Category: Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike 1913-1914

Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Gertrude Lee, Chairman of Democratic State Committee of Colorado, Will Not Help Free Mother Jones from Military Confinement

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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 30, 1914
Sterling, Colorado – Mrs. Lee Refuses to Help Free Mother Jones

From The Cincinnati Post of January 28, 1914:

Mrs Gertrude Lee, Chair of CO Dem State Com, Will Not Help Mother Jones, Cnc Pst p3, Jan 28, 1914

(Will woman suffrage make good in Colorado?

That is the question all the United States is asking today. That question was put up to Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee, Chairman of the Democratic State committee in Colorado. The Governor and his militia Generals, who placed 82-year-old Mother Jones in solitary confinement in a military prison, are members of her party. The following is from the Denver correspondent of the Post, who went to Sterling to see Mrs. Lee.-Editor’s Note.)

STERLING, COLO., Jan. 28.-(Spl.)-Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee, head of the Democratic State central committee, doesn’t know officially that Mother Jones has been illegally imprisoned or that the Colorado state troops rode down and beat women and children paraders with swords in Trinidad.

So she won’t protest

“I want to do what is right for the party and the women,” said Mrs. Lee, who has been recuperating from a nervous attack on a farm near here.

“I don’t know that there is anything wrong in the coal strike fields. I want time.”

“Do you believe any citizen-man or woman-should be deprived of his constitutional right of personal liberty and free speech without due process of law?” she was asked.

Mrs. Lee evaded the question five times and finally said, “No.”

Mrs. Lee will not ask the State [Democratic Party] committee to do anything about the coal strike that will embarrass Governor Ammons.

[Emphasis added.

Note: Mrs. Gertrude A. Lee is married to Colonel George M. Lee who is next in authority to General Chase in the state militia now occupying southern Colorado and enforcing its military despotism upon the striking miners, their wives and their children.

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Hellraisers Journal: Trinidad, Colorado: Strikers’ Wives March with Protest Banners Held High, “Mother Jones Has Not Done Anything That We Would Not Do”

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Quote Mother Jones, Ladies Women, NYT p3, May 23, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 26, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – “Mother Jones Has Not Done Anything That We Would Not Do”

From The Rocky Mountain News of January 25, 1914:

Photos Jan 22 Women March for Mother Jones w Banner, RMN p12 Jan 25, 1914

Women March for Mother Jones with Banners:

MOTHER JONES HAS NOT DONE 
ANYTHING THAT WE WOULD NOT DO.

WE HAVE BUT TO SEEK AND 
SURELY GOD WILL SET US FREE

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Hellraisers Journal: Trinidad-Women March in Support of Mother Jones; Chase Orders, “RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!”

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Quote Mother Jones, Ladies Women, NYT p3, May 23, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 24, 1914 
Jan. 22-Trinidad, Colorado – General Chase Orders Cavalrymen:

“Ride Down the Woman!”

Jan 22 Trinidad CO Sabers Slash, Chase v Women, RMN p1, Jan 23, 1914

The women of Las Animas County gathered in Trinidad on Thursday afternoon to protest the military imprisonment of Mother Jones. They came marching with their children across the Picketwire River bridge and headed up Commercial Street passing by the Columbian Hotel. These were the women from the strikers’ tent colonies and they came singing the strikers’ song: “The Battle Cry of Union.”

Their banners proclaimed:

God Bless Mother Jones

We’re For Mother Jones

As they moved past Main Street, they were met by General Chase on his cavalry horse, and behind the General were his cavalrymen. Behind them were the infantry blocking the street. Nevertheless, the women and children continued singing as they marched toward the brave General and his troops. The General began to yell, “Don’t advance another step. You must turn back.”

The General spurred his horse forward and brushed against 16-year-old Sarah Slator. He berated her, raised his foot, and kicked her in the breast. His horse backed into a buggy and the General fell off. The women began to laugh at the site of the pompous General on the ground beneath his horse.

The General regained his feet, red-faced and furious, and shouted to his men:

“RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!”

The cavalrymen spurred their horses forward, waving their sabers about and rode straight into the women and children. Several women were slashed: Mrs. Maggie Hammons received a gash across the forehead, Mrs. George Gibson nearly lost her ear, Mrs. Thomas Braley’s hands were sliced as she covered her face. Mrs. James Lanigan was knocked to the ground, and 10-year-old Robert Arguello was smashed in the face. A cavalryman chased the flag-bearer, Mrs. R. Verna, down the street, knocked her down with his horse, and tore the American flag away from her.

Young Sarah Slator showed great courage when she challenged a cavalryman who was threatening a mother with his bayonet as she struggled to run with her three-year-old child in tow. Sarah said, “You’re so low you could do anything.” Sarah was among the six women arrested. Twelve men were arrested later in the afternoon.

Colorado newspapers are full of derision for the victorious General and his triumphant cavalrymen. The Denver Express reported:

Great Czar Fell!
And in Fury Told Troops to Trample Women

A craven general tumbled from his nag in a street of Trinidad Thursday like humpty-dumpty from the wall. In fifteen minutes there was turmoil, soldiers with swords were striking at fleeing women and children; all in the name of the sovereign state of Colorado…The French Revolution, its history written upon crimson pages, carries no more cowardly episode than the attack of the gutter gamin soldiery on the crowd of unarmed and unprotected women.

Newsclip inset from above: The Rocky Mountain News of January 23, 1914

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Photographs from Trinidad Protest of January 22, 1914:

Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones 2, du edu, —–Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones, du edu, —–Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones 3, du edu, —–Jan 22, 1914 Trinidad CO Chase v Women Parade for Mother Jones 3, du edu,

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Hellraisers Journal: Gertrude A. Lee, Suffragist and Chairman of Democratic State Committee of Colorado, Could Help Free Mother Jones from Military Bastile

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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 21, 1914
Mrs. Gertrude Lee of Colorado’s Democratic Party Could Help Free Mother Jones

From The Cincinnati Post of January 20, 1914
-Write or Wire Mrs. Lee, of Colorado’s Democratic Party, to Help Free Mother Jones:

Gertrude Lee, Suffragist n Chair of CO Democratic Committee, Cnc Pst p1, Jan 20, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Wives of Strikers and Strike Sympathizers Invade Hotel of Gen. Chase, Demand Release of Mother Jones.

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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 17, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Chase: Mother Jones is “an Inciter of Violence and a Disturber”

From the Trinidad Chronicle News of January 15, 1914
-200 Women Invade Hotel, Demand Gen. Chase Release Mother Jones:

HdLn Women v Chase re Mother Jones, TCN p1, Jan 15, 1914

From The Day Book of January 16, 1914
-Mother Jones on Mexican “Bandits” and Colorado Soldiers:

Mother Jones re Mexican Bandits n CO Soldiers, Day Book p15, Jan 16, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Defies Chase, Returns to Trinidad, Arrested and Held as Military Prisoner at Local Hospital

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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 13, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Seized by State Militia, Held at San Rafael Hospital

From the Trinidad Chronicle News of January 12, 1914:

“Mother” Mary Jones, nationally known as a strike leader, is a military prisoner at the San Rafael hospital where she is being held incommunicado. The woman, who was deported from the strike zone Sunday, January 4, by the military authorities and warned not to return to the district under pain of immediate arrest, accepted the defi and returned this morning. She slipped quietly out of Denver at midnight on a C. & S. train.

That she expected arrest is indicated by her action in alighting at the D. & R. G. crossing this morning instead of waiting until the train reached the station. She walked to the Toltec hotel alone and took a room but did not register at once. The fact of her presence became known to the military authorities about eleven o’clock and a few moments later a military detail in command of Lieut. H. O. Nichols entered her room, placed her in an automobile and whirled her away to the hospital at full speed, with a swarm of cavalry men galloping behind the machine.

Apparently the only object of the aged strike leader had in returning to Trinidad was to see if the threat to arrest her would be carried out. It was. “Mother” Jones was apparently not surprised at the action but was loud in her denunciation of the “military despots who stab and spit upon constitutional rights.” She declares she has viloated no law and that she is willing to face any sort of a civil inquiry. “Why take me to a hospital?” she shouted at Lieut. Nichols , when arrested. “I am not sick! Why not take me to jail?” The prisoner made it clear that she was even more willing to be placed in a cell “for the sake of the cause.”

