospecting and pleasure trip. He asked us how much money we wanted, and said it would be better for us not to take it all now or all we expected. Adams told him he wanted $200 now, and he said he was going to send for his wife, and I don't think he said what he intended to do — if he knew. I told Haywood I wanted $300 anyway then. Next day I got the $300 from Pettibone, and Mr. Neville and I bought a tent and some other things we needed, and I think after we were there three or four days we got our team and started for Cheyenne, Wyo. I think we were four or five days going to Cheyenne. We put our horses up there and intended to let them rest a day or so.

We went to Pat Moran's saloon, as he was an old 140

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

friend of Pettibone's, and he told me he was all right and to go to see him if we stopped at Cheyenne. The first night we got in Cheyenne we were at his saloon, and he handed us a paper with our names and good description of us, stating we were wanted in connection with the Independence explosion. I showed it to Johnnie, and he wanted to go and put a piece in the paper telling them where we were, if they wanted us. I told him to wait a while and we would think it over. This piece also stated we were either going to Wyoming or New Mexico, and would probably en- gage in stock-raising, and that we had taken a good supply of provisions, and were heavily armed with the latest improved firearms. I thought the proposi- tion over that night, and W. F. Davis and D. C. Copley came into Cheyenne that night on a late train, and said they were making their get-away, as the Cripple Creek authorities were hunting them, and they told me how they were throwing all suspects in the " bull-pen," and deporting all the union men, and had closed up all the union stores, and forbade any of the grocers from selling anything to the union men's families. I did not know hardly what to do. Mr. Neville still wanted me to go on with him, and said he would see me through, and that they could not prove anything against us. I was sure they could not prove anything if he stood pat, but I was afraid

141

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

they might arrest us and get at little Charlie, who was only fourteen years old, and make him tell that I was away nearly all night the first night we camped out after leaving Cripple Creek.

We had a good outfit, and I wanted to go on this trip, and we were going to try to get into a saloon somewhere in a good lively town ; we thought of Cody. I knew I could get money enough from Haywood to start up, and Neville was a good saloon man, and also had some money. I thought he would stay by me on account of what happened between us, for I knew he would not have it known about setting his saloon afire for the world, and he told me it was the first crime he had ever committed in his life. I feel that I ought not to write this now, that is, I hate to men- tion his name, as he is dead and gone, poor fellow, and I want to say that I do not think Neville would ever have thought of doing what he did with his saloon if I had not set him up to it, and agreed to help him; and if it had not been for that I would never have taken him into my confidence. I knew he had a good reputation, and his word would be taken, and I was sure he would die before he would have it known that we burned up his saloon. I have no doubt but this sent him to an early grave — if he died a natural death.

Davis urged me to quit the wagon and Neville, and 142

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

for him and I to go to the coast for a while, and he said this would soon blow over. I did not like Davis much, and then I knew he was well known, and had been mixed up in so many strikes that he looked like bad company for me to be traveling with, and he had used me pretty small when I was broke in Cripple Creek. Now I had or could get a little money, and he had only about $100, and I thought I would have to keep him, and he would not have much left after he paid his fare to the coast. I asked Pat Moran if he would go to Denver for me and take a letter to Pettibone, and he said he would, as he wanted to go to Denver anyway. I gave him a letter to Pettibone, and gave him $10 to pay his expenses. I told Petti- bone in the letter to see Haywood and get me $500 and send it to me by Pat Moran. I told him I thought I would go to Los Angeles, and while there would go out and look at the ranch that Johnnie Neville had near San Diego. We had talked this over before, and Pettibone, Haywood, and Mover said they would put up the money to buy his ranch, if it suited, and if it did not to get one that did.

Pettibone sent me the $500, and wrote me a let- ter to go down to Los Angeles and San Diego and look over that country and hunt up a small place near the Mexican line, and he would see that I got the money to buy it, and he said we would have

143

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

it for a rendezvous and a hiding-place to send any one we wanted to. He said if we were close to the Mexican line we could do a little smuggling, and also get across the line quick. I had told him in the letter that Davis was there and wanted to go with me, but he told me to go alone, and if I wanted any one he would be a pretty good one for me himself. Moran returned the same night and gave me Pettibone's letter and the package with the money in it. I think he stated that the newspapers said they were looking for me, but, as he thought I was going to Los An- geles, he did not warn me to keep out of the way, and I did intend to go there when I wrote him. I told Johnnie Neville where I intended to go, and he wanted me to recommend them to buy his ranch down there if I went.

I thought this all over, and thought if his ranch did not suit, which I had reason to believe it would not, as it was in that dry belt and no water — and we did not buy it — but we got a place anywhere around that country, so that he would know where we were, he would not perhaps feel very friendly toward us and might divulge our whereabouts. As he wanted me to stay with him for the time, and said he would go to California with me later on, I thought it might be better for me to stay with him and keep on the right side of him ; and so I decided not to go to Cali-

144

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

fornia for the present, but to go on with him on our trip.

We left Cheyenne and drove up on Crow Creek, and camped there two or three days, and Pat Moran and Davis came up there and stopped a day or so with us and fished, and Davis wanted to go with us on the trip, but I told him there was no room in the wagon, as we were already crowded. They left us and we went on to Laramie. We just stopped there a little while and got shaved, and got a few little things we needed, and inquired the way to Casper. There are no towns to speak of between Laramie and Casper, and we drove along leisurely, and stopped and camped on some creeks where there was good fishing, and finally reached Casper. I think we were about two weeks on the road from Laramie to Casper, and had not seen a paper during this time. Mr. Neville had written to his family from Cheyenne, and told them to address him there in care of Pat Moran, and we made arrangements with Moran to forward the same to Casper. We went to the post-office when we arrived at Casper and inquired, but there was no mail; and I went and called Pat Moran up on the phone, and he told me no mail had arrived there for any of us. Neville wrote to his family from Casper, and told them to address him at Cody.

We stayed in Casper a few days and rested our 145

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

horses, and then started for Cody. There is no rail- road between Casper and Cody, or at least there were none at that time, and most of the way it is a dry and barren country. I think we were about a week on the road, and about thirty miles from Thermopolis, Wyo., when one of the wheels of our wagon broke. I took one of the horses and saddled him and rode on into Thermopolis, got a new wheel and sent it out on the stage, and rode back. We came on into Thermopolis then, and I think we got into Thermopolis about the 10th of July, 1904.

Thermopolis is a flourishing town situated on the Big Horn River in Wyoming, and is noted for its hot springs. Although there was not a railroad within 135 miles at that time, still there were people there from all over the country taking the hot baths. I noticed many monuments built upon the mountains about the springs, and was told they had been built by people that came there as a last resort, and had been cured, and built or had these monuments built as a memorial. We camped there by one of these springs, and, as it was a nice place to stop, we thought we would stay a few days, and used to go in bathing every day. Neville had some kind of a ring- worm coming on his face, and they told him they thought these baths would help him, as they had seen skin diseases cured there before. I think we had been

146

WE BLOW UP INDEPENDENCE DEPOT

there nearly a week, and could not get much word how things were going, and had telephoned to Cody to see if there was any mail there for Neville, and was told there was not. As Neville wanted to stay there and take these baths a while longer, I proposed to him to take one of the horses and saddle and ride on to Cody, and have a look around and see what the prospects were for starting or buying out a saloon, and then come back again, and perhaps he would be ready to start again by that time.

Neville was agreeable to that, and so I started and went to Cody and sent the horse back by the stage from Meeteetse. This is a live little town situated on the Gray Bull River, Wyoming. I took the stage from there to Cody, and got some mail for Mr. Neville, and a letter for myself from Pettibone. I called Neville up on the phone and told him I had forwarded him some letters, and had sent the horse and saddle back, and was going to leave there for the present, and was going to Montana, as things did not look good, and would write to him. I told him things looked good in Cody, and for him to come on through, and I would write to him. What caused me to take this course was Pettibone's letter; he told me they were hot on my trail, and that I had better get in the tall timber. At first I could not think they were looking for us, for if they had been they would have found us before,

147

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

as we had not tried to conceal our whereabouts, and had been through all the principal cities and towns in Colorado and Wyoming.

I was undecided at first what to do, but had made up my mind to leave there for the present. That night I got in a poker game and won between $100 and $200, and went to bed about nine o'clock the next morning and got up in the afternoon. I think they had a game already fixed up for me. I started to play some more and lost a couple of hundred dollars pretty quick. I saw the poker game was too strong a combination for me and I quit it and went over to buck a Black Jack game, and got to betting $50 at a turn, and I lasted only a few turns. I said to Mr. Hall, the proprietor, " Lend me $50 to get to Denver, and I will pay you when I come back." I had been talking of buying a place there, and told them my partner was at Thermopolis. Mr. Hall handed me $50 without a moment's hesitation; he was only loaning me my own money, but not many would have done that, especially me being a total stranger. I think I went then under the name of Despasy or Hogan. I had made up my mind, now that I was broke, to go back to Denver.

148

CHAPTER TWELVE

HOW I WENT TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BLEW UP FEED BRADLEY

WHEN I had been gone about six weeks from Denver after the Independence depot explosion, I went back there, and met Hay- wood and Pettibone at the latter's residence. I told them of my trip through Wyoming. I did not tell them I had lost my money gambling, but said that I had invested it in some real estate at Cody, Wyo., and that I needed some more money, because Johnnie Neville and I were going into the saloon business there. I got some money from Pettibone then. But we decided that it would not be safe for me to go back to Cody, as Haywood and Pettibone said there was no doubt about the authorities at Cripple Creek being after me.

They told me they had Art Baston working on Governor Peabody, but that he seemed to be slow, and Haywood told me that he was married, and that they did not seem to work so good after they were married. They told me about Andy Mayberry, super-

149

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

intendent of the Highland Boy mine at Bingham, Utah, discharging 150 union men because they laid off to take part in some labor demonstration, and Haywood said he wanted me to see Art Baston, and thought he would like to send us up there and put Mayberry out of the way, as he said they could not allow a man to do that kind of thing with the union men, or the union men there would think they had no protection from the union.

Pettibone made an appointment with Baston, and I met him at Pettibone's store one evening. He said he had been around Governor Peabody's place some, but that Adams had told him about us being there close to his carriage with the shot-guns, and the women seeing us, and Baston said he was a little leary about hanging around there, for fear Peabody had guards.

Right after that — some time in August, 1904? — I met Haywood and Pettibone on a Sunday afternoon, and we had a long talk in Pettibone's back yard. They told me that Adams had gone up to Wardner, Idaho, to help Jack Simpkins get rid of some claim- jumpers that had jumped his and some other claims, and that after that Steve was going down to Caldwell, Idaho, and get ex-Governor Steunenberg of Idaho. They asked me if I knew where Gordon Post-Office was up there, as they wanted to send Jack some money

150

STEVE ADAMS

Who confessed in writing to being Orchard's partner and co-worker in the field of professional murder. Adams subsequently re- pudiated his confession.

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

there to give to Steve, to come down to Caldwell on when he got through with this job for Simpkins. I told them I did not know where Gordon Post-Office was, but if Jack told them to send it there, likely it was all right. But they said they would send it to Ed Boyce at Wallace, and he would give it to Jack.

They also said Adams was going to stop at Granger, Wyo., on the way up to Idaho, and Haywood said that he had given Adams instructions to look up where the gang of train-robbers and bank-robbers and hold-ups called the Hole-in-the-Wall gang were. Haywood was going to get this gang to kidnap Charles MacNeill of Colorado Springs, manager of the United States Reduction and Refining Company, who was the chief man that fought the union in the Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen's union strike. Haywood said if he could get this gang in with him, and kidnap MacNeill and hold him for ransom, they would get as much money as the strike would cost them. This gang had headquarters in the Big Horn Mountains, where you could look out for miles over the level and see anybody coming. They said the only way you could get up where they were was through a very narrow box canon, and they had that fixed so that a regiment of soldiers couldn't get through there without being killed off.

But the man they sent Adams to told him there 151

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

was none of the gang there then; that they were all South ; Adams wrote Pettibone a letter, and said " the birds had all flown South."

We talked over our going to Bingham, Utah, and I told Haywood I was well acquainted there, and was also acquainted with Andy Mayberry. He said if I was I had better not go there. He said they had some work in California, and thought I had better go down there, and he said they had some of this old work that they had wanted done a long time, and that this was the best time he knew of, as they had plenty of money, and could get it out easier now and it would not be noticed so much. They received more money the next month after the convention than any month during the trouble ; I think they received between $40,- 000 and $50,000 for the strike or eight-hour fund, as it was called.

We held this latter conversation one Sunday in Pettibone's back yard — Haywood, he, and I — and Haywood finally asked me if I would go to California alone and see if I could put Fred Bradley out of the way. Mr. Bradley was manager of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine at the time of the trouble in the Coeur d'Alenes, Idaho, in 1899, when they blew up their mill, and Haywood said he was at the head of the mine operators' association of California, and he said they were raising an immense fund to drive the

152

THE TWO STEUNENBERG BOMBS

From models made by Orchard. The lower of these failed to ex- plode. The ex-Governor was killed by the upper one; the clocfc on this was not used, the cork of the bottle of acid being pulled out by a string fastened to a gate.

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

Federation out of the State, or words to that effect. He said they wanted to show those fellows that they never forgot them. He also said he had sent Steve Adams and Ed Minster to California to get Bradley, but they did not accomplish it. I told them I would go down and try it.

The next day, I think, Haywood gave Pettibone $150 more, and he got me a ticket and a new grip, and I took the early train the next morning for San Francisco. Pettibone told me any time I wanted any money just to wire him and he would send it to me. I went by the name of John Dempsey. I arrived in San Francisco in a few days, and stopped at the Golden West Hotel. I looked around in the city di- rectory and the telephone guide, and located Mr. Bradley's office and also his residence, and called up his office by phone, and they told me Mr. Bradley had gone on a trip to Alaska and would not be back for • three months. I wrote a letter to Pettibone and told him this. We had a sort of a cipher to write by, so no one could tell anything about it if it fell into their hands. I also told him in this letter to send me $100.

During the time I was waiting for an answer I noticed in the paper where Johnnie Neville had been arrested at Thermopolis and was being taken back to Cripple Creek, and that they also expected to ar- rest me soon and take me back there, too ; so I thought

153

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

I had better leave the hotel and get a private room, and not go around much in the daytime. But I had told Pettibone to address me at the Golden West Hotel, and had not received his letter yet, but had gotten a telegram from hiin stating, " Business bad, Johnnie on the way, wrote you to-day." I did not want to stay at the hotel any longer, but I wanted to get this letter, so I went and hunted the secretar}^ of the bartenders' union, named Peter L. Hoff, and arranged with him to get the letter for me at the hotel. I told him I was a union miner from Colorado. I left the hotel then and got a private room a little way out. Hoff sent a man down to inquire for the letter, and he said as soon as he asked the clerk at the hotel if there was any mail for Dempsey he touched a button. He thought he did this to call an officer, and he said the mail-carrier also happened to be there, and he spoke up and asked where Dempsey was, and he be- came more suspicious then, and said I was a traveling man and had gone to Stockton, Cal. The mail-car- rier asked him my address, and he told him Stock- ton, Cal., general delivery. There was nothing in these manoeuvers — they just happened that way — but this man thought it looked suspicious, and so it did. I would say that when you are on work of this kind you soon become suspicious of everybody and everything, and, in a word, of your own shadow.

