Tag: Military Despotism Colorado 1914

Hellraisers Journal: Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, Refers to Mother Jones, Miners’ Angel, as “that old hag.”

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Quote Mother Jones re Walsenburg Cellar Cell, Mar 22, 1914 x26 days, Ab Chp 21, 1925————————-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 19, 1914
Governor Ammons Refers to Mother Jones as “That Old Hag”

CRTN Copy w Gray Border, Mother Jones Silence by Gen Chase and Colorado Gov Ammons, SUR p3, Feb 21, 1914

Yesterday’s edition of The Lincoln Star noted the visit to that Nebraska city of the Democratic Governor of Colorado, Elias M. Ammons. Ammons came to the state on business, but gave an interview in which he expressed his opinion that the mine owners of Colorado had been unfairly treated by the newspapers of the land. He referred to Mother Jones as “that old hag” and asserted that she was a “professional trouble-maker.” He admits that she was held incommunicado in a Trinidad hospital, but appears to forget her further incarceration of nearly a month’s duration in the cold cellar cell which had already claimed the life of a much younger miner.

While complaining that “a great deal of sympathy has been wasted on that old hag,” the Governor wasted none of his sympathy on the the men, women and children who were murdered at Ludlow. Not a word did he speak of the Ludlow Massacre committed by soldiers who were sent into the strike zone at his command. Not one word of compassion or sorrow did we hear from the Governor for those who lost husbands, wives, and children at the hands of Colorado National Guard whom he had allowed to be infiltrated by the coal company’s hired gunthugs.

From The Lincoln Star of August 18, 1914:

GOV. AMMONS, A LINCOLN VISITOR
———-

Colorado Executive Talks of Mine Troubles in That State
———-
Asserts Only the Miners’ Side Was Given by Newspapers
———-

Nothing has been settled in the Colorado coal miners’ strike, and 2,200 federal troops are still on duty in the region affected, according to the statement of Gov. E. M. Ammons while in Lincoln today. Governor Ammons, who is president of the Farmers Life Insurance company of Denver, was in Lincoln conferring with Insurance Commissioner L. G. Brian over the status of the company in Nebraska. Mr. Brian some time ago refused it a license on the ground that it was engaged more actively in selling stock than in conducting an insurance business.

Governor Ammons said he went to the capitol to call on Governor Morehead, but the latter had gone home to Falls City for the primary election. Not finding Governor Morehead in, he decided to pay Insurance Commissioner Brian a visit. It just happened that Governor Ammons had brought with him a Denver attorney, J. A. O’Shaughnessy, and he also took part in the interview with Mr. Brian.

The Colorado executive showed some feeling when he discussed with a Star reporter the Colorado strike. He declared that the situation had been greatly misrepresented, and only the miners’ side had received publicity. He criticised the newspapers of Denver for not printing all the facts. Three of the four newspapers there, he said, are owned outside of Colorado.

“One of them is a Scripps-MacRae sheet, and it is so rank that I cut it off my list a long time ago.” said Mr Ammons. “I not only don’t read it, but I don’t allow any body to talk to me about what it says.”

The governor asserted that “Mother” Jones is a professional trouble-maker in labor disputes, and that she had not been mistreated by the militia. He said she was told before she went into the strike district that she would be placed under arrest. She refused to stay out and was accordingly taken into custody, being placed in a hospital and not a jail, Governor Ammons declared. He admitted that she was held “incommunicado,” but justified this by saying it would have been just as well to leave her at liberty in the first place as to let her confer with her followers from the hospital.

“She understood, however, that she could leave the strike district whenever she wanted to,” he continued “but she would not agree to go. So we just had to keep her shut up.”

The governor expressed his opinion that “a good deal of sympathy has been wasted on that old hag.”

Governor Ammons is not a candidate for re-election. He has served one term, and says that is enough. He expects to go back to his ranch when he gets through.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, Refers to Mother Jones, Miners’ Angel, as “that old hag.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Invades Canada, Supports Striking Coal Miners of Ladysmith and Nanaimo, Vancouver Island

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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 12, 1914
Mother Jones Invades Canada to Support Miners of Ladysmith and Nanaimo

From The Winnipeg Tribune of  June 5, 1914
-Called to Aid Nanaimo Strikers, Mother Jones Insists, “I’ll go in spite of you!”

