Coal miners -- United States -- Fiction; Coal mines and mining -- United States -- Fiction; Labor movement -- United States -- Fiction
“The polling places were upon the grounds, and in the buildings of these
companies; the registration lists were kept within the private offices
or buildings of such companies, and used and treated as their private
property.
“Thus were the public election districts and the public election
machinery turned over to the absolute domination and imperial control of
private coal corporations, and used by them as absolutely and privately
as were their mines, to and for their own private purposes, and upon
which public territory no man might enter for either public or private
purpose, save and except by the express permission of these private
corporations.
“This right to determine who should enter such so called election
precincts, appears from the record to have been exercised as against all
classes; merchants, tradesmen or what not, and whether the business of
such person was public or private. Indeed, it appears that in one
instance the governor and adjutant general of the state while on
official business, were denied admission to one of these closed camps.
And that on the day of election, the Democratic watchers and challengers
for Walsen Mine precinct, one of which was Neelley, the Democratic
candidate for sheriff, were forced to seek and secure a detail of
Federal soldiers to escort them into the precinct and to the polls, and
that such soldiers remained as such guard during the day and a part of
the night....
“But if there was any doubt concerning the condition of the closed camps
and precincts, and the exclusion of representatives of the Democratic
party from discussing the issues of the campaign within the precincts
comprising the closed camps, it is entirely removed by the testimony of
the witness Weitzel, for contestee (Farr). He testified that he was a
resident of Pueblo, and was manager of the Colorado Fuel and Iron
Company; that Rouse, Lester, Ideal, Cameron, Walsen, Pictou and McNally
are camps under his jurisdiction. That he had general charge of the
camps and that there was no company official in Colorado superior to him
in this respect except the president; that the superintendent and other
employés are under his supervision; that the Federal troops came about
the 1st of May, 1914, and continued until January, 1915. That in all
those camps he tried to keep out the people who were antagonistic to the
company’s interests; that it was private property and so treated by his
company; that through him the company and its officials assumed to
exercise authority as to who might or who might not enter; that if
persons could assure or satisfy the man at the gate, or the
superintendent that they were not connected with the United Mine
Workers, or in their employ as agitators, they were let into the camp.
That ‘no one we were fighting against got in for social intercourse or
any other’; that he and officials under him assumed to pass upon the
question of whether or not any person coming there came for the purpose
of agitation. That Mr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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