154

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

So Hoff wrote to Stockton, and told them to for- ward the letter to him at 211 Taylor Street, San Francisco, and he got a card in a day or so from the post-office on Mission Street, and there was a regis- tered letter there for John Dempsey. I gave him an order to get it, but they would not let him have it. I did not want to trouble him any more, and he said he did not believe there was any one watching for me there, and that if I went down there he would identify me, so I went down with him later and got the letter without any trouble.

Pettibone told me to lay pretty low and not let them pick me up the first thing, and be careful, if I wrote to him, what I wrote, and to destroy his letters im- mediately. He also told me to go a little slow on money, as it was hard to dig up. I got the hundred dollars I sent for in this letter. I got the Denver papers there all the time, and knew pretty well what was going on in Colorado, and kept pretty quiet for a while, staying in most of the time during the day. But I got tired of this, and thought I would go out to some little summer resort and stay there a while, and I went up to Caliente Springs and stayed there about a month. I then came back to the city and got a room out near the Presidio. I noticed by the papers that they held Johnnie Neville in jail, and would not give him bail, and I noticed the names of several

155

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

others I knew who were arrested. I used to send for $100 to Pettibone about once a month, and he wired it to me. He used to send this to Harry Green, in care of Peter L. Hoff . He sent this as com- ing from Pat Bone, or Bowen, and sometimes as from Wolff. I had some little trouble getting the first draft, as I was not sure what name he gave when he sent it, but I got it all right. Mr. Hoff was acquainted with them down at the postal telegraph office, and after the first time he identified me they used to give it to me without any fuss.

They held Johnnie Neville between two and three months, and then released him on his own recogniz- ance, and also released all the others, only placing charges against two, and releasing these on bail. I felt more easy then and went around more, and Johnnie and his boy went back to Thermopolis and got the team and wagon, and drove back to Denver. I noticed these things in the papers.

I had bought ten pounds of dynamite to make a bomb with, and got a room only a few doors from Mr. Bradley's flat. This room was on Washington Street about a quarter of a block away, but on higher ground, and my windows were about on a level with the Bradley flat, and I could look right over into it. There was a little grocery store and a saloon on the op- posite corner from Mr. Bradley's residence, and they

156

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

used to buy their groceries there, or part of them. I used to loaf there in the saloon a good deal, and spent quite a bit of money with this man. He was an Italian or a Swiss. The girls that worked for Mr. Bradley used to be over at the store every day, and Guibinni, the proprietor, gave me an introduction to them. So I got to talk to them, and took one of them to the theater once, and found out from them when they ex- pected Mr. Bradley home, etc. I stayed there until he did come home. I went by the name of Berry there. After Mr. Bradley came home, some time in October, I noticed his movements, and learned his habits pretty well. He used to leave his residence about eight o'clock in the morning. They lived on the corner of Leaven- worth and Washington streets, in a big three-story residence flat that had six families living in it. There was a big archway at the entrance, and the flat was built out flush with the sidewalk. They all went in at this archway, but each family had a private en- trance to their apartment. I had figured a good many ways how to get away with Mr. Bradley the easiest and not get caught. I had stood across the street in front of the entrance to his residence, with a shot-gun loaded with buck-shot, and tried to catch him coming home at night ; but it was not light enough to tell him from the rest, as they all went into this archway. I was getting sick of staying there, and Pettibone had sent

157

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

an answer to my last letter, asking him to send me $500, to call it off, and did not send the money.

My money was getting low, and I was getting des- perate, for I thought they just took advantage of me, not sending me money because they thought I dared not come back to Denver, and I made up my mind to go back and show them. I knew Haywood, Moyer, or Pettibone dare not refuse me money if I asked them personally.

The desperate and horrible means I conceived at this time to carry out my plan to kill Mr. Bradley I would gladly withhold and let die in my breast. But I feel that perhaps I owe some one a duty that may have been blamed for this, and wrongfully ac- cused ; and I feel it my duty to make this known, as I have promised God I will write the whole truth of my wicked and sinful life, and not try to favor myself. I have made this attempt several times, and it has required no small effort on my part to write some of these things.

I knew this place well, and there was an empty house with a flat roof just behind the apartment where Mr. Bradley lived, and there were stairs up from the back way on the outside of the apartment. I went up these stairs and got on the roof of this vacant house — for it was right close to the stairs — and waited there until the milkman brought the Bradleys' milk, which

158

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

was a little before daylight. I knew he left this milk there in bottles, as I had watched him before. I had a little powder of strychnine made for each bottle, and raised the paper cover and emptied one of these in each bottle of the milk and cream, and stirred it up a little, and pressed the paper cover back again, and left and went back to my room. I figured the girls would serve Mr. and Mrs. Bradley's breakfast first, and they would get the poison first. I could see their kitchen plainly from the window of my room, but I could not see anything unusual there that morning. I did not get up until ten and sometimes later, and then JL usually went down to the little saloon bar at Guibinni's and got a drink, and sat there and read the morning paper. This morning I did the same, and I noticed a bottle of milk standing on the back bar, and asked Guibinni if he was selling milk, or drew his attention to the bottle in some way like that. He began to tell me about this milk, and wanted me to taste of it. He said he tasted of it, and could feel it in his throat yet. He told me the girls over at Mr. Bradley's had brought that bottle over, and wanted him to take it down and have it analyzed, as they believed there was poison in it. He said it was bitter as gall. Now I never knew before that strychnine was bitter, but it seems the cook had tasted of some of this, found it was bitter, and told Mrs. Bradley, and then they

159

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

came over to Guibinni's place to get some more milk and cream for breakfast.

After this failed, I got a bomb ready. I bought a piece of five-inch lead pipe about a foot long at a plumber's, and put wooden ends in it. Then I ham- mered one side of it flat, so it would lie straight with- out turning over, and I cut a piece out of the other side, and turned back the flap, and fastened a little vial on this, so that when you filled it with sulphuric acid, and you pulled out the cork, the acid would run out into the hole in the pipe. Then I filled up the lead pipe with about five or six pounds of No. 1 gelatin, and put some caps and sugar and potash on top of this and opposite the hole in the lead pipe, so the acid would fall on them. Then I planned to hitch a little string to the cork of the bottle, and fasten the other end of the string in a screw-eye in a door, so when you opened the door it would pull out the cork and set off the bomb.

I practised with this while I was making it in my room, so as to see if the cork would come out of the bottle instead of moving the bomb. I had the dyna- mite in, but not the caps or acid, and I tried it by fastening a screw-eye and string on my closet door, and it worked all right. But one day I left the screw- eye and the string and the cork on my door, and went down-town, and forgot about it ; and when I got home

160

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

I thought that was a nice trick to leave that thing there, for I thought the woman that kept the house must have seen it when she cleaned up my room. But she never gave any sign she noticed it.

After that I watched what time Mr. Bradley usu- ally came down-stairs in the morning, and how soon after he ate his breakfast. As I was on a level, or about so, with their dining-room in my room, I could look out of the window and see them when they were at their meals. I noticed Mr. Bradley came down-stairs soon after he had finished breakfast, and I had to guess that he would be the first one down-stairs, so as not to catch any one else. In order to be sure he would be at home, I called him up one night on a phone at his residence, and told him I was from Gold- field, Nev., and had some good mining property up there, and wanted to raise some money, or get some one with money interested, so I could develop it ; and that I had been recommended to him, and would like to make an appointment to meet him. He said he would be pleased to meet me and talk the matter over at least, and could meet me the next morning at his office. I asked him if he could as well make it the morning after that, and he said he could — at nine o'clock, I think — and I told him all right. I did not want to try the bomb the next morning, as I was not ready.

The next night I went and fastened a little screw- 161

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

eye in the door of his residence, where it opened out of the stairway into the archway, and the morning after I watched him from my room when he went into breakfast, and waited until I thought he was about half through. Then I took the bomb that I had all ready, walked up to his door in the archway, laid it down, and hooked a little cord over the screw-eye I had screwed in the door, and laid the mat over the bomb. This looked like a small parcel, as I had it done up in a paper.

I had told the lady where I was rooming, the night before, that I was going away for a while, and I had also taken my grip down-town the night before and left it at a saloon. After I left this bomb, I took a car and went down-town, and got another room down on Taylor Street. After I rented this, I thought I would lie down and sleep a while, as I had not slept much during the night. A little while afterward I was awakened by some one rapping at my door, and, on asking what they wanted, was told to open the door and I would see. I told them they had better get away from there, and a little while after they came back. I asked them who they were and what they wanted, and was told it was the sheriff and to open the door. I told them to wait until I dressed. I thought I had been seen putting the bomb at Mr. Bradley's door and had been followed. I dressed and took my

162

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

gun in my hand and opened the door, intending to shoot if they wanted to arrest me. But the landlady was there when I opened the door, and explained to me that the sheriff had seized her furniture and was removing it. This was such a happy surprise to me that I left the house, and never said a word about the room-rent I had paid her, nor the annoyance they caused me. This always seemed a little peculiar to me, that I should happen in a place of this kind at such a time.

I think it was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I left there. I bought the Evening Bulletin to see if there was any account of anything about the bomb, and there was not a thing. I felt pretty uneasy, as I knew if it had not been exploded it would be sure to be discovered, and I thought I might have been seen there, and leaving that neighborhood that same morning I would be apt to be suspected. I thought, too, that when they found the way that bomb was set, the lady where I boarded would be sure to remember the screw-eye and string that I had left fastened to my closet door.

I took a walk over on the west side, a little out of the busy part of the city. I did not have money enough to leave the city, and felt pretty miserable, and the world looked more desolate to me than it ever had before. I could not see much for me to live for,

163

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and I thought everything was working against me. I could not settle my mind on anything or do any- thing. I was strong and able to work, but could not set myself about it, as my mind was in such a state, and I came nearer ending all then than I ever had before.

I went into a restaurant to get something to eat, as I had not eaten anything all that day. I picked up another evening newspaper, the Evening Post, and there was the picture of the explosion and a full ac- count of it. This paper stated that Mr. Bradley would probably die, or at least lose his hearing and eyesight. They gave as the cause of the explosion leaking gas- pipes and fixtures, and said the gas had escaped and filled the hall and the stairway entrance to Mr. Brad- ley's apartment, and as he lit his cigar coming down the stairway the gas exploded. When Mr. Bradley opened the door, practically the whole stairway and entrance into the archway was blown out, and Mr. Bradley was thrown out onto the sidewalk with the debris, and the flat was more or less shattered from one end to the other, and the glass was broken across the street and for some distance away. It seems now to me a horrible thing to say, but I felt better after reading this, for I knew I could now get a good piece of money without any trouble, as Haywood and Pet- tibone would be so well pleased.

I sent Pettibone a copy of this paper and told him 164

HOW I BLEW UP FRED BRADLEY

to wire me some money at once, and he did so in a few days. After about a week I went up and looked at Mr. Bradley's place, and saw Mr. Guibinni, the grocer and saloon-man. He told me they thought Mr. Bradley would lose his eyesight. He said he did not believe that gas caused the explosion, himself — he thought it was a bomb; but he said Mrs. Bradley would not hear to such a thing, and said she had smelled gas escaping for some time. The owners of the property sued the gas company, and were awarded $10,000 damages, and when this was carried to the Supreme Court, they affirmed the lower court.

I stayed in San Francisco two or three weeks after the explosion, and thought I would take a trip back to Denver. I went and got a suit of soldier's uniform, and wore that to Denver as a disguise. I set off the bomb at Mr. Bradley's house November 17th, and I got back to Denver about the first part of December, 1904. I went to a rooming-house, and got a room a little way from Pettibone's store, and then tele- phoned him to come over, and a few minutes after he and Steve Adams came. We talked a little while there, and I told them if Mr. Bradley did not die, he was at least maimed for life, and would be deaf and blind. Pettibone was well pleased with this news, but said it was hard luck that it did not kill him. Really, Mr. Bradley got well after a while, and is

165

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

neither deaf nor blind; but I thought then he was very badly hurt.

Adams had come back in September, and he and his wife were keeping house in Denver then, and Steve asked me to go home with him. I went with him, and Billy Aikman was stopping with them, and Billy Easterly had been there some. I asked Pettibone why he did not send me the money when I asked for it, and what he meant by saying to call it off. He then told me the time they had had with Johnnie Neville after he had been released from jail in Cripple Creek. He came to Denver and told them he knew all about their work, and especially the Independence depot, and that I had told him they hired me to do it, and if they did not give him $1,£00 he was going to ex- pose them. Pettibone said for a while he had them all up a tree, and they had it all planned to kill him if he kept on. He said that Moyer was especially ex- cited over it. But finally they scared Neville off by springing on him how he set fire to his saloon, and saying they would tell the police, and then he quit and left the country and went to Goldfield, Nev.

166

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

OUR FIRST BOMB FOE GOVERNOR PEABODY, AND OTHER BOMBS FOR STREET WORK

I KEPT pretty close for a time after arriving in Denver. I lived with Adams for a while, and I did not go out much except at night. I went over to Haywood's residence at night, and talked to him once in a while. He said he was better pleased to have Mr. Bradley maimed the way he was than to have him killed outright, for he was a living example, and he said Bradley knew himself where this came from all right. I think he said he would write and tell him sometime how it happened. I got money any time I wanted it; Haywood gave it to Pettibone, and he gave it to me, and they wanted us to work on Judge Gabbert and see if we could not bump him off, as they were very bitter against him — especially Moyer. Judge Gabbert was chief justice of the Supreme Court, and had decided against Moyer when they brought him to Denver from Telluride on a writ of habeas corpus, when he was in the hands of the militia. So Adams and I strolled around Judge Gabbert's 167

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

residence some at night. They kept the blinds of the windows pretty close, and we could never see him at night, but would often see him in the morning or at noon while he was going or coming from the State Capitol, as he usually walked back and forth. The weather was cold and stormy part of the time, and we did not make any great effort to get him. We had plenty of money and lived good, and had plenty of beer to drink, and took things easy.

Haywood also wanted us to watch Mr. Hearne, manager of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. He said they had sent him out there from Pennsyl- vania to fix the legislature, as he had done there, and that he was a bitter enemy to organized labor. Adams and I strolled around his residence some, but did not make much of an effort to do anything to him. If we had seen him at night when we were around there, we would have shot him, no doubt, if it had looked favor- able for us to get away.

