Adjutant General Sherman M. Bell ( – January 9, 1942) was a controversial leader of the Colorado National Guard during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–04. While Bell received high praise from Theodore Roosevelt and others, he was vilified as a tyrant by members of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM).
Sherman Bell, a former deputy United States marshal in Cripple Creek, Colorado, participated in the Spanish–American War as one of Roosevelt's Rough Riders. General Bell was active in the Masonic Order and the Order of Elks, and was honored by the Knights of Pythias. A former hardrock mine manager, Bell took the side of the Mine Owners' Association against the strikers during a strike of smelter workers, which ultimately included the miners of the Cripple Creek District.Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, University of Illinois Press, 2000, page 28
Early years Sherman Bell was born on a farmstead in Douglas County, Illinois, near Newman. He became a deputy United States marshal, and enlisted with the Rough Riders at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War.
Persona
Much of the history written about Sherman Bell has to do with his characteristics, his attitude, and his affectations. William MacLeod Raine spent some time interviewing Bell in 1904, and concluded that Bell, filled with "cocksureness",
...sums up [any situation], largely regardless of the evidence, and comes to an immediate decision. He is one of the most unfettered of men. It is a safe guess that deep down in his heart he does not care one jackstraw for abstract law. He decides what course is best to follow and the legality of it does not trouble him at all. [Bell is not] in the least open-minded, his opinion is unchangeable... Furthermore, he does not value criticism in the least.
Raine said that Bell was "entirely devoid of humor", and "I have never seen him smile except when he was telling how he had hammered the Western Federation."
In 1998 J. Anthony Lukas wrote,
If his campaigns against the federation sometimes took the guise of a holy war, Sherman Bell readily attributed its direction to the sacred trinity of "Me, God, and Governor Peabody." Whatever his military skills—and they were often called into question—Bell had a knack for vivid expression.J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America, Simon and Schuster, 1998, page 225
General Bell was direct about his purpose: "I came to do up this damned anarchistic federation." Bell justified the ensuing reign of terror as a "military necessity, which recognizes no laws, either civil or social."Jameson, All That Glitters, p. 207, from Dubofsky, We Shall Be All p. 50.
Benjamin Rastall said of Bell,
He returned to Colorado [from the Spanish–American War] to be hailed as a popular hero for a time, but soon lost the admiration of the public through his overbearing ways and self-conceit... his idea seemed to have been to make the most gorgeous military display possible, and to give himself the largest notoriety as a military leader.
According to Lukas, Sherman Bell's uniform was custom made, with gold lace, cords, and tassels at an estimated cost of a thousand dollars. But on occasion he was also known to wear "an old battered campaign hat, a black shirt, and a rag of a tie."
At least one writer was impressed with Sherman Bell. Weston Arthur Goodspeed wrote in 1904,
[During the Colorado Labor Wars] one figure towered above the discord, strode boldly into the strife, met anarchy more than half way and compelled it to meet him, fight and be quelled, or chased away in arrant fear. It was Brig. Gen. Sherman M. Bell, adjutant general of the Colorado National Guard, who, with patience that was marvelous in a man of his high mettle, with judgment rare in one just past thirty and with courage which no soldier of any age has excelled, stamped out the nest of vipers that had fastened deadly fangs on the richest mining community in the world, drove the assassins from the State, preserved the lives and property of honest citizens and restored law and order to a section of the State which, for years, had writhed beneath the oppression of groundless malice and envious ignorance...
Goodspeed declared Bell world-famous, "the most successful opposer of strikes that this or any other country has ever produced." Bell was also "ruggedly strong" with a "trim and soldierly figure" and a "well shaped head" featuring an "almost boyish ... expression, and yet, commanding in every feature, from the square, firm chin, the straight line of the lips and the strong, Grecian nose". Bell is "humane, as well as brave; kindly and at the same time chivalrous. Should one of his men be ill, no matter what his station in the Guard, it is General Bell who is the first to administer aid..."
According to Goodspeed, the Colorado militia had been "a mere handful, of three hundred or more willing but untrained troopers" whom Bell turned into "one of the best organized, the best drilled and the most loyal and able bodies of military men to be found outside the regular army." Goodspeed attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt the statement, "I never saw such resolution as Sherman Bell displayed. If I had a regiment and could have only one man in it, that man would be Sherman Bell."
