Tag: Colorado Fuel and Iron Company

Hellraisers Journal: District 15, Colorado: “We recognize no surrender and shall continue..our humanitarian movement.”

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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 – Thursday December 10, 1914
Denver, Colorado – District 15 Calls Off Long Strike, Recognizes “No Surrender”

Meeting in convention in Denver, delegates of District No. 15 of the United Mine Workers of America unanimously voted to call off all strikes in the coal fields of Colorado, this decision to be effective on December 10th in both the northern and southern regions of the state.

The striking miners and their families endured through the long Colorado winter, living in tents after being evicted from the company towns. They faced hundreds of armed company guards who were deputized by the local sheriffs, a state militia infested with such company gunthugs, mass imprisonment, search lights that terrorized them in their tents at night. And yet their determination and solidarity remained unbroken.

Finally, with the spring, came the Ludlow Massacre followed by the ten day war. And still they remained determined to endure to the end. Now, many months later, that great strikebreaker, hunger, haunts them as they face another winter in the tents.

Their hopes for justice now depend on yet another committee and yet another investigation. This time, the committee is appointed by President Wilson. There is no agreement from the coal operators, led by Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, to abide by the findings of said committee.

In announcing the termination of the strike, the United Mine Workers of America recognized no surrender:

We recognize no surrender and shall continue to propagate the principles of our humanitarian movement throughout the coal fields of Colorado.

From The Cincinnati Enquirer of December 9, 1914:

 

STRIKE
———-
Ended in Colorado.
———-
Miners Act Favorably on
Advice of Executives.
———-
Troops May Be Called Off
Immediately.
———-
Order For Return of Men
To Pits Marks Finish
———-
Of Industrial Struggle That Has Cost Millions
and Lives of Scores of Combatants
———-

Federal Troops to be wd fr CO, Cnc Enq p16, Dec 9, 1914

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.

Denver, Colo., December 8.-The coal miners’ strike in both the Northern and Southern Colorado coal fields was called off to-night. the miners voted to end the strike on December 10. This action was taken by the the convention of District No. 15 of the United Mine Workers of America by a unanimous vote late to-night after an all-day session, and ratifies the report of the International Executive Board introduced to-day recommending the termination of the strike.

The Executive Committee recommended ending the strike on the ground that such action would strengthen the union’s position in view of the appointment by President Wilson of a permanent commission, headed by Seth Low, to consider future differences in the coal fields.

Frank J. Hayes, International Vice President, in a statement to the convention explained in detail the reasons which impelled the International Board to make its recommendations, and there followed in executive session a lengthy and spirited discussion.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: District 15, Colorado: “We recognize no surrender and shall continue..our humanitarian movement.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Welborn Claims That “Press Agent” From Outside State Prepared Operators’ Pamphlets Defaming UMWA

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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 – Tuesday December 8, 1914
Denver, Colorado – J. F. Welborn Testifies Before Walsh Commission

Jesse F. Welborn
J. F. Welborn

The testimony of J. F. Welborn, President of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, before the Commission on Industrial Relations, which was begun on Friday afternoon, continued all day Saturday. Welborn was grilled by Chairman Walsh regarding telegrams he had received from John D. Rockefeller, Jr, concerning the conduct of the strike and was requested to bring such telegrams forward.

The telegram from Mr. Rockefeller to Mr. Welborn, released by John R. Lawson to the press on the Friday, was identified by Welborn and entered into the record of the Commission by Chairman Walsh.

Pamphlets issued by the “Committee of Coal Mine Managers,” which contain errors regarding the salaries of U. M. W. of A. officials, including that of Mother Jones, were discussed. Welborn admitted that the pamphlets were prepared for the coal operators by a hired “press agent” whose identity has not, thus far, been revealed.

From The Cincinnati Enquirer of December 6, 1914:

ADVICE
———-
On Strike in Colorado
————

Received From Rockefeller in New York,
Welborn Testifies.
———-
Coal Company Says “Press Agent” From Outside State
Prepared Operators’ Pamphlets.
———-

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.

Frank P Walsh
Frank P. Walsh

Denver, Colo., December 5.-“Is there anyone you communicate with in New York except John D. Rockefeller, Jr.?” Chairman Walsh, of the Federal Industrial Relations Commission, asked J. F. Welborn, President of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, who resumed his testimony to-day in the investigation of the Colorado mine strike.

