Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Bartolotti of Ludlow: “Put me and my seven children in jail…but I am going on the picket line.”

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Quote Ludlow Mary Petrucci, Children all dead, ed, Trinidad Las Animas Co CO Affidavit, May 11, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 30, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Women’s Union Picket Squad Defies Federal Soldiers

Ludlow Refugees at Trinidad, ISR p715, June 1914

As reported by John Murray  in this week’s Appeal, the “Women’s Union Picket Squad,” will now take the place of the men on the picket line in defiance of the federal troops under the command of Colonel James Lockett.

Members of the Women’s Union Picket Squad include the widow of Ludlow Martyr John Bartolotti, who declared:

The soldiers can put me and my seven children in jail if they want to, but I am going on the picket line and keep the scabs from coming in and starving us to death.

Mrs. Petrucci whose three children perished in the Ludlow Massacre will also be found on picket duty:

I shall picket, too, but my children are all gone.

From the Appeal to Reason of August 29, 1914:

New Clash Imminent

BY JOHN MURRAY

Trinidad, Colo.-Federal troops under the command of Colonel James Lockett have driven the striking miners away from all the railroad stations in southern Colorado where non-union disembark for the coal camps. Union men are being arrested daily, but the miners’ wives are defying the military and have taken their husbands’ places on the picket line.

Members of the Women’s Union Labor Alliance, led by their president, Edith Walker, organized the Women’s Union picket squad and have met every train coming into Trinidad, in spite of the attacks made upon them by company spotters and deputy sheriffs.

Tourists heads fill every car window as the overland trains pull into Trinidad, and the eyes of the gaping crowd follow the fearless women as thy march along the platform questioning every suspicious looking stranger who they think may be on his way to the mines.

Thus far the federal soldiers on duty only stare at the women pickets, who, to make sure that there shall be no misunderstanding as to what they are doing, wear large white badges pinned across their breasts upon which are printed the words “Women’s Union Picket Squad.”

Mine Owners Get Busy.

Raging at this open defiance of what the coal operators call “Law and Order,” the daily Advertiser, mouthpiece of Rockefeller interests in Trinidad, shrieks to the United States commanding officer for help in the following front-page display, placed in a box and printed in large type:

To Commander Federal Troops from  CO Coal Ops Ns, AtR p2, Aug 29, 1914

Thus far no arrests have been made by the federals, but Captain Rockwell, the officer on duty at the Santa Fe station, has warned the miners’ wives on picket that “although human,” he “must obey orders.”

The women are prepared to go to jail if the federal soldiers force the issue.

Said Mrs. Bartoloti (Virginia Bartolotti) whose husband (Giovanni/John Bartolotti) was killed in the Ludlow massacre, “the soldiers can put me and my seven children in jail if they want to, but I am going on the picket line and keep the scabs from coming in and starving us to death.”

“I shall picket, too, but my children are all gone,” declared Mrs. Petrucci, whose three little ones met their end in the flames of the historic Ludlow “death-hole.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Bartolotti of Ludlow: “Put me and my seven children in jail…but I am going on the picket line.””

Hellraisers Journal: John Lawson of the United Mine Workers: “A whitewash for the militia was the only thing possible.”

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Quote re Louis Tikas by Paul Manning, 2002—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday, August 29, 1914
John Lawson, Colorado Union Leader: Colorado Militia Verdict is a Whitewash

From the Trenton Evening News of August 27, 1914: 

COLORADO MILITIA GIVEN WHITEWASH

Gunthug Militia in Front of Ludlow Saloon, CO 1913 1914, Wiki

DENVER, Col., Aug. 27.-After a delay of eighty-eight days, Governor Ammons has made public the findings of the court-martial that tried twenty-one officers and enlisted men of the Colorado national guard on charges of murder, manslaughter, arson, robbery and assault, growing out of the destruction, April 20, of the Ludlow tent colony, in which three miners, thirteen women and children and two militiamen were killed.

