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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 4, 1913
Coal Miners of Southern Colorado Are Fighting to Win, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of December 1913:
[Part II of II]
Some one has said, “A fool in revolt is infinitely wiser than a learned philosopher apologizing for his chains.” Believing this, fully 95 per cent of the miners answered the call to strike [September 23, 1913]. Men with families within three days of starvation and without clothes enough to protect their frail bodies from the biting winds of mountain winters came out fully determined to win or die in the attempt. And who will blame them? Work such as the miner does is no longer honorable but has come to mean “drunkenness, vice and superstition.” It makes men and women unscrupulous, hard and restless. It destroys for others the treasure of life-a home. All the noble sentiments of liberty and the joy of labor mean in reality to the miner slavery of the worst type.
With thoughtless hymns of praise of this massacreing of labor, society allows one wholesale slaughter after another without a protest. While I am writing this the news arrived of the Dawson, New Mexico, disaster, in which the lives of 261 miners were lost and the operators refused to allow Secretary Doyle of the miners’ union to give the widows and orphans $1,000 donated by the union because the camp was non-union. And just as certain as that nothing becomes better without the desire to improve it so it is a healthy sign of the times that starvation wages for conscientious drudgery no longer fills the miner with heartfelt gratitude toward the master class.
The mine slaves were so cowed that the operators were sure that not more than 25 per cent would quit and when practically every miner laid down his tools, completely tying up the coal industry of Colorado, the wrath of the masters knew no bounds. They immediately got busy and sent a deputation of their lackeys, consisting of a lawyer, banker and a Catholic priest (Father Malone), to Washington to repeat the lies of the operators that the miners were satisfied with conditions but forced to strike by eastern agitators like Frank Hayes and Mother Jones. Their thugs began to terrorize the country, shoot up the tented camps of the strikers, insult the women and abuse the children and the operators began to call for the militia that the state might pay the cost of breaking the strike and thus save John D. a few paltry dollars with which to build a few more churches and start more Sunday schools where they sing and PREY-“servants obey your masters.”
Failing to get the militia as soon as they called, the operators had to content themselves with filling the jails of Colorado with strikers who dared to exercise their constitutional rights of peacefully asking imported strikebreakers to not work. In the city of Boulder and within the shadow of Colorado’s greatest educational institution, the state university, thirty-six were confined in the county jail until the court permitted the prisoners to bail each other out. Forty-nine others were arrested in Las Animas county and marched seven miles to the Trinidad jail between two rows of armed guards with Belk and Beltcher (out on bond for murder of Lippiatt), following up the rear with a Gatling gun mounted on an armored automobile.
Frank Hayes says, “The operators have several machine guns mounted on autos. They also have what is known as the ‘steel battle ship [Death Special].‘ This is an automobile with a high body of solid sheet steel built up so as to almost conceal the guard inside. The steel furnishes resistance to the bullets and is so arranged that the assassins on the inside may shoot their rifles in perfect safety. It is a splendid refuge for a coward. The body of the machine is shaped like a torpedo and was designed and built for mine guards. It carried a rapid fire machine gun with a range of more than two miles. As bad as West Virginia was there was nothing down there to compare with this latest instrument of murder that the operators of Colorado are using.”
As this procession neared town, G. E. Jones, a member of Western Federation of Miners, attempted to get a picture of the armored car. A. C. Felt beat him insensible and destroyed his camera and had him arrested for disturbing the peace.
Gun men patrol the public roads in armored autos, shooting up first one camp and then another. The first resistance the strikers offered was at Forbes, October 17, one striker was killed, two wounded and a deputy shot in the hip. One hundred and forty-seven bullets from a machine gun passed through a tent occupied by an aged Scotchman, who saved his life by lying flat on the floor. After this battle the miners made preparations to defend themselves from further attacks of the guards.
The miners hold the strategic point at Ludlow, where the guards made an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them in a battle that lasted from Friday night till Monday morning in which forty Baldwin guards were reported killed. This was too much for the operators, they could not stand to see the miners so successfully defending their homes, so they pulled the right string and the governor sent 1,000 militiamen under General Chase with orders to protect the property of the coal company and the lives of the guards.
Governor Ammons promised to be neutral, something absolutely impossible. When the question of right and justice is at stake there is no neutral ground and I anxiously await the developments of the next few days. The militia has made a bluff at disarming the guards but never took away any machine guns. They have given the strikers forty-eight hours to surrender their arms and ammunition or submit to search and seizure. Martial law was declared October 28 and since then everything has been quiet, such a quiet as precedes a storm. One thousand militiamen and 15,000 strikers face each other in southern Colorado and the miners haven’t forgotten Cripple Creek, and the yellow legs had better be good.
