Let every miner wear his red bandanna around his neck. It is our uniform.
-John R Lawson
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Friday April 23, 1915
Trinidad, Colorado - State Appears Ready to Demand Extreme Punishment for Lawson
John Lawson & Mother Jones
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Jury selection is well under way in the trial of John Lawson as the state of Colorado appears set to demand the most extreme punishment should the jury find the miners' hero, John R. Lawson, guilty of first degree murder.
From the Nevada State Journal of April 22, 1915:
JURY SELECTED
TO TRY JOHN LAWSON
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Extreme Punishment
Will Be Asked by State
Against Mine Worker Official
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TRINIDAD, Colo, April 21-Rapid progress in the work of selecting a jury was made today in the trial of John R. Lawson, international executive board member of the United Mine Workers of America, charged with the murder of John Nimmo, a mine guard near Ludlow, October 25, 1913. Of the twelve men in the jury box when court adjourned tonight counsel for the state had signified that eleven were acceptable to that side. Seven of the special venire, selected by elisors, had been excused by the state after they declared they had conscientious scruples against the infliction of the death penalty. The state also used seven peremptory challenges.
Questions directed to talesman by counsel for the state related chiefly to their attitude toward the death penalty and were taken to indicate that the extreme punishment would be asked in the event a verdict of murder in the first degree was returned by the jury.
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SOURCE
Nevada State Journal
(Reno, Nevada)
-Apr 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGE
John Lawson with Mother Jones
from Wichita Beacon of Apr 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
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More on the Appointment of Judge Granby Hillyer
Horace N Hawkins
Edward P Costigan
Governor George Carlson, defeated Governor Ammons in the election of November 1914 and was inaugurated in January of 1915. Not long thereafter:
The Legislature was sitting in Denver and George Carlson, the avowed enemy of rum and the devil, was occupying the governor's office. While [Attorneys] Hawkins and Costigan mapped plans for Lawson's defense, the Legislature passed a measure authorizing an increase from one to two in the number of judges in the Third Judicial District, which embraced Las Animas County. The governor was given authority to name a jude to serve until a regular election could be held.
"The coal companies are back in this scheme," Hawkins told Lawson, "and you'll see that I am right. It is a tricky move."
Governor Carlson, as soon as he had signed the bill, named Granby Hillyer of Lamar, Colo., a coal company attorney, as judge for the district. The General Assembly, known to the state as the Tainted Twentieth and as a fair rival for the ignoble honors previously conferred on the Robber Seventh and the Slinking Seventeenth, had made it possible for Governor Carlson to pick an ideal man for the task ahead. The governor would have had a difficult task finding a more biased man as far as unions were concerned. Hillyer had served several of the large coal companies in early cases against striking miners and had made public statements condemning the strike and its leaders, particularly John Lawson. what is more, he was a law partner of Frank West, deputy attorney general, who was selected by [Attorney General] Farrar to handle strike prosecutions....
The Trial Begins
John Lawson, years later, at the Ludlow Monument
The trial, one of the strangest in the history of American jurisprudence, opened in Las Animas County courthouse April 21, 1915. In outward appearance it was commonplace, with the state doing nothing more than calling a citizen before the bar of justice to establish guilt or innocence of a charged crime. In reality it was more than that. The state of Colorado was merely providing the setting for a contest between a labor leader, John R. Lawson, and a capitalist in far away New York, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. It was as if the guiding genius of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. had the mysterious power of multi-location. It sat on the bench in the person of Judge Hillyer and frowned down upon the courtroom. It sat at the prosecutor's table in the person of Deputy Attorney General West and glared at Lawson. It was in the venire, carefully selected by the Las Animas County sheriff.
Lawson paid little attention to the examination of the veniremen. During brief recesses he was silent and stared at the floor. His wife was in California, but she was in his every thought. Since the day their home in New Castle had been dynamited long years before, Mrs, Lawson had not been well. Only a few months ago she had been near death. Then she had rallied and he had sent her to California to stay with one of her sisters.
Hawkins and Costigan did not notice Lawson's preoccupation. They had a hard battle on their hands and every second of their time was devoted to it. They questioned veniremen hour after hour. The sheriff's office had not placed a single Italian, Greek or Mexican resident on the venire although these racial groups made up a large part of the population.
[Photograph added.]
SOURCE
Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader
-by Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
http://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
Horace N Hawkins
https://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/...
Edward P Costigan
http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/...
John Lawson, years later, at the Ludlow Monument
https://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/...
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The Battle of Blair Mountain performed by Louise Mosrie
Red bandanas tell us what side you’re on.
We’re the Rednecks of the union - 1921
We leave tonight 13000 strong.
We’ll take the fight to Blair Mountain before the dawn.
-Louise Mosrie/Mike Richardson
They'll Never Keep Us Down-Blair Mountain Marchers
The power wheel is rolling, rolling right along
The government is keep it going going strong
so working people get your help from your own kind
Your welfare on the rich man's mind
Your welfare on the rich man's mind
Your welfare on the rich man's mind
They want the power in their hands
Just to keep out of the workers hands
Your welfare on the rich man's mind
-Hazel Dickens
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