Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 7, 1914
New York City – Judge Lindsey Testifies Before Commission on Industrial Relations
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 – Sunday December 28, 1913 Calumet, Michigan – Men, Women and Children Perish in Midst of Christmas Joy
From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of December 28, 1913:
In the midst of Christmas good cheer and happiness twenty eight little girls, twenty four little boys, fifteen women and five men were swirled into the cruel jaws of death in less than five minutes at the Italian hall, Calumet, on Christmas eve. The striking miners of Calumet had prepared Christmas exercises and the distribution of presents for the little ones and at the appointed time the hall was filled with the happy little tots accompanied by their parents. The Christmas tree gaily decorated and loaded with presets stood upon the stage of the hall. The program was started by Mrs. Annie Clemenc who was making a talk to the children telling them that old Santa had not forgotten them just because their fathers had been denied work, and that they were all to be made happy by receiving many nice presents, candies, fruits and nuts.
The little ones had crowded near the stage their little faces beaming with delight when a fiend in the shape of a man sneaked up the stairway leading to the hall, opened the door and waving his arm cried “fire, fire,” then quickly making his way to the street where he disappeared in the gathering darkness.At the cry of fire the great throng arose as one and made a dash for the front exit of the hall. The way was made for the children first and they filled the stairway so full and crowded from the rear so fast that some of the children were swept off their feet. These little bodies acted a stumbling blocks for those who followed and within a few seconds the stairway was a mass of bleeding crushed, dead and dying humanity. The crowd from above kept crowding into the stairway until it was completely filled with bodies.
As soon as the cry of fire had been sounded the city fire alarm was bellowing its harrowing warning and the firemen upon arriving at the scene quickly placed ladders to the front windows of the building and ascended to the hall where they stopped any more from crowding into the stairway upon the dead bodies of their comrades. Within a few minutes the hall had been emptied and the work of removing the dead taken up. The bodies were so tightly wedged into the hallway that they could not be released below and had to be taken from above and carried back into the hall. The bodies were taken to a temporary morgue in the city hall where after identification they were sorrowfully removed to their homes.
The scene was one beggaring description and those who witnessed it will never have it effaced from their minds as long as they live. While the front hallway was being crowded and jammed full of men, women and children others were seeking escape at a fire exit in the rear of the hall, many getting out in this manner. Others jumped from windows and in nearly every instance were severely injured, one little boy who jumped had both legs broken.
One little girl who was jammed in the hallway in a dying condition begged one of the rescuers to save her. She grasped his hand, kissed it, then her little head dropped upon her breast and she was dead. One man whose name was not learned got in the hallway and tried to prevent the frenzied crowd from crowding down the stairs upon those below. He placed his arms across the hall way and checked them momentarily but the force behind became too great and he was swept into the vortex of death, his dead body being taken out a few minutes later. Holding high above her head her little child, a woman and her husband were carried into the mass of humanity trying to get out of the hall. This man and his wife were swept to their death but the child miraculously escaped.
The fiend who caused this terrible disaster made his escape and is still at large. From persons who stood near the door it is learned that he was rather stockily built, a little under medium height, and wore his hat well pulled down over his countenance. Upon the lapel of his coat he wore a Citizens Alliance button, is a statement made by several who got a good view of him. How anyone with reasoning power could have deliberately committed the act is beyond comprehension.
President Moyer of the Federation who was in Hancock at the time of the accident hurried to Calumet and assured those afflicted that their wants would be attended to by the organization at whose head he stands. The funerals of the victims will be held at Calumet this afternoon and will be attended by thousands of sorrowing friends and companions of those who, while in life, stood valiantly by their side in the great fight for justice which still holds within it grasp the entire district. The funerals will be held under the auspices of organized Labor, and no funds other than those donated by such organizations will be accepted. Organized labor has made this request and the wishes will be respected in this matter…..
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 20, 1913 Trinidad, Colorado – Northcutt Attacks Louie Tikas, Leader of Greeks at Ludlow
From the Trinidad Chronicle-News of November 13, 1913
Jesse G. Northcutt, former Colorado district judge, is the publisher of the Trinidad Chronicle-News, he has also been hired on as attorney for the coal operators. Furthermore, he is known to assist John J. Hendrick, the district attorney for Colorado’s Third Judicial District which covers Las Animas and Huerfano counties. How handy for the operators to have one of their own working within the criminal justice system under which striking miners are being prosecuted!
