You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday November 21, 1903
Victor, Colorado - William Dodsworth, President of No. 32, Dies in Mine Accident
From Victor, Colorado comes the sad news that William Dodsworth, the much beloved President of Victor Miners' Union No. 32 (of the Western Federation of Miners), has died in a mining accident. Mrs. Emma F. Langdon of Victor gives this report of the sad events:
On November 20, the highly honored and ever-respected president of Victor Miners' Union No. 32, William Dodsworth, was almost instantly killed in the Delmonico shaft, one of the Stratton properties. He, in company with David Reed, were engaged in mending a steam pipe which was connected with some machinery which he had installed at the Delmonico mine. The men were standing on a plank which was balanced on two cross scantlings when Dodsworth stepped out near the end of the board, which broke, precipitating him to the bottom of the shaft. When picked up and taken to the surface, he was in an unconscious condition, from which he did not recover, until death came as he was being carried into his home at Goldfield.
SOURCE
The Cripple Creek Strike
-by Emma F Langdon
(Part I, 1st pub 1904)
NY, 1969
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
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Friday November 21, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado - Baldwin-Felts Gunthug George W. Belcher Shot and Killed
At about 7:30 last evening the notorious Baldwin-Felts gunthug, George W. Belcher, 26, of West Virginia, was shot and killed as he left the Hausman Drugstore across from the Columbian Hotel in Trinidad. Belcher died at the scene. A striking miner, Louis Zancanelli, was arrested shortly after the shooting by city policemen.
The Death Special
Belcher was well known throughout the strike zone for his role in the killing of Brother Gerald Lippiatt in Trinidad in August. He was deputized by Huerfano Sheriff Jefferson Farr in June. He played a part in the attack on the Ludlow Tent Colony in October in which Brother Mack Powell was shot off his horse and killed. Later in October, he was found in the Death Special, lurking about Forbes, by John Lawson and Louie Tikas the morning after the attack on the Forbes Tent Colony which left Brother Luca Varhernick dead. At that time, Belcher was found in the Death Special along with his fellow gunthug Walter Beck and Judge Northcutt, attorney for the mine operators.
Along with Belcher, Belk was also sworn in as a Huerfano County deputy which gave them both a license to kill striking miners. Northcutt signed on as defense attorney for Belcher and Belk soon after the murder of Brother Lippiatt. Northcutt is also the attorney for the mine operators, and works with District Attorney Hendrick in the prosecution of striking miners. Any chance of a fair trial for Louis Zancanelli seems slim.
SOURCE
Blood Passion
The Ludlow Massacre and Class War
in the American West
-by Scott Martelle
Rutgers U Press, 2008
See also: Hellraisers + Belcher
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Photo: Prelude to Massacre
http://www.du.edu/...
While the occupants of the Death Special in this photo do appear very much to resemble other photos of known Baldwin-Felts gunthugs, the identity of those pictured here is unknown as far as I can tell at this time.
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Thursday November 21, 2013
More on the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency:
...Around 1900 Baldwin formed a partnership with Thomas L. Felts, a Carroll County native, who had received his training as a law officer along the lawless border districts of Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia when the railroads were forging their way into the wild and undeveloped mountain regions. The partnership was the beginning of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. It would have offices in both Roanoke and Bluefield, W.Va....
Baldwin-Felts had had men in Colorado since July 1910 when the Northern Coal and Coke Co. of Colorado engaged their services as mine guards and strikebreakers. The delegation in Colorado included the elite of the agency as well as gunmen it hired for $3 a day. Immediately upon arrival to the western mining camps, they were sworn in as county sheriffs deputies....
Of the mine guards, George S. McGovern and Leonard F. Guttridge... wrote: "...Certainly, more than half a century later in 1971, the mere mention of Baldwin-Felts thugs to some of the forgotten band of veterans of the West Virginia and Colorado coalfield wars was all that it required to make gnarled flesh crawl and wasted limbs tremble in a fit of consuming rage."
SOURCE
The Roanoker
-of July 1979 (originally pub'd)
http://theroanoker.com/...
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Bella Ciao: Italian Resistance song
Una mattina mi son svegliato
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
Una mattina mi son svegliato
Eo ho trovato l'invasor
-Song of the Italian partisans