The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor riot of 1899 was the second of two major labor-management confrontations in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho in the 1890s. Like the first incident seven years earlier, the 1899 confrontation was an attempt by union miners, led by the Western Federation of Miners to unionize non-union mines, and have them pay the higher union wage scale. As with the 1892 strike, the 1899 incident culminated in a dynamite attack that destroyed a non-union mining facility, the burning of multiple homes and outbuildings and two murders, followed by military occupation of the district.
The riot of 1899 resulted from the miners' frustrations with mine operators that paid lower wages, hired Pinkerton or Thiel operatives to infiltrate the union, and the refusal of non-union miners to join or strike.
Background Miners strike of 1892
Angered by wage cuts, Coeur d'Alene area miners conducted a strike in 1892. The strike erupted in violence when union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. After several deaths, the U.S. army occupied the area and forced an end to the strike. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year.
The second military occupation, 1894 Pro-union sentiment remained strong in the area, and by 1894, most of the mines were unionized, represented by the Knights of Labor.
Violence erupted in the Coeur d'Alene district during the national Pullman railroad strike of 1894. Union members attacked non-union mines and workers. Forty masked men shot to death John Kneebone, who had testified against union miners in 1892. Others kidnapped a mine superintendent, and tried to blow up the powder house at the Bunker Hill mine.
Urged by the mine owners, the Idaho governor requested federal troops, supposedly to prevent interruptions in railroad service along the Northern Pacific route through the Coeur d'Alene area. President Grover Cleveland sent about 700 troops in July 1894. Major General John Schofield, determined to avoid embroiling his troops in a local labor dispute as they were in 1892, directed that the Army confine its mission to keeping the railroads running, and not take orders from state or local officials. The Army patrolled the railroad lines, and reported no disturbances or local opposition. The union members, wanting to avoid another military occupation, stopped the attacks on non-union targets.
The Army repeatedly reported that there were no disturbances of rail transport, and requested permission to withdraw the troops. The mine owners pressured the Cleveland administration to keep the troops in place. The mine owners eventually realized that the Army would not expand its mission beyond protecting the railroad, and dropped their opposition to withdrawal of the troops. The Army units left the Coeur d'Alene in September 1894.Clayton D. Laurie and Ronald H. Cole, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders 1877-1945(Washington: US Army Center of Military History, 1997).p. 163-165
In December 1894, the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine shut down rather than agree to the union demand of a uniform wage of $3.50 (~$ in ) per day. The mine reopened in June 1895, with nonunion labor paying $3.00 per day to miners and $2.50 to surface employees and unskilled underground labor. The company said that whenever the combined prices of lead and silver rose again to a certain point, they would restore the old wage rate.Frederick Leslie Ransome, and Frank Cathcart Calkins, 1908, The Geology and Ore Deposits of the Coeur D’Alene District, Idaho, US Geological Survey, Professional Paper 62, p.81.
Leading up to the 1899 clash The Bunker Hill Mining Company at Wardner was profitable, having paid more than $600,000 in dividends.J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble, 1997, page 111. Miners working in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines were receiving fifty cents to a dollar less per day than other miners,Labor's Greatest Conflicts, Emma F. Langdon, 1908, page 16. which at that time represented a significant percentage of the paycheck. The properties were the only mines in the district that were not entirely unionized.
In April 1899, as the union was launching an organizing drive of the few locations not yet unionized, superintendent Albert Burch declared that the company would rather "shut down and remain closed twenty years" than to recognize the union. He then fired seventeen workers that he believed to be union members and demanded that all other union men collect their back pay and quit.
Dynamite Express The strike by the union local at Wardner was not succeeding, and the nearby WFM locals, at Gem, Burke, and Mullan, feared that the other mine owners would cut wages to match those paid at the Bunker Hill mine. During the trial, these proved to be only rumors. The other WFM locals agreed to support the strike at Wardner. The officers of the WFM locals met and planned a massive show of force for April 29.
