So Altman, peopled almost entirely by miners, and located strategically within the mining area, became the center of the union movement and the seat of authority for the organized miners. Colorado Springs, the county seat of El Paso county, was the home of fully three-fourths of the principal mine owners of the district, and naturally became the center of the mine owners' movement. The Cripple Creek District being at that time included in El Paso County, there were thus two centers about which the coming conflict was to develop, Colorado Springs, the seat of county authority and the stronghold of capital, and Altman, the active scene of controversy and the stronghold of labor.

While the unions were organizing, the mine owners were not less active. Frequent conferences were held relative to the establishment of a uniform working day and the question of lengthening hours was constantly agitated among the owners of eight- or nine-hour mines. Finally, in the early part of January, the owners of the eight-hour mines came together in an agreement to increase the working day at their mines to ten hours, nine hours labor and one hour for lunch. Notices that set forth the agreement, and made February 1st the time for lengthening working hours, were received by the mine managers for posting, about the middle of the month. The appearance of the notices, first at the Pharmacist, then at the Isabella, Victor, and Summit mines, caused considerable stir among the miners.10 Meetings of the unions were called immediately, at which resolutions

McIntosh immediately began corresponding with the men at Altman who were taking the lead in forming a union, with the result that a union comprising about 300 miners was instituted in the fall of 1893. Mr. McIntosh returning to Aspen shortly afterward, appointed myself his deputy, with instructions to organize the remainder of the district, with the result that in less than sixty days I had instituted unions in Cripple Creek, Anaconda and Victor. This achievement, in so thoroughly unionizing the district, was rewarded by a request for me to become president of Altman Miners Union No. 19. I did so. Although four unions had been organized in the district, only one charter had as yet been granted by the Western Federation, that to Altman Union No. 19. Each of the other unions elected a full set of officers, with the exception of president, working under the Altman charter; the president of that union presiding over the remaining unions in the district."

10 The notice at the Pharmacist was posted January 17th, and was followed by the others a few days later.

were passed not to work in mines attempting to lengthen the labor day.

Manager Locke of the Isabella had never been popular with the mining men. He had been the first to conceive the idea of lengthening the working day, and the men now blamed him entirely for the present movement, and became very bitter against him. Becoming frightened he applied to the sheriff for a guard of deputies, and never appeared without them. In riding to and from the mine he was always preceded by an armed deputy, and followed by another one. This only increased the feeling against him, and a plan was finally made for his capture and eviction from camp.

On the morning of January 20th a large body of men collected in the rear of the Taylor Boarding House, and when Mr. Locke and his deputies came along, they were surrounded, disarmed, and started off on foot down the hill. Arriving at the Spinney Mill near Grassey, Mr. Locke, intimidated by threats, took an oath that he would never return unless permission were given by the miners, and that he would give no information against any one for driving him from the district." He was then given his horse, and started off toward Colorado Springs, where his arrival late in the evening produced great excitement. One of the deputies captured with Mr. Locke was a man named Wm. Rabedeau, who will appear several times later in the difficulty.

The miners' unions had already agreed that the men should be called out from all mines that attempted to lengthen the working shift. On January 8th they went a step further and demanded a uniform eight-hour day for the whole district.12 February 7th was set as the date for calling out all men working over eight hours.

The two sides were thus arrayed against each other, the mine owners standing for a ten-hour day, the miners for an eighthour day. In the contest that was to follow the conditions were decidedly favorable to the owners. As we have seen, the coun

11 Accounts by eye witnesses.

12 By resolution passed after a speech by President Calderwood strongly urging such action.

try was in the throes of a financial panic, and as far as the labor market was concerned the purchasing power of money had doubled. Thousands of men were unemployed, and willing to work for almost any wage. The mines were generally dry, and would not suffer from a few months' idleness, and there were no expensive plants to depreciate in value by lying idle. Two railroads were being built into camp, and a wait of a short time would simply mean a saving of about three dollars a ton on the transportation of ore. The conditions for the miners were disheartening. Provisions and rents were very high; their unions were but newly formed, only one having a charter from the federation; there had not been time for the development of a strong unity of feeling, for thorough organization or for the collection of a large treasury fund upon which to draw-things so necessary for strength in a strike. When one reads, then, that the miners won their fight, he will expect to find that extraordinary forces had been acting, and that startling things had happened, nor will he be disappointed.

The key to the explanation is to be found in the character of the men themselves. It must be remembered that Cripple Creek was not the ordinary mining camp, but a newly settled, essentially frontier, district. The men were not of the mining population familiar to the coal fields-foreign born, ignorant, used to obedience, easily cowed-but of the characteristic frontiersman type, come not so much to find work as to seek a fortune. Rough, ready, fearless, used to shifting for themselves; shrewd, full of expedients; reckless, ready to cast everything on a single die; they were not the kind of men to be caught napping, or to be turned from their purpose until every possible resource had been tried. They would act quickly, shrewdly, and effectively; withal straightforwardly, but with small respect for authority, and none too much for law. Nor were the mine owners generally of the usual capitalistic type. The majority of them were as much frontiersmen as the miners themselves, men who had gained their wealth by successful prospecting, or by lucky buying in the early days of the camp. It was Greek against Greek, similar ideas and strong methods on both sides.

CHAPTER II

THE TWO CRISES

THE FIRST CRISIS

Several attempts were made to get the two sides together in a compromise before February 1st. On the evening of January 28th, mainly through the influence of Cripple Creek business men, a meeting of miners, mine workers, and neutrals was held at the Palace Hotel, Cripple Creek. The miners proposed as a compromise, that the mines be allowed to work just as they had been doing, the eight-hour mines to continue on the eight-hour schedule, and the nine- and ten-hour mines on the nine- and tenhour schedules. The owners, however, took no action on the proposition.

On February 1st the mines that had posted notices went on the ten-hour shift. The men walked out, closing them down. On February 7th, early in the morning, a party of union men started the round of the district, stopping at every long-time mine and calling the men out. By noon every nine- and ten-hour mine in the camp was closed. The Pike's Peak, the Gold Dollar, the Portland,1 and a number of smaller mines, acceded to the eight-hour request, and continued to work.

The following month was one of comparative quiet. The men

1 President James F. Burns, of the Portland, in a published letter concern ing the attitude of the Portland, said: "During the time of what was known as the 'Bull Hill War' or more correctly speaking, the labor trouble of 1894, the Portland was working about 125 men, while the principal officers and stockholders—including myself-lived at the mine and were in the closest possible touch with all employes, knowing each other personally. During the time that trouble existed elsewhere in the district, everything went smoothly at the Portland. We had been paying $3.25 per shift of 9 hours, which permitted the working of only two shifts. We promptly made a new scale of $3.00 for 8 hours which was accepted by the union, and 3 shifts instead of two, put to work."