You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday December 20, 1904
Cripple Creek, Colorado - Is Justice Possible for Brothers Miller and Leabo?
It appears that we may yet see justice for the murders of Christopher Miller and Isaac Leabo, members of the Western Federation of Miners who were shot down Goldfield by James Warford on election day. Brothers Miller and Leabo were both members of Victor Miners Union No. 32.
Shortly after the murders, Mrs. Emma F. Langdon reported from Victor that Chris Miller and Ike Liebo (Leabo), were working as Democratic election judges, when they were shot and killed by Deputy Sheriff Warford at about 10:30 on morning of November 8th. Both men had received letters the night before warning them to leave the district. They were, nevertheless, determined to perform their duties to ensure fair elections in Teller county.
Mrs. Langdon further reported:
Mr. Miller was a staunch worker in the cause of unionism and had for that reason been persecuted by the opponents. He was absolutely fearless.
We have since learned that Ike Leabo was 34 years old and was survived by a wife and a three-year-old daughter. He was buried in the Saint Ann's Cemetery in Olmitz, Kansas.
From The Labor World of December 17, 1904:
DEPORTERS OF MINERS MUST STAND FOR TRIAL
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Cripple Creek Deporters and Destroyers
of Union Property Must Face Justice.
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One Murderer of Union Men Also on List-
Judge Appoints Attorneys
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Tully Scott
Cripple Creek. Col., Dec. 15.-Judge Cunningham, in the district court at Cripple Creek, Wednesday, appointed two special prosecutors for the coming term of court. Tully Scott was appointed special prosecutor in the cases against James Warford, charged with the murder of Chris Miller and Ike Liebo, in Goldfield, on election morning.
The other prosecutor is Charles C. Butler, formerly deputy district attorney. He will have in charge the cases against some fifty prominent citizens of the district for the deportations that took place and the union store wrecking. The defendants in these cases will include C. C. Hamlin, recently elected district attorney of the judicial district, and also Edward Bell, the usurper sheriff. The list includes besides those mentioned, E. A. Colburn, Gail S. Hoag, Thomas E. McClelland, A. E. Carleton, E. C. Newcomb, Nelson Franklin, R. P. Russell, John Sharpe, John Dalzell, Henry P. Dahl, William Bainbridge, Samuel D. Crump, H. L. Shepherd, Julius Kirby, C. E. Funk, A. B. Schilling, F. M. Reardon, W. E. Dingman, S. A. Phipps, Clarence Fitch, K. C. Sterling, Daniel McCarthy, A. T. Holman and others.
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[photograph added]
From The Topeka Daily Capital of December 1, 1904:
MURDERED AT CRIPLE CREEK.
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Son-in-Law of Barton County Man Killed on Election Day.
On election day, November 8, in Cripple Creek, Colorado, Isaac Leabo, son-in-law of Fred Bittner of Grant Township, was shot in the left lung by an assistant city marshal deputized for election day only, says the Great Bend Item. He and a friend named Miller were idly sitting on a fence chatting when two deputized election day marshals came along and without warning fired at the inoffensive men killing Miller almost instantly. Leabo was taken by friends to the Cripple Creek Sister's Hospital where he died at 10 o'clock the next day. He was shot about 10 o'clock election day. The body was brought to Olmitz, accompanied by the widow and little girl about 3 years old, for burial. The funeral was on Monday, this week, and burial in the Catholic cemetery. The pall bearers were James Pizinger, John Lowry, Charles Loush, Frank Axman, John Haberman and Fred Schenk.
The mining troubles in the Cripple Creek camp have been very serious. Mr. Leabo had been ordered out of the camp about a month before the shooting, he being a member of the miners' federation, and this is supposed by his friends to be the only reason for the murder.
Mr. Leabo married a daughter of Mr. Bittner in Cripple Creek, where she was staying about five years ago, and they had resided there ever since. Mr. Leabo was a miner by regular occupation. Last spring, during the worst of the striking troubles, Mr. Leabo spent about three months around Olmitz. The family want the bereaved widow to move back here but at last accounts she was undecided.
[photograph added]
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SOURCES
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/...
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Dec 17, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Topeka Daily Capital
(Topeka, Kansas)
-Dec 1, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
For gravesite, correct name and age of Isaac Leabo
http://www.findagrave.com/...
For Miller & Leabo as members of No. 32
Official Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Convention
of the Western Federation of Miner of America
-held in Denver, Colorado, May 28-June 13, 1906
Denver, Colorado, 1906
(search with: Miller Leabo)
https://books.google.com/...
See also:
For more on Tully Scott (scroll down)
http://www.dailykos.com/...
For more on the murders of Chris Miller & Isaac Leabo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
For more on C. C. Hamlin and Edward Bell, "the usurper sheriff"
http://www.dailykos.com/...
IMAGES
Victor Miners' Union Hall of No. 32, WFM
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
Tully Scott
(search: Tully Scott)
http://books.google.com/...
Tombstone of Labor Martyr Isaac T Leabo
http://www.findagrave.com/...
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The Red Flag - Socialist Victory Choir
The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
-Jim Connell, 1889
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