Tag: Colorado Coalfield War of 1914

Hellraisers Journal: “The So-Called ‘Militiamen’ are only gunmen and thugs wearing the uniform.”-Ludlow Massacre

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Quote Helen Ring Robinson, Mine Owners Plug Uglies to Blame for Ludlow, RMN p5, Apr 22, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 8, 1914
Godfrey Irwin Describes the Ludlow Massacre and the Killing of Louie Tikas

From the New York World of May 5, 1914
Interview with Godfrey Irwin, an Electrical Engineer employed by the Electrical Transportation and Railroad Company of Trinidad:

Gunthug Militia in Front of Ludlow Saloon, CO 1913 1914, Coal Field War Project

On the day of the Ludlow battle a chum and myself left the house of the Rev. J. O. Ferris, the Episcopal minister with whom I boarded in Trinidad, for a long tramp through the hills. We walked fourteen miles, intending to take the Colorado & Southern Railway back to Trinidad from Ludlow station.

We were going down a trail on the mountain side above the tent city at Ludlow when my chum pulled my sleeve and at the same instant we heard shooting. The militia were coming out of Hastings Canyon and firing as they came. We lay flat behind a rock and after a few minutes I raised my hat aloft on a stick. Instantly bullets came in our direction. One penetrated my hat. The militiamen must have been watching the hillside through glasses and thought my old hat betrayed the whereabouts of a sharpshooter of the miners.

Saw Tikas Murdered.

Then came the killing of Louis Tikas, the Greek leader of the strikers. We saw the militiamen parley outside the tent city, and, a few minutes later, Tikas came out to meet them. We watched them talking. Suddenly an officer raised his rifle, gripping the barrel, and felled Tikas with the butt.

Tikas fell face downward. As he lay there we saw the militiamen fall back. Then they aimed their rifles and deliberately fired them into the unconscious man’s body. It was the first murder I had ever seen, for it was a murder and nothing less. Then the miners ran about in the tent colony and women and children scuttled for safety in the pits which afterward trapped them.

We watched from our rock shelter while the militia dragged up their machine guns and poured a murderous fire into the arroyo from a height by Water Tank Hill above the Ludlow depot. Then came the firing of the tents.

I am positive that by no possible chance could they have been set ablaze accidentally. The militiamen were thick about the northwest corner of the colony where the fire started and we could see distinctly from our lofty observation place what looked like a blazing torch waved in the midst of militia a few seconds before the general conflagration swept through the place. What followed everybody knows.

Sickened by what we had seen, we took a freight back into Trinidad. The town buzzed with indignation. To explain in large part the sympathies of even the best people in the section with the miners, it must be said that there is good evidence that many of the so-called “militiamen” are only gunmen and thugs wearing the uniform to give them a show of authority. They are the toughest lot I ever saw.

No one can legally enlist in the Colorado state militia till he has been a year in the state, and many of the “militiamen’” admitted to me they had been drafted in by a Denver detective agency. Lieutenant Linderfelt boasted that he was “going to lick the miners or wipe them off the earth.” In Trinidad the miners never gave any trouble. It was not till the militia came into town that the trouble began.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: “The Murderous Colorado Militia Was Recruited from Professional Gunmen”

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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 5 1914
Wars in Colorado and Mexico, Workers’ Blood Shed to Serve Rockefeller’s Interests

From the Appeal to Reason of May 2, 1914:

Appeal Army Called to Immediate
Action in the Class War

Practicality the entire issue of the latest edition of the Appeal to Reason is dedicated to supporting the class war, now ongoing, in Colorado, and opposing the war for “commercial and political domination of Mexico.”

The front-page masthead proclaims:

Masthead JDR Jrs Gunthugs Murder Women and Children at Ludlow, AtR p1, May 2, 1914

On the second page the masthead makes known:

The Murderous Colorado Militia Was Recruited
from Professional Gunmen

The following are portions of a few of the articles on the Colorado Coal War from Saturday’s Appeal to Reason.

Blood of Slaughtered Babes Calls
for Immediate Action

“God give us men: A time like this demands         
Great hearts, strong minds, true faith and willing hands.”

