Category: Hellraisers Journal

Hellraisers Journal: “It is a damned pity that all of you damned red-necked bitches were not killed.”-Lt. Karl E. Linderfelt

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote KE Linderfelt re Damn Red Neck Bitches of Ludlow Massacre, Apr 20, 1914, CIR p7378—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 6, 1914
Las Animas County, Colorado – Affidavits from Survivors of the Ludlow Massacre

Lt Karl E Linderfelt 1913, 1914, Butcher of Ludlow, CO Coal Field War Project

Over the next few days Hellraisers Journal will present affidavits from those who were in the Ludlow Tent Colony as the militiamen, Rockefeller’s gunthugs, ended their attack upon the colony by burning down the tents, the homes of 1200 men, women and children.

Mrs. Ed Tonner describes how Mrs. Costa begged for her life and the lives of the women and children (including three of her own) as the gunthugs, led by Linderfelt, prepared to set fire to tent #58:

AFFIDAVIT.

State of Colorado.
Las Animas County, ss:

Mrs. Ed Tonner, of lawful age, being first sworn, upon oath deposes and says: That her name is Mrs. Ed Tonner. When Mr. Linderfelt came into camp with his auto load of ammunition, I heard Mrs. Costa crying, and she began praying Santa Maria and begging him not to kill her and her little children, and he replied to her, “There is no use in you crying and carrying on, as we have orders to do this, and we are going to do it; no mercy on any of you.”

Mrs. Ed Tonner.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 30th day of April, A. D. 1914.
[SEAL.] Leon Griswold, Notary Public.
My commission expires September 10, 1917.

[Emphasis added.]

Mrs. Pedregone describes how she watched the “guards and militia” set fire to her tent:

AFFIDAVIT.

State of Colorado,
Las Animas County, ss:

Mrs. Alcarita Pedregon, being first duly sworn, on oath deposes and says: That her name is Mrs. Alcarita Pedregon. I got up late in the morning, and I seen the guards and militia on horseback, and they got off the horses and fell down on the ground to get away from the fire, and then I went into the hole with the children. There were 11 children and 4 women in the hole, and we stayed in that cellar from 9 in the morning until 6 the next morning. I seen a militiamen come over there and look inside the tent and strike a match and set fire to the tent. I stayed in the tent until it was all burned up. There were 11 children and 2 women suffocated with the smoke where I was. I lost 2 children in this cave when the tent was burned. I don’t know where my husband was at this time. I looked up out of the hole and saw the soldier set fire to the tent with a match. I lost everything I had in his fire.

Mrs. Alcarita (her x mark) Pedregon.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 1st day of May, A. D. 1914.
[SEAL]   Leon V. Griswold, Notary Public.
My commission expires September 10. 1917.

[Emphasis added.]

Mr. William Snyder describes how that gunthug-infested militia unit set fire to his tent while his family was still inside, how they mocked him and threatened him as he held his dead son in his arms, how Linderfelt raged at his wife as she begged for the life of her husband: “Please don’t shoot him; they have killed one of my children already,” when Linderfelt says, “It is a damned pity that all of you damned red-necked bitches were not killed.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: “The Murderous Colorado Militia Was Recruited from Professional Gunmen”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 5 1914
Wars in Colorado and Mexico, Workers’ Blood Shed to Serve Rockefeller’s Interests

From the Appeal to Reason of May 2, 1914:

Appeal Army Called to Immediate
Action in the Class War

Practicality the entire issue of the latest edition of the Appeal to Reason is dedicated to supporting the class war, now ongoing, in Colorado, and opposing the war for “commercial and political domination of Mexico.”

The front-page masthead proclaims:

Masthead JDR Jrs Gunthugs Murder Women and Children at Ludlow, AtR p1, May 2, 1914

On the second page the masthead makes known:

The Murderous Colorado Militia Was Recruited
from Professional Gunmen

The following are portions of a few of the articles on the Colorado Coal War from Saturday’s Appeal to Reason.

Blood of Slaughtered Babes Calls
for Immediate Action

“God give us men: A time like this demands         
Great hearts, strong minds, true faith and willing hands.”