Mother Jones Barred from Canada, Wpg Tb p1, June 5, 1914

The coal miners of Nanaimo, British Columbia put out a call to Mother Jones to come and assist them with their strike. They are members of the United Mine Workers of America who have been on strike since August of last year. They have suffered all the usual consequence of the striking coal miner: military despotism and mass arrests. In March, many of those arrested were sentenced, some to six months, and some to four years in prison.

Mother Jones was labeled a “disturbing element” by the chief of the provincial police of British Columbia and was prevented, from boarding a steamer for Victoria by Canadian immigration officers and told that she was barred from Canada.

Labor Secretary William B. Wilson, former official of the U. M. W. of A., was contacted by Frank Farrington, western representative of the mine worker’s union, and Wilson sent a message requesting that Mother Jones “be accorded every right she is entitled to as an American citizen.

“Mother Jones made this statement regarding her status as a “disturbing element” threatening the peace of the citizens of Canada:

I am past 80 years and have never been charged with a crime, and so I cannot understand why I am prevented from entering a friendly nation. I never quarrel and I believe in law and order, and I do not blame the man who stopped me, for he had his order from higher up. He is merely carrying out a policy that means “You shall not educate my slaves,” but it is a mistaken view and is bound to fall finally. I had been invited to go to British Columbia and did not know that I was committing any wrong in accepting the invitation of the mine workers there.

Efforts continued on behalf of Mother Jones to enable her to go to the aid of her boys in Nanaimo.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Invades Canada, Supports Striking Coal Miners of Ladysmith and Nanaimo, Vancouver Island” →

Hellraisers Journal: New York City-Vivid Testimony of Pearl Jolly and Mary Thomas Counters Claim of Major Boughton That Gov. Ammons Has “Neutral Attitude”

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Quote Pearl Jolly, Ludlow Next Time, Women Will Fight, Tacoma Tx p3, May 25, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 29, 1914
New York City- Testimony of Ludlow Survivors Describe Actions of “Neutral” Militia

Judge Lindsey, M Thomas, P Jolly, M Petrucci, Thomas Girls, Tacoma Tx p3, May 25, 1914
Judge Lindsey with (left to right) Mary Thomas, Pearl Jolly,
Mary Petrucci, and daughters of Mrs. Thomas
Dear Reader: We will leave it to you decide just how neutral has been the attitude of Governor Ammons during the ongoing conflict in Colorado between the Coal Operators, led by Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and the strikers, lead by the United Mine Workers of America. Read the following article in which Major Boughton, in his position as Judge Advocate of the Colorado National Guard, indicates the testimony that he will present today before the U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations. Then read the testimony of Pearl Jolly and Mary Thomas, both of them miners’ wives who withstood the machine-gun fire from that “neutral” militia all throughout that terrible day of the Ludlow Massacre.

We only ask that our readers remember that it is ultimately Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, who is in command of the Colorado National Guard. And, we might add, we know of no instance when those machine guns were ever aimed at the homes of Rockefeller or of his managers in Colorado, and, to our knowledge, none of them have ever been arrested and held incommunicado in spite of having, year after year, ignored the labor and safety laws of the state of Colorado:

From the New York Sun of May 28, 1914:

WILL TELL OTHER SIDE OF
COLORADO RIOTING
———-
Major Boughton of National Guard to Appear
before Industrial Commission
———

“AMMONS WAS NEUTRAL”
———-
Judge Lindsey Leaves Without Getting
to See J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.
———-

Major Edward J. Boughton, who commanded a battalion of the Colorado National Guard during the fights with the striking miners at Trinidad, arrived yesterday to give testimony before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations now sitting here in the matter of the coal strike. His presentation of the incidents of the strike will supplement the testimony given yesterday before the commission by Mrs. Pearl Jolly arid Mrs. Mary Hannah Thomas, wives of striking miners.

While Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Thomas denounced the militia, Major Boughton will present the situation in a new light. He would not go into details when seen at the Waldorf-Astoria, but he admitted he had come here in answer to a subpoena that he might “tell the people of New York of the real conditions In Colorado.”“I want to correct,” he said, “the erroneous impression that prevails here regarding the part taken by the State troops.”

