of Montana 
 
 A Serious Story for 
 Free People 
 
 By 
 
 Jerre C, Murphy
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 MR. GEORGE COBB
 
 ' ~.K4-*"^ 
 
 CLe^ix.^
 
 THE COMICAL HISTORY 
 OF MONTANA 
 
 A SERIOUS STORY FOR FREE PEOPLE 
 
 4 
 BY 
 
 JERRE C. MURPHY 
 
 Full Buckram Binding, $2.00 
 Paper Covers, - - 1.00 
 
 USUAL DISCOUNT TO BOOKSELLERS 
 
 Address, E. L. SCOF1ELD, Publisher 
 Ingle Building San Diego, Calif.
 
 THE COMICAL HISTORY 
 OF MONTANA 
 
 A SERIOUS STORY 
 FOR FREE PEOPLE 
 
 Being an Account of the Conquest of America's Treas- 
 ure State by Alien Corporate Combine, the Con- 
 fiscation of its Resources, the Subjugation of 
 its People, and the Corruption of Free 
 Government to the uses of Lawless 
 Enterprise and Organized Greed 
 employed in "Big Business." 
 
 BY 
 
 JERRE C. MURPHY 
 
 "All History, whether M'Croudy and his Fine Arts know 
 the fact or not, is an inarticulate bible ; and in dim, intricate 
 manner reveals the Divine Appearances in this lower world. 
 For God did make this world, and does forever govern it. The 
 loud-roaring Loom of Time, with all its French revolutions, 
 Jewish revelations, 'weaves the vesture thou seest Him by'. 
 There is no Biography of a man, much less any History, or 
 Biography of a Nation, but wraps in it a message out of Heaven, 
 addressed to the hearing ear or to the not-hearing. What this 
 Universe is, what the Laws of God are, the Life of every man 
 will a little teach it you ; the Life of All Men and of All Things, 
 only this could wholly teach it you — and you are to be open 
 to learn." —Thomas Carlyle 
 
 E. L. SCOFIELD, PUBLISHER 
 
 SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 
 
 1912
 
 Copyright, 1912, By Jerre C. Murphy, 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 PRKSS OF 
 
 FRYE & SMITH 
 
 SAN DIBOO, CAL,
 
 TO THE 
 
 BOYS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS, 
 
 WITH A HOPE THAT IT MAY HELP THEM TO MAKE 
 
 BETTER MEN OF THEIR FATHERS, 
 
 THIS WORK IS SOLEMNLY DEDICATED.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Early Days and Heroic Ways 1 
 
 The Blessing and the Curse of Gold 13 
 
 In the Times of the Feudal Wars 19 
 
 Of Pioneer State Leaders and Modern Ab- 
 sentee Bosses 29 
 
 Hie Campaign for Monopoly Control 43 
 
 Some Field Marshals of Napoleons of Finance. . 55 
 
 A Public Press to Suppress Publicity 73 
 
 Subjugation of Wage-Earners 93 
 
 Governmental Functions of a Wall Street Com- 
 bine in a Sovereign State 109 
 
 How Lawmakers, Governors and Lesser Of- 
 ficials Are Chosen and Confirmed 131 
 
 The Selection of Judges and the Direction of 
 
 Courts. Part 1 153 
 
 The Selection of Judges and the Direction of 
 
 Courts. Part II 171 
 
 Where Trial by Jury is a Farce, and Why 185 
 
 The Celebrated Case of Farmer vs. Combine. .201 
 "A Constitution Between Friends" — State 
 Laws to Legalize Lawless Interstate Com- 
 bines 223
 
 Page 
 
 Relief from Taxation for Monopolists 245 
 
 Shut-Down Scares in Practical Use 255 
 
 The Grabbing of Water Power and Public 
 
 Utilities 265 
 
 Wild-Cat Era in Banking and Stockjobbing. . .273 
 Losses to Public, to Industry, and to Invest- 
 ment, Through Combine Enterprise 297 
 
 A City Under Combine Rule; Anaconda for 
 
 Example 309 
 
 An Awakening People and Signs of Revolution. 321
 
 Early Days and Heroic Ways 
 
 The first successful uplift movement in Montana was 
 conceived and accomplished by the Vigilantes. Crude 
 in plan and rude in performance, there was an uprising 
 which destroyed the last doubt in lawless minds with re- 
 spect to the efficiency of government "of the people, by 
 the people, for the people". It demonstrated that absence 
 of law afforded no excuse for crime, and gave security 
 to life and property without increase of taxation. In 
 some of the valleys where the Vigilantes rode, less than 
 half a century ago, land now has a market value of as 
 much as one thousand dollars per acre for orchard home 
 uses, but the most profitable crop which ever hung from 
 Montana trees was in the gruesome forms of dead out- 
 laws. Then and there was implanted a respect for the 
 penalties of wrong-doing and a regard for the rights 
 of others which has endured against the insidious in- 
 fluence of wholesale corruption, and the most subtle 
 encroachments upon the powers of government, to the 
 present time. It is today more dangerous in the state 
 of Montana to steal a horse than to loot a bank or to 
 bribe a legislative majority, chiefly because the Vigi- 
 lantes failed to furnish a precedent in justice for bank- 
 looting and legislative corruption as they did for horse 
 thieving; while later administrators of justice, in the 
 approved manner of courts, have regarded precedent 
 and form and ceremony above the purpose of the law 
 and the effect of justice. It has been said that the Vigi- 
 lantes themselves were lawless and inspired to action 
 solely with regard to the one first law of self defense; 
 
 [i]
 
 2 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 also that so much may be truthfully asserted in excuse 
 for judges of later times who have tipped the scales of 
 blind justice in weighing the differences between the 
 common rights of men and the special privileges of cor- 
 poration managers. The facts of this history will at 
 least tend to show that in some parts of this great 
 American state, during long period of time, judges upon 
 the bench could not do otherwise than they did and 
 continue to be judges. Thus the right of recall of judges 
 in Montana, federal and state, has existed for many 
 years, chiefly vested in the officers or agents of foreign 
 corporations, without the aid or consent of any "mob" 
 or "multitude" whatsoever. 
 
 Any approximately accurate history of the state of 
 Montana must be in large part a story of modern 
 feudalism. Almost through its entirety it must tell 
 of the conflict of rival influences and interests made 
 paramount to the public interests of the state, or to the 
 interests of the great majority of the people within the 
 state. "Big business", real and legitimate, was a pro- 
 duct of individual effort and enterprise in the territory 
 from which this state was formed before it became a 
 state, and before the significance of the power of such 
 business was widely comprehended or danger from the 
 exercise of such power was much apprehended in the 
 industrial centers east of the Mississippi River. The 
 influence of great wealth came to a number of men from 
 the gold fields of the earliest days. There were copper 
 kings and silver lords in Montana while the Standard 
 Oil Company was young and among competitors and 
 before trusts with monopoly design existed. In any 
 other than a Treasure State, the cattle and sheep men 
 of Montana, whose herds and flocks roamed over the 
 public domain, would have been men of exceptional in-
 
 EARLY DAYS AND HEROIC WAYS 3 
 
 fiuence, and by virtue of possessions were easily en- 
 titled to rank with the pine barons of any of the timber 
 states of those times. 
 
 The immensity and variety of the resources of this 
 vast territory are not yet more than guessed at by those 
 most familiar with the state. In 1910 there were twenty 
 million acres in forest reserves in Montana; and of the 
 eighty-three million acres outside these reserves fully 
 thirteen million acres never had been surveyed by state 
 or federal government. The fertile valleys which Lewis 
 and Clark traversed in their perilous journey of dis- 
 covery across this country more than one hundred years 
 ago remain today in large part the virgin soil as when 
 observed by them, not yet cultivated nor utilized by 
 others than prospectors for precious minerals or stock 
 growers upon the public domain. Here is the third state 
 in the union in expanse of area, with the greatest wealth 
 of water for power and irrigation uses of all the states, 
 with diversity of soil and climate which makes possible 
 a profitable production of almost limitless varieties of 
 grains and fruits, with resources in timber of inestimable 
 value, and with wealth of mineral so great and in so 
 much variety that all but the more precious metals are 
 largely neglected. Immense fields of discovered coal 
 and iron lie undeveloped awaiting the time when cost 
 of production and transportation will warrant their use, 
 notwithstanding that four trans-continental railway 
 systems now cross the state and that the high prices of 
 fuel and of the products of iron are without precedent 
 throughout the land. Add to these natural material 
 means of prosperity, charms of scenery and environment 
 unexcelled to promote happy and healthful existence, 
 and there remains the marvelous fact that the popula- 
 tion of the state in 1910, after twenty-one years exist-
 
 4 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 ence as a state, was only 376,053 people, including In- 
 dians not taxed. Such dearth of population amid such 
 abundance of resource requires explanation. This is 
 afforded in part by the very magnitude of opportunity. 
 Prospective settlers seeking location would naturally 
 hesitate to place their habitations where the nearest 
 neighbor might be a day's journey away, even if the 
 great extent of unsettled country did not for long time 
 indicate barren soil or other insuperable obstacle to 
 agricultural success. For many years the belief that 
 irrigation was the first essential to profitable farming in 
 the west, with the heavy expense attached to extensive 
 irrigation projects, served to delay the taking up of the 
 land. Until quite recent years the belief that the coun- 
 try was unfit for other uses than stock ranges was culti- 
 vated by stock growers who ruled in more than one-half 
 of the commonwealth territory. High wages in mines 
 and smelters for a long period offered superior attrac- 
 tions to industry as compared with the making of a farm 
 remote from market. This condition assisted in delay- 
 ing settlement. The supremacy of control by mining 
 interests helped to the same result. The fierce conflicts 
 between the mining kings, and the wholesale corrup- 
 tions and scandals growing out of them, did not invite 
 new farm settlers or greatly attract men ambitious along 
 the lines of good citizenship. Finally, the era of consol- 
 idation turned the ownership and profits of the chief 
 developed mineral wealth of the state over to non-resi- 
 dents. The new owners extended their control to the 
 timber, the water power, the banking interests, public 
 utilities in cities, merchandizing, the public press, legis- 
 lative, administrative and other branches of government, 
 including the taxing power; and in some places schools, 
 churches and cemeteries were included in the properties
 
 EARLY DAYS AND HEROIC WAYS 5 
 
 dedicated to exploitation in the national field of stock- 
 jobbing through over-capitalization, and were made 
 mere tokens in the game of Wall Street speculation as 
 played by promoters of wild-cat enterprise. 
 
 There were heroic ways in the early days which left 
 their impress on the state. There was pride of state 
 even when civic righteousness appeared wholly lacking 
 in leadership. There was incentive to effort and reward 
 for achievement by individuals in the times and condi- 
 tions which developed men like Clark and Daly from 
 mining, and men like Sanders and Toole in professional 
 life. The man who not only believed that a horse thief 
 should be hung but who had assisted in hanging him 
 was quite likely to be a man of integrity in ordinary 
 business dealings. Mining claims sometimes were trans- 
 ferred by verbal agreement, and in some instances these 
 agreements were forgotten to be revived and respected 
 years later, when the mining development of the dis- 
 trict had made the properties worth independent fortunes 
 which could have been secured by the verbal trader 
 through mere denial of agreement. Whatever may be 
 said of the moral effect of such contests, there was noth- 
 ing mean or small about men who unhesitatingly ex- 
 pended millions of dollars in efforts to locate the state 
 capital in the particular city which they favored. The 
 late Daniel Hennessy, who attained the position of the 
 head of the Hennessy Mercantile Company from a clerk- 
 ship, and who in that position extended credit to thous- 
 ands of people during a long term of years, is authority 
 for the statement that there never was any risk in trust- 
 ing a Butte miner without assignment of wages prior 
 to the beginning of the Amalgamated-Heinze war. The 
 profits as well as the costs of mining remained within 
 the state in greater part, and the rivalry of the owners
 
 6 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 reached to the spending of profits as well as in the mak- 
 ing of them. Fortunes were acquired by men in mercantile 
 and professional life, and many men employed in the 
 mines on wages, owned their homes, educated their 
 families, and were among the most influential and pros- 
 perous citizens. 
 
 All the earlier years formed a period of individual 
 effort and individual achievement in Montana. Indeed 
 it was long after the organization of the territory as a 
 state when corporate power became stronger than man 
 power there. The hardships and struggles inseparable 
 from pioneer life in the intermountain country of the 
 west discouraged others than the most self-reliant men 
 from venturing on settlement. The same hardships and 
 constant dangers developed the most rugged manhood 
 and dauntless courage. Long after the menace of or- 
 ganized wealth and the abuses of corporate power were 
 felt and understood in the older states, the corporation 
 boss in Montana continued to be the boss of the corpor- 
 ation instead of a mere agent of the corporation to boss 
 the affairs of other people in its interest. The greatest 
 industries of the state were created and its vast wealth 
 was demonstrated and brought to use by labor almost 
 without capital. The owner of the mine most commonly 
 was the miner who discovered the property, throughout 
 the gold mining days. The slower returns and the 
 greater investments required in the production of silver 
 and copper ores stimulated the creation of companies, 
 but the men who operated them continued in their in- 
 dividual capacities to exercise the greater influence and 
 the greater power in human affairs. It was in fact 
 Henry Villard, not the Northern Pacific Railway Com- 
 pany, who constructed the first railroad across the state, 
 and until quite recent years James J. Hill was recog-
 
 EARLY DAYS AND HEROIC WAYS 7 
 
 nized as greater than his Great Northern system. For 
 a long time Messrs. Haggin and Hearst owned control 
 of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, but either 
 or both of them, with or without the corporate organi- 
 zation, would have made ridiculous failure in attempts 
 to combat the influence of Marcus Daly in Montana in 
 the days of his prime strength. It was the advent of the 
 trust, with its combination of corporations and the ex- 
 tension of influences, with interests, into a wide variety 
 of enterprise, which brought the sturdy manhood of fhe 
 state into subjection and under foreign control. 
 
 Like all the states which first attracted human set- 
 tlement by the discovery of gold, the foundation of the 
 population of Montana was gathered from widely scat- 
 tered regions and countries. To a greater extent than 
 most other divisions of the American Union, this state 
 has been free from subsequent colonizations and race 
 invasions. The hardy stock of mankind congregated 
 by the first adventurous people has been reinforced dur- 
 ing development of its agricultural and other resources 
 by immigrants almost wholly from within the United 
 States. The result has been a citizenship exceptionally 
 independent in thought and action, unusually intelli- 
 gent, and familiar with principles and policies of gov- 
 ernment. These people have been deceived sometimes, 
 betrayed quite frequently; but in no political contest, 
 whatever the issue, has any party or any candidate for 
 high office ever presumed to appeal directly for popular 
 support with other plea than one compatible with high 
 ideals of government and high regard for public integ- 
 rity. This is evidenced uniformly in official records and 
 by political platforms, even in times when corrupt con- 
 ditions scandalized the state and when all parties notori- 
 ously were controlled in organization by conflicting pri-
 
 8 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 vate interests, without care or concern for public weal 
 or the reputation of the state. In the first message to 
 the first legislative assembly of the territory of Mon- 
 tana, delivered by Governor Sidney Edgerton in 1864, 
 when the national government was menaced by re- 
 bellion and protracted civil war, and while the newly 
 organized territory was little better than a wilderness 
 with an excess of savages among its inhabitants, he 
 devoted as much attention to education as to any other 
 subject, emphasizing urgent need of provision for public 
 schools, with the following stated reasons : 
 
 "Hundreds of children are now in the territory, 
 which a wise legislation will not permit to grow up in 
 ignorance; for, in a free government like ours, where 
 public measures are submitted to the judgment of the 
 people, it is of the highest importance that that people 
 should be so educated as to understand the bearing of 
 public measures. A self-ruling people must be an edu- 
 cated people, or prejudice and passion will assume the 
 power and anarchy will soon usurp the authority of 
 government. Children are in one sense the property of 
 the public, and it is one of the highest and most solemn 
 duties of the state to furnish ample provision for their 
 education. It has been well said by a distinguished 
 jurist that it is cheaper to educate the boy than to pun- 
 ish the man, and if the education of the boy is neglected 
 the punishment of the man may become a necessity, for 
 crime and ignorance go hand in hand." 
 
 With like patriotic concern, and not less prophetic 
 of dangers to the common weal, were the utterances of 
 the first elected governor of the organized state, Hon. 
 Joseph K. Toole, almost thirty-five years later, in his 
 address on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone 
 of the new capitol building. This was on July 4, 1899,
 
 EARLY DAYS AND HEROIC WAYS 9 
 
 almost contemporaneous with the organization of the 
 Amalgamated Copper Company. Discussing the wel- 
 fare of the state, and in recognition of the increasing 
 encroachments of trust power, Governor Toole said : 
 
 "There are some wise men bold enough to insist that 
 these stupendous combinations of capital are the off- 
 spring of humane impulses exclusively, and that they 
 are designed solely to ameliorate the sufferings of man- 
 kind by cheapening the cost of production and hence, 
 according to their philosophic conclusions, reducing the 
 cost of living. Many of the so-called benefactors of 
 mankind who lived in other days appear to have been 
 made of the same clay as some of those of the present 
 time, and like the latter did not always hang a lantern 
 over the pit they dug. 
 
 "History records that 'Athens, splendid, ivy-crowned, 
 poet-sung, world renowned Athens,' talked eloquently 
 of human rights with her sandaled foot upon the neck 
 of four hundred thousand slaves, and worshipped de- 
 voutly in glorious temples dedicated to 'the unknown 
 God'; and Rome, in her lust of dominion, in the realiza- 
 tion of her 'manifest destiny', became the bloated op- 
 pressor of the world. 
 
 "In the light of history, then, we may be pardoned 
 if in our ignorance or incredulity, some of us should 
 take issue with the incorporated humanitarians and seek 
 to prevent that which, in our judgment, will destroy 
 competition, limit production, restrain trade and raise 
 prices, for the sole purpose of adding to the wealth of 
 the few and the poverty of the many. But, happily for 
 us, if these forebodings should ever materialize, they 
 cannot long endure under our form of government — 
 
 " 'In the corrupted currents of this world 
 Offence's gilded hand may shove by Justice.'
 
 10 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 but sooner or later the remedy will be secured. In a 
 'government of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people,' public servants can always be found, if sought, 
 who will vindicate the right." 
 
 Three years to a day after Governor Toole delivered 
 this address, the Hon. Wilbur F. Sanders, rightly famed 
 as one of the most heroic characters among the pioneers 
 who founded the state and one of the ablest and most 
 patriotic among the statesmen of later years, on the oc- 
 casion of the dedication of the completed capitol, speak- 
 ing for the pioneers of the state, said : 
 
 "The Pioneers who survive to witness these cere- 
 monies would belie their history and be false to their 
 comrades dead, did they not regard with affectionate 
 solicitude this temple this day consecrated to high public 
 uses. Its architecture is worthy of the state they 
 founded, its art responds to the cultivated taste of an 
 intelligent people, its capacity is adequate to the ser- 
 vice of a great commonwealth, and its massive solidity 
 is an assurance that it may remain the theatre of our 
 governmental action through all the years of the current 
 century. It is destined to see all contention set in or- 
 derly array and to witness the heady strifes that now 
 impend or are vaguely foreshadowed and see them al- 
 layed or determined conformable to justice and the 
 public good. Under its lifted dome the Wisdom of our 
 people will find expression and action. Here great con- 
 troversies will invoke the triumphs of oratory and the 
 dominance of prudent wisdom and intelligent patriotism. 
 If sordid greed shall dare here to attempt its conquests, 
 if coward fear shall dictate silence or speech, if arrogant, 
 confident ignorance shall here direct public policies, if 
 selfish ambition shall endeavor to mount to power by 
 perfidy or chicane, if bribery shall profane this holy
 
 EARLY DAYS AND HEROIC WAYS 11 
 
 place, the voices of those who planted this civilization, 
 from beyond the confines of the tomb, will be heard in 
 accordant execration." 
 
 This, too, was a voice in prophecy; and, in the short 
 period of time which has elapsed since that memorable 
 ceremony in 1902, everything enumerated by Colonel 
 Sanders as designed to call for accordant execration from 
 the tombs of pioneers has found place or performance 
 under the roof of that home of state government.
 
 The Blessing and the Curse of Gold 
 
 In Volume 4 of the contributions to state history, 
 published by the Historical Society of Montana, there 
 is printed the "original sketch of proposed seal for the 
 territory of Montana, made by Francis M. Thompson, 
 member of the Committee on Seal, in first legislative 
 assembly." It is a crude work of art, with intertwined 
 implements of mining and agriculture for a center piece, 
 the sun above, mountains on the left, the falls of the 
 Missouri river on the right, and "Oro Y Plata" in the 
 place of motto. This design was adopted, with some 
 slight modifications in deference to artistic finish, and 
 never has been changed ; notwithstanding that the base 
 sentiment and sordid suggestion conveyed by it have 
 been fervently denounced and deplored by eminent and 
 gifted orators in connection with most notable events 
 in the making of the state. Doubtless the designer of 
 the seal in 1864 was prompted by the thought that the 
 new territory was in more immediate need of attractive 
 advertisement than of enduring inspiration to high 
 ideals. Later a designation of the new member of the 
 American union as "The Treasure State" was a fitting 
 complement to the seal design. This is true, notwith- 
 standing indignant declaration by Col. Wilbur F. 
 Sanders, that, "In childish and mistaken simplicity, there 
 are those beyond our borders who suppose we have 
 chosen to be thus denominated because of the prolific 
 quality of our farms, our mines, our Mocks, our herds, 
 our fruits and our forests" ; and despite Col. Sanders' 
 accompanying patriotic and gracious explanation : "The 
 
 [13]
 
 14 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 accomplished and heroic women to whom our civilization 
 is so greatly indebted, the courageous and noble men 
 free from greed and guile, solicitous and ever active for 
 our good name, the children eager to protect and im- 
 prove the great heritage so soon to be theirs, these are 
 the precious possessions of the commonwealth destined 
 to increase appreciation and pride when mines are ex- 
 hausted and worldly goods accounted as vanity." 
 
 The mines are not yet exhausted and worldly goods 
 are not yet accounted as vanity in Montana. "Gold 
 and Silver!" "The Treasure State!" Throughout its 
 vast domain commercial clubs, and boosters, and land 
 agents, and mining sharks, and combine bosses, and 
 official grafters, are giving new emphasis to the old ad- 
 vertisement, and, wise in the work of publicity, are 
 proclaiming possession of the goods "As Advertised". 
 
 Some years have passed since Col. Sanders joined 
 his fellow pioneers in well-earned, endless rest, sincerely 
 mourned by good citizens and respected or feared by 
 bad ones. His ideals survive, and the echoes of his ex- 
 ecrations while alive have served to bring to merited 
 disgrace and defeat some public offenders since his 
 death. Yet the advertisement on the great seal of the 
 state of territorial times has been in fact an apt motto 
 for the state in most important events of its history to 
 the present time. So much may be asserted as con- 
 spicuously true of most important events in most other 
 states during the same period, covering what leaders of 
 business and molders of thought are pleased to describe 
 as the commercial era; but gold and silver have been 
 more conspicuously related to the blessings and curses 
 visited upon the people of Montana than in the experi- 
 ences of the citizens of any other state. It was the dis- 
 covery of gold which gave early settlements to the
 
 THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE OF GOLD 15 
 
 rocky mountain wilderness which covers more than one- 
 third of the great region. Placer mining of gold was 
 followed naturally by quartz mining, which revealed the 
 great wealth of silver, and this in turn resulted in acci- 
 dental discovery of the seemingly inexhaustible deposits 
 of copper. It was the need of gold which prompted the 
 vigilantes to hang the outlaws to the most convenient 
 elevations, as well as the love of gold which made the 
 outlaws proper subjects for such ceremonies. 
 
 The records of the historical society are almost as 
 rich in romance and heroism and patriotism connected 
 with the gold-finding and gold-mining times of the state, 
 as the state was rich in gold. As early as 1868 the most 
 authentic publication in the state's history at that time, 
 in the form of an almanac, gave facts and figures to 
 warrant the conclusion that Montana had added to the 
 wealth of the nation over $92,000,000 within seven years. 
 The population of the whole territory was then esti- 
 mated at only 40,000 people. It was the proud boast in 
 and for Montana at that time that it was "The first ex- 
 perience in the history of the wonderful territorial ex- 
 pansion and increase in material resources and popula- 
 tion, of the United States, in which a dependency has 
 held a self-sustaining relation to the federal govern- 
 ment from the very first, and affords, in the logically 
 conclusive rhetoric of figures, convincing proof of our 
 present prosperity as a people and prophetic promise 
 of a still more propitious future." 
 
 Not much more than twenty years later Grover 
 Cleveland, with the high authority of a president, in- 
 cluded Montana among "the undesirable states". It 
 might be no better than conjecture to attempt to show 
 whether Mr. Cleveland reached his conclusion through 
 consideration of Montana's natural support of silver as
 
 16 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 a money standard, or from reflection upon his personal 
 experiences as one of a group of distinguished victims 
 of a wild-cat gold mine enterprise in the rock-buttressed 
 democratic county of Granite, state of Montana. Either, 
 or any, way, it is certain that the unprecedented blessing 
 of contribution to national prosperity from Montana 
 came from gold and silver, and that the inadequate gold 
 in the Rock Creek Mine, or the surplus of silver in the 
 coin of the country, brought the mild curse of Grover 
 upon the Treasure State. Through all the succeeding 
 events of state capital contests, of corporation conflicts, 
 of feudal wars and legislative corruption, to the final 
 conquest of the commonwealth by alien combine, the 
 potency of gold is always and everywhere manifest. In 
 1864 a letter in description of Montana was written to 
 Hon. J. M. Edmunds, Washington, D. C., and published 
 in "The Great West". It was written from Virginia 
 City and the writer said : 
 
 "The currency here is entirely gold, treasury notes 
 at this present writing bringing but fifty cents on the 
 dollar. The entire business transactions of the country 
 are done with gold dust as a medium, and it is recog- 
 nized as the currency of the country. This is decidedly 
 unfortunate, particularly for government officials, who 
 are compelled to sacrifice one-half in the performance of 
 their duties." 
 
 The relative values of gold and of official station 
 must have undergone a marvelous change from that 
 day of gold dust currency to the eventful time in the 
 life of the same generation when it was common report 
 that one citizen of Montana had yielded more than half 
 a million dollars, also measured by the gold standard, 
 for the mere privilege of representing Montana in 
 official government station, and that another prominent
 
 THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE OF GOLD 17 
 
 resident of the state, with ambition of different turn, 
 had spent almost half as much to make the same office 
 vacant. 
 
 The outgrowths of personal rivalries and personal 
 animosities and personal ambitions were feuds and 
 factions and bitter conflicts in Montana, as elsewhere. 
 The great wealth of the chief contestants here made the 
 power of gold more potent than other influences in 
 determining results. Participants made material gains, 
 and the ruling captains could afford in a financial way 
 the extravagant cost. The evil to the state came through 
 the adoption and toleration of corrupt methods in the 
 conduct of public affairs and in the settlement of public 
 questions. The agencies were created, the political 
 tools were made and perfected, ready for use in the 
 later operations prosecuted between great corporations 
 through simple greed of gain, which finally made the 
 commonwealth an asset of private interests in very 
 large part, and made of the state first a rotton borough, 
 and then a mere province, subject to an oligarchy com- 
 posed of New York stock gamblers and industrial 
 pirates. 
 
 That much was accomplished by worthy and suc- 
 cessful pioneers of Montana in permitting their personal 
 whims and prejudices to blur their vision and confuse 
 their judgment to an extent necessary to convince them 
 that with wealth they could acquire honor or perferment 
 which they failed to attain through merit or by force of 
 better argument, ignorant or forgetful that those honors 
 which wealth can buy with corrupt expenditure cease 
 to be honors when so purchased. They established in 
 Montana a great branch of that school whose apt pupils 
 throughout the country have revolutionized society, 
 business and religion, as well as government. With this
 
 IS THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 cult wealth is the only end, abuse of power the rightful 
 means, failure the only crime. Its literature reveals a 
 faith that, as every dialect has had its philosophy, every 
 philosophy must have its dialect. The most profound 
 reasoning of its professors is from effect to cause; in 
 progress from ideas to words, from soul to sensuality, 
 from mind to pocket. Through this school, patriotism 
 is become love of real estate rather than of country. 
 "In God We Trust," because it is on the American 
 dollar — not because He created the world, but because 
 He is credited with having sacrificed His only begotten 
 son for love of it. Religion is become a business ; adver- 
 tisement is the highest art; yellow journalism is litera- 
 ture — and this is history. The curse of gold in Montana 
 has been long and widely and deeply impressed upon 
 her people ; with some willingly, to some helplessly, for 
 some unwittingly. The return to consciousness and 
 conscience naturally is weighted heavily with surprise 
 and distress.
 
 In the Times of Feudal Wars 
 
 What is commonly called "The Clark-Daly Fight" 
 in Montana was started about the time of the organiza- 
 tion of the state in 1889. It very soon attained the 
 character of a feud and a magnitude which early in- 
 volved the entire state. Although one of the principals 
 in the strife has been in his grave for nearly a decade, 
 the enmities and bitterness engendered by it continue to 
 live and to affect the conduct of public affairs in Mon- 
 tana. The continuing conflict between these two men 
 served to scandalize the public character of hundreds of 
 men and to debauch the private character of thousands. 
 It discouraged good citizenship within the state and dis- 
 graced the state in public estimation throughout the 
 nation. If this twenty years' war between these indus- 
 trial masters ever had more worthy cause or respectable 
 origin than a petty jealousy or envious resentment in 
 the mind of Mr. Daly, the fact never has been estab- 
 lished in authentic record available to public knowledge. 
 
 When Marcus Daly came to Butte he was the rep- 
 resentative of Walker Brothers, of Salt Lake City, 
 looking for a promising enterprise and investment in 
 mining. He had been the superintendent of a mine in 
 Utah for that firm, having worked that far up the ladder 
 of advancement from an Irish emigrant and laborer in 
 the mines of Nevada. The beginning of W. A. Clark in 
 business life was scarcely less modest or humble. The 
 foundation of his fortune was laid with wages which he 
 had saved until he possessed a sufficient sum to secure 
 a small stock of merchandise, working his way upwards 
 
 [19]
 
 JO THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 from a small merchant at Bannack in early territorial 
 times to a small banker in Deer Lodge, and finally into 
 the banking and mining business in Butte. His first 
 considerable savings as a merchant were expended on a 
 home for his parents in the middle west, and his next 
 investment from mercantile gains was in a college edu- 
 cation for himself, an advantage of which he had been 
 deprived by the family needs in his youth. When Mr. 
 Daly reached Butte the letter of introduction which he 
 brought from Walker Brothers was addressed to W. A. 
 Clark, already a leading banker and widely known in 
 the western mining region as a successful man of busi- 
 ness. Clark and Daly became personal friends and this 
 relationship, lasting through many years, was strength- 
 ened by the marriage of Mr. Daly and of Mr. Clark's 
 brother, and partner, to sisters. Both men were mem- 
 bers of the democratic party, and both were counted in 
 "The Big Four" credited with direction of party affairs 
 in the territory and in the early years of statehood. 
 Clark developed a fancy for political honors. Daly had 
 no ambitions in that direction, and. indeed, no qualifica- 
 tions for statesmanship by education, or by interest in 
 public affairs other than as they might affect his private 
 interests. The first break between the two men came 
 through and after the defeat of Clark as a candidate 
 for congress, conspicuously due to treachery to his 
 former friend, as well as to his party, by Mr. Daly, who, 
 while professing devotion to both party and candidate, 
 so directed affairs that thousands of men employed in 
 his mines in Butte and his smelters at Anaconda either 
 were prevented from voting or were influenced to vote 
 for the republican candidate for congress. No intelli- 
 gent explanation of this action ever was afforded by 
 Mr. Daly or his friends. The breach thus formed be-
 
 IN THE TIMES OF THE FEUDAL WARS 21 
 
 tween the supporters and friends of the two men never 
 was healed. Mr. Clark repaid the injury by defeating 
 the pet project of Mr. Daly's life in the location of the 
 state capital. In almost the next campaign Daly nour- 
 ished the grudge with fierce but futile opposition to the 
 election of Clark to the United States senate, but suc- 
 ceeded in involving the proceeding in so much of cor- 
 ruption and scandal that an investigation of the election 
 was made by the senate and so much evidence, real and 
 manufactured, of rottenness in public affairs in Montana 
 was presented that Clark found it necessary to resign 
 the office to escape adverse action by a republican sen- 
 ate. In the campaign which followed closely upon the 
 end of the protracted investigation by the senate, Mr. 
 Clark sought and secured vindication through re-elec- 
 tion, and held undisputed title to a seat in that body 
 during the ensuing six years. The death of Mr. Daly 
 occurred in 1902, soon after the election that gave to his 
 antagonist a long-delayed triumph in realization of a 
 quite natural ambition, which in the earlier years never 
 met in Montana worse or other effective opposition than 
 that engendered by the Daly animosity. 
 
 Knowledge of something more than common pop- 
 ular estimation of these two men is necessary to an un- 
 derstanding of their characters, activities, and achieve- 
 ments. Both were very extraordinary men, and both 
 from the most humble beginnings attained positions of 
 commanding power and leadership, a- well as vast 
 fortunes. Without their abilities and energies in mining 
 operations, Butte might easily have become an aban- 
 doned placer camp like scores of others in Montana. 
 The State might yet retain its inestimable wealth in 
 copper undeveloped, and would have escaped all the 
 between copper kings, with most of the political crimes
 
 22 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 which have diverted the powers of the state and the 
 better parts of its natural wealth to private control and 
 alien profit. Enough has been written about each man 
 to make ponderous volumes. A search for authentic 
 information about both, for use in this work, discovered 
 nothing like an impartial or accurate printed record or 
 account of the works and character of either. The vir- 
 tues and the faults of both have been grossly exagger- 
 ated by the friends or enemies of each in consequence 
 of the long continued warfare in which they engaged, 
 and in which the public press and the ordinary as well 
 as the extraordinary mediums of publicity became mere 
 weapons in the fray. As a matter of course Mr. Clark 
 suffered most in public regard from this means. 
 Throughout the whole time he was either a public of- 
 ficial or a partisan candidate for public office 
 while Mr. Daly, during much of the time, so 
 planned his campaigns that he was able to be posed as 
 the private citizen striving to protect his party and his 
 state, as well as the United States senate, against the 
 influences and the infamies of political corruption. No 
 falsehood ever was further from fact. There is abun- 
 dance of evidence that Mr. Clark paid a most extrava- 
 gant cost for his first certificate of election as United 
 States senator, and there is equally good evidence that 
 Mr. Daly manifested no disposition to spare expense 
 to defeat his enemy, and approved and paid for agencies 
 and methods and crimes, in the campaign to deprive Mr. 
 Clark of his seat, quite as varied and in some instances 
 more contemptible than any shown to have been utilized 
 in promotion of the Clark candidacy. The three bulky 
 documents containing the report of the senate investi- 
 gation of the Clark election contain few honors for any 
 one connected with it, revealing that Daly as well as
 
 IN THE TIMES OF THE FEUDAL WARS 23 
 
 Clark, republicans as well as democrats, shared in the 
 responsibility for the "inextricable intertwinement" of 
 corruption with government. These disgraceful per- 
 formances are recalled with no other purpose than to 
 show the influences which have contributed to condi- 
 tions making possible the evolution from a free Amer- 
 ican state to a servile instrument for the increase of 
 corporate power and pelf. Indeed, the sale of a senate 
 seat in Montana at that time was not without precedent 
 in other states with greater pretensions to civic right- 
 eousness. There have been quite as flagrant examples 
 elsewhere since that time. It was remarked by some 
 of Mr. Clark's supporters on that occasion that he did 
 not buy anybody who was not for sale, and in the light 
 of subsequent events, in and out of Montana, and some 
 notable, not to say notorious, facts of senatorial policy 
 and conduct, it is no more than fair and due to observe 
 that, whatever his faults, Mr. Clark, as senator, never 
 was suspected of, or charged with, selling his influence 
 as a senator, or of betraying his constituents to corrupt 
 interests for private gain. 
 
 The first wholesale political debauchery of Montana 
 was in connection with the location of the state capital. 
 It was instigated by Marcus Daly, directed by him, at his 
 expense, in his selfish interests, and to gratify his per- 
 sonal vanity. The campaign in pursuit of this coveted 
 prize was continued through several years and furnished 
 the chief question voted on by the people of the state at 
 two elections. Mr. Daly sought to locate the seat of gov- 
 ernment at Anaconda, a city of his own creation, mostly 
 owned by the corporation whose affairs he directed, and 
 abjectly under his influence and control. It was located 
 almost in a corner of the state, at the dead end of a 
 branch line of railway, which, like the town, was owned
 
 24 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 and operated by the mining and smelting company. The 
 one plausible reason why Anaconda should be considered 
 a desirable site for the statehouse was in the fact that 
 Mr. Daly wanted it there. The chief argument used in 
 behalf of the town was money. Other effective influ- 
 ences enlisted by the Daly forces in the contest consti- 
 tuted indirect bribery, and involved the educational, 
 charitable and penal institutions of the state in bargain- 
 ings and petty political considerations which have 
 worked lasting injury to the institutions and imposed 
 unnecessary burdens upon taxpayers to the present time. 
 This is especially true of educational institutions, which 
 were divided and scattered over the state in efforts to 
 secure the support of various communities for Ana- 
 conda in the capital fight. The local jealousies and petty 
 rivalries thus created never have ceased to be a con- 
 trolling and hurtful influence in the conduct of the col- 
 leges, while the people have been compelled to bear the 
 cost of multiplication of buildings and expense of ad- 
 ministration. Bribery in this fight, so far as Mr. Daly 
 was concerned, was limited only by the variety of means 
 and channels through which it could be exercised, and 
 not at all by extravagance of cost. One of the stories of 
 the contest which has survived the times is, in substance, 
 that one loyal agent of Mr. Daly incurred his displeas- 
 ure after the election by returning to him several thou- 
 sands of dollars with the explanation that he was unable 
 to find new or neglected opportunities for placing it on 
 election day. It is of passing interest that this persistent 
 and urgent temptation to sell a public interest to serve 
 private ends was resisted by the people of Montana on 
 this occasion, albeit the majority was dangerously small. 
 The important fact of the matter is that Marcus Daly 
 established in the state the business of corrupting the
 
 IN THE TIMES OF THE FEUDAL WARS 25 
 
 state at elections and in government for private service, 
 and that his successors and assigns in politics and busi- 
 ness have continued the enterprise ever since with every 
 imaginable invention and device to defeat public inter- 
 ests and to perfect corporate power in the promotion of 
 selfish private ends. 
 
 A new factor and a new faction for feudal conflict 
 in Montana came with the development of F. A. Heinze 
 as a conspicuous figure in mining and political opera- 
 tions in Butte. Heinze came to town a young man, 
 fresh from college, and found employment in a subor- 
 dinate position in the engineering force of the Boston 
 and Montana Copper Mining Company, then an inde- 
 pendent organization and the most formidable rival of 
 the Anaconda company in the camp. Heinze's position 
 enabled him to acquire a thorough knowledge of under- 
 ground conditions in Butte as well as a practical exper- 
 ience in the most successful and extensive copper mining 
 field in the country. He possessed brains in abundance, 
 a fine address, a strong physique, tireless energy, bound- 
 less egotism, was "a good mixer", a prudent spendthrift, 
 and had no moral restrictions. He made both friends 
 and money rapidly, and spared neither in the promotion 
 and accomplishment of his purposes. The knowledge 
 he acquired of Boston and Montana Company properties 
 enabled him to become a valuable ally of Mr. Daly in 
 comparatively unimportant conflicts of interest. He 
 broke with Daly and assisted Mr. Clark in the campaign 
 which brought victory to that gentleman against both 
 Daly and the newly organized Amalgamated Copper 
 Company. When, following the death of Mr. Daly, 
 there was temporary truce between Clark and the big 
 combine, Heinze organized his forces with ambitious 
 politicians, in and out of Butte, who successfully com
 
 26 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 batted the Amalgamated army, the Clark organization 
 and the former followers of Daly, all combined, by ap- 
 pealing to the people against the dangers of encroach- 
 ments by a great foreign combine on the one hand, and 
 by attracting wage-earners with shorter work days and 
 special concessions in his own mines and smelters, as 
 well as with promises of legislation to secure these ad- 
 vantages to laboring men permanently. He organized 
 the United Copper Company in almost perfect imitation 
 of the Amalgamated combine at the same time, and gave 
 battle to the captains of high finance and watered stocks 
 on the eastern exchanges. He secured control & city 
 and county government in Butte, as well as of the judges 
 of the district courts in Silver Bow county, and a strong 
 influence in the legislative and administrative depart- 
 ments of state government. He employed able 
 lawyers, as well as willing judges, and laid in 
 litigation lines of attack which menaced titles to 
 Amalgamated properties, at the same time that 
 he employed his mining forces and his knowledge of 
 underground workings in Butte in gophering through 
 some of the richest veins of his adversary's mines — 
 bringing the ores out of his own shafts and reducing 
 them in his own smelters, thus compelling the enemy to 
 pay the expenses of the war. For the greater part of a 
 decade the Heinze-Amalgamated battles dwarfed all 
 other feudal strifes in the state and subjected all other 
 interests to these influences. During this time every 
 branch and agency of government, from the humblest 
 city employee in Butte to judges of the highest courts, 
 federal and state, within Montana, were little better than 
 officers or camp followers of the contending forces. 
 Heinze's strength was with the people, derived perhaps 
 in about equal parts from their confidence in his prom-
 
 IN THE TIMES OF THE FEUDAL WARS 27 
 
 ises and performances, and in their distrust of his non- 
 resident adversaries. Had he possessed a better com- 
 prehension of this fact and a realization of the limita- 
 tions to his personal power, and maintained a seeming 
 integrity of purpose, together with a policy of fair play 
 with his associates and supporters, he easily might have 
 maintained his mastery in the state and might have be- 
 come the dominating figure in the copper mining world. 
 He took the other course, attempted to better the in- 
 struction of the kings of corruption in New York and to 
 beat them at their own game. His abuse of power, 
 piratical enterprise and perversion of government 
 agencies, became so flagrant and intolerable that self- 
 respecting citizenship revolted. He lost control of 
 courts and sold out his supporters as well as his mines 
 to the Amalgamated stock-jobbers, who compelled the 
 public to pay for both as well as a liberal advance upon 
 the purchase price through inflated values during the 
 boom days of 1906 in addition to the actual cost. The 
 promoters for the big combine paid $10,500,000 for the 
 Heinze properties, stocked them in a new company with 
 a capitalization of $15,000,000, floated the stock at par, 
 and during the succeeding five years never have given 
 an intelligent explanation to stockholders regarding 
 either the use of the $4,000,000 surplus or the failure to 
 pay reasonable dividends. It has been conservatively 
 estimated that Mr. Heinze left Butte with a cash capital 
 in excess of $5,000,000 above all liabilities of a financial 
 kind. He went to New York and engaged in banking 
 and speculation in competition with his former oppon- 
 ents in mining operations, is credited with having made 
 a wager that he would make the price of his United Cop- 
 per Company stocks — nearly all the productive property 
 of which he had transferred to the Amalgamated people
 
 28 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 — higher than that of Amalgamated in the market. 
 Whether the wager was made or not, the price of United 
 Copper did pass that of Amalgamated for a day. Within 
 six months of that time Mr. Heinze's fortune was gone, 
 he was out of the banking business, and defendant in 
 criminal prosecutions in two states for dishonest bank- 
 ing, while the mercenaries of his Montana army were 
 enlisted in public office and in private occupation with 
 the employees and supporters of the enlarged and newly 
 entrenched Amalgamated organization. 
 
 Within three years the copper mines and reduction 
 works owned by Mr. Clark in Butte have passed, through 
 purchase, to the growing monopoly. Thus the feudal 
 wars were ended. The last formidable individual min- 
 ing operator or political captain in Montana was dis- 
 posed of, and the New York oligarchy of predatory 
 wealth was without a competitor or a rival for control 
 of the rich resources and the poor government of the 
 Treasure State of the American Union.
 
 Of Pioneer State Leaders and Modern 
 Absentee Bosses 
 
 Notwithstanding the unparalleled extension of edu- 
 cational advantages in this free country, the average 
 knowledge of good and evil appears to have been de- 
 rived from imperfect youthful study of the bible in 
 Sunday school and careful reading of the Rollo books 
 of childhood. Some seventy-five years before the Revo- 
 lutionary fathers established the doctrine that govern- 
 ments derive their just powers from the consent of the 
 governed, the Puritan fathers hung witches at Salem 
 to the end that the revealed will of God should govern 
 America. Within seventy-five years after the pioneers 
 of Montana had hung road agents in Alder Gulch to 
 establish the doctrine that "the will of the people shall 
 be the law of the land," wage-earners in Montana were 
 starved to death by enforced idleness to insure the 
 apostles of high finance in Wall Street against loss of a 
 comparatively trifling portion of illgotten gains. From 
 pulpit and professor, from press and politician, mankind 
 continues to be taught that men are either good or bad 
 in this world, as if there were but one line of distinction 
 or one standard of measurement for all the infinite va- 
 riety of mankind — as if all good and all bad were not 
 relative, and as if there were not something of both vir- 
 tue and of vice in every one. The progress of the world 
 in material ways from the spread of knowledge and com- 
 plex civilization has increased the use, if not the useful- 
 ness, of the legal profession by a great mass of conflict- 
 ing statute laws. It does not appear from the history 
 
 [29]
 
 30 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 of men or nations that any of nature's laws thereby have 
 been invalidated or made inoperative, while it may be 
 questioned if the multiplicity of enactments to regulate 
 human conduct has not increased the difficulty which 
 many ordinarily good people find in distinguishing be- 
 tween right and wrong. Whether through folly or 
 wisdom, mankind generally has reached a belief that 
 for worldly purposes the statute of limitations ought to 
 apply against original sin, and that devilish propensity 
 is more directly a development of environment and cul- 
 ture and growth than of inherent qualities or elements 
 of good and evil. The parasite and the profligate are 
 recognized as the germ of diseases of society, and whole- 
 some public sentiment is esteemed above prayer as a 
 remedy. Precedent and custom easily become a more 
 potent influence than vague law, with a people, as well 
 as with judges of high courts. There was no alarming 
 growth of socialism in America until combines had 
 demonstrated the helplessness of the individual against 
 the power and the profits of cooperation. There never 
 was serious menace or preachment of anarchy in the 
 United States before lawlessness was established in ex- 
 ample and practice by corporate management and "Na- 
 poleons of Finance". "The Square Deal" could not have 
 become a national issue in this country, and aroused 
 excitement of public mind unequalled since the civil war, 
 if the majority of citizens had not become convinced 
 that they were deprived of hope of it by existing abuses 
 of the powers of government. 
 
 So much of observation may be helpful to an under- 
 standing, as well as a justification, of a chapter dealing 
 with the personal qualities of the pioneers who builded 
 the state of Montana and of the absentee bosses who 
 hare stolen or bought control of the government.
 
 OF PIONEER LEADERS AND ABSENTEE BOSSES 31 
 
 It was not their aptitude for or participation in po- 
 litical affairs which made either William A. Clark or 
 Marcus Daly great men or leaders in Montana. Both 
 were workers, builders — fearless, tireless, practical, 
 shrewd — with first hand knowledge of men as well as 
 of industry. Both have been called vain. Both were 
 proud, but each possessed and manifested a pride of 
 worthy accomplishment ; in the wealth and the success 
 of their state as well as of themselves. Excellence of 
 achievement was the constant aim of both. For recrea- 
 tion or hobby Mr. Clark turned to art, Mr. Daly to horse 
 racing. First in Butte and later in New York Mr. 
 Clark constructed a palatial home and adorned it with 
 famous pictures, regardless of price. Mr. Daly estab- 
 lished in the Bitter Root Valley the finest fancy stock 
 farm at that time in the country, and bred race-horses 
 until he had won the greatest event of American tracks. 
 For and with his associates Mr. Daly developed the 
 greatest copper mine in the Butte camp, built the city 
 of Anaconda as a smelter town, and constructed a plant 
 which developed into the world's greatest smelters. 
 These properties became the foundation part or nucleus 
 of the copper combine, and the Daly fortune was en- 
 larged by his part in the organization of the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company and the flotation of its watered 
 stock at par. His death occurred a short time after the 
 accomplishment of that enterprise. 
 
 Mr. Clark bought and developed what was in fact, 
 as in name, the "Original" quartz mining claim in the 
 Butte camp, and he operated it with other properties 
 there for more than thirty years as an individual. He 
 met exorbitant freight rates to remote smelters by en- 
 listing mutual interests and constructing the first suc- 
 cessful smelter plant in Butte. For nearly a quarter
 
 32 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 century he has been the most extensive individual cop- 
 per mine owner and operator in the country, but his 
 marvelous talent for business and the development of 
 productive enterprise never has been limited to a narrow 
 scope, and he has acquired and utilized an expert knowl- 
 edge in most widely varied branches of industrial en- 
 deavor. He projected and constructed a short line rail- 
 way from Salt Lake City to Southern California, and ex- 
 tended his mining operations to copper mines in Ari- 
 zona, coal mines in Colorado, zinc mines in Montana, 
 silver mines in Utah. He is reported as one of the first 
 men in America to engage in the beet sugar industry 
 on extensive scale, establishing a large plant in Cali- 
 fornia. He has developed water power plants for the 
 generation of electricity, and built and owns street car 
 systems, water works and electric lighting plants in im- 
 portant cities, works in New York where a large part of 
 his copper product is made into wire, a bronze factory 
 in New York, a large cattle ranch in Montana, a still 
 larger coffee and sugar ranch in Mexico, a powder factory 
 for high explosives in Pennsylvania, besides banking 
 and newspaper institutions in Montana. The banking 
 firm of "W. A. Clark & Bro." in Butte, started in pio- 
 neer days, is almost unique in important banking in the 
 country, being unincorporated and owned now as when 
 started, by the two partners, without limit of liability to 
 its depositors within the wealth of its owners. In other 
 lines as in banking Mr. Clark never has lost control of 
 any business in which he retained interest. His profits 
 have come from production and not through inflation of 
 values. No stock of any Clark company ever was placed 
 upon any stock market. During boom times and periods 
 of wild speculation it has been noted that employees 
 and associates of Mr. Clark in business were not lending
 
 OF PIONEER LEADERS AND ABSENTEE BOSSES 33 
 
 or selling the use of their names in wild-cat enterprises 
 or for stock-jobbing purposes. He has resisted most 
 alluring temptations in profit, as well as the dangers of 
 trust competition, to maintain his independence and in- 
 tegrity in the conduct of his great and varied business. 
 It is related of him also that he has retained his early 
 day policy of personal attention to all details of business, 
 and that no man in any Clark enterprise is indispensable 
 to Clark or competent to advise him in respect to eco- 
 nomical or progressive methods in any line of his busi- 
 ness interests. Rated as the richest man who ever en- 
 tered the United States senate as a member, and counted 
 in a senate speech by Robert M. LaFollette among "the 
 hundred men who own America," it truthfully may be 
 said of Mr. Clark that he is one of that hundred, if not 
 the only one, who acquired his wealth through produc- 
 tive enterprise without robbing either capital or labor 
 through wild-cat investment or wage wars. This among 
 captains of finance and industry is rare enough to give 
 to its owner some measure of public confidence and hon- 
 orable fame. 
 
 There is a human side to the Clark nature also 
 worthy of recognition, and which has endured through 
 all the times, and against all the influences of malignant 
 conflict and persistent importunities which sometimes 
 help to harden hearts of wealthy men. His charities 
 are practical and his continuing and personal interest 
 and supervision are exercised to insure their effective- 
 ness. In the barren hills which encompass Butte, he 
 created beyond the smoke zone of smelter times, in one 
 of the canyons, a beautiful garden which, aside from the 
 mines, is the one show feature of the Montana metrop- 
 olis. Besides the ordinary attractions of a public park, 
 including "Zoo" and fish hatchery, there are playgrounds
 
 34 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 for children. One day in each week the park and all its 
 concessions, with transportation to and from town, are 
 free to all the children of Butte as guests of Mr. Clark. 
 In the same city, as a memorial to his youngest son, he 
 built a model home for dependent children, which has 
 been maintained for many years. More recently in Los 
 Angeles, as a memorial to his mother, who died in that 
 city, he donated a great sum for the construction of a 
 home for working girls, to be under the management 
 of the Young Woman's Christian Association. Few if 
 any worthy undertakings of a public character in Mon- 
 tana are in existence which do not owe acknowledge- 
 ment to Mr. Clark for material assistance. Free from 
 the reproach of the use of wealth in the defeat of assail- 
 ants who could have been defeated in Montana at that 
 time by no other means, the career of W. A. Clark 
 might easily be taken as a model example of individual 
 effort and accomplishment in the civilization of the west. 
 Regardless of the times and conditions which made him 
 target of partisan attack, as well as the victim of per- 
 sonal malice, he remains easily the most notable char- 
 acter in the history of the material life of Montana, and 
 not less worthy than most of his detractors and con- 
 temporaries in most other particulars. 
 
 These men most famous beyond the boundaries of 
 the state were not in fact most conspicuous among the 
 men of influence who participated in laying its founda- 
 tions and forming the controlling character of the citi- 
 zenship of earlier years. The volumes of the Historical 
 Society of Montana carry the names of hundreds who 
 played leading parts in heroic or successful performance. 
 The state map with its subdivisions reflects the recog- 
 nition of distinguished services of pioneers by their suc- 
 cessors. There are counties named in honor of Lewis
 
 OF PIONEER LEADERS AND ABSENTEE BOSSES 35 
 
 and Clark, of Andrew Dawson, Gallatin, and Choteau, 
 among early explorers and adventurers ; for good Father 
 Ravalli, whose effective efforts in early missionary work 
 among the Indians were notable, and whose exemplifica- 
 tion of the work of Christ among the savages of an un- 
 explored wilderness is become a treasured tradition with 
 red men and white alike at the present time. Later 
 comers whose names were perpetuated in county nomen- 
 clature were Broadwater, Fergus, Custer and Sanders. 
 Of all these only Col. Broadwater acquired large wealth, 
 and only Col. Sanders reached distinction in political 
 life. The list of leaders might be extended to include 
 scores of men, now scarcely remembered by others than 
 the few surviving pioneers, who were not less active 
 and able in the important work of early times. Almost 
 every one of the hundreds of mining camps, whether 
 grown into modern cities or long time abandoned to 
 desolation, is rich in historical association, and almost 
 all of them developed citizens who became important 
 characters in state affairs. The professions were re- 
 cruited from the placer mines to a large extent. Hon. 
 W. Y. Pemberton, who reached the distinction of a seat 
 on the bench of the supreme court of the state, and 
 whose venerable years are being devoted fittingly and 
 lovingly to the collection of state history as librarian of 
 the Montana Historical Society, crossing the Rocky 
 Mountains in a Pullman car, enroute home from a 
 world's exposition west of Montana, pointed out the 
 gulch where he had crossed the mountain range on foot, 
 "whacking a bull team" to pay his way with company 
 from Fort Benton to Virginia City, the trip requiring 
 nearly three months' time when made half a century be- 
 fore. This same judge, a competent authority, has a 
 mind filled with memories of the men and times when
 
 36 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 law was practiced and interpreted with regard to justice 
 rather than to special interests. 
 
 When an approved school text book, dealing with 
 history and literature, published since the beginning of 
 the twentieth century, treats the country west of the 
 Mississippi River as if it had been settled by criminals 
 and vagrants not yet redeemed by the saving grace of 
 eastern "culture", it becomes of interest, if not neces- 
 sary, in telling the history of the surrender of a western 
 state to eastern influence, to emphasize the fact that the 
 pioneers of that state most responsible for its character 
 as well as its formation, were not outlaws. Of the 
 prominent men thus far mentioned, nearly all had some 
 part in the work of driving outlaws from the territory 
 before agencies of law had been established. It will be 
 noted, too, that much and the worst part of the law- 
 lessness referred to is of that variety most easily and 
 generally recognized as legalized by incorporation under 
 the laws of New Jersey. 
 
 Wherever American periodical publications are 
 read, there is some knowledge and estimate of the Mon- 
 tana people gained through advertisement of conflicts 
 between factions and corporations mentioned in this 
 work. Not one in ten thousand of these enlightened 
 American citizens, outside of Montana, ever heard of 
 Cornelius Hedges. Yet Mr. Hedges was a distinguished 
 resident of Montana for more than forty years, dating 
 from the time of the creation of the territory from which 
 it was formed. It is doubtful if any man who ever re- 
 sided within the borders exercised a more extensive in- 
 dividual influence, and it is certain that no man ever 
 was more universally respected and beloved within the 
 state. Some understanding of his character and con- 
 duct, therefore, will aid to better understanding of the
 
 OF PIONEER LEADERS AND ABSENTEE BOSSES 37 
 
 principles and ideals which governed in the minds of 
 the Montana public during his lifetime. The data here 
 presented is taken from a sketch of his life written by 
 his son and published in Vol. VII. of contributions to 
 the Historical Society of Montana, after his death. 
 
 Cornelius Hedges was a native of Westfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, born in 1831. His father was a blacksmith. 
 The son received his early education in the public 
 schools and graduated from Yale College with the class 
 of 1853. After leaving Yale he attended Harvard Law 
 School. In 1864 he arrived at Bannack, Montana, re- 
 moving to Helena in 1865, which place was his home 
 until his death in 1907. It was not as a lawyer in famous 
 cases nor as a rough and ready fighter in times of dis- 
 order that Mr. Hedges exercised influence or earned 
 his standing among his fellow men. It is related that 
 he took "an active part in the establishment of law and 
 order, assisting by wise counsel and active support the 
 wresting of peace and safety from the terror of * * * 
 road agents." His biographer says that "From 1864 
 to 1870, when Wilson and Compton were hanged at 
 Helena, he was among those who stood with the Vigi- 
 lantes, but none were more relieved than he when law 
 was established and the courts took into their own 
 hands executions, after due trial by jury and sentence 
 by judge". The tribute is in the announcement, in con- 
 nection with this conduct, that "He was so great a lover 
 of peace and civil quiet, that he felt it a necessity of the 
 times that a few lives of notorious regenades should be 
 sacrificed in order that the many law-abiding citizens 
 * * * might build up the homes he longed to see 
 here". The same author in the same sketch reveals an 
 influence in Vigilante times effective in improving those 
 times and which has exercised great influence for good
 
 38 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 upon the citizen cli iD of the state ever since. The sketch 
 says: 
 
 "It speaks well for a secret order, that its fraternal 
 ties are strong enough to bring men together under 
 such conditions as brought those early Masons to know 
 each other. The supremacy of the 'road-agents' reached 
 the acme of its power when the units of society were 
 separated because of not knowing each other. While 
 the better elements cried for a new order of existence, 
 the individuals were unknown to each other. Mass 
 meetings might bring together many of those wishing 
 to inaugurate a new regime. But the work of accom- 
 plishment, the actual execution of known criminals, who 
 would be warned, sheltered and assisted by many 
 friends, presupposed a large, strong, growing sentiment 
 among men who had absolute confidence in each other. 
 It was here that Masonry stepped in, performing quiet- 
 ly a great work whose beneficence has been a blessing 
 to this whole State- like the small spring flowing from 
 the mountain side, which gathers force as it goes on in 
 ever-increasing volume, to the accomplishment of untold 
 good to mankind. We believe it was this idea that en- 
 deared it to such men as Wilbur F. Sanders, Judge 
 Hedges and many others conspicuous in the Masonic 
 fraternity and in our early history." 
 
 Mr. Hedges had joined the Masonic Order in Iowa 
 in 1858. He became affiliated with the Order in Mon- 
 tana in 1865. He became the grand secretary of the 
 grand lodge of the state in 1872 and retained that posi- 
 tion until his death thirty-five years later. He started 
 the first public library in the state at Helena in 1868 and 
 laid the foundation for the important institution of that 
 character now at the state capital. In 1872 he became 
 the first superintendent of public schools in the territory,
 
 OF PIONEER LEADERS AND ABSENTEE BOSSES 39 
 
 which at that time had not a mile of railroad within sev- 
 eral hundred miles of its boundaries, and for a number 
 of years travelled great distances to remote settlements, 
 getting together the few teachers obtainable, and stimu- 
 lating the work of organization and advancement of 
 educational forces. He was one of the group of men 
 which made first authentic exploration of the Yellow- 
 stone Park country, and was the author of the idea of 
 having it set apart and maintained as a national park. 
 He was a member of the territorial constitutional con- 
 vention and of the first state senate. For years he was 
 one of the editorial staff of the most aggressive paper 
 in Helena, and held official positions in a variety of or- 
 ganizations designed for civic and social advancement. 
 The wide scope of his knowledge of men and experience 
 in affairs in Montana is indicated in one paragraph from 
 this sketch of his life : 
 
 "Judge Hedges was intimately acquainted with the 
 governors, judges, public officers and public men of 
 Montana from the time Montana had a separate name to 
 the day of his death. From James and Granville Stuart, 
 the original gold discoverers in our state, 1857, and 
 Henry Edgar who first 'struck pay dirt' in Alder gulch, 
 1863, from X. Biedler, John Williams, Neil Howie, 
 George M. Pinney, whose names were the terror of the 
 'road-agents', from Governors Sydney Edgerton, Thomas 
 Francis Meagher (acting), Green Clay Smith, from 
 Judges Hosmer, Munson, Simms, Wade, to present su- 
 preme court bench, from James Fergus, W. L. Steele, 
 N. P. Langford, on down the long line of pioneers, he 
 had talked with them all ; gone over with them the days 
 of 'Jim' Bridger and of John M. Bozeman. He liked to 
 laugh at the gentle (?) hint that was given Acting 
 Governor Meagher, who, upon finding a fellow-Irish-
 
 40 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 man, James Daniels, imprisoned, and under grave sus- 
 picion, saw fit to pardon him. The citizens, who had 
 been long cognizant of his true character, as promptly 
 hanged him to the old 'pine tree' gallows ; and, thinking 
 the occasion appropriate, took his Excellency's pardon 
 from the dead man's pocket, pinned it on his back with 
 the plainly-written legend : 'If our acting governor does 
 this again, we will hang him too.' " 
 
 Whatever the faults or virtues, the feuds or fads, of 
 these pioneer leaders and their immediate successors, 
 there never existed reason for the slightest suspicion of 
 doubt regarding their loyalty to Montana, their friend- 
 ship to her people, and their concern for her prosperity. 
 The greater part of their wealth taken from the ground 
 found investment within the state in new enterprise or 
 in permanent improvements, private and public. There 
 was wholesome rivalry in generous enterprise and hon- 
 est competition in business. Outside capital was at- 
 tracted to the profits of investment in productive mines, 
 but those profits then were limited to the earnings of 
 such invested capital without impoverishing labor or 
 ruining the business of individuals by the exercise of 
 monopoly powers. The inexhaustible mineral wealth 
 of the Butte camp was being mined by a great number 
 of independent companies, each with its own organiza- 
 tion, from owner to mucker, and all with interests in 
 Butte. 
 
