![]() ![]() Union members were also arrested en masse with no charges, and in communities where the unions were strong enough to have members holding elected office, those elected officials were turned out with no defense from the National Guard. Striking workers and union members were frequently “deported” from their communities, sometimes legally declared “vagrants” because they weren’t working and subjected to mob violence from mine owners if they tried to return. And the mine owners had even more say because they were the ones who financed the deployment of the National Guard. He considered himself a defender of “law and order,” but Suggs provides numerous examples of Peabody refusing to use the National Guard to stop violence coming from mine owners against union members. ![]() He declared martial law and called out the National Guard to suppress the unions. James Peabody came to power as an acknowledged representative of business interests who feared that volatile conditions in the mining communities were deterring investment from Eastern capital and endangering the economic security of the entire state. In his book Colorado’s War on Militant Unionism, George Suggs says there was plenty of violence on both sides, but the complete intransigence of the mine owners when it came to negotiations only encouraged the radicalism of the unions. The Colorado Labor Wars of 19 came after nearly a decade of violent confrontations between the militant Western Federation of Miners and mine owners and their allies in government and business. (Denver Public Library/Western History Collection/C331.892822) ![]() This version of the poster features a photo of Henry Maki, a striking miner who was arrested for "vagrancy" and chained in freezing weather to a telegraph pole when he refused to work. ![]()
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