MARTIAL LAW

The year 1892 witnessed the beginning of “state martial law” in industrial conflicts. Militia had been used against strikers as early as 1828, and both state and federal troops were called out in the eastern half of the country in the Great Riots of 1877. Before about 1892, the military was regarded as an extension of the civil power. They assisted the civil officers and the courts to preserve order and protect life and property. The so-called “martial law” meant only that the soldiers were called in as police. It did not mean, as it has come to mean since, the imprisonment of men by hundreds, a trial by military commissions, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and a supplanting of the courts. At this time, the soldiers had no more right than a chief of police to exercise such powers.³⁸

The assumption of this authority under “martial law” came about from their function of protecting life and property as the employers conceived it. Protecting the strike-breakers brought the strikers and troops into collision. The local civil authorities sometimes favored the strikers and often remained neutral; therefore effectively to accomplish the protection of the strike-breakers the Governor or the commander proclaims “martial law.” The effect is thus stated by federal investigators:

In Colorado martial law has been in effect ten times since 1894. Similarly in Idaho … on several occasions…. Not only have strikers been imprisoned by military courts, but thousands have been held for long periods in “bull pens.” Hundreds have been deported from the State, and so arrogant have the troops become upon occasions that they have refused to obey the mandates of the civil courts….

In West Virginia, during the strike of the coal-miners in 1912, martial law was declared and the writ of habeas

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