Colorado Coalfield War

that killed 75 at the CF&I mine. In 1903, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was taken over from its founder, John C. Osgood, by a group of Colorado-based board members and investors with the support of John D. Rockefeller. Osgood was the wealthiest Coloradan at the time, and founded the Victor-American Fuel Company later that year. Colorado Fuel and Iron's treatment of its workers worsened after its sale to John D. Rockefeller, who gave his portion of the company to his son John D. Rockefeller Jr. as a birthday gift. The company already had a history of buying political figures and banking "graft", but Lamont Montgomery Bowers, who was hired to "untangle the mess", caused additional issues. In the decade preceding the 1913–1914 Strike, CF&I mines had been involved in several major accidents. These included the 31 January 1910 explosion that killed 75 at the Primero Mine and the Starkville Mine explosion that killed 56 on 8 October of that year. Both of these accidents took place in Las Animas County, part of what became the strike zone and where the Ludlow Colony was established. In its aftermath, the National Guard prepared for additional violence by constructing fortifications, including the large cobblestone Golden Armory in June 1913. Since the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–1904, CF&I had spent $20,000 annually () on private detectives and security to monitor and infiltrate unions. Baldwin-Felts spy Charles Lively was among the most successful in his infiltration, rising to the position of vice-president of the UMWA local. Bowers viewed these private investigators as “grafters” and sought to cut ties with them. However, local CF&I fuel manager E. H. Weitzel retained Pinkerton detectives in the Southern Colorado coalfields to monitor the collective organizing of miners in the region. ==Beginning of the strike==

The Coalfield Strikes of 1913–1914 began in the late summer of 1913 when the United Mine Workers of America organized its regional District 15, led by John McLennan, to represent Southern Coloradan coal field workers and put forward demands to Colorado Fuel and Iron. On 16 September 1913, miners with and union members with District 15 adopted demands for a seven-step improvement to the wage scale of miners and company recognition of the UMWA. In Southern Colorado, an expanded strike began on 23 September 1913 during a rainstorm. That day, the strike peaked with up to 20,000 miners and family members being evicted from company housing. Prior to the eviction, there had been plans to move them all into union supplied tents. Despite internal statistics at CF&I that suggested only 10 percent of miners were union-members, Rockefeller was informed soon after the strike began that between 40 and 60 percent of the miners in the strike zone had left work, which became roughly 80.5 percent—7,660 men—by the 24th. The day the strike was declared, Mother Jones led a march on the Trinidad town hall, giving a brief speech outside and inside: During this initial stage of the strike, Governor Ammons met several times with Welborn, Osgood, and David W. Brown—representing CF&I, Victor-American, and the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company respectively. Ammons intended to facilitate a summit between these corporate leaders to several of the union heads so that the strike might end quickly. However, following belligerent statements on both sides, such a conference never transpired. Though there were strikes in places such as Walsenburg and Trinidad, the largest of the strike colonies was in Ludlow. It had around 200 tents with 1,200 miners. The escalating situation caused Governor Elias Ammons to call in the Colorado National Guard in October 1913, but after six months all but two companies were withdrawn for financial reasons. However, during this six-month period, guardsmen were allowed to leave if their primary livelihood was threatened and many of the guardsmen were "new recruits"—mine guards and strikebreakers in National Guard uniforms. Further detectives were brought into the state once the strike commenced. Upon arrival, these between 40 and 75 detectives were deputized as county sheriffs. The Baldwin-Felts and CF&I had an armored car nicknamed the Death Special, which was equipped with a machine gun, as well as eight machine guns purchased by CF&I from the Coal Operators' Association of West Virginia—a mining company association. Three additional machine guns reached the strike zone by the end of the conflict, though how these weapons were sourced is uncertain.{{cite report|title=Report on the Colorado strike investigation made under House resolution 387, sixty-third Congress, third session The strikers also armed themselves through private sales, primarily through local private dealers. Colorado gun dealers are recorded as having sold to both sides in the various calibers that were commercially popular at the time—especially .45-70 and .22 Long Rifle. Dealers in Walsenburg and Pueblo also sold explosives to both sides of the conflict, though the investigating congressional committee noted they did "not believe a majority of the people of Colorado such actions." ==Violence early in the strike==