Military Rule in CO, Woman Bayoneted fr Stt Str, AtR p2, Feb 28, 1914

Two wars are now on. Both are wars in the interest of John D. Rockefeller and American capitalism. One is a war for the commercial and political domination of Mexico by the oil king and his colleagues. The other is  a war to crush out the rebellious spirit of the wage slaves of the Colorado coal mines, owned and operated by the Rockefeller interest.

As you read this, the newspapers will have given you columns upon columns about the American conquest of Mexico. Every known method of appealing to the gullibility of the American workers will have been used. The flag incident and other excuses will have been put forward to justify the sending of the American military and naval forces to our neighboring country. At the same time distorted reports of the bloodiest slaughter of working men in modern times will have appeared in the capitalist press.

This latest battle at Ludlow, Colo., is probably the most outrageous assault upon the rights, liberties and lives of the working class in American history. This issue of the Appeal to Reason gives you only what cold ink and type can transmit. No amount of writing can give you an adequate description of the murdering and maiming of women and children such as occurred last week in one of the sovereign states of this republic. On the other hand the slightest affront to the alleged dignity of American capitalism will have been played up and elaborated upon by most expert writers, artists and photographers that the filthy lucre of capitalism’s prostituted press can purchase…..

[Photograph, paragraph break and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: New York May Day Parade Banner: Rockefeller “Uses Bibles in New York and Bullets in Colorado”

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He uses Bibles in New York
and bullets in Colorado.
———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 4, 1914
New York, New York – Police Attack May Day Rally at Union Square

From The New York Times of May 2, 1914:

The Times blames anarchists for the police attack upon the peaceful rally:

5,000 STAMPEDED BY POLICE CLUBS
———-
Women and Children Felled in Flight
at Union Square May Day Rally.
———-

Socialist Women March at NYC May Day Parade 1914, LoC
 
With Chief Inspector “Schmittberger close behind issuing vain orders to halt and return to their stations, 200 uniformed policemen charged through the May Day gathering of Socialists and labor unionists who celebrated the International Labor Day in Union square yesterday.

The police charge caused a stampede of 5,000 of the 15,000 persons in the Square. Clubs flew right and left, the police jumping over the bodies of prostrate women, men, and boys and even two babies, to reach people beyond them….

Schmittberger’s powerful voice was heard above the dim of the stampede and the screams of women and children who had been bowled over.

“Back to your stations, you men! Down with your clubs! Stop this! Stop it at once!” the big Inspector called out and his message seemed to bring the excited policemen to their senses.

As they turned to retreat over a big open space they had cleared they found two little babies rolling in the dirt, with their mother, Rebecca Shulman, trying to crawl to them from a point ten feet away where she had landed on her head. One man, Bola Bologna, of 355 East 184th Street, was bleeding profusely from a wound across his head…

Crowd’s Mood Changes.

While the charge was being made Socialist speakers, several of whom were women, were standing on the cottage porch, from which a woman was addressing the multitude. The police advance occurred so quickly that the meeting itself was not disturbed. Speakers continued with their appeals to keep May 1 as a general labor holiday, in harmony with a world-wide movement, for several minutes after the stampede.

But the mood of the crowd was changed. The marches, from 30,000 to 60,000 strong, had been sweeping into the Square for four hours. All had arrived in a cheerful mood, and there had been much singing, while little children by the hundreds mingled with the men and women marchers.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: “Every man should shoulder his gun and start to Colorado”-Speech to Kansas Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Miners Org Real Power of Labor Mv, Speech UMW D14 Conv, Apr 30, 1914, Ptt KS, Steel Speeches p134—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 3, 1914
After Speech by Mother Jones, Kansas Miners Donate Treasury

April 30, 1914, Pittsburg, Kansas
-Mother Jones Addresses Convention of District 14, U. M. W. A.

Mother Jones gave a long speech Thursday, April 30th, in Pittsburg, Kansas, at the Convention of District 14, United Mine workers of America. She came seeking donations for the striking miners of Colorado, and, in the end, the miners of Kansas gave her all that she asked for.

MOTHER JONES INTRODUCED TO THE MINERS OF KANSAS

Chairman [John P.] White: Now, this morning I know that I voice the sentiments of this convention when I say that we appreciate the presence here of our great old organizer, Mother Jones. (Applause.)

