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Friday February 5, 1915
From the New York Tribune: Strikers' Wives Testify on Horrors of Ludlow Massacre
A striker's wife, a woman deep in mourning, her grief visible on her face and in her posture, came to the witness stand before the
on Wednesday and spoke in a quiet voice about the deaths of her three children who perished in the Black Hole of Ludlow. On that terrible day, she had been mourning still for her eldest child, Bernard, age six, who had died of illness on March 7th. She told of fleeing with her three remaining children from her own tent as it caught fire. They made their way to the cellar of a nearby tent, full of women and children, which then began to burn above their heads. She lost consciousness, and did not fully realize until nine days later that her three younger children had joined her eldest in death.
Mrs Dominiski, another miners wife who survived the Ludlow Massacre, testified that it was the militia who set the tents on fire. The Tribune reports:
Mrs. Dominiski later had the grim task of identifying some of the dead from Ludlow at the undertakers. She was also one of a group who visited the burnt-out colony a few days later. She gave a first-hand account of the charred remains of the Black Hole of Ludlow:
TELLS HOW HER 3 BABIES DIED
IN MINERS' STRIKE
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Mrs. Petrucci Describes Horrors
of "Black Hole" to the Federal Board.
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WOMEN SHOT DOWN BY STATE MLITIA
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Mrs. Dominiski Testifies
That Soldiers Set Fire to Camp Tents.
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SOLDIERS INSULTED THEM.
THEY DECLARE.
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Colorado Victims' Tales of Massacre
Make Deep Impression at Industrial Hearing.
Maggie Dominiski and Mary Petrucci
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Just on tearful moment did Mrs. Mary Petrucci have yesterday, while testifying before the federal Industrial Commission in the Metropolitan Building. That was when she described how she had lost her three children in the "Battle of Ludlow," out in Colorado.
For the rest of the time she was on the stand, dry-eyed, but with an occasional halt, she told of the death of two women and eight children in that town's "Black Hole," last April.
Both Mrs. Petrucci and Mrs. Margaret Dominiski, who preceded her, pictured the hardships they had to endure in the ming districts. They were brought to New York by the United Mine Workers of America to relate their stories for the first time, following the refusal of Colorado executives to allow the Ludlow "incident" to be included in the Commission's records last May.
"I never saw a church in any of the coal camps." said Mrs. Dominiski, "except at Trinidad. There were no halls where people might meet, but there were always plenty of saloons. We had to trade in the company stores, although the prices of provisions were higher than in the nearby towns.
Not Allowed to Buy Outside.
"But we weren't allowed to buy outside. Whenever I got a chance, I did, but if I'd ever been found out, my husband would have been discharged."
Mrs. Petrucci's tale of the difficulties at Hastings was similar. She lived there in one of the company's houses, and there were no church facilities at all, she said.
"When we were living in the tent colony at Ludlow we had a better time than at the camps, and I liked it better."
The largest crowd of the week was in the assembly hall when Mrs. Petrucci was called to the stand. She mounted the steps leading to the platform quickly, and sat down at the small table. Still in mourning for her three children, who were smothered to death in the "Black Hole," she had on a long, black coat and a black silk handkerchief at her neck. She wore not hat.
Answering the first few questions, Mrs. Petrucci showed apparent nervousness. She toyed with her handkerchief and placed her little finger in the corner of her mouth as she told Commissioner Walsh that she had been born in Hastings, Col.
She left that town, she explained, at the age of thirteen and was married three years later. She is now twenty-four years old. In a clear, sympathetic voice, a brief description of her early life followed. This she brought down to the time when her husband went out with the strikers at Ludlow, and the family removed to the colony.
"In Ramey, where you say you were living until September, 1913, did you have any unpleasant experiences with the militia?" she was asked.
"Oh, yes," she replied, "We had to move so we would not be insulted by them."
She then told of the events of April 19 of last year, when the Greeks in the colony were
celebrating their Easter.
In the "Black Hole."
"What time did you leave your tent on the following day, April 20?" was the next question.
"I did not come out until I found out it was on fire. Then I left with my children. People were shouting 'Look out for the militia!' and so I ran to another tent that had a basement in it. It was just back of mine, and was No. 58. Ours was No. 1. Many persons saw me as I hurried with the children. Even the guards shouted. That frightened me."
The woman said she hoped to be able to protect her children, so she entered the cellar, which was about six feet below the surface. The door was open, but in her haste she did not shut it as she ran in.
"How did it come to be closed?" was asked.
"I do not know."
Asked to describe what happened in the cellar room, the witness said when she entered there were already three woman and several children in it. As she drew a word picture of the basement in which so many persons' lives had been lost, Mrs. Petrucci was clearly affected, and not a few in the audience were likewise moved by her story.
"Mrs. Costa and her children were in a bed there," she continued. "They were hidden beneath a comfort. I asked her for part of it, but she said there was not enough for both of us."
How old were your children?" the chairman asked.
"The oldest was for; he would have been five yesterday," the witness replied, as tears filled her eyes. "It would have been his birthday. The others were two and a half and six months.
"After I got in the cellar I told Mrs. Costa that the tents were being burned, but after about ten minutes I became unconscious. That was about 6 o'clock, and I remained that way all night, until about 5:30 the next morning."
Didn't Know Children's Fate.
On April 21, the following day, Mrs. Petrucci went on, she looked out and saw that a few tents, five or six, had not been burned. Guards were coming from them. She then ran to the depot. When she reached it safely she asked a woman to look for her children. But they were not alive than. All this time Mrs. Petrucci declared she was partly dazed.