 Less than a decade of time has been required to 
 bring the mineral wealth under combine control, to dis- 
 mantle all the half dozen great ore reduction works in 
 Butte which employed thousands of men ; to acquire 
 most of the tremendous water power and electric power 
 resources of the state to one ownership, together with 
 the most valuable franchises for the public utilities of
 
 OF PIONEER LEADERS AND ABSENTEE BOSSES 41 
 
 water and light and power in cities ; to bring the bank- 
 ing interests of the state practically under the domina- 
 tion of a single chain of banks owned by the same in- 
 terest ; to compel the best part of the mercantile inter- 
 ests of the state to pay tribute to these banks; to bring 
 the agencies and officers of state and local governments 
 under subjection and into service of the same interests; 
 to reduce the profits of wage earners and to make their 
 conditions in industrial centers little better than those 
 of bond slaves; to transform the functions of a public 
 press from public service through public information to 
 a perfectly organized machine for the suppression of 
 knowledge and the deception of its patrons. All this 
 by the power of lawless corporate combination and the 
 thimble-rigging of high finance, exercised by absentee 
 bosses who have gained possession of this inestimable 
 wealth and control of these stupendous influences with- 
 out honest investment, honest purpose, or honest ac- 
 counting whatsoever. 
 
 Who are these absentee bosses? 
 
 They constitute a small group among the conspicuous 
 confidence operators of Wall Street. 
 
 How did they get this enormous wealth and these 
 tremendous powers? 
 
 They bought some of it from the owners of the 
 property and some of it from law-makers and other 
 officials employed by the public. 
 
 Where did they get the money? 
 
 That, also, they got from the public. 
 
 What did the public get? 
 
 The public got watered stock in a generously assorted 
 variety of mining, smelting, water power and public 
 utility companies.
 
 42 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 Do the operators pay dividends on these watered 
 stocks? 
 
 Only when it suits their convenience and promotes 
 their efforts to unload more watered stocks.
 
 The Campaign For Monopoly Control 
 
 During the first ten years of the twentieth century, 
 this state, saved from outlaws by vigilantes, was lost to 
 lawlessness by lack of vigilance. The campaign for 
 monopoly control was planned in and directed from New 
 York, under the laws of New Jersey. "The Story of 
 Amalgamated", richly embellished with picturesque 
 phrasing to run as a serial in a leading magazine, and 
 which afforded the sensation of a year among the lambs 
 of the stock gamblers' world, and the pigeons of Amer- 
 ican society, as the first authentic exposure of "the 
 system" in "high finance", was little more or better than 
 an uncompleted chapter in the story of the campaign for 
 monopoly control in and over Montana. 
 
 The Amalgamated Copper Company was organized 
 and floated by H. H. Rogers, closely associated with 
 other members of the money trust of America, with de- 
 sign to do with the copper business what they had done 
 with the oil business of the world and what they had 
 made fair beginning to do in the steel industry, in trans- 
 portation, and in numerous less important branches of 
 bread-winning enterprise. What was known as the 
 Standard Oil group of money kings was then supreme 
 in Wall Street. The Amalgamated Company, like the 
 others, was to be a benevolent trust, designed to reduce 
 the cost of the product by increasing the economies of 
 production. 
 
 In the strifes and struggles growing out of this ven- 
 ture, a few of which have been referred to in previous 
 chapters relating to Montana affairs, formidable ob- 
 
 [43]
 
 44 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 stacles were met and serious temporary defeats en- 
 countered. The stock gamblers' panic of 1907 was an 
 outgrowth of, as well as an almost fatal blow to, the 
 conspiracy. How infinitesimal individuals become in 
 these combats between organized greed and human in- 
 terests, and how absurd and vain the pretensions of the 
 Lawsons, Coles and Ryans, and other high corporals in 
 the promotion forces of corporate achievement, is re- 
 vealed by the fact that in one of the battles of this con- 
 test the commanding general, Rogers, lost much of his 
 fortune to rivals in the game and sacrificed his life 
 through exhaustion of his almost matchless energy and 
 nerve and ability in the fight; Amalgamated itself, 
 menaced by law, discredited in public confidence and 
 depreciated in market value, was prepared for dissolu- 
 tion, while a mere subsidiary company of the organiza- 
 tion, given new powers by special laws corruptly pro- 
 cured in Montana, was equipped as a vehicle to carry 
 the load and to forward the work of acquisition and 
 abuse of power, with new agents but with the old in- 
 tangible, insatiable, irresistible power of incorporate 
 avarice in control, and in command, and in Wall Street. 
 It was a long, rough road, paved with fraud and 
 crime, from the conception of the copper combine in the 
 east to the consummation of possession under one man- 
 agement of most of the productive wealth of Montana. 
 Men like Daly and Clark and Heinze, with means for as 
 well as experience in warfare, were able to command 
 terms which gave them all that their properties were 
 worth to secure their removal from the field of competi- 
 tion, or cooperation with the combine, as in the case of 
 Mr. Daly. While the amalgamation of these interests 
 was being accomplished during a period of a dozen years, 
 lesser interests and influences were being absorbed or
 
 THE CAMPAIGN FOR MONOPOLY CONTROL 45 
 
 destroyed, as conditions made most favorable opportun- 
 ity. Even in the earlier times of fiercest strife, mutual 
 interest in ability to exercise large powers by corpora- 
 tions made it possible to unite rival influences to secure 
 legislation to validate combinations of corporate owner- 
 ships prohibited by constitutional and statute law of the 
 state. The use of political organizations in private busi- 
 ness had become a habit of corporation management in 
 the United States before Montana was admitted to the 
 Union. It was a habit much in vogue in that state from 
 the start. Voters were divided in their minds by parti- 
 san lines, but politicians early were taught the value of 
 an open mind in their business. Since the first defeat 
 of Heinze in a political campaign in 1904 there has been 
 in Montana no important political convention of any 
 party, with strength worth consideration, which has not 
 been subject to the influence and the contributions of 
 agents and local bosses of the Amalgamated Copper 
 Company. 
 
 With the state almost evenly divided between the 
 two principal political parties, this corporation has had 
 small difficulty in holding a balance of power by con- 
 trol of votes in the industrial centers where its interests 
 dominated. The prizes and rewards of politics have 
 been so equitably divided as regards parties that influ- 
 ential men in both parties have been kept under con- 
 tinuing obligation to the corporate power, while those 
 who aspired to distinction through faithful public ser- 
 vice or honest opposition to dishonest policies of gov- 
 ernment have been taught, through punishment or de- 
 feat, the dangers of such a course; and at the same time 
 have furnished a deterring example to other men with 
 ambitions. The care with which this policy has been 
 pursued is demonstrated by the fact that during all the
 
 46 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 years of Amalgamated participation in politics in effec- 
 tive way there has been a democratic governor, with 
 some other state officers from the opposition party, and 
 victory for republican candidates for congress and presi- 
 dential electors with uniform regularity, regardless of 
 whether the head of the Amalgamated Company in New 
 York and its managing director in Montana were self- 
 styled republicans or democrats. There has not been a 
 session of the legislature within the state during the 
 present century which has not enacted special laws, 
 usually in conflict with constitutional inhibition against 
 such laws, to legalize or validate some step in the per- 
 fection of the copper combine's organization, secured by 
 bribery or intimidation practiced by lobbyists for the 
 company, who have been active not only in the lobbies 
 but upon the floors and in the seats of members of both 
 branches of the legislature. The controlling influence of 
 these lobbyists in the organizations of the legislative 
 departments, and in the appointment of committees 
 which determine what measures shall be advanced and 
 what defeated, has been flagrant and notorious. 
 
 The reason for the support of the republican party 
 candidates by this combine influence in national affairs 
 has been shown by results, even if it could not be readily 
 understood during years of republican control in nation- 
 al government. There has not been a year since its or- 
 ganization when the Amalgamated Company or its con- 
 stituent organizations did not have important questions 
 before the federal courts of Montana. There has not 
 been a federal judge in Montana during the dozen years, 
 and with four different men holding that position during 
 that time, who has not been known at least as "friend- 
 ly" to the Amalgamated political managers or interests 
 in the state. These political influences or agencies have
 
 THE CAMPAIGN FOR MONOPOLY CONTROL 47 
 
 been conspicuous twice within that time in securing the 
 appointment or confirmation of federal judges, and ef- 
 ficient at least once in opposition to such promotion for 
 an honest, capable, experienced member of the state 
 judiciary who had the endorsement for appointment of 
 practically all the bar and the people of the state not 
 subject to Amalgamated control. The accuracy of the 
 statement that genius consists in the capacity for in- 
 finite attention to details is confirmed by the genius of 
 this monopoly institution. Federal judges are import- 
 ant in its business; but postmasterships and the most 
 insignificant crumbs of government patronage are use- 
 ful as rewards to supporters and as means to lighten the 
 load upon the political pay roll of the all-absorbing or- 
 ganization; even if the sworn testimony in official rec- 
 ord of the United States senate did not show that the 
 corporations' most efficient and unscrupulous political 
 operator had in emergency found it necessary to break 
 the seal of private correspondence in search of informa- 
 tion, and thus illustrated that there may be times when 
 facilities for access to the mails are beneficial to certain 
 interests. 
 
 The first departure in this rule of success for repub- 
 lican candidates for national office came in the election 
 of 1910, when a democratic legislature was elected to 
 insure the defeat of a republican candidate for re-elec- 
 tion to the United States senate. This e»xception proved 
 the rule. The republican thus defeated had become 
 notorious as a corporate tool. He was defeated in re- 
 publican counties by republican votes for democratic 
 candidates for the legislature. This result obtained in 
 almost every one of the agricultural and livestock rais- 
 ing counties of the state where independent republican 
 voters lived; yet with this result in republican counties,
 
 48 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 and in an election when democrats were sweeping the 
 country in other states, this unfaithful republican sen- 
 ator was almost victorious in Montana by reason of the 
 fact that every effort conceivable within the power or 
 direction of the Amalgamated organization was exer- 
 cised in his interest in the democratic counties of Silver 
 Bow, Deer Lodge and Cascade, where company influ- 
 ences are greatest, with the consequence that republi- 
 can candidates were returned from these counties with 
 open support of lifelong democrats directly employed 
 by the company. 
 
 To summarize this feature of political control, it is 
 concisely and exactly true to state that the Amalgamated 
 Copper Company and its constituent interests have bet- 
 ter organization and control in both of the principal po- 
 litical parties within the state of Montana than either 
 party possesses of and for itself. Under such conditions, 
 it is apparent that this control will endure so long as cit- 
 izens of the state can be persuaded to divide along exist- 
 ing party lines at the polls. It could not endure through 
 a single campaign if citizens would exercise the same 
 non-partisan intelligence displayed by the corporate 
 managers; but it could not have obtained in the first 
 place without the aid of unyielding loyalty to party, 
 born quite as often from prejudice and ignorance as 
 from patriotism and knowledge. The only question of 
 general importance to a free people actually involved in 
 any political campaign in Montana in a dozen years has 
 been whether the rights and powers and benefits of gov- 
 ernment should be restored to the people of the state 
 or continued as an asset and influence of alien corporate 
 combine through corrupted public servants. There has 
 been no campaign in which this question has not been 
 raised in some form. There has been none in which it
 
 THE CAMPAIGN FOR MONOPOLY CONTROL 49 
 
 was not obscured or hidden by false issues or clamorous 
 contention between partisan forces directed alike from 
 combine headquarters. It is a frequent political spec- 
 tacle in Montana to see the chief leaders and organs of 
 rival political organizations all charging each other with 
 being owned and operated by the copper combine in 
 opposition to honest government and public interests ; 
 and all telling the truth in this important particular and 
 in no other throughout the contest. The organization is 
 at once so complex and so perfect that its several parts 
 can be made to work harmoniously for results independ- 
 ently, in conflict, or together. The combine lobbyists 
 have been known to put the combine brand upon one 
 combine agent to promote the candidacy of another 
 less well known to the public but no less completely 
 under control and selected to serve upon an opposition 
 ticket. Under an arrangement where men working for 
 the same employers and paid from the same corruption 
 fund can be made to act in ignorance of the true em- 
 ployment of each other, it is not surprising that ordinary 
 voters are kept in doubt or misled with respect to the 
 character of candidates. And all the time the work of 
 recruiting the forces goes on within both party organiza- 
 tions, with all the arguments afforded by ability to re- 
 ward services with public flattery, with promise of 
 power, with real money on the one hand, or with dis- 
 grace, defeat and destruction of business on the other. 
 Honorable men with worthy ambitions, strong in 
 public esteem, are given pause in patriotic impulse by 
 the power of their party organizations. At the same 
 time dishonorable men with unworthy ambitions, weak 
 in public respect, are permitted to secure responsible 
 offices in recognition of party loyalty, and yet are ex- 
 pected to resist the influences powerful enough to con- 
 trol all the parties.
 
 50 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 In the first political contest wherein the then young 
 copper combine sought to determine the result of elec- 
 tion in Montana, it was a boast which became a part of 
 the printed record of the campaign, that it cost the 
 Amalgamated Company and its allies $80,000 to keep 
 Joseph K. Toole out of a democratic state convention 
 as a delegate from the county of Lewis and Clark; but 
 Joseph K. Toole had the confidence of the people and 
 such exclusion at that time was not enough to prevent 
 his election to the office of governor by popular vote. 
 In the early litigation between Heinze and Amalga- 
 mated interests it became a part of the court records 
 through sworn testimony that the copper combine, 
 through its legal department and other employees or 
 agencies, had endeavored to persuade a district judge 
 of Silver Bow county to confess subjection to corrupt 
 influence and resign his office, the argument offered in 
 persuasion reaching to an offer of $200,000. These are 
 mere incidents of history, illustrating the extravagance 
 and inefficient methods in the earlier part of the cam- 
 paign for monopoly control, which serve at once to prove 
 and to emphasize the great advancement which has 
 been made in economy as well as in efficiency by prac- 
 tice and growth. The last time Joseph K. Toole was 
 elected to the office of governor he was supported cor- 
 dially and with crooked and corrupt practices by the 
 Montana managers of the copper combine and his ad- 
 ministration received most hearty commendation from 
 the same organs and agents of its interests which for- 
 merly had viciously and vainly opposed him. Today 
 every district judge in Silver Bow county is indebted 
 for both selection and election to employees and agents 
 of the copper combine, the administration of justice in 
 Silver Bow county is in entire harmony with the public
 
 THE CAMPAIGN FOR MONOPOLY CONTROL 51 
 
 policies and pronouncements of the combine, and there 
 is no suspicion manifest that real or proffered compen- 
 sation for judicial services is different or greater than 
 that designated by law as salary to be paid by the tax- 
 payers. It is the policy to create public sentiment 
 rather than to combat it. It is cheaper to elect friendly 
 public officials than to persuade unfriendly ones. It is 
 not necessary to endeavor to recall public officials by 
 sordid appeal when the same interest can control all 
 political conventions and exercise a balance of power 
 between parties at all elections. It is not impossible to 
 control all conventions and to exercise such balance of 
 power when the same interest employs most of the 
 politicians, owns or controls nearly all of the news- 
 papers, directs the management of the principal banks 
 which fix the credit of most business men, and maintains 
 supervisory control over the employment of wage- 
 earners in most gainful occupations in the state, public 
 and private. 
 
 Originally abundance of resources gave large and 
 effective power of reward. Eventually considerations 
 of economy, as well as of security against public scandal 
 and resentment, prompted the managers to substitute 
 punishments for rewards as inducements or incentives 
 to action. The high federal court for the district of 
 Montana determined that a boycott by members of a 
 labor organization constituted an unlawful conspiracy 
 and punished several members of such an organization 
 for endeavoring to influence the public against patroniz- 
 ing in Montana an eastern manufacturer of paper pat- 
 terns for women's and children's frocks, who in some 
 way employed non-union labor. The supreme court of 
 the state of Montana in a learned opinion determined 
 in effect that a boycott was not a conspiracy or a crime
 
 52 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 under the laws of Montana. Meanwhile the corporate 
 combine which dominates the state has systematically, 
 effectively and mercilessly used the boycott against 
 wage-earners and labor organizations, against profes- 
 sional men, business houses, newspapers, public officers, 
 and anything or anybody which it could reach and could 
 not make auxiliary to its control of government, of busi- 
 ness, and of people, within Montana. No victim of this 
 exercise of lawlessness has as yet sought remedy or re- 
 lief through court proceedings, and no public servant 
 entrusted with the duty of enforcing the criminal laws 
 has found occasion to prosecute the offenders as hap- 
 pened when they represented the wage-earners of the 
 country instead of the combines of Wall Street. 
 
 When the enterprise of creating a monopolistic con- 
 trol of the copper-producing industry was started, ap- 
 parently the projectors had no concern for any other 
 wealth of Montana than that contained within the cop- 
 per mines. Their interest in the law and its adminis- 
 tration at that time seemingly did not extend beyond 
 preventing interference with their plans. The war 
 waged against them by other copper interests' operators 
 furnished a necessity for some of their political activities, 
 and the excuse which they have made conspicuous in 
 attempted justification of all of them. Recurring ob- 
 stacles, in and out of the state, in the way of completion 
 of the work of monopolizing the copper business, com- 
 pelled the promoters to fortify the combine against at- 
 tack from national as well as state officers of the law. 
 During this time there came a realization of the incal- 
 culable value of water power with the multiplying uses 
 of electricity, and a comprehension of the opportunities 
 for multiplied profits through the transmission of this 
 power and control of public utilities in cities. An
 
 THE CAMPAIGN FOR MONOPOLY CONTROL 53 
 
 aroused public sentiment throughout the country 
 against the great combinations in control of industry 
 and commerce, with consequent prosecution of various 
 combines by national authorities, placed in new jeopardy 
 the scheme for a copper monopoly as organized on the 
 approved trust plan under New Jersey laws. All of 
 these conditions contributed incentive to efforts for new 
 enterprise and new powers for the copper combine en- 
 gineers in Montana. On his first and only visit to the 
 state, soon after the organization of the Amalgamated 
 Company, the late H. H. Rogers, then president of the 
 company, announced the policy to be to dispose of com- 
 pany stores and other allied interests, and to confine 
 the business of the company to mining and selling cop- 
 per. The conduct of affairs for a time following his visit 
 indicated honesty in his statement. If he changed his 
 purpose the fact never was made known in Montana. 
 Following his death came the change in policy and in 
 plan of operation which involved as a necessary part 
 of success the complete control of government and 
 courts, and the extension of influence to all parts of the 
 state where there were water powers to be grabbed and 
 developed, or cities to be supplied with public utilities 
 at prices to insure large profits. The field had been 
 made fertile for these efforts by previous corruption of 
 political and public agencies. Honest ambitions had 
 been discouraged by defeat and honest citizens had been 
 disgusted with results. Dangerous rivalries had been 
 removed and formidable adversaries had been retired 
 or pacified. All that remained was mere matter of de- 
 tail performance. These details furnished the comical 
 history of Montana, the story of the ruling and robbing 
 of a great state by pigmy intellect and statesmanship, 
 under the direction and for the benefit of bandits of high 
 finance in New York; with applause by the victims.
 
 Some Field Marshals of Napoleons of Finance 
 
 Not the least wonderful among the marvelous 
 changes in the life of the present generation is that 
 which marks the transformation of rule in a young 
 American state from the pioneer leader to the modern 
 political and industrial boss. The one, with rare in- 
 dividual courage and with the risk of death, did lawful 
 things in an unlawful way to establish security for life 
 and property, to maintain order and to do justice; the 
 other, with cowardly instinct and knavish propensity, 
 does unlawful things in lawful way to pervert organized 
 power, to defeat justice, and to despoil his neighbor of 
 rights and property. The pioneer played the part of a 
 man with pride of good reputation to preserve on earth 
 and some sense of existence of souls to be saved for 
 eternity; the corporation corruptionist represents in 
 purpose and performance an organized power designed 
 by crooks to overreach their fellow men while avoiding 
 personal responsibility for their crimes. The eminent 
 rogue, perfect in evil accomplishment, is no less a de- 
 velopment of environment, opportunity, civilization and 
 evolution, than a Washington, a Lincoln, or the tramp. 
 
 More than one field marshal has been required in 
 the conquest of Montana. All the power and wealth of 
 the kings of Wall Street could not persuade Mr. William 
 Scallon to become a rascal. Acquisition of all the power 
 and wealth in Wall Street cannot make Mr. John D. 
 Ryan less than a conscienceless rogue. In the modern 
 school of "High Finance" and "Big Business", the first 
 represents conspicuous failure and the second pre- 
 
 [55]
 
 56 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 eminent success. Each was entrusted with the great 
 power of direction of combine enterprise in Montana. 
 Each by individual character and effort exercised a 
 potent influence in the affairs of the state. The first, 
 in good faith and with constant concern for public in- 
 terests and the rights of humanity, labored vainly to 
 put in practice the theory that there can be good trusts 
 and benevolent despotisms in harmony with free gov- 
 ernment and equal rights. The other, with single de- 
 votion to avarice and with great resource of duplicity 
 and chicane, attained power by much aptness and ability 
 in preempting claims to dead men's business shoes, ac- 
 quired high rank among the leaders in rapacity, and 
 enormous wealth through control of vast estates and by 
 swindling the public through most flagrantly dishonest 
 stock-jobbing operations on mammoth scale. 
 
 In character, ideals and performance these two men 
 present excellent types of what became known as the 
 Progressive and the Reactionary or "Standpatter" in 
 American life. They exemplify, if they do not person- 
 ify, the causes and interests of the great conflict in pro- 
 gress throughout the nation which is disturbing busi- 
 ness, disrupting political parties and distressing society. 
 Friends for years, co-religionists, mutually indebted for 
 support and counsel, employed by the same interests — 
 disagreement, conflict and separation between them be- 
 came as irrepressible as between an abolitionist and 
 slave-holder in the '60s, as inevitable as strife between 
 La Follette and Aldrich, Roosevelt and Taft, Bryan and 
 Boss Murphy, during present times. 
 
 As a young attorney seeking location, Mr. Scallon 
 entered Montana about the time of the ripening of the 
 Clark-Daly feud. With singleness of purpose and fidel- 
 ity, which marks all his relations in life, he applied him-
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 57 
 
 self to the work of his profession. This was rewarded, 
 after some years of struggle for mere means of existence, 
 with success which attracted the attention of Marcus 
 Daly, and Mr. Scallon became the personal adviser as 
 well as the legal counsel in Mr. Daly's great business 
 affairs, a connection which continued during the life of 
 the client. With his time fully occupied and well re- 
 munerated by professional work, strong in principles 
 and scrupulous in methods, Mr. Scallon had neither in- 
 clination nor occasion for part in the political strifes of 
 those days. When Mr. Daly merged his properties and 
 interests with the newly organized Amalgamated Com- 
 pany, and a man was needed in Montana to take charge 
 of the direction of affairs, it happened naturally enough 
 that the choice should fall on Mr. Scallon. Whatever 
 the faults of the late H. H. Rogers as a monopoly maker 
 or a stock speculator, the conduct of his enterprises re- 
 vealed persistent regard for public opinion on the one 
 hand and an appreciation of the value of capable and 
 reliable men for employment on the other. Wage wars 
 or attacks against public sentiment formed no part of his 
 campaigns for riches. A good fighter himself, he 
 realized the value of zeal and reliability in his forces. 
 If he anticipated ''copper wars" to follow the creation 
 of the big combine, he did nothing beyond the organiza- 
 tion itself to provoke them. Whatever the purpose, the 
 policy of operations was to find economy in modern in- 
 ventions and appliances, by increased capacity of pro- 
 duction and efficiency in operations and management, 
 rather than in wage reductions, "pluck-me" stores, and 
 kindred forms of petty larceny on employees and public. 
 The fact is that during the first few years of Amalga- 
 mated existence, and all the time in which Mr. Scallon 
 was connected with the enterprise, the company was
 
 58 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 on the defensive, fighting for existence, so far as Mon- 
 tana conditions were concerned. It would have been 
 difficult to have found a man better qualified to be the 
 company's chief representative and director in the state 
 if the business could have been conducted without 
 piratical attack, as a legitimate mining business with 
 the chief view to insuring honesty in management and 
 public confidence and approval. It would have been 
 quite as difficult to have found a man less well qualified 
 than Mr Scallon to command the forces in such a war- 
 fare as followed. His ability as an organizer and in the 
 conduct of large industry was shown by the fact that 
 following his retirement there was almost no change 
 in the personnel of employees in responsible positions 
 other than those due to the abolishment of places 
 through consolidation of corporate organizations and 
 the abandonment of subsidiary plants in consequence. 
 
 Against such warfare as the Heinze forces waged, 
 Mr. Scallon was a poor antagonist, if there is anything 
 in the theory that the devil is best fought with fire. The 
 weapons employed included anything in lawlessness 
 from bribery to murder. Falsehood, scandal, and every 
 conceivable form of trickery and dishonest contrivance 
 — in politics, in litigation, and in mining operations — 
 were mere incidents of the combat. The corruption of 
 government agencies extended from the voter at the 
 primary to judges in courts of last resort. To make a 
 man like Mr. Scallon — with high ideals and a strong 
 sense of justice founded on profound faith in correct 
 principles of law, firmly attached to method by right 
 rules of conduct, as modest as a good woman, sensitive 
 to the point of pain, personally brave to the extreme of 
 recklessness, a devout christian — to make such a man 
 at once the leader and the target, was to practice cruelty
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 59 
 
 upon every quality of his nature and make his most 
 conspicuous virtues appear and be weaknesses for the 
 struggle. While his honest pride rebelled and his de- 
 cent impulses revolted against the necessity of meeting 
 the attacks of the enemy with similar arguments and 
 appeals to degraded human-kind, a high regard for duty 
 to those who employed him, no less than righteous re- 
 sentment against the scoundrelism which prevailed, 
 added to his perplexities. These were increased by con- 
 ditions of a situation where a maze of lawsuits, based 
 on every imaginable pretext of cause of action, made it 
 necessary to preserve separate complete organizations 
 of different companies and properties, under nominal 
 control of the Amalgamated corporation, resulting in 
 divided authority and a "multitude of counsel" more 
 productive of confusion than added wisdom. With 
 promptings which may be readily conjectured from the 
 foregoing statement of conditions, Mr. Scallon repeat- 
 edly tendered his resignation in New York. Mr. Rogers 
 persistently urged him to retain his place and to permit 
 details of the conflict repugnant to him to be cared 
 for by others. 
 
 Late in 1903 the outrages by judges in Silver Bow 
 county controlled by Heinze became so flagrant that it 
 was "judicially" determined by them that the Amalga- 
 mated organization was an outlaw without rights to 
 exist or to conduct business within the state. Mines 
 and smelters closed, the mere mercenaries who had ruled 
 in Butte were temporarily brought to some sense of 
 right by impending necessities, decent public sentiment 
 throughout the state asserted itself, the legislature was 
 convened and enacted a law giving to clients a right of 
 change of venue or place of trial from biased or dis- 
 qualified judges, and Heinze's power through exclusive
 
 60 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 jurisdiction of courts of Silver Bow county was des- 
 troyed. Two months later Mr. Scallon persuaded Mr. 
 Rogers to accept his resignation and relieve him from a 
 situation which had become intolerable to him. From 
 that time to this, Mr. Scallon has refused offers of po- 
 sition or retainers from the Amalgamated Company and 
 all of its allied interests. He reopened his private law 
 office and remained in Butte for several years. His 
 consistent refusal to accept cases either for or against 
 the interests which he had formerly directed in the state, 
 in effect, deprived him of opportunity for professional 
 business in what had become practically a one-company 
 town. Meantime he applied himself to the improvement 
 of conditions with which his experience in the "copper 
 wars" necessarily had made him familiar. He took ac- 
 tive part in the organization of a civic league and waged 
 a war against lawlessness, which closed open gambling 
 in the Montana metropolis in earnest for the first time 
 since the camp was discovered; and he did it without 
 either fear or ostentation, notwithstanding that the law- 
 less interests ruled the town alike in official and business 
 circles, and that some of their agents, worthy of the task, 
 went about with weapons and avowed determination to 
 end the campaign by desperate means. He went to the 
 legislature as a member and secured the enactment of 
 the most comprehensive anti-gambling law upon the 
 books of any state, and of statutes efficient to wipe out 
 wine rooms and dens for the destruction of woman's 
 virtue, even in Butte. While at the head of Amalga- 
 mated affairs he not only rivaled but alarmed the prac- 
 tical politicians with platform pronouncements for re- 
 form laws, and he went beyond the rivalry and alarmed 
 them still more by aiding to secure the enactment of 
 such laws. He was a progressive republican, honest
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 61 
 
 and consistent, while yet the nominal directing head in 
 the contest which was to establish in Montana a com- 
 bine monopoly. He surrendered a salary sufficient for 
 president of the United States in voluntarily resigning 
 that position. He expended, in working for the better- 
 ment of conditions and improved laws and in generous 
 aid to those in need, more than all that he had saved. 
 An incident of the "copper war", at the time of its most 
 extreme emergency, reveals at once the character of the 
 man and why, to use a pet phrase of a high commander 
 of high finance, he is "an impossible" in big business. 
 It was the day Judge Clancy handed down his decision 
 declaring the Amalgamated Company without lawful 
 existence or right to do business in Montana. Orders 
 had been issued to close mines and smelters, and the 
 preliminaries necessary for stopping operations employ- 
 ing some fifteen thousand men were in progress. Mr. 
 Scallon had gone to Anaconda in connection with meas- 
 ures for the protection of the great property interests in 
 the smelters there. One of the subordinates summoned 
 to meet him at the hotel found him sitting alone and de- 
 jected in a private office. Mr. Scallon inquired of the 
 caller if he believed the shut-down was justified. 
 
 "Certainly. There was nothing else to do under 
 Clancy's decision." 
 
 "Of course, I know that," mournfully responded the 
 Montana representative of a soulless combine. "I was 
 not thinking of that. I was thinking of all these thou- 
 sands of men being thrown out of work on the eve of 
 winter." 
 
 He was protecting the property and the interests and 
 the rights of the corporation. He was thinking of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Mr. Scallon removed to New York city to engage in 
 the practice of his profession in 1910. At that time the
 
 62 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 writer, then an editor in Montana, published the follow- 
 ing article, reproduced here as timely illustration of the 
 change which comes to public sentiment as well as to 
 public affairs and public men when a corrupt combine 
 controls a state : 
 
 "OF A GOOD MAN GONE TO NEW YORK" 
 "In the removal of Mr. William Scallon to New 
 York this week, the state of Montana loses one of her 
 most useful and most loyal citizens, one of her most 
 admirable and lovable men. 
 
 "It will surprise some among quite intimate friends 
 of Mr. Scallon in Montana to learn that he left the state 
 because he possesses no other fortune than his abilities 
 and had become convinced that, under conditions which 
 have obtained, he could not earn means of existence in 
 Butte without employment in his profession by inter- 
 ests which he was unwilling to serve. This is a sur- 
 prising statement to make about a man who has been 
 long distinguished in his profession, who attained to 
 chief position in charge of controlling interests in the 
 industry which dominates the state, and who undoubt- 
 edly received a considerable fortune annually for his 
 services during a period of many years. It becomes 
 astounding when coupled with another equally and ex- 
 actly true statement that he squandered no wealth in 
 prodigal ways or in speculation. The simple explana- 
 tion is that this remarkable man possessed so little love 
 of money that he was able to give it away, without ad- 
 vertising, to whoever or whatever to him appeared 
 worthy and in need of it. Another modern peculiarity 
 of his character was a confirmed habit of giving his own 
 money, instead of that belonging to the stockholders 
 of companies, or to individuals, which entrusted him 
 with the conduct of their affairs. Plainly a whimsical 
 person, withal.
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 63 
 
 ''Naturally, a man of this kind became regarded as 
 erratic by the high financiers and brevet-captains of in- 
 dustry who succeeded to the corporate powers which he 
 cast away rather than to approve of the purposes and 
 methods in promotion of which it was determined that 
 they must be exercised. Naturally, he was adjudged 
 a crank by ordinary legislators, when he employed pri- 
 vate clerks and stenographers at his own expense to 
 assist in routine work while he was engaged as a law- 
 maker in adding stringent statutes to the Montana codes 
 against wine-room evils and public gambling. Natur- 
 ally, angered criminals, with guns in pockets and threats 
 on lips, denounced this man as crazy when he led in 
 person, in prosecution, and with resources, the move- 
 ment which made law enforcement against public gam- 
 bling a reality, instead of a conspicuous farce and 
 weapon of official and private blackmail, in Butte. 
 
 "Measured by the standards of mercenaries, of 
 swindling stock-jobbers, of 'malefactors of wealth,' of 
 traffickers in official power, of bargainers in treason, of 
 habitual criminals of high and low degree, Mr. Scallon 
 is deficient in intellect. Clearly he lacks the ability to 
 comprehend the virtues and advantages of versatile 
 rascality. He is short of that phrenological bump which 
 enables its optimistic possessor to anticipate glorious 
 mortal fame in the shadow of the penitentiary, and rest 
 for the soul in eternal damnation. To him does not ap- 
 peal that trend of artistic temperament essential to 
 hypocrisy. The streaks of yellow in his formation are 
 pure gold. Bald swindling is beneath him. He is too 
 proud to stoop, too brave to cringe, too great in simple 
 manhood to become mean and small in action. 
 
 "So Mr. William Scallon has gone to New York, 
 unhonored and unsung by the trust scullions and organ
 
 64 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 grinders of Butte and Montana, most of whom owe all 
 their influence and much of their prominence in the 
 world to his generous friendship or Christian forbear- 
 ance. He will carry with him a spotless integrity, a 
 reputation for great ability as a lawyer, an established 
 character as a gentleman, and the enduring good will of 
 all decent-thinking people in Montana who ever knew 
 him." 
 
 The man who succeeded Mr. Scallon as field marshal 
 of Napoleon Rogers in Montana excelled in that kind 
 of equipment wherein his predecessor had been esteemed 
 lacking. Organized greed could teach him nothing in 
 selfishness and no awakening conscience disturbed the 
 dreams of his avarice. He combined a pleasing per- 
 sonality with the arts of dignity. He reinforced plausi- 
 ble argument with flattering persuasion, and possessed 
 to the full extent of its power that peculiar combination 
 of talents which enables the distinguished kings of 
 finance to entice enemies and fleece friends with equal 
 skill and unction. In the early days of trust-making the 
 promoter was aptly described as "one who sells some- 
 thing he hasn't got to somebody who doesn't want it". 
 Mr. Ryan acquired his first considerable wealth through 
 commissions on transactions of that variety. But being 
 both bright and painstaking as a student, he early be- 
 came a post-graduate in that more modern and advanced 
 school which teaches that the highest attainment in 
 business is to buy control of public necessities and util- 
 ities, with lawful procedure through the purchase of 
 law-makers and law administrators, at the same time 
 obliging the sellers to pay the traitorous public servants 
 and take their own moiety of compensation from the 
 profits of the business after these also have been paid 
 by themselves.
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 65 
 
 In all the miraculous achievements of aerial naviga- 
 tion it is doubtful if any reckless adventurer has reached 
 a greater height than that of fame marked by Mr. Ryan 
 in the atmosphere of high finance by sheer reliance on 
 the power of hot air. He was reared in the copper min- 
 ing regions of Michigan, but without experience or edu- 
 cation in mining. With a very common school education 
 he went forth to make his way in the world, reaching 
 Denver while yet a young man, attracted there by the 
 presence of a prosperous relative. There he secured 
 employment as a traveling salesman for the Continental- 
 Oil Company, later a constituent part of the Standard 
 Oil monopoly, and there presumably received his first 
 practical lessons in combine methods. Montana was in- 
 cluded in the territory which he covered, and Mr. Scal- 
 lon, as a ceremony of friendly regard, assisted him in 
 an acquaintanceship with Marcus Daly which enabled 
 him to include the Anaconda Copper Mining Company 
 on his list of customers. After Mr. Daly's death Mr. 
 Ryan succeeded in securing for himself a close connec- 
 tion with the Daly estate as an officer of the Daly Bank 
 in Butte, and took up his residence in Montana. He 
 continued to maintain most friendly relations with Mr. 
 Scallon, then at the head of Amalgamated affairs in 
 Montana, and was almost always noticeable on public 
 occasions and in counsels during the period of conflict 
 between Heinze and Amalgamated. He became a con- 
 spicuous participant in everything which assisted to 
 keep him in the public eye, and at the same time exer- 
 cised a large influence through his friendly relations 
 with high company officials as well as with the power 
 of his own position at the head of what was really a 
 company bank in Butte, in the sense that the Daly 
 banking business in Butte and Anaconda and at Great 
 Falls naturally was favored in company business.
 
 66 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 After Mr. Scallon secured an acceptance of his resig- 
 nation of company offices, several months elapsed be- 
 fore the place was filled. Mr. Rogers desired Mr. 
 Benjamin Thayer, an experienced mining engineer and 
 mine manager, to accept the place. Mr. Thayer had 
 secured much mining experience and a wide acquaint- 
 ance in Montana, as well as a nearly universal popularity 
 among all people with whom he came in contact. He 
 had removed to New York City, but visited Butte and 
 studied the situation thoroughly. He reached the con- 
 clusion that he did not want the task, or at least the 
 duties of leading in the kind of warfare then in progress. 
 The problem was solved by the appointment of Mr. 
 Thayer to be assistant to President Rogers in New 
 York, regularly to inspect and report upon the condi- 
 tions of mines and works in Montana, while Mr. Ryan 
 was made managing director in Montana with powers 
 of command over political and fighting forces. At that 
 time Mr. Ryan's knowledge of mining and the copper 
 industry was about the same as that of any other in- 
 telligent man who had lived in mining camps and en- 
 gaged in other business. His selection was regarded as 
 a result, and another evidence, of Mr. Scallon's generous 
 friendship and recommendation. Heinze's most dan- 
 gerous power had been destroyed six months before 
 when the legislature enacted a fair trial law enabling 
 litigants to secure removal from his Silver Bow county 
 judges, but Heinze's organization was yet strong and 
 his powers for extensive mischief great, by reason of the 
 number of his agents holding important city and county 
 offices as well as because of his hold upon a large con- 
 tingent of the wage earners. 
 
 The time was ripe, and the means abundant and fit, 
 for operations under direction of a man like Ryan. As
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 67 
 
 a dignified banker, an habitual churchman, a representa- 
 tive of the Daly interests, a friend and protege of Wil- 
 liam Scallon, with exemplary personal habits and ad- 
 mirable attachment to home and family, Mr. Ryan en- 
 joyed the esteem and confidence of reputable people. 
 At the same time he had taken for his chief adviser and 
 political manager, A. J. Campbell, who had earned and 
 maintained a reputation as one of the most accomplished 
 political tricksters and corruptionists in the history of 
 the state which had developed so much notable and 
 varied in corrupt form of enterprise. Mr. Ryan likewise 
 had large faculty and effective facility for playing the 
 role of everybody's friend. He established confidential 
 relations and mutual interests with some of Heinze's 
 most trusted agents, and during his first years of power 
 enjoyed and utilized to the utmost the important ad- 
 vantage of a freedom from that restraint in generous 
 promises born of sense of obligation to maintain the 
 integrity of his word, a restraint which is strong in all 
 honorable men and is characteristic enough of most 
 other individuals to sustain the rule and claim that 
 there is honor among thieves. Mr. Ryan sought and 
 secured the credit for ending the war with Heinze and 
 for establishing the interests which he represented with 
 security against danger from similar attacks 
 
 As heretofore written, Heinze was shorn of his power 
 and practically whipped, with the enactment of a fair 
 trial law prior to Mr. Scallon's retirement. Subsequent 
 fighting between the forces was little more than show- 
 ing of strength to insure favorable terms of settle- 
 ment on either side. The plain truth of history is that 
 the Ryan victories usually were purchased commod- 
 ities rather than fruits of courage and skill and honest 
 struggle. He was a compromiser, not a fighter; a rank
 
 68 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 quitter and not a hero in realization or apprehension 
 of punishment. The record of events in this volume 
 will clearly reveal him to be somewhat deficient in 
 physical as in moral courage. When he finally per- 
 fected terms of settlement with Heinze he paid him al- 
 most if not quite twice as much as would have been 
 necessary to have secured the same result at a previous 
 time. From an unquestionably qualified authority the 
 statement has been made that in the early years of con- 
 flict Heinze respected and trusted the integrity of Mr. 
 Scallon, while his agents and organs were sneering at 
 or ridiculing it, and was ready to negotiate a compro- 
 mise on such terms as Scallon would name ; but at that 
 time President Rogers, the genius and chief of the power 
 of the Standard Oil interests, averse to submission to 
 what he was pleased to regard as exaction of tribute, 
 and angered by personal attacks upon himself, would 
 consider nothing short of unconditional surrender from 
 his adversary in Montana. 
 
 The settlement with Heinze was assisted at both 
 ends of operations by the advancing price of copper and 
 new opportunities for stock exploitation and inflation 
 in the speculative market. In 1907 Mr. Ryan, still man- 
 aging director of the Amalgamated in Montana, had 
 associated with Thomas F. Cole, long affiliated with the 
 steel trust, and the two had organized and floated suc- 
 cessfully the stocks of various new copper companies, 
 with properties from Butte to Mexico, with the support 
 of their strong eastern connections, and aided by the 
 power and influence and wealth of the great organiza- 
 tions with which they were connected and which was 
 largely subject to their uses in these works of promo- 
 tion. Mr. Ryan spent most of his time in New York. 
 Within three years he had become rated as a multi-mil-
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 69 
 
 lionaire, acquired a residence on Fifth Avenue and, with 
 his partner Cole, negotiated the purchase of the largest 
 private yacht on the market, if not on the ocean. He 
 spent the summer of 1907 in Europe, returned just be- 
 fore the panic struck Wall Street, signalized his return 
 by an interview typical of his method, wherein he an- 
 nounced that conditions everywhere insured against a 
 lower price than twenty-five cents per pound for copper, 
 reached Butte about the time that the financial storm 
 struck the stock-market with greatest severity, 
 and a few days later went to bed with nervous 
 prostration, convinced that he was a pauper, the glorious 
 optimism of his successful days being replaced by utter 
 hopelessness. Strong friends gave him new hope, skill- 
 ful physicians gave him new life, and the marvelous 
 climate of Southern California gave him new strength. 
 The resources of the vast interests with which he had 
 become connected were too great to be exhausted by one 
 panic depreciation, and control of the real properties 
 remained after the worthlessness of wild-cat holdings 
 was revealed. Mr. Ryan was restored to health and 
 activity in time to attend the funeral of Mr. Rogers and 
 to succeed him as president of the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany. The power of this position and the restoration 
 of security values from the panic point enabled him to 
 recover wealth as well as prestige. The exploitation of 
 theretofore neglected wealth resources of Montana was 
 taken up, the scheme for a monopoly control of copper 
 interests throughout the country was revived and re- 
 vised; and this particular Napoleon was himself again, 
 with the old confidence of the promoter, and better pre- 
 pared than ever before to undertake conquest of the 
 business world by the sacrifice of people. 
 
 Following the advancement of Mr. Ryan to the pres-
 
 70 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 idency of the combine, the position of managing director 
 in Montana lost much of its importance and power, and 
 that official became something very nearly akin to po- 
 litical boss and lobbyist for the interests. The complex 
 business and industrial operations of the complicated 
 corporate system moved smoothly under direction of 
 managers and superintendents and other officers expert 
 in their respective lines. The president continued to 
 be the guiding genius in the creation and over-capitali- 
 zation and flotation of new companies, while the termi- 
 nation of the big wars relieved the field marshal of most 
 responsibilities and duties. Mr. Ryan chose for his suc- 
 cessor in Montana Mr. John G. Morony, who possessed 
 talents as well as acquaintance and experience to qualify 
 him for the work in which he was employed. Mr. 
 Morony's career from a youthful period of his life had 
 been closely connected with politics in Montana. From 
 a clerkship in a county office he had advanced to an- 
 other appointive position as examiner of state banks, 
 and became associated with Ryan, shortly after the 
 latter's arrival as a resident of the state, as cashier of 
 the Daly estate bank at Great Falls, later advancing to 
 the office of president of the Daly Bank in Butte. The 
 two were intimate friends and throughout Ryan's oper- 
 ations in the state he utilized Morony's knowledge of 
 men and affairs and his political abilities with much ad- 
 vantage to himself. Mr. Morony had a natural inclina- 
 tion as well as a practical training for the exercise of 
 political power as a director. With the influence and 
 means and organization of the combine in both parties 
 subject to command he was able to secure astonishing 
 results in legislation and administration, although dic- 
 tatorial methods and sometimes erratic manners invited 
 resentments and caused enmities which reinforced the
 
 SOME FIELD MARSHALS OF NAPOLEONS 71 
 
 pernicious enterprises of the combine in arousing public 
 distrust and hostility. But Mr. Morony served both the 
 interests and himself with fidelity and efficiency, which 
 enabled and prompted him to resign and retire from 
 the field of active trouble in 1911 a reputed millionaire. 
 To his skill and activities the combine is largely indebted 
 for legislation granting it unlimited extension of powers 
 in defiance of constitutional mandates, as well as for the 
 election of republican legislators from democratic coun- 
 ties in vain endeavor to retain in the United States sen- 
 ate from Montana an adroit and servile representative 
 of "Big Business". 
 
 The successor to Mr. Morony as field marshal or man- 
 aging director was Mr. Cornelius F. Kelley, more popu- 
 larly and very widely known in the state as "Con." 
 Kelley. Mr. Kelly came of good Irish stock. He played 
 as a child on the famous Butte hill when it was adorned 
 with trees and vegetation instead of mine hoists and 
 dumps and perfect blight of smelter fumes. He possessed 
 the culture of a scholar, the instincts of a gentleman, the 
 eloquence of a born orator, thorough training as a lawyer, 
 political experience and knowledge derived from active 
 part in all the conflicts and controversies, whether fac- 
 tional or corporate, since Montana became a state. He 
 was a partisan for Daly, a friend and protege of Scallon, 
 and earned by service his place as chief of the legal de- 
 partment of the corporate interests in Montana. He 
 would like to be right, but he would rather be managing 
 director of the great combine, notwithstanding a com- 
 plete knowledge of its methods and purposes. He is 
 politic and popular, with his enemies attributable chiefly 
 if not wholly to his services for his employers. His ap- 
 pointment to be field marshal was the first public indica- 
 tion that Napoleon Ryan could see nothing left outside
 
 72 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 of combine control in Montana worth grabbing, and 
 realized the need of pacification of growing public hos- 
 tility and a soothing influence on public sentiment to 
 enable the predatory interests to retain their holdings 
 and special privileges within the state.
 
 A Public Press To Suppress Publicity 
 
 The story of the press of Montana of early days is 
 the story of the press in all the western states during 
 pioneer times. Besides sharing the dangers common to 
 all the early settlers, the editors in the mining camps en- 
 dured hardships peculiar to starting newspapers and ex- 
 pressing honest opinions publicly when form of con- 
 troversy was rude and perilous. During the succeeding 
 years of feudal and political strife the press played an 
 important and influential part. There were Daly and 
 Clark organs, as well as party organs and class journals, 
 edited by men with unwavering courage of convictions 
 and possessed of exceptional ability for expressing them. 
 In diffusing knowledge, forming wholesome public senti- 
 ment, and promoting the material development of the 
 state, the late J. H. Mills and John B. Read, and the still 
 surviving and active Samuel Gordon, W. K. Harber, 
 R. N. Sutherlin and W. M. Boles have been notable 
 examples of successful editors. The Anaconda Standard 
 and The Butte Miner, original organs respectively of 
 Daly and Clark, which grew to pretensions and features 
 belonging to metropolitan newspapers, have employed 
 many men distinguished for ability in all the branches 
 of modern journalism. As the strife extended, financial 
 interest of the principal participants in established news- 
 papers was extended to include all of the daily publica- 
 tions in all of the principal cities and a large number of 
 the weekly journals throughout the state. The fighting 
 was fierce and the press broadside was second only to 
 money as a favorite weapon of warfare. It was not until 
 
 [73]
 
 74 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 the Wall Street combine had mastered its adversaries 
 and entered upon its campaign for monopoly control of 
 the state that the journalistic tree in Montana was 
 trained to grow chestnuts and to shade instead of to 
 illumine matters of public interest. 
 
 A public press chiefly maintained and wholly con- 
 trolled by the combine interests to suppress publicity in 
 Montana has been and continues to be the greatest and 
 most direct influence in the corruption and perversion 
 of government, the monopolization of resources and 
 profits of industry, the political slavery and robbery of 
 the people. Without this, all other influences would be 
 abortive or temporary in effect. The policy, conduct, 
 and success or failure, of fully ninety per cent, of the 
 journals of Montana are determined and directed by the 
 copper combine. In this as in other departments of 
 operation perfection of organization and subtle method 
 have brought economy and evasion of responsibility. 
 In the first years of conflict the combine managers 
 bought newspapers at exorbitant prices and operated 
 them with extravagant loss. Hundreds of thousands of 
 dollars of stockholders' money was expended in this 
 item of war cost. Opposition organs existed in those 
 times and the public was quickly informed respecting 
 the misuse of its sources of information. The improved, 
 and hence more generally approved, new policy compre- 
 hended a change of ownership of the properties, a com- 
 bine ownership of the owners, a shifting of the cost of 
 maintenance to the public, and a disguising of the mailed 
 hand of the editorial boss with the velvety glove of 
 patronage. What is generally designated as the com- 
 mercialization of the press has been recognized and de- 
 plored in all sections of the country since the beginning 
 of the trust era. In the campaign of 1908 Mr. W. R.
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 75 
 
 Hearst performed a great public service by securing and 
 publishing the contents of a letter book of a director of 
 the Standard Oil Company which showed how and why 
 and at what expense that company subsidized well- 
 known periodical publications. Not quite a year later, 
 in "The Outlook", Mr. Theodore Roosevelt noted the 
 fact that "During the last few years it had become 
 lamentably evident that certain daily newspapers, cer- 
 tain periodicals, are owned or controlled by men of vast 
 wealth in evil fashion, who desire to stifle or twist the 
 honest expression of public opinion, and who find an 
 instrument fit for their purpose in the guided and pur- 
 chased mendacity of those who edit and write for such 
 papers and periodicals." Since that time Collier's 
 Weekly and other independent journals have exposed 
 plans and actions of the American Woolen Company, or 
 Wool Trust, and kindred organizations of big business, 
 to shape or suppress editorial expression by timely award 
 of generous advertising contracts. In no other state has 
 the prostitution of the press been so complete as in Mon- 
 tana, for the simple reason that in no other state has this 
 ownership of papers and editors, these distributions of 
 subsidies, and the direction of both advertising and 
 public patronage, all been under one management and 
 parts of one combine organization. 
 
 The conduct of this business has been so thorough 
 and painstaking that there are Montana newspapers, 
 maintained by combine support and published in har- 
 mony with combine purpose and policy, in various com- 
 munities, the editors of which are ignorant both of the 
 influences which control them and the ends which they 
 serve. Therefore it is not surprising that in many lo- 
 calities the public is kept in blissful ignorance of those 
 things which it is desired by combine managers that
 
 76 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 the public should not know. It is concisely exact to 
 state that every daily paper published in Butte, Ana- 
 conda, Helena, Great Falls, Billings, and Missoula 
 (with the single exception of The Missoulian, published 
 by United States Senator Dixon), was subject in policy 
 to the control and influence of copper combine manage- 
 ment or agencies when the campaign opened in 1912. 
 This list included every daily paper in the state having 
 more than a purely local circulation, and did not include 
 the local dailies subject to the same influence. Similar 
 conditions obtain in the conduct of the majority of 
 weekly papers. In those localities where the combine 
 did not have mines, or smelters, or saw mills, or com- 
 pany stores, or public utility enterprises, with patronage 
 to bestow, it had banking connections, attorneys, and 
 political proteges, with power over merchants or com- 
 mand over city and county printing. Where all these 
 resources failed, there remained the power of direction 
 of the expenditure of large campaign funds, collected to 
 great extent from combine coffers and agencies, and dis- 
 persed by campaign managers selected by combine 
 bosses, with affable manners and accomodating dispo- 
 sition as well as abundant resources to negotiate loans 
 for the relief of struggling publishers. The possibilities 
 in this one branch of newspaper direction and the pre- 
 carious position of the average publisher in a new state 
 under combine control is indicated by the fact that in 
 1909 a carefully compiled list showed less than 120 
 newspaper publications in the state, while two years 
 later no less than fifty of these had suspended publica- 
 tion or changed nominal ownership and control ; this 
 record being almost the only tribute to honest editors 
 who "hewed to the line", letting the chattel mortgages 
 fall where they might.
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 77 
 
 The record of newspaper jugglery in Montana of 
 itself would make an unwieldy volume. Excepting in 
 unimportant detail of management, manipulation and 
 support, account of The Anaconda Standard, The Butte 
 Miner, The Helena Independent, The Great Falls Tri- 
 bune and The Missoula Sentinel (all professedly dem- 
 ocratic), The Butte Intermountain, The Helena Record, 
 The Great Falls Leader, The Billings Gazette (all pro- 
 fessedly republican), would be little better than tiresome 
 repetition. Each in its own particular field and way, 
 but all harmoniously, have served the same combine in- 
 terests in conflict with public interests. The establish- 
 ment and conduct of The Montana Record of Helena, 
 together with the career of its publisher, afford an in- 
 teresting and most excellent example of Amalgamated 
 Company enterprise and combine methods in journalism 
 and politics. 
 
 The Montana Record was established at great ex- 
 pense by Amalgamated agents during the conflict with 
 Clark and Heinze, to force a hostile independent organ 
 to acceptable terms of purchase. It was maintained 
 with tremendous losses till the end of the wars, ostensi- 
 bly a republican party organ, and much of the time edi- 
 torially under direction of the late Senator Carter, then 
 a leader among Amalgamated forces and a beneficiary 
 from Amalgamated support. When peace was declared, 
 and after both Ryan and Morony had made public an- 
 nouncement of the company's policy of non-interference 
 in political affairs, the plan was initiated for relieving 
 the corporation of the responsibility of ownership as 
 well as losses of the newspaper business. In investment 
 of plant and losses of operations, The Record had cost 
 its owners some hundreds of thousands of dollars. An 
 option on the property for $25,000 was given to political
 
 78 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 trustees of the combine, with understanding that prom- 
 inent republicans throughout the state should be en- 
 listed as stockholders in the enterprise and the paper be 
 made the recognized party organ for the state at the 
 seat of government. Let the story be told as related 
 under oath, in court at Helena, by Mr. F. J. Edwards, 
 mayor of the city, while being examined as a witness 
 with regard to his knowledge of or part in transactions 
 in a bank of that city. Mayor Edwards testified as 
 follows : 
 
 "It was in connection with the Record deal, the trans- 
 fer of The Montana Daily Record, and the plan was to 
 indicate to the people of the state that it was a transfer 
 of the paper from the Amalgamated Copper company to 
 an organization of republicans throughout this state. 
 The purchase price was $25,000, so understood between 
 O. M. Lanstrum and A. J. Campbell, representing the 
 Amalgamated Copper Company. They realized that 
 they couldn't sell that amount of stock, and the plan 
 was to sell as much stock as they could and thereafter 
 the Amalgamated would add the difference in order to 
 make up the $25,000 and check it through, and make it 
 appear that it was a bona fide transfer of the paper. 
 
 "Shoemaker was detailed to make the state and in- 
 terview republicans and represent to them that the sale 
 was to be bona fide and the paper afterwards to be 
 owned by the republican party and no strings upon it. 
 They sold about $5,000 worth of stock, subscribers to 
 the stock signing a little slip, which I afterwards saw, 
 and to which drafts were subsequently attached and 
 made through the Union bank upon the subscribers, 
 that is, drafts along with the subscriptions. They raised 
 about $5,000. Thereafter Lanstrum and Shoemaker 
 made a trip to Butte and brought back $20,000, repre-
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 79 
 
 senting that they got the money through a check drawn 
 by Campbell upon one of the banks there. Then they 
 wanted to know how to get the money through the 
 bank. * * * A number of fellows in Helena were 
 requested to subscribe for the stock, and the stock was 
 subsequently issued to them and then they signed it or 
 transferred it or signed it in blank, and the money went 
 through the bank as coming from them. In other in- 
 stances money was advanced to different fellows, who 
 drew checks upon their banks for the stock, and they 
 also signed. I think they got about $8,000 or $9,000. 
 At any rate, there was about $10,000, $11,000, or $12,000 
 that they did not have any way of getting through the 
 bank, and I made a suggestion, which met with Lan- 
 strum's approval. He handed me the difference, the 
 money, and I went over to the National Bank of Montana 
 and bought a demand piece of paper, whatever it was. 
 
 "Cashier's check," suggested Mr. Hepner. 
 
 "I have forgotten just what it was," replied Mayor 
 Edwards, "but it may have been a certificate of deposit, 
 and passed it back to Lanstrum, and it went through the 
 bank in that way. That was the time of the transfer 
 of The Record about four or five years ago." 
 
 Is anything in ludicrous situation the equal of this to 
 be found in the world's production of comic opera or 
 farce comedy? Here was a newspaper establishment 
 which in half a dozen years had cost something like one 
 quarter million dollars. Here were the Napoleons of 
 high finance operating through a corporation with capi- 
 tal of $155,000,000. They were going out of politics and 
 out of the newspaper business in Montana as an evi- 
 dence of good faith in honest public sentiment. To ac- 
 complish this benevolent purpose they employed two 
 of the most consummate political crooks in the combine
 
 80 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 service in a bald confidence game to bunco leading and 
 loyal republican partisans of the state out of a paltry 
 $5,000 with the false pretense that they were to secure 
 an independent, honest party paper, the mere mechan- 
 ical equipment of which had cost many times the price 
 asked. At the same time the combine corruptionists 
 through fake transactions furnished four-fifths of the 
 purchase price and retained complete control of the policy 
 and conduct of the organ, as was shown by subsequent 
 events. The newspaper company was reorganized with 
 ostentatious display of distinguished and influential of- 
 ficers and stockholders, prominent in party as in public 
 affairs. Mr. Justice Holloway of the state supreme 
 court was advertised as a director and the president of 
 the company. Mr. Chief Justice Brantly, the other re- 
 publican member of the same court, was named as an- 
 other director. Mr. H. R. Cunningham, then state audi- 
 tor, was advertised likewise and as business manager. 
 The buncoed stockholders who contributed the $5,000, 
 more or less, included scores of party leaders and prom- 
 inent citizens in almost all counties within the state. 
 An incident of this high finance comedy performance 
 made manifest a nice sense of the proprieties in the 
 audience. A public sentiment which had tolerated con- 
 trol of party organs and judges alike by a foreign com- 
 bine engaged in corrupting government repelled as ab- 
 horrent the thought that judges of a high court should 
 consent to accept official place and part in the manage- 
 ment of a party newspaper. There was criticism, and 
 the honorable judges early and quietly severed their of- 
 ficial connection with the organ. Not the least instruc- 
 tive and one of the most amusing parts of this combine 
 play for public approval and private gain was presented 
 in the salutatory from the new management to the peo-
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 81 
 
 pie, printed November 3, 1905, in type of poster size, 
 double column breadth of measurement, on the editorial 
 page of The Montana Record, which is here presented 
 in its entirety : 
 
 "A FEW WORDS OF GREETING" 
 
 "The Record, as announced last evening, has changed 
 ownership. The new owners are Republicans. There is 
 no blemish on their party fealty. 
 
 "It is advisable at this time to announce the policy 
 of the paper from this date and the course it will pursue. 
 
 "In the first place, The Record will be strictly Re- 
 publican in politics. It will cater to no faction, indi- 
 vidual, corporation or special interest. All Republicans 
 will be treated with justice and impartiality in its col- 
 umns. No individual nor faction will be lauded or ex- 
 alted above another. They will all be judged on their 
 merits. 
 
 "This paper is a firm believer in the wisdom, justice 
 and worth of President Roosevelt, and it will support 
 the policies now advocated by him. In this declaration 
 special emphasis is laid upon his proposed railroad rate 
 legislation, his policy of a 'square deal' for all, however 
 humble or exalted, his principle of requiring honesty 
 and efficiency from all those in public office, restraint of 
 corporate abuses and his demand for civic righteousness. 
 
 "The Record rejoices that the great industrial cor- 
 porations of this state are prosperous and is glad of 
 their presence in Montana. It will extend a welcome to 
 all capital that shall come to this state for investment 
 and for the development of the exhaustless resources 
 of this commonwealth. All such shall have encourage- 
 ment, justice and fair treatment by this paper. 
 
 "To the railroads and great mining corporations of 
 this state The Record will accord impartial treatment.
 
 82 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 As industrial institutions they are welcome ; but as poli- 
 ticians, or as seeking to unduly influence or control 
 politics or legislation, they are pernicious. Any corpor- 
 ation seeking to corruptly influence politics or legisla- 
 tion will be unsparingly exposed, denounced and con- 
 demned. 
 
 "This paper believes in equal and just taxation to 
 all residents and those doing business within the con- 
 fines of Montana. The great railroads and wealthy 
 mining corporations should pay their full and just share 
 of taxes to support government and governmental func- 
 tions. No individual or combination of individuals is 
 too humble or too exalted to escape his just share of 
 public burdens. 
 
 "Labor makes the state and is honorable above all 
 things. The laborer is worthy of his hire — whether a 
 toiler of brawn or brain — and merits just and considerate 
 treatment. The Record will endeavor at all times to 
 be just and impartial to both labor and capital. 
 
 "This paper believes that a "public office is a public 
 trust," and shall require efficiency and honesty from all 
 public servants. It will not hesitate to criticise and de- 
 nounce all recreant and delinquent officials, regardless 
 of politics or the political affiliations of the offenders. 
 
 "This paper will relentlessly denounce and chastise 
 political debauchery, bribery and rascality, and will 
 mercilessly excoriate as criminals all those who seek to 
 corrupt or contaminate the ballot-box, the electorate, or 
 those chosen to office. 
 
 "The Record believes in good government, civic 
 righteousness and public progress and improvement. It 
 will strive at all times to uphold the best interests of the 
 state, the county and the city. It believes that Montana 
 is destined to be one of the chief commonwealths of the
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 83 
 
 nation, and that her worth and glory in the future de- 
 pend to a large extent upon her present integrity, merit 
 and character. 
 
 "The trustees chosen yesterday by the stockholders 
 of The Montana Record Publishing Company are men 
 of worth, character and responsibility. They are well 
 and favorably known throughout the state, and their 
 names are a guaranty of their Republican standing and 
 their fairness as citizens and men. Our subscribers and 
 stockholders may rest assured that all shall receive a 
 fair and square deal at the hands of The Record. 
 
 "This paper will publish the news and all the news 
 of interest to the public. It does not believe in suppress- 
 ing news that the public is entitled to know, simply be- 
 cause special interests may be offended thereby. A 
 newspaper should be a public servant, amenable to public 
 demands and requirements. Colored or garbled news 
 is false news and an abomination in the sight of the 
 Lord. 
 
 "Promises are easily made and assurances are read- 
 ily given but this paper hopes to prove the sincerity and 
 integrity of its purposes by its acts instead of by way 
 of prospectus." 
 