Military Rule in CO, Woman Bayoneted fr Stt Str, AtR p2, Feb 28, 1914

Two wars are now on. Both are wars in the interest of John D. Rockefeller and American capitalism. One is a war for the commercial and political domination of Mexico by the oil king and his colleagues. The other is  a war to crush out the rebellious spirit of the wage slaves of the Colorado coal mines, owned and operated by the Rockefeller interest.

As you read this, the newspapers will have given you columns upon columns about the American conquest of Mexico. Every known method of appealing to the gullibility of the American workers will have been used. The flag incident and other excuses will have been put forward to justify the sending of the American military and naval forces to our neighboring country. At the same time distorted reports of the bloodiest slaughter of working men in modern times will have appeared in the capitalist press.

This latest battle at Ludlow, Colo., is probably the most outrageous assault upon the rights, liberties and lives of the working class in American history. This issue of the Appeal to Reason gives you only what cold ink and type can transmit. No amount of writing can give you an adequate description of the murdering and maiming of women and children such as occurred last week in one of the sovereign states of this republic. On the other hand the slightest affront to the alleged dignity of American capitalism will have been played up and elaborated upon by most expert writers, artists and photographers that the filthy lucre of capitalism’s prostituted press can purchase…..

[Photograph, paragraph break and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: New York May Day Parade Banner: Rockefeller “Uses Bibles in New York and Bullets in Colorado”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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He uses Bibles in New York
and bullets in Colorado.
———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 4, 1914
New York, New York – Police Attack May Day Rally at Union Square

From The New York Times of May 2, 1914:

The Times blames anarchists for the police attack upon the peaceful rally:

5,000 STAMPEDED BY POLICE CLUBS
———-
Women and Children Felled in Flight
at Union Square May Day Rally.
———-

Socialist Women March at NYC May Day Parade 1914, LoC
 
With Chief Inspector “Schmittberger close behind issuing vain orders to halt and return to their stations, 200 uniformed policemen charged through the May Day gathering of Socialists and labor unionists who celebrated the International Labor Day in Union square yesterday.

The police charge caused a stampede of 5,000 of the 15,000 persons in the Square. Clubs flew right and left, the police jumping over the bodies of prostrate women, men, and boys and even two babies, to reach people beyond them….

Schmittberger’s powerful voice was heard above the dim of the stampede and the screams of women and children who had been bowled over.

“Back to your stations, you men! Down with your clubs! Stop this! Stop it at once!” the big Inspector called out and his message seemed to bring the excited policemen to their senses.

As they turned to retreat over a big open space they had cleared they found two little babies rolling in the dirt, with their mother, Rebecca Shulman, trying to crawl to them from a point ten feet away where she had landed on her head. One man, Bola Bologna, of 355 East 184th Street, was bleeding profusely from a wound across his head…

Crowd’s Mood Changes.

While the charge was being made Socialist speakers, several of whom were women, were standing on the cottage porch, from which a woman was addressing the multitude. The police advance occurred so quickly that the meeting itself was not disturbed. Speakers continued with their appeals to keep May 1 as a general labor holiday, in harmony with a world-wide movement, for several minutes after the stampede.

But the mood of the crowd was changed. The marches, from 30,000 to 60,000 strong, had been sweeping into the Square for four hours. All had arrived in a cheerful mood, and there had been much singing, while little children by the hundreds mingled with the men and women marchers.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: “Every man should shoulder his gun and start to Colorado”-Speech to Kansas Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Miners Org Real Power of Labor Mv, Speech UMW D14 Conv, Apr 30, 1914, Ptt KS, Steel Speeches p134—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 3, 1914
After Speech by Mother Jones, Kansas Miners Donate Treasury

April 30, 1914, Pittsburg, Kansas
-Mother Jones Addresses Convention of District 14, U. M. W. A.

Mother Jones gave a long speech Thursday, April 30th, in Pittsburg, Kansas, at the Convention of District 14, United Mine workers of America. She came seeking donations for the striking miners of Colorado, and, in the end, the miners of Kansas gave her all that she asked for.

MOTHER JONES INTRODUCED TO THE MINERS OF KANSAS

Chairman [John P.] White: Now, this morning I know that I voice the sentiments of this convention when I say that we appreciate the presence here of our great old organizer, Mother Jones. (Applause.)

Yesterday I gave you a pretty strong bump about Colorado, and what you were going to do about the money that you had loaned the national organization, that I plead guilty to being responsible for, so God help you for I put you in the hands of Mother Jones now. (Loud applause.)

A Delegate: I think the brothers ought to put up their pipes, put them in their pockets.

Mother Jones: You should join John D. Rockefeller, you are getting so nice…

The Colorado Coal War

[Mother Jones continued]: You see, my brothers, the trouble with us all is we don’t feel the pains of our fellow beings in the great struggle. I wonder if the nation felt horror of that affair at Ludlow? Why, if that happened in Mexico we would go down to clean up Mexico, and it happened here at home and there is very little said about it, when every man should shoulder his gun and start to Colorado to stop the war there. (Applause.)

Detail Tikas w Ludlow Flag, Mother Jones Leads CO FoL Dlg to State House at Dnv, Toronto Star Wkly p8, Jan 3, 1913
Louie Tikas with
the Flag of Ludlow

…No time in modern history has there been anything so horrible as this trouble in Colorado. I know those men in Colorado pretty well. No state in the Union has truer, better fellows; they have made a great fight against the men in power. There is no question about it. The poor fellow that got killed, this Greek [Louie Tikas], when I went to Ludlow, when the battle first started, the tears came streaming down his face, and he said, “Mother, they jumped at me to go war, and I got away and let the capitalists fight their own battle. I am here now, and this is my battle, the battle of right for the class that I belong to.” That summed up the whole philosophy of the labor movement. In other words, it was a battle for freedom for the class that he belonged to. And he said, “Mother, I need a gun.” I said, “You will have one, Louie, if Mother has to take her hat off and sell it, you will get the gun.” (Applause.)

Now, those brave men were the ones brought over, most of them, after the last strike that we had in Colorado; Rockefeller sent his agents to Europe and brought those fellows over. He has been able to crush them, rob them, persecute them until he has made his millions out of their precious blood, and then he goes into church on Sunday and is hallowed by the people of this great nation.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Pittsburg, Kansas-Addresses Convention of District 14, United Mine Workers of America

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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JP White re Mother Jones, Pittsburg KS, Apr 30, 1914, Speeches Steel p130—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 2, 1914
Pittsburg, Kansas – Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of U. M. W. A., District 14

From the Pittsburg Workers’s Chronicle of May 1, 1914:

Mother Jones Addresses Conv, UMW D14, Pittsburg Ks, Apr 30, Workers Chc p1, May 1, 1914

Yes, she swears. Says “dam” and “hell” and other such words. That’s Mother Jones. But did you ever hear people swear when it sounded like a benediction or a prayer? Mother don’t swear like other folks. Some way or other her swear words are more like poetry than vulgarity. Ask ANYONE who ever heard her.

She spoke to the delegates at the convention yesterday morning and not a miner in that hall will ever forget her message. Among other things she said:

I was asked by the congressional committee if I was opposed to sending the federal troops into Colorado, “I certainly am” I said. I am deadly opposed to bayonets being sent into any strike district where an industrial conflict is being waged. The miners in Colorado have had bayonets for months. They are not needed. Justice is what they want, not bayonets.

Out of the past eleven months I have served more than six of them in the bastiles of West Virginia and Colorado. I have seen the suffering of these wretched strikers, their ragged and defenseless wives and their starving babies in these strike districts and human pen or tongue will never be able to adequately portray the awful scenes enacted there.

She told of the Greek, Louis Tikas, whose truce with the gunmen of Mr. Rockefeller, ended in his murder; of the 51 bullet holes in his body and its laying exposed for days after his infamous murder. Told of his coming to her early in the strike and in his broken language and with tears streaming down his bronzed cheeks explaining how his Greek government had tried to draft him into the Balkan war and how he resented it to the extent that he was almost branded as a coward by the minions of that government’s plutocracy. This, however, was a fight of his class and he was willing to die a thousand deaths rather than see his fellow workers submit to the shackles of the mine owner corporations.

In dealing with the Colorado and West Virginia strikes she said that the ones who had died had not given up their lives in vain, but that they had died for a great cause.

