The mine operators insist that the socialistic doctrine adopted and preached by the Western Federation of Miners practically justified the stealing of ore by the miner.... The industrial situation was further aggravated by the fact that the Goldfield Union would not enter into any contract governing working conditions for any specified length of time, and the mine operators, therefore, could have no assurance at any time that any settlement of a dispute was more than a temporary makeshift, nor could they secure any assurance of stable industrial conditions for any fixed length of time. Moreover, the Goldfield Miners' Union embraces in one single union not only the various crafts working in and about the mines, but also clerks, waiters, bartenders and other miscellaneous crafts and avocations in Goldfield. On Nov. 27, 1907, a strike of the miners was inaugurated and is still in effect. This strike grew out of a refusal on the part of the miners to accept cashier's checks in payment of their wages. The miners insisted upon some form of guaranty by the mine operators of whatever paper was accepted in lieu of cash. Various propositions were made, but no basis of agreement was reached.[362]
The commission reported that there was no adequate excuse for the request for Federal troops.
The action of the mine operators [said the commissioners] warrants the belief that they had determined upon a reduction of wages and the refusal of employment to members of the Western Federation of Miners, but that they feared to take this course of action unless they had the protection of Federal troops, and that they accordingly laid a plan to secure such troops and then put their program into effect.[363]
Although at the time the I. W. W. and the W. F. M. made common cause, after the final separation of the two national bodies the Federation was not only critical but bitterly denunciatory. The editor of the official organ of the W. F. M.--J. M. O'Neill--was derisive in his comments on the rôle of the I. W. W. at Goldfield. "The I. W. W. took root at Goldfield, Nevada," he says, "and a vast number of the miners became the victims of the sophistry and fell for the propaganda of the spouting hoodlums.... Other mining camps of Nevada became infected with I. W. W.-ism...." But he comes thankfully to the conclusion that "the labor movement of Nevada is slowly recovering from the pestilence of I. W. W.-ism...."[364]