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.

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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 – Fred Merrick Arrested at Charleston, West Virginia; Printing Plant of Labor Argus Raided and Confiscated

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Quote Fred Merrick, Hatfield Mad, Wlg Maj p1, May 1, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 1, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Fred Merrick of the Socialist Labor Argus Arrested

From The Cincinnati Enquirer of April 30, 1913:

SOCIALIST EDITOR
———-
And Labor Leader Arrested in West Virginia
-Plant Confiscated.

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.

Labor Argus Seized, Merrick Arrested, Hinton WV Dly Ns p1, Apr 30, 1913
The Hinton Daily News
April 30, 1913

Charleston, W. Va., April 20.-Fritz Merrick, of Pittsburg, Socialist editor, and John L. Ramsey, a member of the United Mine Workers, were arrested this afternoon by the military authorities, and the printing plant of the Labor Argus, a local Socialist publication, was confiscated.

Merrick and Ramsey were seized by Adjutant General Charles D. Elliott, Major John H. Charnock and Captain Charles Wood and were taken to the Kanawha County Jail and placed in custody of Sheriff Bonner Hill on a commitment from the Governor, who acted under the provisions of the code giving him authority to seize persons who are engaged in an effort to incite insurrection.

The mailing list of the publication, which circulates largely through the coal fields, where a strike has recently been in progress, was seized by the officers, together with a number of copies of the newspaper.

Merrick, who served a sentence in Pittsburg for contempt of Court, anticipated his arrest and wired the Pittsburg Socialist last Sunday that “I expect to be arrested within 24 hours, but I shall have completed arrangements by that time to have the Labor Argus published In Pittsburg.”

—————

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

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