When the congressional committee asked her if it would be acceptable if Rockefeller would consent to grant every demand of the miners except the one compelling recognition of the U. M. W. of A. she replied: “NO! We’ll give up every demand before that. It is the meat in the nut and without it we would be just as helpless as before.”

It might be well to state that Mother Jones’ confinement in Colorado was due to a fight for a principle. In 1904 what is known as “The Moyer” decision was passed by the supreme court. That decision gave to the military the right to arrest and confine any person without preferring charges of any kind against them. This was one of the most infamous decisions against labor ever rendered and has been the instrument with which more than one strike has been broken. Her fight was to get out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus and secure the reversal of that infamous Moyer decision. Up to the present time they have managed to evade the testing of the law but Mother Jones is still after them and if it is within human power to secure a reversal she will assuredly secure it.

Mother Jones came direct from Denver to Girard [home of the Appeal to Reason] where she arrived on Wednesday night. She will return to the strike zone immediately after a monster protest meeting in Kansas City next Sunday. She speaks in Frontenac at the May Day celebration today. Don’t fail to hear her.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene Victor Debs

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, SPA Campaign Opens, Riverview Park, Chicago, June 16, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 1, 1914
“May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene V. Debs

From The Goltry News (Oklahoma) of May 1, 1914:

May Day and the Revolution

(By Eugene V. Debs.)

EVD Life Size Photo by Jas Soler, ISR p1044, May 1910

We are again about to celebrate the annual holiday of the International Socialist Movement. The thrill of May Day is even now in our veins and our hearts beat faster as we contemplate the glad tiding of this day to the workers of the world. 

May Day is above all days in the year the day of the working class; the day of rejoicing and fraternal greeting; the day of high hope and lofty aspiration; the day of national and international celebration.

Not yet have we of the United Stales risen to the heights of this grand occasion and given to May Day its revolutionary significance as have our comrades in European and other nations; not yet have we grasped the full and splendid meaning of this day to our class and to humanity, but this year I trust our celebration may be worthy of the day and that this jubilee of the working class may resound from coast to coast with the glad tidings of the coming revolution.

May Day was not granted as a boon to the workers by their patronizing masters to tranquilize their discontent, but was chosen and set apart by themselves as the day upon which to arouse themselves from their lethargy, lift up their weary bodies from the earth, clasp hands with their fellow workers, and solemnly vow to break their fetters and emancipate themselves from slavery. 

May Day is henceforth emancipation day for the working class. On this day the revolution breathes the breath of life into the nostrils of the workers and the awaking pulsing workers recruit with eager, passionate spirit the swelling ranks of the revolutionary movement.

Each and every industrial center and each agricultural district should this year join the May Day celebration and make its observance so general and fill it with such ardor and enthusiasm as to compel attention to the program of the day and the significance of the event. The very thought that labor’s holiday has been internationally proclaimed and will be celebrated by the workers of every nation on the face of the earth; the very contemplation of the fine spirit of the day and the eager greeting of comrades to comrade and nation to nation, voiced in every tongue known to man and borne to us on every tide and every breeze, is of itself enough to thrill us in every fiber and set every drop in our veins tingling with the fervor of international solidarity.

On this day of the downtrodden masses the inspiring message that Socialism brings to them must be heard around the world. The electrifying shibboleth of Marx must be echoed and re-echoed everywhere:

“Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain.”

Unity and solidarity must be the watchword of the day. Industrial and political organization of the workers, all the workers, regardless of race, sex or creed, must be urged with all the force and persuasiveness at our command. Without organization the struggle is vain and the cause lost. The commonwealth of the workers that is to be must be organized primarily in the industries where they are employed and the time to do that is now, and May Day is the day to emphasize its supreme necessity.

The political power of the workers must also be developed through the Socialist Party, the only party organized and controlled by themselves; the only party which represents their interests, expresses their aspirations, and fights their battles in the war for emancipation.

May Day, pregnant with new and bounding life and rapture of resurrection, is the glorious harbinger of the social revolution, the gleaming promise of industrial freedom and social justice to all the WORKERS of the WORLD.