Major Boughton was an important factor during the strike trouble. On October 28, when the troops were called out, he served as Field Major. On November 20 he was made Judge Advocate for the military district. While he was Judge Advocate there were 172 cases presented lo the military commission.

“In this controversy between capital and labor,” said the Major, “Gov. Ammons has maintained a neutral attitude toward both parties. He did all he could to avert the bloodshed. He did not leave a stone upturned in his effort to have the matter settled amicably by arbitration. He is still doing all he can in this direction.”

Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Thomas asked to be heard by the Commission and there was some objection, Whereupon Mrs. J. Borden Harriman of the commission, said: “I believe that if there has been gross wrongs committed against these women, they ought to be heard and I represent the women and children of the country on this commission.”

There was no further demur. Mrs. Jolly told practically the same story which she gave on Sunday in the Manhattan Lyceum, as did Mrs. Thomas…

Judge Ben B. Lindsey, who has been trying to see John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in an effort to get him to use his influence toward having the Colorado difficulty submitted to a Federal arbitration board, will leave this afternoon for Colorado without having seen Mr. Rockefeller.

“Although I did not see Mr. Rockefeller personally,” said Judge Lindsey, “we have communicated. From what I have learned I have reason to hope that Mr. Rockefeller’s attitude has changed in regard to the situation and that he will help toward having the matter arbitrated.”

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Note: Mrs. Mary Petrucci, who lost her children in the Ludlow Massacre, has returned to Colorado. According to Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Petrucci has been “grieving herself to death.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: New York City-Vivid Testimony of Pearl Jolly and Mary Thomas Counters Claim of Major Boughton That Gov. Ammons Has “Neutral Attitude”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Judge Ben Lindsey’s Delegation from Ludlow, Colorado, Meets with President Woodrow Wilson

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Quote Pearl Jolly, Ludlow Next Time, Women Will Fight, Tacoma Tx p3, May 25, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 27, 1914
Washington, D. C. – Judge Lindsey and Women of Ludlow Visit the White House

From the Washington Evening Star of May 21, 1914:

LINDSEY HAS PLAN TO MEDIATE STRIKE
———-
Discusses Colorado Situation
With President Wilson This Afternoon.
———-

FAVORS KEEPING TROOPS
IN THE TROUBLE DISTRICT
———-
“Survivors of Ludlow Massacre” To Tell of Sufferings
at National Rifles’ Armory Tonight.
———-

Rep Keating Judge Lindsey, Rep Kent, Mrs Lindsey, Pearl Jolly, Mary Petrucci, Mary Thomas, Mrs Lee Champion, Rachel Thomas, Olga Thomas
Rep. Keating, Judge Ben Lindsey, Rep. Kent, Mrs. Lindsey, Pearl Jolly,
Mary Petrucci, Mary Thomas, Mrs. Lee Champion, Rachel and Olga Thomas

With a plan to mediate the Colorado coal fields strike, which he believes will be successful if fathered by the President, Judge Ben B. Lindsey, who came to Washington with a delegation of women and children refugees from Ludlow, called at the White House this afternoon by appointment.

Judge Lindsey stated he is emphatically in favor of keeping the troops in the strike district. He hopes the President will hear the stories of the women “survivors of the Ludlow massacre” who can tell him what they personally suffered during the battle and fire.

Judge Lindsey declares that the people of the country are guaranteed a republican form of government; that no such government exists in Colorado at this time, and that it is fully within the power of the President, backed by public sentiment, to force a settlement of the troubles.

Judge Lindsey urged the President to keep the federal troops in the coal strife region under all circumstances, asserting that if they are not retained there bloodshed will continue and that there will be nothing like law in all that region.

Suggests U. S. Close Mines.

Judge Lindsey declined to go into details as to what his plans are, but in a general way he hinted that public opinion would justify the President, under the guarantee of a republican form of government to all citizens, to close down the mines and practically assume charge of them by federal troops, compelling the mine owners and the striking miners to mediate their differences. He recalled the steps taken by President Roosevelt in the great Pennsylvania coal strike some year ago, and believes it within the power of the President to do almost anything he wants in Colorado.

“The President may not think he has power to settle the strike, but we think he has,” declared Judge Lindsey. “He has gigantic powers under the law and under the reign of public opinion.”

Judge Lindsey bitterly criticized Gov. Ammons, declared him incompetent, and hinted that Ammons and Rockefeller are in agreement as to how the fight should be resolved.