This was the winter they had such a wrangle over the governorship, and there was some doubt about them seating Adams, the Democratic candidate, who was elected by 12,000 majority for governor over Peabody, but the Republicans were crying fraud. Haywood told us then to keep quiet and not pull off anything until we got Adams seated as governor, for if we bumped Judge Gabbert off then, it might

168

FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY

hurt his chances for being seated. But when it looked almost sure that Peabody would be seated again, he wanted us to try and get him then. But they seated Adams, and then Peabody began proceedings to oust him, charging fraud in his election, and it came to a legislature investigation. When it looked like the legislature was going to seat Peabody and throw Adams out, Pettibone came to us, and wanted us to go after Peabody again and try hard to get him, so we would not have him for governor again.

We started in to watch Peabody nights, and car- ried our shot-guns part of the time, but we imagined he had guards around his residence at night, and once or twice we were followed, and we concluded we would not try it at night at his residence. We thought of lying up the street and waiting for his carriage, but it was too cold to lay around and wait long, and then, we had to be sure he was in it ; sometimes there were only women in it. But Peabody always walked up to the Capitol in the morning while he was governor.

There came about six inches of snow one night, and it drifted up against the curbstone in some places, and was deeper there than in the streets. We made a big bomb and put about twenty-five pounds of dy- namite in it, and we stretched a wire from Grant Avenue to Logan on Thirteenth Avenue. This bomb was shaped a good deal like the one I made for Brad-

169

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

ley in San Francisco, only it was a good deal bigger, and made in a lead case that Steve Adams got fixed at a plumber's, instead of a lead pipe. Mr. Peabody usually walked up Grant Avenue to the Capitol be- tween nine and ten o'clock in the morning, and we laid this wire in the evening before the streets were empty, and covered it up with snow, and then came back a little before daybreak, and looked again to see if we had it covered up well. There was a little space be- tween the curbstone and street for the water to run through at the crossings, and we dug the snow out of this enough to lay the bomb in.

We had Billy Aikman get a horse and buggy and drive Adams and me over there about eight o'clock in the morning. I got out a block or so away from the place, and walked over there, and when there were no people in sight I motioned to them, and they drove up close as though they were talking to me, and they handed me the bomb, which we had done up in a cloth. There was a bottle of acid on top of it, with a cork that had a wire through it, with a hook on the end ; so all I had to do was to loop the other wire we had laid in the night over this hook, and kick a little snow over it. This only took a minute or so, and then Billy drove on and waited two or three blocks away with the rig. We had two rifles and a shot-gun in the rig, and plenty of ammunition, and intended to fight it

170

FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY

out as long as we lasted, if we got cornered ; for, of course, there is more danger in your " get-away " with a bomb like this than there is with one that sets itself off like the one I had used with Bradley. Adams and I stayed on the street where we could see the governor and his body-guard when they came along. We had seen them so often, we could tell them more than a block away.

When we saw them coming, we went to the other end of the wire and waited until they were just step- ping over the bomb, and then we intended to jerk this wire, and that would jerk the cork out of the little bottle of acid, when the bomb would explode instantly. There was an alley in the middle of the block, and while we were at the end of the wire, a large coal wagon came out of this and drove up to- ward us. This wagon was nearly opposite us when another came out, and there seemed to be about a dozen people coming along right close, and I think the last wagon was close behind the first, when the governor came over the bomb. So we did not dare to pull the wire until he was too far beyond it to be sure of getting him. We took the bomb up and car- ried it over to the rig, and drove back and got hold of one end of the wire, and pulled it in the buggy and coiled it up. We thought we would try it again an-ft other morning, but it got warm and melted the snow,

171

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and what was left was hard, so that we could not cover up our wire. We then tried digging into the sidewalk near his house, or at the edge of the walk; but the ground was frozen too hard. One night we thought a watchman was after us, and I threw away the spade I was carrying wrapped up in a paper, and went home.

A little while after we made this attempt with the bomb, Mr. Peabody moved his offices down in the Jackson Block, and did not walk up Grant Avenue as usual. Haywood said then that he thought we might set a bomb in under his desk, so that when he opened the desk it would explode it. He asked me what I thought about it. I told him we could if we knew for sure his desk, and that no one would open it but him ; and he said he thought perhaps Peabody had a pri- vate desk, and that he would find out. He said the Federation wanted to move their offices, and he could easily go up in the Jackson Block looking for a location, and find out where Peabody's office was. But he never did, and we never made any further attempt on Mr. Peabody's life in Denver.

As the legislature investigation proceeded, it was thought until the very last that Adams would hold his seat; but they made a compromise to seat Pea- body, with the understanding he was to resign in twenty-four hours, and the committee had his resig-

172

FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY

nation before they voted to seat him. Then the office went to Jesse McDonald, the Republican lieutenant- governor, and Haywood said we need not bother with Peabody for the present; that we could go down to Canon City and get him any time.

Then they wanted us to get some of the Supreme Court justices. Judge Goddard had been appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Peabody before he retired. They were very bitter against Judge God- dard, as they said he had written up most of the opinion in the Moyer habeas corpus case, and had been instrumental in declaring unconstitutional the eight-hour law that had been passed by the legislature a few years previous, when he was on the Supreme bench before; and that he and Frank Hearne, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company manager, had influ- enced the Supreme Court in their decisions after he had got out. Haywood wanted us to see if we could not make a bomb that we could throw or drop out of a window. He thought we could make one and cover it with a big rubber ball. He said that Mr. David Moffat stopped at the Denver Club a good deal, and walked between his bank and there, and Haywood thought if we had a bomb we could drop or throw out of a window, that we could get a room along the street, and when Mr. Moffat came along, we could drop it out of a window close to him, and get away.

173

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

We had moved over near Globeville in January, 1905, close to Max Malich, and Max wanted us to blow up the Globeville smelter boarding-house. Malich was a leader among the Austrian workmen at the smelter. He kept a grocery store and a saloon, and they called him the King of Globeville. He had been Mayor of the town, and he was strong in politics because 'most all the Austrians would do what he wanted them to — though after that they got on to him, and he couldn't handle them so well. He belonged to the smelter-men's union, and they met in his hall, and, though he wasn't an officer, the Austrians and others in the union did about what he said at that time.

There had been a strike at this Globeville smelter for nearly two years then, and their union was affil- iated with the Western Federation of Miners. The smelters were working all non-union men, and I think two or three hundred stopped in this boarding-house. Max said there was not much trouble to get in the cellar or up in the hall, as things had been quiet for some time, and they did not guard it very close. He had a man there that had boarded there before the strike, and knew the place well, and he said he would help us. We wanted some No. 1 powder, anyway, to make some bombs, or to experiment with making them. So we found out where the magazines were, and

174

FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY

concluded to go out there and get what dynamite we wanted.

Adams and I started a little before dark one Satur- day, and walked out to the magazines. There were a number of magazines out there on the prairie, and as soon as it was dark, we pried off a lock from one of them, and carried 600 pounds of powder out a little way from the magazine. Then we pried the lock off another little magazine, and got about fifteen boxes of giant-caps. Then Joe Mehalich came with the rig, and we loaded it all into the wagon, and brought it to where we lived, near Globeville, and buried it in the cellar.

When we told Haywood and Moyer that Max wanted us to blow up this boarding-house, they said not to do it, and we thought no more about it. But we now had powder to practise making bombs to throw. We made these bombs by taking plaster-Paris and making a little ball. We stuck this full of giant- caps, and let it get hard, and then stuck a wire nail in each of these caps, point inward; and shived the nail up with slivers of wood, so as not to let the nail press upon the powder in the caps. But a little jar, like throwing it against anything, would drive the nail into the powder, which is in the bottom of the giant-cap, and set it off. After we made this frame with the plaster-Paris, giant-caps, and nails, we took

175

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

a large rubber ball, cut it open, and slipped it around the outside of the nails. Then we filled it with dyna- mite, and sewed up the rubber. We tried two or three of these throwing-bombs, and they exploded instantly when they were thrown and hit anything hard. Adams and I took one of them out near Riverside Cemetery, and Steve threw it up against a big cottonwood tree that was there, and it exploded and tore out a big hole in the trunk. Steve was back of another tree when he threw it, but it shook him up badly when it went off, and the nails and caps flew everywhere. This one must have weighed four or five pounds.

We told Haywood and Pettibone then that we could make these work all right, but they did not want us to use them just then, but to see if we could not shoot Judge Goddard through the window of his residence, as he lived pretty well out, and they said the police were not often around there. We had long overcoats, and each carried a sawed-off pump shot-gun hung at our sides under our arms by a shoulder-strap. We worked awhile, but never saw him but once, and then we thought we would wait until it was a little later, as it was Sunday night, and there were quite a num- ber of people on the street; but we could never see him again ; we could see some of the rest of the family, as they hardly ever pulled the blinds clear down, and the house was built up flush with the sidewalk on one

176

FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY

side, and only a few feet back on the other, for it was on the corner of the street. Mrs. Adams went with Steve and me sometimes for a bluff, as we thought the police were watching sometimes. There had been a drug store held up about this time not far from there, and there were extra police around, but we thought they wouldn't be so likely to suspect us with a woman along.

Sometime the last of January, Adams had gone down-town and got drunk, and was put in jail for stealing a bicycle. We did not know where he was for a week or more, and looked all over for him, and thought some one had killed him, for he had had a fight with a man just before that. After he got out and came home, we gave him a good lecture, but it did not do much good, as he got drunk again some little time after, and had to be helped home. Haywood and Pettibone did not like the looks of this, and we didn't know but we had better get rid of Adams, as he knew too much to be around drunk that way.

I left Adams's house about the last of March, and got a room only two blocks from Judge Goddard's residence, so I could watch him. We could always see him leave on the car in the morning and go down, but could never see him at night. Soon after I quit living with Adams, he had some dispute with Hay- wood and Pettibone, and told me they would not give

177

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

him money enough, or only a few dollars at a time, and he was angry at me and blamed me, too. I told him there must be some mistake about it, and that he had no reason to blame me, and I told him I was going away, and that he and Joe Mehalich could work together after that, as they chummed together, and the women visited back and forth. I told him I was going down to Canon City or Colorado Springs to get MacNeill or Peabody. He said all right, he would go with me; but I didn't encourage this, as I wanted to get rid of him.

Steve went down to get some money, and Pettibone gave me a few dollars, and said that was all he had left out of the last Haywood gave him. Adams sent Pettibone down to Haywood's office to get some more, and Haywood would not give it to him. He told Pettibone he had given Mrs. Adams, I think, $40 the day before, and that ought to be enough for a while. Adams went down and saw Haywood, and they had some words, and Haywood did not give him any money, and when I saw Adams he would hardly speak to me. I told him we were the last ones that ought to have any trouble, and that he had no reason to feel hard at me. He said they had used him dirty mean, and that he was through with them. I told him it was his fault — that he had no business getting drunk so much, and that was the reason I quit him, and

178

FIRST BOMB FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY

that they were afraid to give him much money at a time for fear he would be drunk. He said they would use me the same when they got through with me. I told him they wouldn't, for I wouldn't stand for it — not if I was where I could get to them.

I would say that Haywood was always very close and stingy with the money for this work, and would always be putting you off and saying he would pay you next week, and we had to look to Pettibone to get it for us. But we could always get it from Pettibone all right, as he would go down and tell Haywood he had got to have it, and Haywood would give it to him. But, of course, with Steve getting drunk the way he did, none of us wanted to do any business with him, and, in fact, wanted to get him out of the country.

Adams and Joe Mehalich got ready to go away then, and I went over to Globeville to see them the day they left, as I did not want them to leave feel- ing hard toward me, if I could help it. I did not ask them where they were going, as they did not tell me, but I called Adams to one side and had a little talk with him, and told him I was not to blame, and he had not ought to have any hard feelings toward me. He said he felt sore at everybody, and that perhaps he had no reason to feel hard toward me, but that he had thought I had run him down to Haywood. I told him

179

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

that Haywood knew about him getting drunk without my telling him.

Adams said they were going to beat their way, as they had no money to pay their fare. I only had a little money with me, but I borrowed $20 from Max Malich and gave it to him, and I told Max to give the women what they wanted to live on from his gro- cery store, and send the bill to Haywood and make him pay it. It was some time in April, 1905, 1 think, that they went away. I found out later they went to Park City, Utah, and afterward went to eastern Oregon on a land claim. But that was the last time I saw Steve until they arrested him in Oregon in February, 1906, and brought him to Boise, Idaho. I paid Max Malich the $20 back the next day.

180

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR GOVERNOR PEABODY AND HOW I SET BOMBS FOR JUDGES GODDARD AND GABBERT

I WAS down in Pettibone's store a few days after this, and a man came in that had worked for him a good deal, and said he had a better graft now — that he had been out writing life-insurance, and had made about $800 in a month. Pettibone wanted me to go and get a contract, and that would be a good bluff if I wanted to go to any small place. As they wanted me to go to Canon City and get Peabody, I thought the insurance scheme would be good, and then I thought I could make good at it, too. So I went down to the Mutual Life office and had a talk with John L. Stearns, the manager for Colorado.

He wanted me to give him some references, and I gave him Pettibone, Horace Hawkins, of the law firm of Richardson & Hawkins, James J. Sullivan and Henry Cohen, the law firm, and John Sullivan, presi- dent of the State Federation of Labor. I knew Horace Hawkins pretty well, as he was the attorney that de-

181

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

fended the boys at Cripple Creek. I went and saw him, and told him I wanted to get a contract with the Mutual Life-insurance Company to write insurance, but did not want to give them my own name. I told him my name was Thomas Hogan, and I said I had given him as reference, and would like him to give me a send-off, and he said he would. I saw John Sullivan and told him, and Pettibone saw James J. Sullivan and Henry Cohen. I was only slightly acquainted with the latter two, and that through Pettibone, as they were great friends of his. Mr. Stearns wrote to these in regard to me, and in a couple of days after he wrote me to come down to his office. I went down, and he said my references could not be better, and he would make a contract with me, and he fixed it up right there and advanced me $25 then, and a little later $25 more. I told him I would go to the southern part of the State, and would start in at Canon City and Florence.

A few days later I went to Canon City, and did start in to talk life-insurance, and canvassed some. But I could no more get my mind on insurance than I could fly. I had located Mr. Peabody's residence, and noticed he had no guard around it at night, but went around the same as any private citizen, and I discovered he usually sat near a window on one side of his house next to an open lot at night, and

182

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

did not pull the blind clear down. At first I stopped at the hotel, but later I got a room only about a block away from Mr. Peabody's residence, on the same street, so I could watch him. Then I figured out a plan to make a big bomb, and fix it to go off with an alarm-clock. I thought I could lay this on the window-sill where he sat, and set the alarm-clock to go off in a few minutes, and I could have time to go to a saloon, and be there when the bomb exploded, and take a chance of Mr. Peabody moving away from the window in the mean time.