Yesterday I gave you a pretty strong bump about Colorado, and what you were going to do about the money that you had loaned the national organization, that I plead guilty to being responsible for, so God help you for I put you in the hands of Mother Jones now. (Loud applause.)

A Delegate: I think the brothers ought to put up their pipes, put them in their pockets.

Mother Jones: You should join John D. Rockefeller, you are getting so nice…

The Colorado Coal War

[Mother Jones continued]: You see, my brothers, the trouble with us all is we don’t feel the pains of our fellow beings in the great struggle. I wonder if the nation felt horror of that affair at Ludlow? Why, if that happened in Mexico we would go down to clean up Mexico, and it happened here at home and there is very little said about it, when every man should shoulder his gun and start to Colorado to stop the war there. (Applause.)

Detail Tikas w Ludlow Flag, Mother Jones Leads CO FoL Dlg to State House at Dnv, Toronto Star Wkly p8, Jan 3, 1913
Louie Tikas with
the Flag of Ludlow

…No time in modern history has there been anything so horrible as this trouble in Colorado. I know those men in Colorado pretty well. No state in the Union has truer, better fellows; they have made a great fight against the men in power. There is no question about it. The poor fellow that got killed, this Greek [Louie Tikas], when I went to Ludlow, when the battle first started, the tears came streaming down his face, and he said, “Mother, they jumped at me to go war, and I got away and let the capitalists fight their own battle. I am here now, and this is my battle, the battle of right for the class that I belong to.” That summed up the whole philosophy of the labor movement. In other words, it was a battle for freedom for the class that he belonged to. And he said, “Mother, I need a gun.” I said, “You will have one, Louie, if Mother has to take her hat off and sell it, you will get the gun.” (Applause.)

Now, those brave men were the ones brought over, most of them, after the last strike that we had in Colorado; Rockefeller sent his agents to Europe and brought those fellows over. He has been able to crush them, rob them, persecute them until he has made his millions out of their precious blood, and then he goes into church on Sunday and is hallowed by the people of this great nation.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Pittsburg, Kansas-Addresses Convention of District 14, United Mine Workers of America

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JP White re Mother Jones, Pittsburg KS, Apr 30, 1914, Speeches Steel p130—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 2, 1914
Pittsburg, Kansas – Mother Jones Speaks at Convention of U. M. W. A., District 14

From the Pittsburg Workers’s Chronicle of May 1, 1914:

Mother Jones Addresses Conv, UMW D14, Pittsburg Ks, Apr 30, Workers Chc p1, May 1, 1914

Yes, she swears. Says “dam” and “hell” and other such words. That’s Mother Jones. But did you ever hear people swear when it sounded like a benediction or a prayer? Mother don’t swear like other folks. Some way or other her swear words are more like poetry than vulgarity. Ask ANYONE who ever heard her.

She spoke to the delegates at the convention yesterday morning and not a miner in that hall will ever forget her message. Among other things she said:

I was asked by the congressional committee if I was opposed to sending the federal troops into Colorado, “I certainly am” I said. I am deadly opposed to bayonets being sent into any strike district where an industrial conflict is being waged. The miners in Colorado have had bayonets for months. They are not needed. Justice is what they want, not bayonets.

Out of the past eleven months I have served more than six of them in the bastiles of West Virginia and Colorado. I have seen the suffering of these wretched strikers, their ragged and defenseless wives and their starving babies in these strike districts and human pen or tongue will never be able to adequately portray the awful scenes enacted there.

She told of the Greek, Louis Tikas, whose truce with the gunmen of Mr. Rockefeller, ended in his murder; of the 51 bullet holes in his body and its laying exposed for days after his infamous murder. Told of his coming to her early in the strike and in his broken language and with tears streaming down his bronzed cheeks explaining how his Greek government had tried to draft him into the Balkan war and how he resented it to the extent that he was almost branded as a coward by the minions of that government’s plutocracy. This, however, was a fight of his class and he was willing to die a thousand deaths rather than see his fellow workers submit to the shackles of the mine owner corporations.

In dealing with the Colorado and West Virginia strikes she said that the ones who had died had not given up their lives in vain, but that they had died for a great cause.

