21 April 2014, Vol.1, No.36 > REMEMBER
LUDLOW!
The POCAHONTAS CRIER
‘When the Righteous succeed the people rejoice,
But when the bad govern, men groan!’ – Proverbs 29:2
REMEMBER LUDLOW!
Battle-cry of Miners – now 100th
Anniversary of Ludlow
Massacre!
On 20 April 1914 the Colorado National Guard
snuck into a ‘tent-camp’ of over 1200
striking coal miners – and while the miners & their families were sleeping
– the national guardsmen spread kerosene everywhere they could – then SET IT ON FIRE
& MASSACRED women, children & miners! The ‘tent-camp’ was set up in a prairie just outside of Ludlow in the southern part of Colorado,
about 3 hours south of Denver. The camp was full of miners & family
immigrants from 27 different nations that were working in a coal mine owned by
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
They lived in company towns, sometimes surrounded by barbed wire. They had to shop in company stores and be treated by company doctors. They wanted the right to form a union, have 8-hour days and be paid for work to make mines safer and not just for the coal they extracted.
Strikers also wanted
enforcement of Colorado's
mining laws. Colorado had one of the worst mining death
rates in the country but only two mine inspectors. About
3,000 workers were killed between 1880 and 1910 mining the coal that fed
railroads and heated people's homes.”
The fire triggered a running gun battle
of 10 days of fighting in southern Colorado.
Included with the miners were veterans
of the WWI European wars, and those killed included 30 mine guards, supervisors
and strikebreakers. The battle ended when then President Woodrow Wilson sent
federal troops into the state.
The ‘Ludlow
Massacre’ followed behind the historic 1911 Triangle
Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City in which 146 people, mostly
young female immigrants, died. That
tragic fire is similar to the death in excess of 1200 women burned to death in
the Far East a couple of years back
making clothing for the giant retailers here in America, such as Wal-Mart,
K-Mart, Gap, and such. The dangerous
working conditions were only transferred from America to the foreign companies so
the multinational-corporations could escape health & safety laws by putting
profits first & foremost! Further examples of
failing to place THE COMMON GOOD BEFORE SELF OR ANY SPECIAL INTERESTS!
Following the ‘Ludlow
Massacre’ in Colorado,
the striking miners eventually returned to work without achieving their major demands.
The Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel
& Iron Co. introduced a ‘company
union’ that included a grievance procedure. As for the Miners in their ‘company towns’,
they only won the right to unionize and join the United Mine Workers of AmericaUnion
with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act
of 1935.
MARY HARRIS "MOTHER" JONES ON THE
1914 MINERS' STRIKE AGAINST THE ROCKEFELLER HOLDINGS IN SOUTHERN
COLORADO:
The miners armed, armed
as it is permitted every American citizen to do in defense of his home, his
family; as he is permitted to do against invasion. The smoke of armed battle rose from the
arroyos and ravines of the Rocky Mountains.
No one listened. No one cared. The tickers in the offices of 26 Broadway
sounded louder than the sobs of women and children. Men in the steam heated luxury of Broadway
offices could not feel the stinging cold of Colorado hillsides where families lived in
tents.
Then came Ludlow and the nation
heard. Little children roasted alive
make a front page story. Dying by inches
of starvation and exposure does not.
On the 19th of April, 1914, machine guns...
were placed in position above the tent colony of Ludlow. Major Pat Hamrock and Lieutenant K. E. Linderfelt
were in charge of the
militia, the majority of whom were company gunmen sworn in as soldiers.
Early in the morning
soldiers approached the colony with a demand from headquarters that Louis Tikas, leader of the Greeks,
surrender two Italians. Tikas demanded a
warrant for their arrest. They had none.
Tikas refused to surrender them. The soldiers returned to headquarters. A signal bomb was fired. Then another. Immediately the
machine guns began spraying the flimsy tent colony, the only home the wretched families of the miners had,
spraying it with bullets. Like iron rain, bullets fell upon men, women and children.
The women and children
fled to the hills. Others tarried. The
men defended their homes with their guns. All day long the firing continued. Men fell dead, their faces to the ground. Women dropped. The little Snyder boy
was shot through the head, trying to save his kitten. A child carrying
water to his dying mother was killed.
By five o'clock in
the afternoon, the miners had no more food, nor water, nor ammunition. They
had to retreat with their wives and little ones into the hills. Louis Tikas was riddled with shots while
he tried to lead women and children to safety. They perished with him.
Night came. A raw wind blew down the canyons where men,
women and children shivered and wept. Then
a blaze lighted the sky. The soldiers, drunk
with blood and with the liquor they had looted from the saloon, set fire to the
tents of Ludlow
with oil-soaked torches. The tents, all the poor furnishings, the clothes and bedding
of the miners' families burned. Coils of barbed wire were stuffed into the well, the miners'
only water supply.
