Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado: “These Women Ain’t Going to Bite You.”

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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 23, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Leads Mass Parade to Confront Governor Ammons

Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, arrived Tuesday, October 21st, in Southern Colorado to make a personal tour of the strike zone. He came accompanied by several state officials. Near Walsenburg, on the public highway leading into the C. F. & I. Company’s Ravenwood Mine, an Oklahoma gunthug refused to give a pass to the chief executive of the state of Colorado so that he could continue on his chosen route. The private company gunthug said to the Governor:

You may be the governor and again maybe you ain’t. I dunno. But you ain’t got no pass to get in here and you ain’t going in, see?

Governor Ammons and his party of state official were forced to turn back.

In Trinidad, Governor Ammons sojourned at the Hotel Cardenas. Imagine his surprise when he looked out the window to find Mother Jones leading a parade of 1500 women and children who were followed by 2500 more in a grand show of support. The Colorado & Southern railroad refused Mother’s request to carry the strikers and their families from Ludlow into Trinidad, and yet many of them managed to make their way into Trinidad to march in the parade. They were joined by the women, children, and miners from many of the other tent colonies as well.

They all came marching and singing, (especially “The Colorado Strike Song”) led by a brass band, and carrying signs of protest:

Has the Governor Any Respect for the State?

A Bunch of Mother Jones’ Children

We Want Freedom, Not Corporation Rules

If Uncle Sam Can Run the Post-Office, Why Not the Mines?

We Are Not Afraid of Your Gatling Guns, We Have To Die Anyway

Give Us Another Patrick Henry for Governor

The Democratic Party is on Trial

Do You Hear the Children Groaning, O Colorado

Mother, believing that the residents of the tent colonies deserve an encouraging word from their Governor, brought the women and children into the hotel and straight up to the door of the Governor’s room. According to reports, every hallway was packed. Mother called to the Governor, but he would not come out. She beat on the door and yelled:

Unlock that door and come out here. These women ain’t going to bite you.

The Governor remained barricaded in his room.

Governor Ammons will leave the strike zone today or early tomorrow. Reports indicate that he is unwilling to call out the National Guard at this time. He told reporters:

The strike is no Sunday school picnic, but conditions aren’t as bad as I had been led to believe.

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From The Rocky Mountain News of October 22, 1913:

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SOURCES & IMAGES

Quote re Mother Jones, Fighting Angel, Denver CO ULB p1, Sept 20, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91052295/1913-09-20/ed-1/seq-1/

Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, A Labor Leader
-Barron B. Beshoar
Colorado Labor Historical Committee
of the Denver Area Labor Federation, 1942
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse/page/79/mode/1up?view=theater&q=mother+jones

The above photo is a detail of the photo below.
This photo appears to be from the march of Oct 21, 1913,
however no absolute proof found thus far. More research needed.
-from p28/36
https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2018/Heritage%20MarApr14-web.pdf

See also:

More on Elias Milton Ammons, Democratic Governor of Colorado, 1913-1915:

…On November 5, 1912, Ammons was elected Colorado’s nineteenth governor, and on January 14, 1913 he was sworn into office. During his tenure, he advocated education improvements, he endorsed increased highway construction, and he initiated a state parks system. The state was reapportioned for congressional districts, and the election of Colorado’s U.S. Senators was changed to a popular vote. Also during his administration, the civil service system was fortified, and laws pertaining to public utilities, banking, and insurance issues were improved. Ammons’ most challenging issue was the Ludlow Massacre, a coal miners’ strike, which ended in violence when the National Guard was called to out vacate miners from company property….

[Emphasis added.]

The biographer is playing loose with the facts here. The tent colonies were not established on company property. The striking miners and their families, having been evicted from the company towns into the rain and wet blowing snow, moved into tent colonies on land rented by the United Mine Workers of America. They had every right to be there.

National Governor’s Association
http://www.nga.org/…

Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/

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Colorado Strike Song