Judge Lindsey has asked an interview with John D. Rockefeller, jr. He didn’t know today whether Mr. Rockefeller would grant this interview, in which he will seek to have the New York millionaire accept some plan of medication, but he intended to try. He was asked if the party with him would also see Mr. Rockefeller.

“I do not know,” he answered, “but Mr. Rockefeller is no bigger than the President of the United States. Mr. Wilson has seen us-all of us-and I think Mr. Rockefeller can afford to do the same thing.”

Judge Lindsey persisted in his view that the President should bump the heads of both sides together and bring about a settlement. 

[…..]

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Judge Ben Lindsey’s Delegation from Ludlow, Colorado, Meets with President Woodrow Wilson” →

Hellraisers Journal: “They burn and kill us women, anyway, we’ll fight alongside of our men next time.”-Pearl Jolly, Ludlow Heroine

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Quote Pearl Jolly, Ludlow Next Time, Women Will Fight, Tacoma Tx p3, May 25, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 26, 1914
Washington, D. C. – Judge Lindsey and Survivors of Ludlow Warn of Seething Volcano

From The Tacoma Times of May 25, 1914:

Colorado a Seething Volcano, Says Judge Lindsey, Ready to Errupt Into Flaming Civil War

Judge Lindsey, M Thomas, P Jolly, M Petrucci, Thomas Girls, Tacoma Tx p3, May 25, 1914

WASHINGTON, D. C. May 25-“President Wilson will let loose war in Colorado, and that will mean civil war throughout the nation, if he withdraws the federal troops from the strike district!”

So spoke Judge Ben Lindsey, who has led a pilgrimage of woman and children, survivors of the Ludlow massacre. They went to the nation’s capital, sent by the people of Colorado, to tell the president of the United States the TRUTH about the war in Colorado.

“Colorado today,” exclaimed Judge Lindsey, “is the seething crater of a great volcano. If the federal troops are withdrawn, that volcano will explode in the most terrific eruption of outrage and butchery that this nation has ever seen. And the eruption may set the entire country in the flames of civil war!

With Judge Lindsey on this pilgrimage are three women survivors of the Ludlow fight. They are Mrs Mary Petrucci, who spent nearly twelve hours in the frightful death hole where twelve babies, including her own, and nine [two] women perished; Mrs. Pearl Jolly, who helped hundreds of the frightened women to escape, and Mrs. Mary Thomas, who stood beside one of the strikers throughout the fight, loading his gun and pistol alternately for him, while he fired. With her are her two babies, Rachel and Olga, who survived that day of carnage only through the courage of their mother, who fled with them from the ruined camp as soon as darkness fell.

“We felt that President Wilson did not appreciate how ominous the situation is.

“But there is one man in the nation who can handle it. AND THAT MAN IS PRESIDENT WILSON HIMSELF!

“If the federal troops are with drawn no man can control the ruthless rioting and wholesale murder that will follow. Governor Ammons can’t. He has proved his inability to all the nation.

“There are TWO things that the president can do. One of them HE HAS GOT TO DO! He must keep the federal troops in Colorado.”

The other thing was graphically explained by Mrs. Pearl Jolly, the Ludlow heroine.

“We demand that President Wilson close down the mines! He can do it. He can do it on grounds of military necessity. He can do it to preserve peace and order, under his police powers. HE MUST do it, on the ground that the rights of men are higher than the rights of property, and that the good of humanity comes before the paying of dividends.

“If he doesn’t do it, there’s going to be war. The miners will get guns all right. Never mind how, but we will! Our husbands are re-establishing the Ludlow camp now. And there won’t be only 90 men, with but 40 guns, in it this time! And we won’t be asleep, either, like we were when they attacked us last.

“We know now what to expect from those mine guards. They’re boasting now what they’ll do to us when the troops are gone. Well, we’re going to be ready for them. And since they burn and kill us women, anyway, we’ll fight alongside of our men next time. And there are thousands of sympathizers from all over the country who will come to help us.”

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “They burn and kill us women, anyway, we’ll fight alongside of our men next time.”-Pearl Jolly, Ludlow Heroine” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks: “Was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men?”

