Ed Boyce - Marriage and Retirement

Marriage and Retirement

On May 14, 1901, Ed Boyce married Eleanor Day in Butte, Montana. Eleanor was the sister of Harry L. Day, a former bookkeeper who had become a wealthy mine owner. Day and Fred Harper, a local prospector, had discovered the Hercules mine, one of the richest silver and lead mines in the Coeur d'Alene region. The newlyweds honeymooned at the Boyce family home in Ireland.

Eleanor worked part-time in the Denver headquarters of the WFM as a volunteer. She often wrote to her father about mining or smelting methods her husband had seen, suggesting that they might be useful at the Hercules mine. The Days and their business partners were friendly to labor organizations (although that attitude would change during World War I), and Ed Boyce's marriage was a happy one.

Boyce declined renomination as WFM president in 1902. He had become disillusioned with mismanagement in some WFM locals. But strong opposition to his continuing presidency had emerged in the powerful Butte Miners' Union, Local 1 of the WFM. A dwindling union treasury convinced him that he could not fight the battles he wished any longer.

In his farewell address, Boyce still remained the firebrand: "There are only two classes of people in the world. One is composed of the men and women who produce all; the other is composed of men and women who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth produced by others." Socialism, he still argued, was the only way "to abolish the wage system which is more destructive of human rights and liberty than any other slave system devised."

Boyce recommended that Bill Haywood and Charles Moyer assume leadership of the rapidly growing organization.