Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Will Speak to Women of Colorado Relief Committee at Brooklyn, New York

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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 – Saturday May 16, 1914
Brooklyn, New York – Mother Jones to Seek Aid for the Colorado Strike

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 14, 1914:
Mother Jones to Speak to Women of Colorado Relief Committee

MOTHER JONES TO SPEAK HERE MONDAY
———-
Committee Meets at Home of Mrs. J. P. Warbasse
to Perfect Arrangements
———-

FOR AROUSING SYMPATHY
———-
She Will Tell of Her Experiences in Colorado Strike,
Where She Was Arrested.

———-

Refugees of Ludlow Tent Colony at Trades Assembly Hall,
Trinidad, Colorado, photograph by Louis Dold

The committee in charge of the Mother Jones meeting, to be held at the Masonic Temple Monday evening met at the home of Mrs. James P. Warbasse [Agnes Dyer Warbasse], 386 Washington avenue yesterday afternoon, and discussed the arrangements. The object of the meeting on Monday is to arouse interest and sympathy for the wives and children of the Colorado mine workers who are suffering for want of food and clothing, and all who attend are requested to bring warm clothing blankets, etc., to be sent to Colorado.

Mother Jones who was in Colorado during the mine trouble, was asked to go to Washington to testify before the Senate in the investigation of the alleged massacre of women and children in the fight between the strikers and the militia. She has never spoken in Brooklyn before, and has come at the request of the women of Brooklyn, who formed the Colorado Relief Committee, to tell of her experiences in Colorado, where she was arrested on her way from Denver to Trinidad, and held by the military court for three weeks incommunicado not being allowed to employ a counselor or see a physician during that period and being released just before the serving of a writ of habeas corpus.

“This was all illegal, according to the laws of Colorado,” declared Mrs. James P. Warbasse to an Eagle reporter, at her home, yesterday afternoon. “A military court should not have been held when the civil courts were in session, and then think of an old woman like Mother Jones being held without the opportunity of consulting a physician. However, she is free now and she is going to tell the public just how things stand out there. She accepts no remuneration for her talks, and says it is payment enough to arouse the interest and sympathy of the public in the oppression and suffering of the Western miners.”

Mrs. Warbasse, who is actively interested in social work, was present in her automobile when Miss Elizabeth Dutcher was arrested on Tuesday evening, in front of Stern’s store on Forty-second street, Manhattan, where she had gone to speak to the employees on the unionization of clerks in department stores. Mrs. Warbasse furnished the bail.

Miss Dutcher is a member of the committee in charge of the meeting on Monday, as is also Mrs. Frank H. Cothren, who is acting as advisory counsel to Miss Dutcher, and Miss Hildegarde Kneeland, who was also present at the time of arrest.

“I think it a very significant thing that Mother Jones is coming here for the first time, at the request of the women of Brooklyn,” said Mrs. Warbasse, “and we think the time is ripe for bringing before the public some of the wrongs and oppressions suffered by the poor people in this country. I think this quotation will explain our attitude as well as anything. ‘He who would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression.’ We have tried to help the sufferers in Colorado by sending Miss Helen Schloss, a trained nurse, and at her request we are raising funds for clothing and food, for which these people are suffering. A collection will be taken up for their benefit on Monday evening.”…..

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Rockefellers Are Undisturbed by “Agitators” as Colorado Miners and Families Mourn Their Loss

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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 – 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:

Ludlow Massacre Not in Mexico But in CO by Rollin Kirby, AtR p2, May 9, 1914

QUIET DAY FOR ROCKEFELLERS
———-
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.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason Correspondent, John Kenneth Turner, Begins Series on “Government by Gunmen”

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 14, 1914
Mother Jones Praises John Kenneth Turner’s Series, “Government by Gunmen”

From the Appeal to Reason of May 9, 1914:

John Kenneth Turner Opens Fire
On Government by Gunmen

WV Mother Jones w John Kenneth Turner 1913, AtR p1, Apr 11, 1914

Here follows the introductory article of the “Government by Gunmen” series. In investigating these facts John Kenneth Turner risked his life, as it required his association with gunmen, detectives and the riff-raff of capitalist society. Several times he was warned by friends to drop his investigations. A reformed gunman has written the Appeal urging us to suppress this series if we valued Turner’s life. But the author of “Barbarous Mexico” and the investigator of West Virginia and other recent labor wars, laughs at this threat. He believes that the publicity given to this series will not only protect him but all who are today in danger of being “eliminated” by the murderous detective agencies. Here then is the beginning of the “Government by Gunmen” series. And every week for nearly half a year we shall bring before the public bar the strongest indictment of Capitalism’s Invisible Army that was ever attempted in this country. The Appeal feels that our first and most important duty is to abolish Government by Gunmen. It must be done-it will be done. 

