Hellraisers Journal: Thousands Gather in Denver for Rain-Soaked Protest Meeting; Ammons Denounced; Mother Jones Speaks

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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 27, 1914
Denver, Colorado – Thousands Gather to Protest Slaughter of the Innocent at Ludlow

From The Denver Post of April 27, 1914:

[Photos above: Top: Crowd standing in the rain at the state house. Bottom left: Edward Doyle. Bottom right: Jesse Vetter.]

Mother Jones Arrives in Denver

Mother Jones arrived in this city by train from Washington, D. C. yesterday. News of the Ludlow Massacre reached her while she was in the nation’s capitol as a witness before the House Investigating Subcommittee of the Committee of Mines and Mining.  She left for Colorado immediately after completing her testimony on Thursday.

Mother arrived in time to speak at a mass meeting of Denver citizens convened to confront the ineffectual Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado. Today’s New York Times pities the poor pathetic Governor, sympathy which would be better reserved for the former residents of the Ludlow Tent Colony, and most especially for the families of those who were murdered there.

From The New York Times of April 27, 1914:

GOV. AMMONS THREATENED.
———-
Impeachment or Recall if Special
Session Does Not Meet.

Special to the New York Times.

DENVER, Col., April 26.-a crowd of men and women, from 5,000 to 6,000 in number, and including Denver’s most prominent citizens, stood in a pouring rain on the lawn in front of the capital building this afternoon and heard the state Administration denounced for permitting what the speakers called the murders in the southern coal strike district.

Men and women cried as a resolution which the meeting adopted was read to them by its author, George Creel, former Police Commissioner of Denver, who is the husband of Blanche Bates.

The resolution demands the instant withdrawal from the field of the troops, and that Major Hamrock and Lieut. Linderfelt and the officers in command at Ludlow be arrested and tried for murder; that the State seize all of the mining lands and operate them, thus giving employment to all the idle men in this district, and that the Legislature repudiate the million dollar debt entailed by keeping the troops in the zone and force the coal companies to pay for their own guards.

Referring to Gov. Ammons and Lieut. Gov. Fitzgarald, the resolution says:

We brand Elias M. Ammons, Governor, and S. J. Fitzgarald, Lieutenant Governor, as traitors to the people and accessories to the murder of babes at Ludlow and we call upon the special session of the Legislature to impeach them as false to their oaths and their God, and, if there be no special session, we hereby pledge our selves to institute recall proceedings, so that these servile tools of special privilege may be deprived of their power to betray the oppressed.

And, lest it be thought that these are but hasty determinations that will pass upon the justice-loving citizens of Colorado to arm themselves, so that if law and order are still defied we may be able to protect our homes.

The speakers openly charged that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was directly responsible for the murders at Ludlow. “Mother” Jones, just returned for Washington, was among those who spoke.

Strikers Ready to Resume Battle.

News from Trinidad, telling of the tenseness of the situation in the strike district and saying that the strikers entrenched in the hills are ready to give battle to the troops at any moment, was read to the crowd.

Earlier in the day a proclamation calling a special session of the State Legislature to meet May 4 had been signed by Gov. Ammons. The session is called to consider among other things provision for payment of the Colorado National Guard on duty; the enactment of arbitration laws for labor disputes and a method of enforcing decisions of the Arbitration Board; establishment of a State Constabulary; empowering the purchase of firearms during internal disorders.

While the mass meeting in front of the Capitol was in progress the Cigar Makers’ Union of Denver was voting money to send 500 armed men to Trinidad and Ludlow to-morrow. The men will start at daylight.

The Denver Federation of Labor this afternoon adopted a resolution to be presented to the national organization asking that each of the 2,000,000 members be assessed 5 cents a month so as  to provide money and arms for the strikers. This would be $100,000 a month.

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[Emphasis added.]

