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Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 18, 1903
New Castle, Colorado – Homes of Union Leaders Bombed
From The Denver Post of December 17, 1903:
Thursday December 17, 1903, New Castle, Colorado
Homes of Five Strike Leaders Bombed While Families Sleep
At 4:47 this morning, while the families of striking coal miners slept, bombs went off in five homes of known strike leaders. Amazingly, no-one was seriously injured. In one of the homes, that of John Lawson, his wife, Olive Lawson, and little three-year-old daughter, Fern, were sleeping in the dining room, which had been turned into a bedroom due to the small size of the actual bedroom. The bomb went off underneath that small bedroom, where the bomber must have thought it would cause the most injury.
The home of W. G. Isaacs was also bombed. Brother Isaacs was away from home at time, which is the only reason that his two children were not killed. Mrs. Isaacs had brought the two little ones into her bed to sleep with her. The house was set on fire by the blast but Mrs. Isaacs was able to escape through a window near her bed, and managed to save both of the children. The family dog was sleeping near the children’s bed, and was found burned to death after the fire was put out.
The homes of three other strike leaders suffered similar damage, including the homes of William Doyle and Evan R. Davis. A building owned by John and James Doyle, occupied by six families was also bombed.
The bombs all went off early in the morning. The local union is planning a meeting today to form a committee to investigate the attacks since the local authorities seem disinclined to do so.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/3
The Denver Post
(Denver, Colorado)
-Dec 17, 1903
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-133D9E6509828A30@2416466-133D93E05572EFB0@0-133D93E05572EFB0
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-133D9E6509828A30@2416466-133D93E056D7F238@2
The Cripple Creek Strike
-by Emma F Langdon
(Part I, 1st pub 1904)
NY, 1969
(scroll down to paragraph that begins, “December 17…”)
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/…
See also:
From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of December 21, 1911
-Olive and Fern Lawson:
Dec 18, 1903, Denver Post-Arrests Made re New Castle Bombings
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-133D9E65FB03DD48@2416467-133D93E05F527E60@0
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-133D9E65FB03DD48@2416467-133D93E060B99428@2-133D93E060B99428
Dec 24, 1903, Elbert County Tribune OH-New Castle Houses Dynamited
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051300/1903-12-24/ed-1/seq-5/
Beshoar re Fern and Olive 1903
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse/page/6/mode/1up?q=fern
Papanikolas re Lawson, New Castle, 1903
https://archive.org/details/buriedunsungloui0000papa/page/67/mode/1up?view=theater&q=lawson
Jan 30, 1915, Chicago Day Book re CIR Testimony of Lawson, Speaks of 1903
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1915-01-30/ed-1/seq-28/
Feb 13, 1915, Harper’s Weekly, p163-4, re CIR Lawson Testimony
(search: lawson rockefeller)
https://books.google.com/books?id=jhOQMzXMpckC
Jon Lawson quite casually told of having his home dynamited…
In the latter part of November or early in December, 1903, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., according to a Congressional investigation, made a statement that leaders of the miners’ strike then going on in Colorado ought to be driven out of the State. I don’t know that this statement had anything to do with it-I hope it did not-but on the night of December 17 the homes of the field leaders in New Castle were dynamited…..
Industrial Relations, Final Report Vol 8
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916
(search: 8003) Testimony of John Lawson, recalls 1903 strike.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0-keAQAAMAAJ
Industrial Relations, Final Report Vol 9
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916
(search: 8017) Testimony of John Lawson continued.
https://books.google.com/books?id=o-oeAQAAMAAJ
More on the bombings at New Castle, Colorado:
The union committee was able to amass quite a bit of evidence which they brought to the attention of the District Attorney, to no avail. The information implicated mine operator, Perry Coryell. It was found that eighty-five pounds of dynamite had gone missing form one of his mines. Coryell later shot Lawson in the lower abdomen with a shotgun. Lawson was unable to work for many months after that, but did eventually recover.
Blood Passion
The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West
-by Scott Martelle
Rutgers University Press, 2008
(search: 1903 “new castle”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=sH5oOK3MKqUC
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Here’s to every miner who dared to take a stand
who lived to feed his family and died a Union man