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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 8, 1913
“Clash in the Copper Country” by Graham Romeyn Taylor
From The Survey of November 1, 1913:
[Scene of Seeberville Murders]
Tag: Company Gunthugs
Hellraisers Journal: From Miners Magazine: “The Faithful Dog” Walks the Streets of Chicago to Advertise Against Scabs
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 7, 1913
Chicago, Illinois – Faithful Dog, Topey, Says, “Don’t Be a Scab”
From the Miners Magazine of November 6, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: State Militia Arrives in Southern Colorado Strike Zone, Finds Striking Coal Miners Standing Firm
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 6, 1913
Southern Colorado Coalfields – State Militia Arrives, Strikers Standing Firm
From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of November 1, 1913:
[Captain Van Cise Issues “Shoot to Kill” Orders:]
Hellraisers Journal: William Gunn Shepherd on the Coal Strike in Colorado: “The Wrath of 25 Years Breaking Loose”
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 25, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – William Gunn Shepherd Reports on Coalfield Strike
From The Day Book of October 23, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones to Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado: “These Women Ain’t Going to Bite You.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 23, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Mother Jones Leads Mass Parade to Confront Governor Ammons
October 21, 1913
Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, arrived Tuesday, October 21st, in Southern Colorado to make a personal tour of the strike zone. He came accompanied by several state officials. Near Walsenburg, on the public highway leading into the C. F. & I. Company’s Ravenwood Mine, an Oklahoma gunthug refused to give a pass to the chief executive of the state of Colorado so that he could continue on his chosen route. The private company gunthug said to the Governor:
You may be the governor and again maybe you ain’t. I dunno. But you ain’t got no pass to get in here and you ain’t going in, see?
Governor Ammons and his party of state official were forced to turn back.
In Trinidad, Governor Ammons sojourned at the Hotel Cardenas. Imagine his surprise when he looked out the window to find Mother Jones leading a parade of 1500 women and children who were followed by 2500 more in a grand show of support. The Colorado & Southern railroad refused Mother’s request to carry the strikers and their families from Ludlow into Trinidad, and yet many of them managed to make their way into Trinidad to march in the parade. They were joined by the women, children, and miners from many of the other tent colonies as well.
They all came marching and singing, (especially “The Colorado Strike Song”) led by a brass band, and carrying signs of protest:
Has the Governor Any Respect for the State?
A Bunch of Mother Jones’ Children
We Want Freedom, Not Corporation Rules
If Uncle Sam Can Run the Post-Office, Why Not the Mines?
We Are Not Afraid of Your Gatling Guns, We Have To Die Anyway
Give Us Another Patrick Henry for Governor
The Democratic Party is on Trial
Do You Hear the Children Groaning, O Colorado
Mother, believing that the residents of the tent colonies deserve an encouraging word from their Governor, brought the women and children into the hotel and straight up to the door of the Governor’s room. According to reports, every hallway was packed. Mother called to the Governor, but he would not come out. She beat on the door and yelled:
Unlock that door and come out here. These women ain’t going to bite you.
The Governor remained barricaded in his room.
Governor Ammons will leave the strike zone today or early tomorrow. Reports indicate that he is unwilling to call out the National Guard at this time. He told reporters:
The strike is no Sunday school picnic, but conditions aren’t as bad as I had been led to believe.
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Hellraisers Journal: News Round-Up from the Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike: Company Town “Marshal” Killed
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 6, 1913
News Round-Up from the Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike
From the Trinidad Chronicle News of September 25, 1913:
Note: The Chronicle News is published by Judge Jesse G. Northcutt, attorney for Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
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Thursday September 25, 1913
Segundo, Colorado – Company Gunman, Bob Lee, Shot and Killed by Greek Miners
Bob Lee, a gunman brought in to work as a coalfield marshal, was shot and killed by Greek miners near Segundo yesterday. Lee was found on the ground where he had fallen from his horse. His rifle was on the ground beside him still cocked.
The trouble started when the miners were not allowed to send a wagon to the mining camp in order to retrieve their belongs. Bob Lee heard that the Greek miners were taking their anger out on a company footbridge that crossed Las Animas Creek. At about noon, Lee road up on the bridge to confront the miners. Tempers flared as Lee used his horse to push the miners back, and they resisted. As Lee reached for his rifle, shots rang out, and Lee was killed.
The suspects are Tom Larius and four other Greek miners. Word has it that they have fled to New Mexico. A mounted posse has been unable to apprehend them.
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From The Rocky Mountain News of September 27, 1913:
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Hellraisers Journal: Strikebreakers Shipped Into Cripple Creek Strike District, Guarded by Troops, Escape to Union Hall Under Fire
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 26, 1903
Cripple Creek District, Colorado – Imported Strikebreakers Escape to Union Hall
Report of Emma F. Langdon of Victor, Colorado:
51 STRIKE BREAKERS ARRIVE IN THE DISTRICT.
On Sept. 18 the much heralded strike breaking miners from the “east’’ arrived in Denver on their way to the district under heavy guard.
When the train carrying these men reached Cripple Creek the soldiers abandoned them, but the mine owners had places provided for their comfort. The newsboys followed them down the street and cried, “scab!” after them. This frightened the mine owners and a detachment of troops was immediately sent from Camp Goldfield to Cripple Creek, going over on the 9 o’clock electric low line from Victor. These soldiers were soon joined by two other companies of infantry and they lined Bennett avenue from First to Third streets and guarded the alleys more particularly. The soldiers’ headquarters were made at the Mining Exchange building, from where they received their orders. Citizens walking along the streets were told to move on and not to loiter.
The Finns and Norwegians, which constituted most of the men brought in—in fact, there was only two Americans among them—and very few who could speak English. The ones who could speak English stated that conditions had been misrepresented to them. They had just finished their work in the harvest fields of northern Michigan and were told that a new gold field had been opened here and that the mine owners wanted men badly. They were informed that in order to get men at once they would pay $3 for eight hours work and that the first men who responded would get the jobs. They were told further that if they did not like the work they would pay their expenses back to their homes and that it would not cost them a cent to get to the district.
There was eighty-seven in the crowd when they reached Denver, but twenty-six of the number pulled away in that city and about nine quit at Colorado Springs, leaving fifty or fifty-one to arrive in the gold camp.
STRIKE BREAKERS CONVERTED TO UNIONISM.
Eighteen of the men shipped into the district from Michigan were at union headquarters Friday night, Sept. 18, and stated that they would not go to work under the conditions here; that matters here had been grossly misrepresented to them. The balance of the fifty-one were taken to the Independence mine in the morning under heavy guard, but when they got to the mine they refused to go below. They were kept there all day and fed at Camp Goldfield.
On Saturday morning, Sept. 19, while the remaining twenty-three imported laborers were being escorted along Bennett avenue, Cripple Creek, by the military, the first shot of the “Cripple Creek District War” occurred when Lieutenant Hartung, of company B, took a shot at one of the imported Finns, Emil Peterson, who had been drawn off by the unions.
The strike breakers were being escorted from Miners’ Exchange hall to the depot by a detachment of company B. At the corner of Second and Bennett avenue Peterson broke through the lines and tried to talk to the strike breakers. He was ordered out by Capt. Frazier. As the man turned away he shouted in an excited manner, in his own tongue, to the others, and the captain called on Lieut. Hartung, “Arrest that man.” Peterson ran up the avenue, and Lieut. Hartung called, “Halt!” three times. The man increased his speed. The officer then sent a bullet after the man, who was now running like a frightened rabbit, his hat falling off in his mad rush for freedom and perhaps unionism.
Saturday morning unionists persuaded eighteen of the imported Finns to desert the mine owners, one of them being the man who was shot at by the lieutenant and whom the private sharp shooter offered to kill if the order was given. Peterson claimed that all of the strikebreakers were induced to come to Colorado by false representation, and the promise of high wages, from $4 to $5 a day being offered.
Hellraisers Journal: Don MacGregor of the Denver Express Describes the Great Exodus of Striking Miners and Their Families from the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal- Thursday September 25, 1913
The Great Exodus of Striking Miners from Company Towns
Southern Colorado, September 23, 1913
-Evicted Families Arrive at Ludlow and Trinidad as Rain Turns to Snow.
September 24, 1913
As the miners and their families were evicted from the company towns, Don MacGregor, a reporter from the Denver Express, was a witness and filed this report which was published September 24th:
No one who did not see that exodus can imagine its pathos. The exodus from Egypt was a triumph, the going forth of a people set free. The exodus of the Boers from Cape Colony was the trek of a united people seeking freedom.
But this yesterday, that wound its bowed, weary way between the coal hills on the one side and the far-stretching prairie on the other, through the rain and the mud, was an exodus of woe, of a people leaving known fears for new terrors, a hopeless people seeking new hope, a people born to suffering going forth to new suffering.
And they struggled along the roads interminably, in an hour’s drive between Tinidad and Ludlow, 57 wagons were passed, and others seemed to be streaming down to the main road from every by-path.
Every wagon was the same, with its high piled furniture, and its bewildered woebegone family perched atop, and the furniture! What a mockery to the state’s boasted riches. Little piles of miserable looking straw bedding! Little piles of kitchen utensils! And all so worn and badly used they would have been the scorn of any second-hand dealer on Larimer Street.
Prosperity! With never a single article even approaching luxury, save once in a score of wagons a cheap gaily painted gramophone! With never a bookcase! With never a book! With never a single article that even the owners thought worth while trying to protect from the rain!
[Emphasis added]
John Lawson, International Organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, was on hand through-out the day. When a superintendent taunted him by shouting, “A good day for a strike,” Lawson replied:
Any strike-day would look good to the people from your mines.
At Ludlow, Lawson helped to set up the canteen and greeted arriving families with milk and hot coffee as the rain turned into a snow.
One thousand tents being shipped from West Virginia by the U. M. W. have been delayed. At the Ludlow Tent Colony, many miners and their families spent the night in the big central tent. Some were taken to local union halls, and others were given shelter in the homes of nearby union sympathizers. The Greek miners, many of whom are single men, spent the night camped out in the snowstorm.
Hellraisers Journal: Coal Strike is On in Southern Colorado Coalfields; Mass Exodus from Company Towns into Tent Colonies
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Hellraisers Journal- Wednesday September 24, 1913
Southern Colorado-Thousands of Striking Miners and Families Exit Company Towns
From the Trinidad Chronicle-News of September 23, 1913:
A meeting was held at Sopris this morning and talks were made by Frank J. Hayes and “Mother” Jones. A meeting will be held at Ludlow this afternoon. These meetings will continue from day to day at differenct camps to “keep the enthusiasm going”, as Vice President Hayes intimated last night.
Mother Jones worked up to a high pitch bordering on frenzey deliverd an impassioned address to more than three hundred coal miners at Sopris this morning. The meeting was held under canvass and the venerable labor leader sought to stir up the fires of revolet in the breast of every miner. While the speaking was going on scores of miners were receiving union cards. International vice president Frank J. Hayes also spoke. There was a good deal of enthusiasm manifested.
[Statement of Vice-President Frank Hayes to C-N reporter:]
We have conducted a quiet, dignified campaign. We feel confident the operators will accede to our demands in the near future. The miners by their action today have proved that they desire to enjoy better working conditions and work as union men and enjoy the same rights and privileges as the miners of Wyoming and neighboring states.
This is an age of co-operation and we demand the same right as the mine owners assert to band ourselves together for the purpose of promoting social and economic welfare. The statutes of Colorado concede us this right and the right to sell our labor collectively. We cannot surrender this legal right.
In view of the prosperity of this particular company [C. F. & I.] which also reflects the prosperity of other big corporations, we see no good reason why the miners should not enjoy more of the comforts and refinements of modern civilization. We have repeatedly sought to secure a joint conference but without success. We are still waiting for a conference to adjust the present controversy. If working conditions are as good as the operators say they are, then the operators ought not to fear to meet the miners in joint conference.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the Denver United Labor Bulletin: Miners’ Strike in the Colorado Coal Fields Will Begin on Tuesday
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 22, 1913
Southern Colorado Coalfields – Miners Will Begin Strike on Tuesday
From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of September 20, 1913:
U. M. W. District 15 of Colorado Issues Strike Resolution, Makes Demands:
