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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 26, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Eleven Children and Two Mothers Slain at Ludlow Laid to Rest
From The Denver Post of April 24, 1914:
From The Rocky Mountain News of April 25, 1914:
Tag: Baldwin-Felts Gunthugs
Hellraisers Journal: Does the Colorado State Militia Mean to Kill Mother Jones? Now Held in Cold Cellar Cell Beneath Huerfano County Courthouse
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 16, 1914
Walsenburg, Colorado – Mother Jones Held in Cold Cellar Cell
From the Appeal to Reason of April 11, 1914:
Detail:
Note: Kostas (Gus) Marcos was the name of the striking miner who died as a result of being held in the cold cellar cell beneath the Huerfano County Courthouse at Walsenburg, Colorado.
Hellraisers Journal: Senator Helen Ring Robinson on Rockefeller’s “Conscience” and His War on Union Miners in Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 13, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – State Senator Robinson Opines on Rockefeller’s Conscience
From the New York American of April 12, 1914:
By Helen Ring Robinson.
State Senator in Colorado, an Authority on
Economic Conditions in That State.TRINIDAD, COLO., April 11—What is a conscience? The question comes like a shout to an observer down here in the Colorado strike zone, where the Rockefeller interests are paramount, after reading that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., declared before the Congressional committee investigating that strike that his “conscience acquits him” of responsibility for the conditions existing to-day in these coal fields.
Under such circumstances the Rev. R. Cook, of Trinidad, declares that the devil must have a large option on the conscience of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but he insists on letting it go at that. He will not answer the question, “What is a conscience?”
Nobody in Trinidad will even try to answer it. The John D. Rockefeller, Jr., remark seems to have obfuscated any ideas the people here once had on the subject of “What is conscience?”
Here are some of the conditions in the Southern Colorado coal fields for which the Rockefeller interests must be held largely responsible.
Here are just a few facts which the facile conscience of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., acquits him of all responsibility for—facts which are matters of common knowledge in the two counties of Colorado dominated by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company—-dominated in other words, by the Rockefeller interests…..
[Emphasis added.]
The article by Senator Robinson goes on to address the following conditions existing in the Coalfields of Southern Colorado under the rule of John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company:
“Political Control and Unspeakable Corruption.”
“White Slave Market Conducted in the Open”
“Gunmen, Enlisted Serve in the Militia.”
“Mathematical Analysis of Rockefeller Conscience”
“Militia Outspoken Against Labor Unions.
“[Imported Strikebreakers] Knew But One Word and That Was ‘War'”
“Depths of Ignorance Versus Millions”
“Control Without Vision Real Cause of Trouble”
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Senator Helen Ring Robinson Visits
the Strike Zone in Southern Colorado
Senator Helen Ring Robinson, traveled to the strike zone of Southern Colorado, arriving on April 8th, to begin an investigation into the ongoing strike situation in order to report on conditions there for the New York American.
At Pueblo, she met with Manager Weitzel of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Like his boss, J. D. Rockefeller Jr., she found him to be a man of fine manners, high ideals, and impeccable courtesy. An unnamed appointee of Governor Ammons was not, however, so easily impressed by such high-class affectations, and confided to the Senator that the brutality directed against the strikers has so sickened him that he wished he had a few bombs to throw at certain people.
She made a tour of the mining camps and saw no sign of the bathhouses nor the recreation centers, nor the dance halls of which Mr. Rockefeller spoke so proudly during his testimony earlier this week before the House Committee in Washington. She did find plenty of saloons, however, along with dreary company shacks covered in soot near smoking piles of slack.
She also made a tour of the strikers’ tent colonies, where she found the people enjoying the warmth of spring after enduring the long Colorado winter in the tents. The colonist, made up of twenty-two different nationalities, have grown close during the long cold months, especially the women and children. The Senator noted that the angelic children turn into “little fiends” when the militiamen enter the camps, shouting “scab-herders” and “Tin Willies” at them. Many of the older strikers have not forgotten the brutalities visited upon them by militiamen and company guards during the bitter strike of ten years ago.