I think I stayed there about a week, and on Satur- day I told the old lady where I roomed that I was going to Denver to stay over Sunday, but would keep my room and would be back the first of the week. I took the train and went to Denver, and told them what I was going to do, and I went over to Max Malich, and got fifty pounds of No. 1 powder and a box of giant-caps. This was the powder we took from the magazine, and Adams and Mehalich sold it or gave it to Max, and he had it buried in his drive- shed. I put this in a suit-case and brought it over to Pettibone's store. I went to a plumbing shop in Den- ver, and told them I wanted a lead bucket made about eight or nine inches across by fourteen inches high. I told the plumber I wanted it for a cactus-plant, so I could bore holes in it to let the flowers come through.

183

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

He made this for me, and put a bottom in one end of it, and I hammered it flat on one side, so it would lay on a window-sill, and packed this as full of powder as I could, and fitted a wooden end on the top, and hammered the lead over it, so it would not come out. I cut a hole in the top side of it and took out a little powder, and filled this space full of giant-caps, and wired an alarm-clock on the end of the bomb, and took off the alarm-bell. Then I had a little bottle of acid, so I could wire it over the giant-caps, and set the alarm, and had a fine wire so it would wind up around the key which wound up the alarm, so that when the alarm went off, and this key started turning, it would pull the cork out of the bottle and let the acid run on the giant-caps. I fixed this up later, after I went back to Canon City. Except for the clock, it wasn't fixed much different from the bomb I used when I was after Bradley in San Francisco, only it was a great deal bigger, and was made in this lead case instead of a pipe. There was about twenty-five pounds of dynamite in this, and if it had gone off, I suppose it would have blown that side of the house all to pieces, as Pettibone and I figured we ought not to take any chances of missing Peabody when I set this off.

When I was in Denver this time, I stopped at the Belmont Hotel. I was well acquainted there, and they

184

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

wanted to know what I was doing, etc. I told them I was writing life-insurance. Some of them wanted to know how I was making it, and I told them I was making all kinds of money ; and a man that I had met there a great deal, and a great friend of Pettibone's, said he thought he would try that, too, as he had written insurance before. His name was William J. Vaughan. He went right down and saw Mr. Stearns, and got a contract in a day or two. I left in the mean time, and took my bomb and went back to Canon City. I told Vaughan he could come down there, if he liked ; that there was room enough for both of us. After I got back to Canon City, Mr. Peabody started to repair his house, and I could not see him at the window ; and Vaughan came there in the mean time, and I thought if he did room with me that would make it all the better for me, for, if I could see Mr. Peabody at this window, I could make an excuse to go out, and not be gone over five minutes, and Vaughan would not notice it. I used to keep the little alarm-clock running, and he asked me one day where that clock was ticking. I told him it was a bomb I had in my grip, and he half believed it. Mr. Peabody had his house all torn up, and I could not see him, and Vaughan did not write any insurance, and also knew that I did not either, and he felt pretty well dis- couraged and his money got short. I gave him some

185

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

money and told him to brace up. He wanted me to go down in the Arkansas Valley with him, and probably we would do better down there among the farmers, and I thought that would be a good way to get rid of him and I could come back again. We got ready, and I left my suit-case with the old lady, and set it away under a table where she said she would have no occasion to move it. I told her I had it full of insurance papers for advertising. I thought I would be gone only a few days, and it was so heavy I did not take it with me. It must have weighed close to fifty pounds.

Vaughan and I left and went to Rocky Ford, about 100 miles or so away in Arkansas Valley, and got a rig and started out to canvass insurance. We had been out only a day or so before we met a man writing hail-insurance — that is, insuring a farmer's crop against hail. A man named Peterson, who was general agent of the company, was in Rocky Ford, and offered us a good thing to go to work for him, and we took him up. We went down to Las Animas, which is about thirty miles from Rocky Ford, and we worked there about a week and did a fine business. I got quite in- terested in this, I guess because it was crooked. We made from about $20 to $30 a day at the start, and later made as high as $100, but the latter only a couple of times.

I had promised Max Malich to be in Denver on a 186

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

certain day to help him on a job he had, and so I went up to Denver one Saturday afternoon the last part of May to do this. But Max Malich said he was not ready to have this job done. I saw Pettibone, and he said they wanted something pulled off before the Western Federation convention met at Salt Lake.

Haywood had told me this before ; he said it would look bad for the executive board if we didn't do some- thing, as we had used so much money during the win- ter, and not a thing to show for it. He said after he and Moyer left for Salt Lake he did not care what we blew up, so long as we made some showing.

Haywood and Moyer had been gone to Salt Lake some little time now to get ready for the convention, and Pettibone said he was going to the convention, too, but he wanted to pull off something first. I told him I did not like to do anything with Peabody just then; that Vaughan mistrusted something, and that I might not be able to do it in a hurry.

He said he would rather get Judge Gabbert than any one else. We had watched Judge Gabbert, and, as I have before stated, he usually walked back and forth to the Capitol, and when he went down in the morning, he walked down Emerson Street to Colfax Avenue. There is a vacant lot in one corner on Em- erson Street and Colfax Avenue, and a foot-path across the same, and Mr. Gabbert usually took this

187

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

cut-off. We made a bomb and buried it in this path. We had it fixed with a little windlass, with a fine wire wound around this with a loop on the end of it. We left this loop just enough above the ground so we could see it, and had a stiff wire run through the little windlass, so it would not turn over until we took this out, and we fixed this wire so we could just see it above the ground. We made this in a two-quart tin molasses-can, so the little windlass and the acid in the giant-caps were all protected from the dirt, and we made little holes to run the wires through. We put this a little to the edge of the path, and were careful in digging so it would not be noticed by any one walking across there, but we knew just where to find it. The next morning Pettibone was going to watch, and I was going to walk around on this corner, or sit down there and pretend to be reading, and when Judge Gabbert came out of his house, which was only a block away, Pettibone was going to give me the signal, and I was to walk along this path and hitch a lady's hand- satchel or large pocket-book to the wire on the bomb. We had a hook all ready fixed in this pocket-book, and all we had to do was to hitch it in the little wire that was wound around the windlass, and pull out the other wire which held the windlass upright. We tried this the next morning, but some one cut in between Judge Gabbert and us, and he was too close for me to fix the

188

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

pocket-book after they passed. I think we watched two or three mornings, and I was afraid to touch the bomb after it had stood that long, for the little wind- lass swung very easily, and if anything had touched the wire at all before we came there, the least touch might turn it over. Pettibone had to go to this con- vention at Salt Lake then, and he wanted me to work on this job until I caught a morning when there was no one coming on the sidewalk but the judge. I could tell him as soon as he came out of his house from this corner.

As I was afraid to touch this old bomb, I made an- other one. I went to Pettibone's store, and in the base- ment he had some old eight-day clocks. I took the spring of one of these, and practised with it to see if I could get it so it would break those little vials that I had with sulphuric acid in for the bombs. I had tried a few vials with it, and it broke them every time. Then I made this new bomb in a wooden box, and fixed it with this spring. I fastened the spring along the un- der side of the cover, and bent the spring back, and held it there with a piece of stiff wire that went down through the box. I had a little eye in the top of the wire to hook the pocket-book . on, and left this so I could see it. When this wire was pulled out, it let the spring hit a couple of half-dram vials that were filled with acid, and broke them, and the giant-caps were

189

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

right under these. This wire pulled out very easily, and I knew the spring was sure to break the bottles.

I buried this second bomb as close to the first as I dared, and not touch it. The next morning I found the sidewalk clear when the judge was coming, and had Pettibone's bicycle, and rode along, and stopped at the bomb and hooked on the pocket-book, and rode away. I listened, and knew that something had happened to it, or else he did not see it, for I did not hear it go, and I did not have time to get more than a block away by the time he would be there. However, I was afraid to go back there for fear some one had been watching me, or for fear something might have happened that it did not go, and they had discovered the bomb. Anyway, I was too big a coward to go back, and made up my mind I would let it go. I did not think the judge would walk over it and not notice the pocket-book.

I went on down-town, and about an hour afterward I heard the bomb go off ; but it was not the judge that got it, but another poor unfortunate man by the name of Merritt W. Walley. There were about ten pounds of dynamite in each of these bombs, and they both went off. It blew this poor fellow to pieces and broke the glass in the windows for many blocks around. There were many theories advanced in regard to the cause of this explosion, but not any of them came anywhere near the truth. Some thought that a yeggman had

190

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

buried nitroglycerin there and Walley stubbed against it. I have been told since that Judge Gabbert saw a friend on the corner and followed the walk around instead of going across the vacant lot that morning. I thought when this failed I was out of luck sure, and that there would not be any chance to work there any more, as I did not suppose Judge Gabbert would go across there for the present. So I gave up trying to do him any harm for the present at least, but I thought I would make one more attempt, nearly on the same line, with Judge Goddard.

I made a little square wooden box that would hold about ten pounds of dynamite, and fixed this out with a little bottle and a cork which would pull out and spill the acid on the giant-caps, like the one did on the bomb I made for Bradley. I told Max Malich about this, and took it over to his place in Globeville, and stayed there all night. And just a little before daybreak the next morning, he sent his rig with a man to drive me over there. As I have told you, Max had a lot of these Austrians around him that would do anything he said, and this man did not ask me any questions, but drove where I told him. So we drove over to Judge God- dard's place just before it was light, and I got out and dug a square hole with a sharp spade I had for the purpose, and was careful to take the sod off so I could replace it again, and it would not be noticed. I made

191

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

this hole right up against the gate-post, but on the outside. The gate opened both ways, but it looked as though they usually opened it on the inside. I put a little screw-eye in the bottom of the gate, and spread it " enough so I could slip a loop of a small cord in the eye. I buried this bomb, and fixed the sod back care- fully, and pulled some green grass over it, and had the cord long enough so I could hook it in the little screw- eye later. This cord was attached to the cork in the little bottle at the other end. This cord was a greenish color like the grass, and I scattered a little grass over the loose end of it. Then I went back to Malich's place and got breakfast.

After breakfast I came back on the street-car from Globeville, and about half past eight I walked along in front of Judge Goddard's place, dropped a news- paper carelessly, and stooped down to pick it up, and hooked this cord with the loop into the screw-eye in the gate. I took a car and went down-town, and I expected to hear this go before I got down-town, as I waited within about fifteen minutes of the usual time that the judge came out and took the car to go down-town. I did this so there would not be so much danger of some one else opening the gate first. But I never heard any- thing from it, and did not know what had become of it. I thought perhaps they had noticed me when I hooked in the cord, although I was only a moment and the

192

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

gate is right close to the sidewalk, so I did not go along there for a good while afterward ; but when I did I noticed the grass was dead over this bomb, and then I figured out what had happened.

I had fastened the cord to the bottle by a pin which I put through the cork, and made into a hook on the outside. I had put this pin in two or three days before, and left the bottle full of acid, and evidently the head of the pin on the inside had been eaten off, and allowed the pin to pull through the cork, and so none of the acid had come out, as the rubber cork would close up after it. Then afterward, as they were watering the lawn all the time, the water had soaked through and spoiled the giant-caps, for these are no good when they are wet. And after this the acid would have no effect on the caps if it did eat the cork out> and so could not set the bomb off. This was the only reason I can give for its not going off.

Well, I thought at the time that I was clear out of luck and everything was against me, and I left Denver and went down to the San Luis Valley, where Vaughan was writing hail-insurance, and went to work again with him. We worked there about two weeks and made good money. They all came back from the Federation convention at Salt Lake about the 1st of July, 1905, Haywood and Mover both being elected again, and I told Haywood the hard luck I had had, and he thought

193

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

I had better lay off for a while. Haywood and Moyer left right away again for Chicago, where they went to form a new organization which they called the In- dustrial Workers of the World.

I did not do anything for a time- — not until Hay- wood came back from Chicago in July. I left this grip down at Caiion City with the bomb in it so long that I was afraid to go after it, for fear they had found out what was in it and might arrest me ; but we had concluded to let Peabody alone for the time being, and do some work in Denver, so I went down to Caiion City one day and got the grip all right ; and the old lady said it had never been moved. I told the old lady some yarn about leaving the grip there so long, and came away and brought the bomb to Pettibone's house, and put it in his cellar, but a little later took it out and buried it.

Pettibone and I told Haywood if we had a good horse and buggy we would do some work in Denver. Pettibone wanted to get Judge Gabbert, Judge God- dard, or Sherman Bell, and Haywood sent up to Crip- ple Creek and had them bring a team and wagon down from those the Federation had at their stores there, and we tried these horses, but they were all used up and were no good for drivers. He sent them back again, and then bought a horse and buggy from a colored man. I had a barn rented about a block and a half

194

OUR FURTHER PLANS FOR PEABODY

from Pettibone's residence^ and Pettibone and I took the rig there and started in to assassinate Sherman Bell. This was in August, 1905.

We drove around there nights, and I would go by his place in the daytime and see if I could see him. He lived right on the edge of Congress Park, and the shrubbery came right close up to his back yard, and I was going to crawl up as close as I could and see if I could not see him through the window. I tried this several times, but they had some little dogs that used to bark when they heard a noise, and I never got any closer than the back-yard fence. I was trying to get between his house and the one next to it ; the house next to his was empty, and they did not pull the blinds down at the windows on this side of Bell's house. I was working to get in between these houses, but these dogs always made a racket. Some one would come out, but I could not tell in the dark who it was. I had a pump shot-gun loaded with buck-shot, and could have shot this man ; but I was not sure whether it was Sherman Bell or not, as I had seen another man there. Pettibone kept the rig and waited for me out in Congress Park, a little way behind the house.

195

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HOW I STARTED AFTER GOVERNOR STEUNENBERG

SOME time in August, 1905, Mover came back from California where he had been on a vaca- tion. Nearly ever since the Industrial Workers' convention at Chicago, I saw him on the street and he asked me what I was doing, and I told him we were after General Bell. He said we would have to cut that out in Denver while he was there, as he could not stand any more torture from being thrown into prison, as he was half dead now. He said they had some work to do on the outside, and for me to come down to the office and we would talk it over. The next day I went down and I think Pettibone went with me, or came a little later, and Moyer said he would not take any more chances of being thrown in jail, and said further that the way his health was, he could not stand another siege like they had given him at Telluride, and that would be the first thing that would happen if we bumped Sherman Bell off. He said they had some work on the outside to do, and then he said he wanted me to go down to Goldfield, Nev., and do away with

196

HOW I STARTED AFTER STEUNENBERG

Johnnie Neville. He said he could not get him out of his mind and could not sleep nights thinking about him, and that he knew too much and was liable to get them in trouble any time and especially so if he got hard up.

