I can’t have my babies back.
But perhaps when everybody knows about them,
something will be done to make the world
a better place for all babies.
At least, I like to think so.
It is the only thing which gives me any comfort.
-Mary Petrucci
Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 20, 1918
Ludlow, Colorado – Monument to be Unveiled on Hollowed Ground
Let it be recorded in the annals of organized labor that those who perished on Ludlow field on the 20th day of April, 1914, died for a great cause, and let us who now do honor to their memory, so live and act that they may not have died in vain.
From the United Mine Workers Journal of May 16, 1918:
IN REMEMBRANCE
On the 20th day of April, 1914, the darkest chapter in the industrial life of America was written.
On the field of Ludlow, Colo., a tented city had been erected by the United Mine Workers of America to house the striking miners and their families after they had been evicted from their homes by the coal company gunmen at the commencement of the great strike in the southern coal fields.
Under the leadership of one E. K. Linderfeldt, a detachment of the Colorado state militia that had been recruited from gunmen imported into Colorado by the Rockefeller and other large coal corporations, deliberately planned the dastardly deed of shooting up and exterminating the peaceful tent colony at Ludlow. On Monday, April 20, 1914, the unspeakable crime was committed, and 33 men, women and children were brutally slain and their poor tented homes were burned to the ground.
Louis Tikas, strike leader, was done to death while held a prisoner by the militia.
After the tent colony had been riddled with bullets, the fiends incarnate who planned and executed the massacre poured oil over the tents and burned them to the ground.
Panic-stricken women and children, in the extremity of their terror, sought refuge in the cellars that had been dug under some of the tents, and next day the charred and mutilated bodies of two women and eleven children were found in one hole that had been the cellar to one of the tented homes of Ludlow.
They died because they chose to belong to the United Mine Workers of America, in the face of eviction, in the face of persecution, even unto death.
The soil of Ludlow field has been consecrated by their blood, and to the miners of America it is hallowed ground.
The International Union some time ago purchased the site upon which the tent colony had been erected, and with money donated by local unions and friends of the organization has had erected a monument to the eternal memory of that brave band who paid with their lives the last full price of their devotion to the United Mine Workers of America.
Over the yawning hole where perished the innocents the monument stands; a silent tribute in commemoration of the dead.
On Decoration Day, the thirtieth of May, the monument will be unveiled in the presence of a great gathering of Colorado miners.
The International Executive Board and the resident International officers will journey to Colorado to take part in the memorial services.
Let us keep their memory green, these humble soldiers, who gave up their lives in the great struggle for industrial freedom. We can pay them no higher tribute than that of giving our best service to the movement for which they died.
Let it be recorded in the annals of organized labor that those who perished on Ludlow field on the 20th day of April, 1914, died for a great cause, and let us who now do honor to their memory, so live and act that they may not have died in vain.
SOURCE & IMAGE
The United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 29
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-May 9-Dec 15, 1918
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of America
https://books.google.com/books?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ
UMWJ – May 16, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT40
“In Remembrance, The Ludlow Monument”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT45
See also:
WE NEVER FORGET: April 20, 1914,
The Ludlow Massacre
Song of Mary Petrucci at Ludlow – Tom Breiding