By JOHN KENNETH TURNER
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.

Gunthug Gun n Booze, AtR p1, May 9, 1914

In the county jail at Marysville, Cal., a short time ago I talked with two young workingmen who were on trial for murder. A jury of twelve men-not working men-has since declared them guilty and a judge has sentenced them to imprisonment at hard labor for the rest of their natural lives.

Yet these two workingmen had not killed anybody. Nor had they planned or attempted to kill anybody.

One, Richard Ford, is ruined for life-torn from his wife and two little children forever-solely because he became the spokesman for 2,300 hop-pickers who went on strike against intolerable conditions.

The career of the other, Herman Suhr, is blasted-he too, is unfortunate enough to possess a wife and two children-solely because he signed a number of telegrams asking that organizers be sent to the hop-fields to enroll the 2,300 pickers in a labor union.

The arrest, the trial and the conviction of Ford and Suhr was a deliberate frame-up of a ring of capitalists, in which a private detective agency took a necessary and criminal part…..

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Coroner’s Jury Blames Colorado Militia for the Ludlow Massacre

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 13, 1914
Coroner’s Jury Blames Militia for Ludlow Massacre

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

From the Appeal to Reason of May 9, 1914:

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.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mary Petrucci of Ludlow: “She touched and called to her three children, and they were all dead.”

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Ludlow Mary Petrucci, Children all dead, Affidavit, May 11, 1914
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday May 12, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – The Affidavits of Mary Petrucci and Maggie Dominiske

Black Hole of Ludlow

———-

AFFIDAVIT.

State of Colorado, Las Animas County, ss:

Mary Petrucci, of lawful age, being first duly sworn, on oath testified as follows: That her name is Mary Petrucci; that affiant had started to wash, and a little later heard two bombs go off, and noticed the soldiers running toward the steel bridge, and they started to shoot down at the colony; affiant states that it was about 9 o’clock [April 20th]; and then affiant went into her cellar hole; that when affiant went into her cellar hole she took her three children, ages 4 years, 2 years, and 6 months, respectively; that affiant remained in the cellar until 6 o’clock in the evening, when her tent was set on fire; affiant states that her tent was the first one fired, as her tent was No. 1; affiant states that her tent was the tent nearest the railroad track; affiant states that when the shooting commenced with the machine guns the bullets were so thick in he tent that she shut her cellar door; that about 6 o’clock in the evening affiant saw some fire on her cellar door, and on looking out saw that her tent was on fire, whereupon she took her three children and went to the cellar hole occupied by Mrs. Costa and other women and children to affiant unknown; that shortly after affiant reached the above last-mentioned cellar hole the tent took fire, and the women and children commenced to cough, and they were all choked with the smoke; affiant further states that she lost consciousness until the next morning, when she touched and called to her three children, and they were all dead; affiant states that she went to the Ludlow station and came to Trinidad; affiant states that she does not remember anything of the trip from Ludlow to Trinidad; that affiant was taken sick with pneumonia caused by exposure and grief; affiant states that on account of being ill she never saw her three children after leaving them in the cellar hole; affiant states that when she came out of her cellar hole the guards were shooting after her, and she started to the cellar hole where Mrs. Costa was because it was dug in under like a mine, and affiant thought it would be safer, and the guards yelled, ” Get away from there”; affiant states that she had the three children, and she had nowhere else to go, so I went in there.

Further affiant saith not.

MARY PETRUCCI.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 11th day of May, 1914,
[SEAL.]

Leon V. Griswold, Notary Public.

My commission expires September 10. 1917.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Don MacGregor for the Chicago Day Book: “Rockefeller Spread Terror to Unborn Babes in Colorado”

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

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 11, 1914
MacGregor Describes the Terror Wrought in Colorado by Rockefeller’s Murderers

From The Day Book of May 6, 1914:

Rockefeller Terror Colorado Coalfield War by Don MacGregor, Day Book p1, May 6, 1914

And I saw little children, with wide and reddened eyes, run from my approach because I was a stranger and the Ludlow massacre of the innocents had taught them fear of all strangers.

I stopped my machine to talk to one little girl of seven. She ran from me, stumbled, fell, and lay clinging to the earth, her small body shaking with sobs.

“Are you scared of me?” I asked.

Her sobs became more violent.

“I’m your friend,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Why are you afraid of me?”

She turned a terror-stricken face to me for a moment.

“I don’t know you,” she said. “And you came in an automobile. And-“

She buried her wet face in the earth and fell to sobbing again.

At the Jackson tent colony, twelve miles from where the fighting took place, a woman came to me and fell on her knees. She was soon to be a mother.

“Can’t you get me away from here?” she cried. “I don’t want my baby born here within reach of the machine guns. There was a woman going to have a baby at Ludlow, and-and they burned them both.”

