It pains me to report [said President Sherman] that on Saturday evening, February 17th,[294] Brother Charles H. Moyer, President of the Department of Mining; Brother William D. Haywood, Secretary of the Department of Mining; and Geo. A. Pettibone, ex-member of the Western Federation of Miners, were kidnapped by officers of the state of Idaho and, on the same date, at 11:30 o'clock P. M., were forcibly placed on a special train and taken from the state of Colorado and placed in jail in the state of Idaho, charged with murder. This was done without giving the accused brothers an opportunity for a defense or hearing. They were arrested at night and were given no opportunity to notify their families, friends or legal advisers of their condition.[295]
The Industrial Workers of the World was among the first to come to the defense of the indicted men. The General Office in Chicago immediately sent out thousands of circular letters throughout the country asking for contributions; large amounts were turned over to the Special Defense Fund from the General Defense Fund of the I. W.
W., and finally a total of $10,982.51 was raised. This, labor's common extremity, did actually, though but temporarily, achieve that miracle (to appear later in San Diego and Lawrence) of I. W. W.'s, Socialists, Socialist Laborites, Anarchists, and "Pure and Simplers,"[296] even, coöperating in a common activity. The I. W. W. was the first to organize protest meetings, and secured the services of Clarence S. Darrow for the legal defense. The slogan "Shall our brothers be murdered?" was reiterated on every hand and made the watchword of the defense.
The situation was still a desperate one at the time of the 1906 convention. The men were still held in jail awaiting trial. It seems to have been the general belief that they were to be "railroaded" to the penitentiary or the gallows, and the conduct of the prosecution as well as the postponement of the trial, all tended to strengthen that belief. The delegates at the convention decided to turn fifty per cent of the per-capita tax of the Mining Department into the Moyer-Haywood Defense Fund. Some of the delegates undoubtedly exaggerated the influence of the I. W. W. in the Moyer-Haywood affair. Thus William E. Trautmann asserted on the floor of the convention that