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Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 15, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Former Residents of Ludlow Mourn as Rockefeller Sr. Plays Golf
While the former residents of the Ludlow Tent Colony, 1200 men, women and children, mourn their dead-including twelve children ages three months to eleven years-and suffer the loss of their homes and all of their earthly possessions, we are pleased to report that the Rockefeller Family had a nice quiet day at Pocantico yesterday, undisturbed by any reminders of the Ludlow Massacre carried out in their interests.
From the Lebanon Daily News of May 12, 1914:
QUIET DAY FOR ROCKEFELLERS
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Neither Mother Jones
Nor Other Agitators
Visit Pocantico.Tarrytown, N. Y., May 12-Although the grounds were still heavily guarded no agitators appeared at the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico Hills. Mother Jones was expected to come here to try to make an appeal to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but she did not appear. It is reported she will come today, but it is doubtful if she will get in the grounds.
John D. Rockefeller, Sr,. played golf yesterday morning, but John D., Jr, was not seen during the day.
[Drawing by Rollin Kirby and emphasis added.]
The following affidavit tells of the ordeal of George R. Churchill who was held captive for a week near Ludlow by the gunthug militia after they had finished destroying the homes of 1200 men, women and children:
AFFIDAVIT.
[of George R. Churchill, Striking Miner]
I lived in Ludlow tent colony about 7 1/2 months. On Monday morning, April 20, about half past 8 or 9 o’clock my brother John, the two Mahady boys, and myself went to the ball ground to practice. Seeing the militiamen and the union men running for the hills, we ran to Snodgrass’s store for a hiding place. After we got to the store we decided to go to the tent colony to get our clothes. We just got started when one of the bombs exploded, and we ran back into the store. The other bombs went off after we got back into the store. We stayed in the store until about 4:30 or 5 o’clock; then a shot went near a window, another passed near, and we went into the cellar. We stayed in the cellar until about 6.30 next morning. At about 2 o’clock we heard an awful racket in the store above us. I heard one ask another for a match. We thought our time had come. The dog belonging to the Italian kept whining and scratching at the cellar door, but they did not discover us. The next morning about 6:30 we got out, got into a buggy belonging to an Italian rancher, and were trying to get away. Two guards pulled their guns on us and told us to halt. The Italian kept driving on, but I grabbed the lines and stopped him. They told us to get out of the buggy and hurry up. They told us to come up to them and asked us where we were going. In order to get away we told them we were going to work for the Italian on his ranch.
They asked us if we knew anyone around there, and we told them, “No, we didn’t.” They took us up to the C. & S. depot and called some one. Linderfelt came out. They had Dave Stewart and Rudolph Carson there, and when we came up he said to turn the other boys loose and hold us; that we looked guilty. They stood us up in front of the depot. The Italian was standing a little too far from my brother, so a soldier poked him in the ribs and made him cry. In a couple of hours an officer asked if we had had anything to eat. We told him we had nothing since the morning before. He told us to go with the guard to a store over by the post office and get something to eat. We told him we did not have any money. He told us it did not make any difference; we did not need any money. We went over and carried a lot of stuff over to the depot. I didn’t care for much to eat just then, so ate a couple of apples and a bottle of soda water.
They kept us here until 2 in the afternoon, and then took us over to the cookhouse. The cook told the officers he wanted us over there. Before they gave us our breakfast that morning they sent my brother, myself, and the Italian and a Greek, Mike Pappas, down near the pump house with cartridges. They said they wanted them to kill our wap friends with. Before this they told us to put a Greek who was shot in the foot on the train. Then we went to the military camp and carried water, coal, washed dishes, cooked, and did everything they asked us to do.
A man shot his gun accidentally at the depot. His name was Elston, I think. He belonged to the artillery. They took him prisoner and placed him guard over us. He was drunk nearly all the time. He cursed us and called us waps and red necks. While in the military camp I overheard them talking about starting to burn the red-neck store, but an officer came along and stopped them.
While we were prisoners at the depot we saw Mr. Snyder putting his dead boy on the train. He was wrapped up in a white sheet. When we took the cartridges down near the pump house we saw Louis Tikas and Mr. Bartle [Bartolotti?] lying dead by the road. The militiamen told us that Louis the Greek came out from the tent colony that night and begged for his life, saying he hadn’t done anything to anybody and didn’t want any trouble with anybody. They said at first they were going to hang him, but they told him to run, and then they shot at him. Some of the soldiers told us that Linderfelt wanted to make us run and then turn the machine guns on us, but some of the men said they would not stand for it, and went and got Maj. Hamrock. They said he said we had not done anything, and they did not need to do that.