"As I went up the road, I acted like a drunken person. I suffered terribly when I regained consciousness. After I had got to the station, some one paid for my ticket to Trinidad. I still felt bad when I reached that place. Then I went to bed with pneumonia for nine days."
Commissioner Walsh asked if she knew her children were dead when she was taken from the cellar.
"No," she answered with a sigh, as she thought of the events of that single night there.
The witness said she first told her story to Mrs. Champion in Denver. When she went to Washington for the Congressional Commission it was her first trip out of Colorado. But because of her condition she was unable to take the stand them.
Questioned by Commissioner Weinstock, the witness could not explain how the fire started. She knew, however, that her tent was the first to go, and that the blaze had been set from the outside while she was in it with her children, the smallest in her lap.
Mrs. Petrucci said that because of her condition, her semi-consciousness and inability to think clearly she made no attempt to find her children herself before leaving for Trinidad.
"Another woman and I," she continued, in answer to a question from commissioner Garretson, "were the only ones, except some children, to get out to the cellar alive. She regained consciousness first."
Mrs. Dominiski's Story.
Mrs. Dominiski's story of the events of April 20, 1914, was no less graphic than her companion's. She was asked to go more in detail in certain events, and she related all the facts in a steady voice, her eyes roaming from the Commissioners to the windows in front of her as she spoke.
She relied almost entirely on short, simple words, and even an occasional grammatical error did not detract from the forcefulness of her testimony.
She stated that she was living in Ludlow last April, and was at the ball game the day before the so-called massacre.
"While we were there some militia came along and pointed their guns at the men on the field. Three of them were on foot and there was a fourth man on horseback. A man near me said, 'We can watch this game all right; there is no need of guarding us.' Several women began joking about using firearms, and one of the militia replied: 'Go ahead and have your laugh to-day; to-morrow you'll get your roast.'
"At 10 o'clock the next morning we learned that the 'milish' had come again. My husband was at the office camp and I was getting ready to wash. They came up to Mr. Tikas, the Greek leader, and demanded that he produce a certain man within half an hour. He said that was impossible, as the man was not then in the camp. Then they threatened to search the camp.
"I was standing near by," she went on, looking straight at Chairman Walsh; "I went to a neighbor's house to get some postal cards. There was a telephone call for Mr. Tikas to go to the military camp. He finally started for the depot, and I set out for home."
Mrs. Dominiski went on to tell how she heard the music made by the Greeks celebrating their holiday. She then heard a woman say, "We had better get out of here; the militia is coming." A little while after that she looked out toward the military camp and heard a bomb fired.
Women and Children Slain.
The militia was then going toward Water Tank Hill, and after Mrs. Dominiski found a woman to take her children to the station she started for the office to see her husband, who was checking up his time.
"Then I saw Tikas, with a handkerchief in each hand, come running up the road. He said: 'Get back and scatter.' Then another bomb was fired and I hurried to the pump station and went into the well."
The witness described how she found two of her children in the big cavern with two landings in it. It was about eighteen feet wide, and was then occupied by sixty or eighty persons.
"I grabbed my other child," she continued, "and ran to a barn after I had been warned that we'd be shot if we stayed in the well. Later my little girl started for the barn; she was shot at before she reached it. The milita also shot at my boy as he ran across.
"There were twelve children, two women and five men killed that day in Ludlow."
At about 5:45 she looked out, she went on, and one of the men of the colony came up. He advised the crowd in the barn to get out, as the militia had started to set fire to the tents.
"I saw six or eight of them burning then. Three men had torches that looked like ignited brooms and others had cans. I think there was oil in them. A train was coming, so we ran along, sheltered by it to the station. The bullets just whizzed past us. As we went one woman tried to get under a fence. A bullet passed into her hip. Another exploded right in front of a woman with a baby in her arms. She fainted."
Mrs. Dominiski next described how she identified some of the dead in a Trinidad undertaking shop the next day. She also saw the cellar into which Mrs. Petrucci had fled a few days later. She pictured it as all smoked up on the inside and filled with water, for there had been a heavy rain meanwhile.
Like her companion, the witness was unable to tell who started the fire in the tents. The women and children, she said, began to run for safety when the first bomb was fired, about 10 o'clock in the morning. After the last, the machine guns were started. But the Colorado woman could not tell how many had left the camp, nor did she attempt to estimate the number of the militia that had been at the colony.
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Makes Deep Impression.
There was one marked difference in the testimony of the two women, whose expenses are being paid by the United Mine Workers of America to come all the way to New York with their stories. Mrs. Dominiski, the older, made her tale appear stronger by her preciseness. When asked a question she would tell all she knew of the subject.
Mrs. Petrucci, on the other hand, forced Chairman Walsh to lead her on, invariably stating just what was included in the question, but volunteering no information. She never went out of her way to supply facts which the Commissioner had possibly overlooked.
But the two descriptions of horror and suffering among the Ludlow tent dwellers made a deep impression on every one present. Most of the time the women were on the stand they spoke in low tones, while people leaned forward in their chairs that they might not miss the thread of the story.
There was also another victim of a strike present yesterday. This was Paul Babik, an employe at the Liebig works of the American Agricultural Chemical Company, at Chrome, N. J. He arrived for the morning session with his wife and three small children.
Babik was shot in the leg in the recent struggle with the deputies at Roosevelt, and also in the left hand. He is expected to tell of the conduct of the deputies in the recent violence, while the commission may also call his wife to describe living conditions in Roosevelt Borough.
[photographs of Maggie Dominiski with Mary Petrucci and Black Hole of Ludlow added; emphasis in original]
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