[4] An attempt to prosecute him in 1907 for his alleged involvement in the murder of Frank Steunenberg failed,[5] but in 1918 he was one of 101 IWW members jailed for anti-war activity during the First Red Scare.

Born in 1869 in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, his father, a former Pony Express rider, died of pneumonia when Haywood was three years old.

[11] In 1896, Ed Boyce, president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), spoke at the Idaho silver mine where Haywood was working.

The following year, the WFM became involved in the Colorado Labor Wars, a struggle centered in the Cripple Creek mining district in 1903 and 1904, and took the lives of 33 union and non-union workers.

The defeat of these strikes led to Haywood's belief in "One Big Union" organized along industrial lines to bring broader working class support for labor struggles.

[13] In the audience were two hundred delegates from organizations all over the country representing socialists, anarchists, miners, industrial unionists and rebel workers.

[15]: 87  Famed Pinkerton detective James McParland, who had infiltrated and helped to destroy the Molly Maguires, was placed in charge of the investigation.

[15]: 88 Before the trial, McParland ordered that Orchard be placed on death row in the Boise penitentiary, with restricted food rations and under constant surveillance.

In addition to using the threat of hanging, McParland promised food, cigars, better treatment, possible freedom, and even a possible financial reward if Orchard cooperated.

The prosecution plans were upset when Moyer went to the Denver train station on Saturday evening carrying a satchel, evidently to leave town.

On Sunday morning, the three men were put on the special train, guarded by Colorado militia, which sped out of Denver through Wyoming, and by nightfall they were in Idaho.

To thwart any attempts to free the prisoners, the train sped through the principal towns, and stopped for water and to change engines and crew only at out-of-the-way stations.

[15]: 97  However, the United States Supreme Court denied a habeas corpus appeal,[19] ruling that the arrest and extradition were legal, with only Justice Joseph McKenna dissenting.

"[25] Another time, he began a speech by noting, "Tonight I am going to speak on the class struggle and I am going to make it so plain that even a lawyer can understand it.

Local IWW leaders Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti were jailed on charges of murdering Anna LoPizzo,[29] a striker whom nineteen witnesses[30] later said was killed by police gunfire,[15]: 166  and martial law was declared.

[31] After hearing from immigrants how European strikers had used this tactic during prolonged strikes, Haywood decided to take the gamble in Lawrence, a first in American labor history.

He and the IWW used announcements in socialist newspapers to solicit host families, then screened strikers to see who might be willing to send their children into the care of strangers.

On February 10, 1912, the first group of "Lawrence Strike Children" bid tearful goodbyes to their parents and, with chaperones to guide them, boarded a train for New York.

Haywood was indicted in Lawrence for misuse of strike funds, a move that kept him from returning to the city and eventually led to his arrest on the Boston Common.

However, the aggressive tactics of Haywood and the IWW, along with their call for abolition of the wage system and the overthrow of capitalism, created tension with moderate, electorally-oriented leaders of the Socialist Party.

[4] The Department of Justice, with the approval of President Woodrow Wilson, then proceeded to arrest 165 IWW members for "conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes.

He described the execution of the Haymarket leaders in 1887 as a turning point in his life, predisposing him toward membership in the largest organization of the day, the Knights of Labor.

For example, Haywood recalled with disdain the opening remarks of Samuel Gompers when the AFL leader appeared before Illinois Governor Richard Oglesby on behalf of the Haymarket prisoners: I have differed all my life with the principles and methods of the condemned.

[15]: 44 For Haywood, industrial union principles were later confirmed by the defeat of the WFM in the 1903–05 Cripple Creek strike due — he believed — to insufficient labor solidarity.

When union attorneys asked the courts to free illegally imprisoned strikers, Adjutant General Sherman Bell declared, "Habeas corpus be damned, we'll give 'em post mortems.

[15]: 65 To members of the WFM, it became clear that government favored the companies, and only direct action by organized workers could secure the eight-hour day for themselves.

When miners in Idaho Springs and Telluride decided to strike for the eight-hour day, they were rounded up at gunpoint by vigilante groups and expelled from their communities.

[55] In 1905 Haywood joined the more left-leaning socialists, labor anarchists in the Haymarket tradition, and other militant unionists to formulate the concept of revolutionary industrial unionism that animated the IWW.

Reminded by the Commission that socialists advocated ownership of the industries by the state, Haywood remembered in his autobiography that he had drawn a clear distinction.

[60] Much of Haywood's philosophy relating to socialism, preferring industrial unionism, his perception of the evils of the wage system, and his attitude about corporations, militias, and politicians seems to have been held in common with his WFM mentor Ed Boyce.