Yeah I meant to mention that.  I looked through it when we got it in, at Barnes & Noble.  There was a portion on the Philippine insurrection against the Spanish, in the Spanish-American War, about how the US made all kinds of promises for after the Spanish are defeated, then promptly reneged on them, leading, eventually to the insurrection against the US, which was put down by the US Marines (where they got the nickname "leathernecks").

Similarly, most US textbooks gloss over US intervention in Latin America, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, at the behest of US business interests, like the New York banks and the United Fruit Company.  Marine Gen Smedley Butler, who led some of the missions, wrote War Is A Racket, his memoir/polemic about his experiences and talked about how he spent more time dealing with New York bankers than administering captured territory.  You won't find his name mentioned in most textbooks, despite his 2 Medals of Honor.  Yep, 2 of them.  He also spoke in favor of the Bonus Army marchers, during the Depression and was approached by a group of businessmen to lead a coup against the Roosevelt Administration.  he reported the approach to the government, which publicly denounced it as fiction, but eventually found credible evidence that there was at least the initial stages of a plot.

You also had numerous incidents of strike breaking violence, into the 20th Century, with State and Federal troops involved in several instances.

Of course, we all know who the most vicious strike breakers were...

We were taught nothing in school about the labor unrest that happened in Idaho in 1890s and in to the early 1900s that ultimately led to the assassination of former Governor Steunenberg.

Yeah, I read it a couple years back.  My middle son used it as a basis to find primary sources when he wrote his history thesis on the Steunenberg trial for his history degree. 

This was my review on Goodreads...and here (I think) in the Books thread. 

" Oh man this is a hard book to review. Buried deep within this quite lengthy tome is a great book about the assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg and the ensuing "Trial of the Century" of Big Bill Haywood. The problem is that within the book are a couple dozen good long articles on other subjects some of which are related to the main story and arguably useful and some of which are so tangentially related that they made for page skipping material. And therein lies the problem. Lukas' research, as best I can tell, was impeccable. And his writing is clear and strong and readable. Unfortunately he never met a digression he didn't feel it was necessary to delve into at length...great length. And I'm aware that some of the digressions clearly added to the story. Clarence Darrow represented Haywood and a significant look into his life was warranted. Governor Steunenberg's actions during the Coeur d'Alene strikes were clearly necessary background. What wasn't necessary background was a long history of African-American soldiers in the American West and a history of the Spanish-American War due to the stationing of the black 24th Infantry Regiment in North Idaho during the 1899 labor confrontation. And just because Ethel Barrymore attended a day of the Haywood trial doesn't mean we need long look at her life, loves, friendships, etc. Likewise I didn't need long articles on Gifford Pinchot and the history of forestry in the U.S., the history of the Social Gospel in the U.S., Jewish immigration into the U.S., the history of and the growth of the Elk's Lodge, etc., etc. I'll cut some slack on town baseball in Idaho and Walter Johnson because it's interesting...but it really was far from necessary.

And therein lies the problem. A book about a compelling subject, with good research and written by an author with a good voice, constantly bogs down in digressions and minutiae. This was particularly disappointing for me. I grew up in Idaho. And while I never lived in Caldwell, my Grandparents did. I also lived for a number of years in Boise and I know a lot of the places described by Lukas. Add to that that I'm a defense attorney and that Clarence Darrow is a bit of a hero of mine and this book should have been something I couldn't put down. And the really sad part is that it easily could have been if somebody had been able to convince Lukas to edit out at least a third of the book (I think it could have been up to half). As it stands I view it as a successful failure."

I think there was plenty of story just dealing with the unrest in Idaho, the assassination of Steunenberg and the subsequent trial.  When you have a "Trial of the Century" with Clarence Darrow and William Borah on opposite sides you have a ton of story.  

I did like the book overall.  And I liked Lukas' voice.  I just really feel like it would have been better served to have been been more narrowly focused.  I probably also have a bit of a problem with the book because I feel that Bill Haywood's acquittal by the jury was absolutely the correct one, but that Lukas was going out of his way to try to prove that Haywood was guilty.  