When the congressional committee asked her if it would be acceptable if Rockefeller would consent to grant every demand of the miners except the one compelling recognition of the U. M. W. of A. she replied: “NO! We’ll give up every demand before that. It is the meat in the nut and without it we would be just as helpless as before.”

It might be well to state that Mother Jones’ confinement in Colorado was due to a fight for a principle. In 1904 what is known as “The Moyer” decision was passed by the supreme court. That decision gave to the military the right to arrest and confine any person without preferring charges of any kind against them. This was one of the most infamous decisions against labor ever rendered and has been the instrument with which more than one strike has been broken. Her fight was to get out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus and secure the reversal of that infamous Moyer decision. Up to the present time they have managed to evade the testing of the law but Mother Jones is still after them and if it is within human power to secure a reversal she will assuredly secure it.

Mother Jones came direct from Denver to Girard [home of the Appeal to Reason] where she arrived on Wednesday night. She will return to the strike zone immediately after a monster protest meeting in Kansas City next Sunday. She speaks in Frontenac at the May Day celebration today. Don’t fail to hear her.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Louis Tikas, Hero of Ludlow, Honored by Thousands of Striking Miners Marching at Trinidad, Colorado

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Quote re Louis Tikas by Paul Manning, 2002—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 28, 1914
Thousands of Striking Miners Join in Funeral Procession in Honor of Louie Tikas

April 27, 1914, Trinidad, Colorado:

Funeral Louie Tikas Hearse by Dold, Trinidad CO, Apr 27, 1914Funeral Louie Tikas by Dold, Trinidad CO, Apr 27, 1914Funeral Louie Tikas, Trinidad CO, Apr 27, 1914

From The Denver Post of April 27, 1914:

Funeral of Louie Tikas, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914

The body of Tikas lay before an alter on which were branched candles, holding high, burning tapers. The priest, assisted by [Pietro Catsulis], now the leader of the Greek colony, intoned the mass, the response being made by Catsulis.

Three times the priest kissed the cheeks of the dead leader. Three times he anointed the brow with wine. Three times he sprinkled dust on the face of the dead, while a Greek in overalls and corduroy coat swung the silver censer and wailed dolefully.

“Jesus give a place in Heaven to Louis, chanted the priest in the Greek tongue.

“Jesus give a place in heaven to Louis. Bring life from the grave,” solemnly repeated the dark-faced fighting men who crowded the undertaker’s chapel.

“Jesus, if Louis has any enemies, may they forget their hostility,” chanted Catsulis.

The tapers burned low. The place was dim with incense. But the priest chanted on, his iron-gray hair and flowing beard in somber contrast with his gold and silver woven robes.

This was the funeral of the man beliked by all he led and served. But a handful of women were present, and no arms were carried to remind those who watched that war was on.

Orderly, reverent, deeply religious, was the service. When the body was carried from the chapel, 488 Greeks followed the line before the hearse. The American colors, draped in crepe, were lifted, and in utter silence the cortege moved down Main Street to Commercial, past the headquarters of the United Mine Workers and on over the hill to the Knights of Pythias cemetery.

Before the funeral four Greeks carrying their muskets entered the chapel. They lifted their hats, muttered an oath to “avenge Louis’ death” pounded for times on the floor with their muskets, turned and left the room.

[Emphasis added.]

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

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Quote Mother Jones, Fight n Keep On, Hzltn Pln Spkr p4, Nov 15, 1900—————

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 Denver Mass Meeting Protest re Ludlow, Crowd, Doyle, Vetter, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914HdLn re Denver Apr 26, Mass Mtg Protest re Ludlow, DP p3, Apr 27, 1914

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

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Hellraisers Journal: Funerals Held at Trinidad for Women, Children and Little Babies of Ludlow Colony Who Perished Beneath Tent Set Afire by State Militia

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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

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:

Ludlow Victims Women n Children Buried, DP p17, Apr 24, 1914

From The Rocky Mountain News of April 25, 1914:

Ludlow Women n Children Burial Apr 24, RMN p2, Apr 25, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Denver United Labor Bulletin: Colorado Labor Leaders Issue Call to Arms: “Be Ready to Defend Your Homes”

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Quote CO Labor Leaders Call to Arms, Apr 22, ULB p1, Apr 25, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 25, 1914
Denver, Colorado – State Labor Leaders Issue Call to Arms

From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of April 25, 1914
CALL TO ARMS:

UMW, CO FoL, Call to Arms, Apr 22, ULB p1, Apr 25, 1914

Call to Arms, Denver, Colorado, April 22, 1914

Organize the men in your community in companies of volunteers to protect the workers of Colorado against the murder and cremation of men, women and children by armed assassins in the employ of coal corporations, serving under the guise of state militiamen.