Welborn said he had heard from George J. Gould and others of the seven New York Directors of the company.

“To save time I shall ask you to file with us all the telegrams you have received from Rockefeller, Star J. Murphy and Jerome Green,” said the Chairman.

“I will bring all the telegrams I have,” replied Welborn.

The witness then identified a telegram from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., made public yesterday by John R. Lawson of the United Mine Workers. “But I should not care to have the telegrams given out as this was yesterday,” he said.

[Note: the telegram, from Rockefeller to Welborn, was entered into the record by Chairman Walsh during his grilling of Mr. Welborn.]

Welborn said the company had thirteen Directors, seven living in New York, and six in Denver, that the meetings were held in Denver, and communication held with the Rockefeller interests as represented by Rockefeller, Murphy and Green.

Welborn was questioned regarding pamphlets entitled “The Truth About Colorado,” and “Facts About the Colorado Struggle.” He said he would assume responsibility for the document, the writer of which did not wish his name known.

The company, he said, had spent about $12,000 printing the bulletins, and had distributed about 40,000 copies to educators, legislators, ministers and the general public.

Questioned by Walsh, the witness admitted that some statements in the bulletin might not be strictly accurate.

The writer, Welborn said, was not in Colorado.

“Does he expect compensation for his work?”

“I don’t know,” said Welborn, “when his work is completed, I shall have to audit his bill.”

“Who contracted his employment?”

“There was no contract. There was an oral understanding that he was to be compensated later. He is still making statements for us. His work is not finished. I don’t know whether the company or some one interested in the company is going to pay him.”

Walsh called the attention of the witness to a table appearing in a pamphlet, giving the sums alleged to have been paid to national officers of the United Mine Workers. According to this table sums paid out in nine weeks were as follows:

Frank J. Hayes $4,502, plus $1,667 for expenses.
John McLennan $2,683, plus $1,469 for expenses.
John R. Lawson, $1,773.
Mary Jones, $2,668.

“Do you accept the personal responsibility for this?” asked Walsh.

“For as much of the published statement as has not been denied,” replied Welborn.

“If it is true that McLennan gets $4 a day will you correct it?”

“Just as soon as I believe it is wrong.”

Commissioner O’Connell said that the figures given were from the report of William Green, secretary of the United Mine Workers, and covered total salary and expenses for one year, not nine weeks. The statement in the pamphlet, which alleged that the delegates to the Trinidad convention that called the strike were selected and sent there by the officers of the union, Welborn declared he could not substantiate.

The total loss to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company caused by the strike was $800,000, Welborn said.

———-

[Photographs and emphasis added]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Welborn Claims That “Press Agent” From Outside State Prepared Operators’ Pamphlets Defaming UMWA” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: “…the babes of Ludlow, I stand here bringing their tears and wasted hopes to you…”

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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 – Monday September 21, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Speaks at Special Convention of District 15

Mother Jones at Ludlow with Frank Hayes, full, possibly Sept 23, 1913
Mother Jones at Ludlow with Frank Hayes, possibly September 23, 1913

Mother Jones was greeted with wild cheering and applause in Trinidad, Colorado, when she arose to speak this past Tuesday at the special convention of District 15, United Mine Workers of America. Delegates were gathered there to consider President Wilson’s proposal for ending the year long strike.

Mother remembered the children and the mothers who were massacred at Ludlow on April 20th:

I stand facing the far east, sounding the voices of the babes of Ludlow, I stand here bringing their tears, their wasted hopes to you, the heartaches of the mothers, the screams and the agonies of those who gave up their lives there; but they did not die in vain. They stirred the nation from end to end and you never again will see such a condition of slavery in Colorado.

The convention resulted in a vote in favor of acceptance of the plan put forward by President Wilson. 

From the Proceedings of the Miners’ Special Convention, September 15, 1914
-Excerpts from the Speech of Mother Jones:

Now, boys, many things have happened in the last year. One year ago today, I talked to you about industrial freedom. We are living in a great nation. Industrial despotism will have to die and you, my boys, must use your brains, you must study and think. The sword will have to disappear and the pen will have to take its place. We are the bulwark of the nation.

