Who Is Responsible for the Colorado Trouble [cover title] by Shatzke, Joseph Shatz - 1904

Colorado Springs: Argus Job Print, 1904. Very good.. 12pp. Drab self-wrappers, stapled. A few small ink stains. In a custom cloth slipcase and chemise. Rare pamphlet defending the strikes of unionized miners in Colorado during 1903 and 1904. The author principally addresses events surrounding the strikes at Cripple Creek, Telluride, Idaho Springs, Colorado City, other Colorado mining towns during this period. The strikes, organized by the Western Federation of Miners, were focused on the improvement of working conditions and the implementation of an eight-hour work day. Shatzke writes, in part: "Dear reader, do you blame a man who has to work twelve hours a day, and such dangerous work, and also be compelled to sacrifice his life at any moment, do you blame him if he asks of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company eight hours working day? This company made millions of dollars of[f] these poor toilers.... I have been in Colorado for the last eleven years and I watch very closely all the movements and I know this strike was forced by the corporations of this state. Just to begin to crush organized labor. They simply make an attack of it to see how much the people will stand." After discussing and defending several specific strikes, and denouncing the responses of the mine owners, the government, and the anti-union Citizens Alliance, he ends by calling for "an international harmony society," in which, "Every man or woman shall be allowed to come into this organization irrespective of creeds, denomination, color, trade, or nationality." A rare and forceful defense of labor rights in Colorado at the beginning of the 20th century. OCLC locates only four copies.