You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Thursday July 21, 1904
Cripple Creek Strike Zone, Colorado - Portland Mine Closed Down; Union Men Arrested
Report from Mrs. Emma F. Langdon of Victor, Colorado
Mrs. Langdon reports that the citizens of the Cripple Creek Strike Zone are "kept on the qui vive both day and night on account of the many arrests and frequent deportations." No one who is not a member or sympathizer of the Citizens' Alliance or Mine Owners' Association feels safe from the state militia.
Everyone arriving in the district is inspected. Those unknown to the military commission are hauled before that tribunal and forced to account for themselves. Should their answers be unsatisfactory, they are forced to leave town or are dispatched to the bullpen.
In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Mr. Franklin, the ex-mayor of Victor and member of the military commission, explained the methods of the commission:
While things are quiet now, deportations are going on just the same as before. We are not telling who is deported at present. The committee simply works on the list, and then the men are deported without anything being said.
Mrs. Langdon's report continues:
July 20, the Portland mine was closed by the military for the second time. The close-down was due to the arrest by the military of nearly all of the mechanical force of 500 employed on the surface in the three shaft houses. This comprised engineers, firemen, master mechanics and men in other departments. All of the men arrested were miners' union members who refused to take out working cards in the Mine Owners' Association...
When the Portland was closed by General Bell [about a month ago], it was understood that no Union men would be re-employed unless they should surrender their allegiance to the Western Federation of Miners, and take out Mine Owners' Association cards. The majority directorate of the Portland Gold Mining Company, however, in order to retain the services of the splendid force of miners which it had prior to the closing down of the mine by the military, decided for the time being at least, to allow a certain number of the old force to go back to work without first compelling them to take out the Mine Owners' Association permit. This course was especially applicable to the engineering and other departments, and the result was that substantially all of the men employed in those branches remained with the Portland company.
Between 11 and 12 o'clock details of military were sent out to Goldfield and Cripple Creek and to other points for the purpose of making arrests of Portland miners who worked on the day shift. One military attache stated that it was not the purpose to deport the men, and the same authority remarked later that the whole scheme was a conspiracy to shut down the mine.
[photograph added]
Mrs. Langdon further reports that this action by the military has been expected for the past week, and that if the mine had not been shut down last night, then the men, rather than give up their allegiance to the Western Federation of Miners, would have given up their positions in the Portland Mine this morning. In that way, the men would have saved the military the trouble of arresting them; the men would have been able to collect their wages and leave the district without first being arrested and hauled before the military commission.
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SOURCE
The Cripple Creek Strike
A History of Industrial Wars in Colorado, 1903-4-5
-by Emma F Langdon
"Being a Complete and Concise
History of the Efforts of
Organized Capital
to Crush Unionism"
The Great Western Publishing Co.
Denver,Colorado, 1905.
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
See also:
For more on Portland Mine (scroll down):
http://www.dailykos.com/...
IMAGES
1). Emma F Langdon
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
2). Mine Owners Association Permit Card
http://www.rebelgraphics.org/...
3). Western Federation of Miners Button
http://www.nps.gov/...
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All Hell Can't Stop Us - Twin Cities Labor Chorus
ALL HELL CAN'T STOP US!
Now the final battle rages;
Tyrants quake with fear.
Rulers of the New Dark Ages
Know THEIR end is near.
Chorus
Scorn to take the crumbs they drop us;
All is ours by right!
Onward, men! All Hell can't stop us!
Crush the Parasite!
With a world-wide revolution
Bring them to your feet!
They of crime and persecution-
They must work to eat!
Tear the mask of lies asunder;
Let the truth be known;
With a voice of angry thunder,
Rise and claim your own!
Down with Greed and Exploitation;
Tyranny must fall!
Hail to Toil's Emancipation;
Labor shall be all.
-Ralph Chaplin
Written in Leavenworth Prison.
