morning, when the above telegram from President Wilson arrived. First, let me describe this Governor, as I wrote about him in the "Denver Express":
I went yesterday afternoon to see your Governor. I wish to be
very careful what I say of him. He is apparently a kindly man; in
intellectual caliber fitted for the duties of a Sunday-School superintendent
in a small village. He is one of the most pitiful figures it
has ever been my fate to encounter. He pleaded with me that he
was a ranchman, a workingman, that he was ignorant about such
matters as mines. When I pointed out to him that, according to
government figures, there were twelve times as many miners killed and
injured by accidents in the southern Colorado fields as elsewhere, his
only answer was that he had heard some vague statement to the
effect that conditions were different in other places. He pleaded
tearfully that he had brought upon himself the hatred of everyone,
he admitted that he was utterly bewildered, and had no idea what
to do in this crisis. His every word made evident his utter ignorance
of the economic forces which have produced this frightful situation.
He cried out for some solution; yet, every time that I sought to
suggest a solution, and to pin him down to a "yes" or a "no" upon
a certain course of action, he lost control of himself and cried out
that I was trying to make him "express an opinion." He, the
Governor of the State, had no business to have opinions about such
a dispute!
It is no accident, of course, that a man of this type comes
to be governor of a State like Colorado. The corporations
deliberately select such men because they wish to be let alone,
and they prefer men who are too weak to interfere with
them, even if they wish to interfere. So now at eleven o'clock
on Saturday morning this poor pitiful Governor sends for his
advisors—the leaders of the hand-picked machine majority in
the State legislature. What is to be done? If the President's
telegram is sent to the legislature, it may refuse to adjourn,
and insist upon considering the President's demand. Therefore,
at all hazards, the telegram must be suppressed. Also,
it must be sent to the coal-operators in the city, in order that
they may consult and tell the Governor what reply to make to
the President. All the newspaper men in Denver knew the
names of the two men who took the message about to the
operators. It was considered by the operators for three or
four hours, and a reply drafted and sent; and meantime desperate
efforts were made by the machine leaders to obtain
the adjournment of the legislature. The reply drafted by the
operators and sent by the Governor was as follows:
