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 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 25, 1914 Rockefeller Safe in New York; Ludlow Survivors with President at White House
From The Washington Times of May 21, 1914:
Upper left to right: Judge Lindsey, Mary Thomas, Pearl Jolly, Mary Petrucci, Thomas Daughters. Lower left to right: Mrs. Lindsey, Frank Hayes, Mrs. Lee Champion
In Trinidad, Colorado, 1200 men, women and children, the Ludlow refugees, left homeless and with all of their earthly possessions destroyed, are being cared for by the United Mine Workers of America. While in New York City, we are pleased to report, Mr. John D. Rockefeller Jr. is, at long last, safely back at work, his “tormenters” vanquished.
From The Fort Wayne Sentinel of May 20, 1914:
JOHN D. JR., IS BACK AT HIS JOB ———-
He Emerges from Retirement to Find Tormenters Silenced. ———- THE COLORADO CASE ———-
New York, May 20.-John D. Rockefeller, jr., has returned to work after twenty days spent at the country estates of his father at Pocantico Hills. Since May first when he went into retirement most of his tormenters under the leadership of Upton Sinclair, have been silenced, several by being sent to jail.
Sinclair is in Colorado and Marie Ganz and the Rev. Bouch [Bouck] White are serving sentences on Blackwell’s Island, the latter for having broken up the services at the Calvary Baptist church ten days ago.
“Mother” Jones alone remains in the lecture field and denounces the Rockefeller interests in the Colorado coal district. Mr. Rockefeller’s secretary said yesterday that he was making no investigation of the conditions in Colorado. He was only a minority stockholder in the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, it was said, and whatever recommendations he could offer might not influence the officials of the company in dealing with the miners.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 24, 1914 Chicago, Illinois – Judge Lindsey and Survivors of Ludlow Speak at Hull House
From The Fort Wayne Sentinel of May 20, 1914:
Judge Ben Lindsey; Women left to right: Mary Thomas, Pearl Jolly, Mary Petrucci; Thomas Daughters.
Five survivors of the Ludlow Massacre stopped off in Chicago, as guests of Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, on their way to Washington D. C. where they met with President Wilson. Mary Petrucci whose children were all killed in the fire, Mary Thomas and her two little daughters who hid from machine gun bullets throughout that terrible day, and Pearl Jolly, the heroine of Ludlow, who spent the day under fire as she assisted the women and children to escape: they are all being escorted to Washington by Judge Lindsey and Mrs. Lee Champion. The Judge’s wife was, unfortunately, hospitalized yesterday soon after their arrival in Chicago, and will not be able to accompanied the party further.
From The Daily Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon) of May 19, 1914:
LUDLOW’S STORY IS
TOO HORRIBLE TO PUT IN PRINT ———-
Details Equaled Only by the Burning and Sacking of Ancient Rome ———- COLORADO SITTING ON VOLCANO’S EDGE ———- Father Saluted with Child’s Corpse When He Went to Militia’s Camp ———-
Chicago, May 19,-“The true story of what transpired at Ludlow is too horrible to print.” said Judge Ben Lindsey here today. The famous Denver jurist is en route to Washington, accompanied by Mrs. Pearl Jolly, Mrs. Mary Petrucci and Mrs. M. Thomas, all Ludlow survivors.
“The details of the Ludlow affair are almost unbelievable,” said Judge Lindsey. “They are equaled only in the stories of the sacking of Rome, the pillaging of Carthage and the inhumanities of the Balkan war.
“We are going to Washington to beg President Wilson to not withdraw the federal troops. My own interests are neutral. I want law and order and the citizens of Denver have asked me to help get order.
“The Ludlow story is a black mark on the nation’s history. I can only suggest it and fill in the outlines with the direct testimony of these women who have suffered. As one instance of what occurred-and I have affidavits to back it up-a father went to a militia camp for his boy who had been missing. He was saluted with the child’s corpse. The boys’ head had been shot off and the body half burned. A soldier threw it over a tent to the father, saying: ‘Here, take the _ thing.’
“Mothers who went to rescue their babies were shot down and mutilated. Children only a few years old were killed. Barbarians in even the most unholy days could not have been more cruel than some of the militiamen at Ludlow.”
The party visited Hull House and related the story to Jane Addams. The latter broke down as the women told of the cruelties practiced on helpless women and children by the militiamen. Mrs. Lindsey, a victim of nervous prostration as a result of Denver’s high altitude, was taken to a Chicago hospital and will await her husband’s return from Washington.
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:
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 uniformwhile 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.
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