After it was over, the
wretched people crept back to bury their dead. In a dugout under a
burned tent, the charred bodies of eleven little children and two women were
found -- unrecognizable. Everything lay in ruins. The wires of bed springs writhed on the ground
as if they, too, had tried to flee the horror. Oil and fire and guns
had robbed men and women and children of their homes and slaughtered tiny
babies and defenseless women. Done by order of Lieutenant Linderfelt, a savage, brutal
executor of the will of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
The Autobiography of Mother Jones, Chicago, 1977, pp. 191-193
Ludlow Massacre Lyrics
Written & Sung
by Woody Guthrie
It was
early springtime that the strike was on
They moved us miners out of doors
Out from the houses that the company owned
We moved into tents at old Ludlow
I was worried bad about my children
Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge
Every once in a while a bullet would fly
Kick up gravel under my feet
We were so afraid they would kill our children
We dug us a cave that was seven foot deep
Carried our young ones and a pregnant woman
Down inside the cave to sleep
That very night you soldiers waited
Until us miners were asleep
You snuck around our little tent town
Soaked our tents with your kerosene
You struck a match and the blaze it started
You pulled the triggers of your Gatling guns
I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me
Thirteen children died from your guns
I carried my blanket to a wire fence corner
Watched the fire till the blaze died down
I helped some people grab their belongings
While your bullets killed us all around
I will never forget the looks on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day
When we stood around to preach their funerals
And lay the corpses of the dead away
We told the Colorado governor to call the President
Tell him to call off his National Guard
But the National Guard belong to the governor
So he didn't try so very hard
Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes
Up to Walsenburg in a little cart
They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back
And put a gun in every hand
The state soldiers jumped us in a wire fence corner
They did not know that we had these guns
And the red neck miners mowed down them troopers
You should have seen those poor boys run
We took some cement and walled that cave up
Where you killed those thirteen children inside
I said, "God bless the Mine Workers' Union"
And then I hung my head and cried!
They moved us miners out of doors
Out from the houses that the company owned
We moved into tents at old Ludlow
I was worried bad about my children
Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge
Every once in a while a bullet would fly
Kick up gravel under my feet
We were so afraid they would kill our children
We dug us a cave that was seven foot deep
Carried our young ones and a pregnant woman
Down inside the cave to sleep
That very night you soldiers waited
Until us miners were asleep
You snuck around our little tent town
Soaked our tents with your kerosene
You struck a match and the blaze it started
You pulled the triggers of your Gatling guns
I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me
Thirteen children died from your guns
I carried my blanket to a wire fence corner
Watched the fire till the blaze died down
I helped some people grab their belongings
While your bullets killed us all around
I will never forget the looks on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day
When we stood around to preach their funerals
And lay the corpses of the dead away
We told the Colorado governor to call the President
Tell him to call off his National Guard
But the National Guard belong to the governor
So he didn't try so very hard
Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes
Up to Walsenburg in a little cart
They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back
And put a gun in every hand
The state soldiers jumped us in a wire fence corner
They did not know that we had these guns
And the red neck miners mowed down them troopers
You should have seen those poor boys run
We took some cement and walled that cave up
Where you killed those thirteen children inside
I said, "God bless the Mine Workers' Union"
And then I hung my head and cried!
THIS TIME…there’s no excuse…
IT’S YOUR
CHOICE…
TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER!
Just say ‘NO’ to
those who want to keep this county in Poverty &
Pauperism
– and –
Just say ‘YES’ to
real Progress
& Prosperity for the future!
On Primary Day – YOU have a chance to elect two persons
that will always put YOU first! They know that:
THE
GREATER COMMON GOOD ALWAYS COMES BEFORE SELF OR ANY SELF-SERVING SPECIAL
INTERESTS!
Keep up to Date – Stay tuned to these Websites:
► IF YOU are registered to vote as a Republican,
you can
Vote for Norman
Lee Alderman in the Primary Election
on 13 May 2014;
► IF YOU are registered to vote as a Democrat,
you can
Vote for Patti Heinemann in the primary election on
13 May 2014;
► If you are not registered to vote, then you must
register
to vote on or before 22 April 2014;
► If you are registered to vote, but with no party
affiliation, then you must request
Loud & Clear either
a Republican or Democrat ballot
on Primary Day when
you go to the polls; &
► Since Norman
is unopposed, he recommends that you
request a Democrat ballot to vote for Patti so that
this
county can again have an Honest & Just county
commission!
►
Early Voting is from 30 April 2014 to 10 May 2014 – so
Vote Early & avoid
the rush!
The Pocahontas Crier
is an independent Internet News Service that has so far endorsed two
candidates for County Commission
–
one a Republican & the other a Democrat –
in
addition to providing in depth news reporting on important issues directly
affecting the Citizens of Pocahontas
County!
Email comments & suggestions to: pocahontascrier@gmail.com
If you
wish to financially assist, kindly send all campaign contributions to: The United Campaign for County Commission (UCCC), c/o
Citizens for Common Sense Alternatives (CCSA), a registered Political Action
Committee, 7837 Wesley Chapel Road, Green Bank, West Virginia 24944-9063
Phone:
1.304.456.4565 or 3282 (also fax)
[The Pocahontas Crier is part
of The Crier Coalition of Internet News Services comprised of The Pocahontas Commentator, The
Pocahontas Crier, Signal Fires of WV, Rolling Thunder & Echoes from the Holl’r.]
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