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:
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.
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:
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.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 23, 1914 Trinidad, Colorado – City Officials Demand State Troops; Union to Issue Call to Arms
From The Denver Post of April 22, 1914:
Top: Ruins of the Ludlow Tent Colony of Striking Coal Miners, Destroyed by Fire Monday Night During the Battle Between Strikers and Troops. Bottom Left: Refugees from the Destroyed Ludlow Tent Colony, Seeking Shelter. Bottom Right: After the Battle of Ludlow-Scene at the Railroad Station Showing Nearly Every Man, Soldier or Civilian, Bearing arms.
Sunday April 19, 1914 – Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado – Greek Easter, a Day of Celebration
Baseball Game at Ludlow Tent Colony
Sunday was a gala day in the Ludlow Tent Colony for the Greek Easter was celebrated, and the Greeks had declared that they would outdo the Catholics in their celebration of this Holy Day. The colony is made up of residents from many different nationalities, and, on this Holy Day, they came decked out in their various national costumes bringing the colony to life in a riot of color. Snow still covered the prairie here and there, but the sun was shining its warmth upon the strikers and their families on this glorious Easter Day.
Louie Tikas, leader of the colony, was resplendent in his traditional Cretan vraka. He walked through the colony greeting every one with a kiss and the joyful cry of “Christ Is Risen.” Louie’s bright smile was welcomed at every tent, well respected for his calm manner and steadfast courage.
Music filled the air and the children played around the tents. Later on, after church services, there was a feast in the main tent. A lamb had been put on the fire, and there were barrels of beer for the adults.
After the feast the colonist played a game of baseball in the ball park built next to the tents. American style gym bloomers had been provided as an Easter present for the women, and one of the games was played, men against the women, with the women wearing their new bloomers for the first time.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 14, 1914 Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado – Mrs. Mary Thomas Reports
Mary Thomas, camp greeter of the Ludlow Tent Colony, reports that the social life of the camp has greatly improved with the coming spring. Once again she can enjoy her morning coffee outside with her dear friends and nearest neighbors, Cedi Costa and Margo Gorci. The children are once again at play on the swings and see-saws. Many of the colonist plant flowers and vegetables around the tents bringing a festive quality to the camp.
Meals can once again be eaten outside at the long tables placed between the tents. Mary, Cedi and Margo continue to pool their resources in order to see that everyone gets something. An elderly disabled miner eats with the three families.
Cedi’s husband, Charlie, camp peacemaker and overseer, always keeps everyone smiling. One day he came by to play a practical joke:
Charley brought a bunch of paper “telescopes” and set them up on our long table. Then he gathered us around and began to shout like a barker at a circus, “come one, come all, the show is just about to begin!”
“What are they?” we asked.
“Fighting Ants,” he replied.
“Where did you get them?” Cedi said suspiciously.
“I bought them.” Hearing Charley say this, Cedi became furious.
“What do you mean ‘you bought them?’ You have a lot of nerve spending money for fighting ants when we are nearly starving to death!” Then all three of us excitedly said, “Let’s see them!”
“You’ll have to pay me a penny each,” announced Charley.
“You’ll have to trust us until payday.”
All right,” he teased, “just until payday. Now,” he said,”put these telescopes up to your eyes, or you can’t see them.” He helped us with them. We looked and looked. By now a crowd had gathered around our table, drawn there by Charley’s spiel about fighting ants.
“We can’t see anything,” we muttered, and put the telescopes back on the table. When we looked at each other, we almost went to pieces with hysterical laughter. Charley had put charcoal on the end we looked through, and each of us had a big, round black monicle!
Mary Thomas describes Charlie Costa as always jovial, always doing something funny to lessen the tragic times. The children of the camp love him and follow him around like the Pied Piper.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 12, 1914 Washington D. C. – John D. Rockefeller Jr. Testifies Before House Committee
John D. Rockefeller Jr. made his appearance on Monday, April 6th, in Washington D. C., before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Mines and Mining which is investigating conditions in the coal mines of Colorado. During his four hours of sworn testimony, Mr. Rockefeller stated that the “Open Shop” is a “Great Principle” worth the loss of all of his property in the state of Colorado and the lives of all of his employes.
During his four hours of sworn testimony, Mr. Rockefeller had this exchange with Chairman Foster:
THE DEATH SPECIAL, MACHINE GUNS, AND MINE GUARDS
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know about an automobile being armored-built of armor plate being built in your company? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. It sounds interesting, but I have not heard of it. The CHAIRMAN. It was built in the shops of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I did not know they produced automobiles as well. The CHAIRMAN. They put on it machine guns, going around through that country. Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thought the idea referred to by Mr. Bowers, of having a number of searchlights was an excellent one, helping to prevent disorder. They could see the country all around. The CHAIRMAN. Do you know this, that it was testified during the disturbances before the militia was called into the field, the mine guards were then in existence, and trouble took place between the striking miners and the mine guards or deputy sheriffs? Were you informed of that? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I did not know that was so, but it is usual where a strike occurs for the company to undertake to protect its men with the local officials, and add to that number before the the militia is called out. I think that is customary. The CHAIRMAN. Now, then, when the militia was called out, a great many of these mine guards or deputy sheriffs, it was said, were sworn into the service of the State, and they were kept on the pay rolls of the company; for instance, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. What is your idea of that? Do you think that makes the militia a nonpartisan preserver of the peace? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I should simply say that if the local authorities in any community were unable to or did not render adequate protection to the workers of that district it was the duty of the employers of the labor to supplement that protection in any way they could. The CHAIRMAN. Well, but if the militia had been called into the field and then the mine guards and deputy sheriffs who had been sworn into the militia were still on the pay roll of the company, drawing their pay from the State and from the company, too, is it your opinion that they would be a nonpartisan protector of the peace of the community? Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Of course, that is a very extensive country. There are mines in many different places. I do not know that in any case the militia has been sent there in sufficient numbers to cover the entire country.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 16, 1914 Forbes and Ludlow, Colorado – Militia’s Reign of Terror Continues
From The Denver Post of March 12, 1914:
Views of the tent colony at Forbes, Colo., destroyed by order of General Chase last Tuesday [March 10th] in the Trinidad coal strike district. The lower photograph is a view of a tent and the strikers and their families before the soldiers took charge. The upper is a view of the colony dwellers and their destroyed homes, showing the strikers and their children eating the food found in their wrecked tents.