Thus, we see that Judge Jesse G. Northcutt plays several roles within the strike zone: “respected” former Judge, attorney for the coal operators, and the assistant to the District Attorney. Let us now add to that list, the role of master of public opinion through the pages of the Trinidad Chronicle-News:
“Louie the Greek” leader of three hundred of his country men-striking miners at the Ludlow tent colony, is perhaps the most conspicuous figure in the industrial war in southern Colorado. “Louie the Greek” is shrewd and fearless-a veteran of the Balkan war, and he controls the Greeks at the tent colony with a spoken word, a lift of the eye brows or a gesture of his hand.
[Emphasis added.]
The above is from the November 13th edition of the Judge’s newspaper. A week earlier (November 4th), the Chronicle described Louie’s fellow Greek miners as:
..a band of warlike Greeks who have been carrying on guerrilla warfare in the hills for weeks and who have repeatedly declined to obey the orders of the strike leaders.
[Emphasis added.]
As far as reporting goes, the job done here is not such a great one. Tikas never went to war in the Balkans, although several of his fellow Greek miners did. Louie Tikas is, in fact, a United States Citizen. He is a respected leader in the Ludlow Tent Colony where he is known for his quiet, calm manner in the face of severe provocation from the deputized company gunthugs.
And as to armed Balkan War Veterans in the Ludlow Tent Colony, all we have to say is: Thank God, the miners and their families have some protection from the hundreds of imported deputized armed gunthugs with their machine guns, high powered rifles, searchlights, and the Death Special which roams the strike zone at will.
Judge Jesse G. Northcutt was seen riding in that very same Death Specialwhich flaunts the mounted machine gun that killed Brother Luca Vahernick at the Forbes Tent Colony. The Judge was found in the Death Special along with the gunthugs Belcher and Belk at Forbes, by John Lawson, the morning after the attack. It was Louie Tikas who stepped between Lawson and Belk in that quiet, calm way of his, and perhaps, saved Lawson’s life.
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:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 25, 1913 Martial Law/Strike Zone, West Virginia – Cora Older Speaks with Mother Jones
From Collier’s National Weekly of April 19, 1913:
Answering a Question
By MRS. FREMONT OLDER
Mrs. Older is the wife of Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco “Bulletin,’’ who was one of the citizen leaders responsible for the overthrow of the Schmitz boodle gang and for the conviction of Abe Ruef. But Mr. Older is a newspaper man before he is a reformer. Hence his question-which herewith Mrs. Older answers.
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MOTHER JONES and forty-eight men were on trial before a military court in Paint Creek Junction, W. Va., charged with conspiracy to murder. Mother Jones and five leaders refused to plead; they would not admit that the military court had jurisdiction over civilians. It was an interesting situation, but little news came to the outside world.
“Why don’t we get news from West Virginia?” my husband asked me one morning. So I started from San Francisco to find out.
On the last day of the trial I arrived in Paint Creek Junction [Pratt], the military capital of the strike zone. A few small houses tilted toward the muddy New River. Barren brown mountains imprisoned the town.
A flag fluttered freely over the dingy village. A soldier greeted me as I got down from the train. Soldiers swarmed about the little railway station converted into a “bull pen” for strikers on trial. Through the streets at the point of guns soldiers were driving civilians. “Prisoners,” some said; “Martial law.” Former Governor Glasscock’s proclamation posted on the little green lunch counter at the station spelled it “Marital law.”
Pickles are served at breakfast in Paint Creek Junction. “Lena Rivers” is the “best seller,” but the place is filled with class hatred and suspicion. One whispers; soldiers may hear. Americans of old colonial stock sneer at the militia. “Yellow legs!” “Spies!” “Strike breakers!”
EVERY man is his own Marconi in Paint Creek Junction. In half an hour it was known that a strange woman had arrived to visit Mother Jones. A messenger tiptoed into my boarding house to say that Mother Jones and the prisoners were allowed to meet no one, especially reporters; but if I wanted to find out about conditions I’d better talk with Mother Jones’s landlady. “Go to the side door, and into the kitchen.”
By this time I felt like a conspirator. I almost tiptoed through the soldiers. Mother Jones occupied the parlor of a small white cottage. I was welcomed by the landlady. We were chatting in the kitchen when, without rapping, an officer entered and said to me: “The Provost Marshal wants you at headquarters.”
“Why?” I asked, bewildered. I did not know I was under arrest.
Martial law was in the soldier’s glance. He repeated his command. “And they call us anarchists,” commented the fiery-eyed, white-faced landlady.