 The identity of the author of this fine and compre- 
 hensive declaration of right principles and righteous 
 purpose, and literal interpretation of the duties and re- 
 sponsibilities of honest journalism, thus far has been 
 lost to history. It might have been written with equal 
 enthusiasm by one of the buncoed and betrayed partisans 
 or by one of the combine's confidence operators. For a 
 short time republicans independent of corporation con- 
 trol were permitted to have part in editing or contri- 
 buting to the columns of The Record, and the paper 
 exalted its exceptional freedom from corrupt restraint
 
 84 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 to such an extreme that it became the subject of both 
 resentment and ridicule in other combine organs, the 
 characters of which were thus indirectly impugned. Dur- 
 ing this time Amalgamated interests by circuitous 
 routes continued to provide for the financial deficits of 
 the newspaper enterprise, and after a comparatively 
 short interval Oscar M. Lanstrum became managing 
 editor and the paper became under his direction and 
 control a mere auxiliary to party bosses, combine inter- 
 ests, corruption of government and robbery of the 
 people. 
 
 Within the succeeding half-dozen years every one 
 of the distinct pledges made by The Record to its 
 readers was flagrantly and shamelessly violated. Its lo- 
 cation at the state capital and its position as the leading 
 party organ in the state gave the paper some power and 
 usefulness in advancement of combine design, while 
 giving to its unscrupulous manager opportunities for 
 self-aggrandizement and ill-gotten wealth which could 
 not have been hoped for through his individual abilities 
 or influences. The powers of the organ and the combine, 
 working harmoniously, as they did, changed an obscure 
 country doctor in an almost abandoned mining camp 
 into a man of wealth and a party boss with jurisdiction 
 over the entire state. It transformed a professed village 
 reformer and local political insurgent into a stand-pat 
 statesman and leading lobbyist for a great corporate 
 combine within a period of ten years — all by the powers 
 of graft. But The Metamorphosis of "Doc." is subject 
 for a history of itself. He deserves the attention given 
 here only as a type of the tool employed by big business 
 in disrupting honest government and in destroying com- 
 petition. There is nothing original or new about it ex- 
 cepting the use to which it is applied, and even that is
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 85 
 
 not wholly without precedent. Almost a hundred years 
 ago in England a nearly perfect description of this type 
 was furnished by Mr. William Hone in exposing the 
 iniquities of the times where he wrote what follows about 
 another creature who combined small talents in journal- 
 ism with large appetite for public place and pelf : 
 
 "When Slop parted with his integrity, he lost his self- 
 respect. Attacking the honesty he secretly envies, and 
 has not the courage to imitate, he has nothing to com- 
 pensate him for a comfortless mind but an empty con- 
 sequence among fools and knaves, which yields no re- 
 pose. His appearance in The Slop-Pail is ludicrous. 
 Affecting a semblance to which he has no real preten- 
 sion, he looks like a nightman in a cocked hat, who 
 pulls up his frill at every discharge of muck, to show 
 his gentility. His case is a common one. He rose from 
 the bottom of society by foul self-inflation, and floats a 
 filthy bubble among the scum upon the surface. A 
 minion of ministers, a parasite to despotism throughout 
 the world, public virtue is the object of his unprincipled 
 hate and unsparing abuse. Hence, there is not a 'public 
 principle' that his mendacity has not 'perverted' ; not a 
 man of disinterested public conduct that he has not vili- 
 fied ; not a measure of advantage to the country, emanat- 
 ing from such men, that he has not derided ; not a meas- 
 ure of ministerial profligacy that he has not promoted; 
 not a public job that he has not bolstered; not a public 
 knave that he has not shielded; not an inroad upon the 
 constitution that he has not widened ; not a treason 
 against the people's liberties that he has not advocated ; 
 not a sore upon the people's hearts that he has not en- 
 larged." 
 
 Within three years after the new Record gave its 
 pious greeting of christian endeavor to its readers, the
 
 86 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 deficits of its business were being reduced by printing 
 or publishing contracts with the state of Montana, with 
 the county of Lewis and Clark, and with the city of 
 Helena, made profitable by collusion with dishonest 
 public officials and with needy competitors ; and in the 
 performance of some parts of these contracts The Re- 
 cord company or plant had no other work than a shar- 
 ing of the swag. Within five years Lobbyist Lanstrum 
 had become president of the State Press Association, 
 had reorganized the society with combine rules and pur- 
 pose, enlisted it in a campaign to secure legislation to 
 enlarge, legalize and perpetuate the plundering of state, 
 county and corporation treasuries through printing or 
 publishing jobs, and had employed as legal adviser to 
 the executive committee in framing proposed laws, for 
 the purpose named, the same attorney general of the 
 state, Albert J. Galen, who two years before had been 
 anathema to The Montana Record and who had com- 
 plained that he could secure no fair treatment by the 
 press of the state for the given reason that in his official 
 capacity he had earnestly, though vainly, endeavored to 
 defeat the award of the state contract for printing where- 
 by the state had been deprived of competition and 
 swindled. An association label was designed, available 
 only to members, and it was proposed, as a means of 
 persuasion to hesitant or dissenting gentlemen of the 
 craft to come into camp, that after a given date news- 
 papers not carrying the label should be deprived of ex- 
 change privilege with all papers wearing it. The execu- 
 tion of this tragic penalty was postponed in respect to 
 the indignant refusal of a few self-respecting members 
 of the profession to become parties to the agreement, 
 and the enactment of the prepared legislative bills into 
 law was deferred in recognition of certain exposures of
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 87 
 
 the scheme and opposition by a few legislators free from 
 combine direction or command. Place at the head of 
 the association and the acquaintance which it gave 
 doubtless assisted Mr. Lanstrum in his capacity as 
 chairman of the Republican State Central committee, or 
 as political boss and lobbyist, to secure influence over 
 many editorial columns through prudent expenditure of 
 campaign funds derived from combine sources. 
 
 What happened to and with The Helena Record was 
 repeated, with variations to fit the situation, in other 
 places where the Amalgamated Company or its allied 
 interests owned or controlled publications, in the pursuit 
 of its proclaimed policy to retire from politics and the 
 newspaper business in the state. It increased instead of 
 releasing its hold upon the press, and acquired control 
 in communities where the press had been free; for in- 
 stance, at Billings where both daily papers had been 
 owned by Mr. P. B. Moss. Mr. Moss had been a suc- 
 cessful banker and a promoter of every enterprise cal- 
 culated to enlarge or improve the city. His generosity 
 in support of various institutions led him to extend 
 credits far enough to afford an excuse to other bankers, 
 who had endeavored to secure control of his properties, 
 as well as to politicians and officials, of high rank and 
 great influence, for conduct which at least supported a 
 national bank examiner in an abrupt closing of the Moss 
 bank and a forced liquidation of his securities on a stag- 
 nant market. The stock of his publishing company was 
 among the collaterals involved. The newspapers were 
 making money, and the properties were valuable as 
 legitimate business enterprises. The combine had ac- 
 quired public utilities in the town, and while the local 
 papers had not assailed the combine or its interests di- 
 rectly they were hostile to the local political influences
 
 88 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 allied with combine political bosses. Through trickery, 
 participated in by officers of the court and agents of 
 bankers and politicians hostile to Mr. Moss, an order 
 was obtained from court for the sale of these properties 
 privately at a sum ridiculously small in contrast with 
 their true value. By prompt proceeding, after pro- 
 tracted litigation, this order was nullified by both dis- 
 trict and supreme court, and other proceedings for sale 
 ordered. The final outcome is unknown to the writer, 
 but the patrons of the Billings Gazette during the pre- 
 convention contest of the year 1912 were treated to the 
 anomalous policy of a public journal carrying the name 
 of Robert M. LaFollette as a presidential candidate at 
 the head of its editorial columns while these were filled 
 with inane palaver about custom and value in support 
 of party regularity and the folly or inevitable failure of 
 independent political action. 
 
 The extreme extent of power of the copper combine 
 over the press of the state may be better understood 
 by consideration of the fact that its control of the lead- 
 ing daily papers gives it almost complete control over 
 the news associations of the country so far as Montana 
 is concerned, not only with respect to what news shall 
 be printed or suppressed in Montana, but also as to 
 what news from or about Montana shall be given to the 
 country at large, as every Associated press agent in the 
 state is an employee of some daily paper within the state. 
 Moreover, the weekly papers not directly subject to the 
 influence, as well as merely local dailies, are compelled 
 to rely very largely upon the larger dailies for their 
 news supply. An excellent illustration of the effect of 
 this control was furnished in 1908. At the republican 
 state convention held at Helena that year some repre- 
 sentative of organized labor or friend of humanity se- 
 cured the insertion in the platform of this plank:
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 89 
 
 "We favor more adequate protection for the health 
 and lives of the miners of the state against inhuman 
 economies or corporate negligence and greed, and pledge 
 the republican party in support of such practical and 
 reasonable legislation as will insure sanitary conditions, 
 and safeguard against accidental death and injury in 
 the mines of Montana." 
 
 That platform was sent out from Helena complete. 
 That plank was omitted from the platform as published 
 by The Anaconda Standard, The Butte Intermountain, 
 and other papers immediately subject to combine direc- 
 tion. In consequence it was omitted from the platform 
 in nearly all of the papers of the state, the editors of 
 which, as usual, took their convention news from the big 
 dailies. The Butte Miner, Mr. W. A. Clark's paper, 
 furnished the exception which proved that rule. 
 
 The most conclusive proof of Amalgamated Com- 
 pany control of the press of the state, and direct evi- 
 dence of the tremendous value to the combine in its 
 ability to suppress publicity of information about public 
 affairs, was furnished during the legislative session of 
 1909. At that time it secured the enactment of a law 
 which practically removed all limitations and restraints 
 from the powers of corporations in Montana. The meas- 
 ure was sneaked into the legislature in disguise, and ad- 
 vanced as a purely local enterprise designed to enable 
 a land and townsite company in Great Falls to build a 
 hotel. The character of the bill was discovered and ex- 
 posed on the legislative floors and by a few weekly 
 journals. The combine press simply ignored both the 
 purpose and the importance of the pending bill. 
 The daily papers in Helena, in Butte and Ana- 
 conda, and Missoula, and Billings, did not ex- 
 plain, nor oppose, nor defend, the legislation either
 
 90 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 before or after its passage. The Great Falls 
 Tribune, at that time least tainted in public opinion with 
 Amalgamated corruption, was permitted and induced to 
 make editorial declaration in substance that the measure 
 appeared to be harmless and that its probable effect had 
 been exaggerated. The character and uses of this act 
 and the way in which it became a law are described at 
 length elsewhere in this volume, but the treatment of 
 the press by the combine in relation to it is most perti- 
 nent here. The policy pursued by The Tribune was sig- 
 nificant of the variety of influences exerted in control of 
 the press as well as of those exercised in protection of 
 combine agents. This measure had been introduced by 
 a member from Great Falls after sponsorship had been 
 refused by others. Cascade county, in which Great Falls 
 is located, had been not only quite evenly divided as be- 
 tween parties, but public sentiment was divided as be- 
 tween public and combine interests. Exposure of the 
 character of the measure made home support of it de- 
 sirable, if not necessary, to secure legislative support 
 from that as well as other surrounding counties most 
 largely devoted to agriculture and stock growing. The 
 Great Falls Tribune had been established by W. M. 
 Boles many years before. He was possessed of personal 
 integrity, good ideals, and much ability as an editor. 
 During the feudal war he had sold his paper to the Clark 
 interests at a large price and established a weekly paper 
 at Bozeman in the rich agricultural Gallatin valley, 
 where he was free from a conspicuous part in the strife. 
 After peace was declared and millionaires grew weary of 
 the luxury of newspaper deficits, Mr. Boles was induced 
 to resume ownership and conduct of The Tribune, prac- 
 tically as a gift, or better. He had made The Tribune 
 the nearest approach to a legitimate daily newspaper
 
 A PUBLIC PRESS TO SUPPRESS PUBLICITY 91 
 
 enterprise in the state, and the rapid development of the 
 surrounding country and growth of population had given 
 it a wide circulation and extensive influence. During 
 the same time the combine had increased its holdings 
 and control of business in the city of Great Falls, and 
 was in position to give or deprive The Tribune of much 
 valuable patronage. It is incredible that a man of Mr. 
 Boles' talents could have been misled as to the character 
 of the legislation mentioned, and it is quite possible that 
 his service in defending it was obtained through no 
 worse argument than consideration of friendly relations 
 and liberal patrons. 
 
 These interests, which direct the conduct of the pub- 
 lic press for public loss, reinforce their promotion of 
 prosperity for those who serve them, with prompt and 
 unfailing aid to adversity for newspapers which place 
 public interests first in policy. It is not alone the loss 
 of combine support which menaces an independent press 
 in Montana. Any journal which opposes illegitimate 
 combine enterprises with plain truth and argument in 
 legitimate public service is made the victim of con- 
 spiracy and boycott, more perfectly organized and more 
 powerfully exercised and practiced than in some cases 
 where representatives of labor organizations for kindred 
 offenses have been adjudged criminals and punished by 
 the courts. The combine bosses have their agents and 
 employees in organizations of business and professional 
 men in various cities of the state, and direct these influ- 
 ences as they do others to punish their opponents as well 
 as to reward their servants. By these methods inde- 
 pendent journalism is stifled in small communities as 
 certainly as competition is made impossible with the 
 daily newspapers in the more populous centers where 
 combine power is concentrated.
 
 92 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 "Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise". 
 Workmen employed in the newspaper business in Mon- 
 tana early become persuaded that "things are seldom 
 what they seem", and teach their readers as well as 
 themselves the comforts of life founded in the Dr. Pan- 
 gloss philosophy that everything is for the best, rea- 
 soning, perhaps, with the acute intelligence of the artist 
 who reconciled himself with a belief that color blindness 
 was not an insuperable obstacle to success in his profes- 
 sion, by profound reflection upon the simple fact that the 
 blackberry is always red when it is green.
 
 Subjugation Of Wage-Earners 
 
 While the copper wars were in progress in Montana, 
 the wage-earners of the state were objects of the most 
 distinguished consideration and regard from Napoleons 
 of finance and captains of industry. The workmen had 
 political power as well as power of brawn and muscle. 
 Not infrequently it was a pertinent if a delicate question 
 which power the employers were trying to secure with 
 maximum wage scales and liberal concessions to sons of 
 toil. Labor organizers took advantage of conditions and 
 obtained powers and privileges, for their organizations 
 and themselves, seldom if ever equalled with so great 
 extent of effectiveness in any other state. Butte was 
 commonly and accurately designated as "the strongest 
 union town" on earth, with proportionately similar 
 power of organized labor manifest in all industrial cen- 
 ters of the state. There was a union organization for 
 every occupation and no possible occupation in Butte 
 for any man who did not belong to some union. Two 
 chimney sweeps of the town had a labor organization 
 all their own, fixed their scale of prices and enforced 
 penalties of unfairness against any employer who re- 
 belled or rejected. There is authentic report of pro- 
 ceeding at a meeting of the "Workingman's Union" — an 
 organization to include unclassified or otherwise un- 
 affiliated wage-earners — at which the grave-digger in a 
 local cemetery reported his inability to secure certain 
 demanded concessions from his employer, whereupon it 
 was duly and solemnly moved by another member that 
 a boycott against the cemetery be declared by organized 
 
 [93]
 
 94 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 labor. In some of the skilled trades initiation or affilia- 
 tion fees were adopted prohibitive against newcomers, 
 and the benefits of monopoly power exacted to the ut- 
 most degree. In one of the local campaigns a commercial 
 traveler at a leading hotel combatted the arguments be- 
 ing advanced by a strong-voiced political agent of one of 
 the interests. "Who's paying you for talking?" de- 
 manded the orator. "Nobody!" asserted the indignant 
 salesman. "Then you're scabbing the job !" concluded 
 the professional, and the visitor was left without either 
 antagonist or audience. 
 
 The backbone of organized labor in Montana, the 
 effective power behind all union movements or demands 
 when exerted, was the Butte Miners' Union. It was or- 
 ganized with less than one hundred members about the 
 year 1880, as much in the interest of mine owners as 
 employees, to establish uniformity in work and wages. 
 In its most palmy days, during the first half-dozen years 
 of the present century, it had an accredited membership 
 of approximately 10,000. From the day of its organiza- 
 tion to this year 1912 it never engaged in a strike nor be- 
 came involved in serious disagreement with employers 
 through action of its own. For more than a quarter cen- 
 tury the wage scale of the Butte Miners' Union remained 
 practically without change as originally fixed, although 
 many betterments were secured in working conditions 
 and finally in the establishment of an eight-hour day, 
 the mines being operated day and night, 365 days in the 
 year. This union has been imposed upon at times by 
 other labor organizations, by labor leaders, by some of 
 its own officers, and by its employers, but in every great 
 emergency, where an important question was submitted 
 to a vote of the union as a whole, the majority has been 
 on the side of conservative, intelligent, fair-minded judg-
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 95 
 
 ment, and with far-sighted regard for permanent inter- 
 ests of the many ; with the possible exception of one or 
 two instances within quite recent years and since the 
 character of its membership has suffered a radical change 
 for the worse through the perfidious policy of the chief 
 employing interest, the Amalgamated Copper Company. 
 
 When it is remembered how much of temptation to 
 sale or abuse of power for both members and leaders 
 was inevitable in connection with the great struggles for 
 supremacy, both in politics and industry, it may be bet- 
 ter realized with what strength of devotion to principle 
 the average member of the organization was controlled, 
 and it may be more easily appreciated why a resolution 
 of sympathy adopted by this union usually was more 
 effective in securing results than a strike ordered by any 
 other labor organization. Almost the only abuse of 
 power by this union was in its use, through its support 
 of all organized labor, in assisting ill-advised enter- 
 prises and supporting unreasonable demands from other 
 organizations not connected with it in any way more 
 closely than by its loyalty to the common cause of all 
 wage-earners. 
 
 During the period of strife between the corporations 
 the demands and requirements imposed by minor labor 
 organizations, and enforced by the union labor senti- 
 ment, had become impossible or intolerable to very 
 many lines of business and enterprise. This fact was 
 used by the copper combine managers and agencies as 
 the wedge with which to divide the labor forces prelim- 
 inary to the subjugation of all wage-earners to the cor- 
 porate monopoly control of the state. Business stagna- 
 tion following the stock-gamblers' panic of 1907 fur- 
 nished the opportunity. Building operations became a 
 negligible factor in the labor problem because there
 
 96 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 were no new building operations, and workmen in the 
 building trades, who had furnished many of the just 
 causes for complaint against union labor, were com- 
 pelled to seek other fields or other employment. In 1907 
 the Amalgamated Copper Company had secured a con- 
 tract with the Butte Miners' Union, and affiliated labor 
 organizations in the operation of mines and smelters, to 
 cover a period of five years, the miners to be allowed an 
 advance of fifty cents per day in wages whenever the 
 price of copper should for a given time be maintained at 
 or above eighteen cents per pound. Mr. John D. Ryan, 
 the managing director at the time, made public pro- 
 nouncement of the great benefit this would be to Butte 
 in assurance of uninterrupted operations and to the mi- 
 ners through insuring them steady employment. Later 
 on, when the Western Federation of Miners, with which 
 the Butte Miners' Union was affiliated, adopted and 
 sought to enforce a policy against wage contract between 
 unions and employers, the Butte Miners' Union voted 
 to fulfill its contract with the mining companies in de- 
 fiance of the laws and orders of the central organization. 
 When in 1907, following wild-cat speculation, over- 
 capitalization, and over-production of copper stimulated 
 by inflated values, the price of copper slumped to twelve 
 cents or less per pound, the Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany ignored its contract obligations with the Butte 
 Miners' Union, repudiated the assurances of steady em- 
 ployment, and threw thousands of its faithful workmen 
 into idleness and want. It is a part of the record to be 
 found in the files of its organs that death from starvation 
 accompanied inability to find work in Anaconda during 
 that season of distress. The resumption of operations 
 was tardy and slow. The policy was adopted, with new 
 and harsh rules, for workmen whereby many found em-
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 97 
 
 ployment for little more than half time, so that there was 
 great difficulty for men with families to save money 
 enough to leave the camp, and a constant surplus of 
 labor at the same time was kept in the camp. The daily 
 wage scale was not reduced but the month's pay check 
 was, frequently from thirty to forty per cent. The Na- 
 poleons of finance permitted, if they did not instruct, 
 their phonographic representatives in publicity work to 
 peddle the pretense that this policy was born of the 
 charitable purpose to employ as many as possible of the 
 needy men. Contemporaneous with this there came an 
 influx of ignorant, impoverished, unskilled men from 
 southern Europe, who found employment in the Butte 
 mines by the exclusion of miners whose little homes and 
 large families frequently were the only fruits of almost 
 a lifetime of faithful service in the hard and extra-haz- 
 ardous employment. This marked the beginning of what 
 came to be known as the "bohunk" era in Butte. 
 
 In its issue of July 24, 1910, The Butte Evening 
 News devoted more than a full newspaper page to "The 
 Story of the Butte Bohunk." From that story the fol- 
 lowing paragraphs are taken, descriptive of the new citi- 
 zen, the manner of his coming, the method of his em- 
 ployment, his standard of living, and his influence upon 
 the community and upon the business of the town : 
 
 "Butte, thrice cursed after its years of pride and pros- 
 perity, writhes under maladies which only the white 
 light of publicity will help. 
 
 "Not one of these conditions will be improved as 
 long as they go unnoticed. The News alone will tell of 
 them. It has told of the short pay check, with the curse 
 of curtailment. It has looked a calamitous situation 
 squarely in the face and is going to tell the truth. 
 
 "This story tells of the bohunks, three thousand 
 strong, who are driving the white man slowly but surely
 
 98 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 out of the camp. Many never saw a bohunk; they only 
 know that the breadwinner is out of a job and some mys- 
 terious form .of foreigner has taken his job. 
 
 "The newspaper which by direct or indirect means 
 attempts to defend or justify the condition of affairs 
 which is cursing Butte is criminal in its attempted de- 
 ception. 
 
 "At the word 'bohunk' every other paper in this city 
 but the News cries 'hush'. The alarming feature of the 
 bohunk problem is that every other paper seems to be 
 willing to see Butte turned into a cheap foreign settle- 
 ment even as Dublin Gulch has already become 'bohunk 
 valley'. 
 
 "There are 3,000 bohunk miners in Butte today. Of 
 these 2,175 are working and the balance are being sup- 
 ported by their brothers and are ready to slip into every 
 job where a white man is laid off. 
 
 "There are hundreds more en route from Europe 
 ready to come to Butte and live on their friends until 
 they can edge into the mines. 
 
 "The bohunk miner is the low-grade foreigner who 
 buys his job from the foreman and pays him for keeping 
 it; who lives in a cabin; who never adapts himself to 
 American life any more than does the Chinaman. 
 
 "Gambling, white slavery, prizefighting, licensed 
 prostitution, horse-racing, and every ill, alleged or other- 
 wise, that one can conjure up palls into insignificance 
 before this black peril which has Butte by the throat and 
 is dragging it down to the level of a grading camp. 
 
 "That these black men from across the water are 
 buying their jobs is a secret so open that he who runs
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 99 
 
 may read ; yet the operations of this accursed peonage 
 are guarded with all the secrecy of the black hand and in 
 the end are just as fatal. 
 
 "These men buy their jobs for cash ; they buy their 
 jobs because they board in certain places ; because in 
 some instances they buy groceries in certain places ; they 
 buy their jobs by renting rooms of people related to the 
 men who employ them ; they buy their jobs by paying 
 a rental for cabins far in excess of their worth, content 
 to give up these various tolls to hold their jobs. 
 
 "Walk into the gulch today and you will see what a 
 bohunk is and how he lives. Six of them live in one 
 cabin, not a stone's throw from the Anaconda mine, and 
 each one of them is paying a rent of $10 a month. One 
 could rent a luxurious mansion for $60. 
 
 "Imagine what $60 a month for one cabin means to 
 the owner, especially if he has a group of them. He can 
 cut it in two with the foreman and still get rich in a short 
 time. 
 
 ***** 
 
 "Another story is that eight bohunks occupied one 
 cabin, each paying $10 a month. The room was owned by 
 a foreman who drew down $80 for a room that would 
 ordinarily rent for about $10. 
 
 "In some places the peonage has been pretty open 
 and above board. Two bohunks were each paying $20 
 a month for a room in which they were sleeping. This 
 brought $40 for a room worth about one-fourth the price. 
 One morning one of the pair notified his landlord that he 
 had secured a cabin in Walkerville for five dollars a 
 month and purposed to live there. When he got over 
 to the mine he was promptly bawled out by the foreman.
 
 100 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 who told him his time was in and to go to hell and work 
 in Walkerville. 
 
 "The buying of jobs has continued. These foreign- 
 ers who have walked into the Butte mines and who have 
 taken away jobs from under the very noses of the white 
 men employed in Butte are no part of the community in- 
 terest in this camp. The foremen who put them to work 
 have no use for them ; they cannot carry on a conversa- 
 tion with the other miners of the camp ; they do not as- 
 sociate with other miners; they herd like cattle in the 
 cabins of the gulch and other parts of the town. 
 
 "The bohunk colony proper lies in that portion of the 
 city known as 'Cork-town' and 'Dublin Gulch'. North 
 Wyoming street, from Copper street north to the B. A. 
 & P. tracks is a regular bohunk hot-bed. Every avail- 
 able house, cabin or shack that can be procured is rented 
 by this element, and between shifts in the mines they 
 are herded like cattle both night and day. 
 
 "Some of the houses have four or five rooms and 
 house as many as thirty of these black men. The shacks 
 and cabins give shelter to from five to fifteen of them. 
 Their methods of living would not appeal to one who 
 
 has lived amid American surroundings. 
 
 ***** 
 
 "How they sleep is no mystery. The ones on the 
 night shift occupy the same bed that the day shift uses 
 and the bedding never has a chance to get cold. The 
 others curl themselves up in a dirty blanket on the floor 
 and feel as refreshed when the alarm goes off as if their 
 cot was of feathers. 
 
 "Another shack has 18 bohunks and for filth it is a 
 marvel. Suspended from the ceiling of the kitchen are 
 several pieces of dried meat. On the claret-soaked table
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 101 
 
 is a dirty deck of cards, while around the table a number 
 of them engage in some game that is popular in their 
 native land. The walls are smoked and grease-stained 
 and the smell of filth is frightful. The very air reeks 
 with the sickening odors of foreign tobacco, and through 
 it all one of their number is kept busy keeping a roaring 
 fire under a coal-oil can with the top cut out and which is 
 
 used to boil soup in. 
 
 ***** 
 
 "At another house, where over fifteen of them lived, 
 one of their number lay in bed with consumption. Day 
 after day he lingered, with no hopes of ever rising again, 
 and yet the other bohunks gave little heed to their 
 brother in misfortune, and while each day brought him 
 nearer to the grave, they let him die without the care of 
 a doctor or a nurse and even shared the same bed and the 
 
 same room with the patient. 
 
 ***** 
 
 "Since the bohunk influx to Butte began it has never 
 ceased. Day after day, and night after night, as the 
 trains pull into Butte, the bohunks step off at the sta- 
 tion. Once landed they are met by one or two old-time 
 bohunks, who immediately take them on a long hike to 
 'Cork-town' or the 'Gulch'. Carrying their luggage, 
 blankets and belongings with them, they make a spec- 
 tacular procession tip through Utah avenue. 
 
 "As they step off the train there is no hack driver 
 asking them to have a cab ; no baggage man asks for 
 their luggage ; and the conductor on the street car beats 
 no jangle on the foot bell to give them warning that the 
 car is about to start for town. 
 
 "They know it is but a waste of time and words. 
 
 "Every train that dumps these foreigners off as it 
 pulls in takes just as many old-timers aboard as it pulls 
 out.
 
 102 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 "Up the gulch 'mother and the kids' watch daily for 
 the postman to see if father has found employment in 
 some place where a white man can live and earn his liv- 
 ing. Up the gulch, boys who were born and raised there, 
 are kissing their gray-haired mothers good-bye and are 
 leaving for pastures new. 
 
 "In an effort to ascertain the effect of the bohunk in- 
 vasion on the business of Butte a poll was taken of the 
 various business men in Butte. The grocer shrugged his 
 shoulders and said, 'We do not get any of his business ; 
 there's a bohunk grocery. The bakers say the bohunks 
 do not eat white bread and have their own bakery; the 
 butchers say the bohunks eat dried sausage and dried 
 meats ; the fuel dealers say the bohunk steals coal and 
 rustles ties for his fuel ; the clothier says one suit of 
 clothes lasts a lifetime; the bohunks are not fancy dres- 
 sers. 
 
 "There are bohunk saloons and tobacco stores where 
 the invaders buy their drinks and smoking tobacco. Doc- 
 tors and druggists get little or no patronage from these 
 people. For light in their dingy cabins, candles stolen 
 from the mines are used. These people shave them- 
 selves and cut each other's hair. They rarely ride on 
 street cars; they attend no theaters except perhaps in a 
 wild splurge of extravagance they go to a moving picture 
 show. It will readily be seen that there is not a com- 
 mercial interest in Butte that profits by this invasion of 
 this class of foreigners." 
 
 Such was the class of inhabitants and character of 
 workmen which the Amalgamated Company not only 
 permitted but encouraged to supplant the long-time citi- 
 zens and experienced miners of Butte in its employment. 
 Under contract relations no workman could be employed 
 in the Butte mines without a working card from the
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 103 
 
 miners' union. The fair and liberal policy of that organi- 
 zation caused it to admit to membership all workmen 
 seeking employment in the mines. Within a short period 
 of time nearly one-half of the working force in Amal- 
 gamated mines, during a period of reduced production 
 and partial operation, was made up of this imported 
 "pauper labor", and almost as large a part of the then 
 active membership of the Butte Miners' Union was com- 
 posed of these people. Of course a self-respecting and 
 fellow-respecting shift boss without corrupt incentive 
 would not thus have enchanged experienced miners and 
 fellow countrymen for ignorant novices in mining, who 
 could not even understand the orders of the boss without 
 an interpreter; but, also of course, the shift bosses could 
 not have trafficked in the toil of others in this fashion 
 without the approval of superintendents and managers 
 and managing directors and president of the corpora- 
 tion. They were most excellent instruments for weaken- 
 ing organized labor, and at the same time men whose 
 standard of living was low enough to make lower wages 
 attractive to them, where such reduction would be 
 impossible under the American standard of living with- 
 out lessening the profits of all the combines making or 
 handling the necessities of life. In its extensive lumber 
 department, and in other occupations in the state, the 
 combine influences had assisted in reducing earnings of 
 workmen as well as the power of labor organizations. 
 There had been repeated instances, too, indicating a pur- 
 pose to change political conditions by leaving without 
 employment workmen with intelligence and independ- 
 ence enough to vote without instructions. Any one of 
 these purposes might have furnished cause of action 
 taken by the combine under the Ryan policy of adminis- 
 tration. There was still another incentive for Mr.
 
 104 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 Ryan's antipathy to much of the membership of the 
 Butte Miners' Union, easily controlling in a vain and 
 selfish mind. 
 
 In the latter part of the year 1909, the Great Northern 
 Railway Company in Montana had a strike by switch- 
 men to contend with. The ores in the mines of Butte 
 formerly owned by the Boston and Montana Company 
 were shipped to Great Falls smelters over the Great 
 Northern Railway for reduction. The service of the 
 railway, almost never good through niggardly policy of 
 management, was interrupted in the moving of freight 
 trains by this strike, and further hampered towards the 
 close of the year by extreme cold weather and storms. 
 All other ores of Amalgamated properties and allied in- 
 terests in Butte were taken to Anaconda, in an opposite 
 direction, over a railway owned and operated by the cop- 
 per combine and unaffected by the switchmen's strike. 
 Owing to the inability of the Great Northern Railway 
 Company to handle the ore traffic at Great Falls, the 
 smelters in that city were closed and the work of produc- 
 tion was suspended in the Butte mines which supplied 
 them with ore. This condition had existed for several 
 weeks. Efforts had been made at Great Falls and in 
 Butte by business men, co-operating with the railway 
 people, to relieve the situation by employing miners and 
 smeltermen as substitutes for striking switchmen. The 
 Butte Miners' Union, when the subject was taken to 
 them for consideration, adopted resolutions of sympathy 
 with the strikers. A conference committee, composed of 
 representatives of the mill and smeltermen's unions and 
 of the Butte Miners' Union, met in Butte to consider the 
 situation and a subcommittee had an interview with Mr. 
 Ryan who recently had arrived from New York on one of 
 his brief visits to Montana. On the day that this inter-
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 105 
 
 view was held The Butte Intermountain, avowed organ 
 of the copper company, published what purported to give 
 an account of the proceedings. Members of the confer- 
 ence committee issued a statement denying the accuracy 
 of such report. As a result of these conferences a form 
 of resolution was drafted for presentation to the several 
 unions interested, to be by them submitted to referen- 
 dum vote. The smeltermen's union at Great Falls 
 adopted the resolution. On January 1 the miners' union 
 held a special meeting and adjourned after refusing to 
 take the action suggested in behalf of the corporate inter- 
 ests. The next day it was announced that order had been 
 issued to close all the mines of the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany that afternoon, with published assertion that the 
 suspension would be for a period of at least six months, 
 but that this order had been temporarily withdrawn at 
 the request of Great Falls smeltermen. That afternoon 
 Mr. Ryan published an official statement confirming the 
 report of a determination to close down, and a supple- 
 mentary assurance that the putting of the decision into 
 effect was withheld for a few days to give the Great Falls 
 smeltermen sufficient time to exhaust their resources 
 towards resumption of traffic in the Great Falls yards on 
 the Great Northern Railway, and the positive threat that 
 "the mines now in operation will continue so only for a 
 sufficient time to comply with the request of the Great 
 Falls Mill and Smeltermen's Union." The time and con- 
 ditions were most opportune to lend force to the threat 
 of use of the combine's favorite argument of shut-down, 
 with menace of privation and want for thousands 
 of men and for those dependent upon them. Neither 
 business men nor wage-earners had recovered from se- 
 vere losses incident to the panic times and partial sus- 
 pension of mining operations. The price of copper was
 
 106 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 low and the combine was working for better rates by 
 curtailment of product. There was a surplus of labor, 
 and intense cold weather prevailed. In this situation 
 Mr. Ryan issued his ultimatum that members of the Butte 
 Miners' Union must assist as strike-breakers for a rail- 
 way company in a town hundreds of miles away or them- 
 selves be shut out of employment without resources in 
 mid-winter. After the publication of the Ryan threat, a 
 special meeting of the Butte Miners' Union was called 
 to be held the next night. The Butte and Anaconda 
 newspapers, subject to Ryan's direction, carried appeals 
 to the miners for action rescinding their previous pro- 
 ceedings, with intimations designed to influence men 
 acting from selfish motives, and urging a full attendance 
 at the meeting. There was a full attendance. The meeting 
 had to be adjourned from the Union Hall to the city au- 
 ditorium, where it was conservatively estimated that 
 more than 5,000 members gathered for secret session. 
 The discussion lasted two hours and it dealt directly 
 with union principles and combine threats. By a vote 
 practically unanimous, the union decided against a vote 
 on the discredited report of the conference committee 
 and stood by the previous action of the union. Mr. John 
 D. Ryan left Butte before daylight, and Montana as 
 quickly as a fast train could carry him. The Butte pa- 
 pers next morning carried the news that resumption of 
 operations at the Great Falls smelter had been ordered, 
 that switching would be done by officials of the railway 
 company, and that resumption in the Boston and Mon- 
 tana mines in Butte would be had as soon as warranted 
 by demand for more ore at Great Falls. If there ever 
 was better reason for the threat to suspend operations at 
 Butte and Anaconda than that involved in the fact that 
 the price of copper was very low and that Mr. Ryan be-
 
 SUBJUGATION OF WAGE-EARNERS 107 
 
 lieved the time was ripe to bring the miners' union to 
 terms with a prospect of starvation, such reason never 
 was given publicity in any of the many publications de- 
 voted alike to combine defense and flattery of Ryan. 
 
 The Butte Miners' Union at the greatest meeting of 
 its members held in many years, most of them without 
 resources in reserve, many of them with wives and chil- 
 dren to care for, called this pompous head of a lawless 
 combine, who ruled the state of Montana like a despot, to 
 a complete show-down. They proved him false in prom- 
 ise and a quitter in performance. They challenged him 
 to contest with all the odds and weapons in his posses- 
 sion. He confessed his crime by rescinding his own or- 
 ders, and fled like a crook. 
 
 All things considered, that action by the Butte Miners' 
 Union on that occasion constituted as splendid an 
 exhibition of congregate physical and moral courage in 
 devotion to principle and disregard of self as can be cited 
 since the volunteer armies of patriotism marched to death 
 to maintain free government against the forces enlisted 
 for the extension of slavery. 
 
 It was the last successful demonstration by the Butte 
 Miners' Union of its power in defense of the rights of its 
 members. It is likely to be the last until there has been 
 another change in much of its membership, and it may 
 have been the cause of the Ryan policy which has re- 
 placed so much of that membership in the union, as well 
 as in the mines and smelters, with "bohunks" in place of 
 American citizens.
 
 Governmental Functions of a Wall Street 
 Combine In a Sovereign State 
 
 In theory the state of Montana has a republican form 
 of government. In practice it is governed by a Wall 
 street combine organized under the laws of New Jersey. 
 The people rule ostensibly and in declaration of consti- 
 tutional provision through duly designated representa- 
 tives. The corporate bosses rule actually through cor- 
 rupted and corrupting agencies. The constitutions of 
 Montana (Section I, Article IV,) provided for the divi- 
 sion of government into three co-ordinate departments, 
 legislative, executive and judicial. The Amalgamated 
 Copper Company has supplied a fourth inordinate 
 branch, with supervisory control over all, which may be 
 properly designated as managerial. The Constitution 
 of Montana (Section I, Article III,) provided : "All po- 
 litical power is vested in and derived from the people ; all 
 government of right originates with the people ; is 
 founded upon their will only and is instituted solely for 
 the good of the whole." The Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany has determined that all political power in Montana 
 is vested in its agents and derived from its managers, 
 and is an institution to be exercised, rightly or wrongly, 
 chiefly for the gain of Wall Street speculators. 
 
 So broad a statement may be disputed by a few offi- 
 cial honorables in Montana, proud of their titles and wise 
 in the knowledge that they are permitted to exercise 
 their little brief authority in public affairs compatibly 
 with combine purposes and that they receive at least 
 
 [109]
 
 110 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 some part of their compensation from the public treas- 
 uries in funds provided by taxpayers. Possibly it may 
 be disputed by a few honest and patriotic private citizens, 
 who have their knowledge of government from the 
 splendid state constitution and the servile organs of pub- 
 licity provided by the foreign corporation. It will not 
 be disputed by anybody with facts of history relating to 
 legislative, executive, or judicial action in matters of im- 
 portance wherein public interests conflicted with com- 
 bine interests in the last half-dozen years. In previous 
 chapters the facts have been told about the ways and 
 means with which this overreaching organization ex- 
 tended its interests and control to include the best de- 
 veloped resources of the state, the public press, and the 
 occupations of bread-winners. All these achievements 
 were needful to accomplish control of government in all 
 its branches within the state. This last accomplishment 
 was essential to protect the corporate invaders against 
 penalties for lawlessness already practiced, and, more 
 important, to give them appearance of lawful authority 
 and license for unprecedented extension of corporate 
 powers, special privileges, and dishonest exploitation, 
 then contemplated, together with immunity from prose- 
 cution and punishment. 
 
 It is not claimed, and it should not be inferred, that 
 all public officials in all branches of government in Mon- 
 tana were made flagrantly and habitually dishonest in 
 official action by the malign influences employed in the 
 expansion and exercise of corporate power through gov- 
 ernment agencies. It is asserted that these influences 
 used these agencies successfully when they needed them 
 in every great emergency. At best our boasted scheme 
 of popular government is complex and doubtful in opera- 
 tion. It is a long way from the perplexed voter in the
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 111 
 
 election booth, through legislation, administration and 
 litigation, to the final decision of the court of last resort. 
 With the current of events obstructed or diverted by 
 conflicting opinions, rival ambitions, party divisions, lim- 
 itless variety of interests, constitutional limitations, maze 
 of judicial interpretation and precedent — there is a wide 
 field of opportunity for the corporate lobbyist to play 
 his little joker and win the trick for his employers with- 
 out disturbing the integrity of very many public ser- 
 vants for each transaction. Moreover, always it must be 
 borne in mind that this conquest of Montana was being 
 made by Napoleons and not by novices. This was no 
 Robin Hood or Captain Kidd adventure in lawlessness, 
 no plebeian holdup of belated citizens. Quite the con- 
 trary. Here was a matter of big business to be trans- 
 acted between gentlemen, all actuated by professed con- 
 cern for general prosperity and the public good. Here 
 are the names of the directors of the Amalgamated Cop- 
 per Company as printed in "The Manual of Statistics, 
 Stock Exchange Handbook" for the year 1907 ; Albert C. 
 Burrage, Boston; George H. Church, New York; John 
 E. Judson, New York; William Rockefeller, New York; 
 Henry H. Rogers, New York; Henry H. Rogers, Jr., 
 New York; James Stillman, New York. The same au- 
 thority anounced that the main office is 42 Broadway, 
 New York, and that the annual meeting is held the first 
 Monday in June at Jersey City. Were these not all hon- 
 orable men, located in an eminently respectable neigh- 
 borhood, meeting regularly according to the laws of New 
 Jersey? Was not Mr. John D. Ryan, banker and publi- 
 cist, their managing director in and for Montana? Were 
 they not employing nearly 15,000 men in the state, and 
 nearly one hundred newspapers, and the most influential 
 persons they could think of in both political parties?
 
 112 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 Were not their mining managers, and railway men, and 
 lawyers, and doctors, and merchants, and lobbyists, 
 among the very best people according to the newspapers 
 in their respective communities ? Were these not electing 
 officers of banks, and of commercial clubs, and agricul- 
 tural societies, and of good roads organizations, and of 
 women's clubs, and of every conceivable sort of elee- 
 mosynary institutions? Was there any good reason why 
 these public spirited gentlemen should not take an active 
 part in politics, or why they should not be consulted by 
 citizens who aspired to serve the state as legislators, ad- 
 ministrators, or judges? Did not representatives of 
 these great and varied interests contribute liberally, not 
 to say lavishly, to the campaign funds of all political 
 parties? 
 
 For further particulars see the daily newspapers of 
 Montana. 
 
 In a general way the copper combine controls legisla- 
 tion in Montana as other special interests control legisla- 
 tion in other states, and as these have controlled legisla- 
 tion in the national congress of the country. It has its 
 creatures elected to chief positions in the legislative 
 organizations and directs the makeup of committees for 
 both branches, as is common elsewhere. In Montana it 
 started with a tremendous advantage, to secure control at 
 each session, by reason of the fact that a legislative ap- 
 portionment made many years ago, when most of the 
 population was in mining and smelting districts, was re- 
 tained notwithstanding that the most glaring inequali- 
 ties of representation existed under it. For instance, 
 Deer Lodge County, where the great smelters are, and 
 which is a mere pocket borough for the combine, sent 
 six members to the lower branch of the legislature, while 
 agricultural Yellowstone county, with a greater popula-
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 113 
 
 tion, had but one. Regular sessions of the Montana legis- 
 lature are limited to sixty days by constitutional provi- 
 sion. With control of officers and committees, and with 
 experienced members and lobbyists in its employment, it 
 is not difficult for the combine to delay objectionable 
 measures and advance others till the session is more than 
 half over. Then comes the conduct of business by the 
 "Steering Committee", provided for under a joint rule 
 which reads : "The special senate committee shall ap- 
 point a committee of five senators, and the speaker of the 
 house shall appoint a like committee of five house mem- 
 bers, and such ten members, so appointed shall constitute 
 a Joint Steering Committee, and such Joint Steering Com- 
 mittee shall on and after the fortieth day of the session 
 have the authority, and are hereby directed, to fix the 
 order of consideration of all bills, memorials and resolu- 
 tions coming before the senate or house for considera- 
 tion, subject, however, to the general provision that in 
 the senate all house business shall be first considered, 
 and in the house all senate bills shall first be considered; 
 all reports of the house coimmittee of such Joint Steering 
 Committee shall be signed by its chairman and shall also 
 be approved and signed by the chairman of the senate 
 steering committee, and all reports of the senate commit- 
 tee of such Joint Steering Committee shall be signed by 
 its chairman and also signed and approved by the chair- 
 man of the house steering committee." 
 
 Rule No. 19 provides that "No joint rule shall be re- 
 pealed, amended or suspended except by two-thirds vote 
 in each house." All bills reported by all standing com- 
 mittees go to the steering committee. See how this 
 operates : After, the steering committee favorably passes 
 upon a measure, both chairmen of the committee must 
 approve and sign it before the measure may come before
 
 114 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 either house, and there is no power to compel either 
 chairman to perform that act. The only way to force ac- 
 tion by either committee or chairman is to suspend the 
 rule, which requires a two-thirds vote in each house. 
 There has not been a session of the legislature in ten 
 years in Montana in which the copper combine has not 
 had sufficient representation to prevent such action on 
 any measure. The rule and practice in effect and fact 
 give veto power on any measure to each chairman of the 
 Steering Committee. It might be possible to have some 
 men free from combine influence as chairmen of that 
 committee but it has not happened in many years. 
 
 For complete understanding of the manner in which 
 the combine and its lobbyists pass laws in Montana, the 
 following account of the last day of the last legislative 
 session in that state, 1911, is reproduced here. It was 
 written by Mr. James W. Scott, experienced and capable 
 in legislative reporting, and as reliable and trustworthy a 
 news-writer as was ever employed on any newspaper : 
 
 "The closing scenes of the Montana legislative ses- 
 sion this year were marked by even more flagrant disre- 
 gard of law, order, decency and common sense than have 
 characterized preceding sessions. Spectators in either 
 house during the last day, evening and night of the ses- 
 sion, who had not had previous experience with Montana 
 legislatures, were astounded at the spectacle presented. 
 The feature that made them gasp was the reckless and 
 abandoned manner in which bills were railroaded through 
 the legislative process. 
 
 "This desperate and unseemly struggle to perfect in 
 twenty-four hours legislation that had been dallied with 
 for two months is one of the most disgraceful delin- 
 quencies of the Montana lawmakers. The present legis- 
 lature was one of the worst offenders in years. This
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 115 
 
 legislature passed 223 bills, and 114 of these were rushed 
 through on the last legislative day. At least sixty or 
 seventy of these bills were not conveyed to the governor 
 till after midnight of the last day when the power of the 
 legislature legally to enact laws had expired by the opera- 
 tion of the organic law. 
 
 "When a legislature comes to its last day with two 
 or three hundred bills undisposed of, and undertakes to 
 pound half of them through both houses before the ses- 
 sion concludes, it simply delivers itself to chaos. The 
 work of the house and senate on the last nights included 
 both chaos and pandemonium. All day bills were rushed 
 through committee of the whole and third reading in 
 both houses, without knowledge or understanding on the 
 part of anybody as to the merits of any of them. All 
 rules were disregarded. To make matters worse than 
 usual this session, the joint assembly absorbed the time 
 from noon till evening, and an evening recess took the 
 rest of the time till ten o'clock. 
 
 "From ten o'clock till one the next morning, an hour 
 after the legislative session had legally ended, the same 
 feverish, roaring mill of reckless legislation was kept go- 
 ing at top speed. The committees of the whole and on 
 third reading were alternated with committee reports, 
 which were adopted without consideration, bills being 
 advanced for consideration, considered in the committee 
 of the whole and passed on third reading in a perfect 
 stream, while perhaps not five per cent, of the members 
 in either house even caught the numbers of the measures, 
 much less the titles. 
 
 "This part of the work was concluded some time after 
 one o'clock, and the sixty or seventy bills that had piled 
 up on the army of enrolling clerks by that time was so 
 great that those workers were unable to finish enrolling
 
 116 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 them till 8 o'clock the next morning. More enrolling 
 clerks than ever before employed struggled with this 
 overwhelming mass of work, and although they toiled at 
 top speed, they were given bills and more bills beyond 
 their power to handle as the night passed. 
 
 "There was no attempt to engross the measures. The 
 rule to engross bills was suspended, and bills recom- 
 mended by committee of the whole were considered en- 
 grossed and placed on third reading without comment. 
 Committee meetings on bills, too, were early abolished 
 on the last day. The way the measures were acted upon 
 in committee rivalled the performance in the houses; the 
 chairmen of the committees merely took time to sign re- 
 ports and present them to the house or senate. In the 
 senate some senator weakly protested that a committee 
 had not acted upon a bill that had been favorably re- 
 ported. Immediately a motion to dispense with such 
 meetings was made and carried, and then committee ac- 
 tion became an endorsed formality. 
 
 "The steering committee resolved itself into the 
 chairmen of the two sections. They gave up the entirely 
 superfluous work of making reports, and merely wrote 
 the numbers of the bills that they desired acted upon on 
 the blackboards of the house, tossing the bills up to the 
 clerk, who read them in committee of the whole at the 
 order of the chairman as they were reached. It was as 
 good as a show to watch Senators Gallwey( presiding 
 officer) and Edwards (joint committee chairman) work 
 together in this fashion on Thursday night. Edwards 
 would drop a bunch of bills on the clerk's desk, and walk 
 over to the blackboard and write the numbers; Gallwey 
 would glance at the blackboard, picking up the numbers 
 with his eagle eye, and call them off one after another 
 with lightning speed; the clerk would mumble through
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 117 
 
 the title at a ripping- rate, and the bill would be before the 
 senate. Some senator who had caught the number would 
 move that the bill be recommended. Gallwey would put 
 the motion, there would be a grunt, and that bill would 
 be up to third reading. 
 
 "That any of the senators knew what measures were 
 washing through on this stormy tide of meaningless 
 words and numbers, save bills they had been pursuing 
 for personal reasons, and which exclusively occupied 
 them and the perfect horde of lobbyists who filled the 
 aisles, lined the walls, and occupied the seats of members 
 and guests, is quite impossible. Besides, the senate was 
 helpless to change the proceeding and block the work of 
 the bosses. There was an ocean of bills that all knew 
 must be got through to keep the obligations with mem- 
 bers and lobbyists, and any effort to consider these meas- 
 ures soberly would simply leave ninety per cent, unacted 
 upon. 
 
 "In the house in the morning, the situation was per- 
 haps as bad or worse than in the evening, for the cham- 
 ber was more than half deserted ; the members had so 
 many personal irons in the fire which had to be attended 
 to that they could not remain in their seats to consider 
 bills of interest merely to the people of Montana. The 
 result was, that, in committee of the whole, the title of a 
 bill would be read, and somebody would move its re- 
 commendation ; the motion would carry, and that would 
 be all. A dozen times members, suspecting that the bill 
 before the house might be of interest to them in some 
 personal way, would arise and ask for the number or the 
 title again. The motions were carried with half a dozen 
 ayes, and on third reading the absentees would number 
 almost as many as those voting. All around the chamber 
 and gallery comments on the procedure, grins, indignant
 
 118 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 criticisms, and cynical remarks were uttered by astounded 
 and shocked spectators. 
 
 ''Besides the utter lack of sane or decent considera- 
 tion of the final hundred or more bills passed on the final 
 dav and night, the system and process described 
 were also attended by features of another char- 
 acter even more harmful to public interest. All 
 the objectionable bills, all measures that the 
 Amalgamated-Anaconda copper company and Ryan 
 and Morony didn't want, died in committees. The 
 steering committee was a tremendous burying ground. 
 In the best of times it is mighty hard work to force a 
 measure of any kind through the Montana legislature 
 against the opposition of the interests ; this is so well un- 
 derstood that all attempts to advance measures of this 
 kind were given up on the last day by their friends, and 
 these were allowed to perish without a protest. 
 
 'The moral of the case is to be found in the fact that 
 in the process described the legislature of Montana does 
 not enact legislation because it is valuable to the people 
 nor kill bills that are harmful, but makes laws and pre- 
 vents laws to suit the interests." 
 
 This picture was true to life, lacking rather than ex- 
 aggerating in detail. In other chapters devoted to par- 
 ticular enterprises of combine perfection there will be 
 specific examples of legislative, executive, and judicial 
 power diverted from public service to serve corporate in- 
 terests. Mere repetition of instances of these crimes 
 against the state, committed in the name of, and under 
 authority of, state agencies, might serve to tire the reader 
 as well as the criminals. 
 
 The misuse of the executive or administrative depart- 
 ments of government in the service of this foreign cor- 
 poration has been unmistakable and frequent. The term
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 119 
 
 of office of governor of the state covers four years. The 
 Amalgamated Copper Company during the period cov- 
 ering both its conflicts and its supremacy has had to deal 
 with but two men in the office of governor, Joseph K. 
 Toole and Edwin L. Norris. Mr. Toole had served as a 
 delegate of the territory in congress and was the first 
 governor of the new state. Great physically and men- 
 tally, handsome and eloquent, patriotic and outspoken in 
 advocacy of the interests of common people, he acquired 
 a state-wide reputation as "honest Joe Toole" and had 
 become regarded as almost invincible in a campaign 
 where the result depended upon the popular vote. In 
 previous pages he has been quoted with warning against 
 the very dangers of monopoly control now fastened upon 
 the state, and it has been told that a representative of 
 the Amalgamated Company and its allied forces boasted 
 that $80,000 were expended to keep Toole out of a demo- 
 cratic state convention as a delegate from Lewis and 
 Clark county in the early years of Amalgamated enter- 
 prise. The expenditure was extravagant failure, because 
 the same forces, with their unlimited means, were unable 
 to defeat Toole as candidate for governor. Upon con- 
 stitutional grounds he had vetoed one "fair trial bill" 
 pushed through the legislature in early effort to hal x 
 Heinze's misuse of Silver Bow county courts. He was 
 governor in 1903, and broke with Heinze to call the legis- 
 lature in special session when Amalgamated properties 
 were closed down by Judge Clancy's decision ; and he 
 approved the fair trial law enacted at that session. There 
 was justification for this action by Governor Toole in 
 public necessities as well as in the need of the legislation 
 to relieve the state from the judicial lawlesness fostered 
 through exclusive jurisdiction of subordinate judges over 
 questions of fact in equity cases. But Governor Toole
 
 120 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 did not stop with this service mutually beneficial and 
 just to the public and to the Amalgamated Company. He 
 not only became a political favorite and beneficiary of the 
 combine but the tone of his public utterances, the char- 
 acter of his official recommendations, and almost the 
 whole policy of his administration, were subjected to 
 radical change in the "conservative" direction. In 1904 
 he was re-elected as a democrat by a large majority, al- 
 though President Roosevelt carried the state for presi- 
 dent with like handsome endorsement and all the suc- 
 cessful candidates for state offices other than governor 
 and lieutenant governor were on the opposition ticket. 
 This happened notwithstanding that the republican can- 
 didate for governor was Hon. William Lindsay, an old- 
 time citizen, with a long time record of unyielding hon- 
 esty in official life and of courageous warfare against po- 
 litical corruption in the years when the Clark-Daly feud 
 had made it almost universal. Governor Toole had sacri- 
 ficed something of his hold on good opinion by his 
 marked change of attitude towards corporate aggres- 
 sions, but every influence subject to Amalgamated Com- 
 pany direction, without danger of reaction from exposure, 
 was enlisted in support of Mr. Toole ; even to the extreme 
 of election frauds in Butte, of which it is only fair to pre- 
 sume he was ignorant. He resigned the office near the 
 end of the term on the plea of ill health and has not been 
 active in political affairs of the state since that time. His 
 successor was Edwin L. Norris, elected to be lieutenant 
 governor. Governor Norris was like Governor Toole in 
 being a lawyer with a pleasing personality. He was a 
 smaller man both physically and mentally; and he never 
 had been "unsatisfactory" to the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany as a legislator or a candidate. In 1908 Governor 
 Norris was elected to the office directly, on the demo-
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 121 
 
 cratic ticket, while the republicans were permitted to 
 give Mr. Taft a majority of many thousands and to elect 
 every other candidate on their state ticket, the political 
 double dealing of the combine managers being more 
 open and easily traceable in the returns than in 1904. 
 Governor Norris has been radically outspoken for public 
 interests in messages to the legislature and in public ad- 
 dresses. He has been an abject tool of the combine when- 
 ever and wherever they have seemed to need his official 
 action or influence. The chief lobbyist for the copper 
 combine, in a public resort in Helena, has been known to 
 have called the governor to the telephone to give him in- 
 structions. The extreme confidence which the combine 
 managers reposed in the serviceable qualities of this ex- 
 ecutive is at least indicated by the fact that to support and 
 elect him they were willing to trick and betray, in his 
 opponent, Senator Edward Donlan, who, in his 
 legislative career, during the Heinze-Amalgamated 
 fight, had been their faithful and influential supporter. 
 Mr. Donlan had secured the nomination in the republican 
 convention after a vigorous fight, whereby he had de- 
 feated the plans as well as the candidate of Senator Car- 
 ter, at that time the combine's chief representative in 
 the republican party of Montana, as well as at Washing- 
 ton. A few days before election there were whispered 
 communications between some republicans that word 
 had been received from John D. Ryan, head of the com- 
 bine and nominal democrat, that the republicans could 
 have the electoral vote of Montana for Taft and all the 
 other state offices if the company could have its way on 
 the governorship. On election night in Helena, Mr. T. 
 Arthur Marlowe, banker, allied in interests and main- 
 taining intimate relations with combine agencies, a rene- 
 gade democrat since the election of 1904, and treasurer
 
 122 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 of a republican campaign committee in 1908, was in The 
 Helena Record office with other republicans receiving 
 election returns. Bulletin after bulletin came from Butte 
 showing that Taft and Norris, republican for president 
 and democrat for governor, were running closely to- 
 gether in that combine stronghold. As a message was 
 received strongly exhibiting this peculiar discrepancy of 
 political sentiment in Butte, Mr. Marlowe exclaimed : 
 "That shows what the company can do when it tries." 
 Less than four years later Mr. Marlowe was elected to 
 be a member of the republican national committee from 
 Montana and sent as a committeeman to the national con- 
 vention in Chicago to support Taft, both results being ob- 
 tained by political jobbery, bribery, bull-dozing methods 
 and defeat of public sentiment ; which also shows what the 
 company can do when it tries. If these intricacies of 
 treachery and fraud and corruption in combine efforts to 
 determine the selection of executive officers of govern- 
 ment are relevant to show that the same influences and 
 interests control such executives when selected, it is 
 pertinent and proper to mention them here. 
 
 Judicial officers in Montana are supported or op- 
 posed, as candidates for office and as officers in power, 
 by the combine organization with the same influences 
 and the same methods which are used to secure results 
 in other departments of government. There may be up- 
 right judges in the state who owe their position in part 
 to support of combine influences, and whose minds are 
 unbiased and whose decisions are unaffected by consid- 
 eration of corporate political powers ; but there is no 
 upright judge on the bench in that state who will be 
 indebted to such support for a second term if his de- 
 cisions and opinions conflict seriously or frequently with 
 the abundant precedents which in case of doubt or tech-
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 123 
 
 nicality give the corporation the benefit of both. Take 
 the testimony of a lawyer who has been employed both 
 for and against these interests, and who was talking as 
 a candidate for a judicial position to an audience com- 
 posed chiefly of wage-earners employed by these inter- 
 ests in Silver Bow county: 
 
 "Of what benefit is it to you that, if you are injured 
 in the employ of a corporation, you have the right to 
 bring suit and recover. The records of the courts show 
 that the workingman does not prevail in such suits once 
 in twenty-five times If he does prevail, the records of 
 law offices show that he, or his widow or orphans, re- 
 ceives not more than one-half of the amount realized." 
 
 "What does it profit you to be allowed to sue your 
 master for injuries received in his service? Who is 
 your master here in this county? The Amalgamated 
 Copper Company is your master. How many of you 
 has your master killed or injured in the last ten years? 
 About one of you a day. How many suits have you 
 brought against your master for such injuries or deaths? 
 Hundreds. How many verdicts have there been against 
 your master in such suits in ten years? One. Was that 
 verdict paid? No. It was cancelled by the supreme 
 court of Montana. Did Mr. Justice Smith of the su- 
 preme court of Montana restore the lost leg when he 
 wrote the decision cancelling that one verdict? No. 
 Dennis Leary is still walking on one leg. Will the writ- 
 ing of that decision help Mr. Justice Smith to the fed- 
 eral bench when vacancy occurs in this district? Yes, 
 or to any other higher place which the republican party 
 of this state has to give. Was Leary's case reversed 
 because he chose a poor lawyer? No. He had John J. 
 McHatton, the most successful lawyer in the state. 
 
 "And how much will it profit you if you sue a corpor- 
 ation in the federal court, where twelve must agree be-
 
 124 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 fore a verdict and where that twelve is drawn mostly 
 from a class to which the workingman does not belong? 
 It is surprising, doubtless, to the workingman that well- 
 nigh all of the suits between servant and master find 
 their way to the federal courts. The reason is that this 
 court indulges in a presumption which nine times out 
 of ten is absolutely false, but to dispute which that court 
 will not hear evidence of the truth. That court presumes 
 that if a corporation be organized under the laws of New 
 Jersey, its stockholders are citizens of New Jersey. 
 Nor will it hear a workingman in Montana, a plaintiff, 
 testify to the fact that all of the stockholders of that 
 New Jersey corporation are residents and citizens of 
 Montana. That court will not hear the workingman in 
 such a suit testify that all of the property and all of the 
 franchises and all of the operations of that corporation 
 are in Montana, and that the only thing that that New 
 Jersey corporation has in New Jersey is a charter and 
 stock book and the dummy director. 
 
 "Of what benefit is the right to sue and the right to 
 recover when it is physically impossible that any re- 
 covery is had in one case out of twenty-five? It is but 
 a bribe and a bait to tell the workingman that he will 
 receive any benefit whatsoever from the enactment or 
 the enforcement of safety appliance laws. He should 
 insist on that law which every civilized nation on earth 
 has adopted, with the exception of the United States, 
 and that is, that the business carried on should take 
 care of its cripples and its orphans ; that the traffic should 
 be made to pay, in addition to its millions of dividends 
 on watered stock, a fair price for the labor power it 
 inevitably takes from such as have naught else to sell.
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 125 
 
 "Theodore Roosevelt proposed this law for the ben- 
 efit of the workingman in his speech at Yorktown two 
 years ago. He said, 'that the master's insurance of the 
 workingman was only just.' This statement marked 
 the downfall of his popularity with the leaders of his 
 party." 
 
 The unmistakable exercise of controlling power over 
 government agencies is demonstrated by such a record 
 of results. Use of this power was not confined to the 
 determination of issues of large importance. It was 
 exercised in minor affairs wherever monopoly profits 
 could be enhanced in the slightest degree, or whenever 
 it could be utilized to extend and perfect the power 
 itself. 
 