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General Chase Justifies Destruction of Forbes Tent Colony
The body of Neil Smith, strikebreaker, was found near the railroad tracks between Forbes and Suffield just before the March 10th raid on Forbes Tent Colony. Gen. Chase blamed the miners for Smith’s death stating that he was murdered by strikers with clubs and stones and “then the victim’s body was laid on the railroad tracks to be run over, as it was, by an approaching train.” For that reason, according to Chase, the nearby strikers’ colony was raided, ransacked and destroyed by the militia. Every man living in the colony was taken into military custody.
Joe M. Scatterthwaite, editor of the Trinidad Free Press, the union newspaper, reported that the trainmen (J. M. Riley, conductor; T. H. Mitchell, engineer, and J. M. Dean, brakeman) examined Smith’s body immediately after he was run over by the train. They found no signs of clubs or stones. The militiamen and company guards did not arrive at the scene until several hours later, and that is when the stones and clubs suddenly appeared. Sixteen strikers from the Forbes colony have been arrested and 48 women and children are now homeless. The militia has not allowed the union to rebuild the colony.
Scatterthwaite recently published the following editorial:
HOW LONG, OH GOD, HOW LONG?
Governor Ammons, sitting on his shoulder blades in cushioned chair, replies to complaints concerning the Forbes outrage, that he knew nothing of it-and that it will not happen again.
Of course it will not occur again-and it does not need an anemic, spineless, truckling executive to give that assurance. The thing has been done! The tents are down. The women are in tears, the children are in hysterics, the peaceful colony is scattered. It will not be done again at Forbes. O, No!
But will it be done at some other point? Will Ludlow be the next to suffer? Will the mailed fist fall on Starkville? Will these unrebuked outlaws next attack some other law-abiding band of citizens? These are questions for a kow-towing executive to answer. He does not know what the next order of the coal barons will be, but he knows that he will probably obey that command as he has sniffingly and cringingly obeyed every order that has come to him from the offices of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and Victor American Fuel Company-his masters. He does not know what his militia will do, for he is fully aware, in his puny heart, that the militia has got beyond his control.
He knows that these desperate men of the gun and bludgeon can no more be checked and held in leash than the imps of hell. He assures the people that there will be no further outrages at Forbes, but he is powerless to say that the heavy hand will not fall on some other community. And so he keeps silent, groveling out his excuses to righteous complaints.
[Emphasis added.]
March 13th, as if to provide proof for the points of Scatterthwaite’s editorial, Lieutenant Linderfelt and his men charged their horses onto the platform of the the crowded Ludlow train station. It was just at train time, and some of those waiting for the train were knocked down as others scattered in a panic to avoid being trampled. Witness say the cavalrymen rode straight at them from a rise beyond Ludlow, just as the westbound train pulled into the depot. No doubt, Lt. Linderfelt and his men were hoping to provoke the colonist into retaliating.
General Chase has issued an order that the 450 militiamen still in the field cannot be sent home. “A clash between the militia and the strikers is expected,” the General stated. The militia left in the field are of the worst sort. Linderfelt is a glaring example of the character of the militiamen who have been left in the strike zone.Many of them are company guards, now in the pay of both the military and the coal companies.
The investigating committee from the Colorado Federation of Labor (appointed by Governor Ammons), singled Linderfelt out as an officer unfit for duty. The Labor Committee specifically requested, last January after the Lieutenant’s previous rampage at the Ludlow depot, that Linderfelt be taken out of the strike zone stating that:
We did not expect to report to you until we had completed the taking of testimony at all camps, but in our judgment the following serious matter should be reported to you at once: Lieut. K. E. Linderfelt, of the cavalry stationed at Berwind, last night [Dec. 30th] at Ludlow brutally assaulted an inoffensive boy in the public railroad station, using the vilest language at the same time. He also assaulted and tried to provoke to violence Louie Tikas, head man of the Ludlow strikers’ colony, and arrested him unjustifiably. Today, in the presence of one of our number, he grossly abused a young man in no way connected with the strike, also makes threats against the strikers in the foulest language. He rages violently upon little or no provocation and is wholly an unfit man to bear arms and command men as he has no control over himself. We have reason to believe that it is his deliberate purpose to provoke the strikers to bloodshed. In the interest of peace and justice, we ask immediate action in his case.
[Emphasis added.]
Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, elected to office with the aid of the Labor Vote, has continued to ignore this request. Lt. Linderfelt remains in the strike zone, camped out with his men at Berwind, near to the Ludlow Tent Colony.
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Mary Thomas, camp greeter of the Ludlow Tent Colony, reports that the social life of the camp has greatly improved with the coming spring. Once again she can enjoy her morning coffee outside with her dear friends and nearest neighbors, Cedi Costa and Margo Gorci. The children are once again at play on the swings and see-saws. Many of the colonist plant flowers and vegetables around the tents bringing a festive quality to the camp.
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