You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday April 22, 1904
Mother Jones Rescued in Utah; Big Bill Haywood Rescued in Denver
Mother Jones, who was quarentined in Helper, Utah, has been rescued by armed miners. From today's edition of
The Arizona Republican:
"MOTHER" JONES RESCUED.
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An Appeal for an Extension of Military Rule.
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Salt Lake, Utah. April 21.-The sheriff of Carbon county has appealed to Governor Wells to send the militia to restore order in the stronghold of the coal strikers at Helper. A few days ago "Mother" Jones arrived at the camp and paid a visit to Organizer Wm. Price of the United Mine Workers under quarantine. Yesterday, according to the sheriff, an Italian mob consisting of 100 men armed with rifles rescued the woman form quarantine defying the officers present.
In Denver, Colorado, Big Bill Haywood arrived at the train station yesterday with his stenographers to greet Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. Moyer was being provided a military escort for his appearance before the Colorado Supreme Court on a writ of habeas corpus. The
Bisbee Daily Review carried the story at the top of page one with blaring headlines:
SECRETARY OF WESTERN FEDERATION OF MINERS CLUBBED BY TROOPERS
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Denver Was The Scene Of Strife And Turmoil Yesterday, And Came Very Nearly Ending In Bloodshed. President Moyer, Of The Western Federation of Miners Is Still In Hands Of The Military, And Secretary Haywood Is Also In The Hands Of The Sheriff.
Secretary Haywood Had A Narrow Escape For His Life. A Trooper Fired Point Blank At Him, But A Comrade Knocks Up The Muzzle Of The Gun In Time To Save His Life.
President Moyer Was Escorted To And From the Capital Building by A Cordon of Soldiers.
We were able to get the story directly from Big Bill Haywood himself:
We [Haywood and his stenographers] went to the station and when the train pulled in a detachment of twelve soldiers got off first, then Moyer alone, then twelve more soldiers with officers following.
I stepped in and shook hands with Moyer and was walking along with him, hands clasped, when I felt a pressure on my shoulder, trying to force us apart. I looked around. There was Captain Bulkeley Wells, the same Wells who, a few months before, had entered into a agreement with us that would have brought about the peaceful settlement of the strike at Telluride. This thought flashed through my mind, and I wheeled and struck him full in the face.
It was a wild thing to do. In a flash the soldiers came to his rescue, and with the butts of their guns they struck me over the head and knocked me back between two cars. One pulled his gun down on me. I could see the hole in the barrel. I said, "Pull it, you son of a bitch, pull it."
One of the officers knocked up the barrel and said sharply:
"Stand back, stand back!" Then addressing me, "Haywood, go along with Moyer!"
I went along with Moyer and we marched to the Oxford Hotel....
When we reached the Oxford Hotel we marched in and Moyer sat down. I was standing with my elbow on the counter, when Walter Kinley, the Telluride gunman, came up to me and said:
"Sit down!"
"I don't want to sit down."
He pulled out his six-shooter and made a swing at me, shouting:
"Sit down, God damn ye!"
I hit him first and his gun did not strike me. Five or six soldiers rushed up and struck me several times, knocking me back against the wall. Kinley ran around to where he could get an opening, reached over and hit me on the head with the handle of his gun. About the same time a soldier made a jab at me, striking me on the cartilage just below the ribs. An officer came up swinging his six-shooter, shouting:
"Get back, you fellers, get back! How many does it take to handle this man?"
I could feel myself getting weak and I staggered to a chair where I sat awaiting further orders. I was bleeding like a stuck hog from blows on the head.
Soon I was taken upstairs and two gunmen were left in the room with me. One of them was Kinley, who was complaining about having broken the pearl handle of his gun on my head. It was only a few moments until the reporters appeared. I gave my keys and papers to John Tierney of the Denver Times. In a short time clean clothes came from home and I changed to the skin, all the time keeping a six-shooter which I had never attempted to use, and which had been somehow overlooked in the perfunctory search.
An army surgeon came and dressed the cuts in my head, sewing back my right ear, which required seven stitches. Then Ham Armstrong, the sheriff of the city and county of Denver, arrived and said, "I want you, Bill." I got up and remarked:
"That's good new!" and we started for the sheriff's office...
Big Bill Haywood is being held in the county jail at this time. A room has been provided him with a desk and a telephone, and his stenographers are being allowed to assist him there. And thus, his work for the Western Federation of Miners continues unabated.