 It has been mentioned how great advantage in pol- 
 itics and legislation was secured by maintaining a mani- 
 festly unfair legislative apportionment of the state with 
 excess of representation in the mining and industrial 
 district where corporation power was concentrated. 
 Under the scheme of representation each county is en- 
 titled to one state senator and at least one member of 
 the house of representatives. Agricultural development 
 of the state has been rapid in recent years, with large 
 increase of population in territory previously used as 
 ranges for cattle and sheep on the public domain. In 
 this territory there were counties with area greater than 
 that of any one of a number of states, and their settle- 
 ment created conditions whereby citizens were com- 
 pelled to travel hundreds of miles, with large expense 
 of transportation and loss of time, to reach the county 
 seat. Until the year 1911 all county divisions were made 
 by the legislature. To create new counties in agricul- 
 tural sections was to increase legislative representation 
 for citizens independent of corporate influence to a great
 
 126 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 extent. Notwithstanding apparent needs and frequent 
 demands, only three counties were created after Amal- 
 gamated supremacy, prior to the enactment of a law in 
 1911 which made it possible, although very difficult, for 
 the people of a county to divide its territory without 
 special legislative action. Two of these counties, Lin- 
 coln and Sanders, were located in the mountainous tim- 
 bered sections of western Montana where the Amalga- 
 mated Company and its allied interests owned the greater 
 part of the land and timber not held by the government 
 in forest reserve, and where the larger part of the pop- 
 ulation was employed in lumber operations of the cor- 
 poration or its customers. The third, and the only 
 new county in the vast agricultural region, was Mus- 
 selshell, where the chief town and county seat of Round- 
 up had for its industry the operation of extensive coal 
 mines owned by the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget 
 Sound Railway Company, which in turn was owned by 
 the same interests in control of the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany and managed, in part at least, by the same direc- 
 tors. The extension of this railway through the state 
 afforded other examples of corporation care over politi- 
 cal affairs. The principal shops of the company in Mon- 
 tana were located in Powell county, hostile to the cop- 
 per corporation by reason of extensive and unliquidated 
 damages to agriculture and livestock from smelter 
 fumes. This colonizing of railway employees in the 
 city of Deer Lodge gave to the corporate interests con- 
 trolling power in elections in Powell county. Similar 
 enterprise and generous consideration to Miles City 
 gave to the same interests a large influence in an im- 
 portant county in the eastern part of the state, which in 
 earlier times had been derisively designated by corporate 
 politicians and lobbyists as the cow country.
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 127 
 
 It is difficult to decide how many and what illustra- 
 tions of this combine use of governmental functions are 
 desirable or necessary to inform readers, in the presence 
 of plainly apparent conditions and results which show 
 conclusively that almost all exercise of governmental 
 powers in all branches is tainted with corporate influ- 
 ence and activity. Lavish promises in party platforms 
 and by party candidates for laws and policies, both in 
 the general public interest and for relief of specific 
 wrongs and hardships against wage-earners, were ignored 
 in legislative and executive action or openly violated in 
 disregard of public protest by labor organizations and 
 citizens. Through four successive biennial sessions of 
 the legislature, action to fulfil promises made by both 
 parties for a primary election law was defeated by shame- 
 ful jobbery and jugglery. In every session some pre- 
 tense of performance was made to save the political lives 
 of recreant members by deceiving the voters. In place 
 of legislation to improve unsanitary conditions in the 
 deep Butte mines and to give better protection to miners 
 against death or injury by accidents, a legislative com- 
 mittee, satisfactory to the corporation, was appointed to 
 investigate, was sent to Butte, was entertained by offi- 
 cers and lobbyists of the company in lavish style, and, 
 after a visit so brief as scarcely to qualify the committee- 
 men intelligently to distinguish between a hoist and a 
 dump, this committee returned an elaborate report ex- 
 onerating the corporation from fault or responsibility in 
 existing evils whereby the death rate in Butte mines 
 annually was proportionally greater than for the entire 
 city of Butte from other causes, to say nothing of the 
 hundreds of cripples, and the still greater number of men 
 whose health was destroyed by unsanitary conditions 
 preventable by reasonable expenditure.
 
 128 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 In like fashion and with similar result there was a 
 pretense of legislative investigation of the coal trust in 
 Montana during the session of 1907. Besides mining 
 coal in Wyoming, in the Bear Creek district, and at 
 Roundup in Montana, for use in mines and smelters and 
 on its railways, this Wall Street aggregation has retail 
 yards and sells coal from all these fields to the public 
 for domestic uses. Although there are great coal fields 
 in much the larger part of Montana's vast area, and de- 
 veloped mines under private ownership within from two 
 to five hundred miles of the chief centers of population, 
 the price of bituminous coal for domestic uses is main- 
 tained at so high a figure and with so much uniformity 
 of retail value as to amount to a demonstration of the 
 existence of a combination in restraint of trade, and to 
 fix prices which in 1907 were at times ranging about 
 nine dollars per ton for mine run of soft coal. The 
 special legislative committee held solemn sessions, took 
 voluminous testimony largely from agents or beneficia- 
 ries of the conspiracy — and nothing came of it. 
 
 If there be doubt in any minds respecting the re- 
 sponsibility of the Napoleons in Wall Street for these 
 governmental abuses in Montana, it may be removed by 
 consideration of the actual conduct of one of the big 
 men engaged in little business of government in the 
 treasure state. In the spring of 1907, in the city of Ana- 
 conda, a spirited contest was started preliminary to the 
 election of members of the city school board. The ex- 
 citement hinged upon the question of church influence 
 in the public schools, stimulated by the retirement of 
 an efficient and popular man at the head of the schools 
 and the selection of an educator with qualifications for 
 the work, but who was known to have been indebted 
 to Butte influences and other considerations for his em-
 
 GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS OF A COMBINE 129 
 
 ployment. As election day approached the awakened 
 prejudices became very strong and a menace to the 
 harmonious control of the town by the corporate influ- 
 ences. Mr. John D. Ryan, managing director, came on 
 from New York and was advised that appeal had been 
 made for Butte influence in the contest. He went to 
 Anaconda, and with threats of loss of employment with 
 the company to all directly concerned in the rival can- 
 didacies, he compelled all of the candidates on both sides 
 to agree not to serve if elected. With like power of au- 
 thority he secured from the county superintendent of 
 schools, who was by law vested with the power of filling 
 vacancies on the school board, an agreement to appoint 
 as members of the board the persons named on a list 
 furnished by himself. This arrangement was carried 
 out to the last detail, and the public schools of Anaconda 
 were placed under the management of a man selected 
 in Butte in a way dictated by the gentleman from New 
 York. However much people may differ respecting the 
 necessity or wisdom of such heroic means to settle a local 
 school controversy, they must agree that the action taken 
 furnishes something more than circumstantial evi- 
 dence of the power of the Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany, through its organization and agents, to exercise 
 some functions of government in Montana.
 
 How Lawmakers, Governors and Lesser 
 Officials are Chosen and Confirmed 
 
 Public office in Montana being one of the most valu- 
 able assets of a private trust, the selection of public 
 officials is one of the most important duties of the cor- 
 porate boss employed by the American kings of wealth 
 to direct affairs in that commonwealth. The party boss, 
 against whom the people in many states have cam- 
 paigned regularly and with only partial success for a 
 score or more of years, in Montana has become a mere 
 servile tool of the more perfect organization of the cor- 
 porate combine. The amalgamation of political influ- 
 ences within the state has been more complete than that 
 of copper mining industries. When Mr. John G. 
 Morony invited public confidence and good will by pro- 
 claiming that the company had determined to "keep out 
 of politics" he would have been concisely truthful if he 
 had but added "and to keep politics in the company". 
 This comprehensive combine, in the Butte vernacular, 
 "swallowed the works" in the political field just as it 
 did in the industrial and financial and speculative fields. 
 It has no declared candidates of its own, but it gen- 
 erously selects and elects or defeats candidates for all 
 parties. 
 
 Nominally, President John D. Ryan is a partisan 
 democrat. So was Mr. John G. Morony when manag- 
 ing director. So is Mr. "Con." F. Kelly who succeeded 
 him. Mr. E. P. Mathewson, general manager of the 
 great smelters and almost everything else in Anaconda, 
 
 [131]
 
 132 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 is the same kind of a republican. So is Mr. C. H. Good- 
 ale, who has charge of Great Falls smelters and some 
 mining operations in Butte. Mr. John Gillie, general 
 superintendent of the company, democrat; Mr. L. O. 
 Evans, head of the combine legal department, republi- 
 can; Mr. Harry Gallwey, manager of the combine rail- 
 way company, democrat; Mr. Charles Schwartz, com- 
 pany tax commissioner, republican ; Mr. John R. Toole, 
 head of the great lumber department, democrat. Thus 
 it runs to the most humble position of employment in 
 all the constituent, subsidiary or subsidized interests — 
 just as it might be if the combine was, in practice as in 
 pretense, "out of politics". But each and all of the 
 gentlemen named, and almost all of the thousands un- 
 named, actively participate in political primaries, in 
 conventions, at elections, or as lobbyists; regardless of 
 party policies, or promises, or interests, and with as 
 strict devotion to the wishes of their superiors and the 
 lawless purpose of the combine as they do in their re- 
 spective positions in the industrial organization of the 
 company. Mr. Ryan supported Mr. Roosevelt in 1904, 
 and Mr. Taft in 1908 and thus far in 1912, with all avail- 
 able influences in Montana. Morony and Kelly and 
 Mathewson and Goodale and Gallwey and Toole and 
 Schwartz and Ryan, et al., worked in their respective 
 parties, in or out of convention in their various ways, 
 to the same end held in view by the New York managers 
 on every occasion. Of course the press of the state, 
 controlled by the same influences, edited by the same 
 sort of nominal partisans, is directed with regard to the 
 one desired result. It is impossible that intelligent citi- 
 zens, awakened to and alarmed by the menaces to free 
 government involved in the encroachments on power by 
 party bosses, can have much doubt about the influences
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 133 
 
 which rule politics in Montana with a situation existing 
 as described. It may serve to enlarge their understand- 
 ing of and to extend their interest in public affairs to 
 learn something in detail of the ways and means em- 
 ployed in the selection and election of presidential elec- 
 tors, of United States senators, and members of congress, 
 governors, state legislators, tax officers, and coroners, in 
 a great state, when and where a Wall Street oligarchy 
 becomes interested and organized for business. 
 
 There never has been a political campaign in Mon- 
 tana since the Amalgamated Copper Company was or- 
 ganized which the New York bosses have not attempted 
 to direct to a result, with profit to themselves at the 
 public expense. The combine's first substantial victory 
 in Silver Bow county and in the state came in 1904. In 
 1908 it had found relief from formidable competitors in 
 industry and stock-jobbing within the state, had dem- 
 onstrated its overreaching power to an extent sufficient 
 to convince most political leaders in all parties, and was 
 seeking new resources for exploitation by new powers 
 and special privileges obtainable only through new laws 
 in Montana and through immunity from honest prose- 
 cution for lawlessness by the administrative and execu- 
 tive departments of government, both state and national. 
 Your "malefactor of great wealth" appreciates the verity 
 in the rule that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" 
 for habitual criminals, however it may apply to good 
 citizens. Honest men in office and publicity of their 
 own crooked purposes are two pet aversions of self- 
 respecting managers of criminal combines. It has been 
 shown in a previous chapter how they safe-guarded 
 themselves against one of these dangers, by control or 
 direction of the public press of the state. Their ample 
 precautions to avoid the menace of honest men in public
 
 134 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 office will be told of now with some of the more im- 
 portant facts in a few of the most conspicuous instances. 
 It should be kept in mind that conditions had been 
 obtained in Montana wherefrom it was evident to all 
 intelligent party leaders that success was improbable, if 
 not utterly impossible, for any ambitious man without 
 the consent, if not the support, of the corporation man- 
 agement. At the same time public prejudice against 
 corporate influence in politics was one of Heinze's assets 
 which he could not transfer with his other properties 
 when he sold out to the Amalgamated company. In 
 general terms, party platforms promised freedom from 
 these influences and party orators declaimed against the 
 dangers of them in the event of victory to the opposi- 
 tion party. To still this prejudice, as well as to avoid 
 new or unnecessary friction, corporate agencies were 
 shrewdly employed to utilize the popularity of capable 
 men and to applaud patriotism and public spirit when- 
 ever it could be exercised without injury to combine in- 
 terests or obstruction to combine plans. It was the un- 
 written law of the combine code that "an honest man 
 is one who will stay bought", and that treason deserving 
 punishment consisted solely in service to the public in- 
 terests where it conflicted with service to the combine 
 interests. During the years of the Heinze-Amalgamated 
 conflicts, when all departments of government were so 
 constantly in demand and so much employed, almost 
 every man in public position was of necessity on one 
 side or the other, more or less conspicuously. In later 
 years, when men with some conscience or some regard 
 for their constituents have opposed combine plan with 
 official vote or argument, it has been the sport of the 
 combine lobbyists and organs to condemn such men in 
 public opinion by recalling their past services to the
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 135 
 
 company and the company support of their candidacies 
 as proof that they were unscrupulous tools of these in- 
 terests and indebted to the combine for their place and 
 power; even when such services were given in the public 
 interests to defeat other pirates and when their personal 
 popularity had been an aid to the corporate managers 
 in efforts to better their own reputations in public opin- 
 ion. There have been other cases, frequent enough to 
 afford constant example to aspiring statesmen, where 
 refusal to serve in lawless undertaking has been pun- 
 ished by excommunication with the combine lobbyists 
 and by the awful solemn curse of "Johnny" Morony's 
 life-long opposition as a handicap in future political 
 races. Under these circumstances, within the environ- 
 ment of these influences, it is plain enough how good 
 men could have been defeated with ridicule or slander, 
 and how corrupt tools of the special interests have 
 served their masters with fidelity while beguiling their 
 constituents with profuse promises and with fine phrases 
 in affected devotion to right principles and patriotic 
 public policies. It is plain, also, why men of good public 
 character and reputation and without corrupt purpose 
 have been known to visit Butte to learn from head- 
 quarters if their candidacy would be satisfactory to the 
 combine managers prior to announcing it to the public. 
 This last practice explains in part how it could happen 
 that two faithful servants of the interests like Governor 
 Edwin L. Norris and State Senator Edward Donlan 
 were permitted to oppose each other for the same office, 
 with campaign funds for both derived from combine 
 sources, and Donlan learned too late that his chances 
 for success had been disposed of in a swap of combine 
 democratic support of Taft for combine republican sup- 
 port of Norris, all without loss of Donlan's support of
 
 136 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 combine lawlessness as a senate leader in the succeeding 
 legislative session. By this result the corporation man- 
 agers served another purpose in continuing the system 
 whereby they divided the public patronage between 
 members of both parties and maintained in both party 
 organizations influential agents of their own, at the 
 public expense. 
 
 Candidates for the more important political offices 
 usually are selected by the corporate bosses long in ad- 
 vance of convention season, and the public is coached 
 into acceptance and support of them by puffery in the 
 press and with adroit campaigning by ubiquitous lobby- 
 ists. In 1904 the fight with Heinze was still in progress. 
 Amalgamated influences were still limited, and were 
 concentrated in support of "satisfactory" candidates for 
 the bench in Silver Bow county, of Mr. Chief Justice 
 Brantly for reelection to the supreme court of the state, 
 and the reelection of Governor Toole, who had deserted 
 Heinze to serve the Amalgamated Company and the 
 public together in the preceding year. Even in that 
 campaign there was begun the system of discouraging 
 honest men, and honest opposition to company purposes, 
 which has become the common practice of more recent 
 times. The combine representatives in the Republican 
 state convention, directed by L. O. Evans of the com- 
 pany "legal" department, made strong but futile en- 
 deavor to prevent the nomination of Mr. William Lind- 
 say for the office of governor. Mr. Lindsay was an early 
 day settler in eastern Montana, and had become a sheep- 
 grower on an extensive scale. He acquired prominence 
 in his party and a strong hold on public confidence as a 
 legislator by mercilessly flaying his fellow-partisans who 
 sold their votes in the Clark-Daly contest. In 1902 he 
 was chairman of the State central committee of his party.
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 137 
 
 That he was the popular choice, for the office of gov- 
 ernor, within the party two years later was demon- 
 strated when he secured the nomination in the conven- 
 tion despite the opposition of the corporate interests. 
 Notwithstanding this combine opposition in convention, 
 and the fact that it was followed by a campaign of mis- 
 representation and ridicule after the convention, Mr. 
 Lindsay subordinated his ambition to his integrity and 
 self-respect and rejected proffers of support from the 
 Heinze forces which might have insured his election, 
 and which were conditioned solely upon his promise to 
 give Heinze preference above the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany in matters which concerned the corporations more 
 than the public, he insisting that he would make no 
 promise to abridge his freedom as an official to determine 
 every action on the merits of the question involved when 
 the time came for action. Amalgamated support of Mr. 
 Roosevelt that year was designed to help Amalgamated 
 candidates within the state. By reason of his personal 
 acquaintance and experience as a ranchman, as well as 
 those reasons which gave him strength elsewhere, Mr. 
 Roosevelt was extremely popular throughout Montana, 
 while his antagonist was worse than weak. There were 
 election frauds in Butte by wholesale, and a recount of 
 ballots in a local contest in Silver Bow county showed 
 that great numbers of ballots had been marked appar- 
 ently by one person with one pencil, and these marked 
 only for four candidates, of the many on the great 
 blanket ticket, in whom the Amalgamated combine was 
 chiefly interested. Without these ballots the fact that 
 the company supported Roosevelt the republican, for 
 president, and Toole the democrat, for governor, would 
 easily account for the election of both so far as the state 
 of Montana was concerned, regardless of the relative
 
 138 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 strength or weakness of the defeated candidates. Four 
 years later this defeat of Mr. Lindsay was revived by 
 Amalgamated organs as an evidence of his weakness as 
 a candidate. Other combine agencies brought out a 
 number of convention candidates "satisfactory to the 
 company", and Mr. Lindsay, with practical certainty of 
 the nomination if he would stand for it, declined to per- 
 mit the use of his name. Thus the combine was assured 
 against the danger of an honest man in the office of gov- 
 ernor of Montana until the year 1913 at least. 
 
 The experience of United States Senator Joseph M. 
 Dixon illustrates the active ingratitude for services per- 
 formed to themselves and active resentment of services 
 performed for the public, as well as the constant fear of 
 honest official action, in the minds of Amalgamated man- 
 agers. Mr. Dixon was a young attorney in Missoula 
 when he was brought into the maelstrom of Montana 
 politics as a member of the legislature. The Heinze- 
 Amalgamated fight was on and his influence was exerted 
 against Heinze and his methods. Dixon was clean in 
 professional and in private life, and this fact alone might 
 easily have determined his course at that time. In 1902 
 he was elected to congress and reelected in 1904. There 
 is no doubt that in these campaigns he was supported 
 by Amalgamated influences, just as every successful 
 candidate was supported who was opposed by Heinze 
 or opposed to Heinze, nor is there doubt that Mr. Dixon 
 rewarded this support by favoring the Amalgamated 
 Company as against Heinze in matters in which both 
 were interested. In 1907 Mr. Dixon was elected to the 
 senate, making his campaign for the office the year pre- 
 viously, and surrendering all claim to consideration as 
 a candidate for reelection to the house. In 1909 Mr. 
 Dixon became interested in railway rate discriminations
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 139 
 
 through irrefutable evidence that the people of Montana 
 were being grossly overcharged for transportation ser- 
 vices, as compared with charges for greater services to 
 states farther west. He supported vigorously and ef- 
 fectively the amendment to the Interstate Commerce 
 law prohibiting higher charges for a short than for a 
 long haul over the same line in the same direction, a 
 bit of legislation which has proven of very great benefit 
 to the people of Montana in meeting competition as well 
 as in saving extortionate freight charges. The Wall 
 Street interests which operate in mining, and politics, 
 and other leading industries of Montana, also operate 
 the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, which 
 runs through Montana, as well as other important 
 transportation systems. As soon as the managers of 
 these interests became convinced that they could not 
 operate Mr. Dixon as United States senator, he became 
 "unsatisfactory" to Ryan, and Morony, and Kelly, and 
 Lanstrum, and Marlowe, and Durston, and all other 
 democrats, near-democrats and ex-democrats, together 
 with most republicans who took their political orders 
 and nourishment from the copper combine. Persistent 
 refusal by Dixon to serve these special interests, re- 
 gardless of the rights of his constituents, was followed 
 by loss of President Taft's confidence in Mr. Dixon's 
 judgment, so that the senator's recommendations relat- 
 ing to patronage and things of that kind came to be re- 
 jected or unconsidered. By 1910 Senator Dixon was an 
 insurgent in good standing among the insurgents in the 
 United States senate, and in bad standing with the rep- 
 resentatives of special interests in that body and in Mon- 
 tana. The democratic press of the state, subject to com- 
 bine influence, commenced warfare upon Dixon in real 
 seriousness. The republican press of the state, subject
 
 140 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 to the same influence, commenced to ignore or misrep- 
 resent him. In Missoula Mr. Dixon owned the only- 
 daily paper, and when he became progressive the policy 
 of the paper naturally harmonized with his arguments 
 and beliefs. A new daily paper was established in Mis- 
 soula, at great expense, and a former editorial employee 
 of Heinze eventually was put in charge to discredit Mr. 
 Dixon in his home bailiwick. After Dixon announced 
 his support of the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt for the 
 presidency in 1912, and was chosen by Mr. Roosevelt 
 to be manager of his campaign, the perfected copper 
 combine bi-partisan organization was enlisted or or- 
 dered into line with the Taft forces in Montana, and a 
 delegation favorable to Taft was sent to the Chicago 
 convention in June, by methods with which Montana has 
 become familiar through her long experience with rich 
 men's feuds, copper combine wars, and corrupt control 
 of the state by and for special interests. The declared 
 purpose of the combine agents in this combat, as appears 
 by sworn testimony, was to "get Joe Dixon". The 
 fight which has been conducted from ambush for more 
 than two years has been forced into the open by Dixon 
 and his friends. Senator Dixon's whole offense consisted 
 of conspicuous public service of substantial value to 
 every state in the union with incidental loss to lawless 
 combines through public regulation of a public utility. 
 
 The fickle fealty of combine management to political 
 parties and to individual helpers, as well as its prompt 
 punishment of the most trivial insubordination shown 
 by its political servants, was displayed with variations 
 in its relations to the late Thomas H. Carter. In the 
 early years of the state, when a young man, Mr. Carter 
 as leader of a forlorn hope for his party was made a 
 member of congress as the beneficiary of Mr. Daly's
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 141 
 
 antipathy to Mr. Clark. Mr. Carter was a prize pupil 
 in the school of party machine politics and became a 
 national figure in the republican party long before the 
 Amalgamated Copper Company was conceived. He had 
 filled important offices in the national party organization 
 and served a term in the United States senate. He com- 
 bined, with the arts of a consummate politician, much 
 skill as a popular orator, tireless energy, and charms of 
 personality and good fellowship which fascinated friends 
 and dulled enmities. His service to special interests 
 throughout his long political career was unmistakable 
 and substantial, and eventually caused the loss of public 
 confidence which brought him to humiliating defeat by 
 the people of Montana in 1910, at a time when he and 
 the corporate interests allied in support of him appeared 
 more strongly entrenched than ever before and were in 
 command of practically all organized power in the state, 
 corporate or political. But tor almost a quarter cen- 
 tury Mr. Carter maintained his rank as the most adroit, 
 resourceful and successful politician in Montana, where 
 proficiency in the game was a common talent. In the 
 first years of its existence, when the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany was compelled to fight for the mere right to exist in 
 Montana, the able politicians exercised the rights of the 
 boss. Mr. Carter early became connected with Amal- 
 gamated interests and services were mutual ; but action 
 which involved serious menace to party, which was his 
 source of strength, sometimes caused him to pause and 
 avoid or evade proceedings sought by the corporations. 
 Party lines had not been obliterated at that time, even 
 in the corporate organization, and bitterness and rival- 
 ries born of factional and feudal contests were alive and 
 active. Mr. Carter knew men and influences in the state 
 better than the invaders did, and his cheerful disposition,
 
 142 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 as well as other qualities, made political suicide repug- 
 nant to him. He could be convincingly frank and 
 courageous on occasion, as when he was credited with 
 having refused an appointment to provide for a non- 
 descript politician, who had influential connections and 
 strong endorsements, for the given reason that the ap- 
 plicant "when he is drunk is irresponsible and when he 
 is sober is a blank fool". But the man, whose suave man- 
 ners and subtle ways in harmonizing differences earned 
 him distinction as "the Bishop of the flock" of stand- 
 patters in the United States senate in insurgent times, 
 was not a victim to blind obedience to anybody's orders. 
 Not until long after it happened, the Amalgamated man- 
 agement was informed that the refusal of the legislature 
 to impeach a Heinze judge was attributable to the de- 
 cision of a secret conference between Mr. Carter and 
 other republican leaders, reached in careful considera- 
 tion of party interests. In consequence, envious, covet- 
 ous and ambitious employees of the corporation were 
 heard in New York, and Mr. Carter soon learned that 
 consideration of combine interests had determined that 
 he would best serve in private life. For obvious reasons 
 he had become a conspicuous object of attack for the 
 Heinze people. To his political abilities, the fidelity of 
 influential individual friends, and the fears, rather than 
 the support, of all the corporate copper operators, Mr. 
 Carter was indebted for his return to the United States 
 senate in 1905. Amalgamated influences were exerted 
 in opposition through conspiracy, and with an alleged in- 
 dependent organization of a few republican legislators 
 led by O. M. Lanstrum, but these were offset and finally 
 whipped into line with the certainty that the Heinze 
 contingent of legislators from Silver Bow county, elected 
 as "anti-trust" representatives, would give Carter their
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 143 
 
 votes and his victory on a given date. The combine 
 forces were backed up and the combine lobbyists were 
 sent to share in Carter's hospitality and to congratulate 
 him upon his victory. The following three years an 
 armed neutrality was maintained between Senator 
 Carter and the copper combine managers in Montana, 
 with understanding on both sides that Mr. Carter had 
 some punishment coming as soon as the combine man- 
 agers could find ability and opportunity to inflict it. 
 
 In 1907 Mr. Carter discussed with some of his friends 
 the advisability, as well as the apparent necessity, of 
 making an open fight against the corporate organization 
 with a direct appeal to the people. With the elimination 
 of Heinze and the extending interests and powers of 
 the combine as object lessons, and possibly influenced 
 somewhat by appreciation of the probability of loss of 
 support from railway and other corporate influence in 
 such a contest, he hesitated. Finally he chose the more 
 familiar and easier compromise route to success. Within 
 a year his friendly relations with the eastern end of the 
 copper combine were re-established, and by his interfer- 
 ence, through the legal department of the government at 
 Washington, with litigation against the copper combine 
 in Montana, he performed such service to those inter- 
 ests that the underlords in Montana were impelled if not 
 compelled to become his zealous friends and supporters 
 regardless of past differences or party affiliations. In 
 the senate he had become the right-hand man of Aldrich 
 and a trusted representative of President Taft. The 
 power of patronage, from government and corporation 
 alike in Montana, were subject to his command. Press 
 bureaus in Washington provided lavish praise of his 
 public services and official renown to the combine press 
 in Montana. When the political campaign of 1910
 
 144 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 opened formally, conventions of both parties were ma- 
 nipulated in his interest with the aid of combine influ- 
 ence. Some independent candidacies were created where 
 deemed to his advantage. He had determined two years 
 before to appeal to the combine rather than the public. 
 He had obtained everything available which he went 
 after. All the bosses, all the organs, all the big corpor- 
 ations, all the beneficiaries of or seekers for patronage 
 who trusted to power were for him. His support was 
 too strong, his policy too plain, his corporate henchmen 
 too zealous, his indifference towards the people too 
 obvious. This one indifference in so much distinguished 
 consideration became conspicuous. It was realized and 
 rebuked at the polls. 
 
 In all the campaigns of Montana history there never 
 before was such glaring use and abuse of corporate 
 power in the selection and election of candidates as was 
 exercised in the contest of 1910. Combine control of po- 
 litical agencies and influences appeared complete. New 
 legislation secured in 1909 had given the interests new 
 corporate powers and new influences. Some of the 
 managers were intoxicated by success, and some by ex- 
 cess with more plebeian stimulant. Beyond the desire 
 to re-elect Carter there was incentive for activity in op- 
 portunity to defeat a rival, with preeminent ability and 
 qualifications, who had not only retained but exhibited 
 independence of combine influence. Mr. T. J. Walsh of 
 Helena, despite corporate opposition, had attained lead- 
 ership in the democratic party organization and had 
 developed such popular strength as to make him the 
 strongest candidate against Carter for a seat in the sen- 
 ate. He was not only a progressive democrat in advo- 
 cacy of principles and policies, but an aggressive advo- 
 cate in court who had refused an annual retainer from
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 145 
 
 the copper combine and successfully prosecuted actions 
 for individuals against corporations. The work of se- 
 lecting legislative candidates in republican counties who 
 would be for Carter and the combine, and of choosing 
 democratic candidates in democratic counties who would 
 be for the combine and against Walsh, with subsequent 
 efforts to elect republican legislators from democratic 
 counties and Carter legislators from republican counties, 
 involved a task not too intricate for the political mind 
 of the corporate organization with the managerial abil- 
 ities of Managing Director Morony. Incident to this, 
 there was the amusing diversion of vindicating corpor- 
 ate power and feeding the Morony grudge by attempting 
 defeat of a number of legislative candidates who had in- 
 curred the supreme wrath in Montana by foolhardy op- 
 position to legislation wanted by Ryan and Morony from 
 the last legislature. There were some unforeseen con- 
 tingencies and partial failure. But it is due to Mr. 
 Morony and the interests which he represented to note 
 that no results were attributable to neglect of the com- 
 bine interests in efforts to select and elect all the public 
 servants necessary to the enterprise undertaken. 
 
 In Deer Lodge county, which under normal condi- 
 tions would be strongly democratic, a solid delegation 
 of seven lawmakers, representing a total population of 
 12,988 people by the census of that year, was elected on 
 the republican ticket to vote, as they did, for Mr. Carter. 
 Here was a county wherein almost everybody is depend- 
 ent upon combine employment for existence, and where 
 the boss power is not only absolute but mercilessly ex- 
 erted. In this campaign prominent democrats employed 
 by the company, like Mr. Martin Martin, secretary to 
 General Manager Mathewson, worked openly and faith- 
 fully for the republican aspirants. It must be admitted
 
 146 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 that, by the power of dishonest representation and legis- 
 lative apportionment, here was a fine start for Mr. 
 Carter, made by Mr. Morony, as compared with one 
 vote lost to Mr. Carter through the revolt of the people 
 of the agricultural county of Yellowstone, ordinarily 
 overwhelmingly republican, and where a population of 
 22,944 people had a representation of only one senator 
 and one representative under the legislative apportion- 
 ment then in force. The combine forces scored again 
 when Jefferson county, with a population of 5,601 
 people in 1910, and with a customarily safe democratic 
 majority, was able to send three out of a possible four 
 of its representation to support Carter, as an offset to 
 the slump in the banner republican "cow county" of the 
 state, Dawson, which had a population of 12,725 and was 
 able to rebuke Carter with only one vote lost by elect-, 
 ing a democrat as its sole house representative under the 
 unequal apportionment. There was combine triumph in 
 double measure at Butte, which is practically all of Silver 
 Bow county. The county has twelve representatives and 
 one senator, and a normal republican vote in general 
 elections of from 3,000 to 5,000 out of a possible 12,000. 
 Here the combine managed to elect one republican rep- 
 resentative for Carter, together with that half-dozen 
 servile tools or employees of the Amalgamated Company, 
 as democrats, who furnished the vote in a democratic 
 legislature to create a dead-lock and prevent the election 
 of Mr. Walsh. In Cascade county, where the combine 
 interests own smelters, and water power plants, and 
 townsite company, and hotel and banking business, there 
 also was comfort for the combine managers in repub- 
 lican gains. 
 
 With holdover senators. Carter republicans and cor- 
 poration democrats, Wall Street directors retained con-
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 147 
 
 trol of the Montana legislature and defeated Mr. Walsh. 
 The citizens of Montana defeated Mr. Carter and gained 
 new confidence in the power of the ballot. The attempt 
 to discipline men for political independence in official 
 action was vigorous but not successful. In Madison 
 county Mr. M. M. Duncan, who, as a representative in 
 1909, refused the request of Lobbyist Fred Whitesides 
 to introduce a bill for an act increasing corporate powers 
 in the state, for the given reason that the scheme was 
 "too dirty", notwithstanding assurance that "Ryan and 
 Morony want it," became a candidate for the state sen- 
 ate. Mr. Morony visited Madison county in person to 
 issue his ukase against the election of Duncan, but 
 Duncan was elected. 
 
 In Carbon county, where the combine has important 
 coal mining interests, Mr. W. F. Meyer was a member 
 of the state senate. In the Heinze-Amalgamated con- 
 flicts, Mr. Myer had been an efficient supporter of the 
 Amalgamated Company, like the majority of republi- 
 cans at that time. In the session of 1909 he talked and 
 voted in the senate against the dangers in the bill in- 
 creasing the rights and powers of the Amalgamated cor- 
 porations within the state. In return Mr. Morony, at a 
 Helena hotel, gave assurance to Mr. Meyer that he 
 would camp on Meyer's political trail as long as he lived. 
 In the campaign of 1910, Senator Meyer devoted much 
 of his time to support of the candidacy in Carbon county 
 of Mr. John N. Tolman, a progressive and avowed anti- 
 Carter republican. Mr. Tolman was elected, defeating 
 for re-election Representative Pierson, an attorney for 
 the combine interests in Carbon county and a cheerful 
 supporter of combine measures and methods in the leg- 
 islature. Senator Meyer and Representative Tolman 
 were able, with the co-operation of a few other republi-
 
 148 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 cans, to prevent the possibility of the election of Carter 
 with the votes of the Amalgamated "democrats" from 
 Silver Bow county — a plan of action so much discussed 
 and known that it was predicted in press dispatches sent 
 from Butte and printed in metropolitan papers in Wash- 
 ington and elsewhere early in the legislative session. 
 Doubtless the corporation interests might have procured 
 such a result but for the certainty that republicans like 
 Mr. Meyer would not tolerate it and that the majority 
 of the democrats would send protest to Washington 
 likely to furnish a repetition of the Lorimer case, at that 
 time in full light of first public exposure. In Fergus 
 county, reliably republican as a rule, the anti-Carter- 
 combine sentiment became so evident in the campaign 
 that word was sent from combine headquarters that Mr. 
 Thomas Stout, a democratic candidate for the senate and 
 a Walsh man, must be defeated. An edict was issued 
 to employees of the "Milwaukee" railway company to 
 promote the end desired. Mr. Stout was elected by a 
 handsome majority after an open fight against the bosses. 
 With him went another vote against Carter from this 
 republican agricultural county in the election of one 
 democratic representative to the house. 
 
 When the legislature met in 1911 and a vote for sen- 
 ator was taken Mr. Walsh had a clear majority of the 
 votes of the majority party on joint ballot. He was de- 
 feated because a dead-lock was created by the refusal 
 of ten democrats to sign the call for a party caucus or an 
 agreement to be governed by its actions. On party lines 
 the legislative forces were divided with 53 democrats 
 and 49 republicans on joint ballot. Of the democrats 
 who refused to sign the caucus call, eight were from 
 Silver Bow county and all were mere servants of the 
 combine interests. Representative Roy S. Alley, sec-
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 149 
 
 retary and confidential man for President John D. Ryan 
 was one, and another was Senator Harry Gallwey, for 
 years a mine manager for the company and a trusted 
 political lobbyist at Helena before he was elected to the 
 senate. The dead-lock was prolonged till late in the last 
 day of the session, with apparent purpose either to create 
 a situation whereby Mr. Carter could be "put across" 
 or to compel adjournment without election and postpone 
 action till the campaign of 1912 when republicans would 
 be compelled to sacrifice Senator Dixon as well as Sen- 
 ator Carter by returning a democratic legislature. The 
 Walsh forces met the claim of combine agents that they 
 were opposed only to Walsh by voting for a number of 
 prominent democrats during the joint session on the last 
 day. The responsibility as well as the odium for the 
 deadlock situation was thus brought so directly to the 
 corporation managers that they sought and found re- 
 lief in breaking the deadlock by supporting Henry L. 
 Meyers when his name was presented by the Walsh 
 people. Meyers had been a Daly man in the feudal times 
 and joined with Whitesides in the sensational exposure 
 of the Clark campaign, where $30,000 was handed up to 
 the speaker's desk as the alleged price of three votes. 
 Myers had for several years been a district judge in 
 Ravalli county, and had become so wholly forgotten in 
 political events that J. L. Dobell, editor of Mr. Clark's 
 Butte Miner, voted for him with the others in ignorance 
 of his real identity. Following this result, combine pub- 
 licity agents endeavored to make it appear that it was 
 an Amalgamated victory, and even that it had been pre- 
 arranged. The truth was that the action of the dead- 
 lock makers was taken to save the political faces of the 
 combine-Carter forces, and incidentally to embarrass 
 Dixon two years later by the presence of a United States
 
 150 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 senator in a county adjoining his own. Another truth 
 was that in Mr. Myers the combine had "caught a tar- 
 tar". Corporation agents arranged an elaborate banquet 
 for Senator Myers, with the enthusiastic aid of his de- 
 lighted neighbors and friends at home. John H. Durston 
 of The Anaconda Standard was made toastmaster, and 
 Senator Gallwey, Speaker McDowell, and other con- 
 spicuous combine representatives were given prominent 
 part in the oratory. Shortly before Senator Myers was 
 about to depart for Washington it became reported that 
 Managing Director Morony had made appointment to 
 meet Mr. Myers in Hamilton. Morony did go to Hamil- 
 ton, and he met Mr. Myers. He met him in the lobby of 
 the hotel, talked to him casually on subjects of no im- 
 portance and left town, the entire proceedings apparent- 
 ly being taken to enlarge the grounds for claim that 
 Myers was in harmony with combine plans and interests 
 and that in his election there had been a combine vic- 
 tory. Mr. Myers had been a long-time friend of Mr. 
 Walsh, had supported his candidacy, and the represen- 
 tatives from his section of the state had given unswerv- 
 ing support to Mr. Walsh until released by him. If 
 Mr. Morony and his associates planned and played the 
 election of Myers to fool the public, they were the most 
 skillful actors of any age, because they deceived Mr. 
 Myers with everybody else. He was the most sur- 
 prised man in the state of Montana when his unantici- 
 pated election was announced. His post-election exper- 
 ience, apart from what interest its novelty may produce, 
 is presented as evidence that corporation domination of 
 Montana politics in 1911 had reached that point in per- 
 fection where an apparent defeat of corporate plans 
 could be claimed as a corporate victory and the public 
 be kept in doubt in respect to the truth ; regardless of a
 
 HOW OFFICIALS ARE CHOSEN AND CONFIRMED 151 
 
 long, honorable record and the positive assurances of the 
 most competent witness on earth that Mr. Myers was 
 and would continue to be a representative of the people 
 of the state and not of any special interests.
 
 The Selection of Judges and the 
 Direction of Courts 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Oh that I dared 
 To basket up the family of plagues 
 That waste our vitals; peculation, sale 
 Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds 
 By forgery, by subterfuge of law, 
 By tricks and lies — 
 
 Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat 
 At the right door! 
 
 — William Cowper. 
 
 The state of Montana has as complete and admirable 
 a system of courts as any state has devised. It was 
 provided for in the organic law of the state and per- 
 fected by subsequent legislation and public generosity. 
 The people of Montana have great respect for courts. 
 In almost every county the finest and most costly struc- 
 ture is the home of the courts. The judicial branch of 
 government, with its various officers and incidental ex- 
 penses, costs the taxpayers more than any other. In 
 its comparatively brief existence this young state has de- 
 veloped a considerable number of capable and upright 
 judges, many eminently able advocates at the bar, and 
 a few honest lawyers. Among the numerous excellent 
 provisions of the constitution of this state there is one 
 which declares: "Courts of justice shall be open to every 
 person, and a speedy remedy afforded for every injury 
 of person, property or character; and that right and 
 
 [153]
 
 154« THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 justice shall be administered without sale, denial or de- 
 lay." In Montana, upon occasion, may be heard that 
 familiar phrasing of words expressive of noble senti- 
 ment, "For Justice all place a temple, and all season 
 summer." 
 
 Unhappily, for people in need of Justice, there have 
 been long periods of time in Montana when ignorance 
 of the constitution, unscrupulous lawyers, fear of Jus- 
 tice, ignoble or avaricious sentiment, and shameless 
 criminals, have had place on the bench in both high and 
 low courts — safeguarding lawlessness instead of admin- 
 istering law. 
 
 Happily, some of the more contemptible of the influ- 
 ences degrading justice in public opinion have been re- 
 moved, and self-respect of citizens is compelling a better 
 respect for courts among judges and court officers. It 
 is no longer possible, even in Butte, to see a district 
 judge loaded into a vehicle, like a sack of malt, from the 
 front door of a grog shop, to be conveyed to his seat on 
 the bench for the purpose of handing down ready-made 
 judgments as products of his own maudlin mind; a spec- 
 tacle witnessed less than ten years ago in the metropolis 
 of Montana. The laws have been changed so that judges 
 are not only relieved from obligations to party influ- 
 ences for nominations or elections, but the names of all 
 judicial candidates are placed together in a column re- 
 served for them on the official ballot, as non-partisan 
 candidates, and the name of no candidate for any ju- 
 dicial office is allowed to appear elsewhere on the ballot. 
 This change further has relieved people who do re- 
 spect the courts, by putting an end to the practices of 
 former campaigns wherein some candidates for the su- 
 preme court of the state have sought votes as stump 
 speakers, with partisan harangues or with funny stories
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 155 
 
 more becoming to the bar room than the bench. Such 
 faults were too conspicuous and too grievous to endure 
 against decent public sentiment and the disgust of jurists 
 and practitioners with reputation to protect or pride of 
 profession to maintain. 
 
 Many chapters might be written with authenticated 
 facts about disgraceful practices by bench and bar, and 
 of frequent miscarriage of justice through lawless pro- 
 cedure by men sworn and bound by every obligation of 
 honorable manhood to regard and enforce the law ; all 
 outgrowth of the fierce conflicts and rivalries during the 
 first dozen years of statehood. Most of these already 
 are of record available for any useful purpose which they 
 can be made to serve, and may well be left to oblivion as 
 irrelevant to this history. While wholesome public 
 sentiment and reputable practitioners have accomplished 
 much for the betterment of judicial character and judi- 
 cial freedom, new lawless enterprise, with sinister de- 
 sign and subtle method, has ventured in behalf of big 
 business to deprive the citizen of his last defense by 
 polluting the sources of justice. Montana has no 
 monopoly of this misfortune. Court reports and current 
 news of events in political and legal practice for many 
 years — not to mention notorious decisions and impeach- 
 ment proceedings of quite recent times — demonstrate 
 that no states and few courts are wholly free from it. 
 In this, as in other features of misrule, the Treasure 
 State is made notable through subjection by one corpor- 
 ate combine. The facts and experiences and proceed- 
 ings told of in this chapter are submitted in evidence 
 that — above specific provisions of state and national con- 
 stitutions, and of state and national statutes, preroga- 
 tives of presidents and governors, popular sovereignty 
 and suffrage, the rights of citizens in life and property —
 
 156 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 the dominant power and influence in the selection of 
 judges and in the direction of courts is vested in the 
 organized influences and activities of the Amalgamated 
 Copper Company and its kindred organizations. 
 
 It has been told in preceding pages how the copper 
 combine conquered Heinze by securing new laws to 
 regulate and limit the jurisdiction of district judges, and 
 how it defeated judges controlled by Heinze with ju- 
 dicial candidates nominated and elected by its own in- 
 fluences. Conceding that these changes were necessary, 
 and supported by good citizens as well as by corrupt 
 agencies and influences, to cure intolerable evils, the pre- 
 cedent, like many another precedent in pursuit of jus- 
 tice, has been followed under different circumstances 
 and conditions to defeat justice. Mr. William Scallon 
 was not the only counselor at law with recognized abil- 
 ities and good character who has been impelled to leave 
 the state or retire from practice as a result of monopliza- 
 tion of business in and out of court by combine interests. 
 It would be slight, if any, exaggeration to say that at the 
 present time there are few attorneys of first rank in any 
 of the principal cities of Montana who are not under 
 obligations for employment by the Amalgamated Com- 
 pany or its allied organizations. Conspicuous among the 
 most distinguished of the profession who retired from it 
 or left the state was Mr. John F. Forbis, who did both. 
 Throughout all the years and all the conflicts of individ- 
 uals, of factions, and of corporations, which disgraced so 
 many men and taught so many more dishonest trade, Mr. 
 Forbis practiced his profession and played his part in 
 public affairs — even many years as one of the chief 
 members of the Amalgamated Company's legal depart- 
 ment — and maintained a reputation for personal and 
 professional integrity above so much as hint or suspicion
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 157 
 
 from unscrupulous opponents. His name was synonym 
 for honesty in public estimation. When he left Butte 
 early in the year 1910, a farewell banquet was given in his 
 honor which was attended by representatives of all 
 parties, factions and interests. His address on that oc- 
 casion, which reflected his long and varied experience 
 in his profession, was a good-natured but pitiless arraign- 
 ment of the practice of law in this country. Some brief 
 quotations are presented here as pertinent descriptions, 
 from qualified authority, of conditions in legal practice 
 which make possible and promote the still worse condi- 
 tions secured by special interests which are described 
 later. In the course of his address Mr. Forbis said : 
 
 "Under the case constructions of the constitution, 
 what was intended as a castle of defense has become a 
 prison. The hordes of greed, oppression and selfishness 
 have laid siege to the structure which was intended to 
 exclude them, and now the people find themselves so 
 beleaguered within their own fortress that no excursions 
 are permissible beyond its narrow confines. What was 
 intended as protection has become a limitation." 
 
 "There is probably not more than one man in his 
 generation capable of writing upon the law, and yet by 
 the legal system it is assumed that every man called to 
 a judicial position is a Daniel come to judgment. Is it 
 any wonder that the law grows narrower, more technical, 
 and less humane? But I hear some brother ask, How 
 are judges to be restrained and made to do by one as 
 they have done or would do by another? I answer you 
 that judges are too much restrained. In our efforts to 
 bind the judges, we have bound the principles they rep- 
 resent. We have taken from the judges so completely 
 all moral obligation and responsibility that no one knows 
 when they are acting conscientiously. A judge can find
 
 158 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 in the cases authority for any action he may feel like 
 taking, and though he may be wrong — palpably wrong — 
 he yet can say 'Thus did I read and construe the law'. 
 And we all know that this is a perfect answer, for law- 
 yers themselves cannot agree as to the law." 
 
 "Bring the judges nearer to the people, so that every- 
 one may see them and judge them; so that they will 
 not be hidden behind a pseudo-science which no one un- 
 derstands, and then make them responsible for their acts, 
 as other officials are. Under such conditions judges 
 would be careful to judge correctly, lest they themselves 
 be judged." 
 
 "Burn the reports, every one of them, and let there 
 be no more legal reports forever. What are they but the 
 opinions of 10,000 minds; many small; many technical; 
 many ignorant; many prejudiced; a few corrupt, and a 
 few, a very few, great. What a waste — of paper. And 
 when they shall be burned, by the great light of the con- 
 flagration, have broad minds study the principles of the 
 law and write so much of them as may be thought neces- 
 sary, indelibly and plainly, upon the statutes, so that 
 he who runs may read, and forever after make it unlaw- 
 ful for any judge to write for record an authoritative 
 opinion construing the law in any particular case. Let 
 there be commentaries upon the law then as now, but 
 let them be only the individual opinion of the author — 
 effective only so far as persuasive. Let there be no au- 
 thority binding upon the courts save the one supreme 
 law as written and the other the unwritten and unde- 
 finable law of right." 
 
 "What litigants, especially honest litigants, want is 
 an honest man of brain and blood and heart upon the 
 bench. He should be human like themselves, a man who 
 knows what justice is without having to borrow the
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 159 
 
 knowledge. Such men are numerous in every commu- 
 nity, and this kind of a man would be just as ideal upon 
 the bench as in the common walks of life. We all know 
 men with whom we would entrust our property or our 
 lives. Think you such men would betray a judicial 
 trust? Is there any question of honest dispute which 
 you would not submit to a man of this kind off the 
 bench? Think you his heart or intellect would be per- 
 verted through judicial office? How refreshing it would 
 be to draw from such a source a real human, natural 
 judgment. It might not be different from what we get 
 nowadays, but it would have the freshness of natural 
 bubbling springs, and not the suspicion of stagnancy 
 that comes from artificial reservoirs." 
 
 Mr. Forbis talked of the faults in the practice of his 
 profession and rightly exonerated judges and others who 
 were victims of a system. And he pleasantly anticipated 
 that his suggested remedies, if given a passing thought 
 a day later, would "be like the memory of a troubled 
 dream." 
 
 While it is more difficult for the combine interests 
 to select judges and to elect them when they are nomin- 
 ated by petition and obliged to appear apart from parti- 
 san nominees on the election ballot, it is not quite im- 
 possible to achieve such a result. In a multitude of at- 
 torneys it is easy to find men who can be persuaded to 
 become candidates for the bench ; and, if a corporation 
 which has an abundance of employment for attorneys 
 off as well as on the bench does the persuading, it is not 
 more difficult. In this way the geographical argument 
 and the locality influences can be combined with the 
 personal strength of individual candidates to divide the 
 popular vote. The combine support can be concentrated 
 in the interest of the combine's favorite candidate. The
 
 160 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 combine-ruled public press can assist greatly in confus- 
 ing the public mind and concealing the combine purpose 
 — and the result is as you see it. The political machinery 
 and organization and influence which can regularly give 
 majorities to republican candidates for president, elect 
 democratic candidates for governor, and maintain com- 
 bine control of both branches of every legislature re- 
 gardless of the political affiliations of the majority of the 
 membership, while keeping the voters quite evenly di 
 vided by party lines and intently interested in the dis- 
 cussion of alleged party questions which have no con- 
 nection with or influence upon affairs in Montana — such 
 powers cannot be made impotent for combine uses in 
 judicial campaigns by a mere changing of the rules of 
 the game to deprive candidates of partisan nominations, 
 and by a rearrangement of their names on the election 
 ballot. To show that the combine managers or agents 
 can select the successful candidates for judicial positions 
 does not show that they do it. Judicial decisions almost 
 uniformly favorable to combine policies and purposes 
 and interests and lawnessness do not show it ; because, 
 quoting again the trustworthy attorney for the corpora- 
 tion, "We have taken from the judges so completely all 
 moral obligation and responsibility that no one knows 
 when they are acting conscientiously", and the judge 
 with authority of precedent for any action may be 
 "palpably wrong" and yet can say "Thus did I read and 
 construe the law." Moreover, this conclusion by the 
 learned counsel plainly was concurred in by the more 
 epigrammatic and not less truthful and observant Col. 
 Sanders when he informed a client, who asked for the 
 law applicable to a certain question, "The law in Mon- 
 tana is the last guess of the supreme court". 
 
 Avoiding what members of the honorable profession 
 of the law might be pleased to characterize as surplusage
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 161 
 
 of mere circumstances, specific instances may be given 
 where judges were selected without the aid or consent 
 of the people and unmistakably in consideration of com- 
 bine interests and influences. In 1911 the legislature by 
 enactment authorized an additional judge for the Thir- 
 teenth judicial district of Montana, ostensibly to meet 
 the needs of the people of Yellowstone county, which 
 contained more population and lawyers than all the re- 
 mainder of the district. The bar association of that 
 county recommended Mr. M. J. Lamb, one of its mem- 
 bers, for appointment to the position. Governor Edwin 
 L. Norris appointed Mr. George W. Pearson, of Carbon 
 county, to the place, with a public explanation that Mr. 
 Pearson would remove to Yellowstone county, the sit- 
 ting judge in that district also being a resident of Car- 
 bon county. Mr. Pearson had been a member of the last 
 previous legislature. As a legislator he had advocated 
 and voted for a measure notoriously designed to extend 
 the powers and special privileges of the dominant corpo- 
 ration. Also he had served the interests of the same cor- 
 porate organization as an attorney in his home county. 
 In 1910 he was defeated as a candidate for re-election to 
 the legislature by the people of Carbon county, after a 
 campaign in which his service to the combine interests 
 had been made a leading issue. Governor Norris was 
 famously faithful to the same interests in every emer- 
 gency. If there was any other reason, than that involved 
 in preference and influence of combine bosses, why the 
 candidate from the wrong locality, with the poorer en- 
 dorsement from the district, was selected to be judge on 
 this occasion, the fact was not made a part of public 
 knowledge in the face of public criticism. 
 
 A more notable case of corporate combine interfer- 
 ence and influence in the selection of a judge, for a more
 
 162 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 important position, where the power of appointment to 
 be influenced was vested in the president of the United 
 States, was of even more recent occurrence. In the sum- 
 mer of 1911 Judge Carl Rasch resigned his office as judge 
 of the United States court for the district of Montana, to 
 form a partnership with the chief attorney in Montana 
 of the Northern Pacific Railway Company. The names 
 of half a dozen or more reputable judges of state courts 
 or practising attorneys were discussed and published as 
 of available candidates to fill the vacancy. Early in the 
 fall the bench of the court was vacant with some cases 
 of large importance pending and with a considerable 
 number of federal prisoners confined in jail awaiting trial 
 for various alleged offenses. The contest for the position 
 developed a situation wherein Judge E. K. Cheadle, of 
 Fergus county, was credited with endorsement by more 
 Montana lawyers than all other candidates combined, 
 together with strong recommendations by United States 
 Senator Joseph M. Dixon. On December 10, 1911, The 
 Butte Miner printed a dispatch accredited to its Wash- 
 ington correspondent telling of opposition to Judge Chea- 
 dle in Washington. The following information was con- 
 tained in that message : 
 
 "The burden of the complaint against Judge Cheadle 
 is said to be that he is in favor of the initiative and refer- 
 endum, a primary law and the recall of judges, all this 
 having been called to the attention of the president fol- 
 lowing the recent visit to Washington of Attorneys L. O. 
 Evans and Con. Kelley of Butte, and after a conference 
 they had held with Judge W. H. Hunt of the commerce 
 court. 
 
 "Protests against Judge Cheadle's appointment on ac- 
 count of his insurgency are said to be on file in the de- 
 partment of justice from Dr. O. M. Lanstrum and Thomas 
 A. Marlowe, both of Helena.
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 163 
 
 "It is alleged Judge Brantly took occasion to tell 
 President Taft about Cheadle's attitude on the recall 
 question during his recent visit to Montana. Jack Waite 
 has endorsed Judge Cheadle individually, but not as the 
 republican state chairman. 
 
 "Senator Myers says he is taking no part in the con- 
 troversy, but asserts that he has endorsed Pigott for the 
 place, and Thomas A. Marlowe has filed a letter suggest- 
 ing that Mr. Pigott's appointment would give satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 "Judge Hunt, who at the request of the president has 
 submitted to him a statement regarding all candidates, 
 is favorably disposed toward Judge Pigott. Representa- 
 tive Charles Pray is holding aloof." 
 
 Mr. "Con." Kelley at that time was chief of the legal 
 department of the copper combine at Butte, and Mr. L. 
 O. Evans was next in rank to him in the same depart- 
 ment. O. M. Lanstrum was a "Poohbah" of corruption 
 for the same interests, and Mr. Marlowe was his "fidus 
 Achates". Judge Brantly was chief justice of the su- 
 preme court of Montana, and Judge Cheadle had been a 
 candidate against him. Mr. Waite was a neighbor and 
 personal friend of Judge Cheadle, and the political chum 
 of the combine managers of the party machine. Senator 
 Myers was the democrat who succeeded Senator Carter. 
 Mr. Pigott was a democrat, a distinguished lawyer, and 
 reputable citizen, who had served on the bench many 
 years before. Congressman Pray was "Everybody's 
 Friend". 
 
 The judicial mind of President Taft apparently was 
 perplexed by these conflicting recommendations. For 
 more than four months the vacancy on the bench contin- 
 ued. The contingent of untried prisoners in jail in- 
 creased, and parties to civil actions waited for that
 
 164 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 "speedy remedy" assured by constitutional guarantee. 
 In January, Judge William H. Hunt, of the commerce 
 court in Washington, travelled all the way to Montana 
 apparently for the purpose of relieving the more urgent 
 demands for a session of the federal court. Much of his 
 time during the brief stay as a judge was given to hearing 
 a case in which the copper combine people were inter- 
 ested parties. He visited Butte, and went back to Wash- 
 ington. Dispatches from the national capital to Mon- 
 tana papers announced that Judge Hunt upon his arrival 
 there made a report to the president upon the matter of 
 the federal judgeship and had recommended to the presi- 
 dent the appointment of George B. Bourquin, formerly 
 district judge in Silver Bow county. Judge Cheadle, a 
 week before, had sent to Senator Dixon a letter with- 
 drawing his name from consideration in the matter of 
 the federal judgeship. Early in February, 1912, Judge 
 Bourquin was appointed by President Taft to be federal 
 judge for the district of Montana. Judge Bourquin 
 served one term as district judge in Silver Bow county, 
 being elected when the Amalgamated Company suc- 
 ceeded in breaking Heinze's control of the courts in that 
 county. He was not reelected, but his retirement was 
 not due to matters connected with his conduct as a judge. 
 He was a capable lawyer, something of an orator, and a 
 zealous partisan in political affairs. In 1910 at the re- 
 publican state convention held in Missoula, Senator 
 Dixon had been selected by the managers to be perma- 
 nent chairman, "in the interests of harmony". At the 
 last moment the bosses became apprehensive of the re- 
 sult of placing an avowed progressive republican in the 
 position, and Judge Bourquin was selected to preside in 
 his place. It was a convention made up largely of pro- 
 gressive republicans and manipulated by combine
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 165 
 
 agencies to promote the candidacy of Senator Carter for 
 reelection. In his address to the convention, Judge 
 Bourquin said, among other things : 
 
 "There is our republican administration to be ap- 
 proved. Its merits deserve it. And unless you approve 
 you cannot defend, and unless you defend you cannot 
 ask the people to trust us further. The main issue is 
 whether we shall do our part to elect republican con- 
 gressmen and senators, to the end that they may perform 
 such of our platform pledges as are yet unfulfilled, or 
 whether we shall deliver house and senate to democracy, 
 stamp failure on the balance of President Taft's adminis- 
 tration, and clear the way for a democratic president in 
 1912 and all the proven attendant evils of democratic in- 
 capacity and misrule." 
 
 In his own confirmation by the senate, as a member 
 of the commerce court, Judge Hunt furnished an example 
 of the exercise of copper combine influence in the selec- 
 tion of judges, and he had, by his opinion and decision, 
 while federal judge in Montana, in the celebrated "Smoke 
 Case", furnished illustration of similar influences in the 
 direction of courts, as will appear more plainly in a later 
 chapter. The letter to Senator Dixon by Judge Cheadle, 
 withdrawing as a candidate for the federal bench, is pre- 
 sented herewith ; further to illumine the influences and 
 arguments which assisted the president of the United 
 States to a tardy conclusion in selecting a judge for a life 
 term, without power of recall, in the state of Montana : 
 
 "Lewistown, Mont., Jan. 22, 1912. 
 "Hon. Joseph M. Dixon, 
 
 "Washington, D. C. 
 "Dear Senator: After giving to the matter of a suc- 
 cessor to the Hon. Carl Rasch as United States district
 
 166 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 judge for this state more earnest and careful thought, I 
 am led to definitely request that you at once withdraw 
 my name from further consideration. 
 
 "In so doing I am not unmindful of the great kindness 
 of your unswerving interest in behalf of an ambition 
 which I hope I properly entertained of higher honors in 
 my profession. I appreciate deeply and thank you most 
 cordially for that interest, as I appreciate and am grate- 
 ful for the loyal good will and support of many of my 
 other fellow citizens in Montana. 
 
 "I am constrained to take this decisive step in order 
 that personal ambitions of my own may no longer em- 
 barass either the administration, yourself, or my other 
 friends in this state. 
 
 "But in so doing I would not be true to myself, nor to 
 my friends, nor to my state, were I to fail to notice and 
 make suitable comment upon the character largely as- 
 sumed by the opposition to my candidacy. I refer more 
 especially to corporate interests which have spared no 
 effort that ingenuity could suggest, nor mendacity in- 
 spire, to impugn the motives which have governed my 
 conduct, both in my private life and in the discharge of 
 my official duties. Insofar as these hostile corporate in- 
 terests have had individual support from this state in this 
 matter, I am consoled by the reflection that it has been 
 largely made up of those who have in secret heard their 
 master's voice. 
 
 "These attacks upon me have, in a general way, con- 
 centrated upon the charge that, in my political opinions, 
 I am " a dangerous radical". Upon that point let me say 
 to you frankly that I have nothing to conceal, nor to 
 apologize for. I have at no time harangued the public 
 upon political topics, not having deemed that practice to 
 be consistent with my judicial position. Both in private
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 167 
 
 conversation and in public addresses I have earnestly 
 endeavored to keep wholly within the bounds of pro- 
 priety. If, however, in these ways I have found myself 
 in earnest sympathy with the great work inaugurated 
 under Theodore Roosevelt while president, indorsed by 
 the platform adopted by the last republican national con- 
 vention, and vigorously contended for in his pre-election 
 speeches by President Taft, that "radicalism" is one 
 joined in by millions of my fellow citizens. I rejoice ex- 
 ceedingly that my point of view has enabled me to ap- 
 prove of and to applaud that sort of "radicalism". 
 
 "It has been charged, specifically, that I have declared 
 myself as being in favor of the recall of all elective offi- 
 cials, including the judiciary. That is a wilful perversion 
 of my well known position. What I have said, and what 
 I here repeat and emphasize, is that if a majority of the 
 people favor a provision of the law for the recall of 
 judges, their will should prevail. I am not afraid for 
 myself, nor timorous for other judges, to trust to the 
 sound sense and patriotic judgment of the masses of the 
 American people upon this, or upon any other issue, 
 fairly presented to them. If they are unfit to take away, 
 they are as unfit to bestow, judicial honors. I have little 
 sympathy for the view of those of my profession who are 
 wont to describe an American verdict at the ballot box 
 as "mob rule". The voters of our country are the sons of 
 the fathers who made this nation great, and rich, and 
 powerful, and respected ; and they are the ones who 
 must be trusted to maintain it so. In my humble judg- 
 ment it would be as safe to entrust to the people of Mon- 
 tana the making and unmaking of judges as to leave it 
 in the hands of No. 26 Wall Street. I am reminded, too, 
 in this connection, that the one dominant note of the 
 whole administration of President Lincoln, and to which
 
 168 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 his acts, public and private, were set, was this : "Trust 
 the people". 
 
 "In all my judicial experience I have scrupulously up- 
 held the rights of property. I have no further purpose 
 or thought of any differing rule of conduct. If, however, 
 it be "radicalism" in me, upon suitable occasions, to have 
 held that the maintenance of human rights is the very 
 and the only basis which makes it possible to enduringly 
 secure property rights, then I plead guilty. Important 
 as the duty of preserving property rights may be, it is 
 just as important to keep ever in mind that the health, 
 and the wellbeing, and the liberty of the average man, 
 woman and child of our country is the nation's most val- 
 uable asset, and it should at all hazards be made the most 
 enduring one. In this attitude I have the satisfaction of 
 believing that I am in most excellent company. 
 