Thank God that we have another great man, another Lincoln, in Washington today in our President. (Applause.) He does not rush into things but weighs everything carefully in the scale.

If there are any representatives of the Colorado Fuel & Iron company here, I want to tell you to keep out. You cannot vote in this Convention, for none but bona fide working men will have a vote here. If you are here, I will find you, I can spot you immediately, for I can smell you four miles away. (Applause.)

* * *

At the time of the strike in West Virginia, I cancelled engagements in San Francisco and went to West Virginia. I went to Charleston and took the Cabin Creek train and went up there. A little boy came to me and he said, “Mother, have you come to stay with us?” “Yes, I have come to stay with you,” and the tears trickled down his cheeks as he told me how they had beaten his mother and his baby brother and driven his father away and he said: “If I live to be a man I will kill twenty of them.”

They were not United States bayonets. They were corporation bayonets, and corporation bayonets are in the hands of sewer rats and the others are in the hands of men. While in West Virginia, I was a guest of the State, I was arrested and placed in the bull pen. But they didn’t keep me quiet there for I was raising hell more than if I had been out. Now these boys didn’t get what they wanted in that settlement in West Virginia. They came to me and asked my advice and I said: “Take what you can get out of the pirates.” The newspaper men asked: “What do you think of the settlement?” and I told them it was alright, it wasn’t what we wanted, but what we could get. The mine owners of West Virginia have begun to realize what that settlement means to them. You were never in the condition here that they were in West Virginia. I was not followed here by the Baldwin-Felts thugs in the dead of night or horseback as I was in West Virginia. In a battle we had there seven of my brothers were murdered in cold blood and twenty-one were wounded.

* * *

The President of the United States, when he found you could not settle your difficulties, sent the federal troops here to defend you, and now if you don’t accept this proposition what more can he do. He has to withdraw  the troops. The constitution gives him so long to keep them here and I don’t know but what he has already overstepped that authority now.

Another thing, you have allowed here in this strike is to let everybody to get a hand in it. Now this fight is ours, we have got the United States with us and we are fighting the greatest moneyed power in the world. John D. Rockefeller controls the whole of New York City and New York with its millions of population has to submit to him. He owns the mines, the industries and the railroads clear through the nation, but one man arises against that power and says to the miners of Colorado, I will be with you if you are fair. He faces the greatest moneyed power in the world and says these miners shall at least have a showing.

* * *

I stand facing the far east, sounding the voices of the babes of Ludlow, I stand here bringing their tears, their wasted hopes to you, the heartaches of the mothers, the screams and the agonies of those who gave up their lives there; but they did not die in vain. They stirred the nation from end to end and you never again will see such a condition of slavery in Colorado.

* * *

Now, boys, you know I have no interests outside of the welfare of the children yet to come. I have carried your case to Congress, to the President, and I feel that we ought to pay that tribute of respect to the head of the nation in accepting this proposition. It is not all we want but Christ did not get all he wanted. So, boys, take my advice, I beg of you in the name of the women and children of Ludlow to pay that tribute of respect to the President of the nation, saying that we appreciate the move he has made and I believe you will get more.

Now, don’t say Mother Jones is playing politics. I never played politics in my life. I have been a Socialist for twenty-nine years and I would hammer a Socialist if he is a crazy lunatic just the same as any one else. I am not living for nothing I hold no office only that of disturbing. Before I leave the world, I have a contract with God Almighty to stay here eighty-two years more, there will be no bayonets and no guns, we will all be great citizens, and the bayonets of the future will be the pen, which is mightier than the sword. The next thing the public officers will do at Washington will be to take over the mines. We want the mines and we want the oil fields and we are going to have them. I stand here today as one pleading with you, I ask you to accept the President’s proposition. Let the nation know that the United Mine Workers are not what they are represented to be by General Chase and his staff of pirates. I want the people to know that you miners are men and law-abiding citizens.

