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taxicab covered this distance over roads heavy with snow in 22 minutes.

Mr. MacNaughton left in a few days for Chicago. Reporters discovered that he was at the Blackstone Hotel in that city and gathered to interview him. According to the printed reports, Mr. MacNaughton went to the home of a friend, whence, without returning to the hotel, he telephoned to have his baggage sent to him. When next heard from he was in Bos

ton for his health. I could not discover that before his departure from Calumet his health had seemed visibly precarious. But perhaps he did go to Boston for his health, and, of course, that city is well known for its salubrious and restorative climate, particularly in the wintertime. However this may be, his absence from Calumet was much regretted, especially by the investigators, not all of whom seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the story of his movements of the night of the riot.

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disaster here wore a white button like the badge of the Citizens' Alliance. The president and half a dozen members of the women's auxiliary of the federation swore that they saw no insignia on the man, and union members who stood in the vestibule of Italian Hall for one hour before the panic started said the alarm came from within the hall, and that no person wearing such a button had passed them.

John Burcar, who gave his age as 15 and said he had lost a sister in the disaster, excitedly told of seeing a man muffled to his eyes in a fur-collared overcoat enter the hall. 'He hollered Fire!' and then ran out," said the boy. "I ran out, too. He had an Alliance button on his coat."

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These

tail the story of the two
witnesses contemptuously
referred to above.
and others were ready to
testify, but were not called.
Judge Hilton, counsel for
the Federation of Miners,
was present, but was not
allowed to put any ques-
tions. The inquest was
rather a farce. The cor-
oner's jury stood 3 to 3
about a verdict explicitly
whitewashing the Alliance.
Some wanted a verdict de-
claring that somebody went
into the hall and shouted
"Fire" but whether he
wore a Citizens' Alliance
button could not be ascer-
tained.

The fact is that Calumet was overrun at the time with ruffians, thugs, gunmen and gangsters, brought to the region to overawe the strikers and "start something." Although the law of the state of Michigan explicitly forbids such employment, these men were sworn in as deputy sheriffs and were nominally in the service of the county. All of these ruffians wore the badge of the Citizens' Alliance. The affidavits show that they were habitually or

continuously intoxicated. A chief part of their business was to annoy and pursue strikers in the streets and highways. There is indubitable testimony that some of these men were in and about the hall that afternoon. Since no sane and sober person could possibly have believed a fire to exist in that hall, the only plausible theory of the disaster is that one of these drunken ruffians thought it would be fun and in the line of his usual vocation to break up this meeting of the hated strikers by shouting "Fire!"

This was the idea that so bitterly incensed the strikers. The Citizens' Alliance upheld the presence of the ruffians; they wore its badge and operated with its approval.

But Public Opinion decides great strikes and how far Public Opinion may have been influenced by the remarkable collection of erroneous dispatches exhibited in the foregoing pages every reader can determine for himself.

CHAPTER III

CIVIL WAR IN COLORADO

THAT was in Michigan, where workingmen came into conflict with one of the two great Groups that exercise over our public affairs so vast and insidious an influence. It shows what power can be swayed by the Morgan Group whenever it is deemed necessary to defeat a strike or overwhelm organized labor.

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Observe next what happened in Colorado, where workingmen came similarly into conflict with the other Group, the great Oil Group.

This chapter ought to be of unusual interest to you, for it not only reveals the enormous resources, strength, arrogance and lawlessness of the Controlling Interests but shows how much labor can expect from the most advantageous laws in its favor so long as the enforcement of those laws is in the hands of its enemies.

In Colorado the labor element is strong, and the politicians, always playing the game, have been willing to fool labor into supporting one

capitalistic party or the other by passing broad laws ostensibly in labor's interest.

Thus in Colorado sappy reformers said that labor had no need to strike for the better conditions demanded in other states, because in Colorado these things had been made the law of the state and nothing therefore was left to the whim or the selfishness of the employer.

In the course of time there had been enacted laws ostensibly securing to the miners the eighthour day, semi-monthly pay days, their own check-weighman, the abolition of company stores, and the right to maintain their organizations. These are the things for which workingmen strike elsewhere. In Colorado observe, said the reformer, they are already secured.

But the fact was that in the coal mining regions the employers obeyed these laws at their own discretion and used them as a weapon against organized labor. Their position was that if the men desired an eight-hour day or anything else they must first of all abjure their

unions.

The law was a dead letter.

On September 23, 1913, the union miners went on strike to secure obedience to the law from the lawbreaking employers.

That was the substance of the issue. The

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