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Monday August 10, 1914
From the Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones Stands with Bob Uhlich, Imprisoned Miner
So declares Mother Jones in a message to the Appeal Army published in this week's edition of the
Appeal Pledges All of Its Resources in War With Rockefeller
For the Freedom of Bob Uhlich and Others
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Judge A. W. McHendrie, presiding over that district in southern Colorado wherein can be found the richest coal fields of Rockefeller, the largest collection of gunmen in America and the most complete corporation ownership of public officials, must face a recall from office.
In the Las Animas county jail are fourteen union miners facing the gallows, fourteen strikers whom the citizens of Trinidad believe to be innocent of any crime.
Some of them have been there for as long as seven months without trial.
Bail has been refused them.
On the other hand, freely walking the streets of Trinidad, can be seen the Baldwin-Felts detective Belk.
This man slew Organizer Lippiatt in broad day light on Main street.
He riddled the miner's body with bullets as it lay prostrate in the gutter at his feet.
A hundred gasping men and women witnessed the murder.
A coroner's jury was assembled.
The facts were set forth, and the district judge, Judge A. W. McHendrie, gave this killer for the coal companies his freedom upon bail, while he holds, rotting in jail, union miners who dared protect their wives and children against the thugs who made Ludlow a holocaust and a graveyard.
WE NEVER FORGET
Belk is but one of hundreds of like gunmen in the district of Judge McHendrie that are today waiting for the signal to be given and the slaughter to recommence. Thy have killed openly. They have been openly protected. And they are plainly without fear.
Knowing and seeing these things Local Las Animas County of the Socialist party-with a membership of over 400, a majority of which are striking miners-passed resolutions, on July 24, calling upon the Appeal to Reason to come to the aid of judge-ridden Colorado and inaugurate a state and national campaign for the purpose of recalling Judge McHendrie from office, freeing the imprisoned miners, and placing Colorado again within the zone of political liberty.
To initiate these measures Local Las Animas County elected a committee on recall and publicity to go to Girard, Kan., and present the facts to the Appeal to Reason. This is the answer of the little old Appeal:
Take back to your Committee on Recall and Publicity in Trinidad this answer from the Appeal to Reason:
From the beginning to the finish, the Appeal to Reason is with you, our type, our presses, our power to organize the toilers in aid of the greatest working class fight in the history of America, all will be used without stint and without hesitancy until Judge McHendrie is no more a judge, until the protectors of gunmen are driven from office and bob Uhlich and the other innocent miners are freed from their cells in the Trinidad County jail.
A graphic picture of this pit of hell in which the coal barons have thrust these fourteen union miners is given in a letter written by Bob Uhlich, the man who practically first organized the revolt in southern Colorado's coal fields. Uhlich says, in part, as follows:
Many members of the United Mine Workers of America have been thrown into the city jail and the county jail, and are held illegally as "military prisoners." The purpose of this body-snatching is to compel these victims of despotism to accuse themselves of some kind of crime, and then to accuse higher officials of the United Mine Workers as the instigators of these "confessed crimes."...The prisoners are starved, they are not permitted to sleep as high as five nights and days at a time. Bayonets are stuck in their feet, rifles are pointed at them, and they are told that they will be killed if they do not confess. I wonder that there has not been a suicide among the prisoners. When these prisoners are worn out and out of their minds then comes this Judge Advocate Boughton, or his illegal military commission, and tells them to confess to some crime, and to accuse prominent officials of the U. M. W. A. You understand that any prisoner so treated will say yes to any lying question put to him.
If Louis Zancanelli had been asked, "did you crucify Jesus, and did McGary and Sam Carter promise you five hundred dollars?" he would have said "Yes," and so would most anybody...Zancanelli did not kill Belcher, nor did he receive any money from McGary or Carter, or anyone else, for the purpose of killing Belcher. Louse King, a negro striker, who is warden of the Trinidad local, was told by Boughton to confess that he took part in "secrete meetings." He denied that. Then Boughton said it did not matter if he took part or not, he should confess anyhow to it. But he refused, so they hold him under the false charge that he shot the children of a scab in Hastings. Now, this shooting of children is another newspaper lie, and King was not even there when it is alleged to have happened. Jim, the big Greek, is slowly dying; roommate of Zancanelli, fares not much better. Boughton wants him to confess that the force, lying confession of Zancanelli is true. They even locked a spy in his cell, but he has not "confessed" yet.
In the strikers' camps about Trinidad there is one name that is often uttered with a gritting of teeth-Judge Northcutt. His office has been used as an arsenal for the mine guards and deputies. He has ridden in raids against union men's homes. It was A. C. Felts, Judge Northcutt and ten armed deputies with a machine gun, that took forcible possession of a Pullman car on its way to Walsenburg, where the mine guards had called for reinforcements, took possession by throwing the protesting brakeman off the train. And it is this same Northcutt that appears in court against arrested union miners as Special Prosecutor for District Attorney J. P. Hendricks. Such things are done in Trinidad, openly, for there it is not necessary for the coal companies to conceal the tools of their direct action.
When Robert Uhlich, therefore, applied for bail, after seven months' confinement in the foul cell at Trinidad, it was Northcutt that appeared in court and, speaking as special prosecutor, demanded that the court refuse the bonds on the ground that this Uhlich "did more than any four men" toward organizing and arming the miners for the protection of their homes.
The judge agreed. The judge refused Bob Uhlich bail. And it is with this Judge A. W. McHendrie that the workers of Colorado propose to commence house cleaning and never stop till last gripping finger of Rockefeller is removed from the throat of the mine worker.
Judge McHendrie bids killer Belk go free.
Judge McHendrie thrusts Bob Uhlich back into his cell.
Judge McHendrie as judge must cease to exist.
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Comrade A. Marians, county secretary of the Socialist party, came to the office of the Appeal to Reason direct from the Las Animas county jail and the imprisoned Bob Uhlich, organizer of the United Mine Workers of America.
He brings from Uhlich and his 13 companions, striking miners, battlers at Ludlow and Forbes, a personal plea to the Appeal to Reason to come to their aid and free them from the prison where thy have been for over half a year.
Uhlich chose Marians to carry this message because of their many years of personal friendship. From the slender earnings of a miner, Uhlich contributed Marians' railroad fare to Girard; Marians himself being a wage worker, a union cigar maker, and without a job for many months.
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The Appeal has dispatched John Murray, the will-known Socialist correspondent, to Trinidad. Watch for his article in next week's issue. The Colorado fight is on!
[paragraph break added, drawing added]
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Carry It On-Joan Baez
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