[Emphasis added]

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Hellraisers Journal: John D. Rockefeller Jr. Remains Firm, Will Not Agree to Mediation in Colorado Coalfield Strike; Mother Jones Ends Tour of Vancouver Island Coal Camps

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Quote John D Rockefeller Jr, Great Principle, WDC Apr 6, 1914, US House Com p2874—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 20, 1914
Rockefeller Refuses Mediation in Colorado Strike; Mother Jones Leaves Canada

From the Appeal to Reason of May 23, 1914
“The Oil of Rockefeller” by Ryan Walker

Oil of Rockefeller by Ryan Walker, AtR p2, May 23, 1914

From the Chicago Day Book of June 15, 1914
-Rockefeller Jr. Remains Firm, Will Not Agree to Mediation:

COLORADO MINES SITUATION IS
COMING TO SHOWDOWN

Washington, June 15.-A military receivership to compulsory arbitration faces the Rockefellers and allied interests in the Colorado coal fields. Aroused by the belligerent brief of the mine operators submitted to the House mines committee, members declared Pres. Wilson will be forced to one of the above extremes to settle the civil war now dormant under orders from federal troops.

Congress, Colorado state officials and the United Mine Workers were bitterly attacked in the brief. Lawless agitation throughout the country lamented. Congress was charged with showing extreme favoritism to “Mother” Jones, a strike leader. The operators showed no signs of agreeing to mediation. Everything in the brief was a reiteration of the position of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., before the House committee that the Rockefellers would lose every cent invested in Colorado before they would yield to the union demands.

[Emphasis added.]

From the Santa Cruz Evening News of June 15, 1914
-Mother Jones Ends Tour of British Columbia Coal Camps:

“MOTHER” JONES LEAVES CANADA.

SEATTLE, June 15.-“Mother” Mary Jones, organizer of the United Mine Workers of America, is on her way to New York [Indianapolis], under orders from the general officers of her union.

Her tour of the British Columbia coal camps was without special incident, except that at Ladysmith [where miners are on strike] the mayor forbade her to speak in the city limits and she held a meeting outside.

—————-

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John D. Rockefeller Jr. Remains Firm, Will Not Agree to Mediation in Colorado Coalfield Strike; Mother Jones Ends Tour of Vancouver Island Coal Camps” →

Hellraisers Journal: It is not an act of civilized warfare to turn machine guns upon women and children.-Testimony of Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey of Colorado

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Quote Pearl Jolly, Ludlow Next Time, Women Will Fight, Tacoma Tx p3, May 25, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 7, 1914
New York City – Judge Lindsey Testifies Before Commission on Industrial Relations

LoC, Lindsey and Ludlow Women 1, WDC May 21, 1914
Mrs. Lindsey, Judge Lindsey, Mary Petrucci, Mary Thomas, Pearl Jolly,
Mrs. Lee Champion, Olga and Rachael Thomas
On Thursday May 28th, Judge Lindsey of Colorado appeared before the Commission on Industrial Relations. The previous week, Judge Lindsey had escorted miners’ wives, survivors of the Ludlow Massacre, to the White House for an interview with President Wilson.

In his testimony before the Commission, the Judge spoke about the plight of women and children when their husbands and fathers die on the job. He describe how the “industrial government” of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company dictates to every branch of the state and county governments in Colorado, and, that that “industrial government” is dictated to from the federal “industrial government” in New York City.

Of the Ludlow Massacre, Judge Lindsey stated:

It is not an act of civilized warfare, if you please, to turn machine  guns and rifles upon a tent colony in which it is known by those who are responsible  and those who do the deed that there are defenseless women and children.

Judge Lindsey testified during the afternoon session of May 28th. Present were Chairman Walsh, and Commissioners Ballard, O’Connell, Lennon, Garretson, and Harriman.  We present the first part of the testimony below, and will publish the rest of the testimony tomorrow.

TESTIMONY OF JUDGE BEN B. LINDSEY.