Moyer called Haywood and Pettibone into his office, and he explained his condition to them, and said we had some work on the outside that they had wanted done for a long time and that we had better do that now. Pettibone said he would like to get some of these fellows in Denver while we were fixed for it, and Hay- wood said he was willing to take his chances, but Moyer absolutely refused to have anything done in Denver while he was there. Then Haywood said he wanted to get ex-Governor Steunenberg before he left the office, and further said he had sent two or three men down there to get him, but they had all failed. These men they had down there at different times were Steve Adams and Ed Minster and Art Baston, and a man named McCarty from the Coeur d'Alenes.

Moyer said that he thought it would have a good effect if we could bump Steunenberg off and then write letters to Peabody, Sherman Bell, and some others that had been prominent in trying to crush the Federation, and tell them that they, too, would get what Governor Steunenberg got ; that we had not forgotten them, and never would forget them, and the only way they

197

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

would escape would be to die, and they need not think because we had overlooked them for a while that we had forgotten them. Haywood said we would go back to Paterson, N. J., and send these letters from there and write them in such a way that they would think it was some of those foreign anarchists that had sent them, as that is the American head- quarters for the anarchists. He said he did not know what would be worse than to know some one was on your trail to kill you, and not to know who it was or when to expect it, and that it would be like a living death and that these fellows would be afraid of their shadows, and if we got Steunenberg, after letting him go so long, then they would think sure that we never forgot any one that had persecuted us.

We talked a whole lot more on this, and Pettibone said this would be all right, but he would like to do a little work at home, and he further said he was afraid it would be a hard proposition to get Steunenberg down in a little country town, like Caldwell, Idaho, where he lived. Haywood said he had been told that Steunenberg was in the sheep business and got in a buckboard and drove out to his sheep camps in the mountains, and paid no attention or even thought his life was in danger, and that it had been so long since the Cceur d'Alene trouble that he likely had forgotten it. They said I could make the round trip — either

198

HOW I STARTED AFTER STEUNENBERG

go to Nevada for Neville, and then to Caldwell, or to Caldwell first. I told them I would go to Caldwell first. Mover wanted me to go to Nevada first or to get around there as soon as I could. Their plan was for me to go down to Goldfield and get in with Neville and pretend to get drunk with him, and put some cyanide of potassium in his whisky or whatever he was drink- ing. This they thought would be easy, as he kept a saloon, they wanted this done as quietly as possible, and thought there would be no suspicion attached to it if he did die suddenly, and no notice would be paid to it in a new place like Goldfield. Moyer was the only one that was very anxious to have Johnnie killed. I told him I would do it, but I did not intend to at the time.

Moyer told me to get what money I would need from Haywood ; he asked me how much I would need, and I told him $300. Haywood had given me $60 a few days before this and he gave me $240 more, and said he hoped I would succeed in getting Steunenberg, as he had already cost them a lot of money. I told him I would do the best I could. I did not see him again before I left. Moyer went out that afternoon fishing up Platte Caiion, and Pettibone wanted me to go with him that night, and make one more attempt on General Bell, and I did, but did not try much to see him. The next day I got everything ready, and packed the big

199

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

clock bomb that I had brought up from Canon City in my trunk, and bought a return ticket to Portland, Ore., good for ninety days with stop-overs any place on the route, good also to return via Seattle and Spokane, Wash.

We had talked over the proposition and Pettibone wanted me to look over the country around Seattle and Puget Sound, and see if I could not find a small place on the Sound close to the British line. We had letters from Arthur Parker, a Cripple Creek miner, who had gone up there and got a place, and he liked it very much. Pettibone and Haywood said if I found a place that I thought would suit us to write them and they would dig up the money to buy it, and I told them I would hunt up a place somewhere, as I thought I had taken chances enough and was entitled to the price of a small place. Pettibone and I were going to live there, but we were going to make it a headquarters where Haywood and Moyer could send men they wanted to keep out of sight. We also thought that, being near the British line, we could do some smuggling there.

I left Denver between the 25th and 30th of August, 1905, over the Rio Grande Railroad. I stopped at Salt Lake City a few days and met some of my old friends, among whom were Charlie Shoddy and Lewis Cutler. The latter lived in Salt Lake, but Shoddy came from the Coeur d'Alenes, Idaho, with me shortly after the

200

HOW I STARTED AFTER STEUNENBERG

trouble in 1899. We had worked together in Arizona and Nevada since, but I had not seen him since leaving Utah for Colorado, and we talked over old times. He said it had been coming pretty tough for him, and said I looked pretty prosperous, and asked me what I had been doing. I told him I had found a new way of making a living without working so hard, and he said he wished I would tell him how. I told him to keep me posted where he was and I would write to him if I had something on.

I then left Salt Lake and came on to Nampa, Idaho, which is about nine miles from Caldwell, and stopped off there and stayed a few days at the Commercial Hotel. I met a man named Wilcox from Colorado there, and I talked with him a good deal, and he told all about the country, as he had been here before.

I asked him if he knew Mr. Steunenberg, and he told me he did, well, and was talking to him just a day or two ago at the depot, when the governor was waiting for a train. Mr. Wilcox spoke of the trouble in Colorado and said Mr. Steunenberg said that Gov- ernor Peabody did not act quick enough in that trouble. I think I stayed in Nampa three days and Mr. Wilcox left.

Then I went down to Caldwell and stopped at the Pacific Hotel, and told Mr. Dempsey, the proprietor, I would stay a few days, and that a friend of mine

201

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

in Colorado wanted me to stop off there and see what the chances were to buy some lambs. He told me the names of some sheep-men there, and among other things he mentioned Governor Steunenberg's name. He further told me that he was not at home much, but was in Boise and Mountain Home most of the time and was engaged in buying and selling sheep.

I took a walk around and located where Governor Steunenberg lived, and then took the train in the after- noon and went to Boise and stopped at the Capitol Hotel one night. This was in the early part of Sep- tember. I looked over the register, but did not find Mr. Steunenberg's name. The next morning I went over to the Idan-ha and took a look over the register, and found his name there. I went back to the Capitol, and paid my bill, and got my grip and went over to the Idan-ha and got a room. My room was on the same floor that Mr. Steunenberg's was, and that noon, when the chambermaids were off the floor, I tried a skeleton key I had to see if it would open his room, and it did all right.

I got to talking to a man down in the hotel lobby that afternoon and he asked me my business and I told him I was going to Portland to the fair, but I stopped off here for a friend of mine in Colorado to make some inquiry what the chances would be to buy a few thou- sand lambs for feeding purposes. He said that was his

202

HOW I STARTED AFTER STEUNENBERG

business and that he was working for a stock com- pany from Wyoming, and he took me across the street from the Idan-ha Hotel and introduced me to a Mr. Johnson and his son, who were commission men. Mr. Johnson named over some of the big sheep-men and I told him I thought I heard my friend say that he bought some the year before from a man by the name of Steunenberg. Yes, he said, probably so, as ex-Gov- ernor Steunenberg was in the sheep business. Then he said, " By the way, that's him over there in front of the Idan-ha now," and he pointed him out. That was the first time I had ever seen Governor Steunenberg to know him.

In a little while we went down and went back to the hotel, and I thought I would get my grip and go to Nampa, and get the big bomb I had made for Gover- nor Peabody in Canon City out of my trunk in the depot, and come back, and either set it with the alarm- clock and leave it in the grip and set it under his bed, or set it like the Bradley bomb — with a string on his bedroom door, so it would go off when he went to his room.

While on my way from Boise to Nampa I got to thinking what this would do, and that they would look pretty close after all strangers, and that my coming there and going away so quick would look pretty sus- picious. This bomb had twenty-five pounds of dyna-

203

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

mite in it, and I knew it would blow that part of the hotel all to pieces, and probably kill a lot of people. But that was not the reason I stopped, for I had no heart at that time and thought very little of how many I killed, as long as Mr. Steunenberg was one of them. I was only thinking what the chances of myself were in being discovered. I knew I could get the bomb in his room, and get away from, the hotel, and if I used an alarm-clock, I might be half-way to Portland and not be discovered. The only danger of this was that he might look under the bed and find it, and if I set it at his door, the time he would be killed would depend on what time he went to bed. I knew this latter was the surest way to catch him, but I did not know how far I might get awajf. before he might go to his room, and I did not want* to set this at the door until about dark for fear some of the chambermaids might go in the room.

As I had my ticket and money enough, I made up my mind all at once I would go on to Portland and Seattle, and look around Seattle and the sound for the little ranch we had spoken of and then go up to Wal- lace and look after a proposition D. C. Coates had spoken of when he was in Denver the month before. I always dreaded to do these murders, and usually put them off as long as I could or rather as long as I had money.

HOW I STARTED AFTER STEUNENBERG

So I took the train and went on to Portland that same night, and stayed there a few days, and took in the fair, and then went on to Seattle and stayed there a week or so. This was about the middle of September. Pettibone had given me the address of an old partner of his at Seattle, named William Barrett, and I hunted him up and he showed me around the city. This was my first time there. I told Barrett I wanted to get a small place up on the sound somewhere close to the British line. He took me down and introduced me to some real estate men and I went out and looked at some places near Seattle, but I did not like them, and I did not like the weather there, as it was cold and raining there then. I got Barrett^ send Pettibone a good map of the sound countr^^^d I left there for Spokane, stayed there one night,lmd started for Wal- lace, Idaho. I stopped off at Wardner to seek Jack Simpkins and I found him and told him where I had been, and what I went to Caldwell for, and what I was in Wallace to look up.

205

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE ASSASSINATION OF GOVERNOR STEUNENBERG

JACK and I left Wallace for Spokane, about October 20th, and Jack wanted to go over to Marble Creek to his claims, and I was going with him for a litle hunt, as he said there were deer and elk up there. We got tickets to Harrison and from there to Spokane by boat and electric line. My trunk got checked wrong onjihis trip and I waited a few days in Spokane for i^»hen finally we started for the Marble Creek country. We went up to the head of navigation on the St. Joe River. On our way up we found the trunk at Harrison. Jack and I went over twenty-five miles or so from the head of the St. Joe, over to Marble Creek ; we were gone about a week. During the time we were over there Jack showed me where he and Adams and the others killed Boule, the year before, and his horse and dog, and where the other claim- jumper that was with him ran as they were shooting at him.

The last part of October we came to Spokane again and had planned to come to Caldwell, as Jack wanted

206

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

to have a hand in the killing of Governor Steunenberg. Jack said he could make it as an excuse that he wanted to visit the unions at Silver City and vicinity, and then he could charge the Federation with his time and expenses. I made up my mind I would sue the rail- road company for damages for holding my trunk. Jack had ordered ten pounds of No. 1 dynamite the day before at a hardware store, and after we went over and got this we went up to Robinson, Miller & Rosenthal's law office, to see about lodging a claim against the railroad for damages for holding my trunk. We met Miller on the elevator and he went up with us. This was the first time I ever saw him, and Jack introduced me to him, he being the only member of the firm there then. '^Bold him about the trunk, and he asked me how much a day my time was worth and what my business was. I told him I was a mining promoter, and my time was worth $10 per day. I think he figured up $60 and drew up a paper, and I made an affidavit to it, and he said he would sue them right away and send me half of what he got. I gave him no money, as he was to get half of what he collected. Jack had this little box of dyna- mite with him, and Miller asked him what he had in the box, and he told him dynamite. I don't think Miller thought it was dynamite, as Jack said it as though it was a j oke, but it was a common thing for

207

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

any one that knew us fellows to call us dynamiters in a joking way, and I must say that we felt somewhat proud of the name. Miller told me some time after that he settled my claim with the railroad company for $25, and sent me a check for $12.50. He sent this check to Denver to Pettibone's store, as I had my mail go there, and then Pettibone would forward it to me wherever I was, but I never got this check.

Jack and I got ready in a few days and came to Caldwell, Idaho, and stopped at the Pacific Hotel. It was now about the 1st of November. We looked around to see if we could see Mr. Steunenberg for three or four days, and as we did not see him, we thought we would take a run up to Nampa, and tele- phone to his resideSfe from there — as he had a phone in his house — and make some excuse to find out where he was. I telephoned to his residence at Caldwell, and they said he was home, but was down-town. I told them I would call him later.

We then left Nampa and went back to Caldwell; this was on a Saturday evening. We registered both at Caldwell and at the Commercial Hotel, Nampa; I as Thomas Hogan and Jack as Simmons. We went around Mr. Steunenberg's residence that night, but did not go close to the window and, as his house stood back quite a little from the street, and it being bright moonlight, we could not tell him for sure,

208

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

although the window shades were clear up and we had a good pair of French opera-glasses. The next day we fixed a bomb and thought, if we caught Mr. Steunenberg down-town we would watch him, and, if he stayed until after dark, we would place this along the pathway leading to his residence and tie a cord or fine wire across the pathway so that when he walked into it he would explode the bomb.

We did locate him on Sunday afternoon sitting in the office of the Saratoga Hotel, and we watched him, and he remained until after dark, and as soon as it was dark we took the bomb up on the street lead- ing to his residence and placed it close to the path where he would be most apt to pass, and laid it close to the path, and put some weeds over it, and stretched a fine wire across the path, and fastened it on the opposite side. Mr. Steunenberg's residence was the only one up this street and we thought he would be the only one likely to be going up there that night, or would be apt to be going home and be the first one along. This bomb was just the ten-pound box of dynamite we bought at Spokane, with some giant- caps in it, and a little vial of sulphuric acid in a wind- lass that would turn over and spill the acid on the caps.

After we placed this, we hurried back to the Pacific Hotel so we could prove where we were if necessary.

209

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

We waited an hour or two, and as we did not hear any explosion, we went down by the Saratoga Hotel to see if he had gone from there. He had gone and we went up where we had placed the bomb, and found he or some one had passed and broken the fine wire across the path, and had turned the little windlass with the bottle of acid in it over so quick that none of the acid had spilled out, though the bottle had turned clear over, and was nearly right side up again. It was turned over enough so that the acid was about dripping out, and it was very ticklish business to handle it, and I thought at first I would leave it where it was, but finally I put my finger over the mouth of the vial, and took it out, and took the bomb up and carried it over by the railroad track, and cov- ered it up with some weeds, and went back to the hotel. We looked for Mr. Steunenberg again the next day, but could not see him, nor did we see him for some days after.

Jack got afraid to stay there, and began to think it would look bad for him, and make it worse for me if we did kill Mr. Steunenberg, and he was found there and known — and he had seen some people there that he knew, so he decided to go over to Silver City and Delamar and visit the unions there, and he wanted me to stay and see if I could not get a chance to finish the job.

210

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

When Jack went, I left the Pacific Hotel and rented a room over on the Boulevard at W. H. Schenck's — a private house. This was on a street that Mr. Steu- nenberg would be apt to go up and down to and from his residence when he came down-town, and I had a front room and could see up and down the sidewalk. I stayed there two weeks, but Mr. Steunen- berg was away most of the time. I think he usually came home Saturdays and stayed over Sunday. I noticed in the papers that Governor Gooding had ap- pointed Mr. Steunenberg on some committee to meet in Boise about this time, and I thought I would go to Boise again, and see if I could not catch him at the hotel. I went out and got the bomb where I had it cached by the railroad track.

