Labor Conflict at Eureka, 1886-97

Labor Conflict at Eureka, 1886-97

BY PAUL A. FRISCH

IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION the closing decade of the nineteenth century brought dramatic and occasionally violent confrontations between hardrock miners and mining corporations. By the 1890s the West's rugged individualists, the prospector and the gold panner, existed mainly in folklore. These celebrated stereotypes gave way to the underground wage miner employed by highly capitalized corporations. Miners founded unions to provide sick and death benefits, maintain a wage commensurate with their difficult and dangerous occupation, and lobby before state legislatures for reduced working hours and minimum safety standards. During the 1870s and 1880s local miners' unions struggled to gain a respectable living for their members from an expanding industry. The precipitous decline of silver's market value in the 1890s intensified the struggle between miners attempting to maintain their wage level and corporations equally determined to keep their ledgers in the black.

Over the past fifteen years the field of labor history has been enriched by several important studies on class conflict in single-industry towns. A theme common to all of these studies has been the alliance of the working class and middle class against the emerging corporation. The entrepreneurial status of the middle class made it dependent upon the wages of the working class. Some studies have explored the close relationship between farmers and urban wage earners. Farmers' support for local workers arose from such varied reasons as kinship, a desire to sell produce to workers, and resentment towards the corporation as a usurper of resources.

In exploring the applicability of these arguments to the mining town of Eureka, Utah Territory, it is clear at the start that in one respect at least Eureka was distinctly different from other industrial towns studied: Farmers living in the nearby valleys failed to make common cause with miners in defense of producer consciousness but instead turned against the miners due to religious antipathy and job competition.

Surprisingly little has been written on nineteenth-century labor conflict in Utah's metal mining industry. Although the mining camps of nineteenth-century Utah were numerous, none approached the size of Virginia City, Nevada, Butte, Montana, or some of the mining towns in Colorado. 4Taken as a unit, however, Utah's mining industry stood high among the states and territories as a producer of precious metals (gold and silver). Although only eleventh on the list of gold producers in the United States from 1886 to 1892, Utah placed third in silver output. By the 1890s Utah ranked fourth on the list of precious metal producers.

Utah's mining industry operated within a different context from that of its Rocky Mountain neighbors. In terms of settlement pattern, population composition, and economic base, Utah stood apart from the region. To avoid religious persecution, Latter-day Saints began settling in Utah in 1847. The Mormons took as their mission the building of the kingdom of God in the commonwealth of Deseret. Their past sufferings and future hopes made the Saints a very cohesive community. In order to avoid conflict and cultivate religious purity the Mormons sought to break all contact with the Gentile (term used by the Saints to describe all non-Mormons) world by practicing self-reliance. With a bitter past still fresh in their memory and a better future beckoning them on, the Mormons set about constructing their kingdom. By the Civil War the Latter-day Saints had established a predominantly agricultural economy. This pattern of agricultural settlement contrasted sharply with the mining booms that brought the initial burst of settlement to Colorado, Montana, and Idaho.

During the Civil War the United States government established a garrison of California volunteers at Salt Lake City. Col. Patrick E. Connor, commanding officer of the garrison, hoped to counter Mormon influence in Utah by encouraging an influx of non-Mormons. In hope of finding a lure for Gentiles, Connor encouraged his troops to prospect during furloughs. The discovery of silver in 1863 started the migration of non-Mormons to Utah. The completion of the transcontinental railway through Utah in 1869, and a growing network of railroad lines in the 1870s, made the territory's mining industry more profitable and attracted more Gentiles to the mining communities.

Though the influx of Gentiles ended the Mormons' hopes for a homogeneous society and raised fears of social decay, it proved an economic boon. The mining communities reinforced the Mormons' commitment to agriculture by providing a market for their surplus produce. Some of the Mormon population, no longer able to make a living on the limited, arable land base, went to work in the mines. In addition, some Mormons labored in the mines on a seasonal basis. Farmers and their sons journeyed to the mining camps from adjoining agricultural districts when farm work slackened.

Though Mormons frequently worked alongside Gentile miners, the Saints refused to join miners' unions. Church elders counseled against unionism because of the Latter-day Saints' policy of nonassociation with Gentiles and the risk of divided loyalty. The fact that the Mormon church itself and many of its leaders were employers probably contributed to the church's antiunion stance.

In addition to the religious antipathy between Mormons and Gentiles and the antiunion attitude of Mormon leadership, the seasonal nature of Mormon mining employment placed them in a disadvantaged position. Because of their irregular stints as hardrock miners, Mormons generally lacked the knowledge and skill of Gentile miners. Due to these occupational deficiencies, Mormons could not command the same wage as Gentiles. Since Mormon miners earned most of their income from their farms, the supplementary nature of their mining income allowed them to accept substandard wages. Mormon farmer-miners aided the mining corporations by augmenting the labor force and depressing the wage level.