May Day Red Special International, Goltry OK Ns p2, May 1, 1914

[Photograph of Debs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Rescued from “Quarantine” in Utah; Charles Moyer and Big Bill Haywood Persecuted Under Military Despotism in Colorado

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 30, 1904
Mother Jones Held in Utah; Moyer and Haywood Up Against Militia in Colorado

From The Rocky Mountain New of April 27, 1904:

Mother Jones has been in Utah since her deportation from Trinidad, Colorado. There she has been working among the miners of that state, and, for her efforts, was confined under “quarantine” near Helper, Utah. This was too much for the miners of that area and a raid was made upon the pest house which freed from Mother from that place. She has since been recaptured, and, according to the following report, is now held in the Carbon County jail at Price, Utah.

Mother Jones Escapes Quarantine to County Jail, Price UT, RMN p4, Apr 27, 1904

From the American Labor Union Journal of Apr 28, 1904
-Moyer brought to Denver, but returned to bullpen at Telluride;
Haywood brutally assaulted by soldiers:

BBH Moyer v Colorado Military Despotism, ALUJ p1, Apr 28, 1904

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Hellraisers Journal: Mine Explosion at Eccles, West Virginia, Claims Many Lives; All Hope Lost for 177 Missing Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 29, 1914
Eccles, West Virginia – Mine Explosion Claims Many Lives; All Hope Lost for Missing

From The Wheeling Intelligencer of April 29, 1914:

Eccles Mine Disaster, Wlg Int p1, Apr 29, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Louis Tikas, Hero of Ludlow, Honored by Thousands of Striking Miners Marching at Trinidad, Colorado

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote re Louis Tikas by Paul Manning, 2002—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 28, 1914
Thousands of Striking Miners Join in Funeral Procession in Honor of Louie Tikas

April 27, 1914, Trinidad, Colorado:

Funeral Louie Tikas Hearse by Dold, Trinidad CO, Apr 27, 1914Funeral Louie Tikas by Dold, Trinidad CO, Apr 27, 1914Funeral Louie Tikas, Trinidad CO, Apr 27, 1914

From The Denver Post of April 27, 1914:

Funeral of Louie Tikas, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914

The body of Tikas lay before an alter on which were branched candles, holding high, burning tapers. The priest, assisted by [Pietro Catsulis], now the leader of the Greek colony, intoned the mass, the response being made by Catsulis.

Three times the priest kissed the cheeks of the dead leader. Three times he anointed the brow with wine. Three times he sprinkled dust on the face of the dead, while a Greek in overalls and corduroy coat swung the silver censer and wailed dolefully.

“Jesus give a place in Heaven to Louis, chanted the priest in the Greek tongue.

“Jesus give a place in heaven to Louis. Bring life from the grave,” solemnly repeated the dark-faced fighting men who crowded the undertaker’s chapel.

“Jesus, if Louis has any enemies, may they forget their hostility,” chanted Catsulis.

The tapers burned low. The place was dim with incense. But the priest chanted on, his iron-gray hair and flowing beard in somber contrast with his gold and silver woven robes.

This was the funeral of the man beliked by all he led and served. But a handful of women were present, and no arms were carried to remind those who watched that war was on.

Orderly, reverent, deeply religious, was the service. When the body was carried from the chapel, 488 Greeks followed the line before the hearse. The American colors, draped in crepe, were lifted, and in utter silence the cortege moved down Main Street to Commercial, past the headquarters of the United Mine Workers and on over the hill to the Knights of Pythias cemetery.

Before the funeral four Greeks carrying their muskets entered the chapel. They lifted their hats, muttered an oath to “avenge Louis’ death” pounded for times on the floor with their muskets, turned and left the room.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Thousands Gather in Denver for Rain-Soaked Protest Meeting; Ammons Denounced; Mother Jones Speaks

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Quote Mother Jones, Fight n Keep On, Hzltn Pln Spkr p4, Nov 15, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 27, 1914
Denver, Colorado – Thousands Gather to Protest Slaughter of the Innocent at Ludlow

From The Denver Post of April 27, 1914:

Photos Denver Mass Meeting Protest re Ludlow, Crowd, Doyle, Vetter, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914HdLn re Denver Apr 26, Mass Mtg Protest re Ludlow, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914

[Photos above: Top: Crowd standing in the rain at the state house. Bottom left: Edward Doyle. Bottom right: Jesse Vetter.]

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