She was silent for a moment; then waved her hand toward her husband, who stood at her tent door, leaning on a rifle, his face as grim as death itself.

“Besides,” she said proudly, “I want my man to be down at the front fighting the gunmen with the rest, and he can’t leave me alone here. Get me away.”

Mothers pleading that their babies might be born out of reach of Rockefeller’s guns! That they might be removed from danger so their men could go to the front-against Rockefeller!

Was it not enough to make men’s hearts red with rage? Was it not enough to rouse the murder lust within them?

I tell you there were times there when I felt like hanging every Rockefeller murderer who fell into our hands, without ceremony and without compunction. I think my hands would have been clean.

And yet those miners, who have been called every murderous name the mine owners or their hired press agents could think of, captured four mines outside Walsenburg and gave every gunman at them safe conduct out of the district when they raised the white flag!

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: “Men don’t scare easy when they fight to keep other men from burning their homes.”-Don MacGregor

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

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 10, 1914
Don MacGregor Describes the Battle of the Hogback, Near Walsenburg

From the Chicago Day Book of May 5, 1914:

Remember Ludlow Battle Cry on Hogback Near Walsenburg CO, Day Book p1, May 4, 1914

They fired carefully, deliberately. They didn’t fire to frighten but to kill.

But they didn’t shoot at those militiamen because the blood lust was in their veins. They shot because the memory of Ludlow was in their minds.

Soon after the battle started, Rockefeller’s murderers at the Walsen mine turned their machine guns on the city of Walsenburg. Two men were killed there, while women and children crouched in terror in the basements of their homes.

Such was the battle of Walsenburg, in which 300 strikers Wednesday [April 29th] defended their position on a hilltop against about 200 so-called militiamen.

They tell me that one militiamen and ten gunmen were killed. It’s too bad but they shouldn’t be militiamen and gunmen. They shouldn’t be working for greedy coal operators against men and women and children who are striking for bread.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t working against the women and children. The men can stand their attacks. But when they kill wives and mothers and babies, kill them for hire it’s different.

I never knew braver or better men than those miners. They’re rough; they’re ignorant, but they’re men. They love their families.

And I know that when they fought the militia at Walsenburg it was simply to protect their families.

It wasn’t for revenge. It was from fear of another massacre.

The strikers under me occupied a position on a hill “the Hogback.” One-half mile back of them was their camp of Toltec, and stretching twelve miles back of that were seven other strikers’ camps in which were fifteen hundred women and children. All that stood between John D. Rockefeller’s murderers and these fifteen hundred women and children was “The Hogback” and the strikers on it.

And every man was thinking of Ludlow. Four men who had lost wives and children in the massacre there were in our ranks. They’d told the story of Ludlow, over and over again. They’d told how the militiamen and the gunmen, brought to Colorado to kill for hire, had trained their machine guns on the camp. They’d heard how the tents were set on fire, how the children screamed and died in cruel flames!

And they were determined to die rather than let those militiamen reach the camp back of Walsenburg.

We didn’t do wrong. We didn’t resist officers of the law. We resisted men who have preyed on us for months, who have shot us down, who have burned our camps and who have killed our women and children. That’s the awful part.

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Hellraisers Journal: Battle of the Hogback, Denver Express Reporter, Don MacGregor, Lays Down His Pen and Picks Up a Gun

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Quote CO Labor Leaders Call to Arms, Apr 22, ULB p1, Apr 25, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 9, 1914
Colorado Coalfield War – Don MacGregor Lays Down His Pen and Picks Up a Gun

April 27-29, 1914 – Battle of the Hogback Above Walsenburg
Don MacGregor Leads the Redneck Miners’ Army

CO Coalfield War, Apr 21-Apr 30, 1914, Coal Field War Project
Striking Miners at Camp Beshoar, Ready for Battle
The Battle of the Hogback between the strikers and the mine guards raged for three days on the ridge above Walsenburg with losses reported on both sides. The Hogback extends west from the northern edge of downtown Walsenburg. Here the miners were led by Don MacGregor, dressed in “top boots and bandoliers.” From their position on the Hogback striking miners attacked the Walsen Mine and the mines near Toltec and Picton. They established their headquarters at the Toltec Union Hall.Sheriff Farr declined to participate in the battle. He and his guards barricaded themselves within the granite courthouse as the miners took control of parts of Walsenburg, including 7th Street. The miners ran supplies from there out along the Hogback to their embattled comrades.

Don MacGregor, Reporter for the Denver Express
We can only speculate as to what caused MacGregor to lay down his pen to join the fight of the miners. He had been covering the strike from the beginning for the pro-union Denver Express. He was there that first day of blowing rain and snow as the evicted miners and their families came down from the hills and began to set up camp at the Ludlow Tent Colony. He reported:

No one who did not see that exodus can imagine its pathos. The exodus from Egypt was a triumph, the going forth of a people set free. The exodus of the Boers from Cape Colony was the trek of a united people seeking freedom.