A major strike during 1893 makes Eureka an interesting town for the study of local alignments under the stress of industrial conflict. Eureka lies in the Tintic mining district about sixty miles south of Salt Lake City. Although an initial discovery of silver occurred in 1869, large-scale development awaited completion of the railroad to Eureka in 1883. Tintic's output of gold and silver climbed from sixth among Utah's mining districts in 1880 to second place by 1890. The mining boom pushed the district's population from 550 in 1880 to 2,354 ten years later. Eureka, center of Tintic's mining activity, grew from 122 residents to 1,733 during the same time span. The arrival of a resident priest in 1885 suggests that Catholics represented a substantial part of the community. By 1886 Eureka's Catholics had constructed a church and founded a night school patronized largely by miners. The growing Catholic population required the construction of a separate parochial school building in 1891. The number of miners also expanded at a comparable rate. In the 1880 manuscript census, 99 men at Tintic listed their occupation as miner; 24 of these miners resided at Eureka. By 1890 the average number of hardrock men employed at Tintic had increased tenfold.

Eureka's hardrock miners, in 1886, formed a local union and affiliated with the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. The declining price of silver in the 1890s set the stage for a confrontation between mine owners and the organized miners. As Tintic's mines produced mainly silver, the falling market value of the white metal adversely affected the local economy. After reaching almost $4 million in 1890, the value of Tintic's silver output dropped below $3 million in 1891. This trend continued for the following two years as the value of the district's silver production plummeted to $1.5 million by 1893. The poor market for silver led to reduced work forces in Tintic's mines.

In the face of declining profits, mine owners in Idaho sought a reduction in their labor costs. In 1892 a major confrontation over a wage reduction occurred in the Coeur d' Alene region. The increasing competitiveness of the silver market made the outcome of this strike vital to both mine owners and hardrock miners throughout the West. To aid Coeur d'Alene miners and protect against the likelihood of wage reductions throughout the Rocky Mountain region, the Eureka Miners' Union contributed $500.00 to the Idaho miners. Unfortunately for the hardrock men, the Coeur d'Alene miners suffered defeat.

Spurred on by their victory at Coeur d'Alene, mine owners elsewhere in the West resorted to wage cuts. The war reached Tintic on January 14, 1893, when the Bullion-Beck announced a 50 cent wage reduction that cut the miners' daily wage to $2.50 per day and the laborers' to $2.00. The Eureka Miners' Union held a meeting that evening at which they decided not to accept the wage reduction. A committee representing the union met with the Bullion-Beck's manager, A. E. Hyde, to inform him of the miners' decision. On the following day the Bullion-Beck shut down when its nearly two hundred fifty employees went on strike.

While the strike proceeded peacefully during February, the union reportedly "received many offers of assistance from outside labor organizations" that left it "in a position to hold its own for some time." When the miners offered to accept a sliding scale that would have linked their wage to the price of silver and received a negative reply from the Bullion-Beck's management, the strikers came to perceive the wage cut as a permanent move.

When the Bullion-Beck attempted to resume operations in March, Eureka began to receive considerable press coverage. John Duggan, secretary of the Eureka Miners' Union and one of its founding members, busied himself with keeping the union's side of the strike before the public. Newspapers throughout Utah and even as far away as Butte, Montana, mining capital of the West, received regular dispatches from Duggan.

The Bullion-Beck's initial attempt to reopen with nonunion outsiders failed when a crowd of strikers met the nearly fifty recruits at the train depot and persuaded them to refuse the positions at the Bullion- Beck. The union provided these men with board, lodging, and a return ticket to Salt Lake City. On March 9 the mine started with a force of twenty-seven men but ran into almost immediate opposition. A crowd, with about forty women in the vanguard, marched to the Bullion-Beck at noon to dissuade these men from continuing at the mine. The procession persuaded six men to quit, including the three operating engineers. This union coup crippled the Bullion-Beck's ability to function since the highly skilled operating engineers worked the hoists that transported men, supplies, and ore up and down the mine shaft.