 "In now ending, for the present occasion, what I have 
 to say with reference to the charges so persistently 
 thrust upon the attention of the administration at Wash- 
 ington, and which have portrayed me as a dangerous 
 character, I derive no little gratification from the reflec- 
 tion that my neighbors do not so consider me. I have 
 lived in this judicial district continuously for nearly 20 
 years ; from here I enlisted in the Spanish-American war, 
 served in the Philippines, and to this locality I returned 
 when the war was over. Since that time I have been 
 elected to the district bench for three successive terms, 
 twice without a candidate having been named against 
 me. For these sufficient reasons, not all the enmity nor 
 opposition of those who have evidently had purposes 
 which led them to fear that in higher judicial position I 
 might earn something like a similar measure of public 
 approbation, has in it any sting for me.
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 169 
 
 "Again thanking you, and all the other good friends 
 who have shown me so much kindly consideration, and 
 with sincere personal regards, I am, 
 
 "Cordially yours, 
 
 "E. K. CHEADLE."
 
 The Selection of Judges and the 
 Direction of Courts 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Among the instruments and influences employed by- 
 corporate combine for the direction of courts in Mon- 
 tana, these may be accounted useful : Judges selected by 
 combine agencies; special legislation in combine inter- 
 ests; juries chosen from among combine employees or 
 beneficiaries; newspapers edited in harmony with com- 
 bine policies and purposes ; subordinate court officers se- 
 lected with combine support; an elaborate legal depart- 
 ment with many high-salaried attorneys retained by the 
 year, and many others employed for special service on 
 occasion; unlimited means for the employment of high- 
 priced experts and special witnesses, and for protracting 
 litigation and tiring out or bankrupting adversaries; in- 
 dividual fear of demonstrated superiority of combine 
 power; regularly employed detectives or spotters to as- 
 sist the legal department with information respecting 
 other people's affairs. 
 
 A review of verdicts and decisions in the courts of 
 Montana since Heinze was eliminated as a litigant would 
 serve to convince the average mind that the copper com- 
 bine either is extremely strong in the right or without 
 good grounds in experience for apprehension of severe 
 punishment from the courts for wrong doing. But it is 
 not always, or most frequently, that the influence of 
 special interests in the conduct of court business is mani- 
 
 [171]
 
 172 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 fested in final verdicts or decisions dealing with the real 
 questions at issue. There are times when men engaged 
 in combine business may find great benefit in close rela- 
 tions with court officers, and thus indirectly may direct 
 the courts to non-action rather than when in action. An 
 instance indicating such a situation, as well as the long 
 reach of copper combine influences, is afforded by an 
 editorial article in Collier's National Weekly in April, 
 1910, which reads : 
 
 "Announcement has been made, not only through the 
 daily newspapers, but through responsible financial peri- 
 odicals, that the Amalgamated copper interests are about 
 to form another gigantic copper combination with the 
 Morgan-Guggenheim interests. Announcement has also 
 been made that the recent Standard Oil and American 
 Tobacco Company decisions have caused this combina- 
 tion to be deferred for the present. Notwithstanding the 
 latter announcement, all arrangements are being perfected 
 for the proposed amalgamation. The Guggenheims, 
 against the bitter protests of minority stockholders, are 
 carrying out their part of the bargain by consolidating 
 and watering the stocks of their copper properties. The 
 Amalgamated Copper Company is at work on the same 
 lines with its various properties. Other plans are afoot 
 that lead us to the belief that assurances have been re- 
 ceived which have nullified the effect of the Standard Oil 
 decisions. These combinations are always floated under 
 the influences of a strong bull market. Certain newspa- 
 pers which periodically publish inspired utterances are 
 engaged in the game of boosting coppers. 
 
 "We can all still remember the bitter lesson of the 
 formation of Amalgamated — its train of suicides, bank 
 defalcations and wrecked lives. Is the story about to be 
 repeated? Have any assurances of immunity from Wash-
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 173 
 
 ington been received by the promoters of this combina- 
 tion? If not, we ask the attorney general of the United 
 States, in all seriousness, why this proposed illegal com- 
 bination cannot be enjoined. The names of the promo- 
 ters are well known. Ample proof of their designs and 
 plans may be had. Must the country await the slow 
 process of prosecution after the law has been violated? If 
 one citizen threatens the physical injury of another, he 
 is put under bond to keep the peace or placed under re- 
 straint. Why not restrain by injunction this open threat 
 of violation of law? If the oil, beef, and tobacco trusts 
 had been enjoined, the trust question would have been 
 solved long since. At least we would have known by 
 this time the anti-trust law was law or delusion." 
 
 The reader will meet with Attorney General Wicker- 
 sham again in this chapter, with information that may 
 serve as a partial answer to some of Collier's pointed 
 questions. First let a few proceedings be recalled show- 
 ing how results have been obtained through devious ways 
 by directing courts. In 1903 the Heinze-Amalgamated 
 war in Montana was being waged most intensely. At 
 that time Heinze's imitation combine named and bossed 
 the district judges in Silver Bow county, and the Amal- 
 gamated Company had not conquered public sentiment 
 or destroyed public prejudice, so political party judges 
 in the higher courts might well entertain honest doubts 
 respecting popular judgment however certain they might 
 be in their own judgment with regard to questions af- 
 fecting the combatants. At that time the Montana code 
 made no provision for change of venue in civil cases. 
 Heinze representatives had secured small stockholdings 
 in constituent companies of the Amalgamated organiza- 
 tion, and had gone into district court in Butte and asked 
 for the appointment of a receiver to take control of some
 
 174 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 of the best productive properties, on the ground that their 
 interests as stockholders were in jeopardy through pos- 
 session and management of the properties and business 
 by the Amalgamated company. The Amalgamated at- 
 torneys sought to have the action removed from Heinze's 
 Butte judges by an application to the supreme court for 
 a writ of supervisory control — in short, asking the higher 
 court for protection against the arbitrary ruling of judges 
 under Heinze's control. On June 29, which was the day 
 when the case was set for hearing in the district court at 
 Butte, the supreme court was unanimous in denying the 
 writ, and very much divided in reasons for the denial. 
 The announcement of the denial was made in open court 
 and, as quoted in The Butte Miner of June 30, 1903, Chief 
 Justice Theodore Brantly said : 
 
 "In causes numbered 1962, 1964 and 1965, being ap- 
 plications to this court for writs of supervisory control 
 to prohibit the court of the Second Judicial District, with 
 Judge Clancy presiding, from proceeding with the hear- 
 ing of the certain causes set for trial in that court, in which 
 the Boston & Montana company, the Anaconda Copper 
 Mining company and the Washoe company are parties, 
 the questions involved having been submitted to the 
 court under motions to dismiss on the ground that this 
 court has no jurisdiction, after as careful an examination 
 as we have been able to give to the legal question in- 
 volved during the brief time we have had at our disposal, 
 the court has reached the conclusion that it cannot in- 
 terfere. 
 
 "I wish to say on behalf of myself, that my view of 
 this matter is this : 
 
 "The people of this state organized their government; 
 the scheme of that government is contained in the legisla- 
 tion of the state. It is not the province of the court to
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 175 
 
 mend or remedy the imperfections, if any exist, in that 
 system of government. There are certain matters which 
 have been reposed finally in the honesty and integrity of 
 certain individuals who hold official positions under the 
 government. Among these are disputed questions of fact 
 and other matters of that kind, lodged in the discretion 
 of the district judges. 
 
 "The legislature has deemed it wise to be silent upon 
 the subject of bias and prejudice in district courts, there- 
 by leaving it to the honesty and integrity of the indi- 
 vidual judge to perform his duty under his oath in that 
 regard. If that is an imperfection then this court has no 
 power to remedy it. The legislation impliedly leaves to 
 the legislature the power to determine what shall be the 
 disqualification of judges, when changes of venue shall 
 be had, and matters of this kind. It is silent on the sub- 
 ject of how there shall be a change of judge under certain 
 circumstances, and this court has no power to legislate 
 by declaring what should be embodied in the organic law 
 or in the statutes and act on that legislation. 
 
 "I do not assent to the proposition that a man, even 
 the humblest citizen in this state, has not the legal right 
 to a fair and impartial trial. Every citizen has that right, 
 but the remedy is not provided for cases in which that 
 right is not accorded by district courts, except by im- 
 peachment of the judge who refuses it, or by discipline 
 at the polls, or through the medium of disbarment pro- 
 ceedings." 
 
 Associate Justice George R. Milburn said : 
 
 "I join in the order denying the relator's petition, for 
 the reason that I am not convinced that under the facts 
 alleged in the petitions the writ of supervisory control is 
 the right remedy, if there be any, and not being satisfied 
 I therefore join in the order. I do not wish to be under-
 
 176 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 stood, however as saying that in the state of Montana, 
 the law is as claimed by the respondents, that a judge 
 can lawfully sit on the bench in a criminal case and try 
 John Doe or Richard Roe for murder of the judge's wife, 
 or for highway robbery committed upon him, the judge — 
 that is the position taken by the respondents in this case. 
 I do not believe that is the law, but I am not convinced 
 by the relators that the writs of supervisory control 
 should be issued in these cases. I believe they have a 
 remedy; I believe the remedy is statutory; in this my 
 brethren do not agree." 
 
 Associate Justice Holloway had been recently elected, 
 after bitter opposition by the Amalgamated forces, be- 
 cause after receiving the nomination of the Republican 
 party he had accepted the endorsement of Heinze's in- 
 dependent political organization. He concurred in the 
 decision, but from the published reports appears not to 
 have deemed any explanation necessary. 
 
 Within eight months after that decision by the su- 
 preme court, Judge Clancy had declared the Amalga- 
 mated Company an outlaw in the state, that company 
 had secured a special legislative session and the enact- 
 ment of a change of venue law, and the same supreme 
 court had set aside Judge Clancy's decision with no ap- 
 parent consideration of "disputed questions of fact and 
 other matters of that kind, lodged in the discretion of 
 the district judges". 
 
 There are numerous cases, also, where findings of fact 
 by juries, respecting damages from loss of life or limb 
 by workmen in corporate employment, have been arbi- 
 trarily set aside by Montana courts as excessive; and in 
 some cases the injured man or his widow and dependent 
 children have been given and have accepted reduced 
 sums, fixed by the dictum of the court as an alternative
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 177 
 
 to the delay and expense of a new trial and the uncer- 
 tainty of another verdict. 
 
 In 1903 the Amalgamated Company was defending its 
 own existence in the courts of Montana, state and federal. 
 In 1910 it had defeated or absorbed all adversaries or 
 possible dangerous rivals in business in Butte, and its 
 elaborate organization and influences were being exer- 
 cised in court proceedings to enable it to acquire new and 
 valuable properties on favorable terms, an argument in 
 trade which has been aptly described in Montana as the 
 threat of judicial confiscation. It was that which was 
 the real menace to Heinze. It was that which was held 
 before Mr. William A. Clark, with preliminaries arranged 
 for court actions to test his title to properties which he 
 had owned and operated without question or dispute for 
 half a lifetime. Mr. James A. Murray found himself 
 facing it with an injunction which compelled him to sus- 
 pend operations in a property which he had held for 
 years. The Tuolumne Copper Mining Company devel- 
 oped their profitable enterprise in its shadow, met it, and 
 by hard fighting secured a compromise and agreement 
 which enabled them to continue their business of mining 
 but under combine conditions which practically com- 
 pelled them to have their ores reduced at the combine 
 smelters. The Butte Balaklava Company, the last newly 
 developed copper property of value in the camp, was as- 
 sailed in like manner and its stockholders, at least tem- 
 porarily, deprived of possible earnings from considerable 
 parts of the ore bodies developed. All of these actions 
 were of the kind with which Heinze had harassed the 
 Amalgamated Company and for which he was bitterly 
 and properly condemned by the combine people. Some 
 of them were based on pretext of claims so trivial in com- 
 parison with the importance of the unquestioned rights
 
 178 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 involved as to appear ridiculous to almost anybody ex- 
 cepting a combine attorney and his complacent aids. In 
 the case of the Tuolumne Company, right of title to a 
 large fractional interest in property with a market value 
 of millions of dollars was based on a quit-claim deed pur- 
 chased by Mr. John G. Morony, for something like 
 $5,000, from a party who had conveyed his interest by a 
 document imperfect through error of the man who drew 
 the document. 
 
 In March, 1910, representatives of the department of 
 justice of the national government filed a bill in equity, 
 in federal court at Helena, seeking remedy for injuries 
 to vegetation and trees on government lands from poi- 
 sons precipitated by smoke from the Anaconda Copper 
 Mining company's smelters at Anaconda. The action 
 was the outgrowth of investigation instituted by Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt on motion of farmers in the vicinity of 
 the smelters, and resulted from inability by the govern- 
 ment to secure relief or remedy, from evils ascertained 
 and reported by government agents, without proceedings 
 in court. Immediately the newspaper organs and the 
 agents of the copper combine in Montana were employed 
 in efforts to create public sentiment and to forestall re- 
 sults through misrepresentation of facts and of questions 
 involved. In open contempt of court proceedings, and 
 with offhand impeachment of official integrity of gov- 
 ernment representatives, Butte organs of the copper in- 
 terests editorially prejudged and assumed to determine 
 the case upon the same day that they published their 
 first account of the bill of complaint. The special as- 
 sistant to the attorney general of the United States em- 
 ployed in this action had been counsel for the complain- 
 ant in a suit involving similar questions brought by the 
 state of Georgia against the Tennessee Copper company
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 179 
 
 and decided by the supreme court of the United States 
 against the mining company. This case against the 
 copper combine in Montana never was prosecuted. There 
 was no verdict. "There's a reason." In September, 
 1910, Attorney General Wickersham visited Montana. 
 The way of his coming, the manner of his reception and 
 entertainment, and the intimate relations between com- 
 bine business, Montana politics, senatorial courtesy, and 
 the federal department of justice, were told of in a com- 
 munication by a Butte citizen to the editor of an inde- 
 pendent weekly paper. From that communication the 
 following interesting facts for this chapter were ex- 
 tracted : 
 
 "The recent visit to Butte by Attorney General Wick- 
 ersham brought a new novelty to combine proceedings 
 in Montana, and emphasized in public knowledge the 
 methods and menaces of combine operations through 
 political channels which reach out of Silver Bow county 
 through Montana, and to the national capital. A message 
 was sent out from Washington that Hon. George Wicker- 
 sham, attorney general of the United States, was on his 
 way from Alaska to Washington, and would visit Butte 
 and Anaconda to investigate conditions connected with 
 the government case against the copper combine based on 
 alleged injuries from smelter smoke. This message was 
 contemporaneous with another that John D. Ryan, the 
 official head of the combine, was on his way to Butte. 
 Later it was learned that United States Senator Thomas 
 H. Carter would chaperone the attorney general during 
 his visit to Montana. Senator Carter journeyed from 
 Helena to Missoula and accompanied the attorney gen- 
 eral to Butte, which city was reached Friday night, Sep- 
 tember 16. Senator Carter remained with Mr. Wicker- 
 sham in the same hotel Friday night, ate breakfast with
 
 180 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 him Saturday morning, accompanied him on an automo- 
 bile trip through the national forest reserve and Deer 
 Lodge valley Saturday forenoon, dined with him at noon 
 at the timber camp of Lieutenant Governor Allen, dined 
 with him Saturday night at the Montana Hotel in Ana- 
 conda, owned by the combine, went through the Washoe 
 smelters with him Saturday night, came to Butte with 
 him Sunday morning on a special train furnished by the 
 railroad owned by the copper combine, went through 
 mines of the combine in Butte with Mr. Wickersham 
 Sunday morning, lunched with him at noon, remained 
 with him at the Thornton Hotel the remainder of that 
 day, was with him at a banquet given in his honor by 
 John D. Ryan of the combine Sunday evening, until the 
 attorney general took the train for the east. Messrs. 
 John D. Ryan and Attorney Kelly of the combine legal 
 department also were with the attorney general at the 
 foregoing hospitable functions. 
 
 "This surely shows the great loyalty of our senior 
 senator to Mr. Ryan and the corporate interests which he 
 represents; because the United States through the attor- 
 ney general has brought suit against the combine on ac- 
 count of injuries and damages to government forests and 
 public interests through smoke fumes caused by the 
 operation of the smelting plant at Anaconda. 
 
 "The keen interest and conspicuous part taken by 
 Senator Carter with the combine officials in this visit by 
 the attorney general is in harmony with the part which he 
 played in former proceedings when the combine interests 
 were resisting appeals to justice by citizens of Montana. 
 The farmers of the Deer Lodge valley have for years 
 been involved in an action to secure relief from damages 
 from the same causes. They were sent out of the dis- 
 trict court in Montana without even their costs, although
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 181 
 
 the court found that serious damage was done, and was 
 a continuing damage. After the farmers first tried to 
 settle their differences as individuals, they wrote a letter 
 to the corporation managers agreeing to submit the en- 
 tire matter to arbitration, and then waited several months 
 before they filed their suit in court. The last motion they 
 made in the local court was to submit the question of 
 damages to arbitration and the lands to condemnation, 
 all of which was refused after five years of litigation with 
 unexampled expense and dilatory proceedings. Thus, 
 we find the same threat of judicial confiscation against 
 mining interests in Butte exercised against farming in- 
 terests in the Deer Lodge valley. Then, as now, Senator 
 Carter was found co-operating with Messrs. Ryan and 
 Kelly, exercising official influence at his command in 
 favor of the foreign combine and against Montana citi- 
 zens. After the farmers had concluded their case before 
 the master in chancery in the federal court and completed 
 the largest record ever known in the judicial history of 
 the country, the "Scotch verdict" against the combine 
 made it necessary for them to appeal to the higher court 
 in pursuit of justice and relief. Under the old law a 
 transcript of the record would have cost 15 cents per 
 folio, or about $15,000. An act, timely enacted through 
 the exercise of Senator Carter's senatorial influence, with 
 reference to the Montana federal courts, doubled the fees 
 and transcript of the record to 30 cents per folio, making 
 legal a demand by the clerk of the federal court at Helena 
 for some $30,000 for a transcript on appeal in place of 
 $15,000 as it would have been under the law when the 
 case was started. After the great expense which they 
 had incurred in attempting to secure their rights of prop- 
 erty in the lower court, the farmers were amazed and dis- 
 couraged by this discovery of increased costs, and feared
 
 182 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 that an appeal could not be perfected to the circuit court 
 of appeals. Then it was that an application was made 
 direct to the court of appeals. The facts here related 
 were called to the attention of the judges, and the court 
 of appeals made an order requiring the clerk of the lower 
 court to certify the original record of all the master's 
 proceedings in Montana without costs of transcribing; 
 and thus, instead of paying $30,000, as they would have 
 been compelled to do under the combine practice and 
 Carter legislation, they paid less than $500 for perfecting 
 their appeal. 
 
 "It is not presumed that Attorney General Wicker- 
 sham came to Montana to be feted and entertained by the 
 representatives of lawless combinations which he is 
 called upon to prosecute in the enforcement of the na- 
 tional laws. The incidents are cited rather as an evi- 
 dence of the humble courtesies made by combine agents 
 when their interests are concerned with the danger of 
 law enforcement without favor. If the action of the gov- 
 ernment against the combine was without foundation 
 and without merit, does any one suppose that Messrs. 
 Ryan and Kelly and Senator Carter would be wasting 
 their valuable time and spending the money of their Wall 
 street employers in entertaining public officials engaged 
 in prosecuting a groundless suit? Is there not more than 
 the significance of good fellowship in the fact that the 
 head of the legal department of the national government 
 was wined and dined and entertained by these gentle- 
 men during every possible moment of his stay in this 
 state, and kept under such close environment by them 
 that he was practically under corporation escort from the 
 time he left the train after entering Montana. These 
 gentlemen appear to be almost as proficient in obeisance 
 to power invoked by the public as they are in abuse of 
 power when brought under their control."
 
 THE DIRECTION OF COURTS 183 
 
 The next step in this interesting proceeding came in 
 May, 1911, when Attorney General Wickersham, for the 
 United States government, entered into a stipulation with 
 officers of the Anaconda Copper company whereby it 
 was agreed that the government should not continue its 
 prosecution of the company for damages to public forests 
 or public lands from smelter fumes so long as the com- 
 pany should continue to operate its smelters in such 
 manner as to meet the approval of a board of three min- 
 ing experts whose services were to be paid for by the 
 copper company at an extremely liberal rate for the 
 work required. A board of three mining experts thus 
 selected, and thus compensated, will not be likely, 
 hastily and inconsiderately, to disapprove of the opera- 
 tions of the greatest mining combine in the country, in 
 consideration of damage to timber on government lands 
 or to crops or livestock on the ranches of impoverished 
 farmers.
 
 Where Trial By Jury Is a Farce, and Why 
 
 In the early years of the existence of the copper min- 
 ing combination which now dominates Montana, its busi- 
 ness and property was the object of attack in the courts 
 by rival interests captained by an adventurous and re- 
 sourceful operator, proficient in the art of mixing politics 
 with business to obtain special privilege and overreach 
 his associates. Until after the year 1904, when the 
 Heinze candidates for judicial positions were defeated in 
 Siver Bow county, the Amalgamated Company people 
 made continuing and just complaint that they could not 
 obtain justice in the courts of that county. Besides the 
 practical control of court officers by the opposition, 
 there was an unmistakable and carefully cultivated pre- 
 judice against the big New Jersey corporation as an 
 organization with monopoly control as its chief purpose. 
 As this company acquired new powers through the ab- 
 sorption of other companies and the control of diversi- 
 fied interests, its managers and legal representatives 
 adopted the influences and methods against which they 
 had formerly protested and perfected the system of con- 
 trol to an extent incredible to those not made to know 
 its power by use. The exercise of this power was not 
 limited to defense or to protection against injustice. It 
 was exerted mercilessly and without scruple to promote 
 the acquirement of desired properties cheaply or dis- 
 honestly as opportunity offered. As new mines were de- 
 veloped in the district to the point of profit they were 
 coveted by the combine managers, and a favorite way of 
 securing them at the least possible cost was by deprecia- 
 
 [185]
 
 186 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 tion of the property in value and by intimidation of the 
 owners through attacks in court upon titles to mining 
 claims or upon rights to mineral veins under the apex 
 law. 
 
 The extreme helplessness of the average independent 
 operator thus assailed was demonstrated repeatedly and 
 each demonstration naturally served as an object lesson 
 to assist in convincing other property owners of the hope- 
 lessness of combatting the big company in the local courts. 
 At the same time all of the great influences of the great 
 organization and the abilities of an extravagantly main- 
 tained legal department were employed to resist efforts 
 to remove these court trials to districts beyond combine 
 control. The complete mastery over men and condi- 
 tions thus obtained is concisely and comprehensively de- 
 scribed in the legal proceedings whereby a defendant 
 mining company sought to remove the trial of its case to 
 another court. This suit was brought in the name of the 
 Anaconda Copper Mining Company against the Butte- 
 Balaklava Mining Company to deprive the last named 
 corporation of the right to mine certain veins of ore 
 which it had developed within its mining claims. Coun- 
 sel for the defendant company, in support of its effort to 
 secure a change of venue, filed the following attested 
 statement by Mr. James A. Murray, himself not a party 
 to the suit, although defendant in a somewhat similar 
 case involving properties of his own. With the single 
 exception of Mr. W. A. Clark, Mr. Murray easily ranks 
 first among Montana citizens as an individual possessed 
 of great wealth. His responsibility is unquestionable, 
 and as a pioneer of Butte who had fought his way to 
 success with and against all the great conflicting influ- 
 ences known in the mining history of the town, his 
 knowledge of the facts is not of hearsay character. Here
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 187 
 
 are the conditions which existed in the most populous 
 county of Montana and in the metropolis of the state on 
 the seventh day of August, 1911, as described by Mr. 
 Murray under oath : 
 
 "JAMES A. MURRAY being first duly sworn says: That 
 he is a resident of the county of Silver Bow and has been for 
 5*3 years; that the county of Silver Bow is a county of small 
 territorial area, consisting primarily of the City of Butte and 
 suburbs immediately adjacent, with an outlying territory 
 sparsely settled; that within such outlying territory, there is a 
 total of not to exceed 360 legal voters, in an aggregate of 12,- 
 256 for the said county as shown by the official returns of the 
 general election for the year 1910; that the basic industry of 
 the city of Butte is, and for twenty years last past has been, 
 quartz mining — the principal ore mined for many years last 
 past being copper; that the mines now being operated within 
 said county of Silver Bow all lie within the said city of Butte 
 or in territory immediately adjacent thereto. 
 
 "That prior to the year 1910, the business of mining was 
 carried on within said city of Butte and county of Silver Bow, 
 by various companies, largely, if not entirely, independent of 
 each other in their directorate as well as in respect to their 
 stockholders, and that many of said companies employed large 
 numbers of men, in a number of instances as many as one 
 thousand or more, the successful conduct of mining in the 
 Butte camp being possible only when conducted on a compara- 
 tively large scale, utilizing capital in very considerable amount, 
 and employing laborers in very considerable numbers; and that 
 prior to the year 1900, there was so engaged in carrying on 
 the business of mining in and about the city of rJutte and 
 within the said county of Silver Bow, the plaintiff, Anaconda 
 Copper Mining Company, the Washoe Copper Mining Company, 
 the Parrot Silver and Copper Company, the Boston and Mon- 
 tana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company, 
 the Butte and Boston Consolidated Copper and Silver 
 Company, and the Colorado Mining and Smelting 
 Company; that at the same time and thereafter until 
 about the month of February, 1906, a group of 
 corporations generally known as the "Heinze companies" 
 were similarly engaged in mining in the County of Silver Bow, 
 and among others, — the Montana Ore Purchasing Company,
 
 188 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 the Nipper Consolidated Company, the Minnie Healey Com- 
 pany, the Hypocka Mining Company, the Johnstown Mining 
 Company, the LaFrance Copper Company, the Guardian Mining 
 Company, the Belmont Mining Company and Corra-Rock Is- 
 land Company; and that during the same period and down to 
 about the month of June, 1910, another group of corporations 
 known as the "Clark companies", acquiring properties from 
 ex-Senator W. A. Clark and in which he is the principal stock- 
 holder, was likewise engaged in mining in the same region; 
 that in addition to the foregoing, the Speculator Mining Com- 
 pany was likewise operating on a large scale in the Butte camp. 
 "That incidental to the mining so carried on by the said 
 companies, the said Montana Ore Purchasing Company, the 
 said Colorado Mining and Smelting Company, the said Parrot 
 Silver and Copper Company, and the said W. A. Clark or some 
 one of his companies respectively, operated within said city of 
 Butte smelters, at which there were employed large numbers 
 of men; that during the year 1899 there was organized by an 
 association of individuals consisting of some of the leading 
 stockholders of the plaintiff, and others closely allied to the 
 Standard Oil Company, a corporation known as the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company, employing and adopting the same 
 business methods towards all opponents and competitors as 
 has been heretofore employed by the said Standard Oil Com- 
 pany, the said plan and policies having been adopted by one 
 H. H. Rogers, the first president and organizer of the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company, who was a dominant factor in Stand- 
 ard Oil Company affairs, the purpose of which was to acquire 
 a controlling interest in most, if not all, of the companies en- 
 gaged in the business of mining and smelting in and about 
 the city of Butte, with a view to place the same practically 
 under one management; the said corporation was organized 
 under the laws of the State of New Jersey in the year 1899, 
 with a capital stock of Seventy-five Million ($75,000,000.00) 
 Dollars, afterwards increased to One Hundred Fifty-five Mil- 
 lion ($155,000,000.00) Dollars, and that the said corporation, 
 prior to the year 1902, became the owner of a majority of the 
 shares of the corporations hereinabove first mentioned, to- wit: 
 The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the Washoe Copper 
 Company, the Parrot Silver and Copper Company, the Boston 
 and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company, 
 the Butte and Boston Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining 
 Company, and the Colorado Mining and Smelting Company, and 
 likewise became the owner of a majority of the shares of the
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 189 
 
 Hennessy Company, which then was, and still is, engaged in 
 a general merchandising business in the city of Butte and which 
 carries, and has, during all of the said time, carried a stock of 
 goods largely in excess in quantity and value of the stock car- 
 ried by any other mercantile house in the said city, and which 
 does, and during all of the said time, has done, the largest 
 merchandising business done in said city; that during all of 
 the period hereinbefore referred to, a smelter of greater capac- 
 ity than any other smelter in the state of Montana, has been 
 operated at the city of Anaconda in the County of Deer Lodge, 
 adjacent to the said county of Silver Bow, and distant from the 
 city of Butte about twenty-eight miles, which said smelter is, 
 and during all of the said period has been, as affiant is in- 
 formed and believes, operated by the plaintiff, Anaconda Cop- 
 per Mining Company. 
 
 "That prior to the said year 1900 there was constructed 
 from the said city of Butte to the said city of Anaconda a rail- 
 way, known as the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway, by 
 a corporation of the same name, the stock of which, during all 
 of said period, has been owned, as affiant is informed and be- 
 lieves, by the said Anaconda Copper Mining Company, the 
 plaintiff, and that by reason of the acquisition by it of the 
 majority of the stock of the said company, the said Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company since it so became the owner of such 
 stock, has controlled the said Butte, Anaconda and Pacific 
 Railway Company and its operations. 
 
 "That during the said year 1900, there was in progress and 
 had been in progress for some years theretofore, a spirited and 
 bitter litigation between one F. Augustus Heinze, the principal 
 stockholder and factor in the aforesaid Heinze companies, and 
 associates of the said F. Augustus Heinze and his said com- 
 panies on the one side, and some or all of the companies, the 
 majority of the stock of which was, as aforesaid, acquired by 
 the said Amalgamated Copper Company, on the other side, and 
 that the said litigation continued with undiminished vigor and 
 bitterness until sometime in the year 1905, or thereabouts; 
 that the said warfare between the said Amalgamated Copper 
 Company and its subsidiary companies on the one side and 
 the said F. Augustus Heinze and his companies and associates 
 on the other, was carried on not only in the courts of Silver 
 Bow and other counties within the State of Montana, and in 
 the Federal courts for the district of Montana, and the courts 
 appellate thereto, but was likewise carried into the political 
 life of the state and into its legislative and executive activities,
 
 190 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 and that the lines between the contestants were made manifest 
 in the business and social world as well. 
 
 "That at the general election held in the month of Novem- 
 ber, 1904, the judicial ticket in Silver Bow County, supported 
 by the said F. Augustus Heinze, having been defeated, he en- 
 tered into negotiations with the said Amalgamated Copper 
 Company for the sale to the said company or some one in their 
 interest or associated with them, of all of his properties in the 
 said county of Silver Bow; that as a result of such negotiations, 
 all of the said properties, save those of the LaFrance Copper 
 Company, were, about the month of February, 1906, transfer- 
 red to a corporation organized by the leading stockholders and 
 directing spirits of the said Amalgamated Copper Company, 
 known as the Red Metal Mining Company, which, by said trans- 
 fer, became the owner of all the properties of the said Montana 
 Ore Purchasing Company, the Nipper Consolidated, the 
 Guardian Mining Company, the Minnie Healey Company, the 
 Belmont Mining Company, the Johnstown Mining Company, 
 the Hypocka Mining Company, and the Corra-Rock Island Min- 
 ing Company, being all of the said Heinze companies, save 
 the LaFrance Mining Company; that there was paid for the 
 properties of the said companies, the sum of Ten and one-half 
 million ($10,500,000.00) Dollars, the said Red Metal Mining 
 Company being organized with a capital stock of Eleven Mil- 
 lion ($11,000,000.00) Dollars; that the same parties who or- 
 ganized the said company speedily thereafter organized a cor- 
 poration known as the Butte Coalition, which became the 
 holder of all, or at least a majority of the stock, of the said 
 Red Metal Mining Company; that the negotiations for the sale 
 of the said Heinze properties were carried on on the one side 
 by the said F. Augustus Heinze, and on the other side by one 
 John D. Ryan, who then was president of the Anaconda Cop- 
 per Mining Company, and now is the president of the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company, and who, since prior to the commence- 
 ment of the said negotiations, has been the chief representa- 
 tive of the Amalgamated Copper Company in the State of 
 Montana. 
 
 "That there was associated with him in the said negotia- 
 tions and in the organization of the said Red Metal Mining 
 Company, one Thomas F. Cole, and that since the transfer of 
 the said properties from the said Heinze companies, all of the 
 said properties have been known as the Cole-Ryan properties; 
 that promptly upon the making of the transfer of the prop- 
 erties, all suits pending, growing out of the said litigation
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 191 
 
 heretofore referred to, in number more than one hundred as 
 affiant is informed and believes, and involving claims aggre- 
 gating more than Fifty Million ($50,000,000.00) Dollars, were 
 dismissed and that since the dismissal of the said actions no 
 law suits of any kind have been instituted or prosecuted by 
 the said Red Metal Mining Company or the Butte Coalition 
 Company against the Amalgamated Company or any of its 
 constituent companies, nor by the latter against the said Red 
 Metal Mining Company, or the said Butte Coalition. 
 
 "That sometime prior to the month of May, 1910, a contro- 
 versy arose between the said W. A. Clark, or one or more of 
 the said companies controlled by him on the one side, and the 
 said Amalgamated Copper Company, or one or more of its con- 
 stituent companies on the other side, touching the right to 
 ores of great value within the city of Butte; that said W. A. 
 Clark is, and for many years last past has been, a man of very 
 great wealth and at the time the said controversy arose he 
 was employing a large number of men in the said county of 
 Silver Bow in connection with his mining and smelting opera- 
 tions; that in addition thereto, he is, and for many years last 
 past has been, a member of the banking house of W. A. Clark 
 and Brother, one of the leading financial institutions of the 
 city of Butte; that he was twice elected senator from the state 
 of Montana, and at the time the said controversy arose, and 
 during the pendency thereof, and until the transfer herein- 
 after referred to was made, was a man of large influence and 
 power in the city of Butte, County of Silver Bow, and State 
 of Montana. 
 
 "That said controversy having so arisen, negotiations were 
 entered into between the said W. A. Clark on the one side and 
 the said Amalgamated Copper Company on the other, as a re- 
 sult of which, all of the mining properties, as well as the 
 smelter so owned by one of the said Clark companies and con- 
 trolled by the said W. A. Clark, were transferred to and be- 
 came the property of the plaintiff herein, save certain prop- 
 erties, the chief production of which is zinc, and not copper, 
 and in connection with the operation of which a very limited 
 number of men are employed, and save also, that the said 
 Clark reserved the right to make use of the concentrator op- 
 erated in connection with the so-called Clark smelter, for a 
 limited period, for the concentration of zinc ores extracted 
 from the properties so retained by him; that affiant is informed 
 and believes, and upon such information and belief avers the 
 fact to be, that the said W. A. Clark closed such negotiations
 
 192 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 and sold all of his copper properties in and about the said 
 city of Butte as aforesaid, because, among other reasons he 
 dreaded the submission to a court and jury in the county of 
 Silver Bow, of the controversy so arising, in, view of the power 
 and influence wielded within said county by the said Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company. 
 
 "That within the past year, all of the properties of the said 
 Red Metal Mining Company, the Boston and Montana Com- 
 pany, the Parrot Silver and Copper Company, the Washoe 
 Copper Company, the Butte and Boston Consolidated Mining 
 Company and the Trenton Mining Company, which had become 
 the successor in interest of the Colorado Smelting and Mining 
 Company, have been transferred to the plaintiff, Anaconda 
 Copper Mining Company, its capital stock having been in- 
 creased in connection with the transfer referred to from Thirty 
 Million ($30,000,000) to One Hundred Fifty Million ($150,- 
 000,000) Dollars. 
 
 "That during the year 1905, there was organized by the 
 said John D. Ryan and the said Thomas F. Cole, a corporation 
 known as the North Butte Mining Company, which, upon its 
 organization became the purchaser of all of the properties of 
 the said Speculator Mining Company, and has since acquired 
 the properties of the Berlin Mining Company, and that the 
 said North Butte Mining Company has, since its organization 
 been engaged in the operation of the properties so acquired by 
 it; that in the acquisition of the said properties by the said 
 North Butte Mining Company, the negotiations for the trans- 
 fer of the stock or properties of the said Berlin Mining Com- 
 pany, and as affiant is informed and believes, of the properties 
 of the Speculator Company, were conducted by and on behalf 
 of the said North Butte Mining Company by the said John D. 
 Ryan, and that since the acquisition of the said properties by 
 the said North Butte Mining Company, the same have also 
 been generally known and spoken of as "Cole-Ryan" prop- 
 erties, and the said North Butte Mining Company, has since 
 the organization of the same, been generally referred to upon 
 the stock exchanges as a "Cole-Ryan property". 
 
 "That notwithstanding the said Amalgamated Copper 
 Company owns properties immediately adjacent to the prop- 
 erties of the said North Butte Mining Company no controversy 
 between the said Amalgamated Copper Company or any of its 
 constituent companies, and the said North Butte Copper Com- 
 pany, has ever given rise to litigation, nor has such controversy, 
 if ever there was any such, become known to the general pub-
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 193 
 
 lie, either through current report or newspaper mention, and 
 affiant avers on information and belief that the controlling 
 stock interest in the said North Butte Mining Company, is 
 held by some of the directing spirits of the said Amalgamated 
 Copper Company, — among others, the said John D. Ryan. 
 
 "That there is no industry of any character prosecuted in 
 or about the city of Butte, which is a city, including its suburbs, 
 of about 50,000 inhabitants as shown by the official census, 
 except quartz mining, save such industries as are either di- 
 rectly or indirectly dependent upon the business of mining 
 as conducted in and about said city; that in addition to the 
 defendant in this action, there are not, at the time of the in- 
 stitution of this suit, and are not now engaged in mining in 
 and about the city of Butte, outside of the companies herein- 
 before referred to, as either controlled by or as associated with 
 the said Amalgamated Copper Company, corporations or in- 
 dividuals employing in such business, more than Twelve Hun- 
 dred Fifty (1250) men; that among such corporations, the 
 Butte-Superior Company, the chief values of the ores of which 
 are in zinc, employs about Four Hundred (400) men: the Elm 
 Orlu, likewise operating on zinc ores, employs about One Hun- 
 dred Fifty (150) men; the East Butte Mining Company, about 
 Three Hundred (300) men; the Tuolumne about One Hundred 
 Fifty (150) men and the Ophir about Forty (40) men. 
 
 "That there are employed in the mines in and about the 
 city of Butte, operated by the plaintiff, the Anaconda Copper 
 Mining Company, since its absorption of the properties herein- 
 before referred to, and in those of the said North Butte Min- 
 ing Company, which employs from Five Hundred (500) to 
 One Thousand (1000) men, and in various capacities in con- 
 nection with said mines, and in and about the said city by the 
 said Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway company, and the 
 said Hennessy Mercantile Company, and by other corpora- 
 tions controlled by the same individuals who manage and di- 
 rect the affairs of the said plaintiff company, and the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company within the said county of Silver Bow, 
 not less than twelve thousand (12,000) men; that the value 
 of the annual product of the mines so operated by the plain- 
 tiff company, and its associate company, the said North Butte 
 Mining Company, is not less than Twenty-five Million ($25,- 
 000,000) Dollars. 
 
 "That one of the largest banking institutions of the city 
 of Butte, and state of Montana, is the Daly Bank & Trust 
 Company, a bank having deposits in excess of two and one-half
 
 194 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 million ($2,500,000) Dollars, and carrying loans and discounts 
 aggregating upwards of one and one-half million ($1,500,000) 
 Dollars, a large amount of which is, as affiant is informed and 
 believes, loaned to men in business, and residents of the city of 
 Butte; that the said bank takes its name from one Marcus 
 Daly, who was for many years the general manager and man- 
 aging director of the plaintiff company, and who was one of 
 the organizers of the Amalgamated Copper Company, and that 
 the business affairs of said bank are now, and for some years 
 last past, have been under the direction of one John G. Morony 
 who succeeded, in the management of said bank, the said John 
 D. Ryan, and who, in the absence of said John D. Ryan, is the 
 chief representative of the Amalgamated Copper Company in 
 the state of Montana, and who is now a director of said com- 
 pany. 
 
 "That it is generally understood in and about the city of 
 Butte, and on information and belief, affiant avers the fact to 
 be, that the said Amalgamated Copper Company, or some of 
 its stockholders own the controlling interest in the stock of the 
 Butte Water Company which supplies the city of Butte with 
 water, and the Butte Electric & Power Company which sup- 
 plies electric light, gas and power to the city of Butte and its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 "That the only evening paper published in the city of Butte 
 is the Butte Inter-Mountain, owned by the Butte Inter-Moun- 
 tain Company; that the stock of the Butte Inter-Mountain Com- 
 pany is, as affiant is informed and believes, owned by the said 
 Amalgamated Copper Company, or some of its principal stock- 
 holders, and that the policy of said paper is under the direc- 
 tion and control of the same persons directing the affairs of the 
 said company within the state of Montana; that the only morn- 
 ing paper published in the city of Butte is the Butte Miner, 
 hereinafter referred to, but that there is published in the city 
 of Anaconda, a morning paper having a large circulation in 
 the city of Butte, known as the Anaconda Standard; that said 
 Anaconda Standard was established by the said Marcus Daly 
 and that the estate of the said Marcus Daly still owns a large, 
 if not a controlling interest in the same; that the said news- 
 paper depends to a very great extent for its support upon the 
 advertising and other patronage of the corporation controlled 
 by or affiliated with the said plaintiff company and the said 
 Amalgamated Copper Company, and that its policy is, and 
 always has been, uniformly in conformity with the purposes 
 and desires of the plaintiff and the said Amalgamated Copper
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 195 
 
 Company; that the said Butte Miner is owned by the Miner 
 Publishing Company, the stock of which is owned or controlled 
 by the said W. A. Clark, and that its business interests are 
 largely dependent upon the good will, or at least upon not in- 
 curring the active antagonism of the said plaintiff and the 
 said Amalgamated Copper Company and the individuals and 
 officers locally directing their affairs, and that it exhibits, at 
 all times, a noticeable conformity to the policy of its con- 
 temporary, the said Anaconda Standard. 
 
 "Affiant further avers on information and belief, that the 
 individuals in chief control of the affairs of the said plaintiff 
 company and the said Amalgamated Copper Company, in the 
 state of Montana, are interested as stockholders and other- 
 wise in various other companies doing business in the city of 
 Butte, to a greater or less extent, and further affiant says that 
 the same persons have at all times been active in connection 
 with any political movements in the city of Butte, and have, 
 as is well known, exercised a very large and generally a pre- 
 ponderating influence in the deliberations of the political con- 
 ventions held in said county of Silver Bow, and have been 
 largely instrumental in the selection of the candidates of the 
 various parties for all local affairs, and that the belief gen- 
 erally prevails within the said county of Silver Bow, and 
 throughout the state of Montana, that the said individuals, 
 acting under the direction and with the co-operation of the 
 said plaintiff company and the said Amalgamated Copper 
 Company, are all powerful in the selection of the candidates 
 of the political conventions held in the said county, and that 
 in consequence of such belief, the said individuals and the 
 said corporation wield a powerful influence over all, or near- 
 ly all persons occupying or expecting to occupy official posi- 
 tion within the county of Silver Bow. 
 
 "That the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway 
 Company owns and operates a transcontinental line of rail- 
 way through the county of Silver Bow and the city of Butte, 
 and in addition to and in connection with its transportation 
 business, it is engaged in the sale of coal, brought to the said 
 city of Butte from mines near Roundup, Montana; it main- 
 tains a dispatcher's office, within said city, a General Freight 
 and Passenger Agent's office, an Assistant General Superin- 
 tendent's office, a law office and an office of an Engineer of 
 Construction; that in addition to the foregoing, it employs 
 within said county, a number of section men, yard employees 
 and trainmen; that the stock of the said Chicago, Milwaukee
 
 196 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 and Puget Sound Company is owned, as affiant is inform* d 
 and believes, by the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- 
 way Company, a parent company; that it is generally under- 
 stood that the stockholders in whose hands are the manage- 
 ment and the control of the said Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany and the said Standard Oil Company, are likewise stock- 
 holders, who manage and control, at its head, the business 
 of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company, 
 and that said John D. Ryan, the president of the said Amal- 
 gamated Copper Company, and one Wm. Rockefeller, prom- 
 inent in the affairs of the said Standard Oil Company, are 
 both directors of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- 
 way Company. 
 
 "That about the time this action was commenced, the 
 plaintiff herein began an action against the Monidah Trust, 
 a corporation controlled by one James A. Murray, and against 
 the said James A. Murray, who was operating a mining claim 
 known as the Ticon, under a claim, similar to that asserted in 
 this action, claiming therein, that ores being extracted by 
 the said Murray from said Ticon were within a vein having its 
 apex within property owned by the plaintiff company; that 
 said action is still pending, an injunction having been granted 
 therein, as in this action, by which the mining operations be- 
 ing conducted by the said Murray were interrupted; that at or 
 about the same time, an action was commenced by the said 
 North Butte Mining Company against the said Tuolumne Min- 
 ing Company, under a similar claim, but that the said action 
 was thereafter settled and dismissed pursuant to some agree- 
 ment entered into between the said North Butte Mining Com- 
 pany and the said Toulumne Mining Company, the said Tou- 
 lumne Mining Company being induced, as affiant is informed 
 and believes, to settle the controversy thus arising upon con- 
 siderations somewhat similar to those hereinbefore referred 
 to as operative in inducing the sale of his properties by the 
 said W. A. Clark. 
 
 "That the Butte Business Men's Association is an or- 
 ganization of persons engaged either directly or through cor- 
 porations with which they are affiliated, in merchandising and 
 in other lines of business in the city of Butte, and that there 
 is affiliated therewith an association of merchants being mem- 
 bers of the said association, known as the Butte Credit Men's 
 Association; that among other activities of said Butte Credit 
 Men's Association, it assumes to determine and does determine 
 and decide the amount of credit which ought to be extended to
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 197 
 
 the several merchants of the city of Butte, and to determine 
 and decide upon the solvency of those engaged in merchandis- 
 ing; and that upon the determination of such association that 
 any merchant is not entitled to further credit the effort of the 
 said association is put forth to prevent his obtaining it, and 
 if it determines that it is unwise, in view of the financial con- 
 dition of any merchant, as determined by them, that he 
 continue business, steps are taken by the said association to 
 procure the liquidation of the business of such merchant and 
 accomplish his retirement from business; that in both of said 
 associations one C. J. Kelly, who is general manager of the 
 business of the Hennessy Company, heretofore referred to, has 
 a very great influence, and that he assumes in a very large 
 part, the direction of the affairs of both of said associations, 
 and that by and through such associations, the said plaintiff 
 company and the said Amalagamated Copper Company, exer- 
 cise a very large measure of influence and control over the 
 business houses in the city of Butte. 
 
 "That upon the transfer to the said Amalgamated Copper 
 Company of the stock of the said companies hereinbefore re- 
 ferred to operating four large smelters within the city of 
 Butte and to the plaintiff company of the properties of the 
 said W. A. Clark, all of the smelters were closed down, and all 
 of them have been dismantled and razed, save the said Clark 
 smelter, which, however, has never since the said transfer 
 been operated, and that all of the ores now produced by the 
 plaintiff company or any of the constituent companies of the 
 said Amalgamated Copper Company or the companies affiliated 
 therewith, are smelted at the said smelter of the plaintiff com- 
 pany situated at the city of Anaconda or at another smelter 
 owned by it, at the city of Great Falls. 
 
 "That the plaintiff company owns within said county of Sil- 
 ver Bow, property of value in excess of One Hundred fifty 
 million ($150,000,000.00) dollars and that the aggregate value 
 of all other property in the said county does not exceed fifty 
 million ($50,000,000.00) Dollars. 
 
 "That the attorneys for the plaintiff company at the city of 
 Butte, are likewise the attorneys for the said North Butte Min- 
 ing Company, the Butte Water Company, the Daly Bank & 
 Trust Company and the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway 
 Company. 
 
 "That this general dread on the part of mine owners of the 
 litigation and threatened litigation with the Amalgamated in- 
 terest and the fact that said owners could not safely protect
 
 198 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 their interest in the trial of said suits in said county of BllTer 
 Bow, together with the active policy on the part of the Amal- 
 gamated interests in threatening and instituting suits with 
 all abutting owners of copper-producing mines except those 
 allied with them in interest, has been one of the chief means 
 of bringing about sales to the said Amalgamated interest, at 
 prices satisfactory to them. 
 
 "That the combined Amalgamated interests as aforesaid 
 are engaged in the general mercantile business, dealing in and 
 distributing all classes of dry goods, gents' furnishings, la- 
 dies' suits and wears, including all descriptions of wearing ap- 
 parel for men, women, and children, used or sold in the said 
 city of Butte; and also sell and distribute furniture, carpets, 
 groceries, fruits, meats, flour, provisions, hardware, mining 
 machinery and mining supplies, coal, lumber, water, electric 
 light and electric power, gas, and many other necessary com- 
 modities not herein mentioned. 
 
 "That in selling and distributing said products at whole- 
 sale or retail to the laboring men and business men of Butte, 
 the said Amalgamated Interests carry on a very large part of 
 the business on credit, and especially a large credit has been 
 extended by the Hennessy Company, on an extensive scale to 
 the laboring men, employed by the said Amalgamated inter- 
 ests, and a large credit has also been extended to the business 
 men, and including the credit extended to the residents of 
 Silver Bow County by the public service corporations, such as 
 the Butte Water Company, the Butte Electric & Power Com- 
 pany, and other subsidiary companies, that nearly at all times 
 the relation of debtor and creditor would exist between all 
 persons called to sit upon a jury in said county of Silver Bow, 
 and some one or more of the said friendly and allied com- 
 panies composing the Amalgamated interests in the city of 
 Butte and dominated and controlled by their said managers 
 and their said attorneys. 
 
 "That credit has been extended to the laboring men of the 
 said county of Silver Bow by the said Hennessy Company on a 
 very large scale and based upon the condition that the men 
 are in the employ of the different Amalgamated companies, 
 and the further fact that their wages are assigned to the said 
 Hennessy Company through the medium of time checks; and 
 affiant is informed and believes that all classes of laboring men 
 who expect credit at the Hennessy Company must assign their 
 said wages to the said company and purchase their merchan- 
 dise from said company, and that if they are in debt to said
 
 WHERE TRIAL BY JURY IS A FARCE 199 
 
 company, they believe their chances for obtaining employment 
 from the Amalgamated interests are very much greater than 
 if the relation of debtor and creditor does not exist; and they 
 also believe that unless they keep on friendly terms with the 
 Amalgamated company, their chances of obtaining credit or 
 employment from the said Amalgamated interests are very 
 greatly lessened. 
 
 "That many of the merchants of said city of Butte believe 
 that, if the Amalgamated interests, their attorneys and man- 
 agers, are unfriendly to them, that it would be unsafe for them 
 to extend credit to persons in the employ of said Amalgamated 
 interests in the said county of Silver Bow, and that the busi- 
 ness in all the mercantile stores is very largely carried on by 
 the storekeeper extending credit to men employed by the said 
 Amalgamated interests, and that notwithstanding the fact that 
 the assigning of the men's wages to the Hennessy Company 
 has, at all times, been very unpopular among the other mer- 
 chants of the city of Butte, the said merchants through fear 
 have been unable to make any general or open protests, not- 
 withstanding the fact that by reason of said assignments the 
 Hennessy Company has a very great advantage in securing 
 and keeping the trade of the men employed by the said Amal- 
 gamated interests, thereby practically monopolizing the earn- 
 ings and trade of the miners and laborers employed by the 
 said Amalgamated interests to such a great extent that the 
 men sitting on a jury and being in their employ, would not be 
 in a position to fairly and impartially weigh the evidence and 
 render a fair and impartial verdict thereon by reason of the 
 inducements to favor the said Amalgamated interests as here- 
 in stated, and by reason of the further fact that the relation of 
 debtor and creditor would so generally exist, either directly or 
 indirectly, as aforesaid, that very few qualified jurors in fact 
 can be found in said county of Silver Bow to try the above en- 
 titled cause. 
 
 "And now, affiant avers the fact to be that by reason of all 
 the facts hereinbefore set forth, the said plaintiff company has 
 and exercises such power and influence industrially, politically, 
 financially, commercially, and socially, within the county of 
 Silver Bow, that defendant can not have a fair trial in the said 
 county and that there is abundant reason to believe that it 
 can not have such fair trial. 
 
 "That the plaintiff has substantially the same political, in- 
 dustrial, social and financial power in the county of Deer Lodge 
 as in said county of Silver Bow, making a change of the place
 
 200 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 of the trial of this action to said county of Deer Lodge sub- 
 ject to substantially the same objections on part of defendant, 
 as exist in said county of Silver Bow. 
 
 "Affiant further says: That he resided in said county of 
 Silver Bow for many years, and has had in the past, and still 
 has considerable property interest within said city, and that 
 he has deemed it advisable to make an application for a change 
 of venue in said action brought by the plaintiff company 
 against the Monidah Trust, upon an affidavit in substance the 
 same or similar to one verified by this affiant in the said suit 
 by the above named plaintiff against the Butte-Balaklava 
 Mining Company, and that in the preparation of said affidavit 
 that the Hon. T. J. Walsh of Helena, Montana, has rendered 
 very important assistance to James T. Murray, Esq., and R. 
 L. Clinton, Esq., attorneys for the Monidah Trust and this 
 affiant. 
 
 "Affiant further says that this affidavit is made that a fair 
 trial of this cause may be had before an impartial court and 
 jury in a community that is unbiased in respect to any of the 
 matters at issue."
 
 The Celebrated Case of Farmer vs. Combine 
 
 When God created that part of the world now known 
 as the state of Montana for the benefit of a few distin- 
 guished Wall Street operators, and filled the Butte hill 
 with gold and silver and copper, he likewise created fer- 
 tile and beautiful valleys richly adapted to production of 
 fruits of the soil and of sheep and cattle as well as to habi- 
 tation for happy human kind. Inscrutable Providence 
 likewise mixed the precious metals of the Butte hill with 
 profuse quantities of sulphur and arsenic. Long years 
 before Coal Baron Baer had revealed the puissant right 
 of modern combines as instruments of Divine will and 
 Infinite mercy, or the Rockefellers and Rogers had insti- 
 tuted this right in Montana, perverse man, in guise of 
 pioneer, had penetrated to these valleys, had developed 
 farms, established homes, accumulated flocks and herds, 
 installed the arts of civilization, and dreamed of grati- 
 tude from a prosperous posterity. 
 
 By reason of its proximity to the mining fields and 
 town, and because of its extensive soil and water re- 
 sources, Deer Lodge valley was one of the first in the 
 state to be occupied by ranchmen. This valley started 
 in the mountains a few miles west of Butte and extended 
 north for about fifty miles, with width varying from five 
 to fifteen miles, between foothills largely wooded and 
 with never-failing mountain streams flowing from either 
 side as feeders to the Deer Lodge river which coursed 
 its length. 
 
 The first rich earnings of the Anaconda Copper Min- 
 ing company were derived by shipping high grade ores 
 
 [201]
 
 202 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 to Wales for reduction and smelting. When Marcus 
 Daly, in search of water supply and smelter sites, found 
 both at the head of Deer Lodge valley, and founded the 
 city of Anaconda, the valley farmers found their best 
 market almost at their doors. The smelters of those 
 days were constructed with short smokestacks from fur- 
 naces and concentrators; and the works, while extensive, 
 were small compared with those of later years. The 
 fumes from these stacks, which carried off the poisons 
 from the ores, blighted and destroyed vegetation in the 
 immediate vicinity, but were not carried far, and there 
 was no vegetation in or about Butte or adjacent to the 
 original works at Anaconda greatly to concern anybody. 
 Soon after the Amalgamated Copper Company was or- 
 ganized it constructed a smelting plant, the largest in 
 the world, across the town from the old works and 
 higher up on the mountain foothills, so that the prevail- 
 ing winds carried the smoke down the valley. Soon 
 blighted crops and dying livestock on many of the farms 
 within a few miles of the new smelters caused investiga- 
 tion, which proved that both forms of misfortune to the 
 farmers came from the smelter fumes by precipitation 
 of sulphuric acids and arsenic. Mr. William Scallon was 
 then in charge of Amalgamated company affairs in Mon- 
 tana, and after becoming satisfied of the company's re- 
 sponsibility for the injury to agriculture and stock-grow- 
 ing, he employed company agents in the work of adjust- 
 ing claims and paying losses of the farmers, while the 
 company employed experts in efforts to provide a remedy 
 for the destructive features of smelter operations. As a 
 result, the company constructed an immense flume to 
 conduct the smoke from all the works for many hundreds 
 of feet to the top of the foot hill, and built at the end of 
 that flume what was then the greatest and highest
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 203 
 
 smokestack in the world. Both flume and stack were 
 equipped with devices designed to hold in the flume 
 great quantities of the arsenic, and it was the theory of 
 the experts that the smoke from this stack would be pro- 
 jected into the air at so great an altitude and diffused 
 over such great space before reaching the ground that the 
 precipitation from it would be harmless. Something like 
 $300,000 was paid to the farmers to compensate them for 
 loss and injuries, and to secure releases from them of 
 damage claims till July 1, 1903, when the new stack was 
 to be completed. The completion of the stack was noted 
 by a celebration which was attended by Deer Lodge 
 valley farmers almost unanimously, and they were en- 
 tertained with other people to the number of hundreds 
 at a banquet served in the shelter of the great flume. 
 There was an abundance of goodwill and mutual con- 
 gratulation, based upon mutual confidence that cause of 
 trouble or damage on either side was to be removed. 
 While the great flume caught and saved to the copper 
 company arsenic in quantity to control the market of the 
 world, and is alleged to have more than paid its cost by 
 saving in mineral which formerly had gone into the air 
 from furnace stacks, it did not afford a satisfactory pro- 
 tection to the farmers against smelter poison. It did 
 diffuse the smoke contents over a greatly extended area 
 and make the effects from them less immediately notice- 
 able. Late in 1904 there were new claims for damages, 
 and in 1905 almost all of the farmers in the valley were 
 members of an association organized to secure compensa- 
 tion for losses incurred, and relief from or protection 
 against future injury. The company had changed in 
 management and in policy. John D. Ryan had succeeded 
 William Scallon, and it was determined to wear out 
 rather than to buy out the farmers of the Deer Lodge
 
 204 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 valley. The means expended, the agencies employed, 
 the methods practiced, the time exhausted, the results 
 accomplished, were sometimes ludicrous, sometimes seri- 
 ous, sometimes criminal, sometimes patriotic, always ex- 
 haustive, usually expensive. No better exhibit of awe- 
 inspiring power and insatiate greed of corporate com 
 bine, and no worse exhibit of "the insolence of office, the 
 law's delay'', the smug sufficiency of officers of justice, 
 the inefficiency of government for justice, can be found 
 in any part of the country than those furnished by the 
 history of this case of Farmer vs. Combine, or, in the 
 court records, Fred. J. Bliss vs. The Washoe Copper 
 Company and The Anaconda Copper Mining Company. 
 
 These farmers sought settlement without litigation. 
 The first papers in the famous suit were filed May 5. 
 1905. On January 30, 1905, K. D. Smith, president, and 
 William T. Stephens, secretary, of the Farmers' Asso- 
 ciation, addressed a letter to the combine officers, the 
 contents of which follow : 
 
 "Owing to the conditions that prevail in the Deer 
 Lodge valley as a result of the operation of your smelting 
 plant, generally known as the Washoe smelters, there 
 has been formed the Deer Lodge Valley Farmers' Asso- 
 ciation, for the purpose of obtaining relief on the part of 
 the farmers of Deer Lodge valley from the general and 
 widespread damage caused and resulting from your 
 smelting operations. 
 
 "It is the sincere and earnest desire of every farmer 
 in said association to secure an amicable settlement for 
 the damages already incurred, and which may be here- 
 after incurred, from your smelting operations, without in 
 any manner causing your companies any needless annoy- 
 ance, litigation, expense, or in any manner attempting 
 to interfere with the future operation of your smelting 
 plant.
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 205 
 
 "We believe that stockraising or farming in the Deer 
 Lodge valley within the smoke-infected portion cannot 
 be carried on as long as your smelting operations con- 
 tinue, and that litigation will ultimately engender bad 
 feeling between the smelting interests and the farming 
 interests, and will cause much needless expense to all 
 parties concerned. 
 
 "The members of the Farmers' association have di- 
 rected their committee to use every honest endeavor to 
 secure a fair and just settlement, either by mutual agree- 
 ment between the parties, and, where mutual agreement 
 cannot effect a settlement, then by arbitration of all dif- 
 ferences between the smelting people and the farmers, 
 and to that end we desire to present to those officers who 
 have authority to bind the company's interest our re- 
 quest for an amicable adjustment of those differences, 
 so that some plan can be formulated and agreed to by all 
 parties concerned. 
 
 "R. L. Clinton, Esq., has been selected by the com- 
 mittee to represent the association and the members 
 thereof, to discuss ways and means of bringing about an 
 amicable settlement, and no plan, stipulation or agree- 
 ment will be ratified in reference to the smoke cases or 
 settlement thereof unless approved by him and the execu- 
 tive committee." 
 
 The answer to this letter came from Mr. A. J. Shores, 
 then chief of the copper combine's legal department in 
 Montana, in the form of a request to the farmers to sub- 
 mit to the companies defendant a bill of particulars con- 
 cerning claims and damages. Mr. Shores' communication 
 discouraged arbitration for the given reason that an 
 agreement to arbitrate could not be enforced under Mon- 
 tana statutes, with an opinion that arbitration would be 
 almost as expensive as litigation. Mr. Shores closed
 
 206 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 with an assurance that if the farmers should see fit t<> 
 adopt the course suggested by him, to give particulars 
 of claims and damages, "the company will, in good faith, 
 act promptly in the matter, and expedite the negotia- 
 tions in every reasonable way." The farmers responded 
 with the bill of particulars as asked. The action of the 
 company in good faith, as promised by Mr. Shores, i^ 
 thus described in the brief submitted by the farmers' at- 
 torneys in court : 
 
 "The company, after receiving a list of all damages, 
 including land description, live-stock, etc., never made 
 any answer at all to this letter or to the claims for dam- 
 ages, showing conclusively that they were acting in bad 
 faith, and for the purpose only of getting from each 
 farmer, in advance, just what his claims were, so that he 
 would be confined to this data in case of a damage suit." 
 This unanswered letter from the farmers also contained 
 offers of settlement, and, according to the same brief 
 filed in court, "The letter itself shows that there are 
 60,525 acres of patented lands, together with all water 
 rights and improvements, all being under fence, and gen- 
 erally all being improved farms, for which is demanded 
 the sum of $918,147, which insures to the company title 
 to all the lands, water rights and improvements, for the 
 sum of $18.17 per acre." 
 