But this yesterday, that wound its bowed, weary way between the coal hills on the one side and the far-stretching prairie on the other, through the rain and the mud, was an Exodus of woe, of a people leaving known fears for new terrors, a hopeless people seeking new hope, a people born to suffering going forth to new suffering.

And they struggled along the roads interminably. In an hour’s drive between Trinidad and Ludlow, 57 wagons were passed, and others seemed to be streaming down to the main road from every by-path.

Every wagon was the same, with its high piled furniture, and its bewildered woebegone family perched atop. And the furniture! What a mockery to the state’s boasted riches. Little piles of rickety chairs. Little piles of miserable looking straw bedding. Little piles of kitchen utensils. And all so worn and badly used they would have been the scorn of any second-hand dealer on Larimer Street.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “The So-Called ‘Militiamen’ are only gunmen and thugs wearing the uniform.”-Ludlow Massacre

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Quote Helen Ring Robinson, Mine Owners Plug Uglies to Blame for Ludlow, RMN p5, Apr 22, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 8, 1914
Godfrey Irwin Describes the Ludlow Massacre and the Killing of Louie Tikas

From the New York World of May 5, 1914
Interview with Godfrey Irwin, an Electrical Engineer employed by the Electrical Transportation and Railroad Company of Trinidad:

Gunthug Militia in Front of Ludlow Saloon, CO 1913 1914, Coal Field War Project

On the day of the Ludlow battle a chum and myself left the house of the Rev. J. O. Ferris, the Episcopal minister with whom I boarded in Trinidad, for a long tramp through the hills. We walked fourteen miles, intending to take the Colorado & Southern Railway back to Trinidad from Ludlow station.

We were going down a trail on the mountain side above the tent city at Ludlow when my chum pulled my sleeve and at the same instant we heard shooting. The militia were coming out of Hastings Canyon and firing as they came. We lay flat behind a rock and after a few minutes I raised my hat aloft on a stick. Instantly bullets came in our direction. One penetrated my hat. The militiamen must have been watching the hillside through glasses and thought my old hat betrayed the whereabouts of a sharpshooter of the miners.

Saw Tikas Murdered.

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. Then the miners ran about in the tent colony and women and children scuttled for safety in the pits which afterward trapped them.

We watched from our rock shelter while the militia dragged up their machine guns and poured a murderous fire into the arroyo from a height by Water Tank Hill above the Ludlow depot. Then came the firing of the tents.

I am positive that by no possible chance could they have been set ablaze accidentally. The militiamen were thick about the northwest corner of the colony where the fire started and we could see distinctly from our lofty observation place what looked like a blazing torch waved in the midst of militia a few seconds before the general conflagration swept through the place. What followed everybody knows.

Sickened by what we had seen, we took a freight back into Trinidad. The town buzzed with indignation. To explain in large part the sympathies of even the best people in the section with the miners, it must be said that there is good evidence that many of the so-called “militiamen” are only gunmen and thugs wearing the uniform to give them a show of authority. They are the toughest lot I ever saw.

No one can legally enlist in the Colorado state militia till he has been a year in the state, and many of the “militiamen’” admitted to me they had been drafted in by a Denver detective agency. Lieutenant Linderfelt boasted that he was “going to lick the miners or wipe them off the earth.” In Trinidad the miners never gave any trouble. It was not till the militia came into town that the trouble began.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: The little boy raised up his hands and said “Don’t shoot for my mother’s sake.”-Affidavits from Ludlow

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 7, 1914
Las Animas County, Colorado – Affidavits from Survivors of Ludlow, Part II

Children of the Ludlow Tent Colony

Children of Ludlow bf Massacre, CO Coal Field War Project Daily Life, 1914

The little son of Ometomica Covadle pleads for the life of his mother:

AFFIDAVIT.

State of Colorado, Las Animas County, ss:

Ometomica Covadle, being of lawful age, being first duly sworn, on oath deposes and says: That her name is Ometomica Covadle. I was going up to the store in the daytime, and the guards were all around the tents, and they start to shoot at the tents, and I only had time to get hold of my baby son, about 10 years old, and get into the pump; and the soldiers came up and tried to shoot inside where we were, and that came out of the pump when they tried to shoot with the machine guns and went into the arroyo. There were two dead men, and they jumped right on top of them. Couple of soldiers came out of the arroyo and was going to kill both of us, and the little boy raised up his hands and said, “Don’t shoot, for my mother’s sake.” I had a machine, and the soldiers took it out, and a lot of other stuff, and took it to the depot and kept it. They stole a trunk full of my clothes; I saw them take it with my own eyes. I had $5 in money that was stolen. They told me that I should be happy that you all were not killed.

Ometomica (her x mark) Covadle.
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]

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