The verdict, a whitewash of the accused men, is approved in full by the Governor. The miners, who refused to testify on the ground that it would bar civil action against the militiamen, will go into the civil courts and ask that the entire proceedings be declared illegal and that the soldiers be brought to trial on charges of murder and arson.

John McLennan, president of district 15, United Mine Workers , and John Lawson, international board member of the union, declared they would take steps immediately to bring the militiamen, especially Lieutenant K. E. Linderfelt, nicknamed “the Butcher of Ludlow,” before juries. He was exonerated of the charge of breaking his rifle over the head of Louis Tikas, the strike leader, who was later shot to death.

“This verdict,” said Lawson, “and the approval given it by the Governor are no more than we expected. A whitewash for the militia was the only thing possible.”

“The court feels that the miners were given every opportunity to present evidence bearing on the insurrection in which thirty-four men in uniforms were compelled to defend themselves against 300 armed strikers,” said Captain E. A. Smith, judge advocate, following the announcement of the findings.

Tikas was shot late at night while attempting to escape from the ranks of the militia, where he was a prisoner. He had reached the boundary marking the tent colony and had successfully evaded the fire of the handful of guardsmen, who shot to intercept Tikas in his flight, which is in accordance with rules of war. As he crossed the tent colony line, a bullet from the tent colony pierced his breast.”

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

The Murder of Louie Tikas

Readers of Hellraisers might remember the description of the murder of Louis Tikas given by Godfrey Irwin, an electrical engineer employed by the the Electrical Transportation and Railroad Company of Trinidad:

Then came the killing of Louis Tikas, the Greek leader of the strikers. We saw the militiamen parley outside the tent city, and, a few minutes later, Tikas came out to meet them. We watched them talking. Suddenly an officer raised his rifle, gripping the barrel, and felled Tikas with the butt.

Tikas fell face downward. As he lay there we saw the militiamen fall back. Then they aimed their rifles and deliberately fired them into the unconscious man’s body. It was the first murder I had ever seen, for it was a murder and nothing less.

[Emphasis added.]

John Lawson and Louie Tikas (with star):

John Lawson and Louie Tikas,

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John Lawson of the United Mine Workers: “A whitewash for the militia was the only thing possible.””

Hellraisers Journal: Comrade Marians, Socialist of Trinidad, Colorado, Warns of Reorganization of Murderous Militia Troop

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Quote Ludlow Mary Petrucci, Children all dead, ed, Trinidad Las Animas Co CO Affidavit, May 11, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 28, 1914
Trinidad Socialist Warns of Reorganization of Murderous State Militia

From The Day Book of August 27, 1914: 

COLORADO’S WAR THREATENS
TO BREAK OUT AGAIN

CO Militiamen and Mine Guards w Machine Gun Aimed at Ludlow, ISR p713, June 1914

Colorado’s labor war threatens to break out again. A. Marians, a union coal miner, secretary of the Socialist party local at Trinidad, Col, has sent a telegram to all Socialist state secretaries. The copy received by John C. Kennedy, Illinois state secretary, reads:

Comrades of America: Troop A of Trinidad and E of Walsenburg (Col.) National Guard organization, which massacred women and children at Ludlow, have reorganized to their full strength and are holding nightly meetings in their armories. Col. Lockett, commanding federal troops, states to citizens that he will permit militiamen to parade through Trinidad streets. Federals will then leave. Citizens openly declare these preparations mean further bloodshed, as company gunmen and Baldwin-Feltz detectives have been enrolled in the militia here for the past week. These things being so, we Socialists of Las Animas county appeal to Socialists of America to take immediate action to protect workers here from repetition of Ludlow massacre, as authorities of state and nation are impotent. Will you see the slaughter repeated without coming to our aid? This message was sent to every state secretary.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Militiamen, Including Linderfelt, Acquitted of All Charges Arising from Ludlow Massacre

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Quote John Lawson 1913, after October 17th Death Special attack on Forbes Tent Colony, Beshoar p74—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 27, 1914
Denver, Colorado – Verdict of Court-Martial: All 21 Militiamen Are Acquitted

Militiamen on Way to CO Strike Zone, ISR p708, June 1914

Governor Ammons has approved the findings of the general court-martial of the twenty-one officers and enlisted men who were charged with various crimes such as murder, manslaughter, arson, assault and larceny in connection with the Ludlow Massacre of April 20th.