Lukas had written about his struggle with depression when he was doing interviews for "Common Ground" so his subsequent suicide, while certainly regrettable, was not terribly surprising.  

I used excerpts from that book when I was teaching US and Global History.

-M

The US has never had a major Labor party, like the UK or Australia, though the Democratic Party has long had support from organized labor and previous Democratic administrations did much to pass legislation expanding the rights of workers, especially with regards to collective bargaining, organizing unions, prohibitions against interfering in union votes, etc.  The Labor Movement in the US faced a major crisis in the 1970s, as the combination of the Recession and the OPEC embargo did much to put the economy on shaky ground, making it harder for unions to bargain with management.  Foreign competition with traditional American industries, like automotive, steel and heavy machinery also did much to undercut Labor's power, as companies faced potential losses.  Management was able to use these threats to gain concessions from Labor and the shrewder ones actually got concessions and then outsourced their manufacturing to other countries, as documented in Michael Moore's first documentary Roger & Me.  General Motors and other car manufacturers pled possible economic disaster, got unions to make concessions, then closed plants (often started with subsidiary manufacturers, making components) and sending those to Mexico and elsewhere, then pocketing the savings with huge bonuses to management.  During the 80s, this trend grew, especially with a favorable administration in power for 12 years (if you include both the Reagan and Bush Administrations).  Labor in this country was decimated.  It didn't help that the Labor leadership aided in the demise via corruption and self-serving actions.  Leadership became too removed from rank & file workers and acted on what was in their best personal interests, in terms of maintaining their personal power and prestige, rather than the long term good of the union members.  Corporate consolidation of the media presented news outlets that were almost universally favorable to management, especially at the local level, where the plants and businesses were major advertisers on those stations and newspapers.  So, every time there was a labor dispute, the coverage tended to favor management, both in terms of quantity of airtime and the slant on the coverage.

I grew up near Decatur, IL, which was a seat of Agri-business and manufacturing and the 70s and 80s and even 90s were major labor upheaval periods.  Several plants were closed down in the 70s and others had long periods on strike.  In the late 80s, the Bridgestone plant had a prolonged strike and brought in scab labor for an extended period of time.  They were then implicated in auto wrecks in the 90s, from tires that deteriorated, which they blamed on the Decatur plant and used it to shut down the plant.  Outside investigations indicated that the defective tires were all manufactured while the plants were run with the scab labor.  In the early 90s, on Labor Day, there was a massive union march between the three major plants that were on strike:  Bridgestone, Caterpillar, and (memory is a bit fuzzy) either Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) or AE Staley (both agri-business, with soy bean and corn-based products).  The only coverage was from WAND, the local tv station, which was booed away by the demonstrators, as their news coverage was heavily slanted in favor of their advertisers, those very same plants.

I studied labor unions & collective bargaining in my economics curriculum, at the University of Illinois, in the mid-80s, which was a time for the topic, though the class was a source of dark comedy.  The professor was Japanese and he was fine on theory, but his practical experience was from Japan, where the relationship between management and labor is far different, in part due to the cultural differences.  The Japanese are more collaborative as a people.  Group effort is emphasized from childhood and is part of all aspects of society.  The US is vastly different.  we would try to argue some of these differences with the professor, but he stuck to theory.  You couldn't really get him to debate issues like union leadership corruption as a factor in union concessions that worked against the rank & file's best interests.  So, on the final, we parroted back the theory and shook our heads.  Granted, I think I was one of the few students who came from a middle class background, downstate, as a large segment of the student population was from affluent Chicago suburbs or foreign countries.

After the defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980, the Democratic Party made a concerted effort to move away from the more liberal wing, including Labor.  It still made appeals to powerful unions for support; but, subsequent Democratic administrations were just as favorable to corporations and management as the Republican ones had been.  Labor was pretty much abandoned, in this country.  Really, the peak of Labor support was during the Roosevelt Administrations and it was downhill from there.