One fellow by the name of Masters kept blowing about taking a watch from Mr. Fyler after he was dead. He cursed him and called him a red neck. It was either Mr. Fyler’s watch or one just like it. They said Mr. Fyler came out with a bag of money in one hand and a gun in the other. They told me they wanted him and they got him. One of them said if he had been up when Mr. Snyder went away he never would have got away, that it should have been him killed instead of his boy.
They said Mrs. Jolly came out with a Red Cross, that she was working in a red-neck hospital down there, and that they shot her in the arm. They took two Slavs off the mixed train, searched them, and, when they found union cards, took them prisoners and took them up to the camp to work. One of the Slavs had a pretty good pair of shoes on; one of the guards told him to take his shoes off. The guard’s shoes were worn out. He took his shoes off. He asked the Slav if his (Elston’s) shoes would fit him. The Slav put them on and said, “Yes.” Elston then told him to keep them, and he put on the Slav’s shoes. Elston took the Greek’s shoes and cut all around the heel. I did not see Elston do this, but the Greek said so, and I saw the shoe.
He made the Greek work one night and all next day without sleep. They were harder on the foreigners than on us. They made us work from 6 o’clock in the morning until 10 o’clock at night. Once we worked till after 2, another night until after 3. When we would get through Elston would take us to a box car they called the guardhouse, and tell the other guards to shoot us the first move we would make. A couple of nights after Maj. Lester was killed the guard, Elston, cursed us, called us red necks and waps, and told us if we made a move he’d kill us, that he had a notion to bore a hole in us anyway. I asked him what a wap was. He said I was a wap. Then he said foreigners were waps. I told him I was raised in this country the same as he was. They said they killed 13 women and children in one hole.
Lieut. Lamey (I don’t know whether this is exactly right, they called him Lamey) seemed to feel sorry about it. They cursed Mr. McLennan, and said they wanted to kill him. They told all of us not to speak to him. He looked so downhearted I spoke to him anyway. I do not think they saw me.
One of the officers told the guard to treat Mr. McLennan with respect because he was the president of the union. The lady postmistress out there they called red-neck postmaster. They did not like her either.
On Thursday they asked us a few questions. They asked us if we knew anything about the fighting; about who started it. We told them we did not know anything about it. We were afraid if we told the truth they would kill us. They then said they were going to hold us until they could get a lawyer there to take our affidavits. On Sunday night we were brought before Capt. Van Cise, Maj. Boughton, and some other military officer. They asked us if we knew who started the fighting and if the union men had made any preparations for fighting. We told them we did not know anything about it. We lost all our clothes. I did not even have a coat on.
They asked us why we did not go back to work. They said they would give us an order to any mine we wanted to go. I told them I didn’t need any order, I knew all the superintendents and could go back without an order. They freed us Sunday night, but we had no money. We were afraid to walk for fear some one would shoot us, and we were afraid to ride for fear some of Linderfelt’s bunch would get hold of us, and that would be worse, until Friday night when they gave us a ticket and sent us out. I had a little water spaniel that I thought so much of. He must have stayed in the tent because his hair and eyes were burned. He came to us Tuesday and they would not let me keep him. I felt sorrier about that than anything. We came to Trinidad Friday night.
George R. Churchill.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 11th day of May, A. D. 1914.
Leon V. GRISWOLD, Notary Public.
My commission expires September 10, 1917.[Paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
[Note: the militia shot all of the colonists’ dogs.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO
UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/176/mode/2up
Lebanon Daily News
(Lebanon, Pennsylvania)
-May 12, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/13347182/
Industrial relations: final report and testimony submitted to Congress
by the Commission on Industrial Relations.
Washington, D.C., Gov. Print. Office, 1916.
-Volume 8
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112087783327&seq=7
Pages: 7381-3 – Churchill
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112087783327&seq=401&q1=churchill&start=1
IMAGE
Ludlow Massacre, Not in Mexico But in CO by Rollin Kirby,
AtR p2, May 9, 1914
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/140509-appealtoreason-w962.pdf
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 11, 1914
Don MacGregor for the Chicago Day Book: “Rockefeller Spread Terror to Unborn Babes in Colorado”
Tag: Ludlow Massacre
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ludlow-massacre/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield War of 1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-war-of-1914/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
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