Prior to this demonstration, the non-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune reported that "the miners are going about the streets, armed with revolvers and with clubs secreted in their sleeves, intimidating all who have the temerity to express an opinion adverse to their interests." The report also predicted "that bloodshed will result unless a compromise is arrived at by the 17th." Since March 17 is Saint Patrick's Day, and the Irish represented a substantial part of the strikers, some feared that the holiday's festivities might lead to a riot. Capitalizing on a tense situation, the Bullion-Beck's management — including Mormon apostle Moses Thatcher, prominent Mormon businessman and church leader William B. Preston, and A. E. Hyde — and the company's attorneys met with Gov. Arthur L. Thomas to request help in keeping the mine open. According to the newspaper report of this meeting, U.S. Marshal Irving H. Benton was on the scene at Eureka investigating. The same issue of the Deseret News also contained John Duggan's communication to Governor Thomas refuting charges of riot and asking that federal marshals not be used as an extension of the mining companies. One passage from Duggan's protest suggests the importance to the strikers of free access to the streets for public demonstrations:

The evident intent, we fear, on the part of those having this business in hand, is either to provoke a riot, or to embarrass us as to compel us to quit asserting our rights to maintain our former wages, by ceasing to use moral suasion to induce men to not hire with the Bullion-Beck company, or to leave their employment.

In order to stifle the miners' power of persuasion, the Bullion- Beck's management requested outside help in the form of federal marshals. The force of approximately twenty marshals curtailed the miners' chances for a successful strike by discouraging demonstrations. In early March the marshals sought warrants against some fifty miners and sympathizers on the charge of riot. Because they stood little chance of attaining the warrants from local officials, the federal marshals traveled to Provo but still received no warrants.

Saint Patrick's Day brought no disturbances to Eureka, but tension mounted as the Bullion-Beck obtained more strikebreakers from both Salt Lake City and farming communities. John Duggan accused the federal marshals of committing acts that showed their favoritism towards the Bullion-Beck Company:

On arrival of Rio Grande Western train last night (March 7) the Bullion- Beck people and deputy United States marshals requested the union men to not take hold of any of the new arrivals to induce them not to go to work, and on their part they would do the same. This is, each side would use argument, not force of any kind. An engineer being among the new men two deputy marshals first took hold of him and dragged him along toward the Bullion-Beck. We are not aware that that is any part of a marshal's duty, and cannot help thinking that the men who would do it are not fit to be entrusted with the responsible duties of the marshals.

In the same dispatch to the Salt Lake Tribune Duggan claimed that a marshal had entered "several mining camps to recruit men for the Bullion-Beck Company."

Since Mormons controlled the Bullion-Beck, anti-Mormonism rallied Gentile support and made the strike more bitter. As the company began to successfully employ strikebreakers, some of them Mormons, anti- Mormon feelings came into the open. Frank Hunter, a long-time supporter of the miners' union, claimed that Latter-day Saints' Bishop Tanner of Payson, an agricultural community about twenty-five miles northeast of Eureka, received orders from church authorities to supply twenty men to the Bullion-Beck Company. This charge led to an exchange of letters between a committee of the Eureka Miners' Union and Wilford Woodruff, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Woodruff responded to the union's claim that the Latterday Saints acted as an employment agency of the Bullion-Beck:

You refer to the Bishops of our Church. It is a part of their duty to help the needy and to aid in finding employment for those who are in need of it. It is possible that in this way some may have suggested for men to go to the mine; in that way they would be justified but, if they have acted as employment agents with a special view to the present misunderstanding at Tintic, they have been indiscreet, or possibly thoughtless, and have gone beyond what we consider their jurisdiction.

A Eureka citizens' committee consisting of Rev. G. W. Comer, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church; Ben D. Luce, proprietor of a general store; and George Hanson, a blacksmith; surveyed public opinion concerning the strike. Forty-six statements from some of Eureka's professionals, artisans, and entrepreneurs ran overwhelmingly in favor of the miners' union. Specifically, the statements demonstrate the degree of the middle class's dependence upon working class patronage as suggested by Dubofsky in his study of western mining towns. Small entrepreneurs who sold goods and services to the working class realized the importance of maintaining high wages within the community. Peter Steffens, a cigar manufacturer, summed up the business perspective on the Eureka miners strike:

I think the Miners' Union are [sic] right in striking to maintain the wages of $3 per day and to board and trade where they please, and I am ready to help the miners any way I can, with money if necessary. I think they deserve the support of every businessman in town.

Local support, as Gutman hypothesized, also grew from a complex sense of community. In a small industrial city daily face-to-face contact made the middle class aware of the hardships of working-class life. Since many of his patients were hardrock miners, Dr. F. E. Bostwick knew very well the unhealthy nature of underground work:

I consider the Beck mine the worst mine in the district to work in. I have had more patients coming from that mine suffering from lead poisoning than all of the rest of the mines in the district. I most certainly endorse the action of the Miners' Union. Their cause is a just one.

