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 – Saturday June 6, 1914 Clara Ruth Mozzor Describes Ruins of Ludlow Two Days After Massacre
From the International Socialist Review of June 1914:
The following article is written with deep feeling by Clara Ruth Mozzor who was present at the death-pit as the bodies of the women and children were recovered from the Black Hole of Ludlow:
“LUDLOW”
By Clara Ruth Mozzor
TWO days following the Ludlow massacre I came upon the ruins of the tent colony. Ludlow was still a smoldering, smoking mass of ashes. What was once the homes of these men who had come across the seas to build for their wives and babies was now an aching desolation. I came to get at the bottom of the trouble that caused a colony in which there were women and children to be fired on by machine guns and soldiers’ rifles.
Waste and ruin, death and misery were the harvest of this war that was waged on helpless people. The ruthlessness of the steady fusillade of bullets from the machine guns turned against these people by the terrific force of capital in the human form of the inhuman octopus John D. Rockefeller, wiped out whole families, separated husbands and wives, mothers and babies and sent into the beyond little ones whose day of life was but a short time off.
Only a few weeks ago Ludlow was a colony of life. Eight American flags waved gladly in the air over its tents. Here was going on the making of Americans in this great western melting pot in the southern coal fields of Colorado.
And on these self-same ruins was enacted the most awful tragedy, the darkest chapter of American history, the Ludlow massacre when sleeping families were made the targets with which to break the backs of the strikers.
The very region of Ludlow is one of nature’s hell holes, full of its dark canyons and deep arroyos, its hills and mountains. And in these mountains, in these Black Hills are scattered the men. Many of them do not know where their families are. Some of the women and children are still in the friendly ranch houses, while most of them are in the shelter of Trinidad homes and refuges thrown open to them.
The entire southern district is in the throes of war. Not civil, but industrial warfare, that has made such a reign of terror as must forever remain a black spot in the history of the state and nation. Ludlow is not the beginning of this war of desolation and sorrow. Seven months ago the union men went on strike. They demanded many things, but they were willing to waive them all should they only be given the recognition of their union.
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