Lieutenant Karl E. Linderfelt, the Butcher of Ludlow, was also acquitted. The Lieutenant’s assault upon Louis Tikas, while in military, custody was found to have been justified.

The governor will sign a formal order today approving the verdict of the court-martial.

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Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Coalfield Strike Still On; Federal Troops Serving as Scab Herders; Butcher Linderfelt Arrested

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 26, 1914
Colorado Strike Still On; Federal Troops Serve as Scab Herders; Linderfelt Arrested

Hamrock and Linderfelt Butchers of Ludlow, 1913, 1914, CO Coal Field War Project

The Labor World this week republished a report from the United Mine Workers Journal on the Colorado Coalfield Strike. The strike zone continues to be occupied by federal troops who have, sadly, taken on the role of scab herders.

Also reported was the news that Lieut. Linderfelt, “The Butcher of Ludlow,” has recently been arrested for trying to force a young girl into a rooming house. There is, however, no amount of depravity, regarding that particular officer of the Colorado National Guard, that would in any way surprise us. Linderfelt was one of the officers who took the lead in the Ludlow massacre, and was responsible for the murder of Louis Tikas.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Coalfield Strike Still On; Federal Troops Serving as Scab Herders; Butcher Linderfelt Arrested”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “War? If the masters want blood, let them cut their own throats.”

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Quote Pres Wilson Seeds of War, St Louis Sept 5, 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 25, 1914
General Death and Private Suffering Stride over Europe

From the Appeal to Reason of August 22, 1914:

War?
If the masters want blood,
let them cut their own throats.
—————

DRWG War Scourge of the Earth by Ryan Walker

Once more over Europe stride General Death and Private Suffering. About the feet of the great commander bloom, like flowers around the skirt of spring, white human skulls; the foliage before him grows red with brother gore; song birds turn to vultures; and fleecy white clouds are transformed into smoke curling from charred ruins. Everybody salutes you, General Death.

Though muffled in a military cloak, your face wears an unlipped smile. Though the sword in your bony fingers drips with blood, there is a something familiar in the terrifying personage. I know you now. You are the old Taskmaster, commanding to grimmer toil. But your fangs show, and the blood-tipped sword is a pen transformed. The burdensome flesh has dropped away, and I see the death’s-head of-CAPITALISM.

But the spirit-I see it now. At one time I believed your spirit-grim Capitalism with the lying smile, General Death the Hyde of the two-in-one-was wholly fiendish and deformed; but now I know it to be merely the concentrated spirit of the workers themselves. It is their own subserviency, their own ignorant imaginings, that give power to the whip-hand of the respectable and force to the sword-hand of the upbraided. Being that you materialize to the world. Should the workers change their own servile manner, change of conditions would immediately follow.

A change of spirit, and capitalism would disappear. He who has been materialized as General Death would cease both uniformed race-war and dress-suit class-war. Instead of the warrior and the slave, there would stand the Happy Worker, with glad wife and child by his side. Instead of skulls at his feet there would be flowers and fruit. For the vultures, birds of peace would throat carols of joy. Smoke of destruction would give place to placid skies. The bloody sword would be transformed into the tool that with a touch would pile before him beauty and abundance.

The lipless mouth of General Death, made to live through the spirit of the workers themselves, opens in prophecy. It bites this wisdom into dull ears:

“Evil is of your own making. The rivers of blood that shame the earth come from your own veins, from the blind strokes you yourselves dealt. Some day you will see and know. When you discern the truth, war will be forever at an end; the master will disappear; poverty and ignorance will vanish away; and then the hands that have slain shall make beautiful and good and joyous all the hills and valleys of earth, while fingers clasp across the borders that now are battlefields.”

