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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 6, 1914
Clara Ruth Mozzor Describes Ruins of Ludlow Two Days After Massacre
From the International Socialist Review of June 1914:
The following article is written with deep feeling by Clara Ruth Mozzor who was present at the death-pit as the bodies of the women and children were recovered from the Black Hole of Ludlow:
“LUDLOW”
By Clara Ruth Mozzor
TWO days following the Ludlow massacre I came upon the ruins of the tent colony. Ludlow was still a smoldering, smoking mass of ashes. What was once the homes of these men who had come across the seas to build for their wives and babies was now an aching desolation. I came to get at the bottom of the trouble that caused a colony in which there were women and children to be fired on by machine guns and soldiers’ rifles.
Waste and ruin, death and misery were the harvest of this war that was waged on helpless people. The ruthlessness of the steady fusillade of bullets from the machine guns turned against these people by the terrific force of capital in the human form of the inhuman octopus John D. Rockefeller, wiped out whole families, separated husbands and wives, mothers and babies and sent into the beyond little ones whose day of life was but a short time off.
Only a few weeks ago Ludlow was a colony of life. Eight American flags waved gladly in the air over its tents. Here was going on the making of Americans in this great western melting pot in the southern coal fields of Colorado.
And on these self-same ruins was enacted the most awful tragedy, the darkest chapter of American history, the Ludlow massacre when sleeping families were made the targets with which to break the backs of the strikers.
The very region of Ludlow is one of nature’s hell holes, full of its dark canyons and deep arroyos, its hills and mountains. And in these mountains, in these Black Hills are scattered the men. Many of them do not know where their families are. Some of the women and children are still in the friendly ranch houses, while most of them are in the shelter of Trinidad homes and refuges thrown open to them.
The entire southern district is in the throes of war. Not civil, but industrial warfare, that has made such a reign of terror as must forever remain a black spot in the history of the state and nation. Ludlow is not the beginning of this war of desolation and sorrow. Seven months ago the union men went on strike. They demanded many things, but they were willing to waive them all should they only be given the recognition of their union.
Today in Ludlow stalks the spirit of the dead, the massacred and the slaughtered. Mothers with babies at their breasts and babies at their skirts and mothers with babies yet unborn were the targets of this modern warfare. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Two days following the Ludlow massacre I came upon the ruins of the tent colony.”-Clara Ruth Mozzor”
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Mary Thomas, camp greeter of the Ludlow Tent Colony, reports that the social life of the camp has greatly improved with the coming spring. Once again she can enjoy her morning coffee outside with her dear friends and nearest neighbors, Cedi Costa and Margo Gorci. The children are once again at play on the swings and see-saws. Many of the colonist plant flowers and vegetables around the tents bringing a festive quality to the camp.
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