such a measure. In the general election of 1902
the constitutional amendment providing for an eight-hour day was adopted
by the people of the State by 72,980 votes against 26,266. This was a
great victory for the miners, and it seemed as if their work was done.
According to all the traditions and pretensions of political life, they
had every reason to believe that the next session of the legislature
would pass an eight-hour law. It appears, however, that the corporations
had determined at all cost to defeat such a bill. They set out therefore
to corrupt wholesale the legislature, and as a result the eight-hour
bill was defeated. After having done everything in their power,
patiently, peacefully, and legally to obtain their law, and only after
having been outrageously betrayed by corrupt public servants, the miners
as a last resort, on the 3d of July, 1903, declared a strike to secure
through their own efforts what a decade of pleading and prayers had
failed to achieve.

I suppose no unbiased observer would to-day question that the political
machines of Colorado had sold themselves body and soul to the mine
owners. There can surely be no other explanation for their violation of
their pledges to the people and to the miners. And further evidence of
their perfidy was given on the night of September 3, 1903, at a
conference between some of the State officials and certain officers of
the Mine Owners' Association. Although the strike up to this time had
been conducted without any violence, the State officials agreed that the
mine owners could have the aid of the militia, provided they would pay
the expenses of the soldiers while they remained in the strike district.
Two days later over one thousand men were encamped in Cripple Creek. All
the strike districts were at once put under martial law; the duly
elected officials of the people were commanded to resign from office;
hundreds of unoffending citizens were arrested and thrown into "bull
pens"; the whole working force of a newspaper was apprehended and taken
to the "bull pen"; all the news that went out concerning the strike was
censored, the manager of one of the mines acting as official censor. At
the same time this man, together with other mine managers and friends,
organized mobs to terrorize union miners and to force out of town anyone
whom they thought to be in sympathy with the strikers.

In the effort to determine whether the courts or the military powers
were supr