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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 23, 1914
Mother Jones Speaks on Behalf of the Brooklyn Colorado Relief Committee

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 19, 1914:

MOTHER JONES MOVES
BIG TEMPLE CROWD
———-
Bids Defiance to Rockefeller as She Pleads
for “Her Boys” of the Mines.
———-

DENOUNCES GOV. AMMONS.
———-
Brooklyn Colorado Relief Committee
Protests Against Outrages.
———-

Trinidad CO Mother Jones Surrounded by Bayonets, Sc Lbr Str p1, Feb 13, 1914

From The Socialist and Labor Star, February 13, 1914

Mother Jones, the angel of the miners, who has given almost every day of her 82 years to the fight for improved industrial conditions for the workers in all forms of trade and in all parts of the country, last night [May 18th] appealed to an audience of several hundred at the Masonic Temple to aid the striking miners in Colorado and based her appeal on a graphic and forcefully told tale of conditions in the mining district as she herself had seen them and taken part in.

Clad in a plain black dress, with a touch of color only, down the front, at her waist and around the end of the sleeves, Mother Jones by her earnestness moved the large audience to applause when she bade defiance to John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil owners and the “invisible government” which she held responsible for the sufferings of “her boys” and the cruel sacrifice of “her babes” in the Ludlow tent colony disaster; held them tense and with breath caught, while she pictured the horrible deaths from smoke and fire of the women and children in that catastrophe; and moved them to laughter by her caustic epigrams about the “uniformed rats” and their superiors who she declares “oppress her boys.”

“If I were that fellow’s mother I’d disown him,” she declared of Governor Ammons (Democrat of Colorado) after telling how he and the members of the Senate had only smiled after hearing the tale of a miner who because he had refused to leave the postoffice in the mining camp without his mail, had been taken out by the militia and made to dig his own grave until, weakened by their taunts and cruelty, he fell unconscious into it.

[She declared, while the audience cheered:]

The Revolution was not fought because of taxation without representation. It was fought because of military despotism on the part of King George III. And when King George only sneered at the warning of Benjamin Franklin that unless the despotism stopped there would be a revolution, the answer our forefathers gave was Bunker Hill and Yorktown. Let John D. Rockefeller take care lest we have another Bunker Hill and Yorktown. He says he won’t recognize the union. King George said he would never recognize the union but he had to. And Mr. Rockefeller will have to, too.

Says Pen and Brain, Not War,
Must Settle Industrial Troubles.

Colorado, she said, was the key to the present industrial war in this country and she made an earnest appeal for its right and proper solution.

It must not be settled by the sword but by the pen and brain and I stand here today appealing for your assistance in the fight. We want to bury the bayonet. We are appealing to the mothers of the race, for no nation is ever greater than its mothers; and no man is more humane than his mother. If there were not among the women so much talk of temperance and foreign missionaries, if we did missionary work at home and let other nations do theirs, these conditions of which I speak would have been changed long since. The women of Colorado have had the ballot twenty-one years and yet see the horrible happenings that they have permitted in their State. It is because they have busied themselves too much with social settlements and other such things that are given to the industrial class to satisfy them and not with the real things in life about them.

Theodore Roosevelt, she said, refused to see a group of miners’ children she had once brought down to Oyster Bay so he could see for himself their maimed hands and the other effects work in the mines had on them.

Roosevelt, like Ammons, refused to see these children; Roosevelt, whom you think, is next to God Almighty, refused to see them because they were mine workers and not mine owners’ children.

[Speaking of the Ludlow catastrophe, she asked:]

Was it fair, was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men? Can’t we find some other way of settling the question? Has this nation reached that stage in its history when babes have to pay the penalty-when on the altar of greed, we place the helpless infant and roast it to death for more coin?

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks: “Was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men?”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Women Survivors of Ludlow, Visit Chicago, Tell of Massacre Committed by Blood-Mad Militia

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Quote Mary Petrucci, Joe's Little Hammer, NY Tb p7, Feb 4, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 20, 1914
Chicago, Illinois – Women of Ludlow Tell of Massacre of Tent Colony Citizens

From the Chicago Day Book, Last Edition, of May 19, 1914:

Women Ludlow Survivors Visit Chicago, Day Book Last p1, May 19, 1914

Note: The Ludlow Massacre was perpetrated by the Colorado state militia against the colonists on April 20th. The correct names of the three miners’ wives are Mary Thomas, Pearl Jolly, and Mary Petrucci.