Sunday April 26, 1914, Denver Colorado:

Wild Cheering As Miners Bear Flag of Ludlow
Before Mass Meeting in Denver

The Times did not cover the speeches, but, fortunately we are able to give the following report:

[The crowd] broke into cheers..when the  United Mine Workers of America, led by an American flag and the flag of Ludlow, the flag that had floated over the colony only a week before, came marching up the hill from the downtown business section. A band crashed into the stirring union song. The demonstrators bared their heads to the rain and sang fervently:

The union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the gunmen, and up with the law,
For we’re coming Colorado, we’re coming all the way,
Shouting the battle cry of union.

[Emphasis added.]

Jesse Vetter of the Machinists’ Union drew cheers from the crowd as he called for the impeachment of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor:

“Are you ready for the Question?” Vetter shouted.

A roar was his answer.

“Now,” he cried, and cheers burst from the crowd, swelling until they echoed far downtown. Hats and umbrellas were tossed into the air.

The Speech of George Creel

George Creel was the next to speak:

The martyred men, women and children of Ludlow did not die in vain..they have written with their blood upon the wall of the world. Those like the Rockefellers, who profess Christ in public and crucify Him privately, have been unmasked, and never again will the patter of prayers be permitted to excuse Judas’ greed. Patriotism is robbed of power to befool, for the love and union of 26 nationalities at Ludlow have shown us that brotherhood is a finer, better word. Private ownership of national resources and public utilities is seen as a thing that corrupts officials, poison the law, and makes murders, and we will have no more of it.

These, then, are Ludlow’s challenges to those who sit in the seats of the mighty, wrapping the flag around their profits, putting their assassins in the country’s uniforms, buying law and legislators, and crying out against class prejudice, even while they draw class lines with a bayonet’s point.

But is there not a message from those graves to you yourselves, oh brothers, in all callings? The blood of children is on the hands of Rockefeller, Osgood and Ammons, but can we count ourselves entirely free from blame? Is it not true that the massacre was made possible by the failure of labor to appreciate labor’s strength? Who does not know that it is in the power of the workers to prevent every industrial crime and economic injustice by united action? You, whose energies turn the wheels of life, have mastery in your grasp by the exercise of no greater violence than the putting down of tools, not by groups, but as a class.

Look at the solidarity of capitalism! Mark the unity with which coal companies, railroads, banks and merchants have worked throughout the strike. Are we less intelligent? Let this solemn occasion mark regret for past failures and stern resolve for future unity. March as an army, toilers, and fear no defeat.

Drag down such traitors a Ammons and Fitzgarrald, banish your Welborns and your Osgoods, jail Chase, Hamrock and Linderfelt on the charge of murder, and pursue the Stearnses and Johnsons into obscurity with your loathing.

Take back the privileges that have been bribed and stolen, and let the people provide for the people. The instinct of self-preservation demands it. If the miners are crushed today, it means that Chase and his murderers will be used to crush you tomorrow. The life of the race demands it. When the sordid shopkeepers of the Chamber of Commerce condone the slaughter of babes out of regard for dirty dollars, when women withdraw from a society because it is so vulgar as to cry out against the Ludlow horror, when the operators print that the strikers made no effort to save their women and children, when men in uniform find fun in murder and torture, it shows a society far on its road to rot.

Gather, unite, and advance! Destroy the evil, the unclean, the sordid, and the unjust. Bring about a government that is a working partnership with the people. Water your own deserts, harness your own streams, operate your own machines, and make this great wonder state one where there is every opportunity for the worker, but no room for the parasite.

By your might and your right, bring to pass the brotherhood for which Christ died. Transform Colorado into a haven for the oppressed of the World, rising into happiness under a law based upon love and equal justice.

It is the command of Ludlow’s living dead.

[Emphasis added]

The crowd stood in stunned silence for a moment as Creel ended his speech, and then broke forth into resounding cheers.

