William "Big Bill" Haywood Trial: 1907 - The Coeur D'alene Strike

Idaho's Coeur d'Alene region is the site of some of the world's richest mineral deposits. Haywood's Western Federation of Miners led a general miners' strike against all the mining companies in the area. By 1898, when Frank R. Steunenberg was re-elected governor of Idaho, the strike had become a fullblown struggle between labor and management. The miners fought Pinkerton guards hired by the companies and "scabs," or replacement workers, sent by the companies to break the strike. When a bomb explosion killed two men, Steunenberg feared the strike would degenerate into open warfare and begged Washington for help.

In response, President William McKinley sent federal troops to Idaho, crushing the strike. In the process, the legal rights of the strikers were trampled and hundreds of men were held without bail in stockades nicknamed "bull pens." Steunenberg, who had been considered a pro-labor politician when first elected, now was a marked man. Years later, on December 30, 1905, when his term as governor had expired, Steunenberg was killed by a bomb blast in the front yard of his house in Caldwell, Idaho.

Two days later, January 1, 1906, the police arrested Harry Orchard in Caldwell for Steunenberg's murder. Orchard confessed, telling the police that Haywood and Charles H. Moyer, another executive officer of the Western Federation, paid him to kill Steunenberg. After a controversial extradition from Colorado, Haywood, Moyer, and another union member named George Pettibone were sent to Boise, Idaho, to stand trial.

The famous criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow went to Boise to defend Haywood, assisted by Fred Miller, John Nugent, Edmund Richardson, and Edgar Wilson. On the bench was Judge Fremont Wood. The prosecution team was comprised of William E. Borah, James H. Hawley, Charles Koelsche, and Owen M. Van Duyn. Haywood's trial for conspiracy to commit murder began May 9, 1907.