You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday October 16, 1903
Chicago, Illinois - John Mitchell Speaks at Conference of the National Civic Federation
John Mitchell, National President of the United Mine Workers of America, spoke at yesterday's afternoon session of the Chicago Conference of the National Civic Federation. Mr. Mitchell spoke on the subject of the "union shop:"
By a refusal to work with non-union men labor organizations occasionally excite grave criticism from press and public. To refuse to work with non-union men is to no greater and to no less extent compulsion than for a life or fire insurance company to refuse certain classes of risks, for a church to refuse membership to certain classes of people, or for any association whatsoever to set conditions under which it will have dealings with certain persons. The compulsion exerted by unions whether toward non-unionists or employers must be judged upon its merits and must not be decried merely because it is compulsion.
The majority of non-unionists are not malicious, only at the worst stupid and pathetic. However, there is one group of non-unionists, the professional strike breakers, but little removed from the criminal classes. I do not mean to say that every strike breaker is a criminal.
Some of these professional strike breakers are former unionist, men who have been dishonorably discharged from the union, cashiered for conduct unbecoming a unionist, if not actually dismissed for defalcations or other offenses against the law. Others have never been in a union and have never been contaminated or defiled by work. With the progress of trade unions and their growth in strength there will probably be a lessening in the intensity of feeling against the non-unionist, but no lessening in the policy of exclusion.
In conclusion I believe that trade unions have a legal and moral right to exclude non-unionists, but that this right should be exercised with the utmost care, and only after persuasion has been tried and has failed.
The National Civic Federation is an organization comprised of representatives from both the wage earners and the capitalist. They meet together in an effort to solve industrial conflicts and improve relationships between the two classes. This Federation is much decried as class collaborationist by the Socialist Party of America, and by such unions as the Western Federation of Miners and the American Labor Union.
SOURCES
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-of Oct 16, 1903
http://select.nytimes.com/...
History of the Labor Movement in the United States Vol. 3
The Policies and Practices of the American Federation of Labor 1900-1909
-by Philip S Foner
International Pub, 1981
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Thursday October 16, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado - Death Special follows 48 Union Men from Starkville to Trinidad
The Death Special
Yesterday strikers engaged in peacefully picketing at the Starkville Mine. This mine is owned by James McLaughlin, brother-in-law of Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado. Forty-eight of these union men were rounded up, placed under arrest by company guards and county deputies and marched the three miles back to Trinidad. On either side of them were rows of armed gunthugs, and behind them came the Death Special with its spotlight and machine gun aimed at their backs.
The union men offered no resistance, but as they come down the hill into Trinidad, they began to shout. They are being held in the Las Animas County Jail.
G. C. Jones, organizer for the Western Federation of Miners, was beaten by Gunthug Belk and by A. C. Felts as he attempted to get a Kodak of the menacing machine. The young photographer, Lou Dold was more successful.
In the past few days other attacks upon the striking miners and their families have been perpetrated by the mine guards. The Sopris Tent Colony was shot up by company gunthugs as they sped by in an automobile. In Walsenburg, Gunthug Lou Miller and six of his companions, roamed the streets assaulting strikers and union sympathizers wherever they found them. The town of Segundo was sprayed with machine gun fire for a full ten minutes as punishment for the beating of guard who had insulted a woman there.
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
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Wednesday October 16, 2013
More on the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency and Mr A. C. Felts
The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency was also employed to furnish men to guard the mines, and they swore in a number of men to perform service in the strike region. Some of these men were from coal fields where strikes had formerly existed, notably from West Virginia, where a strike had lately been settled. Some of the machine guns used in the late strike in West Virginia were sent from that State to Colorado. Mr. A. C. Felts testified that the same machine gun which was used in the armored car in West Virginia, and which was given so much publicity at the time, was shipped to Trinidad and was purchased by the mine operators and was used in Colorado. In all, at least 12 machine guns were sent into the coal fields of Colorado. Large quantities of ammunition were purchased for use among the guards and deputies.
Mr. A. C. Felts, of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, had men brought into the State, and sworn in as detectives, who were not residents of the State, and employed others who were residents of the State, most of them being commissioned as deputy sheriffs.
SOURCE
Report on the Colorado Strike Investigation, Made Under House Resolution 387 (by the Committee on Mines and Mining of the House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress).
Pub'd 1915
-pages 6 & 17
http://books.google.com/...
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With God on Our Side-Dylan & Baez
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.
-Bob Dylan
I dedicate this song to the Sunday School Teacher, Mr. John D. Rockefeller Jr.