On April 29, 250 union members seized a train in Burke, northeast of Wallace; the engineer, Levi "Al" Hutton, later claimed at gunpoint.schwantes, carlos (1996). ""The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive history"". University of Nebraska Press. p.320 At each stop through Burke Canyon, more miners climbed aboard. In Mace, a hundred men climbed aboard. At Frisco, the train stopped to load eighty wooden boxes, each containing of dynamite. At Gem, 150 to 200 more miners climbed onto three freight cars which had been added to the train. In Wallace, 200 miners were waiting, having walked from Mullan. About a thousand men rode the train to Wardner,J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble, 1997, page 112. the site of a $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill mine. Witnesses later testified that the majority of those on the train knew nothing of any planned violence when they started out; they thought that it would be just a massive demonstration to intimidate the mine owners into recognizing the union. However, the union had distributed masks and firearms to between 100 and 200 of the men, who acted as if under military discipline.US Department of Labor, 1900, Report of the Industrial Commission on the Relations and Conditions of Labor and Capital employed in the Mining Industry, v.12 p.LXXXVIII-LXXXIX. The pro-union Idaho State Tribune in Wallace wrote: "At no time did the demonstration assume the appearance of a disorganized mob. All the details were managed with the discipline and precision of a perfectly trained military organization."Annual Report of the Major-General Commanding the Army, Part 1, p.43
County sheriff James D. Young, who had been elected with union support, had ridden to Wardner on the train with the union miners. At Wardner, Young climbed atop a rail car, and ordered the group to disperse. His order was ignored, and he later said that any further attempt to restrain the miners would have been suicidal. State prosecutors claimed that Young had been paid off by the WFM.
Word had reached Wardner by telephone that the union miners were on their way, and most of the mine and mill workers had fled. The crowd ordered the remaining workers out of the Bunker Hill mine and mill. Once out, they were ordered to run, and some shots fired at them as they ran. James Cheyne was shot in the hip, then union miners shot more bullets into him as he lay on the ground; he died shortly after. One union man, John Smith, also called Schmidt, was mistakenly shot to death by other union men.
After carrying of dynamite into the mill, the blast completely destroyed the mill.Roughneck—The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, pages 53-54. The crowd also burned down the company office, the boarding house, and the home of the mine manager. The miners re-boarded the "Dynamite Express" and returned the way they came.J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble, 1997, pages 113-114. Working men gathered along the track, and according to the pro-union Idaho State Tribune, "cheered the [union] men lustily as they passed."."
Arrests
At the Idaho governor's request, President William McKinley sent in the Army. The majority of army troops sent to the Coeur d'Alene were African American soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Spokane, Salt Lake City, and other western posts. The 24th had distinguished itself in combat during the Spanish–American War, and was seen as one of the most disciplined Army units not then serving overseas.Lukas, p.118 Bill Haywood criticized the U.S. government's attempts to turn whites against blacks. Haywood wrote: "it was a deliberate attempt to add race prejudice ... race prejudice had been unknown among the miners."Bill Haywood's Book. 1929, International Publishers. Chapter 5. Nevertheless, he wrote that the government's efforts weren't all that successful, as the miners' turn against the army outweighed any racial dispute.
State authorities used the troops to round up 1,000 men and put them into "the bullpen". The arrests were indiscriminate; Governor Steunenberg's representative, state auditor Bartlett Sinclair believed that all the people of Canyon Creek had a "criminal history", and "the entire community, or the male portion of it, ought to be arrested". The soldiers searched every house, breaking down the door if no one answered.J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble, 1997, page 141.
Mass arrests began on May 4, when 128 were arrested. More than two hundred were arrested the following day, and the arrests continued until about a thousand men had been arrested.Annual Report of the Major-General Commanding the Army, Part 1, 1899p. 31
As Sinclair had ordered, they arrested every male: miners, bartenders, a doctor, a preacher, even the postmaster and school superintendent. ... Cooks and waiters [were] arrested in kitchens, diners at their supper tables. ... For desperate criminals, the men of Burke went quietly, the only gunshot was aimed at a "vicious watch dog".
What was called "the bullpen" was actually a number of structures. The first 150 prisoners were kept in an old barn, a two-story frame structure and filled with hay. It was "still very cold in those altitudes" and the men, having been arrested with no opportunity to bring along blankets, "suffered some from the weather". As the barn became overcrowded, new prisoners were put in railroad boxcars. When both these became overcrowded, the prisoners were then forced to build a pine board prison for themselves, and it was surrounded by a six-foot barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. Conditions remained primitive, and three prisoners died.Lukas, page 142.p. 171
The U.S. Army followed escaping miners into Montana and arrested them, returning them to Idaho, and failed to comply with jurisdictional or extradition laws. One man arrested and transported was a Montana citizen who had no connection to the Wardner events.Lukas, page 144.
Two of the three county commissioners had been caught in the roundup, as had the local sheriff. These, too, were held prisoner. Later, a district court removed all of the county commissioners and the sheriff from office, charging that they'd neglected their official duties.Lukas, pages 142–143.
Most of those arrested were freed within two weeks. By May 12, 450 prisoners remained; by May 30, the number was 194. Releases slowed, and 65 remained incarcerated on October 10;p. 148-149p. 37,40,73 the last prisoners in the bullpen were released in early December 1899."Dynamiters discharged and bullpen deserted," Idaho Statesman, Dec. 3, 1899, p.1 c.3.
Aftermath Arrangements with replacement officials installed by Sinclair demonstrated "a pattern".