The Western Federation of Miners
In May 1893, forty delegates representing fifteen unions in South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado met in Butte, Montana to form the Western Federation of Miners. The delegates were motivated to form a larger federation because of the recent disastrous strike in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. In that 1892 struggle, military forces locked up 600 miners without hearings or formal charges as a response to violence.
Read more about this topic: Colorado Labor Wars
Famous quotes containing the words western, federation and/or miners:
“Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light which it is destined to receive thence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Women realize that we are living in an ungoverned world. At heart we are all pacifists. We should love to talk it over with the war-makers, but they would not understand. Words are so inadequate, and we realize that the hatred must kill itself; so we give our men gladly, unselfishly, proudly, patriotically, since the world chooses to settle its disputes in the old barbarous way.”
—General Federation Of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)
“The miners lost because they had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets. In the end, bayonets always win.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)