Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 9, 1914
Colorado Coalfield War – Don MacGregor Lays Down His Pen and Picks Up a Gun
April 27-29, 1914 – Battle of the Hogback Above Walsenburg
Don MacGregor Leads the Redneck Miners’ Army
Striking Miners at Camp Beshoar, Ready for Battle
The Battle of the Hogback between the strikers and the mine guards raged for three days on the ridge above Walsenburg with losses reported on both sides. The Hogback extends west from the northern edge of downtown Walsenburg. Here the miners were led by Don MacGregor, dressed in “top boots and bandoliers.” From their position on the Hogback striking miners attacked the Walsen Mine and the mines near Toltec and Picton. They established their headquarters at the Toltec Union Hall.Sheriff Farr declined to participate in the battle. He and his guards barricaded themselves within the granite courthouse as the miners took control of parts of Walsenburg, including 7th Street. The miners ran supplies from there out along the Hogback to their embattled comrades.
Don MacGregor, Reporter for the Denver Express
We can only speculate as to what caused MacGregor to lay down his pen to join the fight of the miners. He had been covering the strike from the beginning for the pro-union Denver Express. He was there that first day of blowing rain and snow as the evicted miners and their families came down from the hills and began to set up camp at the Ludlow Tent Colony. He reported:
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 Trinidad 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 rickety chairs. 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 4, 1912
Mike Livoda, Organizer for U. M. W. A., Beaten in Huerfano County, Colorado
Affidavit of Mike Livoda
-Sworn to on June 20, 1912, at Las Animas County:
From the Denver Post of June 27, 1912:
ATTORNEY GENERAL ASKED TO ASSUME PROSECUTOR ———- Other Authorities Fail to File in Assault and Robbery Case. ———-
Governor Shafroth has been reminded that when a county prosecuting officer fails to do his duty when facts are presented sufficient to make a prima facie case the attorney general of the state can step in and personally take charge of the prosecution. When Attorney General Benjamin Griffith returns Friday he will be instructed by the governor to proceed against the five men who dragged Michael Livoda, organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, from his bed, robbed him of his union papers and ordered him to leave Walsenburg and Colorado.
John McLennan and John R. Lawson, in charge of the organization of miners, made the request that the state executive take action after District Attorney McHenry of Las Animas county failed to act. Deputy District Attorney Undershot, at Walsenburg, also refused to cause the arrest of the accused men.
McLennan and Lawson gave the names of these men to Governor Shafroth to turn over to the attorney general for prosecution: Charles A Kaiser, assistant superintendent of the Walsen mine; Deputy Sheriff Carr, stationed at the Walsen mine; James Farr, deputy sheriff, stationed at the Ravenwood mine, where Livoda was beaten, and a nephew of Sheriff Jefferson Farr; John Neish, superintendent of the Ravenwood mine, and Joseph Watson, guard at the Ravenwood mine. They claim to have witnesses to prove the five men guilty of the assault and robbery
Livoda was asleep in the house of a friend on the night of June 13 when five men entered the place, went through his clothes, took all union documents, marched him through the camp with mouth bound so he could not cry out, and when he reached the open country turned him loose after firing four shots and threatening to kill him if he came back.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 8, 1920
-Mother Jones News for March 1920, Part II
Found in Denver Conferring with Local Labor Leaders
From The Denver Post of March 27, 1920:
3 MINES EXTEND CONTRACTS
UNTIL AGREEMENT COMES
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“Mother” Jones on Way to Denver
to Speak to Laboring Men.
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A temporary extension of the contract with the United Mine Workers of America until contracts have been signed in the central competitive district has been announced by officers of the International Fuel company operating the Evans mine at Evans; the Natural, near Louisville; and the National mine in Routt county.
These three mines employ about 300 men. Final action on the renewal of the contract will not be taken until conditions have been agreed upon in the central competitive field.
President John McLennan of District 15, United Mine Workers of America, has returned from Utah. Retiring President John Nigro, who has been in Denver for several days, and Vice President “Mike” Livoda returned to Pueblo Saturday. No decision has been reached yet whether a suspension of work will follow the refusal of many of the operators to renew or extend union contracts April 1.
“Mother” Jones, now en route from San Francisco to the east, will arrive in Denver at 8:20 o’clock Saturday night via the Denver & Rio Grande according to a telegram received by Secretary Edward Anderson of the State Federation of Labor. Arrangements probably will be made for a meeting at which she will be principal speaker. Labor leaders are without information as to the probable length of her visit in Denver.
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