about one-third of the votes
in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven
the socialists their "original sin." In the country at large socialism
made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast
for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly
since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the
difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.

For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.
However, in 1905, came another attempt in the shape of the Industrial
Workers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialists
helped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the same
time an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labor
movement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by the
Western Federation of Miners since the middle nineties.

Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in the
silver region of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in the early nineties, the mining
States of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which were
more like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes.

A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has been
encountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government in
the interest of economic class. This was partly due to the absence of a
neutral middle class, farmers or others, who might have been able to
keep matters within bounds.

The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in and
around the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. It
held its first convention in 1893 in Butte, Montana. In 1894 the men
employed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimum
wage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months the
strike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in
1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Alene mining
district, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and also
in the San Juan district in California.

The most important strike of the Western Federation of Miners, however,
began in 1903 at Colorado City, where the mill and smeltermen's union
quit work in order to compel better working conditions. As the
sympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the Western
Federation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek region were
called out. The eight-hour