Describing Sherman Bell's exploits with the Rough Riders in Cuba, Goodspeed stated that Bell "shared valiantly in the distinguished services of that great command." According to someone who was actually there, Bell was suffering from a hernia, and "limped through the jungles and across the hills most of the time, but always seemed to stay up with the troops despite the pain."Billy McGinty, Oklahoma Rough Rider: Billy McGinty's own story, University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, page 48 While Bell performed "splendid service" according to future president Theodore Roosevelt, most of fellow soldier Billy McGinty's published recollection describes a difficult trip to transport an ailing Sherman Bell to the rear aboard a small two-wheeled cart pulled by a mule. When McGinty saw Bell again, Bell was with a lady whom he told "a line of bull" about the Cuban experience, apparently exaggerating McGinty's role in saving his life.Billy McGinty, Oklahoma Rough Rider: Billy McGinty's own story, University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, page 50
Raine observed that Bell's "reckless irresponsibility is a continual thorn in the side of his superiors." When Theodore Roosevelt was campaigning for Vice-President in 1900, "Bell enrolled himself promptly as his bodyguard." After Roosevelt spoke in the Victor town hall, some boisterous miners seemed to Bell to show insufficient respect. Bell was described as having "blood in his eye", and "a very lively time ensued." The miners followed the party to Roosevelt's special train, and some of them were flinging stones. Roosevelt stepped from inside the rail car to the rear platform where Bell was confronting the miners, and Bell pushed him back inside. Roosevelt was irritated with the confrontation between Bell and the miners and sharply ordered, "As your superior officer, Lieutenant Bell, I order you inside." While Bell saluted and complied, he immediately began organizing the party inside the train, telling them to "shoot if any of the mob [throw] stones..." When someone objected that shedding blood would damage Roosevelt's campaign, Bell curtly replied, "I'm not running the campaign. I'm maintaining order just now in Victor." Roosevelt later told newspaper correspondents that his "principle fear in that distressing hour was that Sherman Bell would begin killing people."
Deputy days
As deputy sheriff (other accounts say deputy marshal) in El Paso County, Sherman Bell once used a thirty-eight Smith & Wesson pistol to shoot out the lights in a dance hall in Independence, Colorado, so that three bullion thieves could be arrested.
Colorado Labor Wars
In 1903, the WFM called a strike of smeltermen in the Colorado Springs, Colorado, area, which was extended to Cripple Creek. Colorado National Guard leaders imported a thousand Krag–Jørgensen rifles and sixty thousand rounds of ammunition were sent to the district.Jameson, All That Glitters, p. 210.
As Brigadier General of the Guard, Sherman Bell, a former manager of the Smith-Moffat mining interests in the Cripple Creek District, had a conflict of interest: in addition to his state salary, he received $3,200 annual incentive pay from the mine owners.Peter Carlson, Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood. 1983; p. 62.
George Suggs observed, Using force and intimidation to shut off debate about the advisability of the state's intervention, Brigadier General John Chase, Bell's field commander, systematically imprisoned without formal charges union officials and others who openly questioned the need for troops. Included among those jailed were a justice of the peace, the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, and a member of the WFM who had criticized the guard and advised the strikers not to return to the mines. from the Cripple Creek Times, September 15, 1903.
Suggs continued,
So frequently were individuals placed in the military stockade or "bull pen" at Goldfield for reasons of "military necessity" and for "talking too much" in support of the strike that the Cripple Creek Times of September 15 advised its readers not to comment on the strike situation. Not even the newspapers escaped harassment. When the Victor Daily Record, a strong voice of the WFM, erroneously charged that one of the soldiers was an ex-convict, its staff was imprisoned before a retraction could be published.
On September 10 the National Guard began "a series of almost daily arrests" of union officers and men known to be strongly in sympathy with the unions. When District Judge W. P. Seeds of Teller County held a hearing on writs of habeas corpus for four union men held in the stockade, Sherman Bell's response was caustic. "Habeas corpus be damned," he declared, "we'll give 'em post mortems."Peter Carlson, Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, 1983, page 62 Approximately ninety cavalrymen entered Cripple Creek and surrounded the courthouse. The prisoners were escorted into the courtroom by a company of infantry equipped with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets, and the soldiers remained standing in a line during the court sessions. Other soldiers took up sniper positions and set up a gatling gun in front of the courthouse. Angered by the intimidating display, an attorney for the prisoners refused to proceed and left the court. Undaunted after several days of such displays, the judge ruled for the prisoners. Judge Seeds commented in his closing remarks,
I trust that there will never again be such an unseemly and unnecessary intrusion of armed soldiers in the halls and about the entrances of American Courts of Justice. They are intrusions that can only tend to bring this court into contempt, and make doubtful the boasts of that liberty that is the keynote of American Government.
Yet General Chase, acting in conjunction with General Bell, refused to release the men until Governor Peabody ordered him to do so.
Even those Colorado newspapers which had supported the intervention expressed concern that court orders were not being obeyed by the National Guard. The Rocky Mountain News editorialized,
Adjutant General Sherman Bell should be relieved and removed from command of the troops at Cripple Creek. His mental characteristics are such as to make him an unsafe and even dangerous person to hold that position. This has been shown by his conduct since he went to the district in his disregard of the law and the most ordinary rights of citizens., quoting Rocky Mountain News, newspaper publish date "about September 14" (1903)
The Denver Post opined,
...the real reason [for the National Guard deployment] at Cripple Creek is that the governor proposes to crush the miners' strike.