 In that letter they gave the company two months time 
 in which to reach a settlement, and there was no objection 
 to any of the the propositions or request for any further 
 time to give answer. The action was commenced in fed- 
 eral court in the name of F. J. Bliss, a resident of the 
 state of Idaho owning a farm in the valley. This offer of 
 settlement is significant, because the copper combine, 
 through its organs and other agencies, continuously 
 sought to impress public and courts with pretense that
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 207 
 
 its management desired to be fair while the farmers 
 would be satisfied with nothing short of an injunction 
 order to close the smelters and compel the combine to 
 settle on such terms as the farmers would make. The 
 falsity of this pretense was repeatedly exposed by the 
 plaintiffs, with offers to submit to arbitration made in 
 and out of courts, and to the president of the United 
 States, as well as to the company officials prior to be- 
 ginning any action. The farmers filed their complaint on 
 May 5, 1905, and presented their case in ninety days be- 
 tween January 15 and April 15, 1906. Not till April 26, 
 1909, was the final decision in the trial court received. 
 The court had fixed the time for the submission of evi- 
 dence, giving plaintiffs three months for their evidence 
 in chief, a like time to the defendants, and the plaintiffs 
 to have fifteen days more to close the case. When the 
 farmers had complied with this order of the court, the 
 combine attorneys began demanding and securing ex- 
 tensions of time for its evidence. Some of its representa- 
 tives had told some of the farmers interested that they 
 would be kept in litigation for years, or until they were 
 bankrupt. The taking of testimony did not conclude till 
 the last of March, 1907, almost a year after the farmers 
 had closed their case. Some of the reasons for this delay 
 as alleged in the plaintiff's brief will appear of importance 
 to laymen if not to court officials. In this brief the plain- 
 tiff's attorneys say : 
 
 "Nearly all the testimony introduced by the defend- 
 ants was testimony which was produced, manufactured 
 and created after complainant had introduced his case 
 in chief, and for the sole purpose and object in view 
 of meeting and defeating, if possible, the testimony in 
 chief offered by the complainant. It was not a fair in- 
 vestigation of the facts in the Deer Lodge valley, but an
 
 208 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 investigation of the testimony offered by the complain- 
 ant, with a view of meeting it. 
 
 "These several continuances were granted defend- 
 ants, as will be shown by the record, without any legal 
 showing whatever as to what witnesses they expected 
 to produce, what these witnesses would testify to, what 
 diligence, if any, had been used by the defendants in 
 securing their attendance." 
 
 In an affidavit filed by the attorneys for the farmers, 
 and undisputed by the defendant, in endeavoring to pre- 
 vent further delays, the combine was openly charged 
 with protracting the case for the purpose of wearing 
 out the farmers ; and it was shown that the lay witnesses 
 put on the stand afterwards were available when de- 
 fendants first asked for postponements. The trial lasted 
 over a year, and the record of evidence was described 
 as the greatest in the history of litigation. The master 
 in chancery took nearly a year in which to make cer- 
 tain proposed findings. It was then January, 1908. The 
 trial court had the case till April 26, 1909, when the 
 judge gave his decision. 
 
 Eleven days before the farmers in Montana filed their 
 suit against the copper combine, farmers in the Salt 
 Lake valley in Utah filed a similar suit in the federal 
 court in that state against smelter companies that were 
 injuring them in exactly the same way. The Utah suit 
 passed through the trial court, the circuit court of ap- 
 peals, and the supreme court of the United States, and 
 was forever ended in December, 1907. This was before 
 the plaintiffs in the Montana suit had even the master's 
 report in their case, notwithstanding that these plain- 
 tiffs were urging haste and complaining of delay al- 
 most throughout the proceedings. It was through the 
 application of the corporation that the hearing of this
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 209 
 
 farmer's case was referred to a master in chancery, and 
 against strenuous objection by the plaintiffs, who alleged 
 they were convinced that such proceeding would open 
 the way to abuses that followed, in delays, in a great 
 mass of non-essential testimony, and consumption of 
 time by the master in making findings which were after- 
 wards disregarded by Judge Hunt so far as opinion was 
 concerned, the court making original findings and judg- 
 ment for himself. Any attempt to review the library of 
 testimony built up in this case would be as irrelevant 
 to this history as it was to the disposition of the case by 
 the honorable courts. 
 
 In his decision in January, 1909, Judge Hunt denied 
 the right of the farmers to use of the power of injunc- 
 tion, but he recognized and stated the fact that injury 
 had been done and that it was competent for a court of 
 equity to call for further proceedings and addi- 
 tional evidence to determine what measure of re- 
 lief should be furnished, and what action by 
 the court should be taken to secure it. He is- 
 sued an order retaining jurisdiction in the case 
 for the purpose of receiving further evidence regarding 
 the possibility of instituting a plant at the smelter that 
 would eliminate the arsenic, and stop the damage, which 
 he had judicially determined had been in process of do- 
 ing since the suit was started six years before. After 
 taking this evidence, furnished mostly by employees of 
 the combine, Judge Hunt determined that it did not 
 furnish the court with basis for an order requiring alter- 
 ations at the smelter, and dismissed the suit, adjudging 
 each party to the action entitled to pay his own costs. 
 In substance and effect Judge Hunt's decision was that 
 an injunction to close the smelter would not be granted 
 because the suspension of the smelter would inflict more
 
 210 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 injury upon society than the principles governing the 
 administration of equity would permit a court to cause 
 in such circumstances ; that plaintiff had sought the 
 wrong remedy and should seek relief by a suit for dam- 
 ages against the combine in civil action. This meant, 
 in effect, if not in the opinion of the court, that it was 
 reasonable to assume that the combine would abandon 
 the use of $10,000,000 worth of property in Anaconda, 
 as well as nearly ten times as much more in Butte, by 
 court injunction rather than to pay less than $1,000,000 
 in equitable settlement of damages imposed by it upon 
 citizens of the state through the operations of its works. 
 It meant also that the farmers of the Deer Lodge valley 
 who resided there must seek their relief in state court 
 from judges and jurors who alike owed their employ- 
 ment to combine sufferance or suffrages. It also meant 
 that despite guarantee of both federal and state consti- 
 tutions against private property being taken or damaged 
 for public use without just compensation, such property 
 might be so taken with authority of courts of equity in 
 consideration of the welfare of the greater number of 
 people who might be injured if a lawless combine should 
 chose to punish itself with loss of millions in preference 
 to doing justice, to those whom it had wronged, by the 
 payment of less than a million for property which it 
 had damaged or destroyed. 
 
 There were incidents in this litigation luminant of 
 combine methods and resources in curing plain citizens 
 of appetite for justice through court decisions. While 
 about one hundred farmers were interested, and possibly 
 half of them were impoverished through these proceed- 
 ings, Mr. Bliss of Idaho was the only party plaintiff of 
 record. The testimony of Dr. Warren, one of the pro- 
 prietors of the state hospital for the insane, operated
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 211 
 
 under contract with the state, shows that John D. Ryan, 
 head of the combine, sent Dr. Warren secretly to Idaho 
 to buy Bliss out and thus end with defeat the farmers' 
 action after they had spent a great sum for costs in an 
 effort to get the matter litigated. Mr. Warren testified 
 that he did not inform Bliss who he was buying the 
 place for but that he did ask him to fix a price, and that 
 he did not know how Mr. Ryan came to send him down 
 there. It is incidentally interesting here to mention the 
 fact that in the legislative session of 1911 in Montana, 
 combine influences were actively involved in an attempt 
 to sell this insane asylum property to the state, together 
 with a great tract of land in the Deer Lodge valley, the 
 price to the state for the land being fixed at almost three 
 times that asked by the farmers for their land; notwith- 
 standing that the greater part of this asylum land had its 
 title clouded with an easement to the copper combine 
 against all claims for damages, past, present or prospec- 
 tive, from pollution of soil, air or water, from smelter 
 operations. 
 
 Naturally the newspapers published by or in combine 
 interest would and did approve and confirm, Judge 
 Hunt's wobbling decision. They did more. They ac- 
 cepted it as final and eternal. The Butte Intermountain, 
 published and edited under the personal direction of 
 John D. Ryan, started its able editorial on the subject 
 with the phrase, "In writing the final chapter of the cele- 
 brated 'smoke' case today". The learned editor of The 
 Anaconda Standard, more indirectly employed in the 
 same service, closed his able editorial on Judge Hunt's 
 decision with this conclusive summary : "The effect of 
 yesterday's ruling is to remove the last vestige of anxiety 
 as to the future of the cities of Butte and Anaconda, and 
 to relieve all lingering apprehension of all the other com-
 
 212 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 munities which are, to a greater or less degree, depend- 
 ent upon the defendant companies' operations. This 
 smoke case has been in the court three years. (The real 
 time was four years.) It has involved colossal interests, 
 it has entailed enormous expense, it has attracted na- 
 tional attention. It is ancient history — a thing of the 
 past." 
 
 Were these cocksure press agents of the jubilant 
 combine inspired with intuition or information, that 
 they were enabled to esteem the trial court as the court 
 of last resort in federal practice? The reader has been 
 advised how this unprecedented record of a trial was 
 made up. He should know why it was made up. The 
 resources of the majority of the farmers undoubtedly 
 had been exhausted by court expenses, with continuing 
 damage to crops and stocks from smelter operations, 
 during four years of legal combat with the combine. Not 
 all of them were bankrupt. The leader in the fight, in 
 strength of courage as well as finance, was Mr. N. J. 
 Bielenberg, one of the pioneer stockmen of the state, 
 one of the earlier settlers in the Deer Lodge valley, and 
 one whose interests and resources were not confined to 
 his big ranch in the valley. He desired something more 
 specific and definite on the merits of his claim than the 
 decision of Judge Hunt appears to be to him. He pro- 
 posed to take an appeal. Facts obtained from the clerk 
 of the federal court for the district of Montana revealed 
 that the cost of appeal in the matter of fees had been 
 practically doubled by congressional action the year 
 before, by the enactment of a little bill, promoted by 
 .Senator Thomas H. Carter, for the nominal purpose of 
 equalizing such fees in northwestern states. Where the 
 former fee for making a transcript had been fifteen 
 cents per folio or forty-five cents per page, it was now
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 213 
 
 thirty cents per folio or ninety cents per page, allowed 
 to the clerk for making such transcript and certifying it 
 to the higher court. This court official estimated that 
 the testimony in the case of the Deer Lodge valley 
 farmers would make approximately 30,000 pages, 
 amounting in round numbers to $27,000 for the tran- 
 script. In the court of appeals, according to law as ex- 
 plained by the court official, the clerk shall receive one 
 dollar per page for printing such transcript and twenty- 
 five cents per page for supervising the work. It was, 
 therefore, reasonably reckoned by the court official that 
 the making and printing of the transcript of record in 
 the case of Farmer vs. Combine would cost between 
 $60,000 and $75,000. Possibly there was only coin- 
 cidence of this increased cost of appeal and the prema- 
 ture assurance of combine organ editors that the de- 
 cision in the trial court ended the smoke case for all 
 time. 
 
 The attorneys for the farmers went before the court 
 of appeals in San Francisco with a motion for an order 
 directing the clerk of the district court in Montana to 
 transmit with certification the original record in the 
 case, with statement of the facts showing that such 
 order would impose no hardship upon anyone, that the 
 charge of thirty cents per folio for transcribing such an 
 enormous record was excessive when the same services 
 could be obtained for five cents per folio ; and the higher 
 court, after due consideration of the subject, issued the 
 order and made it possible for the farmers to appeal 
 their case at a cost of less than $40,000 for a perfected 
 record of the testimony and proceedings. 
 
 Few influences which could be enlisted to create pub- 
 lic sentiment, to impress public officials, or to embarrass 
 the plaintiffs, were neglected during all these many
 
 214 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 years devoted to wearing out this community of farmers 
 who had temerity to beard a combine in court. The 
 menace of a shutdown, the danger of want, if not star- 
 vation, to many thousands in widely scattered parts of 
 Montana, was a favored and well exploited argument 
 for this as well as other emergencies. If we may be- 
 lieve the decision, this had profound weight with the 
 honorable trial court. Less serious to the public, amus- 
 ing to most people with sense of humor, and very expen- 
 sive to the combine, was the attempt to demonstrate the 
 agricultural prosperity of Deer Lodge county by county 
 fairs in the smelter town, under combine auspices and 
 management, and chiefly with combine exhibits. The 
 following quite accurate report of the annual Deer Lodge 
 county fair in September, 1910, is entitled to place in 
 any comical history of Montana, and therefore is pre- 
 sented : 
 
 "The Amalgamated Copper Company's annual Deer- 
 Lodge County fair has been in session this week, and 
 as a general exhibit of monumental buncombe the giant 
 trust's own private little exposition is the same proud 
 success it has been ever since the first year when Mr. 
 E. P. Mathewson, Mr. Martin Martin, and other gentle- 
 men who lean to the interest of that corporation, foisted 
 it upon a local public so enfeebled by long intimidation 
 that it has been incapable of protest. As customary the 
 exclusive exhibitor on its own merits and for its own 
 independent benefit is the Amalgamated Copper Com- 
 pany of New Jersey. Of course there are other exhibitors 
 who have lent their names and services to the trust, 
 among these the State Insane Asylum, an institution 
 supported by the commonwealth under contract, but 
 which the copper corporation finds eminently service- 
 able in this connection. The farmers of the devastated
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 215 
 
 Deer Lodge valley do not take part in this travesty; 
 the smoke fumes have not left them the crops with 
 which to participate in the game properly, and of course 
 they do not care to dance at their own funeral. 
 
 "The Amalgamated Copper company conducted its 
 fair this year in precisely the manner in which it runs 
 its smelters and other affairs — through its agents. The 
 directors of the trust's fair are the company's men, 
 namely, Mr. E. P. Mathewson, superintendent of the 
 smelter; A. C. McCallum, Anaconda, merchant, who has 
 admitted that he conducts his business under awe of 
 and by grace of the company; E. J. Bowman, the com- 
 pany's banker; John Lawlor, coroner and undertaker 
 and agent for the company's cemetery ; W. E. Coleman, 
 chief clerk in the company's electric light department. 
 It will be observed that the company has a cemetery as 
 well as a fair and smelter. The trust's agents ran the 
 fair; the trust's newspaper, the Anaconda Standard, ad- 
 vertised and praised it ; the trust's agents collected and 
 submitted exhibits and won prizes; and the trust's dog, 
 if it has one, probably wagged its tail with canine satis- 
 faction at the entire exhibit of cool corporation depravity 
 and deceit. There are no real farmers in the board of 
 control, and there never have been. The fair, like the 
 smelter, is an exclusive industry devoted purely to the 
 interests of the combine. Consequently the operating 
 machinery is kept entirely in the hands of the latter. 
 The copper combine spends money on this county fair, 
 and the structure it erects annually with shipped-in live- 
 stock, pickled grains and grasses secured from many 
 localities at great expense and kept over from year to 
 year, and stolen vegetable specimens rifled from the 
 "smoke-farmers' " gardens and the hand-cultured city 
 lots of Anaconda by night is so shaky, flimsy and
 
 216 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 plastered over with easily detected lies and frauds that 
 prying eyes must be kept entirely off the 'works'. It 
 might be a risky business to let an impartial person act 
 even as spectator. 
 
 "The farmers of the Deer Lodge valley do not exhibit 
 at the smelter company's fair because the smelter has 
 partially or wholly ruined their farms, and because the 
 fair was established and is maintained by the smelter 
 company for its own sinister purpose and not to encour- 
 age farming in the Deer Lodge valley. After the effec- 
 tive discouragement to which it has subjected such 
 farming with its smelter, the pretense that this fair is 
 to encourage farming would be a joke if it were not 
 such a job. 
 
 "The ways the Amalgamated Copper company runs 
 this little fair are worth considering by the people of 
 Montana — at least that part of them that care anything 
 for honesty, a square deal, or the rights of men. The 
 purpose of an honest county agricultural fair is to show 
 what the county produces in agriculture and livestock. 
 The purpose of this monopolistic exposition is to cheat 
 the public into the belief that the Washoe smelter has 
 not injured the farms of the Deer Lodge valley. As in 
 previous years, this year the combine has spent large 
 sums to set up before the eyes of the people the usual 
 sham and fraud. The smelter fair is a contemporary of 
 the smelter experimental station which was established 
 for use in the smoke case. It was located by the copper 
 corporation on ground in the Deer Lodge valley called 
 Section Sixteen, a part of the thousands of acres the 
 trust owns. The smelter people established it in 1905, 
 to show a court what the smelter could grow and raise 
 in spite of the smoke, and the fair was started about the 
 same time by the smelter agents. Prior to this time,
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 217 
 
 before smelter smoke had destroyed the agricultural 
 and livestock industries of the Deer Lodge valley, the 
 farmers of the valley desired to hold a fair, and peti- 
 tioned the county commissioners to appropriate for the 
 fair's use $1,000, authorized by a new law. Mr. Martin 
 Martin was chairman of the commissioners' board, also 
 private secretary of Mr. E. P. Mathewson, superinten- 
 dent of the works. The trust did not need a fair then, 
 and Mr. Martin said a fair would be absurd, and he and 
 his fellow commissioners refused the farmers the money. 
 In 1905, under instructions from the company, the com- 
 missioners hastened to appropriate a thousand dollars for 
 the purpose, Mr. Martin Martin still holding both his 
 jobs. First, the smelter company refused to let the 
 farmers have back any of their tax money for a fair for 
 themselves; now the trust takes the farmers' tax money 
 and uses it for an exposition of its own, to injure the 
 farmers in litigation. 
 
 "But the tax money isn't a drop in the bucket, com- 
 paratively, for this trust fair is expensive. The com- 
 pany agents are good managers, and they contrive to 
 make the people of Anaconda contribute substantially 
 to the fair fund. This year the company postponed the 
 fair to agree with the race meet, and its agents on oc- 
 casion pass through the big smelting works with fair 
 tickets for the employees to purchase, and the employees 
 purchase them because it is wise to do so if they would 
 retain their employment. The side lights on the copper 
 trust's exposition expose the nature of its most profit- 
 able 'farming'. 
 
 "The most arduous labor involved in creating the 
 meretricious smelter show called the Deer Lodge county 
 fair is connected with obtaining the exhibits. The 
 smoke from the smelter having withered the farms, des-
 
 218 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 troyed the livestock, and generally paralyzed the agri- 
 cultural and stock raising industries of the Deer Lodge 
 valley, the copper trust has undertaken to farm some 
 itself, primarily to 'show' a court, and secondarily to 
 furnish exhibits for its fraudulent exposition as a foun- 
 dation for state fair exploitation. The whole undertak- 
 ing has been a most expensive venture in agriculture, 
 and while the combine may have succeeded in its first 
 purpose, it has dismally failed in the second. Some of 
 the details of its farming and exhibit collecting are worth 
 relating. The experimental farm on Section Sixteen con- 
 tained 80 acres, and the copper farmers spent $2,000 try- 
 ing to raise a mixed crop of oats and grass on it for four 
 years, finally getting some hay which cost it $200 a ton. 
 The foreman of the farm testified in court to the cost of 
 this farming, and actual measurement of the hay pro- 
 duced showed there was but ten tons. This hay might 
 properly have been exhibited at the smelter fair in a glass 
 case, and labeled 'Costliest Hay Ever Raised'. Once, be- 
 fore the smelter got this magnificent crop, the grass and 
 oats got up four inches and then were wiped out by the 
 smelter smoke. Farmers who were not smelter agents 
 dug down under the withered tops and found the roots 
 of the grass and grain alive and the ground moist, and 
 they say these roots would make a true exhibit of what 
 the Deer Lodge valley now produces. After it raised 
 this hay crop the smelter people scattered grass and 
 grain growing experiments among its other farms in 
 the valley, and while some of its witnesses in the smoke 
 case testified that its fields 'looked well', it has never 
 threshed a pound of grain. 
 
 "The company's method of handling livestock and 
 the results of its venture in the livestock business have 
 duplicated those of its farming enterprise. The trust
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 219 
 
 owns 8,000 acres of low lands, largely natural meadow 
 lands, and in 1905 it bought 100 head of cattle. There 
 were no animals at all on these princely acres, although 
 once thousands of cattle and horses ranged the valley. 
 Nevertheless, the copper combine kept its 100 head of 
 stock on hay lands, pasturing them in the summer sea- 
 son on land that cost $25 an acre. These lands, when 
 farmed by farmers who have to make a profit and can- 
 not make expensive experiments for fair exhibits, court 
 purposes, or otherwise, were used for the purpose of 
 raising hay. The copper combine also bought a band 
 of three-year-old steers for $33 per head in the fall of 
 1906. It kept these animals a year, and then sold them 
 for $30 a head, realizing a net loss of $3 a head and a 
 year's keep, notwithstanding prices for cattle were 
 twenty-five per cent, higher at that time than when the 
 steers were bought. As a concluding instance of the 
 copper company's achievements in the Deer Lodge val- 
 ley its experience with the French Crossing ranch caps 
 the climax. In 1906-7 the combine expended about $30,- 
 000 improving the lands, erecting buildings, excavating 
 ditches and the like on this place, for smoke case pur- 
 poses, yet when it closed down this work and under- 
 took to rent the ranch the best rental it could obtain was 
 $300 a year. 
 
 "In obtaining material with which to fashion its Deer 
 Lodge county fair the copper company has had even a 
 more disgusting and miserable career. In order to get 
 agricultural exhibits it has sent its hired men out over 
 the valley to pick up bunches of good looking grass and 
 grain wherever they could find them. Of course the smoke 
 does not take every bit of vegetation clean, so this 
 was not difficult. However, the exhibit collectors had to 
 work at night as well as in the daytime, and were obliged
 
 220 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 to take many samples surreptitiously from the lands of 
 farmers who strenuously objected to the confidence 
 game being rigged. These cribbed exhibits were not 
 entered in the names of the farmers openly, yet after the 
 fair was over, several of the farmers received checks for 
 premiums and prizes awarded them, which they indig- 
 nantly returned to the combine. The colossal effrontery 
 of the smelter management is exhibited by the addition 
 of this insult to the ruinous injury it has imposed upon 
 its victims in the Deer Lodge valley. One award made 
 was a first prize for macaroni wheat to Matt Smith, a 
 farmer. Smith had two acres of wheat, and his entire 
 crop consisted of fifteen bushels of wheat. This wheat 
 crop no doubt beat the copper trust's ten tons of hay, 
 however. The copper corporation's tools also filched 
 exhibits from gardens and vegetable patches, and the 
 combine generously gave one lady a first premium for 
 a handful of flax which she had sown in her garden, and 
 which represented the entire acreage of flax on the ranch. 
 The company got a bunch of redtop hay from the Bliss 
 ranch and entered it at the fair without the knowledge 
 of Bliss or his tenants. This sample looked fine, yet it 
 represented a crop that produced less than forty tons 
 of hay on 320 acres of land. The combine awarded one 
 man a prize for red clover hay although he had never 
 raised a pound of red clover hay on his place. It like- 
 wise put a blue ribbon on an exhibit plucked in Powell 
 county. It took a lot of labor and money for the com- 
 bine to equip itself with fair exhibits, and therefore it 
 had those secured for the fair in 1905 taken to the court- 
 house to a room assigned to it by the county commis- 
 sioners, and there skilled employees picked off every 
 burned or blasted leaf and straightened out every spear 
 and stock, tied red, white and blue ribbons on them, and
 
 THE CASE OF FARMER VS. COMBINE 221 
 
 laid them carefully away for future fairs. Thereafter 
 they appeared annually at all Deer Lodge county fairs 
 and all state fairs, and once more will make their bow 
 this year at the copper farmers' annual exposition." 
 
 In March, 1911, the circuit court of appeals at San 
 Francisco affirmed Judge Hunt's decision given two 
 years before. It is not too much to say, because it is 
 the truth, which cannot affect adversely any honest in- 
 terest or cause or court, that after six years of strenuous 
 conflict between the farmers and the combine, there has 
 been no judicial adjudication of this matter so far as the 
 merits of the real issues between the parties to action 
 are concerned. The honorable courts have decided that 
 the operations of the smelters cause damage to the prop- 
 erty of the farmers, and that it is a continuing damage, 
 but that as to the plaintiff, Bliss, the remedy he sought 
 through all these tedious and costly court proceedings, 
 with the consent and under the direction of the judges, 
 was not the right remedy in law and that his relief must 
 be found by new and other proceedings; with no assur- 
 ance that they would be less prolonged or less expensive; 
 while as to the other farmers injured, they of course 
 have had no standing at all in court at any time. With- 
 out the obstinate determination of Mr. Bielenberg, and 
 without large resources in real money which he realized 
 in successful enterprise apart from farming in the Deer 
 Lodge valley, and without persistent integrity of plain- 
 tiff's attorneys, Messrs. R. L. Clinton and C. M. Sawyer, 
 the litigation certainly would have ended in earlier and 
 cheaper triumph for combine management. Mr. Clinton 
 was an attorney in Butte, and Mr. Sawyer in Anaconda. 
 What each has been compelled to resist in abuse, in ridi- 
 cule, in loss of business, and in temptation, in combine- 
 ruled communities, entitles them to recognition as his- 
 torical if not heroic characters.
 
 "A Constitution Between Friends'* — State 
 
 Laws to Legalize Lawless 
 
 Interstate Combines 
 
 When Montana was admitted to statehood, the busi- 
 ness of destroying competition by the corporate trust or 
 combination had not extended far beyond the manage- 
 ment of railways. "Standard Oil", which later furnished 
 the manipulators and the money, as well as the model, 
 for most of these enterprises, had not reached that de- 
 gree of perfection in monopoly which later enabled its 
 directors to exact from the public annually, in profits 
 on a common necessity, as much or more than the capi- 
 tal invested in the business; but Mr. Rockefeller and his 
 imitators had become rich enough, and their competitors 
 along independent lines of enterprise had become poor 
 enough, to cause a quite general apprehension of the 
 evils and dangers in unrestrained corporate power. Evi- 
 dently this fear had penetrated to the comparative wil- 
 derness of the intermountain country of the west, and 
 the people who framed and adopted the constitution of 
 Montana used their best knowledge and efforts to safe- 
 guard the state against these dangers. Besides stringent 
 prohibitions and limitations for the regulation and con- 
 trol of railway companies, the constitution contains, in 
 Article XV., treating of "Corporations Other Than Mu- 
 nicipal", the following specific and significant pro- 
 visions : 
 
 "Sec. 3. The legislative assembly shall have the 
 power to alter, revoke or annul any charter of incor- 
 
 [223]
 
 224 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 poration existing at the time of the adoption of this 
 constitution, or which may be hereafter incorporated, 
 whenever in its opinion it may be injurious to the citi- 
 zens of the state." 
 
 "Sec. 9. The right of eminent domain shall never 
 be abridged, nor so construed as to prevent the Legisla- 
 tive Assembly from taking the property and franchises 
 of incorporated companies and subjecting them to public 
 use the same as the property of individuals ; and the 
 police powers of the state shall never be abridged, or so 
 construed, as to permit corporations to conduct their 
 business in such manner as to infringe the equal rights 
 of individuals, or the general well-being of the state." 
 
 "Sec. 10. No corporation shall issue stocks or bonds, 
 except for labor done, services performed, or money and 
 property actually received ; and all fictitious increase ot 
 stock or indebtedness shall be void. The stock of cor- 
 porations shall not be increased except in pursuance of 
 general law, nor without the consent of the persons hold- 
 ing a majority of the stock first obtained at a meeting 
 held after at least thirty days notice given in pursuance 
 of law." 
 
 "Sec. 11. No foreign corporation shall do any busi- 
 ness in this state without having one or more known 
 places of business, and an authorized agent or agents 
 in the same, upon whom process may be served. And 
 no company or corporation formed under the laws of 
 any other country, state or territory, shall have, or be 
 allowed to exercise, or enjoy within this state, any 
 greater rights or privileges than those possessed or en- 
 joyed by corporations of the same or similar character 
 created under the laws of the state." 
 
 "Sec. 13. The Itgislative assembly shall pass no law 
 for the benefit of a railroad or other corporation, or any
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 225 
 
 individual or association of individuals, retrospective in 
 its operation, or which imposes on the people of any 
 county or municipal subdivision of the state a new liabil- 
 ity in respect to transactions or considerations already 
 passed." 
 
 "Sec. 16. It shall be unlawful for any person, com- 
 pany or corporation, to require of its servants or em- 
 ployees, as a condition of their employment or otherwise, 
 any contract or agreement whereby such persons, com- 
 pany or corporation, shall be released or discharged 
 from liability or responsibility on account of personal 
 injuries received by such servants or employees while in 
 the service of such person, company or corporation, by 
 reason of the negligence of such person, company or 
 corporation, or the agents or employees thereof, and such 
 contract shall be absolutely null and void." 
 
 "Sec. 20. No incorporation, stock company, person 
 or association of persons in the State of Montana, shall 
 directly combine, or form what is know as a trust, or 
 make any contract with any person or persons, corpor- 
 ations, or stock company, foreign or domestic, through 
 their stockholders, trustees, or in any manner whatever, 
 for the purpose of fixing the price, or regulating the pro- 
 duction of any article of commerce, or of the product of 
 the soil, for consumption by the people. The Legislative 
 Assembly shall pass laws for the enforcement thereof by 
 adequate penalties to the extent, if necessary for that 
 purpose, of the forfeiture of their property and franchises, 
 and in case of foreign corporations prohibiting them from 
 carrying on business in the state." 
 
 Obviously the framers of that constitution believed 
 that they had taken every necessary precaution against 
 monopoly combines, watered stocks, special privileges, 
 public abuses, swindling of stockholders, or juggling of
 
 226 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 laws by corporations, domestic and foreign. Reading 
 these mandates now, in the customary meaning of plain 
 language, they appear adequate for their unmistakable 
 purpose. Yet there is not one of those constitutional 
 provisions or inhibitions which has not been violated, 
 evaded or ignored, by the organizers or operators of the 
 corporate combine in its conquest of the state. The laws 
 of Montana in the special interests of this combine, by 
 the powers of its corrupt influences, have been changed 
 to give it legal standing for its lawless enterprises and 
 to provide it with a refuge and defense against national, 
 as well as state, prohibitions or prosecutions to prevent 
 or punish monopolies or combinations in restraint of 
 trade or commerce. The constitution of Montana has 
 become "a constitution between friends". 
 
 In anticipation of the organization of the Amalga- 
 mated Copper Company under the laws of New Jersey, 
 and as a necessary preliminary to its purposed opera- 
 tions in Montana, the legislature of 1899 was induced 
 to so amend the statute laws as to permit a certain ma- 
 jority of the stockholders of a mining company to sell it 
 to another company engaged in the same business, al- 
 most regardless of rights or wishes of minority stock- 
 holders. That was the legislature which involved the 
 state in great scandal by its disposition of a seat in the 
 United States senate. There was much opposition to 
 the bill, and when first passed it was vetoed by Governor 
 Robert Smith. The arguments used to convince mem- 
 bers, while that measure was under consideration, are 
 indicated by the fact that during the investigation of the 
 senatorial election in Washington, Representative John 
 H. Geiger, of Flathead county, in trying to account for 
 currency bills of large denominations in his possession 
 subsequent to the legislative session, and which he
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 227 
 
 thought had been thrown through the transom over the 
 door to his room, testified that he had an idea at the time 
 that there might be some connection between his find- 
 ing the money in the room and the efforts being made 
 for and against this corporation bill. With or without 
 the corrupting of Mr. Geiger, the bill became a law. The 
 Amalgamated Copper Company became a holding com- 
 pany and acquired controlling interest or complete own- 
 ership and management of various large and valuable 
 competing mining and smelting companies in the state 
 of Montana, capitalized these properties for something 
 more or less than twice as much as they had cost the 
 promoters, who generously allowed the investing and 
 speculating public to pay for the purchases while per- 
 mitting the insiders to retain control of the Amalgamated 
 Company, of the Montana properties, and of as much 
 stock as they cared to keep. That was within ten years 
 of the time when the constitution of Montana was 
 adopted with its carefully prepared provisions against 
 trust organizations and inflated capitalization of prop- 
 erty through incorporation. 
 
 In 1907 the copper combine people had entered upon 
 the project of securing control of the incalculably valu- 
 able water power rights in the great rivers of Montana. 
 One of the companies, subsequently absorbed by them, 
 planned an important development on the Missouri 
 river near Helena. This company was organized, like 
 the Amalgamated, under the laws of another state. The 
 construction of the proposed dam necessitated the flood- 
 ing of a large land area, including some placer mine 
 properties which had been productive in past years and 
 which had cost the owners at that time a large invest- 
 ment. The importance of water rights for both mining 
 and irrigation purposes, in a semi-arid state rich in min-
 
 228 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 eral wealth, had prompted a constitutional safeguard by- 
 declaring the use of water, when appropriated for sale, 
 rental, etc., together with ditches, flumes and reservoir 
 sites used in connection therewith, to be a public use. 
 This water power company went into court and secured 
 an appraisal of the placer lands needed in its business, 
 but the price was not satisfactory to the owners and they 
 appealed to the higher court. While the action was 
 pending and undecided a bill was introduced in the leg- 
 islature extending the right of eminent domain to foreign 
 corporations. The copper combine lobby secured the 
 passage of that bill. The power company instituted new 
 proceedings to condemn the property for public use. 
 The owners resisted and pleaded the unconstitutionality 
 of the act. The supreme court upheld the law. The 
 thoughtful framers of the constitution, in seeking to pro- 
 tect the powers of the state against corporate powers 
 and encroachments, had specifically provided that the 
 right of eminent domain shall never be abridged. Doubt- 
 less they never dreamed that a legislature would be 
 found to extend it for the benefit of a foreign corporate 
 combine. 
 
 It remained for the next succeeding legislature, — 
 under the personal command of Managing Director John 
 G. Morony and the skillful guidance of copper combine 
 attorneys from New York to Butte, with versatile lobby- 
 ists in and out of the seats of members of both branches 
 of the lawmaking body, with timely aid and sanction 
 of members of the supreme court of the state, and with 
 executive approval of a governor who possessed the in- 
 formation to enable him to know better but who lacked 
 the courage and integrity to prompt him to do better, — 
 to provide laws and delegate powers to corporations 
 whereby and wherewith the most insignificant company
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 229 
 
 in the control of the combine might be lawfully em- 
 ployed to acquire the world, pay for it with company 
 stock or bonds, and own and operate everything- within 
 or upon it from the most infinitesimal detail to the vast 
 entirety. This legislation was not secured with honest 
 argument or through legislative ignorance or innocence. 
 Able and upright men exposed and denounced it before 
 committees and on the floors of both chambers. The 
 mere source of it, the silence of the combine press re- 
 garding it, the enormous combine lobby gathered at 
 Helena in promotion of it, the palpably false and ridicu- 
 lously foolish explanations of its purpose by its sponsors 
 — any one of these should have been sufficient to put a 
 legislator with ordinary intelligence or a spark of integ- 
 rity upon his guard, without any opposition. The house 
 had a nominal democratic majority and the senate a 
 nominal republican supremacy. The corruption was 
 non-partisan. On final passage the senate was divided 
 sixteen for the bill and ten against it, with one absent; 
 in the house there were forty-seven ayes and twenty 
 noes with four absentees. Some details are of interest. 
 Extraordinary activity of combine influences in per- 
 fecting the legislative organization, followed by an un- 
 usually large lobby including high officials of the com- 
 bine, early in the session aroused curiosity regarding 
 what could be wanted by the corporation, which already 
 had acquired most of the known copper wealth of the 
 state, the best of the timber resources of the state, a 
 large part of the developed or discovered coal lands of 
 the state, almost all of the developed water power of the 
 state, extensive railway interests, most of the public 
 press, and almost a monopoly of government powers. 
 The first knowledge of the measure outside of the com- 
 bine circle came when Representative Duncan, of Madi-
 
 230 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 son county, was requested to introduce it by Mr. Fred 
 Whitesides, a trusted friend of Amalgamated high of- 
 ficials. Mr. Duncan declined with the given reason that 
 it was "too dirty" for him. It was finally offered by a 
 member from Cascade county, and was kept out of sight 
 and out of public discussion for some time. When it 
 was considered in committee, the most conspicuous ad- 
 vocates of the measure were Mr. H. A. Gallwey, an of- 
 ficial of one of the combine's companies and a leader 
 of its legislative lobby, and L. O. Evans of the combine 
 legal department. The first had been prominent in 
 democratic party conventions and councils and the sec- 
 ond played a similar role in the republican party. The 
 explanation was that it was a little bill to help develop 
 the northern part of the state, specifically to authorize 
 a townsite company at Great Falls to develop water 
 power and to engage in the hotel business. On the floor 
 of the assembly chamber, Representative Duncan de- 
 clared that the measure was iniquitous and designed to 
 enable corporations to do all the things which the fed- 
 eral anti-trust statutes, the recommendations of Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt, and the sentiment of the people of the 
 country, were opposed to having done. 
 
 Before the bill came up in the senate for action it was 
 favorably reported by the judiciary committee of that 
 body after hearings at which employees of the combine 
 appeared in its favor, and was then committed to the 
 steering committee of the senate, where it was held till 
 the closing days of the session when the power of the 
 steering committee is greatest, and deliberate consider- 
 ation of anything by the legislative body as a whole is 
 practically impossible. By this time the measure had 
 been quite thoroughly and publicly discussed in Helena 
 almost everywhere excepting in the combine's daily
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 231 
 
 papers of that city. A canvass of the senate by oppon- 
 ents to the bill only a few days before its passage indi- 
 cated a clear majority against it. Senator Thomas Long, 
 who appeared on the senate floor as the chief spokesman 
 for the combine in advocacy of the bill, had voluntarily 
 denounced the measure and declared his hostility to it 
 only a few days before. On the day of its passage, Sen- 
 ator John E. Edwards, in reply to a question as to what 
 disposition would be made of it, asserted that it had not 
 a chance of passage. He had been secretly working for 
 it, and voted for it. Senator Edward Donlan, who had 
 been defeated for governor largely by treachery of com- 
 bine political bosses a few months previously, had come 
 to the legislature, as a holdover senator and the leader 
 of the majority in the senate, with a pocket full of bills 
 calculated to promote public reforms and regulate cor- 
 porations in the public interest. He gave his influence 
 and his vote to the bill. Upon the floor of the senate, 
 Senators W. F. Myer, of Carbon county, and Thomas M. 
 Everett, of Choteau county, made strong arguments 
 against the measure and described some of the dangers 
 threatened by its enactment ; but such arguments were 
 unavailing to change minds otherwise persuaded. Some 
 of the methods used in this work of persuasion were re- 
 vealed by Senator Meyer in a public address to his con- 
 stituents subsequently, when he told of the enactment 
 of this law and how Mr. John G. Morony approached 
 him in the hotel at Helena with information that he de- 
 sired to talk to him about a little measure Mr. Ryan 
 and Mr. Morony wished to get through the legislature. 
 What followed is in the reported language of Senator 
 Meyer: 
 
 "Senator," Morony said, "I want your assistance in 
 a little matter. We want to get a measure through, one 
 that will help us in a little enterprise at Great Falls."
 
 232 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 "Well, Johnnie, I am with you upon any matter in 
 which I can conscientiously assist you. What is the 
 proposition ?" 
 
 "Well, it is a bill to give us the right to secure some 
 water power from northern Montana." 
 
 Morony is alleged to have explained more fully the 
 details of the measure, whereupon Senator Meyer is 
 quoted as saying: 
 
 "Morony, I cannot give you my support for that 
 measure." 
 
 The matter was dropped for the time. A little later 
 Mr. Morony met Senator Meyer in the same hotel, 
 where were congregated many legislators and others. 
 He approached the Carbon county senator with, "Meyer, 
 will you support that measure?" 
 
 "No, sir; I will not." 
 
 "Senator Meyer, I will give you another chance. You 
 go to the senate and sit down and vote against the bill, 
 if you will, but keep your mouth shut. Will you do 
 that?" 
 
 "Now, Johnnie, you know I would not sit down and 
 say nothing on that bill." 
 
 "Say, Bill Meyer!" exclaimed the lobbyist as he 
 stalked across the room, "I'll give you just one more 
 chance. Say nothing, but manage not to be present in 
 the senate when the vote is taken." 
 
 "Mr. Morony, I will be in the senate chamber, in my 
 seat, voting." 
 
 The combine boss is described as being very angry, 
 as swinging his arms, shaking his fists and proclaiming 
 so that all of those in the vicinity in the hotel might 
 hear : 
 
 "Bill Meyer, if you vote against that bill I will camp 
 on your trail the rest of my life, and I will get you."
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 233 
 
 It was six months later when the first comprehensive 
 use of this little local law by the combine management 
 was brought to public knowledge. Among the assets 
 acquired by the Amalgamated company in taking over 
 control of the Anaconda Copper company was an em- 
 pire of timber land in western Montana, estimated to 
 have some billions of feet of lumber. This had been 
 secured by the Northern Pacific Railway Company in 
 its land grant and obtained by Mr. Daly at trifling cost 
 per acre. It was procured with the primary purpose of 
 insuring a lasting supply of mine timbers, operations 
 requiring the use of approximately 50,000,000 feet of 
 timber annually in connection with Butte mines. From 
 the best information available it is asserted that control 
 of all of the Anaconda properties, including mines, 
 smelters, coal lands, railway, timber, etc., when the 
 Amalgamated Company was organized in 1899, cost the 
 inside promoters something like $30,000,000. In 1909, 
 when the Amalgamated company was arranging its bus- 
 iness in preparation for the great copper merger, to be 
 a rival of the steel trust in magnitude and stock-jobbing 
 opportunity, and was reorganizing its corporate capital- 
 ization and organizations for merger and other purposes, 
 its timber land and lumber manufacturing properties 
 acquired from the Anaconda Company were transferred 
 to a new company, organized under authority of this 
 special law, passed by its efforts through the Montana 
 legislature of 1909. The capital stock was placed at 
 $25,000,000. The articles of incorporation showed that 
 the amount of capital stock actually subscribed was five 
 shares, one each assigned to John Gillie, superintendent 
 of the Amalgamated company; to C. F. Kelly, attorney 
 for the same company; H. A. Gallwey, a mine superin- 
 tendent for the same company; R. S. Alley, private sec-
 
 234 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 retary to President John D. Ryan ; L. O. Evans, attorney 
 and lobbyist for the same company. These five were 
 designated as the first board of directors. Three of 
 these five were conspicuous among the lobbyists em- 
 ployed nine months before in putting House Bill 160 
 into the form of law. The possibilities under that law 
 are somewhat revealed by the avowed purposes and 
 stated powers of this new "Big Blackfoot Lumber Com- 
 pany", with its principal place of business announced as 
 Missoula, Montana. These purposes and powers, con- 
 tained in the articles of incorporation filed in the office 
 of the secretary of state at Helena, are as follows : 
 
 "(1). Buying, owning, building, constructing and 
 operating saw mills, planing mills, grist mills and flour- 
 ing mills. 
 
 "(2). To purchase or otherwise acquire, own, buy, 
 sell, exchange, deal and traffic in standing timber and 
 timber lands ; to buy, cut, haul, dry, exchange and sell 
 timber and logs and to saw and otherwise prepare the 
 same for market, and to buy, manufacture, exchange 
 and sell lumber, bark, wood, pulp and other materials 
 and all articles and products made therefrom or consist- 
 ing thereof in whole or in part, and generally to carry on 
 as principals, agents, commission merchants, consignees, 
 or in any other capacity whatever, any business appur- 
 tenant thereto, or any other business, mercantile or other- 
 wise, which in the judgment of the corporation may at 
 any time be conveniently conducted in conjunction with 
 any of the matters aforesaid. 
 
 "(3). To buy, manufacture and saw lumber, rough, 
 dressed, finished and all building material. 
 
 "(4). To buy and sell grain, flour and meal. 
 
 "(5). To grind and manufacture flour, meal, shop 
 feed, shop stuff, etc.
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 235 
 
 "(6). To acquire, own, lease, occupy, use or con- 
 struct bridges, buildings, machinery, ships, boats, en- 
 gines, cars and other equipment, railroads, docks, slips, 
 elevators, water works, gas works, electric works, via- 
 ducts, aqueducts, canals and other waterways, and any 
 other means of transportation, and to sell the same or 
 otherwise dispose thereof or to maintain and operate 
 the same. 
 
 "(7). To appropriate or otherwise to acquire water 
 rights and privileges, and to engage in the business of 
 supplying and constructing water for irrigation and 
 other purposes ; and to acquire and to develop water, 
 electrical, or any kind of power for its own purpose, or 
 for sale to others, and to construct the necessary plants, 
 works and appliances for the transmission and delivery 
 thereof. 
 
 "(8). To engage in other manufacturing, construc- 
 tion or transportation business, of any kind or char- 
 acter whatsoever, and to that end acquire, hold, own and 
 dispose of any and all property, assets, stocks, bonds 
 and rights of any and every kind. 
 
 "(9). To apply for, obtain, register, purchase, have 
 or otherwise acquire, and to hold, use, own, operate and 
 to introduce and to sell, assign or otherwise dispose of, 
 any trade marks, trade names, patents, inventions, im- 
 provements and protection used in connection with or 
 secured under letters obtained of the United States or 
 elsewhere, or otherwise to use, exercise, develop, grant 
 licenses in respect to, or otherwise to turn to account 
 any such trade marks, patents, licenses, protections and 
 the like, or any such property or rights. 
 
 "(10). To purchase or otherwise acquire and to 
 hold, sell, mortgage, pledge, exchange or otherwise dis- 
 pose of bonds, mortgages, debentures, obligations or
 
 236 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 shares of the capital stock of any corporation, whether 
 domestic or foreign, and to exercise with respect to all 
 such property all the rights, powers and privileges of 
 individual owners thereof; and also to purchase, hold 
 and re-issue the shares of its own capital stock. 
 
 "(11). To do general contract work, as contracting 
 to build railroads, turnpikes, dirt roads, wagon roads, 
 building dams, ditches, flumes, etc. 
 
 "(12). Without in any particular limiting any of the 
 objects and powers of the corporation, it is hereby ex- 
 pressly declared and provided that the corporation shall 
 have power to issue bonds and other obligations in pay- 
 ment of property purchased or acquired by it, or for any 
 other object in or about its business; to mortgage or 
 pledge any stocks, bonds, or other obligations, by it 
 issued or incurred ; to guarantee any dividends or bonds 
 or contracts or obligations ; to make and perform con- 
 tracts of any kind and description ; and in carrying on 
 its business, or for the purpose of attaining or furthering 
 any of its objects, to do any and all other acts and things 
 and to exercise any and all other powers which a co- 
 partnership or a natural person could do and exercise, 
 and which now or hereafter may be authorized by law." 
 
 The term of existence of this company was the maxi- 
 mum under the law of the state, forty years. This ap- 
 pears like a monster offspring from "a little local meas- 
 ure" offered to promote home industry at Great Falls ; 
 but it was a mere pigmy product, a veritable mouse from 
 mountain labors, compared with what followed. 
 
 Meanwhile Montana's legislation under combine 
 auspices had attracted attention of law students and law 
 experts who had earned renown. At the first annual 
 meeting of the American Bar Association subsequent to 
 the Montana legislative session of 1909, Mr. Frederick
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 237 
 
 W. Lehman, of St. Louis, president of the association, in 
 an address on legislation, paid tribute to the achieve- 
 ments of the copper combine in Montana, and gave rec- 
 ognition to the scope and efficiency of its laws to legalize 
 lawless combines as follows: 
 
 "There are new statutes, and amendments to old 
 ones, against 'trusts and monopolies,' but we are left 
 much in doubt as to their practical scope. They clearly 
 proscribe any more agreement, arrangement or combina- 
 tion, between individuals, partnerships or corporations, 
 to limit production or to fix prices. This is the least 
 hurtful because the least efficient of the various attempts 
 at monopoly. Arrangements of this sort are not satis- 
 factory to those engaged in them, are usually short-lived 
 and not faithfully kept while in force. The 'trust' is al- 
 ways included in terms, but it is obsolete. Nobody now 
 is so ignorant or so defiant of law as to think of forming 
 one. And it is very easy to do much better. Out of the 
 ashes of the 'trust' has sprung the holding company, the 
 'trust' in an improved, perfected form. The holding 
 company does and is designed to do exactly what was 
 done by the 'trust', and does it more efficiently. Is it 
 under the ban of the law? Certainly not in all of the 
 states. 
 
 "Chapter 97 of the Session Laws of Montana pro- 
 hibits individuals, partnerships and corporations, from 
 directly or indirectly combining or forming 'what is 
 known as a trust,' and, in many and varied phrases, from 
 limiting production or fixing prices or creating a 
 'monopoly in the manufacture, sale or transportation of 
 any article of merchandise.' Chapter 106 (House Bill 
 160) of the same laws, governing private corporations, 
 authorizes capital stock 'to any amount which may be 
 deemed sufficient and proper for the purposes of the cor-
 
 238 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 poration,' and it further authorizes any corporation to 
 hold the capital stock of any other corporation or cor- 
 porations, wherever formed or organized, and to exer- 
 cise 'all the rights, powers and privileges of ownership, 
 including the right to vote upon such stock.' Having 
 slain the senile and debilitated 'trust', they made in- 
 vulnerable through legitimacy its youthful and sturdy 
 successor, the holding company. They carefully guard 
 against any possible resurrection of the 'trust' by the 
 provision 'that nothing in this act shall be construed as 
 repealing any of the provisions of House Bill No. 310, 
 known as the Anti-Trust bill'. But these two laws stand 
 together, with the result that any industry or business 
 of the state may be legally monopolized, provided it is 
 well and thoroughly done and no half-way measures are 
 employed. This condition of the law exists in other 
 states, although in no other was it brought about with 
 such apparent deliberation and at one and the same ses- 
 sion of the legislature. And it is this sort of dealing 
 with serious public questions that accounts for the radi- 
 calism of later measures, most denounced by those most 
 responsible for them. 
 
 "But the holding company is not the full and final 
 development of industrial combination. This is reached 
 in the single corporation with unlimited power of capi- 
 talism and direct ownership of the business and prop- 
 erties with which it deals. Here is eliminated even the 
 disturbing element of minority interests in constituent 
 companies. Yet states which prohibit 'trusts' and as- 
 sume to prohibit monopolies, set no bounds to the cap- 
 italization of their corporations or fix the limit so high 
 that under it many industries may be completely en- 
 grossed. 
 
 "The result of such legislation is simply to prevent 
 combination where the appearance of competition is
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 239 
 
 maintained and to sanction it where the combination is 
 open, avowed and most effective. That certainly was 
 not the popular purpose. The movement against 'trusts' 
 was against the monopoly of industry or business, how- 
 ever accomplished, and the more thoroughly it was done, 
 the greater was the objection to it. The assurance that 
 the economies resulting from combination would cheapen 
 production and that this would go to the benefit of the 
 consumer was never accepted. Our people have no 
 faith in a benevolent despotism. They know that power 
 tends to abuse. A corporation large enough to engross 
 an industry cannot be trusted to a generous or even a 
 just use of its mastery. An enlightened self-interest may 
 find its real and lasting advantage in moderation, but 
 self-interest does not mean self-enlightenment. Recent 
 disclosures show that greed has not changed its nature 
 and still grows by what it feeds upon. The complete 
 absorption of a rival is not beyond its capacity, and the 
 crumbs of a false balance are not beneath its covetous- 
 ness." 
 
 The accuracy of Mr. Lehman's analysis was proven 
 on March 23, 1910, when a special meeting of the Ana- 
 conda Copper Mining company was held at Anaconda, 
 Montana. As reported in the official organs of the com- 
 pany, exactly four people were present, all subordinate 
 employes of the combine organization and mere dummies 
 for the Napoleons of finance and speculative stock-job- 
 bing in Wall Street. One was Mr. Ben. Thayer of New 
 York, assistant to the president of the Amalgamated 
 company during war times and now president of the 
 Anaconda company; another, Mr. John Gillie, superin- 
 tendent of the company at Butte; Messrs. C. F. Kelly 
 and L. O. Evans, members of the Butte branch of the 
 combine legal department, were the others. These four
 
 240 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 men, with two motions, formally increased the capital 
 stock of the Anaconda Copper Mining company from 
 1,200,000 shares, with a par value of $25 each, to 6,000,- 
 000 shares, with a total capitalization of $150,000,000, 
 and authorized the issue of over 3,000,000 shares of this 
 new stock to be exchanged for the stocks and properties 
 of the various constituent companies of the Amalga- 
 mated holding company. Here was the development 
 of "the single corporation with unlimited power of cap- 
 italism and direct ownership of the business and prop- 
 erties with which it deals" as foretold in Mr. Lehman's 
 address. This was not only sanctioned by the law of 
 the state, but the bills for those laws were approved in 
 advance of their passage, in verbal opinions of supreme 
 court judges to lawmakers, while at least one member 
 of the court of last resort in the state actually worked 
 for support for the so-called anti-trust bill, interpreted 
 by Mr. Lehman as the statutory Gibraltar behind which 
 the single corporation with unlimited power of capital- 
 ism and direct ownership was entrenched. 
 
 The simple and beneficent enterprise of the combine 
 organization under these laws was revealed in an article 
 published by the Wall Street Journal, and reprinted on 
 April 10 by The Anaconda Standard, as follows : 
 
 "The Amalgamated group during several years past 
 has greatly changed its methods of producing copper. 
 Millions of dollars have been expended for the installa- 
 tion of machinery driven by electricity and the intro- 
 duction of economies has been general in the mines and 
 smelters. 
 
 "The next step was the merger of the so-called Amal- 
 gamated properties in the Butte district and the acquisi- 
 tion of the Clark copper properties in Montana. Then 
 followed the purchase of the United Metals Selling com-
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 241 
 
 pany on a basis practically of book valuation. Control 
 of the International Smelting and Refining company, the 
 largest refinery of its kind in the world, went with the 
 selling company. Amalgamated is now in a position to 
 handle its own product from the mines to the refinery. 
 
 "Reports, which seem to have some foundation, are 
 current to the effect that the Amalgamated Copper com- 
 pany is negotiating for one of the largest plants in the 
 United States engaged in the manufacture of copper 
 wire, sheet copper and brass products. If such a deal 
 is put through, Amalgamated would then hold a position 
 similar to that of the United States Steel corporation, in- 
 asmuch as it would control the situation from the min- 
 ing of copper to its conversion into finished products, 
 such as wire, sheets, etc. 
 
 "Through its acquisition of the United Metals Selling 
 company the Amalgamated will benefit to the extent of 
 at least $600,000 a year. The net income of the United 
 Metals is in the neighborhood of $1,250,000 a year; the 
 charges on the $12,500,000 5 per cent, notes amount to 
 $625,000 a year, therefore Amalgamated benefits to the 
 extent of the difference between these two sums, or 
 $625,000 annually. Benefits in the way of earnings will 
 also accrue as a result of the recent renewal of copper 
 refining contracts for 10 years. The merger of the Butte 
 properties has resulted in a saving of several hundred 
 thousand dollars a year. 
 
 "Should Amalgamated enter the copper manufactur- 
 ing business on a large scale, earnings should show a 
 good increase from this source. The Amalgamated, as 
 the largest seller of copper, would naturally use its best 
 efforts to increase the consumption of copper. It will 
 be recalled that a short time ago Amalgamated interests 
 brought considerable pressure to bear to induce manu-
 
 242 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 facturers of certain finished copper products to come 
 down in their prices to a level commensurate with the 
 price of the raw product. Amalgamated interests held 
 that as a result of this inequality of prices between fin- 
 ished and raw copper products consumption was being 
 retarded. 
 
 "The opinion in copper circles is that as soon as the 
 supreme court hands down its decision in the oil and 
 tobacco cases the question of merging the important 
 copper companies of the country will again be taken up. 
 Amalgamated, through its own product and that handled 
 by United Metals Selling company will naturally domi- 
 nate the situation." 
 
 On April 23, 1910, Collier's Weekly said editorially: 
 "In our issue of April 2 last, we called attention to 
 the proposed formation of the big copper trust between 
 the Morgan-Guggenheim-Amalgamated interests. Every 
 indication then pointed to the formation, in open de- 
 fiance of law, of this combination. Events since have 
 made certain what was then only our prediction. We 
 say now to Attorney-General Wickersham that this 
 merger will take place in the very near future, unless 
 restrained or enjoined by law. Constructive lawyers 
 have found a way to create these trusts. With equal 
 ingenuity, can not the Attorney-General find a way to 
 stop them? Not only does this new copper combine 
 mean more powerful control over a commodity which 
 has become one of the necessities of commerce; it means 
 the total destruction of the helpless independent copper 
 producers, and it means as well reckless juggling with 
 stock markets. By finding a way to stop this combina- 
 tion, Attorney-General Wickersham will do much to 
 prove that his former employment as an attorney by 
 the Morgan interests has no influence upon his present
 
 A CONSTITUTION BETWEEN FRIENDS 243 
 
 political usefulness. Such a public example just now 
 might help to offset Ballinger's methods in the Alaska 
 steal." 
 
 Certain political conditions and uncertain conditions 
 of lawless combine security in consequence, with evi- 
 dent reluctance of investors and speculators to accept 
 the urgent invitations from Wall Street to participate in 
 the pleasures of another boom in copper stocks, appar- 
 ently gave pause even to such daring and successful 
 Napoleons as have made famous the "Rockefeller group" 
 of operators. But the constitution and the laws of Mon- 
 tana were seemingly regarded as all right for the enter- 
 prise held in abeyance for more favorable political and 
 business conditions.
 
 Relief from Taxation for Monopolists 
 
 Great progress in the affairs of the world is not al- 
 ways marked by celebrated achievement. The Revolu- 
 tionary fathers earned enduring fame by waging war 
 successfully to escape taxation without representation 
 in government. Without any war at all the Napoleons 
 of Wall Street in Montana have escaped taxation with 
 representation, and without so much as attracting notice 
 from the great majority of citizens whose burdens have 
 been increased thereby. For capitalization and dividend 
 purposes, and in market values quoted from day to day, 
 the properties in Montana of the copper combine are 
 rated in excess of $200,000,000. If these were assessed 
 at one-tenth of a fair amount and taxed in that state as 
 other property not Owned by tax-dodgers is taxed, the 
 taxes paid within the state by the copper combine in- 
 terests would be greater than they are under existing 
 conditions. Gentlemen are not fictitiously described as 
 high financiers who can save from $3,000,000 to $5,000,- 
 000 annually in the one item of taxes on the property 
 held by a corporation organized under specially pro- 
 cured law designed to authorize "a little local company" 
 to engage in the hotel business. The people of Montana 
 have not regarded it as worth the trouble or expense to 
 create the office of state tax commissioner and to em- 
 ploy a competent man or men to "stay on the job". The 
 private corporation, organized under the laws of new 
 Jersey to do business in Montana, has its tax department 
 working throughout the year, with a tax commissioner 
 employed by the year and selected for the responsible 
 
 [245]
 
 246 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 duties of his position because of his intimate acquaint- 
 ance with tax laws, tax officers and tax-dodging in Mon- 
 tana, acquired through years of employment by one of 
 the great transcontinental railway systems operating in 
 that state. It has been modestly and conservatively es- 
 timated, by a person qualified to make such calculations, 
 that this official in a single year saved his employing 
 company at least $200,000 in reduced taxes by securing 
 low assessments or reductions in assessments upon that 
 comparatively small part of the company's property sub- 
 ject to the usual methods of taxation in the state. 
 
 In the judgment of courts of competent jurisdiction, 
 and of legislatures, and tax officers, and even some tax- 
 payers, there has seemed to be no redress for the state 
 and no remedy for these apparent and unjust inequalities, 
 and no burdensome responsibility upon the combine for 
 them, because the state, like most of the workmen who 
 get killed or injured in the combine employment, or like 
 public officials who disregard its "wants", was guilty 
 of "contributory negligence". The men who framed the 
 Montana state constitution evidently meant well, and 
 plainly apprehended a possibility that some among less 
 benevolent corporations might be created in the remote 
 future devoid of that patriotic fervor and generous public 
 spirit which makes tax-paying a pleasure. The consti- 
 tution says : "The power to tax corporations or corporate 
 property shall never be relinquished or suspended, and 
 all corporations in this state, or doing business therein, 
 shall be subject to taxation for state, county, school, 
 municipal and other purposes, on real and personal prop- 
 erty, owned or used by them, and not by this constitu- 
 tion exempted from taxation". But those state builders 
 were actuated by a desire to develop and increase the 
 wealth of the state as well as by a determination to make
 
 RELIEF FROM TAXATION FOR MONOPOLISTS 247 
 
 corporations contribute their fair share of the burden of 
 support of government. Mining was then the chief 
 industry, but it was yet a young industry and it was the 
 approved policy to encourage the discovery of new mines 
 as well as the development of those already discovered 
 but with unascertained values in minerals. Hence the 
 one exception from the rule of uniform assessment and 
 taxation, other than properties devoted to public or re- 
 ligious or charitable or educational uses, was with re- 
 spect to mines. It was provided that all mines and min- 
 ing claims should be taxed at the price paid to the 
 United States therefor, with further provision for addi- 
 tional taxes on ground used for other than mining pur- 
 poses and for machinery and surface improvements on 
 mining properties, "And the annual net proceeds of all 
 mines and mining claims shall be taxed as provided by 
 law." The generous policy of the state thus adopted, to 
 encourage new enterprise and competition in the mining 
 industry, has been perpetuated and utilized to increase 
 the burdens upon other property and business and upon 
 the citizens of the state, for the greater enrichment of 
 a foreign corporate combination which has monopolized 
 the developed mining industry and exercised the powers 
 and resources inseparable from such a monopoly to ex- 
 tend its control to other industries and enterprises, even 
 to the agencies and powers of government itself. 
 
 In the year 1909 and again in 1911, bills for the sub- 
 mission to the people of constitutional amendment pro- 
 viding for the taxation of mining property, in the same 
 manner as of all other property, were introduced in the 
 legislature and killed, as all other measures were killed 
 by the lawmaking bodies of those years if unsatisfactory 
 to the combine management. In the purely perfunctory 
 arguments presented from the floor against these meas-
 
 248 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 ures, pleas were made on the one hand for protection to 
 small mining operators, — who were more immediately in 
 need of protection against extortionate smelter charges 
 under combine management than from anything else on 
 earth, — and on the other hand the big corporation's 
 representatives in the legislature insisted that it would 
 be impossible for anybody to assess mines intelligently 
 and accurately, — as if other property generally was as- 
 sessed intelligently or accurately. The claim that the 
 company officials could be as well trusted to make re- 
 turns of their book valuations of developed properties as 
 to make returns of their net earnings for taxation pur- 
 poses, did not appeal with convincing force to their legis- 
 lative agents. Doubtless it was not known by law- 
 makers of Montana at the time, but the Amalgamated 
 Copper company managers had been persuaded, a few 
 months earlier, to make returns to the national govern- 
 ment of its actual investment, and income, gross and net, 
 duly attested by oath of its officers, although they did it 
 under protest, with a statement of reasons why they 
 thought the national tax was illegal, and confessing that 
 the return was made to protect the company and its offi- 
 cers from prosecution by the national government. The 
 year before the legislature last refused to give the people 
 of Montana an opportunity to vote on this proposed con- 
 stitutional amendment, all the property in Montana was, 
 for taxation purposes, valued at about $300,000,000. This 
 included the mining property subject to taxation, which 
 was valued at a little over $8,000,000. This happened 
 within a few months of the time when eastern papers 
 were printing reports, which the combine boosting or- 
 gans of Montana were copying, about the revised plan 
 to consummate the big copper interests' consolidation ; 
 with Mr. John D. Ryan as the guiding spirit in perfect-
 
 RELIEF FROM TAXATION FOR MONOPOLISTS 249 
 
 ing the combine, while J. P. Morgan & Company were 
 credited with being the finanical manipulators. In this 
 expanding combine enterprise the aim, of course, was to 
 satisfy the investing public respecting the great assets 
 back of the greater capitalization contemplated. An ac- 
 cepted authority on the subject of copper interests at 
 that time declared Amalgamated timber lands alone to 
 be worth $30,000,000, on an exceedingly conservative 
 estimate based upon the charge made for stumpage in 
 the same district by the United States government. Amal- 
 gamated's coal mines, by the same authority, "on an 
 equally conservative valuation", were placed at $20,- 
 000,000. It was stated that the company had in its vari- 
 ous treasuries $25,000,000 in cash and credits and that its 
 "big concentrators and smelters are worth the $15,000,- 
 000 which they cost". The same authority, Mr. George 
 L. Walker, gave the farther and unquestionably conser- 
 vative asurance that the combine's copper mines "are 
 worth a great deal more than all its outside assets com- 
 bined". It never occurred, so far as the debates revealed 
 the contents of the legislative mind, to the gentlemen in- 
 credulous of the ability of tax officers to appraise mines, 
 that they might reasonably accept the appraisals made 
 by the combine managers themselves and published by 
 them in their organs in New York and Boston as well as 
 in Montana. 
 
