Edward Boyce (November 8, 1862 – December 24, 1941) was president of the Western Federation of Miners, a radical American labor organizer, socialist and hard rock mine owner.

When three scab workers were forced to join the union by a mob of miners (a fourth fled the county), the Coeur d'Alene Mine Owners' Association obtained an injunction from the United States district court at Boise, Idaho, preventing anyone from interfering with the working of the mines.

Late in the evening of Sunday, July 10, the miners discovered that their union secretary, Charles Siringo, was a mine owner spy hired from the Pinkerton Agency.

During that evening and into the early morning hours of July 11, armed miners surrounded the shuttered Frisco mill of the Gem mine.

Boyce served a six-month jail term for contempt of court for his role in the 1892 Coeur d'Alene miners' strike, and was blacklisted by the mine owners.

After his release in 1893, Boyce prospected for a time in Montana's Bitterroot Mountains before returning to Coeur d'Alene.

He obtained work in the mines and was elected president of the Coeur d'Alene Executive Miners' Union, a post he held until 1895.

[2] Boyce battled for the eight-hour day for miners, the establishment of an arbitration board to settle labor disputes, and an investigation of the 1892 mining war.

He called for legislation to forbid employment of aliens, to outlaw yellow-dog contracts and prohibit company stores.

In one of the most dramatic speeches he ever made, Boyce denounced the blacklist:Senate bill fifty six provides for no class, no special legislation, but under its provisions those relentless persecutors, known as corporations, are prevented when they discharge an employee from following him with a blacklist and depriving him of the means of earning an honest living in another part of the state….Why do you not produce some argument against it to show that it should not become a law?

[citation needed] While serving in the Idaho legislature, Boyce resigned as president of the Coeur d'Alene Executive Miner's Union in 1895, and took a job as a general organizer for the WFM.

The Cloud City Miners' Union (CCMU), Local 33 of the WFM went on strike in 1896 over a reduction in wages that had persisted since the depression of 1893.

[4][5] The Coronado Mine was re-opened with armed replacement workers during the strike, and an incident on September 21 resulted in shooting and dynamite explosions.

At the 1897 WFM convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, Boyce told his fellow union members to arm themselves:I deem it important to direct your attention to Article 2 of the Constitutional Amendments of the United States—'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'

I strongly advise you to provide every member with the latest improved rifle, which can be obtained from the factory at a nominal price.

I entreat you to take action on this important question, so that in two years we can hear the inspiring music of the martial tread of 25,000 armed men in the ranks of labor.

In April 1899, WFM officials demanded that the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mine recognize the union.

Governor Frank Steunenberg declared martial law and President William McKinley ordered U.S. troops from Montana into the area.

Governor Steunenberg told a United States House of Representatives Committee on Military Affairs that he was convinced Boyce had "inaugurated or perfected this conspiracy by, choosing 20 men from different organizations in that county and swearing them.

In 1901, Boyce successfully led a campaign to have the WFM adopt socialism as its official economic policy.

… Advise strikes as the weapon to be used by labor to obtain its rights, and you will be branded as criminals who aim to ruin the business interests of the country.

Change from the policy of simple trades unionism that is fast waning, and you will be told that your action is premature, as this is not the time.

Take what action you will in the interests of labor, the trained beagles in the employ of capital from behind their loathsome fortress of disguised patriotism will howl their tirade of condemnation.

But strong opposition to his continuing presidency had emerged in the powerful Butte Miners' Union, Local 1 of the WFM.

He supported the WFM's creation of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, and testified on behalf of Haywood, Moyer and others at their 1907 murder trial.

But Boyce gradually separated himself from organized labor, and eventually declined to discuss his part in the miners' union.

Eugene V. Debs wrote that Boyce had been "virtually forgotten by the officials of the organization he served at a time when it required real men to speak out for labor."