Through the main street, past armed sentinels, up a flight of stairs to a large room filled with empty benches and stacked guns, we went to the Provost Marshal. Stern, unsmiling as justice, he asked me to explain my presence and my existence. I told him the truth. The Provost Marshal frowned. I wondered about the “bull pen.” I made the discovery that I am no Christian martyr. I am a sybarite hopelessly prejudiced against bull pens. I fumbled in my bag and brought forth an engraved card. I was released on good behavior.
But I was able now to answer the question which had brought me across a continent. The PROVOST MARSHAL was the ASSOCIATED PRESS CORRESPONDENT.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 20, 1913 Rochester, New York – Ida Braeman, 17-Year-Old Striker, Shot Down by Boss
From the Chicago Day Book of February 6, 1913:
KILLS GIRL STRIKER WITH SHOT GUN
Rochester, N. Y., Feb. 6.-Ira Braeman, 17 years old, was shot and killed in cold blood by Valentine Sauter here last night.
Ida Braeman was a girl of the garment workers’ strike. Sauter is a clothing manufacturer.
Every labor union in Rochester will unite in the effort to push the charge of murder in the first degree against Sauter.
Sauter was in his shop when a group of strikers gathered outside and called to the strikebreakers within to quit work and join them.
Sauter picked up a shotgun and went to a window. He fired point-blank into the little group of girl strikers.
Ida Braeman was killed instantly; three others were wounded.
Sauter’s shot scattered the strikers, but when they saw the body of Ida Braeman lying in the street they came back, and only the arrival of the police prevented Sauter’s shop being torn down about his head. On the way to the station, the police had to use their clubs to protect the man.
Sauter says he fired because he thought his property was in danger.
Hellraisers Journal –Wednesday October 16, 1912 “This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Part II
From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:
[Part II of III]
Making and Breaking Contracts
On May 1st [1912], a compromise was reached in which the miners agreed to accept one-half of the Cleveland scale and the recognition of their union. This was accepted by a joint commission composed of representatives of the operators and the miners’ union.
On May 2d, the Paint Creek Collier Co., one of the parties to the contract, repudiated the agreement, thereby forcing their men either to scab or go on strike. The men chose the latter and on the 8th of May the first detatchment of “Baldwin guards” was sent to Paint Creek and following their arrival there, a reign of terror was established which has no parallel outside of barbarous Mexico or darkest Russia.
A chronicle of the crimes committed by these licensed and merciless cutthroats would fill a volume in itself. On June the 5th, eight of them were indicted before a grand jury and held for murder in the first degree, and were released on a bond of $3,000 each. A wholesale merchant and beneficiary of the coal barons acted as their bondsman.
The miners at Mucklow, Burnwell and several other camps were dispossessed under the “master and servant” decision of Judge Burdett. The miners made application for an injunction to restrain the operators from evicting them but Judge Burdett after a week or more of judicial jugglery refused to issue the order, notwithstanding such an order had been granted in Fayette county which is in the same mining district.
Battle for Tented “Homes”
The dispossessed miners secured tents and settled at Holly Grove at the mouth of Paint Creek.The coal barons and their hired assassins determined to break the union spirit and to drive the union men out of the district and opened fire on the tents at Holly Grove, July 25th. This was more than human endurance could stand and to this last outrage the miners retaliated and fought back with such weapons as they had and for two days the battle raged in and around Mucklow and just how many lives were lost will never be known.
About this time “Mother Jones,” the avenging Nemesis of the miners, appeared on the scene and with her came a new hope, a new courage and a new consciousness to the coal miners. There is something powerful about this old gray haired woman. When the coal barons hear her name they tremble. Barehanded and alone, Mother Jones walked up to the mouth of the gattling guns on Cabin Creek and demanded of the hireling that turned the crank that she be allowed to see her boys. Mother saw her boys and held a mass meeting in the Cabin Creek district and organized the miners and on August 7th the miners of Cabin Creek walked out on strike with their brothers of Paint Creek.
On August 29th a Baldwin guard drunk and disorderly shot a man by the name of Hodge at Dry Branch. This precipitated a general fight in which Hines, the instigator, was killed and several others wounded. On September 1st, Governor Glasscock ordered out the militia and declared martial law and just what the end will be it is hard to say at this time.
Governor Glasscock, in an interview with the newspaper reporters a few days ago admitted that he is not the governor of West Virginia, that the government of the state is controlled by an “infernal legislative lobby” and an “invisible power.”
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