The article continues:

They left this noon for Washington, where they will tell President Wilson he must intervene to, stop civil war in Colorado.

Lindsey said:

The president of the United States is the only power that can preserve peace now in our state. The governor, the legislature, the federal troops, the proposed mediation bodies have all failed.

The president must force arbitration on the ground of military necessity. This is the positive and unmistakable sentiment of the people of Colorado.

Mrs. [Pearl] Jolly, who was fired upon though wearing a Red Cross uniform while caring for wounded during a truce, said that when she left Ludlow last week, there were rumors that companies of armed guards were being former secretly by the coal companies.

[She said:]

If they come again to shoot women and children, they will find us ready for them. The women will take guns and fight.

I saw the dead body of Louis Tikas, the Greek. I saw where his head was split by some kind of a club. I saw the mark of a heel where somebody tramped on his face after he was dead. And I saw the four bullet holes in his back where they shot him after clubbing him to death.

I would not have believed things could happen as terrible as I saw. The soldiers seemed to go crazy. After they had killed women and children and burned the tent colony, they shot at everything that moved. Chickens, dogs, anything that moved, was a mark for them.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Women Survivors of Ludlow, Visit Chicago, Tell of Massacre Committed by Blood-Mad Militia” →

Hellraisers Journal: Helen Schloss, Volunteer Nurse from New York, Writes Story of the Colorado Coalfield Strike

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Quote Helen Schloss, Women w Hungry Souls, Black Hills Dly Rg p2, July 15, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 19, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Nurse Helen Schloss Writes Story of the Colorado Strike

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 17, 1914:

Helen Schloss Writes Colorado Strike Story
———-

(By Helen Schloss.)

Helen Schloss Red Nurse, Brk Dly Egl p2, Apr 23, 1914

Miss Helen Schloss is a trained nurse who has been active as a suffrage organizer in this borough in behalf of the Woman Suffrage Party. She was sent to Colorado by the Brooklyn Committee for the Relief of Wives and Children of Colorado Strikers to organize a relief station at Trinidad. Mrs. Frank H. Cothren, Mrs. Herbert Warbasse and James P. Warbasse are especially active on this committee. This is the story of conditions as Miss Schloss heard it from the strikers:

———-

THERE has been a strike in the State of Colorado, since last September, and if memory serves rightly, there have been strikes ever since the mines began operating. Mines are unsafe, and hundreds of men are being killed in them every year. Water is scare in this part of the country, and coal dust is very plentiful. When a sufficient amount of coal dust has gathered in the air there is an explosion and many lives are snuffed out. When the operators are asked why they do not sprinkle the mines, they answered that the country lacks sufficient water.

The present strike has been in progress, in a peaceful manner, since September. There was no trouble of any moment till April 20. The militiamen were in the field to protect the mines, and incidentally to break the backbone of the strike.

The militiamen had nothing to do, but to have a good time. So for just a little pastime, they started with Ludlow.

Ludlow had 12,000 [1200] inhabitants, with over 100 tents. The Ludlow people were about twelve nationalities in that small colony. They had parties and feasts, the women had plenty of time to go visiting, and to gossip. The men hung around, laughed and sang. There was nothing to do but wait until the strike was settled. The militiamen had work to do, and that was to break the strike.

Long before April 20, the tents of the strikers were searched. Trunks were ransacked, floors torn up, and there seemed to have been brooding a general feeling of hatred for the militia.

While the militia searched the tents, they usually had a machine gun on top of the hill. Be it known that Ludlow is sitting in a valley. The militia were stationed on the hills. This gave them a good chance to watch the doings of the strikers.

Militia Fires on Camp of Women and Children.

Monday morning, April 30 [April 20], at 10 a. m. the Ludlow people heard an explosion, and rushing out to the tent doors, they saw the machine guns in full blast, firing down upon them.

Under almost every tent was a large cave. The women and children scrambled into them, while the men grabbed their rifles and ammunition, and went up on the hill to fight.

The women and children who were in the caves tell horrible stories. The firing from the hills kept up all day, until 3 o’clock the next morning. No one knew whether his companions were alive or not. No one knew whether they would ever see his friends again. The rumbling kept up on the hill.