SOURCES
The Arizona Republican
(Phoenix, Arizona)
-of Apr 22, 1904
Bisbee Daily Review
(Bisbee, Arizona)
-of Apr 22, 1904
The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood
(1st pub 1929)
International Pub, 1983
Photos:
1). Mother Jones
Library of Congress
2). Big Bill Haywood
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
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Wednesday April 22, 1914
From The New York Times: Grim Discovery at Burnt-Out Ludlow Colony
BODIES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN FOUND IN PIT WHERE THEY HAD SOUGHT SHELTER
Red Cross at Ludlow
45 DEAD, 20 HURT, SCORE MISSING,
IN STRIKE WAR
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Women and Children Roasted in Pits of Tent Colony as Flames Destroy It.
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HID FROM HAIL OF BULLETS
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Miners' Store of Ammunition and Dynamite Exploded,
Scattering Death and Ruin.
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TO RESUME BATTLE TO-DAY
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Decisive Engagement Planned by the Soldiers,
Who Are Preparing a Machine Gun Sortie.
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Special to The New York Times.
TRINIDAD, Col., April 21-Forty-five dead, more than two-thirds of them women and children, a score missing, and more than a score wounded, is the result known to-night of the fourteen-hour battle which raged with uninterrupted fury yesterday between State troops and striking coal miners in the Ludlow district, on the property of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, the Rockefeller holdings.
The Ludlow camp is a mass of charred debris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifles' fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered this afternoon, disclosed the bodies of ten children and two women . Further exploration was forbidden by the position of the camp, which lies directly between the militia and the strikers' positions....
The first wagon load of five bodies was brought in late this afternoon and a second wagon load is expected to-night....
Trinidad is horror stricken by reports of the number of women, children, and non-combatants who lost their lives in the fight and in the fire that followed.
"It is horrible," said John McLennan, President of District No. 15 of the United Mine Workers of America, who is in charge at local headquarters. "They were trapped without a chance of escape. The bodies of two women and ten children were seen in one trench, it was announced at the Ludlow military camp to-night. God only knows how many yet will be found."
More than 200 women and children refugees from the burned colony are being cared for here. The hall of the Trinidad Trades Assembly has been turned into a temporary dormitory and hospital. Many are suffering from burns and injuries. Food and bedding are being provided by the union.
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MINERS GATHER FOR FIGHT.
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Governor Asked to Call Legislature to Deal with Situation.
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DENVER, April 21.-Representatives of the American Red Cross in Trinidad, reported to Dr. S. P. Morris, Director of the Red Cross, in Denver tonight that twenty-six bodies of strikers already had been recovered by the Red Cross at Ludlow.
Three hundred strikers fully armed to-night marched from Fremont County tent colonies to Ludlow to aid their fellows in their fight against the militia, according to a statement given out at union headquarters here. Men of Leyden colony near Denver are making ready to go to Trinidad, it is reported.
E. F. Doyle, Secretary and Treasurer of District 15, United Mine Workers of America, sent the following telegram to-day to President Wilson, Colorado's Senators and Representatives and members of the House Committee which investigated the Colorado Strike:
Striking miners and families shot and burned to death at Ludlow, Col. Mine guards, with machine guns, riddled tents of striking miners and set fire to tent colony. Four men, three women and seven children murdered. State not only fails to protest, but uses uniforms and ammunition of the commonwealth to destroy the lives of the workers and their families. We shall be compelled to call on volunteers in the name of humanity to defend these helpless persons unless something is done. Tent colony burned to the ground.
A message also was sent to John P. White, International President of the union, asking him to urge President Wilson "to use his power to protect helpless men, women and children from being slaughtered in southern Colorado."
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-of Apr 22, 1914
http://select.nytimes.com/...
http://select.nytimes.com/...
Photos:
1). Red Cross at Ludlow
http://www.historycolorado.org/...
2). Miners Prepare For Battle, Colorado Coalfield War
http://www.du.edu/...
See also: WE NEVER FORGET April 20, 1914 The Ludlow Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/...
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The Miners tied red bandannas around their necks and sang this song as they marched into battle in the Colorado Coalfield War:
We will win the fight today, boys,
We'll win the fight today,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union;
We will rally from the coal mines,
We'll fight them to the end,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the gunthugs, and up with the law;
For we're coming, Colorado, we're coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
Sung to the tune of the old Union Civil War song:
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