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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 9, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – John Lawson Arrives from Denver
From the Trinidad Chronicle-News of September 8, 1913:
Tuesday September 9, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Second Letter Sent by Policy Committee to Mine Operators
The U.M.W. District 15 Policy Committee has received no reply from the major mine operators to the Aug 26th letter requesting a conference. The letter was sent in an effort to avoid a strike in the Southern Coalfields of Colorado. A second letter was sent yesterday. This time the mine operators are informed that a special convention will be held September 15th in Trinidad, and that they are invited to attend! The Policy Committee states that this letter will be the final attempt to arrange a meeting with the operators.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Jefferson Farr is making it known far and wide that not one single miner will make it from his district to the convention. He now has 326 deputies to back up that threat. Many of these deputies are gunmen imported from other states. Some are guards employed and armed by Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. They are sure to be watching the roads around Walsenburg waiting to waylay delegates trying to make their way to the convention in Trinidad.
It is quite likely that the the delegates will vote to strike. The United Mine Workers of America is quietly preparing for a long strike in the Southern Coalfields of Colorado.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913
Copy in possession of JR
The Chronicle-News
(Trinidad, Colorado)
-Sept 8, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051521/1913-09-08/ed-1/seq-4/
Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, A Labor Leader
-Barron B. Beshoar
Colorado Labor Historical Committee
of the Denver Area Labor Federation, 1942
p56-7
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse
https://books.google.com/books?id=JdEsnkIH43UC
See also:
John Rankin Lawson (1871-1945)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Lawson
Report on the Colorado strike
-by George P. West
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations, 1915
(search: “policy committee” and see pages 28-30)
https://archive.org/details/reportoncolorado00unit/page/25/mode/1up?view=theater&q=%22policy+committee%22
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
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