I had two letters from Jack, and he told me Moyer had been up to Silver City, and Easterly had told him we were at Caldwell, as I had written to Easterly, and Jack said that Moyer flew right away from there.

Jack went up to Hailey from Silver City. I was in Nampa the night he came back from Hailey, and he stopped off at Nampa, too. But he got up and left the next morning for Caldwell before I was up and I did not see him. He went up to the house where I was, and they told him I went away the day before, and did not come back that night, but my things were there. I went back to Caldwell that afternoon and met

211

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

Jack at the depot, as he was going to take the train, and he said he had left a letter for me. I told him he had better wait and take the midnight train, and he did. We went over to my room, and in going over he said he had a good saddle spotted, and that he would get it now that he had waited and take it home with him. It was hanging up on the outside of a little outbuilding by a house. We had picked up a light lap-robe some time before, and wrapped it around our bomb. We got this lap-robe and Jack went to a hardware store and got a ball of twine and a sack needle, and we made a sack out of the lap- robe in my room and, about half an hour before train time, we went down and got this saddle and put it in the sack and I helped Jack carry it nearly over to the depot. I had a railroad ticket good from Spokane to Denver and I gave this to Jack, as he was going to Denver to attend a meeting of the executive board of the Western Federation of Miners, of which he was a member.

Simpkins said for me to be sure and not get dis- couraged and leave until I got the governor, and if I got broke to let him know and he would see that I got money, and he would fix it so that after the job I would get a good bunch of money — enough to buy a ranch and quit this work and let somebody else do it, as I had done my share. He wanted me to

212

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

buy a ranch up on the St. Joe River, and I got sev- eral letters from him — some of them after he went to Denver — and he told me in one of these that he had everything all fixed, and Pettibone would send me the money as soon as the job was done.

As I have before stated, I thought I might find Mr. Steunenberg in Boise, and I left Caldwell for there a day or two after Jack left. I stayed a few days in Boise, but saw nothing of Mr. Steunenberg, and I thought I would like to have some one to help me, and I was lonesome and disgusted to have to wait so long. I telephoned to Silver City to Easterly and asked him if he wanted to take part in the contract, and he said he could not leave there just then, and I made up my mind to go to Salt Lake City and get Charlie Shoddy, the man I met in Salt Lake City when on my way out to Caldwell the first time.

I left Boise for Salt Lake City about November £0th, and went up to Siegel Brothers' store there, as they owned this mine where Shoddy was working, and I asked if Charlie was still out at their mine. They said they thought he was, and I wrote him and ad- dressed the letter to Siegel post-office, but never got an answer from it.

I stayed in Salt Lake City about three weeks, and while there I got a letter from Pettibone stating that my friend Johnnie Neville had died quite suddenly

213

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD in Goldfield, Nev., and a little later I saw the account of it in the papers. Now I had written Moyer a let- ter some time before this and told him to send me $100, or to send it to Jack for me, and also told him in this letter that I had sent Shoddy to Gold- field, Nev., to do that job. This was a lie, of course, but when I saw the account of Johnnie's death, I thought I would take advantage of it, and make Moyer believe this man had done this, and I wrote him to this effect, and also wrote Simpkins at Denver and told him to tell Moyer. He answered me that he did, and would get some money for Charlie. I also told them that Charlie was there in Salt Lake City with me now, and we were going to Caldwell and that I had money to take us there, but that they had better send me $500 or so for Charlie to Nampa, as I told them Charlie was to stop there while I was looking after things in Caldwell. When I did not hear anything from Charlie, and as my money was getting low again, I left for Caldwell. This was about the middle of December, 1905.

I went to the Saratoga Hotel at Caldwell, and got an answer to my letter that I sent Pettibone before leaving Salt Lake City, and he said he had sent my letter to Jack, and I supposed they had given him the money for me to give Charlie. A while after I got a letter from Jack, and he said he had stopped

214

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

off at Salt Lake City on his way home from Denver to see me, but could not find me and did not know where I had gone. He sent me a piece of a type- written letter that he had received from Haywood, which stated that he thought if there were any more remittances for assessment work that they had better be sent through him. This was the work they referred to that I was doing. But before he sent me any money I was arrested. I told them I was looking to buy a ranch, and I saw a number of real estate men about this. I had stayed at the Saratoga Hotel all the time.

On Christmas Day — which was Monday — I saw Mr. Steunenberg going to his brother's about noon —as I supposed, for a Christmas dinner — and I watched for him to come home after dark, and had a pump shot-gun and was going to shoot him with buck-shot. I had not been up by his residence long before I heard him coming, and started to put my gun together, as I had it down and one piece hung on each side of me with a cord around my neck under my overcoat, but I had some trouble getting it to- gether, as this cord bothered me, and they got into the house before I got it together. I went around the house and waited to see if I could get a chance to see him through the window, but I think he went into the bath-room shortly after coming home, and

215

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD went from there to bed and had no light. I stood behind a tree close to the house and could see some one in the bath-room, but the steam was so thick I could not be sure it was him. I waited there until they went to bed, but did not see him, and then went back to the hotel. I buried some shot-gun shells under the sidewalk loaded with buck-shot on my way up, as I had too many, and did not want any left in my room if I should use them.

There was a mask ball at the Saratoga that night, and I had thought if I shot Governor Steunenberg, I could easily go up-stairs and not be noticed, as they could not tell me from anybody else in the crowd.

I did not see Mr. Steunenberg again until the next Thursday. I did not know where he went when he was away, and I saw his son on the street one day, and I spoke to him and asked him if they had any sheep to sell. I thought I would find out this way where his father went. He told me that he knew noth- ing about it, as his father attended to that, but he said I could find out by telephoning to his father at the company ranch at Bliss. But he said he would be home the next day, and I could see him if I was there. I told him I just wanted to find out where some sheep could be bought, as a friend of mine wanted them to feed.

The next day, Friday, I went to Nampa and 216

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

thought I might get a chance to put the bomb under Governor Steunenberg's seat, if I found him on the train, as the train usually stops fifteen to twenty minutes at Nampa. I had taken the powder out of the wooden box, and packed it in a little, light, sheet-iron box with a lock on, and I had a hole cut in the top of this and a little clock on one side. Both this and the bottle of acid were set in plaster-Paris on the other side of the hole from the clock with a wire from the key which winds the alarm to the cork in the bot- tle. The giant-caps were put in the powder under- neath this hole, and all I had to do was to wind up the alarm and set it and, when it went off, it would wind up the fine wire on the key, and pull out the cork, and spill the acid on the caps. I had this fitted in a little grip and was going to set it, grip and all, under his seat in the coach, if I got a chance. I went through the train when it arrived at Nampa, but did not see Mr. Steunenberg, and the train was crowded, so I would not have had any chance, anyway. I saw Mr. Steunenberg get off the train at Caldwell, but missed him on the train.

I saw him again around Caldwell Saturday after- noon. I was playing cards in the saloon at the Sara- toga, and came out in the hotel lobby at just dusk, and Mr. Steunenberg was sitting there talking. I went over to the post-office and came right back, and he was

217

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

still there. I went up to my room and took this bomb out of my grip and wrapped it up in a newspaper and put it under my arm and went down-stairs, and Mr. Steunenberg was still there. I hurried as fast as I could up to his residence, and laid this bomb close to the gate-post, and tied a cord into a screw-eye in the cork and around a picket of the gate, so when the gate was opened, it would jerk the cork out of the bottle and let the acid run out and set off the bomb. This was set in such a way, that if he did not open the gate wide enough to pull it out, he would strike the cord with his feet, as he went to pass in. I pulled some snow over the bomb after laying the paper over it, and hurried back as fast as I could.

I met Mr. Steunenberg about two and a half blocks from his residence. I then ran as fast as I could, to get back to the hotel if possible before he got to the gate. I was about a block and a half from the hotel on the foot-bridge when the explosion of the bomb oc- curred, and I hurried to the hotel as fast as I could. I went into the bar-room, and the bartender was alone, and asked me to help him tie up a little package, and I did, and then went on up to my room, intending to come right down to dinner, as nearly every one was in at dinner.

I was going to take some things out of my room and throw them away, and I emptied some acid I had

218

FRANK STEUNENBERG

Ex-Goveihor of Idaho, for whose murder by a bomb Secretary -Treas- urer Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners was tried.

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

in a bottle Into the sink, and put the bottle in my coat pocket, intending to take it down and throw it away, and a moment after doing this, there was a flash like a pistol-shot rang out. It almost unnerved me for a moment, but I soon understood what it was. I had taken a giant-cap out of a box I had in my grip a few days before, to try it to see if they were all right, as I had had them a good while, and I did not try this and forgot to take it out of my pocket, and there must have been a little acid left in the bottle I put in my pocket, and this got into the cap and ex- ploded it. This tore my coat all up, but did not hurt me a bit, but it unnerved me, and I thought every- body in the house would hear it, as my room was directly over the dining-room and everybody was in there to dinner. I had another coat there and I slipped that on and hurried down to dinner. Everybody was talking about Mr. Steunenberg being blown to pieces, but I never heard a word about the explosion of the giant-cap in my room. I think everybody was excited about the explosion and did not hear it, or did not pay any attention to it.

Now, I cannot tell what came across me. I had some plaster-Paris and some chloride of potash and some sugar in my room, also some little bottles, and screw-eyes, and an electric flashlight, and I knew there might be some little crumbs of dynamite scat-

219

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

tered around on the floor. I intended to clean the carpet, and throw this stuff that might look suspicious all away, and I had plenty of time. But after this cap exploded in my pocket, something came across me that I cannot explain, and I seemed to lose my reason- ing power for the time, and left everything there just as they were, and at that time I had some letters and papers in my pockets that would have looked bad and been hard for me to explain.

I stood around there until about ten o'clock, as the hotel was jammed full, and in the mean time a special had come down from Boise, and they were sending out men to surround the town and telephoning to the surrounding towns. About twelve o'clock I went up to Mr. Steunenberg's residence with the hotel clerk and came back and went to bed, and did not get up until about eleven o'clock the next day — Sunday. I went down and read the papers, and was sure one of the suspects referred to was me. Then I destroyed some letters and papers I had, and began to pull my- self together, but I thought they were watching me and I was afraid to start to clean my room or throw those things away, and thought what a fool I had been not to have cleaned every suspicious-looking thing out of my room the night before. I cannot ac- count for what made me so stupid, as I well knew these things would look suspicious, and it would be hard

220

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

for me to explain what I had them for, if I was called upon to do so.

I just began to realize this and come to myself, and would have gotten rid of them then had I had a chance. I did go up to my room and took a fish-line off a reel I had there and threw it in the water-closet, as I noticed in the papers that they referred to a fish- line or cord on the gate at Governor Steunenberg's, and I had used a piece of this fish-line. I would have cleaned the room then if I had had time. I could not throw all this other stuff in the toilet, and was excited and left it all there, and even left the gun in my grip which I usually carried. I had always said that I would not be taken alive, but did not value my life much anyway, and would sell it as dearly as I could, if ever suspected of anything and they tried to arrest me. I am sure they suspected me and I took a walk up to Mr. Steunenberg's residence with a Caldwell man, and he said every stranger in town would have to give an account of himself.

I was sitting in the saloon of the hotel in the after- noon and a stranger asked me to take a little walk, and pretended to be acquainted with me. I afterward learned this was Sheriff Brown, of Baker City, Ore. I told him he was mistaken, and he told me that they suspected me of having something to do with the assas- sination, and he said he told them that he thought

221

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

he knew me. I told him I would go and see the sheriff at once, which I did and asked him if he wanted to see me, and he asked me if I was going away, and I told him I was not at the present, and he said we would have a talk after a while. I went over to the hotel and sat down and in a few minutes the sheriff came over and said he would have to arrest me. I told him all right, and he went off and came back in a few minutes, and told me the governor had ordered him to take charge of my things that were in my room, and he said he would parole me and I was not to leave town or the hotel. I have forgotten which.

Then I thought what a fool I had been to leave all those things in the room, when I had all kinds of chances to take them out, and had even let them get away with my gun. I would have made an attempt to get away that night, but I knew they were watch- ing me, and again if I had succeeded in getting away from the hotel, it was bitter cold and the ground was covered with snow, and therefore I made no at- tempt to get away. I knew that they had organized a committee to investigate, and thought they might take me before this committee, and ask me to explain what I had such stuff for, and I was thinking how I would answer them if they did.

But they said nothing to me until the next day — Monday — about four o'clock, when the deputy sheriff

222

THE ASSASSINATION OF STEUNENBERG

asked me to go over to the district attorney's office, and when I went over there they said they would have to search me. This is the time I would have used my gun had I had it. They searched me and the sheriff read the warrant to me, and they said they wanted me to go to Boise with them. We went over to the depot and waited for a while, and then they took me up to the county jail at Caldwell.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MY EXPERIENCE IN JAIL, AND PENITENTIARY

I WAS arrested and taken to jail at Caldwell the evening of the 1st day of January, 1906. I had never before been arrested. I now began to think over my past life and what it had brought me to, and, oh, how I regretted that I had allowed myself to be arrested, and had not sold my life as dearly as I could have done, and ended all, as I felt the life I had lived for the past few years was not worth living and that I would rather be dead than alive, and felt there was nothing left for me worth living for, and why suffer the humiliation in prison. I knew it meant a long siege at best, and I knew if I succeeded in clearing myself of this, that I probably would have to go to Colorado and face other charges there.

I thought of ending all, and that when my dear mother taught me many long years before about God and the future life came up to me, and I could not get these thoughts out of my mind, although I had denied them for years and tried to forget them, and said many times that the hereafter did not trouble

%24*

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

me, and that I did not believe in any hereafter, but that the grave ended all. But now when this stared me in the face, and the thought came of taking my own life, and taking the desperate leap into the great beyond, from whence there is no return, I knew then that down deep in my heart I did believe there was a God and a hereafter, and that I had only been try- ing to deceive myself all these years, because it an- swered my wicked purpose better. Now, although I had read the Bible some when I was young, I had never read it with enough interest to understand it, and remembered very little of it, but I thought it said that no murderer could enter the kingdom of heaven, or would not be forgiven. This troubled me, for I felt great remorse of conscience and felt re- pentant. I tried to keep up the bravado spirit, and appear unconcerned and deny the charges against me, but still I thought, if acquitted, the old life was not worth living, and I wanted to be sure whether there was hope for me, or forgiveness, or if I had com- mitted the unpardonable sin. If I had been fully con- vinced of this and that there was no forgiveness for me, then I would never have undergone any torture or imprisonment, as I would have had nothing to live for.