 There was another provision of the Montana consti- 
 tution limiting the rate of taxation of real and personal 
 property for state purposes in any one year, and specifi- 
 cally reducing such rate from two and one-half mills on 
 the dollar of valuation to one and one-half mills on the 
 dollar whenever the taxable property in the state shall 
 amount to $300,000,000. This amount was reached in 
 1910; and was anticipated by state officials who spend or
 
 250 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 receive the revenues, as well as by eminent tax-dodgers 
 interested to prevent a situation which would compel a 
 more thorough and equitable enforcement of tax laws. 
 In 1907 a proposed amendment changing this rate was 
 put through the legislature and was defeated by the peo- 
 ple in the following election without much being heard 
 either for or against it from any source. In 1909, Gov- 
 ernor Norris made elaborate presentation of the impend- 
 ing crisis involved in an automatic constitutional reduc- 
 tion of state taxes. Influx of new settlers and improve- 
 ments in agricultural sections had increased taxable 
 property with unexpected rapidity, and it was reasonably 
 certain that the $300,000,000 limitation would be reached 
 the next year. The legislature in 1909 had again passed 
 a bill for the submission of a constitutional amendment 
 to increase the maximum amount of taxable property 
 which could be taxed for state purposes at two and one- 
 half mills on the dollar. But this amendment could not 
 be voted on till November, 1910, and the legislative tax 
 levy of 1909 was in conflict with the constitutional pro- 
 vision of 1889. Attorney General Albert J. Galen pub- 
 lished an opinion "that the constitution was not self-ex- 
 ecuting", and that the fact that the legislature had fixed 
 a levy for two years at two and one-half mills, while the 
 property valuation was within the $300,000,000 limit, and 
 would not meet again in regular session before the taxes 
 for 1910 would be collected, served to make the levy of 
 two and one-half mills operative and lawful, despite the 
 specific constitutional mandate that "whenever the tax- 
 able property in the state shall amount to three hundred 
 millions dollars the rate shall never exceed one and one- 
 half mills on each dollar of valuation, unless a proposi- 
 tion to increase such rate, specifying the rate proposed, 
 and the time during which the same shall be levied,
 
 RELIEF FROM TAXATION FOR MONOPOLISTS 251 
 
 shall have been submitted to the people at a general elec- 
 tion, and shall have received a majority of all the votes 
 cast for and against it at such election." 
 
 The opinion by the attorney general was accom- 
 panied by the suggestion that the question should be 
 brought to conclusive determination by court decision 
 to avoid embarrassment in the event that the question was 
 raised subsequently to the tax levy. Almost immediately 
 legal proceeding was commenced, in the name of a rela- 
 tive of the attorney general, to restrain the state officials 
 from levying the tax of two and one-half mills on the 
 dollar of assessed valuation, on the ground that it would 
 be a violation of the state constitution. The proceeding 
 was taken directly to the supreme court of the state. The 
 attorney general appeared and argued in behalf of the 
 higher revenue and against the constitution, and attor- 
 neys for his relative argued for the constitution. With 
 promptness the supreme court announced its decision in 
 support of the position and opinion of the attorney gen- 
 eral. Almost at once the newspaper organs and other 
 influences of the combine were enlisted in efforts to con- 
 vince the public in regard to the narrow escape which 
 the state had had from grave embarrassment by reason of 
 this constitutional limitation. It was insisted that the 
 only way to economize to meet such an emergency from 
 reduced revenue would be to take the amount of differ- 
 ence away from the educational and charitable institu- 
 tions of the state. College presidents and professors, 
 alumni, and students, down to the preparatory depart- 
 ments, were drafted for the campaign against relief from 
 higher taxes on homes and farms and the business of 
 honest taxpayers and, thereby, for the continued immu- 
 nity from a fair share of taxation for the monopoly com- 
 bine and millionaire non-resident tax-dodgers. In that
 
 252 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 campaign the public educators of the state talked and 
 wrote to the public more voluminously and enthusiasti- 
 cally in favor of the constitutional amendment than they 
 ever had done in a like period of time in the cause of edu- 
 cation in the state. They were honest, and they were 
 frightened, and they made a good fight, and they won the 
 combine's battle. The amendment was adopted. The 
 next session of the legislature made extravagant appro- 
 priations which exceeded the state revenues, notwith- 
 standing the increase, and Governor Norris and Attor- 
 ney General Galen arbitrarily held up the appropriations 
 for educational purposes and gave the benefit of the rev- 
 enues, in part at least, to extravagant and unnecessary 
 increased cost of political departments of the state ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 The exemptions of so much of its valuable mining 
 property from taxation, under the existing system in 
 Montana, does not satisfy the gluttonous desire of the 
 combine management for economy in taxation itself. In 
 the counties where its principal properties are located, 
 its great political power is regularly and successfully ex- 
 erted in the selection of public officials charged with the 
 assessment and equalization of property for taxation, 
 and it has been known to compel the taxgatherers to re- 
 sort to proceedings in court to enforce collection of taxes 
 based on absurdly low valuations of some of its prop- 
 erties subject under the laws to ordinary tax methods. 
 This has not happened frequently, because there is not 
 frequent occasion after the combine's own tax commis- 
 sioner has finished his work with friendly assessors and 
 friendly county commissioners who form the last board 
 of review on valuations for counties, under judicial in- 
 terpretation of a constitutional provision for a state 
 board of review to adjust valuations as between counties.
 
 RELIEF FROM TAXATION FOR MONOPOLISTS 253 
 
 Among the combines within the combine, created to 
 pick np any resources or utilities which give promise of 
 profit, there is the United Missouri River Power Com- 
 pany, formed by a consolidation of three other power 
 companies, which together have monopolized the water 
 power of the Missouri river from its source in Madison 
 county on the southern border of the state, to Great Falls 
 in the north, where another Ryan and Morony creation, 
 "friendly to the Amalgamated", has acquired control of 
 the river for power purposes. This United Missouri River 
 Power Company was capitalized for $14,000,000 and 
 bonded for $12,500,000. It was assessed by the assessor 
 for the county of Lewis and Clark for the year 1910 at 
 $2,036,855 in the aggregate, three separate dam proper- 
 ties with improvements being assessed and taxed separ- 
 ately. The taxes assessed against one of these proper- 
 ties were paid, and the taxes charged against the others 
 were allowed to become delinquent. The merger com- 
 pany tendered to the county $20,366.34 to settle a tax 
 roll claim of $31,069.12. The tender was refused by the 
 county commissioners, and the power company went into 
 United States court and secured a temporary injunction 
 to prevent the sale of the property for taxes. In its bill 
 the company said it was "informed and believes and 
 therefore alleges that the board of equalization, in pursu- 
 ance of an unlawful, improper, and arbitrary conspiracy 
 and agreement between themselves and the said assessor, 
 did fraudulently, arbitrarily, wrongfully and unlawfully 
 increase" its assessed valuation. After continuances of 
 the case in court, and without a decision by the court or 
 any trial of the cause on its merits before the court, on 
 April 7, 1911, the United Missouri River Power Company 
 paid to the county treasurer of Lewis and Clark county 
 $27,118.92 in compromise settlement of its taxes for the
 
 254 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 year 1910. Here was a gain to the public of about $7,000 
 if the power combine company was right in its conten- 
 tion regarding a conspiracy and in its tender of taxes to 
 the county treasurer, and a gain of something like $4,000 
 to the company if an assessment of $2,036,835 was rea- 
 sonable and just under the law on all the property of a 
 corporation stocked for $14,000,000 and mortgaged for 
 $12,500,000.
 
 Shut-Down Scares in Practical Use 
 
 When all other arguments and influences are inade- 
 quate to accomplish any important purpose of corporate 
 combine management in Montana, there is resort to the 
 "shut-down scare". The shut-down itself is not required 
 excepting in very extraordinary emergencies, or to con- 
 vince extraordinarily stubborn people. The closing of 
 mines in Butte means the closing of smelters at Ana- 
 conda and at Great Falls, of saw mills in Ravalli and Mis- 
 soula counties, enforced idleness for from twelve to eight- 
 een thousand wage-earners, and, if long protracted, 
 bankruptcy for merchants and extreme privations for 
 thousands of families. 
 
 The reader has been informed how a suspension of 
 operations in response to an adverse court decision re- 
 sulted in the calling of a special session of the legislature 
 by Governor Toole and the enactment of a general law 
 for the special purpose of enabling the Amalgamated 
 company to escape from the exclusive jurisdiction of 
 Heinze's inferior courts in Silver Bow county; also how 
 a partial suspension of operations enabled the combine 
 management to reduce the monthly earnings of work- 
 men, without changing the daily wage scale, in its enter- 
 prise of subjugating organized labor. While the deci- 
 sion by Judge Clancy, declaring the Amalgamated com- 
 pany to be an outlaw within the state, furnished ample 
 excuse in law for the corporate suspension of operations, 
 it did not provide imperative necessity for such disastrous 
 punishment upon the public, as was shown by the fact 
 that the company resumed operations, before the legisla- 
 
 [255]
 
 256 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 ture was convened or the remedial legislation was en- 
 acted, in response to Governor Toole's somewhat whim- 
 sical insistence that the lawmakers should not be com- 
 pelled to act in special session under the compelling in- 
 fluence of a public sentiment based on the public misfor- 
 tune of suspended operations in the chief industry of the 
 state. Judge Clancy furnished the excuse for the shut- 
 down, but the shut-down itself provided the influence to 
 secure the special session and the special legislation 
 which the combine influences had been previously ex- 
 hausted in vain efforts to secure. This successful use of 
 the shut-down scare in 1903 made it a favorite weapon 
 with the combine management ever after. It was used 
 with and without apparent good reason, sometimes fa- 
 mously and occasionally infamously. It has lacked effi- 
 ciency on only two occasions. In a previous chapter the 
 facts were given of the vain attempt by Mr. John D. 
 Ryan, with threat of a complete suspension of opera- 
 tions in mid-winter, to intimidate the members of the 
 Butte Miners' Union to the extreme which would prompt 
 them to engage as "scabs" and strike-breakers to bring 
 striking switchmen on the Great Northern Railway to 
 terms with their employers. The only other human be- 
 ing who ever made Mr. Ryan "back up" with his shut- 
 down scare was Mr. Theodore Roosevelt when he was 
 president of the United States. 
 
 There is more than guess work or unfounded report 
 to support the statement that the combine management 
 utilized a shut-down and resulting privation in Montana 
 to bring wage-earners under subjection. Miners' wages 
 in Butte almost always have been higher than in most 
 other mining districts of the world. The cost of living 
 also has been higher, and in recent years at least the oc- 
 cupation has been extra-hazardous to life and limb. The
 
 SHUT-DOWN SCARES IN PRACTICAL USE 257 
 
 Miners' Union did not take advantage of the copper wars 
 in Butte to secure increase of wages, as it might have 
 done. The five years' contract with the union, basing 
 wages on a sliding scale to correspond with high and low 
 prices of copper, was drawn by company agents if it did 
 not originate with them. It was respected by the mem- 
 bers of the union to the extent of disregarding laws 
 adopted by the Western Federation of Miners, and it was 
 violated by the combine management at the first oppor- 
 tunity when violation would serve combine greed. In 
 1907, when the over-inflated copper stock boom exploded 
 and the price of copper "slumped", the Amalgamated 
 company took occasion to suspend operations to a great 
 extent in Montana. The Clark properties in Montana and 
 Arizona, and the great copper mines of the Calumet and 
 Hecla company in Michigan, as well as other established 
 independent operators, continued working their mines 
 and reduction plants and to give employment to their 
 workmen. On September 17, 1907, the Boston News Bu- 
 reau, a journal devoted largely to stock market news, and 
 usually well informed on subjects related to the market, 
 printed the following: 
 
 "We understand that the Amalgamated management 
 has determined that it is not only for the interests of the 
 copper trade, but for the best interests of Butte as a cop- 
 per camp, that a shut-down of the Butte copper mines 
 should be as complete as possible, and that they should 
 not be reopened until both the copper and labor markets 
 have been readjusted. The Montana copper war created 
 a bad labor situation and it will take time and possibly 
 sharp action to readjust this to a proper basis. * * * 
 The state of affairs in Butte has become well nigh intol- 
 erable, and the eastern management holds the present a 
 good time to settle some of the issues that have been 
 growing for years."
 
 258 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 There followed in Butte the policy of "curtailment", 
 and of employment of miners on partial time, and their 
 discharge by foremen and shift bosses on trivial pretexts, 
 with the invasion of the "bohunks", or more ignorant and 
 unskilled workmen, from southern Europe, such as have 
 been employed to "regulate" American labor in the steel 
 trust and coal mine industries of the country. 
 
 In the furtherance of this enterprise to save copper 
 while it was low and labor while it was high, the combine 
 managers gave the public but a few days' notice and no 
 better explanation than that the action was necessary be- 
 cause of the low price and small demand for copper. At 
 this time the newspaper organs of the combine in Butte 
 and Anaconda, and elsewhere in Montana, dwarfed the 
 news of this public misfortune to the utmost and used 
 whatever influence they had to reconcile the public with 
 adversity. No effort of any kind was made by either 
 combine agents, business men's organizations, public offi- 
 cials, or other favorite agencies of combine management, 
 to impress upon either the managers or the public the 
 great importance of averting this industrial and business 
 calamity. There were no meetings of business men, of 
 labor unions, or private citizens, to protest against the 
 injury or to persuade those responsible that every influ- 
 ence and resource should be exhausted to prevent the 
 disaster. This shut-down policy was continued through- 
 out the winter season, and the hardships imposed upon 
 wage-earners and their families were multiplied or in- 
 creased materially by unprecedently high prices for the 
 necessities of life, promoted and maintained by petty lo- 
 cal combines from the days of the wild-cat stock boom. 
 Just a little more than a year later, with mining opera- 
 tions not yet restored to normal volume, and with wage- 
 earners and business men yet struggling to recover from
 
 SHUT-DOWN SCARES IN PRACTICAL USE 259 
 
 the losses of enforced idleness and against the conditions 
 imposed by the advent of the new labor element with its 
 lower standard of living, the shut-down scare was again 
 invoked by the combine management, more ostentatiously 
 than ever before, in an attempt to intimidate the presi- 
 dent of the United States and influence the department 
 of justice of the national government. 
 
 On December 3, 1908, The Butte News, an afternoon 
 paper, printed a dispatch from Washington announcing 
 a meeting between the president of the United States and 
 citizens of Deer Lodge county, plaintiffs in what was 
 known as the "Smoke Case", the action to recover dam- 
 ages or secure compensation from the copper combine in- 
 terests for injuries to crops and livestock and farms from 
 poisonous fumes in the smoke of the Anaconda smelters. 
 It was announced that the president's attention had been 
 directed to damages alleged to have been done to timber 
 in the forest reserve from this smelter smoke, and that 
 he had been urged to authorize the beginning of an ac- 
 tion to enjoin the company from continuance of opera- 
 tions of the kind described. The combine's avowed or- 
 gan, The Butte Intermountain, of the same day, contained 
 no reference to this news, and the Butte and Anaconda 
 papers of Friday morning gave evidence of no alarm and 
 no unusual public interest. But on Friday morning, 
 without stimulus of newspaper advertising or sensation, 
 it suddenly became reported that wholesale disaster was 
 imminent, and the emergency was so great that a local 
 organization of Butte business men could not be called 
 together in time to act, although some of its chief officers 
 were officers or employees of constituent companies of 
 the combine, and the executive committee of this organi- 
 zation forwarded to Washington by wire a protest against 
 action by the government adversely to the copper cor-
 
 260 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 poration. The next day The Anaconda Standard, The 
 Butte Miner and The Butte Intermountain were em- 
 ployed to extend the hysterics with great headlines and 
 with exaggerated imaginary tales of catastrophe to follow 
 if the public was not aroused to remonstrance in suffi- 
 cient force to give pause to presidential action. Public 
 meetings were held, the atmosphere was charged with 
 oral warnings from combine agents, commercial bodies in 
 various cities of the state were started in motion and in 
 resolution, city councils adopted memorials and protests, 
 senators and congressmen from Montana in Washington 
 were appealed to, Managing Director Ryan in Washing- 
 ton fathered dispatches which were printed in combine 
 papers and quoted in public meetings called by combine 
 agents to excite public sentiment to dissipate the danger 
 of distress foreshadowed as about to spread over the 
 state. The news was twenty-four hours old in Butte be- 
 fore the combine's organs took it up as worthy of ex- 
 ploitation and editorial comment. The excitement 
 reached zenith within forty-eight hours, and the whole 
 subject had disappeared from the columns of the combine 
 papers in Butte and Anaconda within seventy-two hours 
 after their sudden alarm. The smoke case had been in 
 federal court in Montana for three and a half years, and 
 Judge Hunt had had it "under advisement" for nearly a 
 year. Any action by the government for an injunction 
 would necessarily come through the same court, if not, 
 indeed, the same judge. As a matter of fact these pro- 
 ceedings were instituted months after, and years after 
 were ended, temporarily at least, by the most extraor- 
 dinary stipulation entered into between the combine man- 
 agement and Attorney General Wickersham, described 
 in another chapter. 
 
 The truth of the matter was that the farmers of the 
 Deer Lodge valley, in their obstructed chase for justice,
 
 SHUT-DOWN SCARES IN PRACTICAL USE 261 
 
 had been learning from their adversaries. Frequently 
 confronted with the use of public agencies and influences 
 by the private corporation, they had appealed to the agri- 
 cultural department at Washington, and competent offi- 
 cials had been sent out to investigate the effect of smel- 
 ter smoke on vegetation and livestock. Some of these 
 officials had been important witnesses before the master 
 in chancery in the prolonged litigation, and reports to the 
 department from competent and unprejudiced govern- 
 ment agents stated conditions to be existing which en- 
 titled the government as well as the farmers to compensa- 
 tion for damages done. As a rancher in the west years 
 before, President Roosevelt had become acquainted with 
 the stockmen of Montana, including some of those who 
 had claims against the copper combine for damages done. 
 When government agents made reports which substan- 
 tiated the claims of citizens Mr. Roosevelt knew to be 
 reliable and responsible, and the latter appealed to him 
 for aid in their unequal combat with the combine and 
 the powers of government which it had enlisted in Mon- 
 tana, there was a meeting at the White House. Some 
 of the farmers were there with their attorneys. Mr. 
 John D. Ryan was there with other combine represen- 
 tatives, and the two United States senators from Mon- 
 tana were there, as well as officials from the national 
 department of justice. It was an informal effort, in a 
 somewhat formal way, to arbitrate serious differences. 
 Here was where the tremendous artificial excitement 
 in Montana was wanted and needed. Senator Dixon, as 
 in duty bound, presented telegrams addressed to him 
 from Montana people inspired by combine agents, and, 
 after one reading and Mr. Roosevelt had commented 
 on its character and purpose, further reading of similar 
 protests was dispensed with by mutual consent. It was
 
 262 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 reported from an authority present at the time that, after 
 some presentation of pertinent facts from a variety of 
 sources, President Roosevelt turned to Managing Di- 
 rector Ryan and asked him directly why his company 
 did not settle the damages which it imposed by its op- 
 erations. Up to this time, as the story was told, all of 
 the parties to the conference, including United States 
 senators, had arisen to their feet when addressing the 
 President of the United States. It was stated that Mr. 
 Ryan, who was seated, nonchalantly crossed one leg 
 over the other, and smilingly replied, "That's a debat- 
 able question, Mr. President." It was further declared 
 that there was emphatic pronouncement of the asser- 
 tion that questions asked there were not debatable, and 
 that teeth internationally famous came together with 
 a snap which closed the conference; as Senator Carter 
 was no less emphatically informed when he essayed his 
 justly renowned role of peacemaker and harmonizer. 
 This may or may not explain why the Montana news- 
 papers and other agencies, which had been so vigorously 
 engaged in working up the shut-down scare, so abruptly 
 dropped the subject. 
 
 The manner and method of arousing public fear and 
 creating public panic with this shut-down scare is ad- 
 mirably shown by quotation of a part of the public state- 
 ment made by the head of the combine's legal depart- 
 ment in Montana at that time, Mr. Cornelius F. Kelly, 
 later promoted to become managing director. He at- 
 tributed, properly enough, to the farmers whom he was 
 dragging to poverty through dilatory and extravagant 
 court proceedings, some part of the responsibility for the 
 proposed government action. The smoke case was still 
 pending before Judge Hunt, and, while declaring that he 
 had refrained from publicly discussing cases in court,
 
 SHUT-DOWN SCARES IN PRACTICAL USE 263 
 
 he made a partisan statement for the public on this oc- 
 casion, which was printed in The Anaconda Standard, 
 and in which he is quoted as having said : 
 
 "Not content to await a decision (of the 'smoke case') 
 after having the fullest opportunity to present their 
 claims, upon the flimsy pretext that the United States 
 government is being damaged by injury to the scrub 
 timber about Anaconda, they seek to exert the powerful 
 influence of the government to do that which in its re- 
 sult means the destruction of many millions of dollars 
 of invested capital, not by the companies owning the 
 mines and smelters alone, but by the thousands who 
 have invested their savings and capital in Butte and 
 Anaconda, to destroy these communities and injure 
 others not so directly dependent upon the mining busi- 
 ness here; to drive more than 100,000 people from their 
 homes ; to throw out of employment permanently 25,- 
 000 men, and to effect the wreck and ruin of the larg- 
 est industrial factor in Montana." 
 
 Accepting the palpable exaggerations of this state- 
 ment as legal verbiage and surplusage permissible to 
 the profession, it is pertinent as helpful to the public un- 
 derstanding of this public announcement to say that all 
 the claims of the Deer Lodge valley farmers and all the 
 injury to government forest reserve from smelter smoke 
 fumes could have been permanently satisfied at that 
 time for about one-fifth the amount which the combine 
 operators took from stock investors through over-cap- 
 italization of the Heinze properties when reorganized; or 
 by just about the amount of the commission charged by 
 Messrs. Cole and Ryan to the investing public for buy- 
 ing the Speculator Mining company property and or- 
 ganizing the North Butte Mining company; or by what 
 combine officials and agents swindled from the people
 
 264 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 of Montana and their eastern friends through the Barnes- 
 King gold mining deal ; or by one-thirtieth of the pure- 
 ly watered stock in the Greene-Cananea Mining Com- 
 pany of Mexico, which Cole and Ryan organized and 
 "let the public in on" at par value ; or by one five-hun- 
 dredth part of the capital stock of the copper combine 
 itself which it had been advertised as likely to have in 
 the enlarged merger which Mr. Ryan was credited with 
 work to accomplish. Mr. Kelly knew what it would 
 cost. But in justice to Mr. Kelly it should be added 
 that in that serious emergency he was employed to 
 scare the public and not to inform it.
 
 The Grabbing of Water Power 
 and Public Utilities 
 
 With a docile governor and tractable lawmakers fill- 
 ing the atmosphere and the official records of Montana 
 with profound assurances of great concern for the con- 
 servation of the natural resources of the state for public 
 benefit, corporations related to or having mutual inter- 
 ests with the copper combine group of financiers have 
 appropriated or acquired practically all of the great 
 water powers and the water rights necessary to the de- 
 velopment of such power. This action was supple- 
 mented by systematic and thorough endeavors to se- 
 cure a monopoly of the public utilities of light and 
 power, with franchises, in the principal cities through- 
 out the state. In Anaconda, and to less extent in Butte, 
 control of these utilities was acquired by the Amalga- 
 mated company with its mining and smelting properties. 
 At Great Falls, under lease rights, there had been suc- 
 cessful experiment in developing electric power for use 
 in the smelters. The value of this power was better 
 demonstrated by the Amalgamated Company after the 
 construction of a power plant on the Missouri river at 
 Canyon Ferry near Helena and the transmission of the 
 electric power to Butte. The inestimable wealth in 
 water power rights and privileges in Montana seemingly 
 was not realized by the high financiers in the east until 
 the agitation of the subject by government officials, and 
 the proclaiming of conservation of these resources as 
 one of President Roosevelt's favorite policies, made the 
 
 [265]
 
 266 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 question of ownership one of urgent interest to both the 
 public and the speculators in public necessities. The 
 corporate management lost no time in mere discussion 
 of the subject. It employed its newspaper organs and 
 politicians in that work, and other men practiced in quiet 
 action for the more important undertaking of grabbing 
 the water rights while there was yet time and oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 As early as the year 1900 Mr. Paris Gibson, a pioneer 
 of Montana, the accredited first citizen in founding and 
 building the city of Great Falls, had made strong effort 
 to inform the public of the value of the power of the 
 Missouri river at that point. In an article published in 
 The Rocky Mountain Magazine that year, he declared : 
 "In magnitude the falls of the Missouri are unsurpassed 
 in the United States except by the falls of Niagara. The 
 power available here at the medium flow is ten times 
 greater than that of the Mississippi river at Minneapolis, 
 and thirty times either that of Lowell, Lawrence, 
 Holyoke or Lewiston." Mr. Gibson presented facts in 
 detail to show the comparatively greater ease and econ- 
 omy in developing power at the falls of the Missouri 
 river, with other advantages superior to those of Nia- 
 gara. It had been the dream of his life in Montana to 
 see the agricultural lands of that state developed into 
 green fields and the great water power harnessed for 
 the manufacture of flour. He lived to see the value of 
 the land for grain-growing uses recognized, and the 
 value of the power demonstrated by its development and 
 transmission to remote parts of the state, for use in 
 mines and smelters and to supply light and power for 
 rival cities, under the ownership of a foreign combine 
 and for the enrichment of Wall street speculators. At 
 about the same time three separate companies, organized
 
 THE GRABBING OF WATER POWER 267 
 
 under the laws of other states, took possession of as 
 many available damsites on the Missouri river above 
 Great Falls. Similar enterprises by allied or cooperat- 
 ing interests were employed in western Montana, and to 
 secure developed power on the Madison and Yellow- 
 stone rivers in the southern and eastern parts of the 
 state. When the year 1911 was reached, practically all 
 the desirable dam sites and water power privileges on 
 the Missouri river, the Yellowstone, the Madison, and 
 the Clark's Fork of the Columbia in western Montana, 
 were under monopoly control, with accredited owner- 
 ship of the control centered in a few Napoleons of finance 
 with headquarters in Wall Street. The power at Great 
 Falls had been acquired by John D. Ryan and John G. 
 Morony, and by them transferred. The United Mis- 
 souri River Power company had absorbed the Missouri 
 River Power company and the Helena Power and Trans- 
 mission company and had increased their combined cap- 
 ital stock, or replaced it, from a par value of $4,200,000 
 to a total of $10,250,000. This was not known to the 
 public in Montana till February, 1909, when copies of 
 instruments necessary to legalize the deal were filed 
 with the secretary of state. Yet according to the articles 
 of incorporation the United Missouri River Power com- 
 pany was organized on February 15, 1906. These two 
 absorbed companies had been widely advertised and ex- 
 ploited as Montana enterprises, owned by Montana men, 
 and to be operated as public utilities, for the benefit of 
 the people of the state. The articles of incorporation 
 showed that the three incorporators of the new merger 
 all lived in New York. The total amount of stock paid 
 in money was stated to be $250,000, and the total not 
 paid with money was $9,999,000; it was declared that 
 the assets consisted of "franchises, water rights, power
 
 268 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 plants and lines, capital stock, bills receivable, property 
 not included under these heads, sinking fund and cash", 
 with a total face value of assets amounting to $12,236,- 
 702.33 and an actual cash value of assets of $5,277,202.33 ; 
 that the liabilities were $5,096,026.91. In other words, 
 if the statement meant anything, it meant that there was 
 a total investment of all kinds approximating $5,000,000 
 in these water power properties, with about $7,000,000 
 in water securities as a basis for fixed charges to furnish 
 a basis for charges to the public. This company was 
 later put through the hands of a receiver and some of 
 the water, temporarily, and most of the outsiders per- 
 manently, squeezed out. 
 
 Newly developed power at Great Falls was trans- 
 mitted to Butte and Anaconda and utilized in both 
 mines and smelters of the copper combine. It was also 
 carried to Billings, where the local lighting company 
 had been absorbed, giving the combine organization in- 
 terests and influences and profits in eastern Montana. 
 No attempt will be made here to detail the many oper- 
 ations, with dummy corporations and agents, and the 
 special legislation and litigation in both state and na- 
 tional legislative houses and public courts, to accom- 
 plish and validate this monopolization of power and 
 light and water facilities in the state of Montana. It 
 is doubtful if any one individual or group of men em- 
 ployed in the task, from the local lobbyist among alder- 
 men to John D. Ryan himself, would be capable or qual- 
 ified for such an undertaking in explanation. 
 
 Under the laws of Montana, procured by the combine 
 influences, even the holding companies for these widely 
 distributed local organizations can be made to disappear 
 and the Anaconda Copper Mining company can buy all 
 of the stocks or bonds or properties, and operate them,
 
 THE GRABBING OF WATER POWER 269 
 
 and juggle their bonds and securities, and pay for every- 
 thing with Anaconda stock, and have everything a part 
 of the property and a part of the business of the Ana- 
 conda Copper Mining company. This is authorized by 
 the laws of Montana, passed for such special purposes 
 by the same interests which operate the single and all 
 allied corporations, and which in recent years have had 
 no good excuse for fearing prosecution by state admin- 
 istration, or too strict interpretation of constitutional 
 provision adversely to combine interest in the improb- 
 able emergency of a serious test in courts of these cor- 
 ruptly procured statutes. 
 
 In 1911 this combination of big business was exact- 
 ing tribute from the public for light or power or water 
 supply, and in at least one instance for all three, from 
 the public in the cities of Butte, Great Falls, Anaconda, 
 Billings, Kalispell, Lewistown, and many smaller places. 
 In almost none of these cities were rates for such ser- 
 vice reasonable by any calculation based upon actual 
 investment or cost of operation. In nearly all of these 
 cities conditions have been created or obtained which 
 make either competition or public ownership practically 
 impossible, either through debt limitations on munici- 
 palities or by restrictions of complicated laws, or be- 
 cause of monopoly rights secured by the combine inter- 
 ests in the natural resources of a great state. The far- 
 reaching influence of the organization and the seeming 
 helplessness of the public in efforts to secure public 
 officials or servants free from the prevailing taint of 
 combine power was displayed in Butte, where the city 
 attorney, a devoted apostle of socialism and elected on 
 the socialist ticket, had for some years been retained by 
 the year as counsel and attorney for one of the electric 
 companies engaged in the business of perfecting the
 
 270 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 electric monopoly within the state — a fact generous in 
 tribute to corporate monopoly's non-partisan political 
 strength as well as to the socialist leader's skill in his 
 chosen occupational profession. 
 
 The combine interests are not compelled to rely ex- 
 clusively upon combine powers or the employment of 
 official influence for the acquisition of these great rights 
 and profits in perpetuity. With their superior facilities 
 for directing public sentiment, the promoters frequently 
 succeed in securing the support of favorable popular ex- 
 pression in the communities to be plundered, and large 
 measure of fervent communal gratitude in return for 
 generous promises. How these results are obtained may 
 be sufficiently well illustrated by the reproduction of a 
 single one from among hundreds of the newspaper arti- 
 cles judiciously placed, all equally well calculated to in- 
 vite popular approval of combine works. This one is 
 taken from The Butte Intermountain, official home 
 journal of foreign corporations, edited under the per- 
 sonal direction of Mr. John D. Ryan in New York, or 
 of his private secretary in Butte. This article was 
 printed while Messrs. Ryan and Morony, through a 
 townsite company, were peddling real estate in Great 
 Falls to the public as a side line of the business of trans- 
 ferring the great water power at that point to monopoly 
 control and transmitting it away from Great Falls, for 
 combine use or sale in other cities :
 
 THE GRABBING OF WATER POWER 271 
 
 "GREAT FALLS HAS A GREAT FUTURE. 
 
 "Millions Are About To Be Spent In Developing Resources. 
 
 'TO PUT IN A WIRE FACTORY. 
 
 "Copper Wire To Be Supplied for Entire Western Country. 
 
 " 'I predict that Great Falls in the next five years will 
 be one of the best and most prosperous cities in the 
 west,' said a man this morning who is a close observer 
 of events and one who has a good general knowledge of 
 business conditions. 'Mr. John D. Ryan and his asso- 
 ciates who compose the Great Falls Power and Town- 
 site company,' continued the gentleman in question, 
 'will spend in the next few years $5,000,000 in building 
 dams and the construction of a large power plant, to- 
 gether with an electric line into Butte to provide power 
 for the Butte mines. In addition to this Mr. Ryan and 
 his company will build a wire factory at Great Falls 
 and make wire from the Butte copper with which to 
 supply the copper wire market from the Missouri river 
 to the Pacific coast. It is also proposed to build a plate 
 glass, carbide and bi-cement factory to be operated in 
 connection with the power company.' 
 
 "The Boston News Bureau of Tuesday last in an ar- 
 ticle on the electrification of railroads says : 
 
 "A contract has been entered into between the Great 
 Falls Water Power Company and the St. Paul Railroad 
 company whereby the former company will for a period 
 of twenty-five years supply the latter with 25,000 horse- 
 power per annum. 
 
 "The Great Falls company up to six months ago was 
 controlled by James J. Hill and associates, but at that 
 time John D. Ryan and several colleagues obtained con-
 
 272 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 trol and at present the management is engaged in con- 
 structing two large dams. The company is now under 
 contract to supply power to the Boston & Montana smel- 
 ter at Great Falls and has taken contracts for approxi- 
 mately 50,000 horsepower a year. 
 
 "Not until the end of next year will the Great Falls 
 company be in position to generate power for its new cus- 
 tomers from the two dams now being built. The capacity 
 will be further increased when three additional dams, 
 now in contemplation, will have been finished. 
 
 "The portion of the St. Paul, which will obtain its 
 power supply from the Great Falls company, is that run- 
 ning over the Rocky Mountains, and while no estimate 
 of the amount of copper to be used is available, it will be 
 a very considerable amount. For transmission wire on 
 the new contract just booked the company will use 4,000,- 
 000 pounds of copper. 
 
 "From Truckee, California, west, the Southern Pacific 
 is making preparations to electrify a single line of its 
 mountain division over the Sierra Nevada range. When 
 in operation it is expected that capacity over the line 
 will be doubled. 
 
 " 'The railroads of the country,' says an interest iden- 
 tified with the Great Falls company, 'will commence 
 their electrification in the not distant future. 
 
 ' 'The Illinois Central railroad, I was told last week 
 on my way through Chicago, would soon electrify its 
 local and suburban services in that city, and the other 
 roads also centering in Chicago will be obliged to follow 
 suit. All of these actions make for an assured consump- 
 tion of copper.' "
 
 Wild-Cat Era In Banking and 
 Stock-Jobbing 
 
 In 1905 there was inaugurated at Butte an era of 
 wild-cat operations in banking and stock gambling, dur- 
 ing which the craze to get rich quick became epidemic 
 and grew in violent intensity until it culminated in the 
 financial ruin of most of its victims with the Wall Street 
 panic of 1907. Within these three years more than 150 
 mining companies were organized in or about the Butte 
 mining district, no one of which developed a paying 
 mine. The aggregate par value of the stocks of these 
 companies exceeded $200,000,000. These worthless to- 
 kens of promised prosperity were peddled wherever fool- 
 ish people with funds to buy could be found throughout 
 the United States. It never can be told how great a tax 
 was thus levied upon folly to be paid by industry. Bank- 
 ers became stockbrokers, barbers were promoters, cigar 
 peddlers were changed to officials of $5,000,000 com- 
 panies, newspaper reporters were transformed into mine 
 experts and "mining editors" in a day, wage-earners 
 made permanent investment with sole regard for the fu- 
 ture, gamblers neglected their professional duties for the 
 easier and faster game in which everybody was winning. 
 That distinguished county in Indiana, once described by 
 a Chicago promoter, where nobody could sell a gold 
 brick — "because everybody had one", possessed little if 
 any advantage over Butte when this mining stock boom 
 was done. Of course the mad rush to secure much for 
 little, or something for nothing, was not confined to Butte 
 within Montana while it was being extended to other 
 
 [27.3]
 
 274 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 cities throughout the country. None of the capitalizations 
 or organizations of the big companies belonging to the 
 combine, or others then independently operating pro- 
 ductive mines in Butte, is included in the foregoing sum- 
 mary of companies and capitalizations. A few of these 
 new exploitations were organized by honest men who 
 honestly expended in development work the money re- 
 ceived from stock buyers. The majority of them were 
 sharpers' schemes to swindle the public, and the strength 
 of the craze rather than the good character of the enter- 
 prise was shown frequently when good men of good pub- 
 lic reputation were induced to allow the use of their 
 names in the organization of companies and the sale of 
 stocks by notoriously unscrupulous operators. Few men 
 of good repute in official or private life escaped tempta- 
 tion in this form ; and many were unable to resist it. 
 Reference has been made to that public sensibility and 
 regard for proprieties which resented the official connec- 
 tion of judges of a high court with a party newspaper 
 organ at Helena. Apparently there was no such refine- 
 ment of public opinion antagonistic to doubtful mining 
 stock promotion during boom times. In the ocean of 
 stock flotation there were certificates of interest in the 
 Butte and London Copper Development company, incor- 
 porated under the laws of Arizona, January 8, 1906, with 
 a "capital stock of $5,000,000, 1,000,000 shares, five dol- 
 lars a share." This stock was quoted on the curb in Bos- 
 ton and New York as well as in Butte, and sold in large 
 quantity as far away as London, England. The price to 
 outsiders reached a high figure during the excitement. 
 Some of the money went for development work and some 
 for promotion. The report filed in Montana for this com- 
 pany, January 1, 1907, in compliance with state laws, 
 contained this much information :
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 275 
 
 "1. The name of the corporation is the Butte and 
 London Copper Development company. Its principal 
 place of business outside the state of Montana is at Phoe- 
 nix, Arizona. Its principal place of business within the 
 state of Montana is at Butte, County of Silver Bow, in 
 said state. 
 
 "2. The amount of the capital stock is $5,000,000. 
 
 "3. The amount of its capital stock paid in is $5,000,- 
 000 in property. 
 
 "4. Its assets consist of 'Greendale Placer Claim', 
 value of $5,000,000; mining machinery, buildings, im- 
 provements, etc., $162,808.34; cash on deposit, $264,- 
 717.84. 
 
 "5. Its liabilities consist of current expenses." 
 
 This was signed by The Butte and London Copper 
 Development company, "Theodore Brantly, President", 
 and attested by the seal of the corporation. Mr. Brantly 
 was Chief Justice of the supreme court of the state of 
 Montana. The stock of the company is no longer quoted in 
 eastern market reports as published, nor in demand in 
 Montana. The pursuit of copper veins in this particular 
 placer claim has ceased. The $5,000,000 property is most 
 accurately described by the lamented Mark Twain's defi- 
 nition of a mine as "a hole in the ground, owned by 
 a liar". There never was manifestation of public disap- 
 proval of this use of judical position to promote the 
 sale of stock issued on an undeveloped mining claim, 
 possibly because there were so many private citizens as 
 well as public officials with glass exposure in their busi- 
 ness habitations. 
 
 For this experience in wholesale stock swindling, as 
 for most of their serious misfortunes, the people of Mon- 
 tana were indebted in greater part to the enterprise and 
 influence and dishonesty of the Amalgamated Copper
 
 276 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 combine "high financiers" and managers. Conditions 
 at that time appeared to be perfect for the completion of 
 the original plan of the financial kings to create a mon- 
 opoly of the copper industry after the fashion of the steel 
 trust. The battle with Heinze had been won, the coun- 
 try was prosperous, the price of copper advancing, and 
 the demand for the product was being maintained not- 
 withstanding increasing production. Cole and Ryan 
 were employed, seemingly on combined salary and com- 
 mission basis, to bring outside copper properties within 
 combine control at public expense. North Butte was 
 their first undertaking. The Speculator mine, a produc- 
 ing property, belonged to the Largey estate. A price 
 had been placed upon it and the property had been re- 
 ported on by combine experts, and not purchased, in pre- 
 vious years. Early in 1905 Cole and Ryan took hold of 
 the project with a valuation of about $5,000,000, and with 
 this property organized the North Butte Mining com- 
 pany with a capital stock of $6,000,000. With the influ- 
 ence at their command they succeeded in floating the 
 stock at par. Within a few months a strike of rich ore in 
 an adjoining property acquired by the company, aided 
 by a rising copper market, started North Butte stock on 
 its celebrated balloon flight. Almost without a serious 
 halt this stock, with a par value of $15 a share, soared 
 above $100, and for a short time had higher market 
 value than Amalgamated with a par value of 100 per 
 share. Some Butte friends of Ryan, who had bought the 
 stock at par and who had been advised that it would be 
 put about $25, sold out before it reached $30; and some 
 of them bought in again above $40, and $50, and $60, a 
 share. Butte people went wild with enthusiasm and Cole 
 and Ryan were proclaimed mining kings from Dublin 
 Gulch to W T all Street. Heinze's properties were taken
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 277 
 
 over for S10,500,000 and floated at $15,000,000, and the 
 boomers gave the stock a market value of more than 
 $40,000,000, without dividends enough for a long enough 
 period to satisfy any kind of investor relying upon actual 
 earnings. It was too easy. By a series of manipulations 
 with a moribund copper company organized in Minne- 
 sota, with undeveloped claims in Mexico, new incorpora- 
 tions, high financial juggling, and the investment of 
 something like half a million dollars, Messrs. Cole and 
 Ryan got possession of Col. W. C. Greene's properties at 
 Cananea, Mexico, organized the Greene-Cananea company 
 with a capitalization of $50,000,000 and gave to that stock 
 in boom times a market value above par. All of these 
 stocks were unloaded in large quantities in Butte and 
 Montana, as well as the certificates of the myriad of 
 companies incorporated to operate in and about Butte. 
 Mr. Ryan's visits to Butte had become infrequent, but 
 the echoes of his voice, real or fabricated, were heard 
 everywhere. He professed disapproval of the wild-cat 
 enterprises being fostered in the big copper camp and 
 gave assurances that men associated with those com- 
 panies and holding official position in the Amalgamated 
 organization would be compelled to quit either those 
 companies or their conection with Amalgamated. But 
 these assurances were not given publicly, and in the 
 summer and fall of 1906 there was concocted and worked 
 out of Amalgamated offices — with the knowledge and co- 
 operation of Mr. Ryan himself and with the use of the 
 influence of combine organization and the active partici- 
 pation of Ryan's most intimate friends and business as- 
 sociates, — as barefaced a swindle of the public and as 
 conscienceless a betrayal of friends as can be cited from 
 the whole record of rascal enterprise. The scheme ulti- 
 mately became widely known as the Barnes-King mining
 
 278 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 swindle. In its relative proportions to Amalgamated 
 copper or Greene-Cananea crimes against the investing 
 public, it was as petty larceny to piracy. The Barnes- 
 King mine was a gold property located in Fergus county, 
 Montana, owned for a number of years by Messrs. 
 Barnes and King, who had derived modest fortunes from 
 their industry in working it. An option on this property 
 at approximately $750,000 was obtained by A. J. Camp- 
 bell, political manager and lobbyist for the copper com- 
 bine under Ryan, and John Lalor, who had been private 
 secretary to Marcus Daly and after Mr. Daly's death was 
 retained by Mrs. Daly to look after details of business of 
 the estate. Campbell already had made money in the 
 stock boom and had gone to New York, where he had be- 
 come a partner in a stock brokerage firm. Campbell had 
 secured a favorable report on the property by a mining 
 engineer. He employed his former private secretary, 
 then holding a like position with Mr. Ryan in Butte, Mr. 
 Roy S. Alley, and W. W. Cheely, business manager of a 
 combine newspaper, to place the stock on commission. 
 Early in the proceedings a large number of people, hav- 
 ing friendly relations or official position with the com- 
 pany, were given confidential assurances that a particu- 
 larly rich find had been made and that it was to be di- 
 vided among friends of the late Marcus Daly. Similar 
 assurances were given that the assays and expert reports 
 showing great wealth of gold in the mine had been much 
 more than confirmed by subsequent assays secretly made 
 by Amalgamated company experts. It was explained that 
 the prize was comparatively small but exceptionally sure, 
 and that it would be difficult for anybody to get as much 
 of the stock as he would naturally want. Of course it 
 was too small a thing to be given the time and attention 
 of Mr. Ryan but he had asked, according to the informa-
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 279 
 
 tion peddled, that as much of the stock as could be 
 spared should be assigned to him. Two companies were 
 formed, after the approved method of combine organiza- 
 tion, one to float the property and the other to own and 
 operate it. Long before any stock subscription was open 
 there was a widespread and keen demand for such a gilt- 
 edge investment under such favorable auspices. This 
 property, purchased for less than $1,000,000, was capital- 
 ized at $2,000,000, four hundred thousand shares at $5 a 
 share, payable one-half when stock was subscribed on a 
 certain given date and the balance several months later; 
 with abundant assurance that before the second payment 
 would become due the price of the stock would be ad- 
 vanced to at least $10 a share on the market. These con- 
 fidential communications had been carried to Great Falls, 
 and Helena, and Missoula, and Anaconda, together with 
 information that a certain part of the stock was to be dis- 
 tributed among New York "friends", under the loving 
 guardianship of the late Marcus Daly's son-in-law. The 
 stock was oversubscribed as was anticipated. More than 
 $500,000 in certified checks and drafts on New York to 
 pay one-half for all stock assigned to Butte was collected 
 by the agents in one evening. The stock did not rise as 
 promised. Perhaps it occurred to too many of the stock- 
 holders, after reflection or consultation with each other, 
 that Barnes and King were experienced and successful 
 mining men, who knew the property better than anyone 
 else, and who never had done anything to warrant a sus- 
 picion that they would sell $2,000,000 worth of gold for 
 less than $1,000,000. The price sagged under efforts by 
 the once eager subscribers to secure themselves against 
 loss or liability for the balance due on the stock. Mr. 
 Lalor came to Montana from New York, went to Fergus 
 county, and was given a front page position with large
 
 280 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 headlines for an interview in The Anaconda Standard, 
 giving a glowing account of the prospects of rich re- 
 turns from the property. This served to help in collec- 
 tion of some deferred payments, but did not prevent the 
 exposure and scandal. There was a "slump", and mut- 
 terings even by high officials of the Amalgamated com- 
 pany about prosecutions to recover the money obtained 
 from them by misrepresentation and palpable fraud. Mr. 
 Lalor was made a scapegoat, relieved of his position in 
 connection with the Daly estate, and went abroad. 
 Prominent officials in the Amalgamated organization 
 were placed in charge of the Barnes-King property as 
 officers of the company, and new assurances were given 
 to the buncoed subscribers. Official reports showed that 
 there was less than $50,000 worth of ore developed or in 
 sight in the property. Although there was a large sum 
 of cash in the treasury, reserved for operating and devel- 
 opment uses, and although repeated efforts were made 
 by the new management and by the newspaper organs 
 of the combine in Butte to revive public confidence and 
 restore some symptoms of legitimate enterprise and real 
 prospects to the company, Barnes-King stock continued 
 to be quoted on the Butte exchange as low as thirty cents 
 per share, with no bids, and ceased to be quoted on the 
 eastern curb at all. 
 
 This was a very annoying experience to the princes 
 of the royal plunder guild. The biters had been bitten, 
 and by their own household pets, creatures of their own 
 training, proteges of their own promotions. It were bad 
 enough for the shark to realize that the sucker had been 
 nibbling his tail, but it was made worse by the necessity 
 which compelled the sharks to advertise their humilia- 
 tion to escape responsibility and save their previous repu- 
 tations from the odium of such a palpable fraud. The
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 2S1 
 
 list of Barnes-King stockholders was made accessible for 
 publication in Butte for no better known reason than to 
 convince the hundreds of victims in Montana that the 
 men with and by whose names the game had been 
 worked were fellow sufferers rather than beneficiaries 
 from the fraud. 
 
 But Barnes-King and the purely wild-cat schemes 
 worked out of Butte were bagatelle. The men who 
 profited by them lost all their profits, their original capi- 
 tal, and their credit with their cash, in the greater and 
 more comprehensive operations in and through Wall 
 street. According to the market reports in March, 1906, 
 North Butte's $6,000,000 of stock was worth $38,000,000 
 in round numbers. The Butte-Coalition company, with 
 Heinze's properties bought at $10,500,000 and capitalized 
 at $15,000,000, was selling on the market on a basis of 
 $45,000,000. The price of Amalgamated stock had ad- 
 vanced more than 100 per cent, above the low point of 
 less than two years before; and the boom was not at its 
 full height. Greene-Cananea with more than $40,000,000 
 of pure inflation of value was yet to come. At that time 
 it was reckoned by an experienced dealer in copper prop- 
 erty securities that five corporate organizations whose 
 real properties could not be sold to real buyers for real 
 money at $75,000,000, had a market value in the stock 
 reports of about $350,000,000, or nearly five times their 
 true value, measured by any reasonable calculation of 
 their earning capacity for a period of years. 
 
 The deluge of easy money for easy people ceased 
 falling in 1907. When the floods of watered stocks sub- 
 sided and records of normal business were restored, some 
 marvelous low water marks were noted. Early in Jan- 
 uary, 1908, a Butte editor, with some aptitude for figures 
 and much knowledge of facts, calculated that during the
 
 282 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 preceding twelve months there had been a shrinkage of 
 $500,000,000 in the market value of stocks of eighteen 
 producing copper and smelting companies. He stated, 
 as a matter of course, that Amalgamated led the proces- 
 sion with a loss of more than $100,000,000; Greene-Cana- 
 nea had fallen off $45,000,000; North Butte $32,000,000; 
 Coalition some $30,000,000. For apparent causes these 
 all had been prime favorites in Butte. Heinze's United 
 Copper, from a stock market rating of $45,000,000, had 
 disappeared from the lists ; not even worth quoting. With 
 tardy wisdom this servant of the combine sought to com- 
 fort the people of Butte with explanation that stock 
 market prices are generally regulated by a clique in New 
 York, that the mines and the mineral wealth remain, and 
 "While the hills are stored with minerals and the moun- 
 tain sides covered with timber, the only thing that should 
 fill people with genuine fear is famine or blight or storm." 
 It was the wisdom of experience, the most valuable 
 known ; but it was not quite adequate to make a Happy 
 New Year for many people in Butte. They had lost their 
 money and their stocks. The Napoleons of the copper 
 market and copper mining had destroyed the market 
 temporarily and "curtailed" production by closing mines. 
 Butte had a hardy and an energetic people, strong of 
 heart as of muscle, and with keen appetites whetted in 
 many cases by lack of food ; but they couldn't eat the 
 timber on the mountain sides. 
 
 Twin child to wild-cat stockjobbing, born of high 
 finance, is wild-cat banking. Both games are played by 
 the operators with other peoples' money, with expecta- 
 tion or hope of getting possession of the money of yet 
 other people. In Butte and some other cities of Mon- 
 tana both games are played by the same operators, and 
 both alike are boosted and protected by a public press
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 283 
 
 subservient to the same corporate combine influences 
 and interests. Without the practically unsecured money 
 of depositors to work with, there would be little incentive 
 and less opportunity for wild-cat banking. Without the 
 concentration of these moneys in New York and their 
 availability for use in rash speculation, most of those ex- 
 ploitations in high finance which have been recognized 
 as infamous would have been impossible. 
 
 While the subject of "guaranteed bank deposits" was 
 under general discussion a few years ago, the president 
 of the Montana State Bankers' Association, in an ad- 
 dress at the annual convention of that organization, de- 
 claimed long and loudly against the proposed innovation. 
 The highest position attained in the banking business of 
 that state by that banker was the office of president of a 
 Butte bank which guaranteed the value of a big block of 
 mining stock to assist in promoting the flotation of the 
 inflated certificates of value issued by the Amalgamated 
 Copper company. Mr. John D. Ryan was president of 
 the Daly Bank and Trust company of Butte when the 
 mining stock was so guaranteed ; and his ultimate suc- 
 cessor, who opposed guarantees to depositors in banks, 
 was changed from a bank cashier with a modest salary 
 in Great Falls to a reputed millionaire and a globe-trot- 
 ter within less than five years through operations with 
 stocks. This was not an especially singular or peculiar 
 example of banking methods connected with stockjob- 
 bing in Montana, and these men were included among 
 bankers described by the public press as "recognized 
 over the country for their conservative efficiency." These 
 incidents are mentioned merely to show the readiness of 
 the public to esteem men capable of being rash specula- 
 tors and conservative bankers at the same time, unless 
 trouble and public misfortune results.
 
 284 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 After the worst immediate effects of the panic of 1907 
 had been experienced, a statement was printed in The 
 New York Evening Post as follows: "Montana suffers 
 with the Lake Superior country from the shutting down 
 of many important mines and the reduction of working 
 forces in all the others. Nevertheless, Montana enjoys 
 the distinction of being the only state in the Union in 
 which none of the banks resorted to clearing house cer- 
 tificates, cashiers' checks or other makeshifts. As a con- 
 sequence there is no distrust of the banks in Montana, 
 and no disposition even on the part of the most timor- 
 ous to hoard." This was grateful praise from Gotham, 
 but not strictly true. It was notoriously untrue. Yet 
 it was widely copied in Montana papers and the occasion 
 seized to give some very bad bankers a very good char- 
 acter. To these bankers and their speculative associates, 
 the high financiers of New York, Montana was indebted 
 wholly for the fact that the statement was not true. 
 Wild-cat stock-jobbing had robbed thousands in Butte 
 and Montana of savings and surplus funds which would 
 have carried the state through the panic period without 
 distress or failure if not without serious apprehension. 
 Montana bankers, eager for the fat interest rates of- 
 fered in New York to secure funds to be loaned at still 
 fatter rates to the gamblers on Wall Street, had sent 
 money to the metropolis in large amounts; and when 
 this money was wanted and due, the Wall Street 
 gamblers in and out of New York banks simply refused 
 to pay. So it happened that when depositors in Mon- 
 tana banks, during the stringent times, needed and 
 wanted money, some of these Montana bankers found 
 it difficult and others found it impossible to pay. In 
 Butte the bank with the greatest number of depositors 
 of any one bank in the city, those depositors including
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 285 
 
 merchants and wage-earners in great numbers, was 
 closed and in the hands of the state bank examiner for 
 a considerable time; and it was long after when de- 
 positors were able to secure full payment of their claims. 
 In Billings the "makeshift" of cashiers' checks or clear- 
 ing house certificates was resorted to and carried the 
 business of the town through the emergency, as hap- 
 pened in other states. That this scheme was not resorted 
 to in Butte was due to the fact that Mr. W. A. Clark 
 would not consent to such action when it was proposed 
 by other bankers ; and the further fact that he was tak- 
 ing care of big pay rolls other than his own placed him 
 in a position where his decision compelled approval and 
 co-operation. Mr. Thomas Cruse, a private banker with 
 great resources and a keen sense of humor, performed 
 a like service for Helena, according to reports current 
 at the time. It was stated that other bankers had agreed 
 to issue clearing house certificates, and even perfected 
 plans before consulting with Mr. Cruse. It was also 
 reported that Mr. Cruse was called upon and asked if 
 he had any objections to the plan. He had none and 
 said so, with the additional information that he had no 
 occasion to issue any certificates or paper to meet the 
 obligations of his business. He was then asked if he 
 would honor the certificates of the other banks. As the 
 story was told, his reply was, "I will honor them, but I 
 will not pay them". And the Helena banks did not issue 
 any. There was in these cities, as in others throughout 
 the state, generous forbearance and co-operation among 
 business men of all classes, to lessen the hardships to 
 the greatest extent possible and to avert worse misfor- 
 tunes than those encountered. There was distrust of 
 some banks, and good reason for distrust, because it was 
 quite generally known that some of them had acted in
 
 286 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 the capacity of brokers rather than bankers during the 
 stock craze and had supplied large sums of money to 
 carry stocks purchased with only small margins ad- 
 vanced by the nominal owners. 
 
 Common prudence prompted intelligent people in 
 Montana, as elsewhere, to discourage action or reports 
 which might stimulate public alarm or lessen confidence 
 in the honesty and stability of banking establishments 
 in crisis times; but there had been too many examples 
 of flagrantly corrupt bank management within the state, 
 and too many people had learned the dangers in over- 
 confidence through loss and suffering to make popular 
 or possible any general reliance in creed or faith, in law 
 or preachment, which presumed that a proficient crook 
 becomes an honest business man when he engages in 
 the banking profession. Widespread disaster and en- 
 during hardships had been suffered through bank fail- 
 ures in Helena and Great Falls, following the panic of 
 1893 but notoriously attributable to the introduction of 
 wild-cat methods in the conduct of institutions well es- 
 tablished and secure in public confidence. In the case 
 of the First National bank at Helena, the swindled credi- 
 tors had seemingly good grounds for subsequent com- 
 plaints that the dissipation of assets through dishonest 
 enterprise was completed under receivership proceedings 
 with quite as little regard for the rights and interests of 
 depositors as was shown by a thievish management. 
 In the very zenith of boom prosperity previous to the 
 panic of 1907, there was given conspicuous demonstra- 
 tion of the perils to communal welfare in wild-cat bank- 
 ing by the failure of the Aetna Banking and Trust Com- 
 pany of Butte, with exposure of a consistently criminal 
 policy which had been pursued throughout the career 
 of the institution in the robbery of its patrons. Follow-
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 287 
 
 ing this exposure, and mixed with it to shield influential 
 crooks and to maintain public confidence in the banking 
 business, there was given a fine exhibition of the misuse 
 of a public press under combine control. 
 
 The Aetna Bank, as it was commonly called, was 
 known in Butte as a Heinze institution, and its deposits 
 were made up largely from the savings of wage-earners. 
 It never was strong in the esteem of business men, and 
 under efficient system of government inspection or su- 
 pervision of banks in Montana could not have existed 
 at all. Its report filed with the secretary of state in 
 1901 showed that it had an authorized capital stock of 
 $100,000, with capital stock actually paid in amounting 
 to $2,500. The amount of its assets by this report was 
 $2,500, and it had neither liabilities nor indebtedness. 
 It was discovered, during the investigation of the bank 
 after its failure, that the secretary and cashier had, al- 
 most immediately following the organization of the in- 
 stitution, drawn out the $2,500 of actual money and re- 
 placed it with his personal notes. The statement of the 
 institution, filed with the secretary of state in June, 1903, 
 and made at the close of business, May 25, 1903, re- 
 vealed the fact that there had been a reorganization. 
 Mr. F. A. Heinze had become president and had re- 
 tained as secretary Mr. A. B. Clements, who in the first 
 year had given his note for all the actual assets of the 
 bank. A branch of the institution had been established 
 in the city of Washington, District of Columbia. The 
 amount of the capital stock remained at $100,000, and 
 its other liabilities as given in the statement were de- 
 posits of $293,047.88, with undivided profits of $11,- 
 589.71. Its total stated assets included: loans and dis- 
 counts, $289,798.15; stocks and securities, $46,200; real 
 estate, furniture and fixtures, $9,247.13; cash on hand
 
 288 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 and in bank, $59,392.31. This bank was organized un- 
 der the laws of West Virginia. Late in the summer of 
 1903 a number of bankers in Montana, and evidently in 
 other places throughout the country, received the fol- 
 lowing self-explanatory letter : 
 
 "loublrfiaE an& (Enmpattg 
 
 "St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 1st, 1903. 
 
 "Gentlemen: — The Aetna Banking and Trust Com- 
 pany of Butte, Mont., of which Mr. F. August Heinze is 
 president will increase its capital stock to $1,000,000 with 
 a surplus of $500,000 and open a new bank in Washing- 
 ton, D. C, to be conducted jointly with the bank at 
 Butte. This new issue of stock will be sold by us either 
 directly or through other brokers in different localities, 
 and it is desirable that representative banking institu- 
 tions in the other centers of the country shall act as 
 depositories, and receive payments for stock and issue 
 an ordinary conditional receipt therefor. We will be 
 glad to extend this business to your bank. 
 
 "The selections for most of the eastern cities have 
 been made and we will be glad to hear from you as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 "The stock is issued at $150 a share, $100 par value 
 and $50 for the surplus, and the subscriptions are pay- 
 able 10% on demand and 10% on the first of each month 
 thereafter. Subscriptions may be bought for cash, and 
 then, of course, stock is immediately issued, and par- 
 ticipates in dividends. 
 
 "We believe this sale will be a popular one, and ought 
 to make an item of deposit for you. 
 
 "We have not as yet definitely closed with the broker 
 in your city to push the sale of stock locally, and we
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 289 
 
 will be glad to consider any suggestions or recommen- 
 dations that you might see fit to make to us in that con- 
 nection. With best wishes, 
 
 "Very truly yours, 
 (Signed) "Doubleday and Company, 
 
 "Per E. R. S." 
 
 In response to an inquiry addressed to his St. Louis 
 correspondent respecting the standing of Doubleday and 
 Company, a Montana banker received the following 
 reply : 
 ''Gentlemen : 
 
 "Referring to your favor of the 4th inst., in regard 
 to the standing of Doubleday & Company, St. Louis, I 
 have to say that the only one of the company known to 
 us is Robert S. Doubleday. He was formerly editor of 
 'Finance', a financial publication which went into the 
 hands of a receiver. 
 
 "We have had some dealings with Robert S. Double- 
 day, all of which have been unsatisfactory, and judging 
 from his general reputation here, we would not recom- 
 mend him. Mr. Doubleday is not reputed as possessing 
 any tangible assets that would make him responsible. 
 
 "It is the opinion of the informed ones here, that ex- 
 treme caution should be used in dealing with any con- 
 cern with which Mr. Doubleday may be connected. 
 
 "In regard to the possibility of any subscription to 
 the issue of stock to which you refer, we are not in a 
 position to advise you, but believe, if parties will in- 
 vestigate before purchasing, he will not sell much, if 
 any, here. 
 
 "Mr. Doubleday is also Secretary of the United States 
 Trust Company of St. Louis, a new concern recently 
 organized, whose officers and directors are of about the 
 same financial standing as himself. 
 
