USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 62
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Three hours after the arrival of the train, the invading hosts gathered up their numbers, and started on the return trip to Wallace and Canyon creek.
Practically no attempt was made to conceal the active hand of the miners' union. The Idaho State Tribune of Wallace, official organ of the Western Federation of Miners, then edited by James R. Sovereign, reported the affair in a tone of perfect candor :
"Saturday last witnessed what might properly be considered the close of a seven year war. . The streets of Wallace took on an air of excitement, and before the train proceeded to Wardner with its human freight, on their mission of destruc- tion, armed men walked the streets in quest of an abundant supply of ammunition. It was evident to all that some of the scenes of 1892 were to be repeated, and this time the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining company at Wardner, twelve miles be- low Wallace, was to be the victim of a forceful demonstration on the part of the organized miners of the Coeur d'Alenes. On the train were about 200 members of the organization at Mullan. . . . The train reached Wardner at 1 o'clock, and the work of clearing the country of all opposition began. A detachment of union miners, armed with Winchester rifles, was dispatched to the mountainside beyond the mill, and the work of placing 3,000 pounds of dynamite, taken from the maga- zine of the Frisco mine at Gem, was commeneed. At no time did the demonstration assume the appearance or the attitude of a disorganized mob. All the details were managed with the discipline and precision of a perfectly trained military organiza- tion. . Sixty armed seabs in the employ of the Bunker Hill company offered the only resistance, and they only gave expression to the most pitiable and lament- able cowardice."
Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho promptly telegraphed to the president for the "military forces of the United States to suppress the insurrection in Shoshone county," this action being deemed necessary from "the fact that all the available national guard volunteered for service in the Philippines." The governor sent State Auditor Bartlett Sinclair to Wardner as his personal representative; troops were hurried to the scene, martial law declared, and suspects arrested by the hun- dreds, while others fled into the recesses of the hills. The first soldiers on the
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ground were a company of the Twenty-fourth infantry from Spokane, under Cap- tain Bacheler.
By request of Attorney-General Hays of Idaho, a meeting of Coeur d'Alene mine owners was held in Spokane to diseuss with him the situation, and attended by John A. Finch and A. B. Campbell. of the Standard, Mammoth and Heela; Peter Larson and T. L. Greenoughi, of the Morning : S. S. Glidden, of the Tiger-Poorman ; Charles Sweeny, of the Empire-State company and F. W. Bradley, of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan.
"The state of Idaho," said Attorney-General Hays, "does not propose to harbor within its limits the class of desperate characters that has swayed the miners unions and caused the criminal aets to be committed. We have over 700 men under arrest, and are going after the rest of them as fast as possible. We don't want to give them any encouragement. so the owners must elose their mines or eease employing them." In other words, mine-owners of the Coeur d'Alenes who wished to operate under martial law could do so only on condition that they would not employ members of the miners unions, and the mine-owners aequieseed in this requirement.
Bartlett Sinelair offered Sheriff James D. Young and County Commissioner Boyle the option of resigning from office or standing arrest. They took the latter alternative, and Coroner Hugh Franee, a stout champion of law and order, became sheriff. Subsequently, on impeachment proceedings in court, Young and Commis- sioners Moses H. Simmons, Wm. Boyle and William R. Stimson were removed from office.
The men arrested were largely of foreign origin. Out of 132 prisoners examined in a single day by Bartlett Sinelair, only twenty-six elaimed to be American citizens.
In pursnanee of his oral statement to the mine-owners. Attorney-General Hays served them with the following public declaration :
"To the mine-owners of Shoshone county: Certain organizations or combinations existing in Shoshone county, having shown themselves to be criminal in purpose. ineiting, and, as organizations, proeuring property to be destroyed and murders to be committed, by reason whereof it has been twiee necessary to declare martial law in Shoshone county :
"You are therefore notified that the employment of men belonging to said or other eriminal organizations during the continuance of martial law must eease. In ease this direction is not observed, your mines will be closed."