The class war that is now raging in the coal fields of Colorado is but the continuance of the age-long struggle that began when one class of people began living off the toil of another class, but not since the revolting slaves followed Spartacus in ancient Rome have the working class defended themselves and families against the master’s attacks as the coal miners of southern Colorado.
Strikes are the most antique weapon in the miner’s arsenal. Three and a half years of strike in northern Colorado cost $1,022,000 before the south was called out. But the educational value of a strike cannot be too highly estimated, “it implants that feeling of solidarity.” By completely tying up a coal industry which represents thirty different crafts, it has been shown that industrial unionism is indispensable to the welfare of labor.
The war of the classes is not confined to any particular place or any one craft. In every country where capitalism is developed, regardless of governments, races or religions, there the militiamen’s ready rifle cracks and the corporation judge binds and gags the workers with injunctions and opens the prison doors to all that hold such actions in contempt.
In Lafayette, where Greely W. Whitford imprisoned sixteen miners who held his contemptible court in contempt at the beginning of the northern strike, is a red revolutionary socialist city administration backed up by one of the strongest socialist locals of the state.
Slowly but surely the Samson, labor, is finding his strength. He is no longer blind. Over all the earth sweeps the spirit of revolt. Beneath the blood red flag of brotherhood rally the disinherited of the world with a feeling that “an injury to one is the concern of all.” The workers of the world are uniting. They have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to gain.
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THE MINERS OF LUDLOW
THE men of Ludlow, the largest of the tent colonies, decided that there was but one way to defend themselves from illegal force. They in turn were compelled to arm themselves and we are proud of their splendid courage, their daring achievements.
The men of Ludlow have shown how readily the bold, blustering gunmen will turn tail when confronted by men armed and ready to use their arms in defense of their tent homes; their women and children.
The swaggering, loud talking mercenaries developed another quality. Sprinting and marathon records were made by the brave guards in their anxiety to make safe getaways.
And then, the armored train, with machine guns mounted to sweep the camp.
All praise to our railroad men brothers. They one and all refused to man this death-dealing engine. But, among the Baldwins there was one who could run an engine, in a way.
And the “under-sheriff” of Las Animas county fired the engine.
An epitome of the whole situation, “the Baldwin at the throttle, the sheriff’s office firing the engine.”
It seemed hopeless; but not to the men of southern Colorado.
They went forward to meet the “death special” ere it reached the tent town which they claimed as their homes.
[The men of Ludlow] met the steel-dad train, manned by one hundred and ninety guards, armed with machine guns and modern rifles.
They engaged them; they forced them to slack down; to stop; to beat a hasty retreat; to back up, with more speed than dignity.
All hail to you men of southern Colorado!
When “justice” turned prostitute you defended your homes, your rights, as men should.
To Thermopylae; to Lexington; to the battle on the bridge across the Tiber, add “Ludlow,” where the embattled miners proved themselves able and willing to de fend their homes and their loved ones.- United Mine Workers’ Journal.
[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
International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Dec 1913, pages 330-334
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n06-dec-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 3, 1913
Coal Miners of Southern Colorado Are Fighting to Win, Part I
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 14, 1913
Ludlow Colony, Colorado – Gunthugs Attack Strikers’ Tent Village
Monday October 27, 1913 – Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado
-Fighting Continues as Miners Defend Their Families:
After the deputized gunthugs led by Linderfelt were forced to retreated yesterday morning, word came that another train was on the way from Trinidad full of mine guards who had been deputized by Sheriff Grisham of Las Animas County. These guards were heavily armed and the train was equipped with mounted machine guns. As it turns out, union men had refused to operate the train, and thus, the Baldwin-Felts Detectives were forced to operate the locomotive themselves.
As the train approached Ludlow this morning, it was met by 500 miners, with red bandannas tied around their necks. They were hidden on Water Tank Hill near the Green ranch. Louie Tikas was in command of the Greek miners, many of whom have seen military service back home. They opened fire on the train as it approached, and forced the Baldwin thugs to stop the train and back it up all the way to Forbes Junction. A blizzard is blowing in, and the fighting may be over for the day. There is no word on injuries at this time.
Tag: Dawson Mine Disaster of 1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/dawson-mine-disaster-of-1913/
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/
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Ballad of Mary Petrucci – Tom Breiding