 "Trusting the above will serve your purpose, I am,"
 
 290 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 Meanwhile, in Butte, the Aetna Bank, besides serv- 
 ing as a depository for wage-earners who had saved 
 something, was being conducted practically as a pawn 
 shop for time checks of employees of the Heinze mines 
 and smelters who found it necessary to anticipate pay 
 day. The practice was for Mr. Heinze's bank to cash 
 the time checks of Mr. Heinze's employees at a discount 
 of ten per cent, for the advance. This was something 
 better than the regular pawn broker's rate of ten per 
 cent, a month, because it frequently happened that the 
 workmen would cash their checks only a few days prior 
 to pay day. Nearly all of these facts had been published 
 in Butte, and all of them were easily obtainable by a 
 state bank examiner. The Aetna Bank continued in 
 existence till 1906 and finally passed into the hands of a 
 receiver for the national government, which had super- 
 vision over banking in the District of Columbia and thus 
 secured jurisdiction in Aetna affairs through the Wash- 
 ington branch operations. When the end came it was 
 learned that the losses to depositors, nearly all people 
 with little ability to withstand such losses, amounted to 
 about $400,000. It also was learned that Mr. Heinze 
 had passed his management of and interest in the bank 
 to other people, and it was claimed by and for him that 
 he had done this in 1903, notwithstanding reports and 
 correspondence quoted above and the more significant 
 fact that the bank continued to carry his name in some 
 of its newspaper advertisements long after that time. 
 The failure, or rather the exposure of the shameless rob- 
 bery, was the cause of much natural indignation and se- 
 vere criticism of those responsible. Mr. Heinze was at 
 the point of his greatest prosperity, reckoned many times 
 a millionaire, and with his former adversaries in the 
 Amalgamated camp was engaged in booming coppers,
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 291 
 
 which facts furnish some pertinent information respect- 
 ing the following letters, not contained in their con- 
 tents : 
 
 "Butte, Mont., Nov. 28, 1906. 
 "Mr. Eugene T. Wilson, 
 
 "Dear Sir: You have already, through my counsel, 
 been put in possession of the written transfer made by 
 me in 1903 of all the stock held by me in the Aetna 
 Banking and Trust company, showing that I parted with 
 my interest at that time, and I believe that you are satis- 
 fied that no legal liability has rested on me since that 
 date with reference to depositors or other creditors of 
 that institution. 
 
 "It has been a matter of very great regret to me to 
 learn that very many persons believed up to the time 
 of your appointment as receiver that I was still con- 
 nected with the bank and virtually controlled the same. 
 This belief existed in spite of the fact that the public 
 advertisements and statements put forth for several 
 years showed that my place as former president and di- 
 rector of the bank had been filled by others. However, I 
 am satisfied that a very general unauthorized use of my 
 name has been made in many directions and I have been 
 pained beyond expression to learn that the recent affairs 
 and business of the bank have been so dishonestly con- 
 ducted that practically all of the assets have been squan- 
 dered and the depositors defrauded, and it is my earnest 
 wish and desire that every step be taken to bring to justice 
 every misdoer, and that as much as possible be recovered 
 for the benefit of the creditors, and any assistance which 
 I can offer in this regard I am willing to and do here- 
 by extend. 
 
 "However, I do not propose to confine myself to ex- 
 pressions of sympathy or regret. I am mored to do
 
 292 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 more for those who have lost so much through their 
 belief in the fact that my capital and influence were 
 back of the bank, and after giving the matter very care- 
 ful thought and consideration, and in full view of the 
 fact that no legal liability rests upon me, I have con- 
 cluded to make a voluntary payment to you, as receiver, 
 of the sum of $100,000, that sum being the amount of 
 the total capitalization of the bank and the extreme limit 
 of legal liability which could have been enforced against 
 me under any theory, had I actually owned every share 
 of the capital stock. This amount, added to the avail- 
 able assets of the bank, will enure to the material ad- 
 vantage of the depositors and relieve their distress. 
 "You will find inclosed my check for $100,000. 
 "Very respectfully yours, 
 
 "F. Aug. Heinze." 
 
 "Butte, Montana, November 28, 1906. 
 "Mr. F. Augustus Heinze, Butte, Montana. 
 
 "Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your favor of this 
 date ; I have heretofore examined the written assign- 
 ment and transfer made by you in 1903 of all the stock 
 formerly held by you in the Aetna Banking & Trust 
 company, showing that you parted with all your inter- 
 est in that institution at that time. 
 
 "In view of this fact, I certainly appreciate the vol- 
 untary payment which you made to me, as receiver for 
 the benefit of the concern, and believe that all who may 
 have been induced to make deposits in the Aetna Bank- 
 ing & Trust company by reason of their mistaken belief 
 in your connection with that institution, will have rea-
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 293 
 
 son to congratulate themselves on your magnanimous 
 action in this matter. 
 
 ''I acknowledge receipt of your check for $100,000. 
 
 "Thanking you in behalf of all the creditors, I remain, 
 "Very truly yours, 
 
 "Eugene T. Wilson, 
 
 "Receiver." 
 This correspondence was given out for publication 
 from the office of the managing director of the Amal- 
 gamated Copper company in Butte. The tune of praise 
 was set in high key by Butte and Anaconda papers, and 
 the lavish applause echoed from the editorial columns 
 of the combine press of the state was well calculated to 
 fatten the huge vanity of Mr. Heinze, whatever effect it 
 may have had upon his conscience. It was not only as- 
 sumed but asserted by these papers that Mr. Heinze 
 had neither legal nor moral responsibility to the dupes 
 of the wild-cat bank which he had established in their 
 confidence and operated for his own profit. A paternal 
 government finally developed a less generous view of the 
 conditions, and proceedings were instituted by govern- 
 ment officials to recover from Heinze the money lost 
 by depositors in a bank which had not been lawfully 
 established and conducted as a legitimate banking enter- 
 prise, with respect to the laws either of Montana or the 
 United States, however it may be in West Virginia. 
 
 While Messrs. Heinze and Ryan were working thus 
 harmoniously in Butte to vindicate the Heinze char- 
 acter from responsibility for the Heinze bank operations, 
 both Heinze and Ryan were extending their banking in- 
 terests in larger fields. If any evidence should be needed 
 to show the intimate relation between stock-jobbing and 
 banking, and the tremendous interest of the Napoleons 
 of high finance in both, it ought to be found in the fol-
 
 294 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 lowing story, printed in The Anaconda Standard, Feb- 
 ruary 9, 1907, credited to the New York Commercial, 
 for long time an organ of Amalgamated interests in the 
 financial center of the country : 
 
 "In Wall Street the impression is that the establish- 
 ment of this house is the direct desire of the Amalga- 
 mated Copper company and the tremendous interest 
 closely allied with it to have a financial representative 
 among the banks controlled by men who not only are 
 thoroughly in touch with the copper interests, but un- 
 derstand their wants and needs. 
 
 "News of the intended formation of the National 
 Copper bank came from Washington, the application to 
 organize having been approved by the comptroller of 
 the currency. The bank is to have a capital of $2,000,- 
 000 and a surplus of the same amount, fully paid in ; it 
 will begin business about May 1, in the new Trinity 
 building at 115 Broadway and the incorporators are 
 John D. Ryan, Thomas F. Cole, W. A. Paine, Urban H. 
 Broughton and W. B. Dickson. 
 
 "The names given as incorporators, which also are 
 mentioned in the application to the comptroller of the 
 currency at Washington, are well known in mining and 
 business circles. John D. Ryan is president of the Ana- 
 conda Copper company, managing director of the Amal- 
 gamated Copper Company and one of the controlling 
 factors in the Butte Coalition, Greene Consolidated and 
 Cananea Central companies. William A. Paine is president 
 of the Copper Range Consolidated company. Thomas 
 F. Cole is president of the Oliver Mining company, the 
 mining end of the United States Steel corporation, 
 president of the Butte Coalition and Greene-Cananea 
 companies and identified with the Calumet & Arizona, 
 Superior & Pittsburg and many other mining companies.
 
 WILDCAT ERA IN JOBBING 295 
 
 U. H. Broughton is president of Utah Consolidated and 
 managing director of the United Metals Selling com- 
 pany. W. B. Dickson is first vice president of the 
 United States Steel corporation and a director of the 
 Butte Coalition company. 
 
 "Mr. Ryan, in connection with Mrs. Marcus Daly, 
 the latter being, it is said, also interested in the new 
 bank, owns a chain of banks in the principal cities of 
 Montana. Messrs. Cole and Ryan are stockholders in 
 two of the largest banks in Michigan, the First National 
 of Calumet and the First National of Hancock; Mr. Cole 
 also is understood to be interested in banks in Duluth 
 and in the iron mining districts. The Greene Consoli- 
 dated Copper company, controlled by the Cole-Ryan 
 combination, owns the Bank of Cananea, in Mexico. Mr. 
 Ryan is better known in connection with the new finan- 
 cial enterprise than any of the other incorporators. In 
 speaking of the new institution he said : 
 
 " 'People connected with the large copper interests 
 of the country have agreed to join in the enterprise. 
 The bank will do a general banking business, but will 
 pay particular attention to mining interests. The min- 
 ing industry has reached such large proportions as to 
 convince one that a bank, the interests of which are 
 familiar with the affairs of mining companies, will be a 
 desirable institution. 
 
 " 'The copper companies are very strong, from the 
 standpoint of surplus cash, and we hope to make this 
 bank of material assistance in making a good, profitable 
 and safe use of the surplus funds of the companies that 
 do business with it. The interests identified with the 
 organization of the bank expect to do a large business 
 with country banks, particularly banks located in the 
 mining sections. In addition to the men directly con-
 
 296 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 nected with the copper business, a large number of 
 bankers in the mining districts of the country have be- 
 come interested in the enterprise/ 
 
 "It has been known for some time in the financial 
 district that the copper interests represented by the 
 Amalgamated company and the companies affiliated 
 with and subsidiary to them wanted a bank. The new 
 institution has a tremendous field to work in, as the 
 bankers of this city never have paid much attention to 
 the mining industry. Therefore the organizers of the 
 National Copper bank believe such an organization as 
 this will be freely patronized and begin business with 
 a heavy line of deposits. Apart from the Amalgamated 
 and its constituent corporations, it is estimated that the 
 treasuries of the companies controlled by the men who 
 will be connected with the new bank now are holding 
 not less than $35,000,000 in cash, and possibly more. 
 
 "The Heinze interests, which are not altogether in 
 harmony with those which are backing the National 
 Copper bank, have a banking group of their own. F. A. 
 Heinze recently was elected president of the Mercantile 
 National bank, while his selection as president of the 
 Consolidated National bank has given some color to 
 the belief that E. R. Thomas and his associates have 
 allied themselves with the copper combination repre- 
 sented by Mr. Heinze. The scope of the banking am- 
 bitions of the so-called Heinze copper men is revealed, 
 to date, by their election to a voice in the affairs of eight 
 New York banks and two trust companies. These have 
 a combined capital of $5,900,000, surpluses of more than 
 $7,000,000 and deposits of more than $40,000,000."
 
 Losses to Public, to Industry, and to 
 
 Investment, through Combine 
 
 Enterprise 
 
 A stock plea by lobbyists and promoters in behalf of 
 combine enterprise, to secure public support or tolera- 
 tion for schemes in exploitation or confiscation of re- 
 sources by stock-jobbing corporations, is found in the 
 claim that outside capital is necessary to development 
 and is beneficial to other interests within the state. The 
 favorite justification for combine usurpation of the pow- 
 ers of government and for the corruption of political 
 agencies is based on the pretense that these crimes are 
 necessary to protect the great interests of such corpora- 
 tions in their legitimate business. Such pleas and ex- 
 planations by and for the Amalgamated Copper combine 
 in Montana are in direct conflict with the pleas and ex- 
 planations, offered by other promoters and "cappers" 
 for the same gamesters, to influence investors in stocks 
 and bonds in New York and Boston and elsewhere. In 
 those places, as the files of combine organs will prove, 
 investment is enticed with alluring reports of marvel- 
 ously rich natural resources secured in Montana, and of 
 great economies and gains for stockholders through 
 combine control of affairs in that state. At both ends 
 of the line, and in all places, all these pleas and explana- 
 tions are designed and made to accomplish the decep- 
 tion and robbery of somebody. The most expert sta- 
 tistician employed by the complex corporate organiza- 
 tion, with all its finely detailed reports available to his 
 
 [297]
 
 298 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 use, would be perplexed to show where or when the 
 projectors or managers have invested in copper prop- 
 erties in Montana any money which was not taken out 
 of Montana ; or where or when they have invested in 
 other enterprise in that state outside capital which was 
 not borrowed or obtained by them with natural or pub- 
 lic resources of Montana as security, for the amount of 
 the actual investment several times over, and with a 
 wholesale swindling of the actual investors by gross 
 over-capitalization or jobbery in watered stocks. 
 
 The copper combine management, when it organized, 
 found the copper industry in Montana developed and 
 being operated with mutual prosperity for its owners, 
 its employees, and the business public of the state. It 
 compelled the stockholders to pay more than twice what 
 the property cost to obtain it from the owners, thus 
 practically securing to the management possession and 
 control of the properties without expense to itself. In 
 subsequent operations in Montana and in the stock 
 markets, this management has imposed great loss and 
 hardship upon wage-earners and business men in Mon- 
 tana and upon its stockholders everywhere. The chief 
 men in this management have not only caused loss to 
 stockholders by depreciation of stock values and by lack 
 of adequate dividends from earnings, but they have 
 swindled these investors through organizations within 
 the organization as well as by use of company influences 
 and resources in outside enterprises wherein Amalga- 
 mated stockholders had neither interest nor share in 
 gain. That is not all this enterprising aggregation of 
 Napoleons of high finance have done for the people of 
 Montana, and for the investing public everywhere that 
 copper mining stocks have found purchasers. By com- 
 bine methods in furtherance of monopoly enterprise they
 
 LOSSES THROUGH COMBINE ENTERPRISE 299 
 
 have destroyed or discouraged the development or oper- 
 ation of independent copper mining companies, have de- 
 creased the production and increased the cost to con- 
 sumers, and at the same time by their stock-jobbing 
 swindles have brought the mining industry into disre- 
 pute as a security for stock investment. 
 
 Here are a few of the specific results in the way of 
 development in the state of Montana through copper 
 combine enterprise and management since the year 1900: 
 Seven great independent and competing copper mining 
 companies have been reduced to one. The net earnings 
 or profits which formerly went in large part to citizens 
 of Montana now go to outsiders. Four great smelting 
 and reduction works, under separate ownership, man- 
 agement and operation, in the city of Butte, have been 
 closed down and dismantled, with loss of employment 
 to thousands of men, consequent loss of population to 
 the city, and resulting loss in trade to business. The 
 great copper refinery constructed at Anaconda has been 
 closed for nearly ten years, and copper produced in Mon- 
 tana is refined in the east. The wage-earning popula- 
 tion in mining and smelting towns within the state has 
 been largely changed from home-building citizens, with 
 American ideals and standards of living, to immigrants 
 from southern Europe, who to a large extent live herded 
 together in filthy tenements, under conditions which 
 would be intolerable to family life, and by means which 
 conduce neither to public health nor business prosperity. 
 There have been four complete or partial suspensions 
 of operation in combine mines and smelters within a 
 period of eight years, for the various purposes of influ- 
 encing state legislation, of intimidating or weakening 
 wage-earners, or to secure higher prices for copper by 
 curtailment of production. Montana has been compelled
 
 300 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 to yield to Arizona place and prestige as the leading 
 copper producing state of the country. A report of the 
 United States geological survey, published in the sum- 
 mer of 1912, shows that the production of copper in 
 Montana in 1911 was decreased from that of the pre- 
 ceding year by 11,960,848 pounds. The reports of com- 
 bine organs and stock exchange journals show that this 
 decrease was the result of an agreed policy of copper 
 combine promoters to increase prices by reducing pro- 
 duction. The same report by the United States depart- 
 ment shows that for the same year the state of Arizona 
 increased its production over that of the last previous 
 year by 8,650,387 pounds. In Arizona the greatest cop- 
 per producing properties are not owned by the copper 
 combine. 
 
 That is not all. While the combine management has 
 obtained ownership or control of nearly all the developed 
 mining properties in the Butte district, there are hun- 
 dreds of undeveloped claims adjoining or near its prop- 
 erties. It is asserted that owners of these claims are 
 confronted with a combine policy which destroys the 
 value of the properties so far as the owners are con- 
 cerned. The experience of the Tuolumne Mining com- 
 pany, the Butte and Balaklava company, W. A. Clark, 
 J. A. Murray, and other less prominent operators in the 
 camp, demonstrates that an independent mining enter- 
 prise is under constant menace of litigation with the 
 combine organization, under conditions which make 
 justice unprofitable through expense if not impossible 
 of attainment. It is believed by some of the owners of 
 these undeveloped claims that the big company has de- 
 termined not to purchase new claims in the district. Its 
 own claims are scattered over the district and it has 
 been charged that the company has pursued the policy
 
 LOSSES THROUGH COMBINE ENTERPRISE 301 
 
 which, in previous times, it complained so loudly against 
 as pursued by Mr. Heinze. The Heinze operation, as 
 proven in federal court, was to sink a shaft on his own 
 property, prospect the surrounding country under- 
 ground, and where valuable ore bodies were found the 
 ore was extracted with no redress for the owner of the 
 claim from which it was taken excepting proceedings in 
 courts in a community where Heinze influences con- 
 trolled the election of judicial as well as other public 
 officials. Mr. Heinze was finally overtaken and con- 
 victed because his victim was the combine corporation 
 with ample resources to compete with him both in de- 
 velopment work and in litigation. Most of the owners 
 of undeveloped claims in the Butte camp at the present 
 time are not able financially to sink shafts 1,500 or 2,000 
 feet to ore veins, and, if they were and did so, they have 
 the experience of other independent operators with real 
 or threatened litigation by the combine to discourage 
 such enterprise. The only obstacle in the way of com- 
 bine adoption, and perfection in use, of the Heinze plan 
 might be combine honesty ; and a prominent official of 
 the combine has been credited with casual remark that 
 it is cheaper to law the owners out of a claim than to 
 purchase it. 
 
 The real influence of the copper combine and its part 
 in the growth and development of the state are indicated 
 most convincingly by the census returns. All of the 
 great copper mines and the great smelters of the combine 
 company are located in the counties of Cascade, Deer 
 Lodge and Silver Bow. In these counties are located 
 Butte and Great Falls, the first and second cities of the 
 state in population, and Anaconda, which was close in 
 the race for third place prior to Amalgamated company 
 organization. In these cities five of the largest and most
 
 302 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 widely circulated daily newspapers of the state are pub- 
 lished, and in all three there are organizations maintained 
 to co-operate with the papers to promote the growth of 
 the towns. The census returns of 1910 show that the 
 population for the state of Montana increased during the 
 preceding ten years 54.5 per cent. During the same per- 
 iod the population of Cascade, Deer Lodge and Silver 
 Bow counties, together, increased 8.6 per cent. In 1900 
 those three counties contained more than one-third of 
 the total population of the state. In 1910 there were 
 seven agricultural counties in Montana each one of 
 which had shown greater increase in population, and 
 greater development in material progress, than the three 
 counties dominated by copper combine interests and 
 influences taken together. Deer Lodge county, where 
 combine rule and ruinous methods are most complete, 
 showed an actual loss in population for that census per- 
 iod, after due allowance for loss of part of its territory 
 by a county division. 
 
 In Butte and Anaconda, the allied interests have ap- 
 plied combine methods and monopoly plans as rapidly 
 and as completely as possible to mercantile and bank- 
 ing business, and, to some extent, to professional occu- 
 pation. The result has been retiring merchants, vacant 
 stores, and depreciated values of city realty for both 
 business and residence uses. Great Falls has improved 
 and grown to an appreciable extent because it is in the 
 center of a large section of agricultural and livestock 
 country tributary to it, and has benefitted from the 
 general growth of the whole state in population and 
 improvement. 
 
 No one can measure the losses to the people of Mon- 
 tana in material as well as more important things 
 through corrupt combine enterprise in politics and in
 
 LOSSES THROUGH COMBINE ENTERPRISE 303 
 
 society, and through interference with the conduct of 
 educational, charitable and penal institutions in the 
 state, as well as with legislatures and agencies of jus- 
 tice. The mere financial cost to the public has been 
 enormous. The tremendous burden of court expenses, 
 the aggregate of which is lost to public knowledge by 
 scattering reports of such charges through accounts of 
 county and state departments, is largely due to litiga- 
 tion growing out of combine existence and combine 
 ways of business. 
 
 The rewards which the combine management gives 
 to those who survive the punishment from its operations 
 are not so large as the losses suffered; but they afford 
 entertainment, if not nourishment. In 1910, after the 
 Anaconda company — under the operations of new com- 
 bine laws, secured from the Montana legislature in 1909 
 for the purpose — had swallowed the Amalgamated 
 mergers with all their contents, and absorbed the prop- 
 erties of W. A. Clark as a relish, there was much appre- 
 hension among the people of Butte and Anaconda and 
 much business stagnation. Whereupon the president of 
 a business men's association in Butte, which in any 
 emergency is an adjunct of the combine organization, 
 wrote to John D. Ryan and received a reply. There- 
 upon The Butte Miner of June 3, on its first page, with 
 the large headlines printed in red ink, gave the people 
 of Butte this strong stimulant :
 
 304 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 "JOHN D. RYAN EXTREMELY OPTIMISTIC OF THE FUTURE 
 OF THE CITY OF BUTTE. 
 
 "Addresses Reassuring Communication to the Butte Business 
 
 Men's Association — Says Butte Will Maintain Its Position as 
 
 Leading Copper Producing District of the World. 
 
 "Expressing every confidence in a greater Butte, 
 both as a leader in the copper production of the world 
 and as a commercial and distributing center. John D. 
 Ryan, president of the Amalgamated Copper company, 
 has addressed the following characteristically optimistic 
 letter to the Butte Business Men's Association : 
 
 '"New York, May 27, 1910. 
 " 'Butte Business Men's Association — Herman Blank, 
 Esq., President; Ernest A. Hardcastle, Esq., Secre- 
 tary, Butte, Mont.: 
 
 " 'Gentlemen : — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of 
 your letter of May 1, which would have been answered 
 before, except for some pressing matters that were of 
 interest to Butte that have been under consideration in 
 the meantime. 
 
 " 'I note your request for an expression from me re- 
 garding the general business outlook for the city of 
 Butte, and I am glad to comply and hope that by so do- 
 ing I can add to the prosperity of the city and the con- 
 fidence of its citizens in its welfare. There is nothing 
 that I can see that should interfere with continued and 
 increasing prosperity for Butte. Its mines are better 
 developed, more economically worked and, considering 
 the returns from the sales of metal, more profitable than 
 they have been at any time in the history of the district. 
 " 'The purchase by the Anaconda Copper Mining 
 company of the properties of other mining companies 
 will insure stability, permanence and economical opera-
 
 LOSSES THROUGH COMBINE ENTERPRISE 305 
 
 tion, all of which must be of great advantage to the busi- 
 ness community, because it will mean extension of oper- 
 tions and steady employment of labor. 
 
 " 'The price of copper is quite low at the present time, 
 but the consumption of it the world over is greater than 
 ever and there is a demand, I believe, for all that is be- 
 ing produced at the present time. In isolated cases an 
 individual mine elsewhere may produce copper cheaper 
 than the average cost in the Butte camp, but I have for 
 years contended, and am perfectly sure I am right, that 
 for every such low-cost producer there is a mine in Butte 
 that will more than match it in cost per pound, and the 
 fact is that the average cost of the copper in the Butte 
 camp is low enough to enable the district to maintain 
 its position as the leading copper producing district of 
 the world. 
 
 " 'The investment in the mines of Butte is so large 
 that it practically guarantees continuous and increasing 
 operations, and the security of the business community 
 and the owner of property is greater because of the re- 
 moval of all chance of extensive litigation that in the 
 past has threatened, and might have caused, serious con- 
 sequences, by preventing the working of important pro- 
 ducing mines. 
 
 ' 'In short, I feel I can say to the people of Butte 
 and Montana, that the mining operations will increase 
 rather than diminish during many years to come, cer- 
 tainly more years than most of us will be here to see, 
 that in my opinion stability will result from recent con- 
 solidation of interests and that Butte should and will 
 prosper, extend and maintain itself as the leading min- 
 ing city of the world. 
 
 " Tn addition to the mining interests of Butte, I feel 
 that the city is bound to have a great future as a distrib
 
 306 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 uting center. It is situated so advantageously with re- 
 spect to railroad communication that it should be one of 
 the important jobbing centers in the inter-mountain 
 country. 
 
 " 'I feel so sanguine of a long and prosperous future 
 for Butte that I have been interesting myself in a large 
 way in enterprises that are almost entirely bound up in 
 the welfare of Butte. Very truly yours, (Signed) John 
 D. Ryan.' " 
 
 Despite these assurances of stability and increasing 
 operation, within six weeks the worthlessness of Ryan 
 promises was demonstrated by a change in operations 
 cutting off Sunday work in the mines and practically re- 
 ducing the wage-earning power of the properties, as well 
 as the copper production, by one-seventh of the whole. 
 That this was part of a plan of curtailment upon which 
 Mr. Ryan had been busily employed for months was 
 shown conclusively by articles reproduced in The Ana- 
 conda Standard on August 4th, showing concert of policy 
 by the big copper interests to reduce production and to 
 advance prices ; and there is fine agreement between the 
 reduction of work in the Butte mines and the percentage 
 of reduction predicted by the Wall Street Journal in this 
 paragraph : 
 
 ''The Wall Street Journal says that when the Ana- 
 conda swings into line with production diminished fif- 
 teen per cent, the total output of the mines taking part in 
 the curtailment movement will be approximately 700,- 
 000,000 pounds, or fifty per cent, of the entire amount of 
 copper produced in this country, Canada and Mexico. 
 * * * Curtailment by properties in which owners 
 of the foregoing companies are directly or indirectly in- 
 terested will bring the total properties committed to cur- 
 tailment to easily seventy-five per cent., if not a greater 
 proportion of this country's production."
 
 LOSSES THROUGH COMBINE ENTERPRISE 307 
 
 It was added that "The United Metals Selling Com- 
 pany, the only agency with any volume of nearby copper 
 for sale, holds the key to the present price situation". And 
 it might have been added that the United Metals Selling 
 company also was owned by the Amalgamated Copper 
 combine, which thus held the key to the price situation 
 as well as to the prosperity of the state of Montana. 
 
 Besides the loss in industry, in investment, in taxes, 
 in increased cost of government, in public morals and 
 public service, there is the great and increasing loss of 
 life and health to employees in the combine's properties. 
 Each year the state mine inspector reports the increasing 
 dangers of accidents and the growing need of more 
 sanitary conditions in the Butte mines, with recommen- 
 dations for improvement with needed legislation. Each 
 year a combine-ruled legislature has ignored or neglected 
 the subject until in 1911 when a committee, made up 
 largely of combine servants, was appointed to inspect 
 the mines of the state, particularly those of Butte, and 
 ascertain their condition in respect to ventilation, sanita- 
 tion, and safeguards against injuries to miners. The 
 honorable committee spent two days in Butte, practically 
 with its members as guests of officials of the copper cor- 
 poration, and returned to the state capital with announce- 
 ment that it would receive evidence from miners and 
 mine-owners concerning the state of the mines under- 
 ground; which was equivalent to saying that it would 
 receive evidence from mine owners and from miners who 
 were prepared to give such evidence as the mine owners 
 desired, because no miner who wished to continue his 
 occupation in Butte would be likely to present any evi- 
 dence of any other kind on such an occasion. And the 
 proceeding ended as it was planned that it should end 
 when it was planned to begin. Meanwhile "miners'
 
 308 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 consumption" has become a disease common and fatal 
 in Butte. In his report for that year of 1911, the state 
 mining inspector said : "I cannot conclude this article 
 without calling the attention of the legislative assembly 
 to this most important question of ventilation. Up to 
 the present there has been not anything of vital im- 
 portance done. In the meantime miners' complaints have 
 been rapidly increasing. Men at the age of forty-five 
 have to quit mining in search of more congenial employ- 
 ment, and many of them cannot work at all and their ex- 
 istence has become merely a living death. The mines 
 of Montana have earned millions of money in dividends 
 and have made many men wealthy; surely it is a reason- 
 able request for the miners to ask that a portion be at 
 least expended in ventilation and sanitation in the mines 
 of this state." 
 
 The legislature did not regard it as a reasonable re- 
 quest, as shown by its action.
 
 A City Under Combine Rule; Anaconda 
 for Example 
 
 If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn; and 
 if (instead of each picking where, and what it liked, taking 
 just as much as it wanted and no more) you should see ninety- 
 nine of them gathering all they got into a heap; reserving 
 nothing for themselves but the chaff and refuse; keeping this 
 heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps, and worst pigeon 
 of the flock; sitting round, and looking on all the winter 
 whilst this one was devouring, throwing about, and wasting 
 it; and if a pigeon more hardy or hungry than the rest touched 
 a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon it, 
 and tearing it to pieces; if you should see this, you would 
 see nothing more than what is every day practised and estab- 
 lished among men. Among men, you see the ninety-and- 
 nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for 
 one; getting nothing for themselves all the while, but a lit- 
 tle of the coarsest of the provision, which their own labour 
 produces, looking quietly on, while they see the fruits of all 
 their labour spent or spoiled; and if one of them take or touch 
 a particle of it, the others join against him, and hang him 
 for the theft. 
 
 — Paley's Moral Philosophy. 
 
 Most favored project created from the great brain and 
 weath and power of Marcus Daly, Anaconda has been a 
 city of many marvels in its time. It was the basis of his 
 worthy pride, the state capital of his fondest hope, to be 
 the enduring monument to his successful work in the 
 world. Located at the base of the mountains, at the 
 head of a broad and fertile valley, there was beauty of 
 scenery and environment to support the generous plans 
 with which Anaconda started as the site of a great and 
 prosperous city. Greatness and prosperity belonged to 
 
 [309]
 
 310 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 it from the start. The assured industry, with pay rolls 
 greater than most urban communities with 50,000 people 
 can boast of, furnished argument and incentive for or- 
 dinary city enterprises, as well as basis of support for 
 all. The broad business streets were lined with blocks 
 occupied by competing merchants and thronged with 
 crowds of customers with means to purchase. The Mon- 
 tana Hotel, planned for the entertainment of statesmen 
 and lawmakers, was for years advertised as "the hand- 
 somest and most elegantly appointed hotel in the United 
 States". The leading theater was regarded worthy to 
 wear the name of the wife of the famous mining man. 
 The courthouse in size and cost compared favorably with 
 the first state capital, located elsewhere than the site de- 
 signed for it in Anaconda. The town was made the prin- 
 cipal place of business of the Anaconda Copper Mining 
 company, and its general offices were established there. 
 Its race track and race meetings compared and competed 
 successfully with the best in the intermountain country. 
 With a population of less than 10,000 people, Marcus 
 Daly's money and influence started and established in 
 Anaconda what was for some years the greatest and 
 most widely circulated newspaper between the Missis- 
 sippi river and the Pacific coast. Whatever a modern 
 city might need and ready means could obtain belonged 
 to Anaconda. Among its other adornments was a pub- 
 lic library, endowed and maintained by private support, 
 which excelled similar institutions in rival cities through- 
 out that region. And there was, from the start, the plan 
 for and growth of the greatest smelting works in the 
 world. It was a one-man town, of course, but the town 
 of a man prodigal in its support and ready to welcome to 
 partnership on generous terms all who would contribute 
 to its growth or glory.
 
 A CITY UNDER COMBINE RULE 311 
 
 Polite society had not then learned to recognize the 
 hog as the king of beasts. The mines and smelters in 
 those times were dedicated to the profits and betterment 
 of home and city builders, instead of home and city 
 builders being dedicate to the profits of mines and 
 smelters. 
 
 When the Amalgamated Copper company acquired 
 control of the Anaconda Copper Mining company, it 
 secured possession of various public utilities, besides 
 the smelters and refineries, in Anaconda. Since that 
 time it has confiscated the powers of city and county 
 g 'vernment and many of the most valuable rights and 
 privileges of the people. So many of the inhabitants at 
 the present time as are not creatures of servitude, toiling 
 for the enrichment of non-resident speculators and serv- 
 ing them in civil and in private life as well as in labor, 
 are under ban and boycott of the combine power which 
 rules the city with more absolute tyranny and terrorism 
 than an ordinarily merciful master would exercise over 
 slaves. The Daily Anaconda Standard is still published, 
 but there is no free press in Anaconda. There are party 
 organizations, and party conventions, and public meet- 
 ings, and political campaigns, but there is not freedom 
 of speech in Anaconda. There are churches, and priests, 
 and preachers, and congregations, but there is not reli- 
 gious freedom in Anaconda because any pulpiteer who 
 should preach the gospel of Christ in Anaconda and give 
 it application to conditions which exist there would scare 
 away his congregation and lose his means of support. 
 Government is not free. The ballot is not free. Ana- 
 conda is called the "City of Whispers", because there is 
 hazard in using the vocal organs above an echo of the 
 master's voice. 
 
 Would you live in Anaconda? Go to the combine's 
 townsite company and buy your lot. Go to the combine's
 
 312 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 lumber company and buy your building material. Go to 
 the combine commercial company for your furnishings, 
 and for your provisions, and clothing. Go to the com- 
 bine's water company for your water supply. Go to the 
 combine's electric company for your illumination. If 
 you are ill, the company doctor is highly recommended. 
 If you die, there is a lot in a cemetery which can be pro- 
 cured by your survivors with profit to the combine, and, 
 if a monument be desired, the combine has a stone 
 quarry. 
 
 You will ride into Anaconda by paying your fare to 
 a combine railway conductor, and if you take a street 
 car in the town you will do the same thing. 
 
 The great smelters are just outside the city limits, so 
 that they contribute nothing in the way of city taxation 
 to the expenses of the municipal government which they 
 use in their business. A city thus situated, and peopled, 
 and governed, under the direction of managers of a com- 
 bine organized ostensibly to establish economy might 
 be cheaply conducted; and in some ways it is. But there 
 are extravagances. In 1910 it was stated that the gen- 
 eral fund of the city amounted to $32,965. With such 
 an income the city paid for lights and water, for city 
 service only, during the year 1909, the sum of $17,460, 
 a trifle more than one-half of the entire city fund for 
 these two utilities for public use. The water is taken 
 from an abundant supply, supplied by gravity for smel- 
 ter use as well as city purposes. Electricity is trans- 
 mitted to Anaconda from the Missouri river for com- 
 bine use at a cost of less than one-eighth the price or- 
 dinarily charged the city and private consumers in Ana- 
 conda until publicity of the extortion and a stubborn 
 mayor secured from the combine management, at one 
 sweep, a reduction of nearly fifty per cent. Largely
 
 A CITY UNDER COMBINE RULE 313 
 
 through these extravagant charges against tax-payers 
 by the combine, the city within a few years contracted 
 an indebtedness of about $50,000 in excess of the lawful 
 debt limitations. The Daly Bank of that city, closely 
 connected with corporate interests, was reported to have 
 held much more than one-half of the securities of indebt- 
 edness, representing some part of illegal indebted- 
 ness. Here was high finance in a small way. The 
 taxpayers of Anaconda were obliged to contribute in- 
 terest money on unlawful city debts to the profits of 
 combine corporations, after paying extravagant charges 
 by the combine for public services which thus created 
 the unlawful public debt. 
 
 In a previous chapter it was told how Managing Di- 
 rector John D. Ryan, in the year 1907, utilized combine 
 power to end a spirited contest in a school election in 
 Anaconda, by frightening all of the candidates to the 
 point of withdrawal, and compelled the selection of a 
 school board through appointment from a list furnished 
 by himself. A sequel, indicating the effect of skillful 
 training of voters, by powerful influences, was furnished 
 in the school election in Anaconda in the spring of 1910. 
 There were approximately 10,000 people in Anaconda, 
 under normal conditions divided, as are people of other 
 communities, by political, religious and other questions. 
 That year the sitting members of the school board were 
 candidates for re-election. No other candidates ap- 
 peared or were named by anybody. Out of 10,000 peo- 
 ple, more or less, for an election at which both men and 
 women are allowed to vote, exactly ten persons regis- 
 tered, and eight votes were cast at that election. The 
 copper combine management of school affairs in Ana- 
 conda plainly was more completely satisfactory than 
 public management of such institutions is in any other 
 city of the United States of equal size.
 
 314 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 It is not only by running smelters, and railroads, 
 and water companies, and lighting companies, and com- 
 pany stores, and city government, and hotels and school 
 boards, and interest accounts on city deficits, that the 
 combine management endears itself to the people of 
 Anaconda with its public-spirited concern in the wel- 
 fare of those dependent upon it. It is a great little 
 farmer, this $155,000,000 copper combine organization. 
 It engaged in farming to convince judges that farmers 
 in the Deer Lodge valley, who were prospering at the 
 business there before copper was smelted in Montana, 
 did not employ right methods in farming if they could 
 not conduct the business of growing crops and livestock 
 successfully under the precipitation of sulphur and 
 arsenic from smelter stacks. Among other results of 
 the expensive experiment farm established by the com- 
 bine in the Deer Lodge valley, was a state fair exhibit 
 in 1910 by the Anaconda Copper Mining company, of 
 pure breed Hereford and Holstein cattle. There were 
 sixteen prize creatures, each as carefully combed and 
 cleaned as any pet lapdog of any pet wife of any Na- 
 poleon of finance in New York's four hundred; and the 
 names of these copper combine cattle products were 
 worth while. Each name was blazoned on a handsome 
 card hung above the beast, and they were known as fol- 
 lows : Alto Hesiod, Priscilla Mapleton, Lady Percifal, 
 Rexford, Derbyl, Napleton, Rex Maximus, Princess 18th, 
 Willow Druid, Lady Percifal 2nd, Sir Korndyke, Willom 
 Gerbon Sylark, Queen Colanthe, Hilda Colanthe. From 
 its abundant resources the copper combine management 
 had been able to purchase a fine herd of thoroughbreds 
 from a stock farm far remote from smelter smoke, and to 
 contribute to the fame of Anaconda at a state fair. But 
 it did more with this "Willow-Glen stock farm". With-
 
 A CITY UNDER COMBINE RULE 315 
 
 out the organization of any new company, or any addi- 
 tional capitalization so far as known, the combine estab- 
 lished a milk route in Anaconda, and peddled fresh milk 
 at going prices. 
 
 There are amenities of life in Anaconda, apart from 
 breathing, also under combine management and direc- 
 tion. On rare occasions the Napoleon of finance to 
 whom the people owe so many of their blessings, comes 
 from New York to Butte, and, on very special occasions, 
 visits Anaconda. Then the incorporate gratitude of the 
 town bursts forth in all its jubilant spontaneity. One of 
 these general celebrations was held on a Saturday even- 
 ing, in March, 1908, which was exceptionally impressive. 
 To full appreciation, it should be remembered that mines 
 and smelters belonging to the Amalgamated combine 
 were closed down, following the stock-gamblers' panic 
 of 1907, and the winter of 1907-8 was largely utilized by 
 the people of Anaconda, who were able to remain in the 
 city or unable to get out of it, with wondering when the 
 smelters would be started again. Mr. John D. Ryan 
 had spent the winter in Southern California, in part, and 
 the other part in New York, recovering his health, his 
 control of combine affairs, and some other things of in- 
 estimable value to the people of Montana. Operations 
 at last had been resumed in large part in the great in- 
 dustry, and Mr. Ryan visited the state, and incidentally 
 Anaconda, to reassure the people with his promise that 
 everything would be prosperous and lovely in the future. 
 The account of what happened, how it happened, and 
 by whom it was helped to happen, is told by the com- 
 bine's official organ, certainly with best of combine au- 
 thority and approval, in The Butte Intermountain of 
 March 16, 1908, in the following graphic style : 
 
 "Anaconda gave John D. Ryan a surprise party on 
 Saturday evening — a real old-fashioned surprise party,
 
 316 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 not the kind where folks know that something is coming 
 and get all ready for it, but one of those that fairly 
 sweeps the victim off his feet and makes him feel as 
 though he would like to laugh and to cry and not do 
 either, in the midst of his conflicting emotions, but ac- 
 cept all that is handed to him with a sort of helplessness 
 that comes to a man when he finds that he is powerless 
 in the hands of his friends. 
 
 "Mr. Ryan knew that the Anaconda club was going 
 to have a smoker to celebrate the appearance of the 
 smoke from the big stack, but that it was any more than 
 one of those jolly informal affairs for which the club is 
 noted he had not the faintest idea. Nor were his friends 
 who accompanied him from Butte to this city any wiser. 
 
 "The details were all carried out to a nicety and in 
 no way failed. A lookout on the smelter hill gave notice 
 of the approach of the train bearing the visitors, and 
 the whistles took up the signal and began to sound their 
 hearty greeting. One by one the sirens of the foundry, 
 the brick yard and the down town industries joined in 
 the chorus. When the train pulled into the Anaconda 
 depot there was the Anaconda Military band playing a 
 welcome, and a throng of Anaconda citizens, with a re- 
 ception committee headed by Mayor Evans, to greet the 
 visitor. As Mr. Ryan appeared on the platform of the 
 car a tremendous cheer drowned the music of the band 
 and the noise of the whistles and all else, so that the 
 program was carried out in pantomime so far as the 
 spectators were concerned, and Mayor Evans handed 
 over to the guest a mammoth copper key to the city of 
 Anaconda. 
 
 "A carriage gloriously decked in the national colors 
 and the famous 'copper and green' was in waiting and 
 Mr. Ryan was conducted to it by E. P. Mathewson, and
 
 A CITY UNDER COMBINE RULE 317 
 
 with C. F. Kelly and John Gillie as the other occupants, 
 dropped into line behind the band that headed the pro- 
 cession to the Montana hotel. A cheering crowd filled 
 the street and the sidewalks, making slow progress to 
 the hotel. Everybody and his family was in the welcom- 
 ing host, from the merchants and their clerks, profes- 
 sional men, mill and smeltermen, to the newsboys with 
 their drum and flag. 
 
 "It was the intention to go to the public square, but 
 the crowd massed about the hotel and a stop was there- 
 fore made there, and from the steps Mr. Mathewson 
 held up the copper key and called for attention. 
 
 "Mr. Ryan needed no introduction, and as he stepped 
 forward it was the signal for another outburst of cheer- 
 ing, that continued while he bowed his acknowledge- 
 ments and then began speaking his thanks and appre- 
 ciation for the reception accorded him by the people 
 of the city. He was deeply touched by the friendship 
 and hearty greeting accorded to him. No one was as glad 
 as he that he was able to be in Montana again, and that 
 he had brought the good news, he declared, was not due 
 to himself, but to the kindness of the directors of the 
 company, who permitted him to be the messenger to an- 
 nounce the resumption of the work at the mines and 
 smelters. He disclaimed entirely that he was in any 
 way responsible for the resumption, and maintained that 
 the officers of the company were all anxious as he to 
 start work going again in the production of copper. 
 
 "Again and again he was cheered, till the flags on 
 the staffs fluttered with the noise, and when he had 
 closed his remarks the crowd lingered till invited by 
 Mr. Mathewson to return later in the evening and meet 
 the guest of the evening at the reception tendered by the 
 Anaconda club.
 
 318 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 "Mr. Mathewson was the host at a happy little din- 
 ner party given in the Montana Red Room. Covers 
 were laid for fourteen and the following guests sat at 
 the table : John D. Ryan, John Gillie, H. A. Galwey, John 
 Adams, Captain D'Gay Stivers, B. H. Dunshee, Reno 
 Sales, C. F. Kelly, Mayor O. C. Evans, Dr. J. F. Spel- 
 man, J. H. Tolan, J. H. Durston, A. C. MacCallum and 
 Mr. Mathewson. 
 
 "The 'smoker' given by the Anaconda club was held 
 in the dining room of the hotel and the clubrooms, which 
 were thrown open to the public. A cosmopolitan crowd 
 gathered and filled the rotunda of the hotel long before 
 the hour announced, and when the dinner party was 
 over, Mr. Ryan held a reception at which hundreds 
 availed themselves of the opportunity of taking him by 
 the hand and congratulating him upon his restoration 
 to health and to thank him for his efforts in behalf of 
 Montana." 
 
 "Among those present", it will be observed, was 
 Mayor Evans of Anaconda, who was a brother of At- 
 torney Evans of the combine's legal department. E. P. 
 Mathewson was the manager of the smelters in Ana- 
 conda, as well as of the town generally. C. F. Kelly was 
 chief of the combine's legal department in Butte. John 
 Gillie was general superintendent of the Amalgamated 
 Copper company in Butte. H. A. Galwey was manager 
 of the Parrot Mining company of the combine in Butte. 
 John Adams held a managerial position in the Boston 
 and Montana copper mines of the combine in Butte. 
 Captain D'Gay Stivers was another member of the legal 
 department of the combine in Butte. B. H. Dunshee 
 was another mining superintendent of the combine in 
 Butte. Reno Sales was geologist and expert witness for 
 the combine in Butte. Dr. J. F. Spelman was the com-
 
 A CITY UNDER COMBINE RULE 319 
 
 pany physician in Anaconda. J. H. Durston was editor 
 of the combine organ in Anaconda. A. C. MacCallum 
 was an Anaconda merchant who was friendly to the 
 company on occasions like that, and allowed to do busi- 
 ness in town. Mr. John D. Ryan at that time was man- 
 aging director of the Amalgamated company and presi- 
 dent of the Anaconda Copper Mining company. Un- 
 prejudiced persons must be convinced, by this account, 
 that the manner in which these subordinate officials of 
 the combine "surprised" Mr. Ryan with an outpouring 
 of helpless employees in Anaconda for an observance 
 of this character, was one long to be remembered by 
 everybody concerned as conclusive demonstration of ex- 
 isting joy and future prosperity in Anaconda forever 
 more.
 
 An Awakening People and Signs 
 of Revolution 
 
 Reform! Reform! the swinish rabble cry — 
 
 Meaning, of course, rebellion, blood, and riot — 
 Audacious rascals! you, my Lords, and I, 
 
 Know 'tis their duty to be starved in quiet: 
 But they have grumbling habits, incompatible 
 
 With the repose of our august community — 
 They see that good things are with us come-at-able, 
 And therefore slyly watch their opportunity 
 To get a share; 
 Yes, they declare 
 That we are not God's favorites alone — 
 That they have rights to food, and clothes, and air, 
 As well as you, the Brilliants of a throne! 
 Oh! indications foul of revolution — 
 The villains would destroy the Constitution! 
 — From an old English Broadside. 
 
 The newest history is very old. The first recorded 
 facts of man enterprise, written in symbols or carved with 
 tools of savage invention in wood or stone, then were 
 ancient history — told in many ways and many times 
 through tradition since primitive man, in abject fear and 
 utter ignorance, was drafted under the inexorable laws 
 of his destiny for service in the perpetual war between 
 right and wrong, between freedom and bondage, between 
 justice and oppression, between humanity and selfishness, 
 between heart and mind, between immortal longings and 
 mortal ambitions, for human progress and the civiliza- 
 tion of the world. Wherever the battle rages most 
 fiercely, however discouraging the reverses or temporary 
 
 [321]
 
 322 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 defeats, whatever the delays or postponements may be, 
 all history still is an account of progress and a prophecy 
 of triumph for reason over prejudice, for right against 
 might. 
 
 Truth does not yield to falsehood. It follows the 
 world's criminals like a bad habit. They cannot escape 
 it in life. After death it puts the finishing touches on 
 "self-made men who worship their creators". False pro- 
 fessions of good faith will not serve long to confuse the 
 truth here; and there is no authentic record in any his- 
 tory, sacred or profane, to justify the hope of the hypo- 
 crite that they may serve hereafter. In the commerce 
 of crime there have been found graceless ministers of 
 church as of government, abusing power and betraying 
 trust to peddle special privilege at a price, and revolu- 
 tions with loss of power to offenders have followed both 
 offenses. No judge of competent jurisdiction has been 
 yet found to nullify God's law of compensation by ad- 
 judging crime to be reasonable and punishment unnec- 
 essary in the enforcement of the law. 
 
 Pleading against denial of justice, making history 
 now more than century-old in Great Britain, recalling 
 conditions and influences and results growing out of 
 the dark ages, Curran fitted his sublime faith in man and 
 justice and God for useful instruction and appeal to the 
 powers and people of Montana in this year of grace, 
 when he said : 
 
 "Turn your eyes to those pages of governmental 
 abandonment, of popular degradation, of expiring liberty 
 and merciless and sanguinary persecution — to that mis- 
 erable period in which the fallen and abject state of man 
 might have been almost an argument in the mouth of 
 the atheist and the blasphemer against the existence 
 of an all-just and an all-wise First Cause, if the glorious
 
 AN AWAKENING PEOPLE 323 
 
 era of the Revolution that followed it had not refuted 
 the impious inference, by showing that, if man descends, 
 it is not in his own proper motion ; that it is with labor 
 and with pain ; and that he can continue to sink only 
 until, by the force and pressure of the descent, the spring 
 of his immortal faculties acquires that recuperative 
 energy and effort that hurries him aloft — he sinks, but 
 to rise again. * * * It is in a period like that, that 
 the tyrant prepares for an attack upon the people, by 
 destroying the liberty of the press — by taking away that 
 shield of wisdom and of virtue, behind which the people 
 are invulnerable — in whose pure and polished convex, 
 ere the lifted blow has fallen, he beholds his own image, 
 and is turned into stone. It is at those periods that 
 the honest man dares not speak, because truth is too 
 dreadful to be told ; it is then humanity has no ears, be- 
 cause humanity has no tongue. It is then the proud 
 man scorns to speak, but, like a physician baffled by the 
 wayward excesses of a dying patient, retires indignant- 
 ly from the bed of an unhappy wretch, whose ear is too 
 fastidious to bear the sound of wholesome advice, whose 
 palate is too debauched to bear the salutary bitter of 
 the medicine that might redeem him, and therefore 
 leaves him to the felonious piety of the slaves that talk 
 to him of life, and strip him before he is cold." 
 
 The modern corporate combine is a marvelous organ- 
 ization of power. It has been greatly improved since 
 Mr. John D. Rockefeller's pattern of corporate monopoly 
 earned recognition as the most perfect business organi- 
 zation in the world. Excellence in efficient use of power 
 must be admitted where industry and commerce and ac- 
 cumulated wealth and government, all, are subjected to 
 one control and management, in the greatest free nation 
 on earth. Yet more complete mastery of peoples and
 
 324 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 resources has been obtained — and lost. Man-made power 
 has not been devised superior to the Power which made 
 man. The love of liberty is yet stronger than the love 
 of gold. From the realization of injury comes the re- 
 sistance against wrongs. The individual is helpless in 
 struggle with combine power. With an aroused people, 
 corporate power is made to serve public interests or it 
 is overcome. This is yet history, and not prediction, in 
 process of demonstration even in much-conquered Mon- 
 tana. 
 
 In Montana, as in many other states of the union in 
 present times, there is much discussion of principles and 
 men, and much babble about radicals and conservatives, 
 and socialists and bosses, and constitutions and revo- 
 lutions. There is fine affectation of profound regard for 
 constitutional government by many public men who 
 have been perjured witnesses for the constitution from 
 the time when they took the oath of allegiance and swore 
 to uphold and defend it. It is the policy and practice of 
 combine bosses to discredit, as radicals and revolution- 
 aries, those citizens who may have the temerity to be- 
 lieve and to say that the people should have the rights 
 and benefits guaranteed to them by the constitution. If 
 patriotic public men are not thus silenced, efforts are 
 made to discredit them in public opinion, and to keep 
 them from public service, by attaching to their records 
 the stigma of combine support and combine service in 
 past time; as if it had been possible within recent years 
 for any man conspicuous in public life in the state of 
 Montana to have escaped either; or as if a combine man- 
 agement would waste money and influence in opposing 
 earnestly any capable man who could be controlled 
 by it. 
 
 The leaven of independence was working in the mass 
 in Montana while the corporation tools were perfecting
 
 AN AWAKENING PEOPLE 325 
 
 their control of organization and leadership. As early 
 as the year 1909, a newspaper solicitor who travelled 
 throughout the state reported, as in evidence of the 
 great growth of population, composed of reading people, 
 in certain agricultural portions, the fact that news agents 
 had told of multiplied sales of popular magazines and 
 periodicals. Further investigation discovered the fact 
 that this increased demand for publications from out- 
 side Montana was for Collier's Weekly and for mag- 
 azines described as Progressive. The following winter, 
 United States Senator Joseph M. Dixon had joined the 
 insurgent contingent in the United States senate and 
 earned the undying hatred of combine managers with 
 successful championship of legislation to lessen discrim- 
 ination and insure lower charges in transportation ser- 
 vice. At the republican state convention in 1910, Senator 
 Dixon was called upon to address the delegates. In 
 that address he said : 
 
 " 'New occasions teach new duties, 
 
 Time makes ancient good uncouth, 
 
 We must ever up and onward 
 
 If we keep abreast of truth.' 
 
 "Notwithstanding its great and unparalleled record 
 of human achievement, there is no use in our disguising 
 the fact that for some months there has been a struggle 
 going on for the control of party leadership and the con- 
 trol and direction of party policies. 
 
 "There has been some confusion and some uncer- 
 tainty as to the real and vital issues involved. But, as 
 Senator Cummins of Iowa said some weeks ago, the 
 contest is not ephemeral. 
 
 "While we cannot all agree as to details, the general 
 issue involved is as old as Magna Charta, and as certain 
 as that involved when the republican party was first
 
 326 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 formed, under the oaks at Jackson, Michigan, 54 years 
 ago — and that is the right of the individual citizen for 
 equal opportunity and against the insidious encroach- 
 ments of special interests. It is the old contest between 
 the progressive liberal and the Bourbon reactionary. 
 
 "Theodore Roosevelt epitomized the whole matter 
 when he declared for the 'square deal' not only in pri- 
 vate life, but in public legislation. Generally speaking 
 it is the old doctrine that public office is a sacred public 
 trust, to be administered conscientiously for the benefit 
 of the whole people, to the best of the representative's 
 ability, and not for the financial advantage of the pow- 
 erful combinations that seek for special privilege, for 
 personal, selfish gain and aggrandizement. 
 
 "There is a new spirit that is arising in modern pol- 
 itics. The old system of special favors to the favored 
 few is about to become a thing of the past in the politi- 
 cal life of this nation. , 
 
 "Concretely put, it means that no longer shall there 
 be permitted combinations that shall control the national 
 resources of all the people for the enrichment of the few, 
 to the detriment of the many. 
 
 "It means that the few shall not monopolize the 
 coal and timber and water power and transportation of 
 this nation without some kind of governmental regula- 
 tion. It means that the people of Montana are not going 
 to sit supinely down and allow transportation systems 
 to deliberately swell their capitalization by watering 
 their stocks and bond issues, and then compel you to 
 pay perpetual tribute on ready-made dollars in the 
 shape of freight and passenger charges. 
 
 "It means that the people of Montana do not propose 
 to have transportation companies continue to charge us 
 twice the price of transporting our goods that they do
 
 AN AWAKENING PEOPLE 327 
 
 Seattle and Portland for double the service. It means 
 the abolition of that form of cheap, petty graft known 
 as 'railroad passes'. It means the creation of public 
 service commissions to regulate the capitalization of pub- 
 lic service corporations and the proper regulation of 
 their charges to a helpless public. 
 
 "To get more directly in touch with their represen- 
 tatives at Washington, it means that the people of this 
 country are going to change their former method of 
 electing their United States senators, and in the future 
 they will name not only their senators but every other 
 official in some kind of a direct primary of the individual 
 voter, and not leave the selection of their senators to the 
 determination of 'legislative jackpots', such as they have 
 had recently in Illinois, or even here in Montana. 
 
 "For my part I believe that the individual voter has 
 the same right to know whom he is voting for to repre- 
 sent him in the federal senate, when he votes for the 
 member of the legislature, as he has to know who he is 
 voting for for president when he casts his vote for a 
 presidential elector. 
 
 "It is my hope that the republicans of Montana will 
 not find themselves out of touch and sympathy with the 
 progressive republican sentiment in other states. I want 
 the republicans of Montana to help swell the 'chorus of 
 the Union' in their demand for twentieth century pro- 
 gressive policies and political methods. 
 
 "The people of Montana are not Bourbon — they are 
 not radical — but they are progressive and they believe 
 in the principles of Theodore Roosevelt republicanism. 
 
 "The result of the contest within the ranks of the 
 republican party is as certain as the working of the laws 
 of gravity." 
 
 This was recognized as treason to government of 
 Montana from New York, but it was cheered bv too
 
 328 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 many delegates to be resented publicly with a campaign 
 pending involving the return of another United States 
 senator which the corporate combine was intent upon 
 retaining in the service. The defeat of that senator in 
 the succeeding election by the votes of republicans for 
 democratic candidates, in all those agricultural counties 
 where public journals independent of combine control 
 had shown increased circulation, was significant of an 
 awakening among the people to some of the dangers 
 of misgovernment. The word had been passed to trusted 
 lieutenants that Mr. Dixon was marked for defeat in 
 1913 and the year 1911 was spent by political agents of 
 the copper combine in preparing forces for, and in re- 
 moving obstacles to, that result. 
 
 The contest for control of the first Chicago conven- 
 tion in 1912 presented possibilities in complications in 
 Montana which were embarrassing to the political ma- 
 chine operators. The copper combine was as hostile to 
 Mr. Roosevelt as to Mr. Dixon, apart from many rea- 
 sons for its gratitude to President Taft. Senator Dixon 
 had become manager of the Roosevelt campaign in the 
 country at large, which insured his absence from the 
 state ; but Mr. Roosevelt as a candidate had been always 
 popular in Montana, the progressive republicans in the 
 state had commenced organization work, and there was 
 reason to doubt the outcome of a test of strength by 
 popular vote. Attempt was made to insure the repub- 
 lican party machine leaders against danger of retirement 
 from the organization by ostentatious professions of 
 support for Roosevelt by some of them, at the same 
 time that the machine was set in motion to produce a 
 delegation for Taft. The state central committee was 
 called together, and, under direction of notorious tools 
 of the corporate interests, was manipulated to produce
 
 AN AWAKENING PEOPLE 329 
 
 an endorsement of Mr. Taft and a declaration against the 
 calling of presidential preference primaries. The emerg- 
 ency was too great to rely upon duplicity when the peo- 
 ple everywhere were manifesting signs of wisdom re- 
 specting what was going on. On March 25th, The Daily 
 Missoulian printed a statement signed by Senator Dixon, 
 and sent from Washington by wire, which closed as 
 follows : 
 
 "The issue in Montana is clearly defined. Shall the 
 special interests which know no party allegiance, acting 
 in our own state through the Amalgamated Copper 
 company and its allies, control the republican, as well 
 as the democratic party, or shall the republican party 
 be controlled by the people themselves? There can be 
 no compromise in the situation which confronts us. It 
 is a struggle between two diametrically opposed and 
 conflicting ideals and interests. There is and can be 
 no middle ground. The action of the majority of the 
 state committee at Helena has forced the issue, 'Let him 
 that hath no stomach for the fight depart'." 
 
 The combine thus was challenged to battle in the 
 open, but it was able to prevent engaging with the forces 
 of the people in a fair contest. The old caucus and con- 
 vention system, with its unequal power to organization 
 and its abundant opportunities for the exercise of cor- 
 rupt influence, produced a Taft delegation by a sub- 
 stantial convention majority in the state; and the com- 
 bine influences emphasized their power by preventing 
 the election of Roosevelt delegates from Senator Dixon's 
 home county, in his absence. This victory was soon 
 proved a costly one for the victors, exclusive of the 
 manifestly large money expense which it involved. They 
 were still confronted with the same Dixon and the same 
 Roosevelt, more determined in purpose and more ener-
 
 330 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 getic in action because of the character of the campaign 
 against them, and which had furnished an abundance of 
 new ammunition against their enemies. The valuable 
 party lines and the precious party organizations in Mon- 
 tana had been destroyed and nobody could tell the con- 
 sequences, beyond the fact that the combine interests 
 sustained the loss. How badly the corporate political 
 managers were frightened by the results of their own 
 victory was shown to some extent by their conduct. 
 While the delegates elected at a Progressive state con- 
 vention, called on short notice and representative of 
 nearly every county in the state, were in Chicago assist- 
 ing in the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt as the 
 candidate of a new party, the organs of the combine in 
 Montana were endeavoring to confuse progressive 
 voters with reports that the combine republican machine 
 managers were encouraging the candidacy of well 
 known progressive republicans, who had not joined the 
 new party movement, for the most prominent offices in 
 the state. These reports suggested Judge E. K. Cheadle, 
 whom the combine had kept from the federal bench 
 with opposition and misrepresentation and abuse, for a 
 place on the supreme court bench ; with Judge Henry 
 C. Smith, who was to create this vacancy in the supreme 
 court by the expiration of his term of office, as a prime 
 favorite candidate of the "stand-patters" to succeed Mr. 
 Dixon in the United States senate; and W. F. Meyer, on 
 whose political trail Managing Director John G. Morony 
 had promised to camp as long as he lived, might have 
 a pet ambition realized by a nomination to congress, 
 without effort or even asking. Such suggestions as 
 these might be charged to democratic organs as little 
 by-plays for democratic advantage, if republican and 
 democratic organs alike in Montana were not published 
 in the same interests with a common purpose.
 
 AN AWAKENING PEOPLE 331 
 
 The progressive sentiment, the sentiment in favor of 
 a restoration of control of government through the peo- 
 ple, in Montana as elsewhere, is a public sentiment, and 
 not the property of any individual or leader, whether he 
 be for or against combines or corporations being vested 
 with powers of monopoly or of government. The voter 
 who knows that he has been often fooled, it will be more 
 difficult to fool again. In a real conflict between the 
 combines and the people the only place which an am- 
 bitious man will seek wisely as a compromise candidate 
 is one in the political graveyard. In any right align- 
 ment of the voters in Montana under existing conditions 
 the two old parties is the Company, and the third is the 
 crowd. As authority, or at least a competent witness 
 in respect to awakening public sentiment, take a quota- 
 tion from Col. Sam. Gordon, grown old as a "regular" 
 in republican party service, and easily the ablest edi- 
 torial writer on political subjects within the state. In 
 his "Daily Yellowstone Journal", following the renom- 
 ination of Mr. Taft, Col. Gordon reviewed the situation 
 and conditions with this conclusion: 
 
 "As, on the first issue of January of this year, The 
 Journal announced its adherence to Theodore Roosevelt 
 if he becomes a candidate, so it now announces its fealty 
 to the progressive cause, as opposed to the tenets of re- 
 publicanism as personified in the candidacy of Mr. Taft. 
 With a strong preference still for "Teddy", the man 
 who gets the progressive nomination will be our man — 
 and it is just as well to have it understood that progres- 
 sivism in Montana presupposes and embraces opposition 
 to the Amalgamated and all its works. In fact to all 
 of us who call ourselves Montanans, it is really of more 
 importance that the tentacles of our Octupus be clipped, 
 than that a progressive candidate be elected to the pres-
 
 332 THE COMICAL HISTORY OF MONTANA 
 
 idency. The nation will survive — if it has to — another 
 term of conservative big business, but Montana can- 
 not, must not, stand for any further extension of the 
 influence of the big copper combine. The revelation of 
 its sinister power in the far outlying counties, in the 
 presidential convention campaign this spring, must have 
 been a surprise to many and a warning to all who hope 
 to live free men in this state." 
 
 "Is there not 
 Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, 
 Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the men 
 Who owe their greatness to their country's ruin?"
 
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