[…..]

[Paragraph break and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: San Francisco Bulletin: “The Stormy Petrel of the Strikers”-Mother Jones Deported from Trinidad, Colorado

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Quote Mother Jones, re Chase Deportation Will Return to Trinidad, Carbondale Dly Fr Prs p1, Jan 6, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 8, 1914
Denver, Colorado – Stormy Petrel of the Strikers States She Will Return  

From the San Francisco Bulletin of January 7, 1914:

Mother Jones, Stormy Petrel, SF Bltn p6, Jan 7, 1914

From the Chicago Day Book of January 5, 1914:

MOTHER JONES DEPORTED

Denver, Col., Jan. 5.-“Mother” Jones, the “angel” of the miners, was forcibly deported from the coal strike district at Trinidad on orders of General Chase, who had her met at the depot “when she arrived from El Paso and kept under surveillance of a detachment of military until the arrival of a train for Denver, when she was put aboard.

Lieut. H. O. Nichols and four soldiers guarded her to Denver. When the train reached Walsenburg, where “Mother” Jones had expected to make a speech to the strikers, she tried to talk to a group gathered around the station, but was prevented.

As the train pulled out of the station, she shouted: “I expect to visit you again, when Colorado is made part of the United States, but now-”

General Chase has ordered that she be sent out of the district never to return so long as the strike lasts. He says she will be deported every time she comes back. Mother Jones says she will return in two weeks. 

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Deported from Trinidad; Chase States She Will Be Held Incommunicado Should She Return

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I’ll go back; they can’t keep me from my boys.
I am not afraid of all the troops in the State.
-Mother Jones, New York Times
January 5, 1914
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 5, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Deported from Strike Zone by Militia

From The Washington Times of January 5, 1914:

Mother Jones Deported, WDC Tx p1, Jan 5, 1914

From The New York Times of January 5, 1914:

COLORADO TROOPS OUST MOTHER JONES
———-
Woman Strike Agitator Deported from Trinidad
Under Guard of Soldiers
———–

WARNED NEVER TO RETURN
———-
One Thousand Taxpayers Meet and Warn
Other Agitators to Get Out in Twenty-for Hours.
———-

Special to The New York Times.

TRINIDAD, Col., Jan. 4-“Mother” Jones was seized by the militia upon her arrival at Trinidad this morning from El Paso, taken from a Santa Fe train, held for two hours and deported from the strike district.

Capt. E. A. Smith, acting under orders from Gen. John Chase, met the train with a detachment of soldiers. The troops prevented a demonstration from the strikers at the station.

Mother Jones was held under surveillance until a Colorado & Southern train arrived from Denver. Then she was place aboard the train under guard of a lieutenant and four soldiers, and ordered never to return to the district. She had planned to spend several days among the coal strikers, and was to make a speech to-day at Walsenburg. The train on which she was being held under guard passed through Walsenburg.

Gen. Chase had been notified that she was on the way to Trinidad and acted so quietly that none of the strikers knew of his plans to deport her. When the soldiers took her in charge, she said:”I never had believed you would go this far.”

Contrary to her usual custom, she did not make any protest. While she was being held here she was not permitted to talk to any of the strikers or union leaders, the soldiers refusing to allow John McLennon, head of the mine workers, to speak to her.

At Walsenburg the train stopped for only a few minutes. Thousands of strikers, having been apprised by telephone of Mother Jones’s deportation, were at the station, but none was allowed to approach near enough to speak to her. However, she tried to make a speech.

The train pulled out just as she was assuring the miners that she would return to Colorado “as soon as it becomes a part of the United States.”

———-

Denver Col., Jan. 4-“The deportation of Mother Jones was the most disgraceful act ever perpetrated by supposed police officers in the Union,” said John McLennon [McLennan], President of the Colorado State Federation of Labor tonight.

“I’ll go back; they can’t keep me from my boys,” said Mother Jones on her arrival here to-night from Trinidad. “I am not afraid of all the troops in the State.”