Only sneh men might be employed as had obtained a permit from Dr. France or his deputy at Wardner or Wallace; and to secure the permit the applicant had to deny or renounce membership in any organization which had ineited, cneouraged or approved the recent riots or other violations of law. Union miners refused to take out permits, and the mines of Canyon ereek elosed down. Employes of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan company took permits and that property continued in operation.
At a meeting held in Spokane May 24, mine-owners decided to cooperate with the state and resume operations as quickly as forees could be organized: $3.50 to be paid at Burke, Gem and Mullan for all men underground ; $3.50 for miners at Wardner, and $3 for "muekers." In attendance at this meeting were S. S. Glidden and F. R. Culbertson, for the Tiger-Poorman; Joseph MeDonald and Judge Norman Hol- ter of Montana, for the Helena-Frisco; Richard Watson and William Leonard, of the Mammoth ; F. Lewis Clark and Charles Sweeny, for the Empire State company ;
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F. W. Bradley, Bunker Hill and Sullivan; Peter Larson, Morning: John A. Finch and A. B. Campbell, Standard, Hecla and Gem.
A resolution adopted by the Butte Trades and Labor assembly is indicative of the spirit of resentment felt by the more radical labor organizations:
"RESOLVED, That if the martial law game to defeat the trades union succeeds in this instance, then the workingmen will find cause to formulate certain limits to present to the government, beyond which friends of organized labor will not allow any of their friends to go; and, standing on their constitutional rights, they will pre- pare to defend these rights at any cost."
In July practically every producing mine in the Coeur d'Alenes was working un- der the permit system. Paul Corcoran was tried in July at Wallace, convicted of murder in the second degree in the killing of Cheyne, and sentenced to seventeen years in the penitentiary.
Under martial law a thousand men or more, arrested for complicity in the de- struction of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill. were imprisoned in a stockade at Wardner, opprobriously styled the "bullpen" by the rioters and their sympathizers. Incidental to the handling of this large body of turbulent prisoners, some hard- ships were inflicted, and these were greatly magnified and vigorously used to excite sympathy and indignation among the laboring people of the United States. A con- gressional inquiry, conducted at Washington, went into these and other matters con- nected with the strike, with the usual result of majority and minority reports, and revealed the fighting spirit of the Western Federation of Miners as it was then dominated by President Ed. Boyce. Correspondence between President Boyce and Samuel Gompers, introduced in evidence. revealed unmistakably the militant character of this organization. Writing to Gompers under date of March 10. 1897, , Boyce protested that he was not a labor unionist. "There is an easier way of win- ning the battles of labor," he said. "Get out and fight with the sword."
Protesting against this dangerous doctrine. Mr. Gompers wrote: "As to your sug- gestion that the resort must be to the sword. I prefer not to discuss. I only want to call your attention to the fact. however, that force may have changed forms of gov- ernment, but never attained real liberty." In his rejoinder President Boyce re- iterated that he was "not the president of a trades union, nor a member of one." In a speech about that time, before the annual convention of the Western Federa- tion at Salt Lake. Boyce urged the members to arm themselves with modern repeating rifles, and boldly declared that he hoped before long to "hear the inspiring tread of thirty thousand armed men."
January 11, 1901. Governor Hunt directed Hugh France, state representative in the Coeur d'Alenes, to abolish the permit system. "by which persons desiring to seek employment in the mines of Shoshone county, Idaho, were required to secure a permit from the representative of the state." The mine-owners met this move by creating a central employment bureau at Wallace and requiring all applicants for employment to obtain there the necessary clearance card.
CHAPTER LVIII
IMMIGRATION ROLLS INTO THE INLAND EMPIRE
THIRTY THOUSAND NEWCOMERS ENTER THE SPOKANE GATEWAY- COUNTRY COOPER- ATES WITH THE CITY-OIL BORING CRAZE STRIKES TIIE PUBLIC-THE KINDERGAR- TEN CONTEST-SENSATIONAL PHASES OF RAILROAD PASS EVIL-DR. P. S. BYRNE ELECTED MAYOR-INTERSTATE FAIR ORGANIZED-RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN "DUTCH JAKE'S" PLACE-HILL'S NORTHERN SECURITIES MERGER-DEATII OF GOVERNOR ROGERS.
W ITH the advent of the twentieth century came another large wave of immigration. There were 2.500 homeseekers who moved out of St. Paul in a single day, when the early spring colonist rates took effect in 1901, and when, a few weeks later, the special rates lapsed, it was conservatively calculated that 30.000 immigrants. tourists and investors had entered the Spokane gateway.
It was observed the year before that a large majority of the newcomers passed on to the coast, evidence that the interior suffered from insufficient advertising, and to obviate this misfortune, a well attended immigration meeting was held in Spo- kane under the auspices of the chamber of commerce, to which a number of the neighboring towns sent delegates, including O. M. Sparks and S. S. King, Tekoa ; E. Buchanan, Moscow; J. H. Taylor, Farmington; John G. Lawrence, Garfield ; James Perkins, Colfax: J. H. Longwill. Oakesdale; J. H. Miller, Tekoa; W. E. Thompson. Farmington ; R. P. Turnley. Rosalia, and E. Harvey, Pullman. Mr. Lawrence voiced the cooperative spirit of the country. "There was a time," he said, "when to hear the assertion that the Palouse was tributary to Spokane would have aroused opposition among us. That time has passed. We are now glad to acknowl- edge it, and glad that it is so. Spokane is our market. Our interests and those of all the country roundabout are identical with those of Spokane."
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An executive committee was appointed comprising D. M. Thompson, Wm. O'Brien, J. M. Comstock, Sam. Glasgow, and W. E. Goodspeed of Spokane; F. H. Luce, Davenport ; M. E. Hay, Wilbur; A. A. Anderson, Wenatchee; S. S. King, Tekoa; J. A. Perkins, Colfax ; J. C. Lawrence. Garfield ; G. W. Peddyeord, Palouse; Sig. Dilsheimer, Colville; E. H. Libby, Lewiston, and E. Buchanan, Moscow. The committee raised $3,000 and dispatched F. E. Elmendorf to St. Paul to distribute printed matter among the eager homeseekers ; and his work in the east was ably sup- plemented at home by enthusiastic volunteers who boarded the incoming trains at points in the Idaho Panhandle, mingled the homeseekers and discoursed on the fertility and cheapness of the lands of the Inland Empire.
We had an "oil craze" in 1901. Lured on by promising indications at numerous points in the interior, and the readiness of the speculative publie to "take a flyer" in almost any scheme that gave even remote promise of quick and large returns, a
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host of promoters organized companies, sold more or less stock at a few cents a share, and went drilling for oil and gas through the hard overlying basaltie strata. Unfortunately the multiplicity of these concerns so scattered the resources of the investing public that no one company received enough funds to make a thorough test of the undertaking, and all came to the end of their resources before a single well had been bored to sea level.
Spokane had developed the public kindergartens far in advance of any other western city. It had fourteen of them, and many citizens came to the belief that the results were not commensurate with the cost. Rapid growth of the school population taxed severely the capacity of the buildings. "The public kindergarten." observed the Spokesman-Review, "has grown here out of all proportion to population or re- sourees, and is injuring the public school system." Dr. J. M. Semple, of the school board, conceived the plan of directing a thorough official inspection of the records of a large number of children who had advanced into the grades from the kindergartens. for comparison with an equal number who had received no kindergarten instruction. and the result was disappointing to the friends of the kindergarten principle. The non-kindergarten pupils made quite as good a showing as the kindergarten young- sters, and. indeed, slightly surpassed them in deportment, punctuality and neatness of desks and books. Upon this showing the board unanimously voted to discontinue. all but two of the kindergartens.
