You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday March 6, 1905
Denver, Colorado - Ex-governor Peabody On Path to Steal Colorado Election
The attorney for Ex-governor Peabody came before the Colorado Legislature on March 4th and continued to make his case for the unseating of Governor Alva Adams. The Colorado Legislature is now firmly under Republican control thanks to the Republican-dominated Supreme Court which, after the elections last fall, overturned the elections of the needed number of Democratic Senators.
Peabody's attorney stated plainly that the Legislature should decide the contest, not in the interest of justice, but for political reasons.
From The Salt Lake Herald of March 5, 1905:
PEABODY DOES NOT WANT JUSTICE
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Counsel Urges the Colorado Legislature to Decide the Contest for Political Reasons-Argument Will Be Concluded Next Week.
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Ex-Governor Peabody
DENVER, Colo., March 4.-Attorney John M. Waldron, chief counsel for James H. Peabody in his contest for the office of governor, continued his argument before the joint convention of the general assembly today in favor of ousting Governor Alva Adams and seating the contestor. Having spoken one hour yesterday, Mr. Waldron had four hours remaining of the allotted time for his opening address.
Representatives' hall, in which the joint committee meets, was not crowded, but nearly all the seats were occupied. Only persons holding tickets are admitted and the number of tickets for the public is limited to 500, the seating capacity of the assembly. The two contestants for the highest executive office in the state were in the audience at times and gave close attention to Mr. Waldron's argument.
Politics Not Justice.
Having laid down and elaborated on the proposition that the legislature is not sitting as a judicial body or in a judicial capacity but as a legislative body "to exercise a political function," Mr. Waldron today proceeded to discuss the law and the evidence in the case, though he declined that he was undertaking a method he was not called upon to assume merely because there were Republicans who had "such a lofty conception of their duty as to require a preponderance of evidence in deciding the case."
The attorneys for Governor Adams will have eight hours, beginning Monday and continuing until 3 p. m. Tuesday, to present their case. Mr. Waldron will make his closing address Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday the discussion will be open to the members of the legislature, each member being limited to ten minutes. If all the members avail themselves of this privilege or transfer their time to fellow members, voting will not begin before next Friday.
[photograph added]
A Summary of Events in Colorado Since the
Inauguration of Governor Alva Adams
We offer this report from Mrs. Emma F. Langdon of Victor, Colorado, which summarizes the machinations of Governor Peabody and the Republicans of Colorado from the time of the inauguration of Governor Adams to the present. It now appears likely that the Republicans will succeed in their scheme to overturn the will of the people of Colorado as expressed in the election last fall which gave a large majority of the vote to Governor Adams.
On January 10, 1905, the entire preceding day having been consumed by Republican leaders, in attempting, through resolutions and protests, before the joint Assembly, to prevent the same, the Honorable Alva Adams was inaugurated.
The president of the joint session announced that Alva Adams had received a plurality of 9,764 votes. This did not include the votes he received in the city of Denver that had been thrown out by the supreme court...
Two days after the inauguration of Governor Adams, James H. Peabody filed his petition before the legislature, claiming that he had been defeated as a result of fraud and conspiracy upon the part of the Democratic machine and praying that body to reconsider its actions in seating Alva Adams, and, that he be declared the duly elected governor. In his petition he asked the legislature to throw out the returns from one hundred and three precincts in the city and county of Denver, claiming that the said poll had been tainted by fraud.
With his usual disregard for the rights of the people, Peabody's request meant the disfranchisement of one-half of the voters of Denver in order that he might again gain the gubernatorial chair.
On January 17th, in joint assembly, a committee consisting of twenty-seven members, eighteen Republicans and nine Democrats, was appointed to hear the contest. This was in violation of the statutes which provide for the hearing of such contests before a joint session. The Democrats protested against this action and demanded that the representation on the committee be equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. Their protests, however, were in vain.
Governor Alva Adams
On January 21st, Governor Adams answered Peabody's charges of fraud and made counter charges that a huge conspiracy had been hatched by the corporations and the leaders of the Republican party, to seat Peabody by unlawful means. He named the American Smelting and Refining Company; the Victor Fuel Company; Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; Colorado Mine Owners' Association; the railroads; the Sugar trusts and the Denver Public Utility corporations as being parties to this conspiracy.
The gubernatorial contest consumed two-thirds of the time of the Assembly, two months. The contest committee held daily sessions, during which time they examined several thousand witnesses. The main evidence relied upon by the attorneys for Peabody, was the evidence of a numerous staff of so-called experts on handwriting, employed to examine the ballots. These experts reported hundreds of ballots written by the same person, which were afterward proven to be genuine by the sworn testimony of persons who voted them. The report of the contest committee was voluminous, requiring fourteen large volumes, the cost of printing same being $60,000.00.
The burden of proof, according to all rules of evidence, required Peabody to show that he had been honestly elected. In this he utterly failed, though the evidence showed that election fraud was rampant, workers for both parties being guilty.
The joint Assembly convened March 3rd to hear arguments of attorneys in behalf of Adams and Peabody. The rules governing the contest allowed sixteen hours for argument, time to be equally divided between attorneys for contestor and contestee. John M. Waldron, one of the most forceful and brilliant attorneys in the state, acted for Peabody....
Mr. Waldron in his argument did not confine himself to any extent to the evidence introduced before the contest committee, but occupied his time, rather, in endeavoring to convince the joint Assembly that that body was not acting in the capacity of a jury to determine the rights or wrongs of the parties. That it was discharging a purely political duty. He declared that there was absolutely no constitutional guarantee which either ex-Governor Peabody or Governor Adams could invoke against the action of the joint Assembly in its decision of the contest, regardless of whether that decision be right or whether it be fundamentally wrong. This line of argument by Peabody's attorney was intended to quiet the scruples some of the Republicans were known to have against voting to seat Peabody when it was well known that he had not been elected.
[photographs added]
SOURCES
The Salt Lake Herald
(Salt Lake City, Utah)
-Mar 5, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Cripple Creek Strike
A History of Industrial Wars in Colorado, 1903-4-5
-by Emma F Langdon
"Being a Complete and Concise
History of the Efforts of
Organized Capital
to Crush Unionism"
The Great Western Publishing Co.
Denver,Colorado, 1905.
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
IMAGES
Colorado State Capitol, Denver, 1905
https://archive.org/...
James Peabody
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Emma F Langdon
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
Alva Adams
http://en.wikipedia.org/..._(governor)
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The Battle Cry of Union
We are fighting for our rights, boys,
We are fighting for our homes,
Shouting the battle cry of union;
Men have died to win the struggle;
They've died to set us free,
Shouting the battle cry of union.
The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the gunthugs, and up with the law;
For we're coming, Colorado, we're coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
-Frank Hayes
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