22-01-2012, 04:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 22-01-2012, 06:47 AM by Adele Edisen.)
Ludlow, Colorado, a small coal mining town among other similar surrounding towns, became the site of a horrendously violent action by the Rockefeller family, owners of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, along with other mine companies, employing 11,000 workers in the southern region of Colorado. These workers in a labor union, the United Mine Workers, wanted to be able to bargain collectively for better wages, against dangerous working conditions and feudal domination by having to live in towns completely dominated by the mining companies, being paid in company script and over-charged in company stores. When one of their union organizers was killed, they went on strike. Mother Jones, for whom a current magazine is named, came to help and to organize more workers. She was arrested and kept in a dungeon-like cell, and then expelled from the state of Colorado.
This strike began in September 1913, and ended in April of 1914 in the massacre in Ludlow, Colorado. When the strike began, the miners and their families were evicted from their shacks in town, but with the aid of the United Mine Workers Union, they built tent colonies and continued with their strike. The Rockefellers hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to try to break the strike. These strikebreakers drove through the tent colonies and raided the miners' tents with Gatling (machine) guns and rifles. Despite the killing of a number of miners, the others battled on, even stopping and driving back an armoured train carrying in more strikebreakers. The Colorado governor called out his National Guard to put down the resistance by the miners. The wages of the National Guard members were paid by the Rockefeller family.
The Guardsmen brought in strikebreakers under cover of night; they beat the miners; and rode horses through parades in towns by women who supported the miners' cause. Still the strike went on through the cold winter of 1913-1914. In April, two National Guard companies surrounded the largest tent colony which consisted of 1000 men, women, and children, outside of the town of Ludlow, and began firing upon the tents on April 20. The leader of he strikers, Lou Tikas, was lured to the hills to make a truce with the National Guard and was shot and killed by them. Women had dug beneath the floor boards of their tents to avoid the gunfire, but the National Gyardsmen came from the hills at night with torches and set fire to the tents. Thirteen people had been killed by gunfire. The next day the charred bodies of 11 children and two women were found under floor boards of one tent. This became known as the Ludlow Massacre.
The news spread quickly. Several hundred armed miners massed from outlying districts, cut telegraph and telephone wires, shot mine guards, destroyed mines. Soldiers refused commands to go to Ludlow; railroads refused to carry soldiers there and in general, there was chaos in the region. Five thousand people demonstrated in front of the State Capitol in Denver, demanding that the militiamen of the National Guard be indicted for the murder of the Ludlow victims. Pickets paraded in protest in front of the Rockefdeller office at 26 Broadway in New York City. The entire nation and foreign countries were enraged. The governor of Ciolorado called for federal troops to restore order, and President Woodrow Wilson complied, and things quieted down. However, the Unitesd Mine Workers Union did not win recognition. All told, sixty-six adults and children had died. Not one militiaman or mine guard was indicted for murder.
In March, a month before the Massacre in April, and after Woodrow Wilson's offer of federal mediation which was refused by the mine operators and owners, a congressional hearing on the matter was held. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was called to testify. Under questioning he repeated his father's principle of business that workers were privileged to work and they could not determine the conditions of that work, and hence, no arbitration was necessary.
A poem from that time captures the sentiments of many.
"As long as he has the cash to spend, it is easy the people to fool,
As long as he builds a cottage or two and teaches Sunday School,
The toadies fawn, and the lickspittles kneel,
He's worshipped by all the freaks,
While bodies of little children are burned 'neath Colorado peaks.
And this skulking, sanctimonious ass, this breeder of crime and hate,
With the greed of a jackal and a heart of brass,
Whines, "Nothing to arbitrate."
A large monument was created in the vicinity to commemorate the Ludlow Massacre.
Sources:
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn, 2003, Harper Collins
THE ROCKEFELLERS, An American Dynasty by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, 1976, Holt, Rinehart, Winston
Wikipedia, Google
This strike began in September 1913, and ended in April of 1914 in the massacre in Ludlow, Colorado. When the strike began, the miners and their families were evicted from their shacks in town, but with the aid of the United Mine Workers Union, they built tent colonies and continued with their strike. The Rockefellers hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to try to break the strike. These strikebreakers drove through the tent colonies and raided the miners' tents with Gatling (machine) guns and rifles. Despite the killing of a number of miners, the others battled on, even stopping and driving back an armoured train carrying in more strikebreakers. The Colorado governor called out his National Guard to put down the resistance by the miners. The wages of the National Guard members were paid by the Rockefeller family.
The Guardsmen brought in strikebreakers under cover of night; they beat the miners; and rode horses through parades in towns by women who supported the miners' cause. Still the strike went on through the cold winter of 1913-1914. In April, two National Guard companies surrounded the largest tent colony which consisted of 1000 men, women, and children, outside of the town of Ludlow, and began firing upon the tents on April 20. The leader of he strikers, Lou Tikas, was lured to the hills to make a truce with the National Guard and was shot and killed by them. Women had dug beneath the floor boards of their tents to avoid the gunfire, but the National Gyardsmen came from the hills at night with torches and set fire to the tents. Thirteen people had been killed by gunfire. The next day the charred bodies of 11 children and two women were found under floor boards of one tent. This became known as the Ludlow Massacre.
The news spread quickly. Several hundred armed miners massed from outlying districts, cut telegraph and telephone wires, shot mine guards, destroyed mines. Soldiers refused commands to go to Ludlow; railroads refused to carry soldiers there and in general, there was chaos in the region. Five thousand people demonstrated in front of the State Capitol in Denver, demanding that the militiamen of the National Guard be indicted for the murder of the Ludlow victims. Pickets paraded in protest in front of the Rockefdeller office at 26 Broadway in New York City. The entire nation and foreign countries were enraged. The governor of Ciolorado called for federal troops to restore order, and President Woodrow Wilson complied, and things quieted down. However, the Unitesd Mine Workers Union did not win recognition. All told, sixty-six adults and children had died. Not one militiaman or mine guard was indicted for murder.
In March, a month before the Massacre in April, and after Woodrow Wilson's offer of federal mediation which was refused by the mine operators and owners, a congressional hearing on the matter was held. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was called to testify. Under questioning he repeated his father's principle of business that workers were privileged to work and they could not determine the conditions of that work, and hence, no arbitration was necessary.
A poem from that time captures the sentiments of many.
"As long as he has the cash to spend, it is easy the people to fool,
As long as he builds a cottage or two and teaches Sunday School,
The toadies fawn, and the lickspittles kneel,
He's worshipped by all the freaks,
While bodies of little children are burned 'neath Colorado peaks.
And this skulking, sanctimonious ass, this breeder of crime and hate,
With the greed of a jackal and a heart of brass,
Whines, "Nothing to arbitrate."
A large monument was created in the vicinity to commemorate the Ludlow Massacre.
Sources:
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn, 2003, Harper Collins
THE ROCKEFELLERS, An American Dynasty by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, 1976, Holt, Rinehart, Winston
Wikipedia, Google