Follow the Fire in the Hole script and accompanying images to the Bunker Hill Mine and Mill in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where mines were dynamited and troops marched again in 1898.

Bartlett Sinclair:

"It is difficult for one who has not been on the ground to understand to what an extent unionism was carried on here. It pervaded the entire population. Everybody was subject to it. Storekeepers, saloon keepers...even the houses of prostitution!" –Bartlett Sinclair, Idaho State Auditor

Narrator:

Six years after the 1892 declaration of martial law in the Idaho panhandle, the Western Federation of Miners had made deep in-roads. The union even flexed political muscle, electing a large number of union-friendly local officials in the Coeur d'Alene. But in the heart of the mining district there was one enormous hold-out to the union movement— the Bunker Hill Mine and Mill.

Katherine Aiken/Historian:

"Frederick Bradley, who is the president of Bunker Hill, well he is the manager of Bunker Hill and who is the most active Bunker Hill official in this whole 1890s situation, is stridently opposed to the union. He believes that they limit managerial prerogative. He refuses to have that happen."

Frederick Bradley:

"It may be too soon to crow, but I believe that we have such control of the labor situation that it cannot be wrested from us." — Frederick Bradley

Aiken:

"Throughout the 1890's the Western Federation of Miners recognizes that Bunker Hill is the major stumbling block to their complete success in the Coeur d'Alene. By this time one of the largest, if not the largest of the mines, and Bradley is determined to stop them."

Narrator:

In April of 1892 the Western Federation of Miners confronted Bunker Hill management with a demand for recognition. The superintendent agreed to raise wages. . .but said he would shut down the mine rather than recognize a union. On April 29th a band of armed men hijacked a train in the town of Burke and raced down a mining canyon. . .stopping along the way to pick up more men and guns. The train reached the town of Wardner. . .home of the Bunker Hill mine. . .hundreds of armed men jumped off, and sixty crates of dynamite were stacked under the enormous concentrator at Bunker Hill.

Aiken:

"The end result is that the Bunker Hill concentrator which was worth about a quarter of a million dollars, a lot of money in those days, is exploded by dynamite. And the Bunker Hill mine office is burned. . ."

Adam Mohler:

"Conditions at Wardner could not be worse. Rioters have set fire to Bunker Hill mine. Rioters have cut wires, have appropriated Northern Pacific Railroad trains, and have interrupted all business. I cannot urge too strongly that you exhaust every means to bring this matter to successful termination and that not one moment's time be lost. "-- Adam Mohler, President, Oregon Railway

Narrator:

The telegram was raced to the desk of Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, a thirty-eight-year-old democrat who had been elected three years earlier as a labor-friendly candidate.

Aiken:

"And he is not exactly sure what to do. Because Idaho's militia is serving in the Spanish American War. They've been called up and they're gone. So he doesn't have state militia at his disposal. And eventually he determines that he needs to get federal government troops to come and help restore order in the Coeur d'Alene."

Steunenberg:

"To the President: I ask that you call forth the military forces of the United States to suppress the insurrection in shoshone county." -- Frank Steunenberg, Governor

Narrator:

President William McKinley ordered a detachment of federal troops from Fort Douglas in Utah to join other army units to enforce Governor Steunenberg's declaration of martial law in Northern Idaho. They were members of the 24th regiment. . .known in the West as the Buffalo Soldiers.

Aiken:

"These are African-American troops who come, and certainly that is significant. In some places, African-American troops were purposefully chosen to put down labor uprisings because of the racial element. . .but it's also the case that people in the Coeur d'Alene were not very sympathetic to people of color. They really did not like people who were not white, so the fact that these are African-American troops that come to incarcerate folks in bull pens only adds to the animosity that workers felt towards both the government and the mine owners."