For several years the Spokesman-Review had conducted a vigorous erusade against the railroad pass evil, holding that these favors were distributed among legis- lators and other officials as insidious bribes. The practice was so general and deep- seated that many publie officials long made light of the newspaper's protest, and tried to dismiss it as Quixotish and hypercritical. But meanwhile public sentiment was growing against the evil, and certain sensational developments growing out of the legislative session this year convinced a number of legislators that their railroad passes were given in expectation of favors to be returned. In the senate C. A. Mantz of Colville and Herman D. Crow of Spokane supported bills to regulate railroads and reduce rates and fares, and thereby so angered Will Thompson, chief counsel of the Great Northern, that he peremptorily demanded the return of their passes. Of this incident the Spokesman-Review said :
"If the railroad gave a pass to Senator Crow as a bribe. and took it from him because he failed to earn it. the railroad has broken the law. Its offense has been as great as that of an individual deeply concerned in certain legislation, who should give a fine horse to a member as a bribe, and who, angered at the alleged unfaith- fulness of the member. should hold him up on the public highway and force him to return the horse. Is there to be one law in this state for the individual eitizen, and an entirely different law for the great railway interests? Are the railroads to be free to bribe whom they please? Can they say to one man, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, keep thou thy pass;' while saying to another, 'You played us false, disgorge the bribe'?"
Senator Crow frankly admitted that he had been in error in believing that rail- road passes were distributed in an exclusive spirit of mere courtesy.
At the spring cleetion in 1901. Dr. P. S. Byrne, democrat, was elected mayor. receiving 2,080 votes against 1,981 for Dr. C. G. Brown, the republican nominee, and 1,530 for John Anderson, prohibitionist.
DEDICATION OF MASONIC TEMPLE
SPOKANE AMATEUR ATHLETIC' CLUB
DAVENPORT'S RESTAURANT
HOME OF THE CHAMBER OF COM- MERCE, HUTTON BLOCK
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCI- ATION BUILDING
UM ILINMAY
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HI BLIC LIBRARY
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Floyd L. Daggett, demoerat, became comptroller, defeating J. J. White, repub- liean, and J. Grant Hinkle, prohibitionist, by 326 plurality.
M. H. Eggleston, democrat, was elceted treasurer over Joseph M. Moore. re- publican, and W. H. Shields, prohibitionist. Eggleston's plurality, 299. In the new council the democrats had Leonard Funk, E. W. Hand, F. E. Baldwin, E. M. Woydt, George W. Bureh and N. S. Pratt; and the republicans, J. E. Foster, Frank Johnson, Walter E. Bell and J. S. Phillips.
Spokane's Interstate Fair came into being this year. At a meeting held in early summer Chairman Howell W. Peel was authorized to take steps to incor- porate with $25,000 capital stock, and it was decided to acquire a site, ereet per- manent buildings and offer $10,000 in raeing prizes. On the first board of trus- tees were Mr. Peel, Jacob Goldstein, D. L. Huntington, George T. Crane, J. A. Schiller. O. L. Rankin, C. H. Weeks, A. S. Crowder, Sam Glasgow. W. S. Norman, H. G. Stimmel, Frank W. Branson, Thos. S. Griffiths, John L. Smith and H. Bol- ster. Mr. Peel was president, Mr. Bolster secretary and manager, and Mr. Smith superintendent ; and these, with J. A. Schiller and George. T. Crane, formed the executive committee. The first fair was held on the present grounds, September 10 to 21. but the weather was forbidding and the total paid attendance was seareely in excess of 20,000.
To commemorate the dedieation of their new temple, the Elks gave a carnival in conncetion with the fair, with 38,482 paid admissions. A rock-drilling contest was a feature. The dedication committee embraced L. R. Notbohm, W. J. C. Wakefield, E. Dempsie, W. F. Connor, George Turner, Dr. E. L. Kimball, W. W. D. Turner. The Spokane lodge was chartered February 2, 1892, and the lodge was instituted February 13, in a hall in the Daniels block.