LINCOLN PHIFER

[The Appeal warns that the U.S. may yet get involved in this war:]

International War May Involve the United States

Eight nations are now involved in the European war. Fifteen million soldiers are in the field, with prospect that twenty millions will be marching ere long. The loss in life exceeds already a hundred thousand. The situation, with big navies and aircraft taking part for the first time in the struggle of powerful nations, is appalling. Already starvation faces nations. The greatest calamity of all time threatens the world.

There is strong possibility that even America may be drawn into the war. The new Panama canal is a point of danger. If some navy should be permitted to use that short cut, then other navies would protest. A hundred possibilities suggest complications that might bring war.

The situation is extremely grave. Capitalism is on the verge of collapse all over the world, and in its effort to continue its existence is ready to drag to ruin all peoples and all advancement. This is the immediate threat.

Of course, beyond that is glorious possibility as well. The world will sicken of war. Autocracy will condemn itself. Capitalism is committing suicide. Just beyond the terrific crisis lies the beginning of the Co-operative Commonwealth. Socialists have everything to hope for, and are the only people on the earth who can see light in the darkness. We may congratulate ourselves on the tremendous sentiment that is already developing against war and against autocracy in industry. It is coming by leaps. The nations will be forced to Socialism in order to save themselves and civilization.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “War? If the masters want blood, let them cut their own throats.””

Hellraisers Journal: More Striking Miners Deported from Cripple Creek; White-Cappers Chant “You Can’t Come Back”

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 24, 1904
Cripple Creek, Colorado – Mob Warns Deported Miners: “You Can’t Come Back”

From The Rocky Mountain News of  August 21, 1904:

HdLn re Cripple Creek Deportations of Aug 20, RMN p1, Aug 21, 1904DRWG Cripple Creek Deportations of Aug 20, RMN p6, Aug 21, 1904

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: “We want every dollar we produce, and what is more, we are going to have it!”

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 23, 1904
Brooklyn, New York – Mother Jones Cheered at Meeting of C. L. U.

From the New York Sun of August 22, 1904:

UNION MEN DINE AND TALK.
———-
C. F. U. Joins With Brothers in Brooklyn in Cheering Mother Jones.
———-

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

The Central Federated Union of Manhattan and the Central Labor Union of Brooklyn met in the Labor Lyceum, Myrtle and Willoughby avenues, Brooklyn, last night, for a dinner with speechmaking on the side. About 300 men and women were present.

The guests of honor were John Z. White of Chicago and “Mother” Jones. The latter attracted the most attention and got the most cheers. In responding to the toast, “Law and Order in Colorado,” “Mother” Jones began by saying:

I hope the cheers you are giving me to-night you will give the Labor candidate for the Presidency the day after election.

Then she went on with parts of the speech she has been giving recently about her work and accounts of what she saw in the Colorado mining camps, and ended with an appeal for funds to help the Colorado miners in their struggle.

[She said:]

Even if you deplete your treasuries completely..it’s the best thing you can do with you  money.

John Sherwin Crosby talked on the “Open Shop,” opposing it.

Miss Annie C. Patterson urged the women to confine their purchases to those articles bearing the union label

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Eugene Debs Blast Insurgents of Butte WFM Local 1, “Foes of All Unionism”

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MJ Quote Solidarity————————-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 22, 1914
Mother Jones and Eugene Debs Blast Insurgents of Butte WFM Local 1 

From the Miners’ Magazine of August 20, 1914:
Mother Jones Opposes Insurgents’ Union in Butte

Butte Miners Hall after Explosion of June 23, ISR p89, Aug 1914

In a letter to the editor written August 13th and published in the August 20th edition of Miners’ Magazine, Mother Jones opposes, in no uncertain terms, the admission of the insurgent Butte Mine Workers’ Union into the United Mine Workers of America. Mother refers to this union, formed by the large majority of members who seceded from the W. F. of M.’s Butte Miners’ Union No. 1, as a “dual union.” Perhaps Mother has forgotten that the United Mine Workers of America itself was formed largely by members of the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 who had seceded from the parent organization.