One young woman [Pearl Jolly] who had some training as a nurse, put Red Cross on her breast, and carrying a white flag, went from cave to cave with food, and drink for the women and children. She was fired at from all directions, and it is a great wonder that she lives to tell the tale. The heel was shot off one of her shoes.

One time when she ran into one of the tents, to get some food, so many shots followed her through the canvass that she had to lie still on the floor for hours. A dresser in the tent was shot to pieces.

It is said that the explosive bullets that were used set the tents on fire. The tents began to burn towards evening, and the fires kept up all night. The women and children fled from the caves, to the nearest ranch, and as they were running , shots followed them. The firing became so insistent that the people had to flee from the ranch. The militia looted the house, and left a note on a blank check, saying “this will teach you a lesson not to harbor strikers next time,” signed with the initials of the Baldwin gunmen.

Towards morning at the break of day, that they saw the militia looting and setting fire to tents.

On going through the ruined tent colony, one was struck with the terrible amount f bullets lying everywhere. Everything had been riddled.

The stoves that might have been used after going through the fire were full of holes, where the bullets struck. Barns, sheds and everything in sight was destroyed. It was a ghastly sight to walk through the ruined colony, with the frames of the bedsteads standing out like ghosts amid the ruins.

We stopped near the cave, where eleven children and two women were smothered alive. Big, strong men stood at this cave, in silence, with bowed head. We slid down the gruesome hole, and I gave it a sort of rough measurements and found it 5 feet high, 7 feet wide and 9 feet long. A little high chair and a baby’s gocart were still there.

The Red Cross party that went to Ludlow to recover the dead were arrested and detained for a little while. At first they received permission to pass, but later on General Chase told them he had received word they could not pass. Later this same general became abusive and called the minister choice names.

The Red Cross party recovered the eleven children and two women, but it is said that there are a great many bodies still missing, which are not accounted for.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Helen Schloss, Volunteer Nurse from New York, Writes Story of the Colorado Coalfield Strike” →

Hellraisers Journal: Court-Martial Witness: Miners Stored Dynamite in Pits Dug for Families to Seek Shelter in Case of Attack

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Quote KE Linderfelt re Damn Red Neck Bitches of Ludlow Massacre, Apr 20, 1914, CIR p7378—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 17, 1914
State of Colorado Charges Guardsmen with Arson and Larceny at Ludlow Tent Colony

Hamrock and Linderfelt Butchers of Ludlow, 1913, 1914, CO Coal Field War Project

As the Court-Martial of members of the Colorado militia commences, The New York Times continues to publish the claim, made by Colorado’s militia of gunthugs, that dynamite stored in the safety pits of the strikers exploded during the battle, and that that is what started the fire that burned the Ludlow Tent Colony to the ground, killing two women and eleven children and destroying the homes and all of the earthly possessions of the 1200 residents. This claim was made by the Times two days after the Massacre along with the claim that the battle took place on the property of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

In fact, the Ludlow Tent Colony was established on land rented by the United Mine Workers of America. The strikers had every right to be there. Their tents were their homes which they were determined to protect, just as anyone anywhere would.

To our knowledge, the Times has never corrected that wildly inaccurate reporting.

The idea that miners-knowing the dangers of dynamite-would dig pits for the safety of their wives and children, fill them with dynamite, and then tell their loved ones to hide amongst the sticks of dynamite in case of attack, is the height of absurdity.

Readers of Hellraisers are aware of the many affidavits sworn out by those men and women who were in the Colony during the attack. To our knowledge the Times has not printed even one of these affidavits, at least we have not found a single one printed within pages of The New York Times.

There is no mystery as to the cause of the fire: The soldiers entered the colony at about 7 p. m. as the strikers ran out of ammunition. They first lit a match to Mrs. Petrucci’s tent, shot at her and the children as she ran to tent #58, and then, not long after she entered that cellar, they lit tent #58 on fire also, even as Cedi Costa begged for mercy. No mercy was shown. The gunthug militiamen then moved through the colony lighting tents on fire using paper and matches or a broom dipped in oil. Wherever the soldiers moved, the fires started.

The lies told by the gunthug militia are printed for the world to see, but the affidavits of the terrorized strikers and their wives are buried in volumes of testimony, printed only in the labor and Socialist newspapers

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