Railway Conductors Association:

"Fit representatives indeed are such hyenas to uphold the law. The reign of terror these imps of darkness have instituted will leave a blot upon the pages of our nation's history that has no parallel." -- The Newsletter of the Railway Conductors

Narrator:

For the second time in seven years federal troops moved in to the Coeur d'Alene in the wake of a deadly bombing by miners. But the 1899 round-up would prove to be the largest single arrest in American history to that time.

Spokesman-Review: "It was one of the most remarkable arrests ever made in any country. The captors recognized neither class nor occupation." -- The Spokane Spokesman Review

Narrator:

More than one thousand men were arrested and herded into bullpens. Not only the union miners, but anyone else who showed sympathy to the union cause or opposition to the mine owners association.

Aiken:

"They were not charged immediately. They were incarcerated without habeas corpus. You know, its not like the 1990s. There aren't any lawyers to come to their assistance."

Samuel Hays:

"Absurd technicalities will not be allowed to stand in the path of justice!" -- Samuel Hay, Attorney General

Steunenberg:

"We have taken the monster by the throat, and we are going to choke the life out of it. No halfway measures have or will be adopted. It is a plain case of the state or the union winning, and we do not propose that the state shall be defeated!" -- Frank Steunenberg

Aiken:

"I mean, these people basically had no rights. They were men who were locked up and practically the key was thrown away. And eventually what is going to happen is there is a system for eliminating union miners from the work force of the Coeur d'Alene. And so those people have lost their livelihood as a result of this."

Narrator:

Governor Steunenberg made a show of ordering the mines not to employ members of the Western Federation of Miners. The proclamation was actually written by an attorney for the mine owners, and it was the instrument the mine owners wanted to purge the mines of the union.

Steunenberg:

"You are notified that the employment of men belonging to said or other criminal organizations during the continuation of martial law must cease. In case this direction is not observed, your mines will be closed." –- A Proclamation From the State of Idaho

Aiken:

"They saw it as the opportunity to finally eliminate what was the major thorn in their side. And they really applied a lot of pressure on state officials to help them do that."

Narrator:

Three men would die in the bullpen as authorities spent weeks seeking out the primary participants in the bombing of Bunker Hill. Nine union organizers were ordered to trial for murder and arson. One would be convicted, but the other eight escaped from the bullpen before they could be taken to court. It was reported that the miner's union had bribed the guards.

Martial law and the military occupation continued for eighteen months and captured national attention. Congress made the issue a political football. Republicans cheering a tough law and order stance. . .Democrats decrying an Idaho police state. Governor Steunenberg was summoned to explain his actions. . .and the governor said it was the miners that needed to do the explaining.

Steunenberg:

"The inhabitants deprive themselves of a republican form of government by insurrection and rebellion. I assume responsibility for every arrest that was made. I acted according to my conscience, and a desire to bring order out of chaos."

Narrator:

Ironically, it was the republican majority that commended the democrat Steunenberg. . . .while his fellow democrats filed a blistering dissent:

Minority Report:

"Neither law nor order no justice nor equity nor decency nor humanity would tolerate the despotic system which perpetrated upon thousands of men, women and children the brutality of the bull pen and the blacklisting system" -- Minority Report of the House Committee on Military Affairs

Narrator:

The criticism joined dozens of death threats to form a dark cloud over Frank Steunenberg. Many of the threats came from Colorado, a hot bed for the Western Federation of Miners. . .and Steunenberg became convinced the federation would kill him. While testifying in Washington, Steunenberg bumped in to an old friend from college. . .and showed him a stack of letters threatening his life.

Schermerhorn:

"He knew he was a marked man, and that it was only a question of time as to when the federation would get him."-- F.B. Schermerhorn

Narrator:

At thirty-nine, an age when he might have contemplated a bright future, Frank Steunenberg returned to Idaho with his political career all but ended. He confided to his wife that he was facing death.

Belle Steunenberg:

"Mr. Steunenberg was greatly worried, and one evening after he had made his final stand, he told me he thought it would cost him his life." -- Belle Steunenberg