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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:
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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TELLS WHY MINERS DON’T THINK
THEY’LL GET SQUARE DEALDenver, Col., May 6.-“It is impossible to convince the striking miners of a square deal, when the coal companies import [scabs] into the mines under armed guards in violation of the state laws. We take this to mean they have the protection of United States troops.”
This telegram sent today to Representative Edward Keating at Washington by William T. Hickey, secretary of the Colorado Federation of Labor, who voiced a fear felt by many striking miners that the president’s disarmament order may injure their cause.
Officials of the United Mine Workers are anxious to learn whether the Colorado operators will be permitted to operate their mines with strikebreakers under guard of federal soldiers. If they are, there may yet be further trouble in the strike zone
A petition presented to Governor Amnions today asking him to amend his call for a special session of the legislature, was signed by ten members of the legislature.
They want the governor to include in the call authority to enact “an adequate law governing the leasing and operating of the state’s coal lands.”
Washington, May 6.-Col. Lockett, commanding the federal troops at Trinidad, Col., notified Secretary Garrison today that he will post the call for disarmament of citizens in the strike district tomorrow.
Hywell Davies, conciliator in the Colorado strike, returning to Washington this morning after a mysterious absence of several days, announced that he would not go to Colorado before next week. He will meet William Fairley, representing organized labor in the conciliation board, at St. Louis and they will proceed to Denver together. Fairley is now in Indianapolis conferring with union labor leaders.
Davies declined to explain his absence of the past few days, but denied that he had conferred with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., or any of his representatives. Davies believes that the underlying cause of the labor war in Colorado is the absentee ownership of the mines.
Denver, Col., May 6.-The special session of the Colorado legislature, now being held, cannot pass a compulsory arbitration law to end the Colorado coal strike.
In answer to numerous questions, Attorney General Fred Farrar today decided that, under the call for the special session issued by Governor Ammons, the assembly is limited to an appropriation bill to meet the military debts incurred as the result of the strike, and to the passage of proposed constitutional amendments for submission to people.
Progressives in the legislature today presented to the governor a letter urging him to extend the scope of his call so that the entire strike situation may be considered.
Five bills have been introduced at the direction of the governor covering the subjects set forth in the call. One of these, providing for a permanent state constabulary, has already aroused the bitter opposition of labor members and progressive Democrats.
Col. James Lockett, commanding the Eleventh Cavalry, today is in charge of the situation in Southern Colorado. No forcible disarmament has yet been attempted by the United States regulars there, Lockett having devoted all of his time since the arrival of his regiment yesterday to discussion of the situation with Major W. A. Holbrook, whom he succeeded.
A mass meeting of strikers was held today in the San Rafael camp to discuss the question of voluntary disarmament. Col. Lockett declined to state what course he would pursue should the strikers refuse to surrender their arms. He said, however, that practically every operating company in Southern Colorado had given assurances that its guards would be disarmed promptly.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote John Lawson 1913, after October 17th Death Special attack
on Forbes Tent Colony, Beshoar p74
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse/page/74/mode/1up?q=bandanna
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-May 6, 1914
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-05-06/ed-2/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-05-06/ed-2/seq-2/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-05-06/ed-2/seq-3/
See also:
Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-May 9, 1914
“Colorado ‘Soldiers’ Face Court-Martial for Murder”
“Tent Colony Horror Facts Are Revealed”
-86 men in Company B held responsible.
-Maj. Hamrock and Lt. Linderfelt to be arrested.
-Linderfelt was former Baldwin-Felts gunthu.
-Testimony re murder of Tikas.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1914-05-09/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1914-05-09/ed-1/seq-2/
United Labor Bulletin
(Denver, Colorado)
-May 9, 1914
“[Colorado Legislatures] Plan C.F.&I. Cossack Guards
-Perpetual Gun Government Proposed by Ammons Tribe”
“Vicious Law Drawn by Mine Owners to Make Every Citizen Their Agent”
“The Cossack Bill Makes Every Colorado Citizen a Rockefeller Gunman”
“1,600 Federal Troops in Colorado Bring Peace to Stricken War Zone”
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91052295/1914-05-09/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91052295/1914-05-09/ed-1/seq-6/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-May 9, 1914
Page 1:
“John Kenneth Turner Opens Fire on Government by Gunmen”-1st of Series
“John D.’s U. S. Troops Take Charge of Colo.”
“Upton Sinclair Jailed for Picketing John D.”
Page 2:
“Not In Mexico But in Colorado”-Cartoon by Rollin Kirby from NY World.
“Ludlow” by Charles Lincoln Phifer
Page 3:
“Coroner’s Jury Puts Blame on Militia”
Page 4:
“Turner’s Trail In Gathering Facts for ‘Gunmen’ Series”
“Mother Jones Praises Turner’s Gunmen Articles”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/140509-appealtoreason-w962.pdf
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 10, 1914
Don MacGregor Describes the Battle of the Hogback, April 27-29, 1914
“Men don’t scare easy when they fight to keep other men from burning their homes.”
Tag: Don MacGregor
https://weneverforget.org/tag/don-macgregor/
Tag: Ludlow Massacre
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ludlow-massacre/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield War of 1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-war-of-1914/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Women and Children of Ludlow – Tom Breiding
Lyrics by Frank Hayes, Vice President of United Mine Workers of America
from May 9, 1914, Denver United Labor Bulletin, page 6