Mr. Thompson. Now, just for the purpose of making our record, l will ask you a few preliminary questions. Your name?
Judge Lindsey. My name is Ben B. Lindsey.
Mr. Thompson. Your address?
Judge Lindsey. Denver, Colo.
Mr. Thompson. And your profession or-
Judge Lindsey. l am a lawyer, a judge on the bench, and have been for 15 years or thereabouts, in the city of Denver.
Mr. Thompson. Now, you may go on with your story.
Judge Lindsey. l will try, Mr. Chairman, to make my story as connected as possible; but unless l should be misunderstood, I first wish to make a statement as to the statement made by the gentleman who has preceded me [Major Boughton], which l think is a good illustration of much of the misunderstanding which grows out of an unfortunate situation like that which you are asked to hear some evidence about. He read from a newspaper saying that a Mr. Lord, representing the miners, had stated that there were 2.000 men, miners, and if necessary there would be 50,000 more ready to resist the militia. The gentleman did not state what Mr. Lord said, neither did the newspapers that he read from state what Mr. Lord said. Mr. Lord said, for l was present when he said, that if the tactics pursued by certain men in the militia that brought about the murders, as he expressed it and claimed, of women and children were repeated in Colorado that there were in that case 2,000 men who had red blood enough in their veins to resist that sort of encroachment under whatever name it might be called, and that there were 50,000 men in this country who were willing to join.

Now, that is an entirely different statement from that which the gentleman read and the statement which he would have this commission to believe is true. I merely mention it as a good illustration of how Mr. Lawson could have been misquoted and misrepresented by the paper from which he [the witness BoughtonJ read.

l have talked personally with Mr. Lawson within the last fortnight or so,  just before I left Denver. I have talked with Mr. Lawson in the presence of men of the most radical type, who proposed or suggested things that I have heard Mr. Lawson fight against and talk against, and the statements made to me by Mr. Lawson are quite contradictory of the statement the gentleman read from the newspaper purporting to be made by Mr. Lawson. Since I left Denver and since I have been in this city I  have found myself misquoted on several different occasions and things put into my mouth that l never said, things put into my mouth that I could not have said; and I wish to state to this commission, because of this fact of which I am a witness, having heard Mr. Lord, that it go very slow in accepting statements made in the newspapers.

I  have a statement in the Pueblo Chieftain of May 3 that I could offer to this commission, two or three columns, in which it is stated that a certain prominent citizen, of Colorado said that the thing to be done with men like myself was that they should be killed—k-i-l-l-e-d-. I am not going to claim that those men who are making inflammatory statements of that kind are trying to stir up a sentiment among certain individuals that will bring about my own murder, yet that will be found in the Pueblo Chieftain of May 3, which is supposed to be the official organ, in so far as they have any official organ, of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. Now, so much for that. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: It is not an act of civilized warfare to turn machine guns upon women and children.-Testimony of Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey of Colorado” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Two days following the Ludlow massacre I came upon the ruins of the tent colony.”-Clara Ruth Mozzor

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Quote KE Linderfelt re Damn Red Neck Bitches of Ludlow Massacre, Apr 20, 1914, CIR p7378—————

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 How About It Rockefellers by R Kirby, ISR p722, June 1914

“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” →

Hellraisers Journal: Artists of The Masses Portray the Ludlow Massacre; Max Eastman Describes “Class War in Colorado”

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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 June 5, 1914
Excerpts from “Class War in Colorado” by Max Eastman

From The Masses of June 1914:

CLASS WAR IN COLORADO

Max Eastman

[Illustrated by M. H. Pancoast, John Sloan, and Art Young]

Ludlow Real Insult to Flag b;y MH Pancoast, Masses p6, June 1914

“FOR EIGHT DAYS it was a reign of terror. Armed miners swarmed into the city like soldiers of a revolution. They tramped the streets with rifles, and the red handkerchiefs around their necks, singing their war-songs. The Mayor and the sheriff fled, and we simply cowered in our houses waiting No one was injured here-they policed the streets day and night. But destruction swept like a flame over the mines.” These are the words of a Catholic priest of Trinidad.

“But, father” I said, “where is it all going to end?”

He sat forward with a radiant smile.”War!” he answered. “Civil war between labor and capital!” His gesture was beatific.

“And the church-will the church do nothing to save us from this?”

“Yes, this is Colorado,” he said. “Colorado is ‘disgraced in the eyes of the nation’-but soon it will be the Nation!“

I have thought often of that opinion. And I have felt that soon it will, indeed, unless men of strength and understanding, seeing this fight is to be fought, determine it shall be fought by the principals with economic and political arms, and not by professional gunmen and detectives.

