Coroner’s Jury Puts Blame on Militia
Trinidad, Colo.-The coroners jury investigating the Ludlow horror has officially placed the blame of it on the mine guards. Following is the text of the verdict relative to the fire:
Cecelia Costa, Petra Valdez, Begrata Pendregon, Clovine Pendregon, Lucy Costa, Orafrio Costa, Elvira Valdez, Mary Valdez, Elulia Valdez, Rudolfo Valdez, Frank Petrucci, Lucy Petrucci and Joe Petrucci came to their death by asphyxiation of fire, or both, caused by the burning of the tents of the Ludlow tent colony, and that fire in tents was started by militiamen under Major Hamrock and Lieutenant Linderfelt or mine guards, or both, April 20, 1914.
[Emphasis added.]
Firing of Ludlow Ordered.
R. J. McDonald, stenographer for the military commission, testified that an officer of the Colorado national guard gave the order for burning the colony, but he was not sure whether it was Major Hamrock or Captain Carson.
McDonald said he stood within a few feet of Hamrock and Carson, who were inspecting the colony from the top of a hill. It was well toward night.
“We’ve got just forty minutes to take and burn that colony.” he testified one of the two remarked, “before it gets dark.”
A few moments later the troops and mine guards, he said, swept down the tracks in the charge that meant the colony’s destruction and the death of the women and eleven children, who sought refuge in the colony’s safety pit.
Tikas Beaten to Death.
McDonald was questioned about the capture and death of Louis Tikas, Greek leader of the strikers. He said that while near the scene of the battle he heard a commotion behind some box cars and was told that Tikas was a prisoner and probably would be hanged.
A little later he met Lieutenant F. K. Linderfelt. He asked Linderfelt if Tikas had been hanged.
“No,” he testified Linderfelt replied, “I gave instructions that Tikas was not to be killed, but I spoiled a good rifles.”
The witness swore that Linderfelt was carrying his rifle over his shoulder, stock to the rear, and holding it by the barrel. The physicians’ autopsy showed that Tikas’ skull was fractured.
Open Butchery of Women.
Riley, a Colorado & Southern fireman, said he was on the engine of a freight train which pulled up at the Ludlow station in the hottest of the battle. He said that two tents already were in flames.
“I saw a man in a militia uniform touch a blaze in a third tent,” he said.
He said he saw women and children screaming on the railroad right of way apparently trying to escape from the colony.
When the train drew up at the station, he said, several militiamen put guns to the engineer’s head and ordered him to “pull out and do it damned quick.”
J.S. Harriman, conductor of the same train, testified that as the train pulled out of the station and past the tent colony he heard women and children screaming and apparently trying to escape. He said that during this time, the militia was firing into the colony.
Threat a Day in Advance.
“Have your big Sunday today, old girl,” Mrs. Pearl Jolly, leader of women at Ludlow, testified a militia man told a striker’s wife on the day before the tragedy, “tomorrow we’ll have the roast.”
G. A Hall, a chauffeur, told the jury that he had heard a militia officer give the order to “clean out” the tent colony and burn the tents.
[Emphasis added.]
—————Colorado Strikers’ Policy Committee, United Mine Workers of America
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