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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 31, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – “Women Victims Tell of Shameful Charge”
From The Day Book of January 30, 1914
-“Rose Slater” is incorrect; Sarah Slator is age 16:
Month: January 2024
Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Gertrude Lee, Chairman of Democratic State Committee of Colorado, Will Not Help Free Mother Jones from Military Confinement
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 30, 1914
Sterling, Colorado – Mrs. Lee Refuses to Help Free Mother Jones
From The Cincinnati Post of January 28, 1914:
(Will woman suffrage make good in Colorado?
That is the question all the United States is asking today. That question was put up to Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee, Chairman of the Democratic State committee in Colorado. The Governor and his militia Generals, who placed 82-year-old Mother Jones in solitary confinement in a military prison, are members of her party. The following is from the Denver correspondent of the Post, who went to Sterling to see Mrs. Lee.-Editor’s Note.)
STERLING, COLO., Jan. 28.-(Spl.)-Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee, head of the Democratic State central committee, doesn’t know officially that Mother Jones has been illegally imprisoned or that the Colorado state troops rode down and beat women and children paraders with swords in Trinidad.
So she won’t protest
“I want to do what is right for the party and the women,” said Mrs. Lee, who has been recuperating from a nervous attack on a farm near here.
“I don’t know that there is anything wrong in the coal strike fields. I want time.”
“Do you believe any citizen-man or woman-should be deprived of his constitutional right of personal liberty and free speech without due process of law?” she was asked.
Mrs. Lee evaded the question five times and finally said, “No.”
Mrs. Lee will not ask the State [Democratic Party] committee to do anything about the coal strike that will embarrass Governor Ammons.
[Emphasis added.
Note: Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee is married to Colonel George M. Lee who is next in authority to General Chase in the state militia now occupying southern Colorado and enforcing its military despotism upon the striking miners, their wives and their children.
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Hellraisers Journal: “Peace Hath Her Horrors No Less Than War” for Widows and Orphans of Pennsylvania and Colorado Mine Disasters Facing Poverty and Hunger
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 29, 1904
Pennsylvania and Colorado – Hundreds of Newly Made Widows and Orphans
From The Rocky Mountain News of January 27, 1904:
Hellraisers Journal: “Fifteen Men Plunge to Death Down 1500-Foot Victor Mine Shaft; Engineer Lost Control of His Engine and Cable Broke at Top of Wheel”
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 28, 1904
Victor, Colorado – Disaster at Independence Mine Claims Fifteen Lives
From The Denver Post of January 26, 1904:
Wednesday January 27, 1904 – Victor, Colorado
– Horror at Stratton’s Independence Mine
A horrific accident occurred at about 2:30 a. m. Tuesday January 26th at the Independence mine when Engineer Gellese was not able to control the engine he was running. A cage carrying sixteen men hit the sheave wheel hurling the men inside to their deaths.
Mrs. Emma F. Langdon reports from Victor:
The victims were mostly men of family, and a majority of them were new men in the district. Early in the morning hundred of people rushed to the mine to ascertain if their relatives were among the victims…the military were hastened immediately to the scene and took complete control, not even allowing press representatives near enough to gain facts. As near as the writer could learn particulars they are as follows:
Frank T. Gellese, engineer from Cour D’Alene, was on duty during the night and had experienced no difficulty with his engine, he stated, and at 2:30 he started to hoist the machine men from the sixth, seventh and eighth levels. Sixteen men were on the cage and started for the top. At the seventh level the men noticed that the cage was acting peculiar, and it appeared as if the engineer had lost control of it as it advanced in an unsteady manner. They soon reached the top and were hoisted about six feet above the collar of the shaft and suddenly lowered about thirty feet, then up they went to the sheave wheel and the disastrous accident was the result.
It is believed that the men were thrown against the top of the cage, from the force of the sudden stop, that they were knocked unconscious and knew but little, if anything, after that took place; that in the drop of the cage the speed was so rapid that through the force of the air pressure they were thrown out against the walls of the shaft, which caused them to be literally torn to pieces. When the cage struck the sheave wheel it not only threw Bullock (the only one saved) out, but also threw out a man by the name of Jackson and killed him.
No one aside from the engineer saw the accident. A miner stepped into the shaft house just after the the accident and saw a number of hats laying around. He then looked up and saw Jackson in the timbers with the sheave wheel on top of him.
The military and Manager Cornish were immediately notified and hastened to the mine. Engineer Gellese was arrested and held for investigation.
The remainder of the force, numbering about 200 men in the mine, were obliged to be taken out on a small cage that would accommodate but two men at a time, and they did not all succeed in getting out until about 6 a. m.
Most of the men killed fell to the sump below and it was twenty-four hours before all the bodies could be found. There were portions of them found from the top to the 1,400 foot level The bodies were almost all beyond recognition, heads, legs and arms being torn from the trunks. It was a gruesome sight.
[Emphasis added.]
Coroner Doran will convene a coroner’s jury to investigate the cause of the accident. The Mine Owners’ Association and the Citizens’ Alliance are already spreading rumors placing the blame upon the striking miners of the Western Federation of Miners.
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Hellraisers Journal: Rescuers on the Scene of Disaster at Harwick Mine at Cheswick, Pennsylvania; Families Plead for Help
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 27, 1904
Cheswick, Pennsylvania – Sorrow and Dread at Scene of Harwick Mine Disaster
From The Pittsburg Press of January 26, 1904:
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Hellraisers Journal: Trinidad, Colorado: Strikers’ Wives March with Protest Banners Held High, “Mother Jones Has Not Done Anything That We Would Not Do”
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 26, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – “Mother Jones Has Not Done Anything That We Would Not Do”
From The Rocky Mountain News of January 25, 1914:
Women March for Mother Jones with Banners:
MOTHER JONES HAS NOT DONE
ANYTHING THAT WE WOULD NOT DO.WE HAVE BUT TO SEEK AND
SURELY GOD WILL SET US FREE
Hellraisers Journal: Fellow Worker Joe Hill’s “Crime Record” and Mug Shot Sent from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 25, 1914
Salt Lake City, Utah – Joe Hill’s “Crime Record” Received from California
From the Deseret Evening News of January 24, 1914:
Hellraisers Journal: Trinidad-Women March in Support of Mother Jones; Chase Orders, “RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!”
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 24, 1914
Jan. 22-Trinidad, Colorado – General Chase Orders Cavalrymen:
“Ride Down the Woman!”
The women of Las Animas County gathered in Trinidad on Thursday afternoon to protest the military imprisonment of Mother Jones. They came marching with their children across the Picketwire River bridge and headed up Commercial Street passing by the Columbian Hotel. These were the women from the strikers’ tent colonies and they came singing the strikers’ song: “The Battle Cry of Union.”
Their banners proclaimed:
God Bless Mother Jones
We’re For Mother Jones
As they moved past Main Street, they were met by General Chase on his cavalry horse, and behind the General were his cavalrymen. Behind them were the infantry blocking the street. Nevertheless, the women and children continued singing as they marched toward the brave General and his troops. The General began to yell, “Don’t advance another step. You must turn back.”
The General spurred his horse forward and brushed against 16-year-old Sarah Slator. He berated her, raised his foot, and kicked her in the breast. His horse backed into a buggy and the General fell off. The women began to laugh at the site of the pompous General on the ground beneath his horse.
The General regained his feet, red-faced and furious, and shouted to his men:
“RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!”
The cavalrymen spurred their horses forward, waving their sabers about and rode straight into the women and children. Several women were slashed: Mrs. Maggie Hammons received a gash across the forehead, Mrs. George Gibson nearly lost her ear, Mrs. Thomas Braley’s hands were sliced as she covered her face. Mrs. James Lanigan was knocked to the ground, and 10-year-old Robert Arguello was smashed in the face. A cavalryman chased the flag-bearer, Mrs. R. Verna, down the street, knocked her down with his horse, and tore the American flag away from her.
Young Sarah Slator showed great courage when she challenged a cavalryman who was threatening a mother with his bayonet as she struggled to run with her three-year-old child in tow. Sarah said, “You’re so low you could do anything.” Sarah was among the six women arrested. Twelve men were arrested later in the afternoon.
Colorado newspapers are full of derision for the victorious General and his triumphant cavalrymen. The Denver Express reported:
Great Czar Fell!
And in Fury Told Troops to Trample WomenA craven general tumbled from his nag in a street of Trinidad Thursday like humpty-dumpty from the wall. In fifteen minutes there was turmoil, soldiers with swords were striking at fleeing women and children; all in the name of the sovereign state of Colorado…The French Revolution, its history written upon crimson pages, carries no more cowardly episode than the attack of the gutter gamin soldiery on the crowd of unarmed and unprotected women.
Newsclip inset from above: The Rocky Mountain News of January 23, 1914
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Photographs from Trinidad Protest of January 22, 1914:
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Hellraisers Journal: Kate Hilliard, Socialist and Suffragist, Defends Mother Jones after Vicious Attack Made by Polly Pry
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 23, 1904
Kate S. Hilliard Defends Mother Jones from Vicious Attack by Polly Pry
From Goodwin’s Weekly (Salt Lake City, Utah) of January 16, 1904:
Hellraisers Journal: Scandal Monger, Polly Pry, Claims Mother Jones Could be Former Madam Who Once Ran Houses of Ill-Repute
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 22, 1904
Denver, Colorado – The Polly Pry Claims Mother Jones Could Be Former Madam
Leonel Ross Campbell, Denver journalist now turned scandal monger, writing under the name of Polly Pry, has recently directed her prying gaze upon Mother Jones. In her magazine, The Polly Pry, Campbell claims to have evidence, supplied by the Pinkertons, that “proves” that Mother Jones once ran various houses of ill-repute in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, and San Francisco. The file, it is claimed, dates back to 1889.
According to the report, Mother Jones could be the madam who hired the “best looking girls on the row” for her house on Market Street in Denver where she went broke after her paramour, “Black-leg,” supposedly ran off with one of her girls. She then began drinking and was arrested and jailed several times. The Prying Polly further reported that this woman was:
…an inmate of Jennie Rogers’ house on Market street, Denver, some twelve years ago. She got into trouble with the Rogers woman for bribing all of her girls to leave her and go to a house in Omaha-for which act she was paid a procuress fee of $5 to $10 apiece for the girls.
She was a confidential servant in Rose Lovejoy’s private house on Market street, Denver, and with her several years. …
Lived in Eva Lewis’ house on Market street at the time the Coxey Army passed through here, and took a prominent part in the Denver preparation for their care.
Is known to Harry Loss, a piano player at 1925 Market street, who says he knew her first in Omaha in 1894, when she lived in a house at tenth and Douglass.
She was then selling clothes to the girls. A sewing woman for the sporting class living on Lawrence street…says it was commonly reported that she was a procuress by trade.
[Emphasis added.]
The Pinkerton report goes on to claim that a Mary Harris (using her maiden name) was a “vulgar, heartless, vicious creature, with a fiery temper and a cold-blooded brutality rare even in the slums.”
Now, in the slander sheet which bears her pen name, Miss Polly Pry is careful to maintain a distance from her lurid charges by reporting on a supposed report on Mother Jones. Very clever of her, and also in keeping with her usual style of reporting on labor leaders who are the often made the targets of her attacks. She has previously defamed U. M. W. District 15 President Howells, U. M. W. National Organizer William Wardjon, and U. M. W. National Executive Board Member John Gehr. Anti-union newspapers across the country see fit to pick up these sordid stories from The Polly Pry and reprint them.
For her part, Mother Jones refuses to give dignity to the charges by responding to them in any way. U. M. W. attorneys doubt that a law suit would be successful since the charges made by The Polly Pry are implied rather than made directly.
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