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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 30, 1904
Denver, Colorado – Mother Jones to Governor Peabody: “You Don’t Own This State”
Mother Jones was deported by the military on orders of Governor Peabody on Saturday March 26th. With other organizers of the United Mine Workers of America, she was put aboard a Santa Fe train bound for La Junta, Colorado, some 65 miles north and east of Trinidad. They were all given deportation papers which warned them never to return. Mother sat all night in the station at La Junta, and the next morning, with the assistance of a sympathetic railroad conductor, she was able to board a train to Denver. From her hotel room, near the Governors office, she wrote the following letter:
Mr. Governor,
You notified your dogs of war to put me out of the state. They complied with your instructions. I hold in my hand a letter that was handed to me by one of them, which says “under no circumstances return to this state.” I wish to notify you, governor, that you don’t own the state. When it was admitted to the sisterhood of states, my fathers gave me a share of stock in it; and that is all they gave you. The civil courts are open. If I break a law of state or nation it is the duty of the civil courts to deal with me. That is why my forefathers established those courts to keep dictators and tyrants such as you from interfering with civilians. I am right here in the capital, after being out nine or ten hours, four or five blocks from your office. I want to ask you, governor, what in Hell are you going to do about it?Mother Jones
[Emphasis added.]
Mrs. Emma F. Langdon reported from Cripple Creek:
March 23, the militia was sent to Trinidad and martial law proclaimed and the work of confiscating firearms commenced. Midnight searches for weapons was common; men, women and children were dragged from their beds at all hours of the night and taken to the barren prairie to be threatened and in some cases tortured, to try and force them to disclose where guns where hidden.
A. Bartolli, an Italian typesetter of District 15, was arrested March 25, 1904. The following day the Italian paper was suppressed. The same day “Mother ” Jones, national organizer, William Wardjon, Joe Poggiani and A. Bartolli were deported from the county and with much abuse they were told never to return.”Mother” Jones was given five minutes to dress and get her clothing packed and taken to the depot by a rough squad, who forgot they owed their existence to a mother.
From the Chicago Inter Ocean of March 29, 1904:
DEPORTED MINERS SENT BACK.
———-
Men Who Tried to Return to Homes
Balked by Colorado Troops.DENVER, Colo., March 28.-Special counsel have been sent to Telluride to take charge of the case of Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, who is held in jail on a charge of desecrating the flag. Governor Peabody has declared that President Moyer will be prosecuted to the utmost limit.
Of the twelve deported Telluride miners who attempted to return to their homes under the protection of the injunction issued by District Judge Stevens, four at least have again been deported by the military and warned never to return.
“Mother” Jones, who was deported by the military from Trinidad, left Denver today for Crested Butte, and will work among the miners of Gunnison county, where martial law has not been established. She said that the militiamen did not give her time to get her clothes before leaving Trinidad.
Il Trovatore [Il Lavoratore], the Italian paper which was suppressed at Trinidad by the military, will be issued at Florence in Fremont county.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM,
Ab Chp 13, 1925
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/13/
Autobiography of Mother Jones
Chapter 13
CH Kerr, 1925
https://archive.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/13/
The Cripple Creek Strike
A History of Industrial Wars in Colorado, 1903-4-5
Being a Complete and Concise History of the Efforts
of Organized Capital to Crush Unionism
-by Emma F. Langdon
Great Western Publishing Company, 1905
(search: mother jones deported)-p297
https://books.google.com/books?id=WrF-AAAAMAAJ
The Inter Ocean
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Mar 29, 1904
https://www.newspapers.com/image/34583147/
IMAGE
Mother Jones Deported, DP p10, Mar 28, 1904
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-133DED07AFB38858@2416568-133DE58F6C038C30@9
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 29, 1904
Trinidad, Colorado – Coal Strike Leaders Deported on Orders of Governor Peabody
Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1903-1904
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1903-1904/
Tag: Telluride Strike of 1903-1904
https://weneverforget.org/tag/telluride-strike-of-1903-1904/
More on Il Lavoratore:
The Labor War in Colorado
-by Ben Hanford
Socialistic Co-operative Publishing Association, NY, 1904
Note: This source gives the name of the Italian Newspaper
as Il Lavoratore Italiano.
https://archive.org/details/laborwarincolora00hanfrich/page/24/mode/2up?view=theater&q=bartoli
Il Lavoratore was eventually transferred to Pittsburg, Kansas
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045289/
History of the newspapers and magazines published in Kansas from the
organization of Kansas Territory, 1854, to Jan. 1, 1916, together with brief
statistical information of the countries, cities and towns of the state.
-by Kansas State Historical Society; Connelley, William Elsey; King, Henry
Topeka, Kansas State Printing Plant, 1916 -page 70
https://archive.org/details/historyofkansasn00kansuoft/page/70/mode/2up
EDEARDO CAFFARO….Just previous to his coming to Pittsburg he was instrumental in the transfer of Il Lavoratore Italiano from Trinidad, Colo., to Pittsburg, Kan. Under his management II Lavoratore Italiano has made great progress, and it is to-day one of the largest publications of any weekly Italian newspaper in the United States, which gives itself entirely to the betterment of the laboring class.
II Lavoratore Italiano belongs to no political class, and never from its beginning took part either for or against any one of the political parties; always ready in a fearless and conscientious way to stand for that which is just, and for the advancement and welfare of what its name implies “the Italian laborer ” in this great land of America.
[Emphasis added.
Colorado: Trinidad, La Junta, Florence, Cripple Creek, Telluride
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Trinidad,+CO+81082/La+Junta,+CO/Florence,+CO/Cripple+Creek,+CO/Telluride,+CO/@38.0834448,-108.4435391,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m32!4m31!1m5!1m1!1s0x87111b6317b14511:0xe67a149990f618db!2m2!1d-104.5005407!2d37.1694632!1m5!1m1!1s0x87120760d1e279f9:0x58657417832aa931!2m2!1d-103.5438321!2d37.9850091!1m5!1m1!1s0x871480b72eb19f0d:0xaf993a05b02429e9!2m2!1d-105.1185988!2d38.3902777!1m5!1m1!1s0x8714a4857bc1cc4d:0xd14ac36d2725c603!2m2!1d-105.1783149!2d38.7466555!1m5!1m1!1s0x873ed87b70e6f473:0x38ee772171bae3e1!2m2!1d-107.8122852!2d37.9374939!3e0?authuser=0&entry=ttu
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Working Man, Miners’ Song – Welshman David Alexander
Lyrics by Rita McNeil