Many reproaches will fall on the heads of the Rockefeller interests for acts of tyranny, exploitation, and contempt of the labor laws of Colorado-acts which are only human at human’s worst. They have gone out to drive back their cattle with a lash. For them that is natural. But I think the cool collecting for this purpose of hundreds of degenerate adventurers in blood from all the slums and vice camps of the earth, arming them with high power rifles, explosive and soft-nosed bullets, and putting them beyond the law in uniforms of the national army, is not natural. It is not human. It is lower, because colder, than the blood-lust of the gunmen themselves.

[…..]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Artists of The Masses Portray the Ludlow Massacre; Max Eastman Describes “Class War in Colorado”” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II, Call to Arms

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 3, 1914
“The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of June 1914:

Black Hole of Ludlow, ISR p719, June 1914

THE CLASS WAR IN COLORADO

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part II of II]

The Massacre of the Innocents

[-from Rocky Mountain News]

The horror of the shambles at Ludlow is overwhelming. Not since the days when pitiless red men wreaked vengeance upon intruding frontiersmen and upon their women and children has this western country been stained with so foul a deed.

Ludlow Woman Crucified, ISR p716, June 1914

The details of the massacre are horrible. Mexico offers no barbarity so base as that of the murder of defenseless women and children by the mine guards in soldiers’ clothing. Like whitened sepulchres we boast of American civilization with this infamous thing at our very doors. Huerta murdered Madero, but even Huerta did not shoot an innocent little boy seeking water for his mother who lay ill. Villa is a barbarian, but in his maddest excess Villa has not turned machine guns on imprisoned women and children. Where is the outlaw so far beyond the pale of human kind as to burn the tent over the heads of nursing mothers and helpless little babies?

Out of this infamy one fact stands clear. Machine guns did the murder. The machine guns were in the hands of mine guards, most of whom were also members of the state militia. It was private war, with the wealth of the richest man in the world behind th mine guards.

Once and for all time the right to employ armed guards must be taken away from private individuals and corporations. To the state, and to the state alone, belongs the right to maintain peace. Anything else is anarchy. Private warfare is the only sort of anarchy the world has ever known, and armed forces employed by private interests have introduced the only private wars of modern times. This practice must be stopped. If the state laws are not strong enough, then the federal government must step in. At any cost, private warfare must be destroyed.

Who are these mine guards to whom is entrusted the sovereign right to massacre? Four of the fraternity were electrocuted recently in New York. They are the gunmen of the great cities, the offscourings of humanity, whom a bitter heritage has made the wastrels of the world. Warped by the wrongs of their own upbringing, they know no justice and they care not for mercy. They are hardly human in intelligence, and not as high in the scale of kindness as domestic animals.

Yet they are not the guilty ones. The blood of the innocent women and children rests on the hands of those who for the greed of dollars employed such men and bought such machines of murder. The world has not been hard upon these; theirs has been a gentle upbringing. Yet they reck not of human life when pecuniary interests are involved.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II, Call to Arms” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I, Battle of Ludlow

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Quote John Lawson 1913, after October 17th Death Special attack on Forbes Tent Colony, Beshoar p74—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 2, 1914
“The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of June 1914:

CO Miners Prepared to Defend Colonies, ISR p709, June 1914

THE CLASS WAR IN COLORADO

By Leslie H. Marcy

“SOCIETY AS A WHOLE IS MORE AND MORE SPLITTING UP INTO TWO
HOSTILE CAMPS, INTO TWO GREAT CLASSES DIRECTLY FACING EACH
OTHER: THE CAPITALIST CLASS AND THE WORKING CLASS.”

[Part I of II]

FOR thirty years an industrial warfare has been going on in Colorado between the coal miners and the coal owners. In fact, in every state and country where coal is mined we find an irrepressible conflict of interests. Temporary truces are signed from time to time in the way of contracts mostly CON so far as the men are concerned-and again, there is open warfare as witnessed recently in England, West Virginia and South Africa.

Time was when the coal miners of this country worked 16 hours a day, but, by combining their strength into unions they have cut the hours of their slavery to eight and improved their working conditions. No wonder that their battle cry is “The Union Forever”! No wonder that the Coal Barons cry out for the standing army to protect them when all else has failed!.