The Speech of Ed Doyle

John M. O’Neill, editor of the miners’ magazine, followed Creel to the platform, and next to speak was Ed Doyle, who gave this speech in his pronounced Irish brogue:

The Ludlow massacre was premeditated and John D. Rockefeller is the man responsible..his statements before Congress will prove that I tell the truth. I denounce the real governor of this state, the man who has been behind Ammons, the tool of the coal companies. I denounce Fred P. Johnson, the stockyard’s boss and the man who backed the militia in the killing of women and babies. I denounce the mine guards wearing the uniforms of the militia, Hamrock and Linderfelt.

[Emphasis added.]

The Speech of Mother Jones

As Doyle was speaking, Mother Jones made appearance and the crowd began to cheer wildly. Doyle assisted her as she climbed the steps to the platform. She removed her bonnet and tossed it aside to an onlooker. Raising a clench fist, she gave this speech:

Here I am again, boys, just back from Washington , and you aren’t licked by a whole lot. Washington is aroused and there is help coming. Just keep your heads level and don’t do anything to disgrace the state. The state is all right. It is just a few fools at the head of things that are bad…

Don’t commit any depredations. We’ll make some laws to put the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. out of business, and Mr. Rockefeller who’s probably teaching his Sunday School class right now. We’ll get some regular men for state officers next time. You’ve had your lesson. I found this governor thing of yours in Washington trying to save some trees. I told him, “God Almighty, save the people and let the trees alone. Back there you have murder of women and children and here you are praying for the trees.”…..

[Emphasis added.]

From The Denver Post of April 26, 1914:

From The Denver Post of April 27, 1914:

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SOURCES & IMAGES

Quote Mother Jones, Fight n Keep On, Hzltn Pln Spkr p4, Nov 15, 1900
https://www.newspapers.com/image/98099248/

The Denver Post
(Denver, Colorado)
-Apr 27, 1914
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-136C63E4B56071A8@2420250-136C603F463DE680@2
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-136C63E4B56071A8@2420250-136C603F46E18150@3
-Apr 26, 1914
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C7581AC4BD0728@GB3NEWS-136C63E3372F26C8@2420249-136C603F1C99F5E0@1-136C603F1C99F5E0

New York Times
(New York, New York)
-of Apr 27, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/26041800/

See also:

Note: Mother Jones testified before the House Investigating Committee, in Washington D. C., on Thursday April 23, 1914. She left that night for Denver, arriving in time to speak at the protest meeting.

Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado.
Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Mines and Mining
House of Representatives, Sixty-Third Congress, Second Session
Pursuant to H. Res. 387, a Resolution Authorizing and Directing
the Committee on Mines and Mining to Make an Investigation of
Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado.
Washington, DC, Government Printing Office, 1914
–Hearings of Feb. 9-April 23, 1914, Martin D. Foster, Chairman.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011159608
-p2917-2940-Testimony of Mother Jones, WDC, Apr 23, 1914
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=msu.31293006718120&seq=905

Apr 27, 1914, Rocky Mountain News, p3
“5,000 Denver Men and Women Stand in Rain
to Denounce Strike Acts Gunmen”
“Sing Battle Song of Labor”
“Cheers Greet Proposition [by Vetter]”
[Speech of George Creel]
“O’Neill Assails Governor”
[Herman Ross, of Ludlow, states mine gunmen
should be driven from state.]
“Cheers Greet Mother Jones”
https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2:12C601A5C4B97518@GB3NEWS-147966A7611DB8E0@2420250-1477B8E7D2713100@2-1477B8E7D2713100

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 26, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Eleven Children and Two Mothers Slain at Ludlow Laid to Rest

Tag: Ludlow Massacre
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ludlow-massacre/

Tag: Colorado Coalfield War of 1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-war-of-1914/

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

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The Union Forever – Colorado Strike Song
(ερμηνεία: μουσικό σχήμα “Ρωμιοσύνη”) / Χαλυβουργία Ελλάδος