“Gov. Ammons said: ” I do not care to express an opinion regarding the deportation of Mother Jones, because I am not fully aware of the circumstances, but I would not hesitate to express an opinion if the person concerned were a resident of Trinidad.”

After the deportation, Gen. Chase gave out this statement:

“Mrs. Jones was met at the train this morning by the military escort acting under instructions not to permit her to remain in this district. The detail took charge of Mrs. Jones and her baggage and she was accompanied out of the district under guard after she had been given breakfast. The step was taken in accordance with my instructions to preserve peace in the district. The presence of Mother Jones here at this time cannot be tolerated. She had planned to go to the Ludlow tent colony of strikers to stop the desertion of union members.

“If she returns she will be placed in jail and held incommunicado.”

Company G. First Infantry, Colorado National Guard, to-night was ordered to leave here tomorrow morning for Oak Creek to take charge of the strike situation in that district. In issuing the order Gen. Chase said that seventy-five men would leave on a special train.

[Emphasis added]

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Hellraisers Journal: El Paso-Mother Jones Praises Pancho Villa and the Rebels, Wishes We Had Men Like That in This Country

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Quote Mother Jones re Pancho Villa, Day Book p13, Jan 16, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 4, 1914
El Paso, Texas – Mother Speaks, Praises Pancho Villa and the Rebels

From El Paso Herald of January 3, 1914:

Mother Jones Speaks in El Paso, El P Hld p6, Jan 3, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Federation of Labor Committee Begins Investigation of Military Outrages in Coalfield Strike Zone

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Lt Linderfelt Jesus Christ, Dec 30 1913, Report CO BoL p185, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 3, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – State Federation of Labor Committee Begins Investigation

From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of December 27, 1913:

HdLn CO FoL Investigating Com in Strike Zone, ULB p1, Dec 27, 1913

—————

Wednesday December 24, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – C. F. of L. Investigating Committee Begins Hearings

The Committee established by the recent Convention of the  Colorado Federation of Labor to investigate alleged abuse by the military met in Trinidad yesterday to begin hearings on the matter. Now, Professor Brewster was asked to sit on the committee despite his views on the United Mine Workers which are less than favorable. Yet, the Professor is trusted as an honorable and fair man, willing to listen objectively to the evidence.

General Chase has refused to meet with the committee in spite of the letter from Governor Ammons requiring him to do so. He indicates that, perhaps, he will find the time at a later date to meet with the C. F. of L. Investigating Committee.

The committee heard testimony from Mrs. Maggie Dominske of Ludlow. She described how she was on her way to the Ludlow post office with a group of women when they were stopped by militiamen:

They put up their guns and said, “God damn you, don’t you go another step. If you do,we’ll shoot you. We’re getting tired of these sons-of-bitches coming up here and we’re going to put a stop to it.”

The Professor asked if the women had been on a public road, and Mrs. Dominske replied that, yes indeed, they had been using a public road.  The Professor declared:

I am surprised. Surprised. I wouldn’t have believed it if I had not heard it straight from these women. It is plain they are telling the truth.

We imagine that the good Professor will encounter many more such surprises before the investigation is completed.

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Wednesday December 31, 1913
Ludlow, Colorado – Lt Linderfelt declares himself “Jesus Christ”

Yesterday evening, a cavalryman was injured when his horse tripped on a piece of barbed wire. The injured man was brought to the Ludlow depot. A few minutes later Lieutenant Linderfelt appeared and went into a rage. Louie Tikas happened to be at the depot waiting for a train, also at the station was a boy of about fifteen years. Linderfelt focused on that boy, accusing him of setting the wire, and, when the boy denied the charge, began to beat him. Linderfelt next began to berate Louie:

There you are, you round-face son-of-a-bitch. You’re responsible for that wire.

Louie remained calm, but Linderfelt continued to rage. He gave an order to his men:

You Tollerburg fellows beat it over to the colony and cut every God damned wire around the place. The first man that interferes with you-shoot his head off.

Linderfelt then punched Louie in the face as he yelled:

I am Jesus Christ, and my men on horses are Jesus Christs, and we must be obeyed.

Witnesses report that Louie Tikas maintained his usual calm as Linderfelt struck him several more times. The lieutenant than ordered his men to take Louie to the military camp.

—————

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