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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 18, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – U. M. W. District 15 Holds Special Convention
-Mother Jones Speaks; Miners Vote to Strike
From The Rocky Mountain News of September 17, 1913:
Monday September 15, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – District 15 of U. M. W. of A. Meeting in Special Convention
The Special Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America begins today in Trinidad, Colorado. All efforts to negotiate with the mine owners has been exhausted, and it is expected that a strike call will be issued which could shut down the coal mines of the entire state of Colorado. Delegates from Huerfano County have made their way into Trinidad despite the declaration by Sheriff Jefferson Farr that not a single miner from his district would make it to the convention. Apparently, Farr and his 326 deputies were no match for the determined union coal miners.
Mother Jones is in Trinidad and will address the Convention tomorrow.
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Tuesday September 16, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Special Convention Opens with “Battle Cry of Union.”
The Special Convention of the United Mine Workers of America’s District 15 opened yesterday with 250 delegates singing the “Battle Cry of Union:”
We will win the fight today, boys,
We’ll win the fight today,
Shouting the battle cry of union;
We’ll rally from the coal mines,
We’ll rally from the hills,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
The union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the gunthugs and up with the law;
For we’re coming, Colorado,
We’re coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union
While general business was being conducted in the hall, the Scale and Policy Committee, led by John Lawson, took testimony from the coal miners of the southern fields. The grievances of the miners are many and include: being paid in script worth only 90 cents on the dollar at the company stores or saloons which they are forced to patronize, being robbed in the weighing of coal at the rate of 400 to 800 pounds per ton, being forced to vote according to the views of the company superintendent, being discharged for union membership, being discharged for voicing any complaint whatsoever about short weights, safety conditions or camp conditions.
But mostly the coal miners hate the company guard system. These gunthugs who lord it over them in the company towns, have become increasingly intolerable as the union organizing drive in the southern coalfield has progressed.
Mother Jones will speak at the convention today, a strike vote will be taken, and demands will be issued. The miners know full well that a strike will lead to to eviction from their homes. They will be homeless along with their families, creating 20,000 refugees in all. The U.M.W. has been shipping tents, food, blankets, and clothing into the area. Locations are being rented by the Union where strikers’ tent colonies can be established.
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Wednesday September 17, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Speaks: “Rise up and strike”
Mother Jones spoke yesterday to a hall packed with cheering miners. They were the delegates of the Special Convention called by District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America to consider a strike call for the southern coalfields. Mother spoke for over an hour; we can offer only a few excerpts:
“Don’t be afraid, boys; fear is the greatest curse we have.”
Don’t be afraid, boys; fear is the greatest curse we have. I never was anywhere yet that I feared anybody. I do what I think is right and when I die I will render an account of it. These miners have suffered, but it will have to come to an end, my boys. If your operators do not give to you that which is fair, then I say strike, but let the strike be the very last move you make. Don’t put it off either. The time is ripe now. If they don’t come to time we will lay down the tools.
“We are going to stand together and never surrender!”
Rise up and strike! If you are too cowardly to fight for your rights there are enough women in this country to come in and beat hell out of you. If it is slavery or strike, I say strike until the last one of you drop into your graves. Strike and stay with it as we did in West Virginia. We are going to stay here in Southern Colorado until the banner of industrial freedom floats over every coal mine. We are going to stand together and never surrender.
“Stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor.”
I want you to pledge yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more that props. Look things in the face…You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, “let the fight go on; if nobody else well keep on, I will.”
John Lawson gave the report of the Scale and Policy Committee and ended with this recommendation to the convention:
In view of the failure of our efforts to secure a peaceful solution of our differences, and in view of the fact that the operators have even refused to answer any of our invitations for a joint meeting, we hereby instruct that a strike call be issued by the District Policy Committee to all the mine workers in Colorado to take effect Tuesday, September 23, 1913.
The delegates of the convention gave their unanimous consent to Lawson’s recommendation.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Rise Up and Strike,
UMW D15 Conv Sept 16, Trinidad CO,
-from Denver Express of Sept 17, 1913
-per Foner (MJ Speaks) p236
https://books.google.com/books?newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ&dq=foner+mother+jones+speaks&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22rise+up+and+strike%22
The Rocky Mountain News
(Denver, Colorado)
-Sept 17, 1913, p1
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Out of the Depths
Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
History of the Labor Movement in the United States Vol. 5
Th AFL in the Progressive Era 1910-1915
-by Philip S Foner
International Pub, 1980
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
Mother Jones Speaks
-ed by Philip S Foner
NY, 1983
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Machinists Monthly p663, July 1913
https://books.google.com/books?id=vO3NAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA663
See also:
The Chronicle-News
(Trinidad, Colorado)
-Sept 17, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90051521/1913-09-17/ed-1/seq-1/
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/144/mode/2up
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/