In the process of looking after the souls of Eureka's Irish Catholics, Father Donohue saw daily reminders of the deleterious effects of hardrock mining, and he advocated just compensation:

I am certainly in favor of the poor man: $3 is small enough for a man to work underground in lead and powder smoke. The union is certainly right.

Individuals who had experienced some minimal, upward mobility, such as movement from the working class to the status of small proprietor, frequently still related to the struggles of working-class existence. Frank Scappatura, a grocer and former miner, knew firsthand of the dangerous nature of hardrock mining:

I think the miners have acted perfectly right. No man should be made to work underground for less than $3 per day, I have been a miner myelf and know the dangers that attend it. I indorse the peaceful and lawful manner in which the union have [sic] conducted the strike.

James Driscoll, postmaster, small businessman, and former leader in the Knights of Labor and the Eureka Miners' Union, still identified with wage earners:

I congratulate the union men on the manner in which they have conducted themselves, resorting to none but persuasive means to convince scabs that they should not go to work until the existing difficulty was [sic] settled. I think they have the sympathy and support of almost the entire community.

In late April approximately six hundred supporters of the Eureka Miners' Union participated in a torchlight parade and mass meeting. Such local notables as Dr. F. E. Bostwick and Rev. G. W. Comer exhorted the crowd to continue the strike. Although community support remained strong, this display of enthusiasm could not mask the deteriorating position of the miners' union. An extensive recruiting program provided an ample supply of strikebreakers. By mid-April the mine employed over one hundred hands. A report that Bullion-Beck employees held a dance in the Latter-day Saints' meetinghouse suggests that the Mormon-controlled company attracted many strikebreakers of the Mormon faith.

In early May the indefatigable John Duggan journeyed to Butte, Montana, for a convention of western hardrock miners. The debacle at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 1892 and struggles such as the one at Eureka motivated the Butte Miners' Union to invite all metal miners' unions to a meeting. Eureka represented one of seventeen miners' unions at the birth of the Western Federation of Miners on May 15, 1893. The founding convention elected Duggan as second vice-president. The federation gave the Eureka local $600.00 in strike relief during 1893.

After seven months of conflict, the Eureka Miners' Union formally ended the strike on August 27 when it voted to allow members to accept employment at the reduced wages. In late 1896 the Eureka local of the Western Federation of Miners passed out of existence. Eureka's hardrock men did not reorganize until 1902.

Although the strike proved disastrous to the Eureka Miners' Union it seems to have improved the position of the Mormon miners from that of a supplemental labor force to a significant part of the regular underground work force. In 1897 the management-oriented Engineering and Mining Journal attributed the resurgence of the Tintic mining district to its new labor force:

Prior to that time [1893-94] Mormons rarely worked underground; now 60% of the miners, probably more 3 are men who three years ago were farming in the valley nearby. They are largely men of family, and in brief more quiet, more contented, or better miners are not found anywhere. This change in the force underground has been going on, until there is not an agitator on the payrolls, and it will be long before they have a foot-hold again. In consequence of these favorable labor conditions Tintic has come to be looked upon as affording a most desirable field for mining investment. . . .

The struggle of the Eureka Miners' Union corroborates the studies by Melvyn Dubofsky and Herbert Gutman on community support for workers. When John Beck, Mormon proprietor of the Bullion-Beck mine attempted to rid himself of Eureka's intractable hardrock miners through the importation of strikebreakers, the townspeople, especially the middle class, rallied to the aid of the union. Eureka's middle class found an alliance with miners desirable for a number of reasons. Most immediate, the entrepreneurial role of the middle class made them dependent upon the maintenance of high wages for the miners. Second, the small-scale operations of Eureka's business community gave them a class perspective (producing class) more in line with the workers than with the owners of large-scale mining corporations. Furthermore, the middle class knew the dangers of hardrock mining through daily contacts with the miners and in some cases through previous underground employment. Consequently, the middle sector believed that the hardrock men merited decent remuneration for their dangerous and unhealthy occupation.

Religious antipathy supplied another motivation for middle-class support of the miners' cause. As previously mentioned, Eureka's working and middle classes were mostly Gentile (non-Mormon) and especially Irish Catholic. On the other side of the struggle stood the Bullion- Beck's management that included two Mormon apostles in its ranks. Since Gentiles controlled Eureka's politics and therefore local law enforcement, the company, in a now-familiar scenario, had to reach beyond the community for the power necessary to crush the miners' union. Because Utah was in territorial status, Beck sought and procured federal marshals to protect his strikebreakers.

Local studies such as Eureka might contribute to a better assessment of the successes and failures of western labor radicalism, as typified by the Western Federation of Miners and Industrial Workers of the World, from the closing decade of the nineteenth century through the end of World War I.

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