You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Thursday October 29, 1903
Denver, Colorado - Mother Jones returns with message for miners from John Mitchell
Newspapers across the country are reporting that Mother Jones returned to Colorado last night directly from meeting with John Mitchell in Indianapolis. She arrived bearing the authority from the President of the United Mine Workers for a strike to be called by the District 15 coal miners. We have received reports that the strike is due to start next Monday. However, William Howells, District 15 President, stated that the exact date of the strike call had not yet been fixed.
Meanwhile, today is Mitchell Day in the state of Pennsylvania, and will be celebrated with speeches, picnics, and parades. The miners have declared this day to be a holiday bringing coal mining to a halt in the area. The largest celebration will be in Scranton where 40,000 miners are expected to attend a "monster mass meeting." Mr. Mitchell arrived in that city yesterday. After the parade, the festivities will be held at the circus grounds. John Mitchell will address the gathering as will officials from the United Mine Workers and the American Federation of Labor.
SOURCES
The Kearney Daily Hub
(Kearney, NE)
-of Oct 29, 1903
The Scranton Republican
(Scranton, PA)
-of Oct 29, 1903
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Wednesday October 29, 1913
Denver, Colorado - Governor Ammons Orders Troops into the Southern Coalfields
Governor Elias M. Ammons
Governor Ammons called up the state militia early yesterday morning, and troops began arriving today in Huerfano and Las Animas counties where fighting between deputized mine guards and strikers has continued over the past few days. In total, fourteen infantry companies, three troops of cavalry and two batteries of field artillery are being sent into the strike zone. Sheriff J. S. Grisham has reported that the Greek strikers, in particular, have attacked the mining camps at Tobasco, Berwind, Hastings and Delagua, and that he can no longer contain the fighting.
The Governor has ordered Adjutant-General Chase into the strike zone with the entire Colorado National Guard under his command. The Governor made this statement:
I have no other recourse. Yesterday [Monday] the situation got away from everybody. I am compelled to act. For forty-eight hours I had been trying to arrange a settlement, but the agreement to keep the peace during the negotiations was violated and the events of Monday showed that the leaders had not enough authority to prevent outbreaks. Any one who wants to work will be given protection to go and come in peace, but I will not allow the importation of strike breakers. I mean to be fair to both sides, while enforcing peace and protecting life and property.
It is unfortunate, that the Governor did not show more interest in "protecting life and property" when it was the lives and the the property of the strikers under assault by the deputized company gunthugs. Now that the miners have risen up, determined to protect their families and their tent villages, the Governor is suddenly interested in "protecting life and property."
SOURCE
The Indianapolis News
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-of Oct 28, 1913
Photo: Governor Elias M Ammons
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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Tuesday October 29, 2013
More on the deputized company gunthugs:
An important facet of a [coal] company's security system was employment of no-nonsense personnel. But to assure that security employees were lawfully ordained, the company found it necessary to gain such employees incontestable deputy commissions. The closed camp system needed security that at any level couldn't be questioned. In the eyes of turn-of-the-century law, the local sheriff could do little wrong. Whomever he deputized, gained authority both within and beyond the confines of the law.
Companies were quick to take advantage of such a liberal system. The deputy commissions afforded to company employees allowed CFI [Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron Company], for instance, to employ the services of Bob Lee, who prior to his death, was considered one of the company's most incompassionate bullies. The same system allowed for the services of Billy Reno, and eventually, those of Baldwin-Felts agents George Belcher and Walter Belk, who like Lee and Reno, were well known for their willingness to employ unsolicited roughhouse tactics.
Many observers hoped and believed Ammons' decision to send the militia into the strike zone would negate the effectiveness of such hardened characters, and simultaneously, discourage local sheriffs from handing out large numbers of commissions. Others correctly surmised this wouldn't be the case, knowing beyond doubt that Ammons' decision would have little effect on the privileges the law afforded the local sheriff and his commissioned deputies.
SOURCE
A Rendezvous with Shame
-by Patrick L Donachy
CO, 1989
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A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall-Bob Dylan
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my songs well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
-Bob Dylan