Haywood and Pettibone had always told me if I ever got arrested not to wire or write to them, but

225

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

that they would see that I had an attorney to defend me as soon as it was possible, and when Simpkins left me he had said, if I got into trouble and had to have an attorney, he would send Miller or Robinson, of Spokane. A day or two after I was arrested I got a telegram from Spokane stating that Attorney Fred Miller would leave next morning for Caldwell to rep- resent me. This telegram was not signed, but I un- derstood it. I waited for three or four days and heard no word of him, but in the mean time James J. Sul- livan, an attorney that I knew from Denver and a personal friend of Pettibone's, came to see me, but they would not let me talk to him alone. He said he was going to Baker City on some business, and stopped off to see if it was me they had arrested. I felt sure they had sent him to me from headquarters. I told him I had thought of wiring him, and asked him if I could engage him to defend me, but he shook his head, and said it was a long way from home, and that he would advise me to employ a local attorney, and said if I wished he would look around and get me one. I told him I had expected Mr. Miller from Spokane, and had had a telegram from Spokane a few days before stating that he would leave the next morning for Caldwell, but had heard nothing more from him, and Sullivan said he would wire him and see if he was coming.

226

HARRY ORCHARD

From a photograph taken in January, 1906, shortly after his arrest for the murder of ex-Governor Steunenberg.

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

He sent Mr. Miller the telegram, and he answered he would leave for Caldwell on the next train, and he arrived there the next day or so. They let Mr. Miller see me alone, and he told me that Jack Simp- kins had sent him, and that he had started when I got the first telegram. I think he said he got as far as Walla Walla, and they called him back, as the papers came out with big head-lines charging the Western Federation of Miners with the assassination of ex- Governor Steunenberg, and they did not want it to appear that any one had been sent by them to de- fend me, but thought they would wait until I wired them, because we must make it appear that I was putting up my own defense, and keep the Federation out of it. He also said that Robinson had told him before he left that they might make it appear that they were engaged by me to sue Dan Cordonia to recover the interest I had sold him in the Hercules mine or a part of it, so as to have it look as if they were my regular attorneys. I spoke about them being engaged by me before to collect damages from the railroad company for holding my trunk, but he said that was too small a matter.

I did not know Mr. Miller very well, having only met him once, and I told him I was going to put up my own defense, and had upward of $8,000, and had friends that would see me through, if this was not

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

sufficient. He asked me if I did not have some mining property, or some friends I could refer him to that he could make it appear were putting up money for my defense. I told him I would give him an order to get the money all right. He said Jack had only given him $100, and asked me if I did not have any money there. I told Miller I had only a few dol- lars there and he said to never mind, he would get some money from home. I gave him an order, and told him to see J. J. Sullivan and have him send the money when he got to Denver. I told him Sullivan knew Pettibone and would get the money all right. I also gave him an order, or told him to see Lewis Cutler, of Salt Lake City, and he would turn him over a sixth interest in some mining claims he had at Goldfield, Nev. I had loaned Mr. Cutler a little money at different times, and he made this proposi- tion himself the last time I saw him in Salt Lake City. Mr. Miller stayed until after my preliminary hear- ing, and I was bound over to the district court with- out bail. Mr. Miller then left for Spokane, and said he would be back in a few days, and stay there and work on the case.

Mr. Swain, of the Thiel detective agency, from Spokane, came to the sheriff's office at Caldwell, and they took me out in the office, and he asked me some questions, and I answered some of them. I told him

228

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

I had been in the Coeur d'Alenes, and had been out hunting with Jack Simpkins just before I came down here. He asked me if I knew Haywood and Moyer, and I told him I had seen them and was slightly ac- quainted with them. I think I also told him that my name was not Hogan, but Orchard, and that I had a good reason for going under an assumed name, and would give the reason at the proper time. I knew I need not answer any questions, but I thought these things could be easily proved, and that it would look better for me to answer them. Later he wanted to question me further, but I told him I had told him all I had to say, and he did not trouble me any more.

I was in Caldwell jail eighteen days and they re- moved me to the State penitentiary at Boise. Mr. Miller wrote me two or three letters and stated he was waiting for some mail, and would be down as soon as it arrived. I think I had been at the penitentiary about ten days or two weeks, and the warden took me out into the secretary's office and introduced me to an old man — I have forgotten the name he used. He then went out and left us alone. I do not remember the first part of our conversation, but he said he had seen a paper with my picture in and got permission to come up and have a talk with me. I asked him who he was and what he wanted to talk to me for. He told me

229

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

he was a detective, and went on and said perhaps if he had kept the same kind of company I had, that perhaps he would have found himself in the same position I myself was in, but he said he had chosen the right course. He said he would like to give me some good advice if I would take it. I told him I did not object talking to him, but I did not need any of his advice, and protested my innocence, and said I was being wrongfully persecuted. He said if I was in- nocent I was the victim of very unfortunate circum- stances, and that he thought I had left a bad trail behind me, and he further said it looked bad for me going in and out of Denver so much and visiting Fed- eration headquarters. He further said he did not be- lieve I did this of my own accord, and that he be- lieved I was in a position to be of great benefit to the State. I told him I knew nothing about the assassina- tion of Mr. Steunenberg whatever, and that I did not know what he was trying to get at.

He asked me if I had heard of the Mollie Maguires. I told him I had heard of them, but did not know much of their history. He started to tell me about them, and it struck me right away that he was Mc- Parland, as Haywood had given me a description of him some time before. I asked him if his name was not McParland, and he said it was. He then went on and told me a lot of the history of the Mollie Maguires,

230

DETECTIVE JAMES McPARLAND

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

and some of the parts he had played. I listened to him and said nothing much. I think at first he asked me about my people and if I believed in a hereafter and a God. I think I told him I believed in a supreme be- ing or something like that. He also told me he believed I had been used as a tool. I think that was about the substance of what he said to me the first time he came up, and he asked me to think these things over when I went back to my cell. I protested my innocence all through, and told him I had nothing to think over. He told me I would be convicted of that crime, and that I would think of the words he had told me after- ward. I told him I had no fear of being convicted. When he left he said that perhaps he would come up and see me again. I told him that it helped to pass away the time, and was a little more comfortable, or was a change.

I think it was two or three days when he came back again, and I think he started in on my belief in the hereafter, and spoke of what an awful thing it was to live and die a sinful life, and that every man ought to repent of his sins, and that there was no sin that God would not forgive. He spoke of King David being a murderer, and also the Apostle Paul. This inter- ested me very much, but I did not let on to him. I think I asked him a little about this, and he told me about King David falling in love with Uriah's wife,

231

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and ordering Joab, the general of his army, to put Uriah in the thick of the battle, and then ordering the rest to retreat, so he would be killed ; and of St. Paul, who was then called Saul, consenting to the death of Stephen, and holding the young men's coats while they stoned him to death. I wanted to ask more about these things, but did not want to let on that they interested me. He also told me of some cases where men had turned State's evidence, and that when the State had used them for a witness, they did not or could not prosecute them. He said, further, that men might be thousands of miles from where a mur- der took place and be guilty of the murder, and be charged with conspiracy, and that the man that com- mitted the murder was not as guilty as the conspira- tors, and, to say in a word, he led me to believe that there was a chance for me, even if I were guilty of the assassination of Mr. Steunenberg, if I would tell the truth, and he also urged me to think of the here- after and the awful consequences of a man dying in his sins. He further said he was satisfied I had only been used as a tool, and he was sure the Western Federation of Miners were behind this, and that they were about to their limit, and had carried their work on with a high hand, but that their foundation had begun to crumble, as all such must that followed a policy that they had. He said further that they had

232

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

had a gang of murderers at their head ever since their organization. He told me plainly he could not make me any promises, and if he did he could not fulfil them, but he said he would have the prosecuting at- torney come up and have a talk with me. I told him that he need not trouble, I had not told him anything nor had I promised to at this time, but I told him to come up again the next day and I would let him know if I had anything to tell him.

I went back to my cell that night and tried to pray, and thought I would do almost anything if God would forgive my sins. But my past life would come up before me like a mountain, and I feared there was no chance for me. I thought, though the authorities in Idaho would let me go clear if I gave evidence and told the real men responsible for the murder of Mr. Steunenberg, that there were so many other crimes that I was guilty of that there would never be any chance for me. The only real hope I could see for me was to make a clean breast of all, and ask God to forgive me, but I felt very uncertain about this and prayed to God in a half-hearted way, and I felt a little hope at times, and then I would doubt, and think of self. I knew well the methods of detectives, and did not believe many things Mr. McParland told me; but my mind was in such a state, as I have before told you, I cared little what did become of me, and did

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

not want to live any longer the old life, and when I would think of doing away with myself, the awful hereafter would stare me in the face, and something seemed to say to me that there was still hope. But I could not bear the thought of being locked up and every hour seemed like a month to me.

Now I had thought before I ever saw Mr. Mc- Parland of making a clean breast of all, but I would rather have him get the evidence than any one I knew, for the reason I knew his reputation, and knew there would be nothing left undone to run down every- thing I gave him. Then there came a doubt in my mind that this might not be Mr. McParland. I told him this when he came up the next day, and as he wore an Elk charm and I knew the Elks always car- ried a card that they used to make themselves known to a brother Elk, I asked him if he would mind let- ting me look at his Elk's card to satisfy myself that he was Mr. McParland, and he handed me his card, as he said no Elk was ashamed to show his card. After I was satisfied of this, I told him I was going to tell him all, and that he need not send the prose- cuting attorney up ; that I would not ask any pledges, but would tell the truth, and felt I did not deserve any consideration, and cared very little what became of me.

I told him I would tell him my life's history, and 234

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

we talked over a part of my career that day, but nothing in connection with this case, and the next day Mr. McParland came up, and the clerk in the penitentiary took down my statement. I began at the first of my early life, and finished with the assassina- tion of Mr. Steunenberg, but I kept a few things back that I thought too horrible to tell. We were three days at this. There were some things that no one in this country knew anything of, but I told them and in a way felt somewhat relieved. I felt that I had taken the right step, but when I thought of the awful ordeal I would have to go through to carry this out, and that I must face these men and give evidence that perhaps would send us all to the gallows, it seemed terrible to me. Sometimes I would think per- haps they would only send me to the penitentiary for life, and this I thought would be worse than being hanged, and that I would prefer the latter. I tried to pray and ask forgiveness, but this only in a half- hearted way. Sometimes I felt a little relieved, but other times I doubted, and I was very much in doubt whether God would forgive such a sinner, and I thought I would have to go through some long lamentation, and the greater the sinner the greater the sacrifice would have to be on my part. I wanted a Bible, but would not ask for it, and I did not want it known that I wanted to repent of my sins.

235

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

I longed to read the Bible, but did not want any one to see me doing so, and every day seemed al- most like a year.

During this time, or about the 20th of February, 1906, they brought Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone to the penitentiary and a day or so later they brought Steve Adams. I had told them about Adams being mixed up in other things besides what he was mixed up with me. The warden asked me before he brought Adams in if I thought best to put him in my cell, and for me to have a talk with him and persuade him to tell the truth. I told him I would do the best I could, and that I would tell him that I had told every- thing, but not at first, until I found out how he felt about it.

When Adams first came into the cell he did not let on that he knew me, or while the warden or guards were there, but after they left he began to talk to me and he spoke about my having made a confession. I laughed it off and partly denied it, but said I thought of doing so, and told him I thought it would be bet- ter for us to tell the truth and clear everything up and be done with it, as it was bound to come out some time, as so many knew about the crimes that we had been mixed up in, and that somebody was bound to tell of them some time — if not while they were up and around, some one would make a death-bed con-

236

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

fesslon ; and I told him I was tired of such a life and wanted to reform and ask God's forgiveness.

He said at first that he could not think of such a thing and spoke of the disgrace it would bring upon his people, and that there would be no chance for us at all, and he wanted me to go on through the trials and then we would tell those fellows to cut that kind of work out. I wanted him to lead a better life, and told him I could not rest, and that my conscience troubled me so that I did not want to live unless I could repent and be forgiven, and that I did not feel as though I could repent of my wrong-doing unless I told all, and made all the earthly restitution that was within my power to society, and clear my own conscience. He thought I would not feel any better after I had confessed all. I also told him there might be a chance for us to save our lives, as we had only been used as tools.

I talked to him, I think, two days on about the same lines, and he did not change his mind much, if any, and finally I told him that I had made a statement and told about all, and he asked me if I had told them about him. At first I told him that I had not, and he asked me to promise him that I would not, and I think at first I told him I would, but I finally told him that I had made a clean breast of everything, and told them all about the things he had been implicated

237

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

in and wanted him to tell the truth. He said at first he did not see how he could go that kind of a route, and asked me if they had promised me anything. I told him I did not ask them to, but I told him the party that I had made my confession to had cited similar cases, and that those that had been used as tools, as we had been, had not been prosecuted. I also told him that I did not know if this were true or not. After I had told him all, I said to him to do as he pleased, but that I had told the truth and was going to stand by it, let the consequences be what they would to myself or any one else.

I told him the warden wanted to have a talk with him, and to go out and have a talk with him, and a few minutes afterward the warden came in and asked him to go out in the office, and he did. When he came back in he said the warden was a pretty good talker. I think that same afternoon Mr. Moore, Adams's attorney from Baker City, Ore., came up to see him. He did not tell me what he said to him, but a friend and neighbor of his named Bond, from Haines, came with Mr. Moore, and Steve told me that Bond had advised him, if he knew anything or had been used as a tool to commit any crimes, to tell the truth — or that would be his advice to him. Adams told me after that Moore had told him the State hardly ever prosecuted any one they used as a witness,

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

and he said he thought he would do as I had done and tell the truth. He said that Moore had gone to Colorado to see the governor and find out if they would take Steve back there if he became a witness in this trial.

Mr. McParland came here the next afternoon and I had a talk with him and told him I thought Adams would make a confession, but perhaps not until after Moore had come back from Colorado ; so Adams went out in the office and had a talk with Mr. McParland, and he told him he would make a confession and tell the truth in everything, and the next day Mr. Mc- Parland and his private secretary came up and took down his confession. I do not think there were any threats or promises of any kind used. Adams never told me if there were.

I was taken sick a little after this and they moved me over in the hospital, and a day or two later they moved Adams over there, too, and we had a room together. My mind was in an awful condition about this time. I felt that I did not want to live, and was afraid to die. A little before Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone were arrested, Miller, my attorney, came back and came to see me, and I never let on to him I had made any confession. He told me he had been to Denver, that he had waited several days in Spo- kane and they did not send him the money, and he

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

thought best to go and see them. He said Jack Simp- kins was keeping close, that they were hard on his trail. I asked him where he was, but he did not tell me, if he knew. He said he got $1,500 from Pettibone, and he said they were all scared, and he said Pettibone told him if he could use his deposition, all right, but that he would not go to Idaho as a witness.