Denver, Colorado
August 13, 1914

To the Editor of the Miners’ Magazine:

I have received a few letters from Butte, Montana, from  parties who were formerly identified with Butte Miners’ Union No. 1 of the Western Federation of Miners, but who are now members of Butte Mine Workers’ Union. I have not answered these letters owing to the fact that I cannot give my approval to the lawlessness that disgraced the greatest metal mining city of America-a city that has been lauded as the best organized mining camp in America.

Two of the parties who have written letters to me have stated that the Butte Mine Workers’ Union would seek affiliation with the United Mine Workers of America. It seems to me that the time has come when it is imperative that every man and woman who is interested in the cause of labor should speak in in no uncertain language relative to the situation that presents itself in Butte, Montana. I feel positive that the United Mine Workers of America will not court the admission of a local union that was born in dissension and promoted by disrupters who seem to have no scruples, as they destroyed with explosives a temple that stood as a monument to the pioneers who laid the foundation of Butte Miners’ Union. The United Mine Workers of America has never given its sanction or recognition to dual unions, and the coal miners of this continent, believing in the strength and power of labor solidified, will scorn to accept an organization that came into the world heralded by explosions of dynamite.

The Butte Mine Workers’ Union can have no standing with the bona fide labor movement of this country. The members of the Butte Mine Workers’ Union can only come into, or become a part of the United Mine Workers of America through the Western Federation of Miners, and if any members of this dual union are laboring under the delusion that they can become affiliated or become a part of the United Mine Workers of America, they should get rid of the deception immediately for the United Mine Workers believe with all their hearts and souls that solidarity of the working class that will one day be able to grapple with the hosts of greed. If the Butte Mine Workers’ Union ever becomes a part of the United Mine Workers of America, it must come under the flag of the U. M. W. of A. as members of Butte Miners’ Union No. 1, W. F. M. , or remain outside the pale of the labor movement. The United Mine Workers of America will demand that those seeking affiliation or amalgamation shall come in with clean hands, not as secessionists, but standing under the banner of the Western Federation of Miners-an organization that for more than twenty-one years has fought the battles of labor in Western America, and though defeated in a number of battles has never been conquered.

I have fought for the men of the coal mines for many long years. I have helped to establish the United Mine Workers, and my voice shall be raised in protest against the taking into its folds men who have seceded from the metal miners’ organization. I know the Western Federation of Miners. I have also fought its battles, and shall continue to do so, and I now serve warning on all who would seek its destruction that it will find no place in the United Mine Workers of America, unless it be as members of the Western Federation of Miners. If they have grievances against the management of their local affairs, let them go to work like men and adjust them, and not spend their time in an effort to destroy an organization such as the Western Federation of Miners, which will go down in history as second to none in fighting the battles for the emancipation of the toiling masses.

Mother Jones

[Emphasis added.]

——————–

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones urges the striking meat cutters of New York City to “squelch” both Roosevelt (R) and Parker (D).

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MJ Quote Solidarity————————-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 21, 1904
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Meat Cutters

From the Raleigh, North Carolina, Morning Post of August 19, 1904:

MOTHER JONES ON HAND

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

New York, Aug. 18.-Homer D. Call, National secretary of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters of America, arrived here today to take charge of the local beef strike, or what is left of it. He denied statements that men had been brought here to work in the plants in violation of the contract labor law.

“These people,” he said, “are cattle tenders who look after the cattle on the voyage and who return to Europe upon the next steamer.”

Mother Jones, who is always to be found where there is labor troubles, and is therefore in New York now, will address a meeting of the strikers tomorrow.

Mr. Call said that National President Donnelly, who had thought of coming to New York, had decided that it is not necessary to come here now.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones urges the striking meat cutters of New York City to “squelch” both Roosevelt (R) and Parker (D).”