… the unwritten law of many Western mining camps that no Italian should be allowed to live in the camps had been strictly enforced. These five men were mistaken for Italians, suspected of being an advance guard of non-union men to be brought into the camp in anticipation of the strike…. Two miners interviewed them and learning that they were not members of the Federation, informed them that they could obtain work as railroad laborers a mile or two outside the town and that they would be directed there. A committee of three miners called at their boarding-house … and the foreigners, carrying their grips, went with them in the direction of Hollywood. With a warning never to return … they were started off down the Florence and Cripple Creek tracks, and the crowd was ordered to go no further. After the five men had gone fifty yards a volley of revolver shots were fired after them.⁹

In a Michigan copper strike when riots occurred at the mine shafts, “… Many employees of the companies had been sworn in as deputies, but they had no firearms. The strikers overpowered these deputies, took away their badges, and in some cases beat them.”¹⁰

VIOLENCE BY THE EMPLOYERS

Violence by the employers has worked indirectly through paid agents and through the State. Its avowed aim has been to defend their property and protect strike-breakers. Often enough the real purpose has been to intimidate the strikers, embroil them with the authorities and then to use the forces of the State to help break the strike. Their own violence was veiled behind the law and often ended in military rule. Before they became so well organized, violence consisted of riots that quickly subsided before the police. Military rule never superseded the courts. The most effective weapon of the “fighting” employer is to have the troops called out. He is thus relieved of all responsibility. Lacking the troops, he has his own agents of violence, while the local police and the courts are usually with him.