Hellraisers Journal: The Testimony of John D. Rockefeller Jr., Monday April 6, 1914, Before the House Committee Investigating Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 12, 1914
Washington D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before House Committee
John D. Rockefeller Jr. made his appearance on Monday, April 6th, in Washington D. C., before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Mines and Mining which is investigating conditions in the coal mines of Colorado. During his four hours of sworn testimony, Mr. Rockefeller stated that the “Open Shop” is a “Great Principle” worth the loss of all of his property in the state of Colorado and the lives of all of his employes.
During his four hours of sworn testimony, Mr. Rockefeller had this exchange with Chairman Foster:
THE DEATH SPECIAL, MACHINE GUNS, AND MINE GUARDS
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know about an automobile being armored-built of armor plate being built in your company?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. It sounds interesting, but I have not heard of it.
The CHAIRMAN. It was built in the shops of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I did not know they produced automobiles as well.
The CHAIRMAN. They put on it machine guns, going around through that country.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thought the idea referred to by Mr. Bowers, of having a number of searchlights was an excellent one, helping to prevent disorder. They could see the country all around.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know this, that it was testified during the disturbances before the militia was called into the field, the mine guards were then in existence, and trouble took place between the striking miners and the mine guards or deputy sheriffs? Were you informed of that?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I did not know that was so, but it is usual where a strike occurs for the company to undertake to protect its men with the local officials, and add to that number before the the militia is called out. I think that is customary.
The CHAIRMAN. Now, then, when the militia was called out, a great many of these mine guards or deputy sheriffs, it was said, were sworn into the service of the State, and they were kept on the pay rolls of the company; for instance, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. What is your idea of that? Do you think that makes the militia a nonpartisan preserver of the peace?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I should simply say that if the local authorities in any community were unable to or did not render adequate protection to the workers of that district it was the duty of the employers of the labor to supplement that protection in any way they could.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, but if the militia had been called into the field and then the mine guards and deputy sheriffs who had been sworn into the militia were still on the pay roll of the company, drawing their pay from the State and from the company, too, is it your opinion that they would be a nonpartisan protector of the peace of the community?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Of course, that is a very extensive country. There are mines in many different places. I do not know that in any case the militia has been sent there in sufficient numbers to cover the entire country.[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before House Investigating Committee, States He Is Willing to Lose All in Colorado, Including Lives of His Employes, in Pursuit of the “Great Principle” of Open Shop
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 11, 1914
Washington, D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before Federal Investigators
From The New York Times of April 7, 1914:
Lives to be Sacrificed for Rockefeller’s
“Great Principle”
The Times featured Rockefeller’s testimony in a long article which began with a full column on the front page and continued with two and a half columns on the second page. The headlines reveal that The Times considered Rockefeller’s stand for the open-shop to be a just stand against “union rule”:
ROCKEFELLER, JR., DEFIES UNION RULE
———–
Will Sacrifice All in Colorado Rather Than
Subject Miners to Union Dictation.
———-FIRM FOR “OPEN SHOP”
———-
Americans, He Tells Congressmen, Must Have
Right to Work Where They Please.
———-
SAYS HE DOES HIS DUTY
———-
Is a Director, but Must Trust Details to Trained Officers
-Testifies for Four Hours.
———-Special to the New York Times.
WASHINGTON, April 6.-John D. Rockefeller, Jr., testifying to-day as a Director of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in the inquiry which the House Committee on Mines is conducting into the Colorado coal strike, declared unequivocally for the principle of the “open shop,” and assented that he and his associates would prefer that they should “lose all of their millions invested in the coal fields than that the American workingmen should be deprived of the right under the Constitution to work for whom they pleased.”
Mr. Rockefeller said that he thought his chief duty as a Director was to place honest and capable officers in control of the business. He said he would rather relinquish his interests in Colorado and close down the mines than to recognize the unions under the circumstances. He was not opposed to unions as such, he said, but he did object to unions which tried to force men to join them and which deprived men of the liberty of working for whom they pleased. He said that a recognition of the mine workers’ union would mean the repudiation of the employes who had been faithful enough to remain with company during the strike…..
