You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Monday October 12, 1903
From the International Socialist Review: "The Legal Fiction of Equality."
In a long article for this month's Review, Comrade Clarence Meily writes about the capitalistic courts and the struggle of the working class for true democracy, industrial democracy. We quote only a small section here to focus on what the employers are fond of calling "assumed risk." Meily begins the article with a quote from Judge Gray:
"There are no classes In America. I hate the name!" Judge George Gray, quoted in the "Outlook" of July 4, 1903.
Meily then goes on to discuss "assumed risk," which leaves the employer free of legal responsibility when employees are killed or injured on the job, concluding:
In all the cases where the doctrine of assumed risk is applied, it is frankly and explicitly placed on the ground that the wage worker is the equal in all respects of the capitalist, that he occupies an equally advantageous position and enjoys the same independence of action, that he is at liberty to contract for such employment as he pleases, and to abandon it at will. Hence is exacted the price of this flattering liberty, that by accepting any given employment he assumes all dangers his master has culpably placed in his pathway, of which he knows or should know; and if the danger arises after employment, his continuance therein is visited by the same consequence.
That all this is in full accord with the legal fiction of equality, and is likewise at profoundest variance with the facts, needs no argument to show. The judges who thus lightly remit the wage earner to a forfeiture of his employment, with the alternative of inability to recover for injuries incurred therein, have, as members of a different economic class, never known the worry of a "lost job," the bitter anxiety of being "out of work," or the humiliation of looking for employment. Judicial obliviousness to the shackles of economic necessity binding the laborer to his task, here works, probably, the crudest injustice ever perpetrated by the courts upon the helpless in the name of liberty.
The International Socialist Review:
A Monthly Journal of International Socialist Thought, Volume 4
-October 1903, p.223
http://books.google.com/...
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Sunday October 12, 1913
Southern Coalfield, Colorado - Operators ship in machine guns; Union ready for attack.
Should any American citizen believe that, surely, those mine guards who shot up the Ludlow Tent Colony and killed Mack Powell have been arrested, let them be, here and now, disabused of that naive notion of equal justice. In fact, the guards have not been arrested; they have had four machine guns added to their supply of weapons with which to continue their attacks on the tent colonies.
Vice President Hayes of the United Mine Workers of America said recently to John Lawson, "But they can't conduct a war against us with machine guns. They wouldn't turn machine guns on defenseless people."
John Lawson believes that the operators are just that ruthless, and said, "We've got to protect the women and children at all costs."
The Children of Ludlow
The colonies have been directed to put up breastworks and to dig pits under the tents. The women and children will be able to shelter there whenever the colonies are attacked. At this time, the Ludlow colony is the particular focus of the gunthugs, but all of the 20 or more colonies are considered to be at risk.
SOURCE
Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader
-by Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
Photo: from the Colorado Coalfield War Project
See espicially families and daily life.
http://www.du.edu/...
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Saturday October 12, 2013
Planning has begun to commemorate the Ludlow Massacre on 100th Anniversary
by Steve Vairma
President, Teamsters Joint Council 3
Events are now being planned for next year to mark the 100th anniversary of the Great Colorado Coalfield War of 1913-1914 during which the tragic Ludlow Massacre occurred.
The events are being planned by Colorado State University-Pueblo and other organizations dedicated to preserving Colorado history.
Read full article here:
http://www.teamstersjointcouncil3.org/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Tears in Heaven-Eric Clapton
Beyond the door, there's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more Tears in Heaven.