To enliven the tedium of Sunday afternoons, "Dutch Jake" conceived and put into exceution in November a plan of tendering the large barroom of his Coeur d'Alene theater for religous services. There on the afternoon of November 3 the Rev. A. R. Lambert of the First M. E. church, the Rev. M. E. Dunn, United Pres- bytcrian, and Frank Dickson, an evangelist, conducted services before a motley gathering of nearly 400 men. gathered in from the congenial resorts of lower How- ard street and Main and Front avenues. Jake's expansive and hospitable roof then covered three bars, a gambling house, cafe, variety theater and Turkish bath. Re- porting the event, the morning paper said: "Mingling with the hymns of salva- tion and the message of religion were the clink of glasses, the maudlin utterances of tipsy men, the noise of shuffling feet, the hurrying to and fro of waiters with calls of 'one stein,' 'one egg sherry,' 'one gin fizz and four cocktails,' 'ham and eggs,' and the score and one other phrases of the barroom. During the brief wait for the services to begin, the crowd was entertained with selections on the big me- chanical pipe organ, while the electric fountain silently winked its myriad of electric lights. 'Dutch Jake' was everywhere, giving the glad hand to all and sundry. His joy was so great that frequent visits to the bar, with nothing stronger than snips of beer, could not be resisted, and with his customary hospitality he did not par- take alonc. but let his good will extend to all who would step up and join him."
James J. Hill startled the country in 1901 by organizing the Northern Securi- ties company, a holding corporation to take over control of Northern Pacific and
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Great Northern. Senator Turner held that the merger was illegal, and advised Governor John R. Rogers to endeavor to secure joint action with the governors of other states concerned. "So strongly am I impressed with the great evils in store for us if this monopoly be fastened on us (he wrote to the governor), that I would be willing to see our state act alone if necessary in fighting it to a finish. I shall undertake the duty, if no one more influential moves in the matter, of bringing the subject to the attention of the president and the attorney-general, and urging them to set the machinery of the United States courts in motion, for the protection of our country against this unlawful combine."
This letter found Governor Rogers upon his deathbed. After a brief illness of six days, he died the day after Christmas, and Lieutenant-Governor Henry Me- Bride, a republican, was called to the executive chair.
OTHER EVENTS OF 1901
J. J. Hill announced in April that he would build into Republic. The Great Northern depot was completed this year.
Brick business buildings under construction in August totaled 1,000 feet of frontage.
The Hazelwood Dairy company increased its capitalization from $50.000 to $100,000. the four owners. G. M. Brown. T. E. Armistead. J. L. Smith and David Brown, taking the increased stock.
Spokane made a formal offer in March to Andrew Carnegie for a $100,000 public library.
Thirty-three delegates from eleven clubs organized in May the City Federation of Women's clubs, with Mrs. J. A. Mitchell, president ; Mrs. C. E. Grove. first vice-president ; Mrs. L. S. Roberts, second vice-president; Mrs. A. D. Alexander, recording secretary : Mrs. James Mendenhall. recording secretary : Mrs. Robert Glen, treasurer.
A light fall of snow was noticed here June 5. and a fall of two inches was re- ported at Hillyard and of four inches on Pleasant prairie.
The police force of forty men was reduced in October to twenty-six- four officers and twenty-two regulars.
Provision was made for the first rural free mail delivery out of Spokane. The service started January 1, 1902, with lines to White Bluff. Moran and Paradise prairies and Saltese lake.
Harvard men organized a club in November, the membership embracing F. Lewis Clark. Frank T. Post. Edgar W. McColl. W. J. Bowen, Thomas F. Kerl. Judge James %. Moore, Thomas B. Higgins, Richard B. Harris, F. W. Dewart, Fred. Chamberlain. Phil Richmond, J. D. Sherwood. Guy Waring and J. D. Finley.