[Emphasis added]
Thus, Rockefeller was portrayed as a great hero willing to sacrifice the family fortune in order to “protect” the working men and women of America from the evils of collective bargaining!
How Rockefeller Maintains Absolute Control in Colorado:
-The Death Special, Constructed at CF&I plant in Pueblo, Colorado.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Held in Cellar Cell “Surrounded with Sewer Rats, Tin-Horn Soldiers, and Other Vermin.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 5, 1914
Walsenburg, Colorado – Mother Jones Smuggles out Letter from Cold Cellar Cell
From the Chicago Day Book of April 3, 1914:
March 31, 1914-from the Cold Cellar Cell, Walsenburg, Colorado,
Letter to Friends of Mother Jones and to the Public Generally:
Military Bastile
Walsenburg, Colo.
. March 31, 1914To My Friends and the Public Generally:
I am being held a prisoner incommunicado in a damp, underground cell, in the basement of a military bullpen at Walsenburg, Colorado. Have been here since 5:30 a.m. of the 23rd of March, when I was taken from the train by armed soldiers as I was passing through Walsenburg. I have discovered what appears to be an opportunity to smuggle a letter out of prison, and shall attempt to get this communication by the armed guards which day and night surround me (me, a white-haired old woman eighty-two years of age).
I want to say to the public that I am an American citizen. I have never broken a law in my life, and I claim the right of an American citizen to go where I please so long as I do not violate the law. The courts of Las Animas and Huerfano are open and unobstructed in the transaction of business, yet Governor Ammons and his Peabody appointee, General Chase, refuse to carry me before any court, and refuse to make any charge against me.I ask the press to let the nation know of my treatment, and to say to my friends, whom, thank God, I number by the thousands, throughout the United States and Mexico, that not even my incarceration in a damp, underground dungeon will make me give up the fight in which I am engaged for liberty and for the rights of the working people.
Of course, I long to be out of prison. To be shut from the sunlight is not pleasant, but John Bunyan, John Brown and others were kept in Jail quite a while, and I shall stand firm. To be in prison is no disgrace. In all my strike experiences I have seen no horrors equal to those perpetrated by General Chase and his corps of Baldwin-Feltz detectives that are now enlisted in the militia.My God–when is it to stop? I have only to close my eyes to see the mourning of the broken hearts and the wailing of the funeral dirge, while the cringing politicians whose sworn duty is to protect the lives and liberty of the people crawl subserviently before the national burglars of Wall Street who are today plundering and devastating the State of Colorado economically, financially, politically and morally.
Let the nation know, and especially let my friend General Francisco Villa know, that the great United States of America, which is demanding of him that he release the traitors he has placed under arrest, is now holding Mother Jones incommunicado in an under ground cell surrounded with sewer rats, tinhorn soldiers and other vermin.Mother Jones[As written, without correction; paragraph break added.]
Mother Jones is not forgotten in her cold cellar cell, the same damp cell which led to the death of striking miner Kostas Marcos.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Silenced in Trinidad, Colorado, by Mailed Fist of Czar Chase and Governor Ammons
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 23, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Gagged and Silenced by Ammons and Chase
From the Seattle Union Record of February 21, 1914:
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Surrounded by 150 Soldiers, Seized and Taken to Military Bastile at San Rafael Hospital, Held Incommunicado
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 8, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Seized by Soldiers, Held Incommunicado
From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:
Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: B. F. Gurley on the “Daredevil Soldiers” of Colorado Who Obeyed the Order of General Chase to “Ride Down the Women”
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 31, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – “Women Victims Tell of Shameful Charge”
From The Day Book of January 30, 1914
-“Rose Slater” is incorrect; Sarah Slator is age 16:
Hellraisers Journal: The Day Book: Mother Jones Says, “More Christianity Practiced by Labor Unions Than All the Churches”
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 5, 1913
Mother Jones Opines on Churches, Labor Unions and Christianity
From the Chicago Day Book of December 1, 1913
-Mother Jones Interviewed by Jane Whitaker:
