Booby-trap Murder

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31083, 11 June 1966, Page 5

Booby-trap Murder

The People's Songbag

(Specially written /or "The Preee" by DERRICK ROONEY>

Harry Orchard in in prison. The reason you all know, He killed Frank Steuenberg Kight here in Idaho. The ballad which begins with this stanza, collected in Idaho, describes the boobytrap murder of Frank Steuenberg, former Governor of Idaho, at Caldwell, Idaho, on the night of December 30, 1905—and the unsuccessful attempts to implicate the leaders of a fledgling labour union by accusing them of having hired the killer. Steuenberg died when a bomb exploded as he opened the gate to his home. Pinkerton detectives were called and soon arrested a man who gave his name as Harry Orchard, alias Tom Hogan. But they failed to ‘ crack” Orchard, so they called in one of the top Pinkerton men, James McParland—and he soon obtained, not only a confession, but also a sworn affidavit from Orchard that the Western Federation of Miners had hired him to kill Steuenberg and other opponents of unions. Orchard named Charles H. Moyer, president, William H. ‘‘Big Bill” Haywood. Secretarytreasurer, and George Pettibone as the men who dealt with him. The three unionists were virtually shanghaied in Colorado and taken to Utah in a special train for which the line was cleared.

The great lawyer Clarence Darrown—who was later unsuccessfully to defend Haywood’s friend Joe Hill in Salt Lake City came from Chicago to defend them. A United States senator, William E. Borah, was chosen as the prosecutor. He lost. Haywood was tried first and cleared. Then the other

unionists were found not guilty: Orchard alone was left to pay for the murder. He was convicted, sentenced to life imprisonment and committed to the Idaho State Penitentiary which, although he became eligible for parole, he refused to leave for the rest of his life. Orchard spent 48 years in the prison and died there at the age of 88 on April 13, 1954. Interestingly, he was a model prisoner, his main interest being the prison gardens, which he kept in superb order. For their part, Haywood and Moyer went on to be two of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World, the famous but illfated labour organisation whose members became known as the Wobblies.