You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday October 10, 1903
Denver, Colorado - Governor Peabody's court-martial board to convene in nine days.
Governor Peabody has appointed a court-martial which is set to convene on October 19th at 10:00 a. m. Many charges against high officers have been brought to the Governor's attention, reaching as high as General Chase, according to some reports. General Chase remains in Denver at this time.
General Bell has released several statements over the last few days. This is an example:
I offer the following moral to the Citizen's Alliance, the Mine Owners' Association, the Western Federation of Miners, and all other organizations: Moral-Attend to your own business affairs and don't in any manner or way interfere or mix in the military operations and conduct of the troops, and, incidentally, with the management and operation of the military affairs in the Cripple Creek district.
Bell further states that the organizations so-named should pin that moral into their hatbands. In other words, the citizens should shut their mouths and open their wallets to foot the bill for Bell's shoddy management of the Colorado National Guard in the Cripple Creek District.
SOURCE
The Cripple Creek Strike
-by Emma F Langdon
(Part I, 1st pub 1904)
NY, 1969
Note: the entire text of Langdon's account of these events can be read here:
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
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Friday October 10, 1913
Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado - Gunthugs fire onto baseball field, kill striker, Max Powell.
Baldwin-Felts gunthug
Yesterday morning gunthugs from Hastings fired upon the baseball field at the edge of the camp. Striking miners had been enjoying a friendly game, but, as bullets hit the dirt around them, they quickly ran for their rifles. They were able to drive the guards away from the camp. Mack Powell was sitting on his horse and watching from a distance when he was struck by a bullet and killed. Guards were later heard to brag that they had killed a miner.
Mack Powell was a union miner who had taken work as a cowboy on the near-by Green Ranch. Mack was married, and lived with his wife and his wife's grandmother.
SOURCES
Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader
-by Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
Buried Unsung
Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre
-by Zeese Papanikolas
U of Utah Press, 1982
See also:
Conditions in the coal mines of Colorado: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on mines and mining, Hous of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, pursuant to H. res. 387, a resolution authorizing and directing the Committee on Mines and Mining to make an investigation of conditions in the coal mines of Colorado, Volume 2
Testimony of Mrs. Powell, p.1913
http://books.google.com/...
Photo: from WV Encyclopedia.org
(see link below)
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Thursday October 10, 2013
More on the Baldwin-Felts Gunthugs from the WV Encyclopedia
Written by Lon Savage:
The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency played a controversial role in the early years of the coal industry of southern West Virginia, enforcing public law in the coalfields at the direction of the coal operators who hired them. Their often brutal, repressive policies, especially toward union miners, contributed significantly to the violence of the period....
Baldwin-Felts guards also were involved in the 1914 ‘‘Ludlow Massacre’’ in Colorado’s coalfields, in which women and children were burned to death in a union tent colony...
Read more here:
http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/...
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Which Side Are You On-Natalie Merchant
My daddy was a miner
He's now in the air and sun
He'll be with you fellow workers
Until the battle's won
-Florence Reese