Militiamen on Way to CO Strike Zone, ISR p708, June 1914

The Battle of Ludlow was inevitable. For seven months the southern coal fields of Colorado have been divided into two hostile camps: the Owners organized into the Operators Association; the Workers organized in unions of the United Mine Workers of America, with interests diametrically opposed.

The main issue is the right of the miners to organize. The Colorado Statutes are very clear on this subject and the miners have the legal right of way, but, the “law is a dead letter in the section of Colorado 100 miles square,” or wherever the Operators own the land.

On September 23, 1913, the union miners went on strike to enforce their constitutional rights: to organize; to work an 8-hour day, to semi-monthly pay, to have their own Check-weighman, to trade where they pleased,-ALL OF WHICH WERE DEAD LAWS. Each proposition related to a law that was being violated. The whole proposal simmered down to a single statement is this: “If you coal diggers will give up your union, the operators promise to obey the state laws which have been passed for your protection.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Class War in Colorado” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I, Battle of Ludlow” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Mary Jones Interviewed on Way to Seattle: “That’s All Rockefeller Is-Another But Crueler Herod!”

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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 – Saturday May 30, 1914
Spokane, Washington – Mother Jones Talks with Reporter While Waiting for Train

From The Seattle Star of  May 29, 1914
-Mother Jones Speaks on Christians and Savages:

A MODERN HEROD, “MOTHER” JONES
CALLS ROCKEFELLER
———-
Aged Angel of Organized Labor,
En Route to Seattle, Talks to Star
Correspondent of Colorado War

By Staff Correspondent.

Mother Jones Coming to Seattle, Stt Str p2, May 29, 1914

SPOKANE, May 29-Mother Jones talked with a reporter during a short stop here today, while she waited for her train to speed on toward Seattle, where she will take part in the Memorial Day labor parade and exercises.

With the horror of the Ludlow massacre of women and children by the hired gunmen of the mine owners still noticeable in its effect on her, she is hurrying coastward to tell the story of the modern butchery.

She wants the Northwest to know the awful details of that terrible day at Ludlow.

[Said Mother Jones:]

I wish I could stop in every city and hamlet on the Coast and throughout the West and tell the story of Ludlow as I know it. The world outside of Colorado still fails to realize the full extent of Colorado’s red history.

This charming old lady of 80 comes to the Northwest fresh from her imprisonment in Colorado for participation in the miners’ strike there.

She has written to John D. Rockefeller, jr., asking him to see her when she returns East, and let her tell him the grievances of his former employes.

She has dreamed a dream of acting as an unofficial mediator between Rockefeller and the strikers in Colorado.

[She said sadly:]

I’ll never hear at all from the young man. He hasn’t even a polite excuse for an old woman. I might have known, though, that the man who would permit his gunmen to shoot down women and boil babies in oil wouldn’t want to hear the miners’ side.

Likens Him to Herod.

But you see I’ve just come from Colorado-from the strike zone.

I have a photograph of the little boy [Frankie Snyder] whose head was shot off while he was getting a drink of water for his dying mother. I haven’t been able to get my mind off the horror of Ludlow.

I thought just for a minute that perhaps Rockefeller was not as bad as he has been painted. But I’ll never hear from him. I know it now. Why, a mother might just as well have written to Herod to ask him why he ordered the slaughter of the innocents! THAT’S ALL ROCKEFELLER IS-ANOTHER BUT CRUELER HEROD!

[Mother Jones continued, in the deep, booming voice that shows the astonishing triumph of an ageless spirit over age:

They’re all alike, those capitalists.

They’re All Savages.

They’re all Christians in China and savages in their own country.

The reason they all give so much money to foreign missions is because they wast to keep Christianity where it can’t do any harm-where it can’t interfered with BUSINESS. BUSINESS IS THEIR GOD! They all worship it.

I tell John D Rockefeller and all others like him that the men Christ scourged from the temple, the money-changers, were men LIKE HIM and MORGAN and CARNEGIE.

And I warn them that another scourging of the money-changers is close at hand!

[Emphasis added]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Mary Jones Interviewed on Way to Seattle: “That’s All Rockefeller Is-Another But Crueler Herod!”” →