Miller further said he stopped in Salt Lake City and saw Lewis Cutler about the interest in the min- ing claims at Goldfield, Nev., and Cutler told him he would turn it over to me any time. Miller got me a suit of clothes and some other little articles, and came to see me two or three times before Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone were arrested, and then he put a piece in the paper that he would withdraw from my case and defend the Federation officials. I sent him a letter that that would suit me all right, but he came up to see me after. I did not see him the first time. But he came again and the warden brought him in the hospital to see me, and he said the newspaper report was false, that he had not stated he would withdraw from my case. I told him that I had made other arrangements, and would not require his services any longer.

Mr. McParland came up a few days later and said they wanted me to go to Caldwell before the Grand Jury and give some evidence. So I went to Caldwell

240

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

before the Grand Jury, and told them the conversa- tion I had had with Mover, Haywood, and Pettibone in regard to assassinating Mr. Steunenberg, and how I carried out the assassination. I came back then, and about a week later Mr. McParland came up again, and told me I would have to go to Cald- well again and plead to the indictment, or at least to go before the court. He said he would make ar- rangements and have an attorney there to repre- sent me.

The next day I went to Caldwell, and no one said anything more to me, and when I went into court they read the indictment to me, and I expected Mr. McParland had made arrangements for an attorney to represent me, and that he would answer for me, but no one answered for me, and the judge then asked me if I had counsel, and no one said anything. He asked me then if I wished an attorney, and I told him no, and he said I was entitled to one, and he would appoint Bryant and Cox to represent me, and that I could take the statutory time to plead. Mr. Bryant and I went down in the sheriff's office, but I told him nothing of what I had done. I thought after the con- fession, as I intended to tell the truth, I was going to plead guilty, but Mr. Bryant told me there were three pleas I could enter, guilty, not guilty, or not plead at all. I told him I would make no plea then,

241

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

and we went up before the court then, and I told the judge I had no plea to make and he instructed the clerk to enter a plea of not guilty.

I came back to the penitentiary that night, and felt pretty blue, and felt as though I did not have a friend in the world, after Mr. McParland not keeping his word in regard to getting me an attorney, and taking me into court like a dummy, and I not knowing what to say or do. I came back feeling more blue than ever, and, to finish up everything, when I came back that night to the penitentiary, they had my things moved back out of the hospital into a cell, and, as it was pretty cold there, and I was not feeling very well physically and worse mentally, I just broke down again and felt like giving up entirely.

I did not get up the next day, and really con- templated putting myself out of the way, and wrote a letter to my brother and put it between the lining of my vest, and I told Adams if anything happened to me to send this letter to my brother, and that he would find the address on the letter. I think I told him I had something there to put myself out of the way with, but I had nothing in particular only my watch crystal. I was thinking of pounding this or the elec- tric globe up and swallowing it, but I hardly knew what effect it would have. I had heard of people pounding up glass and killing dogs with it, and I

242

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

had not made up my mind definitely. I was only thinking about it. When I would think of the here- after, something seemed to say to me not to do it, but there was hope for me, and I would pray, but oh, I had no heart to pray. But I am sure now, that I had dear ones praying for me and God heard their prayers, and kept me from making the last desperate leap into the Great Beyond. I was not very well and the cells were very cold and the warden moved us back in the hospital.

Shortly after this Steve told his wife about my writ- ing this letter, and she told the warden, and Mr. Mc- Parland and Governor Gooding came up to see me, and Mr. McParland asked me about it, and told me he understood I had the means of destruction on my person, and that he wanted me to give it to him. I told him what I had thought of, but that I had not thought seriously of it, and that he need have no fear, as I felt better. He talked to me about the here- after, and that to do or to think of such a thing was awful, and that there was no possible hope then ; but said if I would truly and sincerely repent and pray for forgiveness that there was no sin that God would not forgive. He told me he had been praying nearly all day, as he had had word that his nephew, whom he thought a great deal of, had been killed in a wreck near Florence, Col., and had been virtu-

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

ally burned alive. His talk helped me a great deal, and I felt ashamed of myself, and also felt provoked at Adams for telling such a thing ; and I don't think that I ever would have carried it out, as I was not sure that it would have killed me, and I had not fully decided to do it. If I had had a gun I believe there were times when I would have ended all.

Soon after this some missionary society in Chicago sent me a Bible, and the deputy brought it in to me, and I felt mean and told him to take it out, as I did not want it, and at the same time I longed for it, but did not want any one to know or see me reading it. I had been trying to pray and ask forgiveness of my many sins, but in a very half-hearted way, and I felt more miserable than ever then, and resolved I would ask for this Bible, but kept putting it off from day to day. At last I asked the warden to bring it in to me, and I began to read it. I was not long read- ing it through, and I could not find anything in it that said no murderer could enter the kingdom of heaven, and I prayed earnestly for forgiveness, and read and reread the glorious promises, and deter- mined not to give up before I found peace and par- don. True, I was long weeks and months before I found the light or even the dawn, but I kept praying and persevering. I had no thought of turning back ; I never doubted God's word and promises, I only

244

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

doubted because of my own weakness. This peace crept in a little at a time, and I can hardly tell when or how, but I at last began to realize the change, and took great delight in reading the Bible and pray- ing earnestly to God several times a day. I had it in my head I was such a sinner that I had to go through some long lamentation, and the greater the sin, the more God would require of us before He would forgive us.

Mr. McParland had asked me if I would like to have a minister come up and see me, and I told him I would. He asked me if I would like to have Rev. Dean Hinks of the Episcopal Church. He said he had met him, and thought he was a good man, and he came up to see me, and has come occasionally ever since, and has been a great comfort and help to me spiritually. He also brought me several good books that have enlightened me very much, and thank God to-day that I know I am a sinner saved by grace, through no good merits of mine, but all through the blood of Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour and Redeemer. I do not mean to say that I have all clear sailing, far from it. I have one continual battle to overcome my wicked and deceitful heart, but I praise God that His grace is sufficient.

I thought at first that this was not right, and that God had not forgiven me. These thoughts would arise

245

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

in my mind, and I thought this had not ought to be. I had no desire to do them, but I would think of them often and try to get them out of my mind, and I praise God they don't arise as much as they used to. But I have found as I read the experience of many noble, good men in the books, in which they give their experience, that Jesus Christ is the only way that we can approach God's throne and plead His mercy, as Jesus is our mediator and redeemer, who took upon Himself our sins. It all seems clear to me now.

I only give this as my experience, hoping that it may help some one if they have or should have a similar struggle. I would not go through such re- morse and torment again for all the world. This may seem an exaggeration to some, but it is true, never- theless. Any one that has had such a struggle and prevailed can readily grasp the truth of my state- ment.

I will now tell you what I believe saved me. It was the prayers of a dear loving wife, whom I had shame- fully and disgracefully left many years before with a darling little baby girl about six months old. As I have related how this came about, I need not repeat here, only to say that when God took away the bit- terness out of my heart and let His love shine in, then the former love I had for my wife returned, stronger than ever, if that were possible, and I longed to know

246

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

if she was alive, or what had become of her and our little baby girl, as my mind was made up then to tell the whole truth regardless of the consequences to my- self or anybody else.

I knew I would have to tell my true name, and then all would come out, and I asked Mr. McParland to write to Road Macklon, Brighton, Ontario, Canada, and ask him if he knew anything about Albert E. Horsley or his wife. Mr. McParland wrote to Mr. Macklon, but he was dead, but Mrs. Macklon an- swered and said that nothing was known of me. I was supposed to have gone West several years before, but that Mrs. Horsley and her daughter lived at Wooler. I then wrote my dear wife and told her the trouble I was in, and asked her to forgive me. I also told her that I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour and found peace at last. I got a letter from her that broke my heart, but only made me cling closer to the Crucified One. She said that she had forgiven me years ago, and had never ceased to pray for me and never would. I will leave the reader to imagine the rest she said to me. I will only say further that there never was a harsh word written in any of her letters, and her dear letters and those of our darling little girl from time to time have been a great source of comfort to me, and they make me cling closer to Jesus, knowing if I never am permitted to meet them

247

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

here below again, I can meet them up yonder where meeting and parting will be no more, if I am faithful until death, and this makes heaven seem dearer than ever to me.

After I had read my Bible a good deal and felt my sins forgiven, I tried to talk to Steve Adams and his wife to reform and lead a new life, and, although I hardly knew what to say to them as yet, I was some- what in doubt myself. They had the same answer that so many have, that they intended to, as soon as they got out of that trouble they were going to join the church and live better lives. Steve and his wife lived over in a house in the woman's ward, and I went over there for a time and had my meals with them, and I talked some to them of my experience and determina- tion to lead a new life from this time, and tried to persuade them to do the same. After Steve went to Telluride, Col., with the officers, to locate the bodies of two men who had been murdered there by the Federation leaders, and which Steve had helped to bury, they brought my meals in to me from that time, and I saw Steve only on Saturdays after this, except a time or two when I went over there on Sun- day. He came to the men's department on Saturday forenoon while the women took a bath. I never have gone around among the men here much. I usually stayed in my room, or was out walking by myself.

M8

IN JAIL AND PENITENTIARY

When Steve came in the yard on Saturday, at first he always came up where I was, and we talked to- gether, but all at once he stopped coming around where I was at all, and when he came over in the men's yard, he would stay down in the yard and talk to some of the men. I asked Mr. Whitney if he knew what Steve was offended at, and he said he did not. He had always told me that he was glad that he had told all, and believed we would come out all right, and his wife expressed herself that way, too; but I knew from little things they would say from time to time that they blamed me for telling all and getting them into this trouble, and Mrs. Adams said if she had been here she would have stopped Steve from tell- ing anything, and without them they could never con- vict Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone. I never said much back to them at such times, and other times they would say they were glad to have it over with. Mrs. Adams knew about a great many of these crimes, as Steve told her everything.

Steve's brother Joe came later, and also Mary Mahoney, a woman from Telluride, Col., and they sent letters to Steve, and Joe would slip them to Steve when he was visiting him. Steve would show these to the officials here and laugh about them. They were trying to get him to see the Federation lawyers, and told him in these notes that it made no difference what

219

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

he had told, that they could not use it against him, and that they were his friends and would stand by him. Steve paid no attention to these things at first, but his uncle, Mr. Lillard, who had been here several times to see him, came up and had dinner with them, and the next day or so the Federation lawyers got out a writ of habeas corpus for Steve, and he was re- leased, but immediately arrested and afterward taken to Wallace, Idaho, and charged with the murder of a man by the name of Tyler. He had told me all about killing Tyler and Boule and the others that were with him. Simpkins also told me the same story, and showed me where they killed Boule, when I was up there hunting with him. I know Steve Adams and his wife told the truth in everything that I knew about, though there were many things that he had told me that he had done of which I did not have per- sonal knowledge, but he told them in his confession just the same as he had told me, and I have not the least doubt but what he told the whole truth, and would have stood by it if they had not brought some pressure to bear upon him. What this was I do not know.

250

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MY REASON FOR WRITING THIS BOOK

I HAVE been severely criticized by a certain class for writing this awful story of mine, and I want to make a little explanation here why I do so. I have not written it through any malice or prejudice against any individual or organization, but knowing all that I did through my connection with the Western Federation of Miners, after I had been brought into the light in and through the tender mercies of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I felt it a duty that I owed to God and humanity to do all that laid in my power to expose and stop these crimes and out- rages. I hope I will be excused for these broken words, but let the reader remember that my education is very limited. By the help of God I have undertaken to put these facts before the public, that it may enlighten the great masses of the laboring class, and especially the members of the Western Federation of Miners, so that the rank and file of this organization may know just what sort of leaders they have been fol-

251

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

lowing all these years, and also what a great amount of their money has been spent for. I know that these outrages and crimes look too horrible to be believed, and most of them would appear to do more harm than good to the organization, but this is the very point, for this helped them to get out of many of the charges that have been laid at their door, and they always have succeeded in making it appear that the mine operators had hired men to commit these outrages so as to persecute them.

I believe that a very small percentage of the Fed- eration know or believe these crimes have been com- mitted from time to time with the sanction and at the request of the head officers of their organization. These leaders were always very particular to get men on the executive board that favored this work, and if they were not active they favored it by their silence. I have no doubt but some of them kept silent out of fear for their lives, but many were very active in ad- vancing this work. You may say that the books were always audited at every convention, but the executive board had gone over them first, and they had them fixed so no auditing committee could find out any- thing about this emergency fund, and it would take months to go over these accounts during some of the time when there were strikes. A half a million dollars or thereabouts have been handled during a year, and

252

MY REASON FOR WRITING THIS BOOK

several stores run, and relief dealt out to thousands in small amounts — so you must see at a glance how impossible it is for any auditing committee to audit these accounts in a few days. As the delegates are all miners and not experts at this work, they could not find out much about the accounts, and would run over the accounts in three or four days and hand in their reports, which were more a form than real au- diting. The leaders in these conventions had no trouble in running the convention, and the local unions usu- ally sent their leaders to these conventions as dele- gates.

Now I know during the last four years that there has been a vast amount of money spent for this work. I have received about $4,000 myself, besides $1,600 paid to Miller by Pettibone and Simpkins to defend me; but what has been paid to us tools to actually do the work has been only a small amount of it. The bills of the attorneys that have been employed to de- fend the men engaged in this work, and also the offi- cers from time to time, will run up perhaps in the hundreds of thousands.

Now I have told my story on the witness-stand in the trial of Haywood — not because I wanted to take him or any of these men down with me, but because I could see no other way for me to do what I believed was my solemn duty. I never felt that I would be

253

CONFESSIONS OF HARRY ORCHARD

forgiven by God until I fully decided on this course. I know many men that were marked for death, and had every reason to believe that sooner or later the plan to kill them would be carried out, and perhaps some other man would find himself in the same posi- tion that I am in to-day. This work had been going on before Haywood and Moyer were at the head of the Western Federation of Miners, and before I knew anything about it, and I had every reason to believe that it would continue. I could see no other way that I could make earthly restitution to society for my wrong-doing, except to publicly confess all, regard- less of the consequences of myself or any one else. My sympathy is with all those that were connected with me in these horrible outrages against God's creatures. I pray continually for them that they may see the error of their way before it is eternally too late.

I have told the truth in this awful trial. God alone has given me strength to openly confess to those crimes. My conscience is clear. I know I have done what was right and made all the earthly restitution that is within my power. Mr. Haywood has been ac- quitted. I can truthfully say I would far rather see him acquitted than hanged. I believe the trial will do much good, as I do not believe these leaders of the Federation will take a chance again with any one

254

MY REASON FOR WRITING THIS BOOK

for the sake of revenge upon those that oppose this organization. My earnest prayer is in closing this awful tale, that it will be the means of stopping this kind of work forever.

THE END

255

RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO— ■► 202 Main Library
LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE	2	3
4	5	6
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405.
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
ft DD A A IQQft
Mr K {J*t 1330 iVIAY 16-
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6 BERKELEY, CA 94720

r

U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES

1111

BD03Dlb075

/

219182

MB s

It::

I HUH

i i liiilili

■ liii iiiijiilliiiiiiii!

I

Hi

ill ill i