Bank deposits turned the $5.000,000 mark in May.
Jay P. Graves organized the Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting & Power company in May, which took over the Old Ironsides and Knob Hill mines at Phoenix. The townsite there, and the Granby smelter and water and power plants at Grand Forks. B. C. S. 11. C. Miner was president, Jay P. Graves vice-presi- dent, and A. L. White secretary. Twelve millions of the $15,000.000 capital stock was issued.
CHAPTER LIX
THRILLING HUNT FOR TRACY THE OUTLAW
TRACY AND MERRILL KILL THREE GUARDS AT OREGON PENITENTIARY-ESCAPE INTO WASHINGTON-TERRORIZE CITIES AND TOWNS AROUND PUGET SOUND-TRACY KILLS MERRILL-OUTLAW APPEARS IN OUTSKIRTS OF SEATTLE- KILLS SEVERAL MEN- ESCAPES INTO THE CASCADES-CROSSES THE COLUMBIA-MAN HUNT TRANSFERRED TO THE BIG BEND-DESPERADO WOUNDED AT EDDY RANCH, COMMITS SUICIDE- NOTABLE GAATIIERING OF RAILROAD PRESIDENTS AT DAVENPORT AND COLFAX- VOLUNTARY CUT IN GRAIN RATES-WAR ON RAILROAD LOBBY- FIGHT FOR RAIL- ROAD COMMISSION-LAST SPIKE EXCURSION TO REPUBLIC-BLACKWELL BUILDS COEUR D'ALENE ELECTRIC LINE-N. P. SELLS TIMBER LANDS-LORD SHOLTO DOUG- LAS' FREE BOOZE SATURNALIA.
L IKE other cities of the Pacific slope. Spokane was not a factory town, and absence of lofty stacks and an overhanging pall of coal smoke had led to a widespread but erroneous impression that the town laeked a large and sustaining payroll. A eensus taken in January, 1902, by the Spokesman-Review corrected this error in the public mind and greatly strengthened confidence in the solidity of Spokane's foundations. By actual detailed count, payrolls aggregating 8,685 men and women were discovered, exclusive of many minor concerns, and that journal concluded that it was a conservative calculation that the total payroll was not less than 10,000. It was found that the steam railways employed 1.663 men who made their headquarters in Spokane: wholesale houses. 625: theaters, 278; the building trades, 900, of whom 775 were in the unions; eity, county and national governments. 427. exclusive of teachers. of whom 242 were employed in public and private schools. Dry goods and department stores employed +12 people ; tele- graph and telephone companies, 231: and the grocery stores. 280.
Out in the farming districts a good wheat erop (estimated at 24,000,000 bushels for the harvest of 1902 by State Grain Inspector Arrasmith). and a price of 50 cents a bushel, the highest paid in two years, imparted confidence and contentment.
Spectacular events of 1902 were the thrilling man-hunt for Outlaw Tracy, and a dramatie gathering of railway presidents in conference with the farmers and business men of the Big Bend and Palouse districts.
Traey and Merrill, two convicts in the Oregon penitentiary at Salem, with rifles smuggled in by outside friends, attacked the guards June 9, killed three of them, and escaped to the thiekets and deep forests of the Willamette valley. They terrorized the countryside, boldly confronting the occupants of farmhouses and
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compelling housewives to serve them with food ; and again and again, by alertness or audacious courage, either evaded or routed the numerous posses sent against them. Working north, the outlaws crossed the Columbia river into Clark county, Washington. Early in July, after nearly a month of dearly bought freedom, Tracy appeared alone on Puget Sound, and at the point of his rifle compelled a boatman to row him to the vicinity of Olympia. There he impressed the owner and crew of four men in a gasoline launch, and forced them to convey him to Meadow Point, just outside the northern city limits of Seattle. He informed his captives that he had killed his comrade, a statement that was subsequently verified by the discovery of Merrill's body, punctured by a rifle bullet fired into his back.
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