Gather together for defensive purposes all arms and ammunition legally available. Send name of leader of your company and actual number of men enlisted at once by wire, phone or mail to W. T. Hickey, Secretary of State Federation of Labor.

Hold all companies subject to order.

People having arms to spare for these defensive measures are requested to furnish same to local companies, and, where no company exists, send them to the State Federation of Labor.

The state is furnishing us no protection and we must protect ourselves, our wives and children, from these murderous assassins. We seek no quarrel with the state and we expect to break no law; we intend to exercise our lawful right as citizens, to defend our homes and our constitutional rights.

John R. LAWSON
JOHN McLENNAN
E. L. DOYLE
JOHN RAMSEY
W. T. HICKEY
E. R. HOAGE
T. W. TAYLOR
CLARENCE MOOREHOUSE
ERNEST MILLS

[Emphasis added.]

-Lawson, International Organizers from U. M. W. District 15.
-McLennan, President of District 15, U. M. W.
     and also President of Colorado State Federation of Labor.
-Doyle, Secretary-Treasurer of District 15 U. M. W.
-Ramsey of the U. M. W. of A.
-Hickey, Secretary of Colorado State Federation of Labor.
-Hoage of the Denver Printing Press Assistants’ Union No 14.
-Taylor and Moorehouse of the Denver Trades and Labor Assembly.
-Mills, Secretary-Treasurer of Western Federation of Miners.

UMW District 15 CO Policy Com, ULB p1, Jan 3, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Chicago Day Book: “Women Cried to God to Save Babies From Blood-Mad Brutes”-Ludlow Massacre

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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 24, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother of Slain Child Tells of Horror of Ludlow Massacre

From the Chicago Day Book of April 24, 1914:

HdLn Ludlow Massacre, Women Cried to God, Day Book p1, Apr 24, 1914

the gunmen, and then the fire the savage murderers mercilessly started.

The shooting started, she says, when Louis Tikas, Greek leader at the tent colony, protested because the uniformed gunmen trained three machine’ guns on the tent colony.

[Mrs. Snyder said:]

Louis told them not to point their guns at the women and children. 

Sunday they tried to break up a ball game our men were playing and some of the men got mad and chased them away. That is why they set up the guns and it was then that Louis objected. 

Then they cursed him and fired at him. They must have fired 50 shots at him and he fell down dead. That was early Monday.

Our men all went mad then and got what guns they had and started after the gunmen. Our men were on one side of the tents and the gunmen on the other. 

All of us women and children ran down into the cellars which were dug a long time ago when the gunmen first came down here and threatened us with rifles and machine guns.

All day long we lay down there without anything to eat or drink.

I had six children, the oldest eleven, and they all cried.

All through the camp we could hear women shrieking and calling to God and the Virgin to come and save their children. The firing continued and the bullets whistled over us hour after hour, and after a while I heard a woman cursing terribly. Later I heard that she had had her hand shot off at the wrist when she reached up from her cellar and tried to get a pail of water to give her children a drink.

My children begged me for water, and finally little William [Frankie] he was my oldest boy said he was going to get them a drink. So he climbed up out of the cellar and he never came back.

I know now that a bullet tore his head all away. I should have gone for the water myself, but I had to stay with the babies.

Just when it was beginning to get dark the gunmen dashed in among the tents and set fire to some of them. Our tents were all close together and the fire spread fast. All the time they kept shooting into the tents, although they knew our men, with their guns, were all away up in the hills.

I took my children and ran to a deep arroyo (gully) where there were about 50 other women and babies.

Lots of the others, though, were afraid to come out of their cellars and they suffocated under the burning floors side walls, which had been built up of boards.

I don’t see how any men could kill little children like my William and them other poor little things who were shot or burned.

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