September 1913 On 24 September, a marshal employed by CF&I named Robert Lee was attempting the arrest of four strikers accused of vandalism when he was ambushed and killed at Segundo. Another lawman later testified that Lee had been particularly hated by the strikers for his insults against their wives. At roughly 1:30 pm on 9 October 1913, a striking miner who had been hired as a rancher, Mark Powell, The National Guard was mobilized on 28 October and began field operations the next day. The next day, several buildings were set on fire in Aguilar, including a post office and a mine. The Guard later arrested several strikers in relation to this arson and handed them over to the U.S. Marshal Service. Peffello likely lost his home after returning to it upon abandoning the Piedmont tent colony. On 17 December, the National Guard, under orders from Gov. Ammons from 1 December, allowed for the strikebreakers to resume entering the strike zone following a brief moratorium on any workers other than those already present in Southern Colorado working. January 1914 The return of Mother Jones to Trinidad on 11 January resulted in considerable response. She was arrested shortly thereafter by the National Guard on the orders of Ammons and taken to Mt. San Rafael Hospital. She was held repeatedly over the next nine months. Strikers attempted to liberate Jones from her first detention on the 21st by marching on the hospital but failed to secure her release after being repulsed by mounted National Guardsmen. She would remain held in Mt. San Rafael for nine weeks. On 27 January, the National Guard reported discovering an unexploded bomb near their camp at Walsenburg, estimating that it could have killed many of the troops stationed there. The Guard used this incident, which resulted in new arrests, as evidence of striker aggression towards the military in the region. The same day, the United States House Committee on Mines and Mining opened an investigation on both the Northern and Southern Colorado Coalfield strikes, as well as the Calumet strike. The report pertaining to the Southern Colorado strike was released on 2 March 1915. The UMWA would legally challenge the National Guard imprisonment of four strikers in Las Animas County on habeas corpus grounds, while the National Guard stated the imprisonments were permitted by previous court rulings and the Posse Comitatus Act. The court sided with the National Guard on 29 January. ==Events before Ludlow==

. There was still tension, though, and on 14 January Linderfelt was accused of hitting Tikas while at Ludlow in retaliation for Tikas not divulging the whereabouts of a boy related to an incident in which Linderfelt and his men ran into barbed wire on a path. The official report by the National Guard detachment commander at Aguilar to General Chase on 18 January denied the claim, as did a telegram to Governor Ammons sent personally from Linderfelt. Lawson, however, asserted in a telegram to Ammons that Linderfelt had used the "vilest of language" towards the boy in question and had said to the strikers "I am Jesus Christ, and my men on horses are Jesus Christs, and we must be obeyed." Lawson also suggested Linderfelt had acted with the intention of provoking the strikers to violence. ==Battle and Massacre at Ludlow==

On the morning of April 20, 1914, the day after the Eastern Orthodox Church's Easter Sunday and after months of increased tension between the armed factions, the Ludlow Massacre occurred. The withdrawal of the majority of the National Guard had left only two companies of troops in the strike area, with these soldiers spread across several encampments at Berwind, Ludlow, and Cedar Hill. On Sunday, 19 April, it was reported that a group of union-aligned women playing baseball at Ludlow exchanged insults with National Guardsmen, one of whom is reported as saying to the women, "Go ahead, have your good time to-day, and to-morrow we will get your roast." Accounts of who fired the first shot differ, but fighting began or escalated after the militia at Ludlow detonated warning charges to notify Linderfelt's troops stationed at Berwind Canyon and another detachment at Cedar Hill. A twelve year old, Frank Snyder, left his shelter and was hit by a bullet that removed much of his head, killing him instantly. National Guardsman Pvt. Martin was fatally shot in the neck. Soon after the discoveries, a Red Cross party would visit and photograph the cellar. The national media lambasted Rockefeller, who had prior to the Ludlow Massacre claimed no responsibility for the strike and violence, saying "My conscience will acquit me." ==The "Ten Days War"==

The news of the massacre soon reached the other tent colonies, including the large group of strikers in Walsenburg. The response was a decentralized expedition throughout Southern and Central Colorado known as the "Ten Days War." At this point the union made an official "Call to Arms", While strikers were divided on how to respond, some sought revenge on non-striking miners, attacking Southwestern Mine Co.'s Empire Mine on Wednesday, 22 April, only to relent after a 21-hour siege. Armed strikebreakers killed two strikers at the loss of the mine's superintendent. A minister named McDonald from nearby Aguilar heard the fighting and rightly feared the strikers intended to kill all those at the Empire Mine. Following the deaths of the two strikers and the discovery of a union organizer willing to discuss terms, McDonald and the Aguilar mayor negotiated a ceasefire that resulted in the strikers withdrawing. Three mine guards were killed at Delagua, where four attempts were made by strikers to take the town, and another was killed at Tabasco. A non-striking miner was killed and a mine guard seriously injured before National Guardsmen arrived. Among the demands of the crowd was the impeachment of Governor Ammons. The northernmost battle took place on 28 April at the Hecla mine in Louisville. The mine was owned by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, which had hired the Baldwin-Felts to help protect its property between Denver and Boulder. During the ten-hour battle, Captain Hildreth Frost led a small contingent of troops that had been among those rotated off the southern front. Several mine guards were seriously injured during the fighting. Despite the arrival of Chase's reinforcements bringing the total militia in the southern coalfields to roughly 650, these troops were disallowed from entering Trinidad in accordance to the truce. By this point, Trinidad was thoroughly under control of the strikers and was serving as a central command hub for their armed contingents. Two strikers were killed on the 28th, including one by friendly fire. Verdeckberg was ordered to hold the town until federal troops arrived then retire back. Battle of Forbes, 30 April With Verdeckberg's force moved to Walsenburg and negotiations for disarmament once again underway, a group of 100 strikers moved from Trinidad in the night of 29 April, linking up with additional armed anti-militia forces to create a roughly 300-strong force. At 5am on 30 April, they attacked the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company mine at Forbes, firing weapons into the company-aligned camp and setting buildings alight. The defenders were 18 non-union men who had with them an emplaced machine gun. In total, nine of the Forbes camp were killed, including four Japanese strikebreakers. At least three strikers were killed by returning fire, including two by the machine gun. Conclusion of the "Ten Days War" Part-owner John D. Rockefeller Jr. refused President Wilson's offer of mediation, conditioned upon collective bargaining rights for the strikers, leading Wilson to exert pressure on Ammons and other elected officials in Colorado and threaten to deploy federal troops. The Mexican Revolution meant that any deployment of an already reduced and largely deployed Army would be a risky move. A total of 1,590 enlisted soldiers and 61 officers of the Army would ultimately be deployed to Colorado. Garrison's stated goal for the federal troops was to "preserve [...] an impartial attitude." Only after this intervention to disarm did the war end. On 2 May, a proclamation from Garrison was issued, stating that "all persons 'not in the military service of the United States'" were to disarm, although this statement was understood as only disarming the strikers, as Wilson had received assurances from Ammons that the militia was withdrawing and did not need to turn over their weapons. By the end of the Ten Days War, up to 54 people—including non-combatants—had been killed in the post-Ludlow violence. ==Final months of the strike, May–December 1914==

As federal troops poured into the striker region, President Wilson began drawing up his own plans for how to conclude the strike. President Wilson instructed Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson to begin negotiations with the union and return with recommendations regarding terms to end the strike. Secretary Wilson worked with mining union heads from across the country to create a plan for concluding the strike; the President felt that federal troops could not be withdrawn until the strikers were back to work. President Wilson received the Secretary of Labor's recommendations several months later and, on 5 September 1914, sent a proposed agreement to the two sides. In November, the United Mine Workers sent two executives, Benjamin F. Morris and Thomas J. Hagerty from the International Executive Board to discuss negotiations with the President's representatives in Indianapolis. The agreement called for a three-year truce on the stipulation that both sides ceased acts of intimidation and that Colorado's state laws on mining were to be followed, along with contractual alterations. The President's proposal was brought to a vote by a special convention of miners in Trinidad on 16 September which approved the agreement by a 10:1 margin. President Welborn of CF&I responded on 22 September, stating the company would agree to follow state law but dismissed the remainder of the proposals. Following this, negotiations again broke down. Another also unsuccessful effort by President Wilson to end the strike through diplomacy was launched in late November 1914, but by then the strike had begun to falter. ==Aftermath==

Fatalities during the strike are generally assumed to be under-reported, as Las Animas County coroner's office reports more bodies related to the strike than appear in contemporary news reports. Six mines and several company towns, including the abandoned Forbes, were damaged or destroyed. Major Patrick Hamrock and Lieutenant Karl Linderfelt were tried in separate courts-martial from the rest of the National Guard and militia involved in the suppression of the strike, as they faced additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon in relation to the deaths of strikers in custody at Ludlow, including Tikas. Hamrock was charged on 13 May 1914 with arson, manslaughter, and murder, for all of which he pleaded not guilty. Linderfelt admitted to striking Tikas with his Springfield rifle. The military court found Linderfelt guilty of the assault on Tikas, "but attach[ed] no criminality" to his actions. In a Trinidad court, John Lawson was found guilty of murdering Nimmo by Judge Granby Hillyer in 1915 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The UMWA maintained Lawson's innocence, and his conviction was overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court in 1917. Of the 408 strikers charged with a crime—many with murder—there were four convictions. All four were overturned on technicalities. Rockefeller also hired Ivy Lee, an early practitioner and pioneer of public relations, and met with Mother Jones. This saw Rockefeller and King taking a tour of the CF&I mining communities in September 1915, notably including the miners of Valdez, who had largely not participated in the strike. These efforts would evolve into the Colorado Industrial Plan, better known as the Rockefeller Plan and the archetype for employee representation plans, as well as the creation of a CF&I company union. Through his connections with the YMCA, Rockefeller sought to encourage moral reform and provide social services that would support the miners, resulting in the YMCA creating a Mining Department and building a branch in Pueblo to serve the workers at the CF&I Minnequa steel mill there. ==Legacy==

Frank Hayes, UMWA President from 1917 to 1919 and Lieutenant Governor of Colorado from 1937 to 1939, wrote a song in tribute to the striking miners entitled "We're Coming, Colorado" set to the tune of "Battle Cry of Freedom." Folk musician Woody Guthrie released "Ludlow Massacre" in 1944. Guthrie's song has been criticized by historians as perpetuating an inaccurate recounting of the events surrounding the Ludlow Massacre and the "Ten Days War." Academic appraisals The conflict has also inspired many academic histories, among the first being Barron Beshoar's 1942 biography of John Lawson, Out of the Depths. In 1971, Mary T. O'Neal published Those Damn Foreigners, the only eyewitness account of the Ludlow Massacre. The Great Coalfield War by South Dakota Senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, co-authored with Leonard Guttridge, was published the same year as the former's presidential run. It was a revised version of McGovern's 1953 Ph.D. dissertation, The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–1914, a study which had helped form some of McGovern's political sensibilities. In 1997, field work began on the University of Denver's Ludlow Massacre Archaeological Project, with research from the program published in multiple academic mediums. In the Twenty-First Century, new histories and revaluations of the Colorado Coalfield War proposed new interpretations of the conflict and its outcomes. In particular, the interpretation of the Ludlow Massacre as a "massacre" became a matter of debate. While emphasizing the role of strikers as "agents" in the instigation of the fighting in his 2008 book Killing for Coal, Thomas Andrews has repeatedly supported the characterization of the events of 20 April 1914 as a massacre, a view supported by other academic accounts of the war. This view was contradicted by Scott Martelle in his 2007 book Blood Passion, with Martelle later defending his perspective by contending that evidence does not support the view that National Guard started the tent colony fire with the intention of killing non-combatant strikers. Ludlow Monument The UMWA purchased a 40-acre lot that contained the Ludlow Colony and some of the land around it and began work on the Ludlow Monument at the site in 1916. It was dedicated in 1918. The Ludlow Monument stood in relative obscurity for many years, with the only marker pointing drivers on I-25 towards the site being a sign installed by the UMWA. In the 1990s, a government-installed highway sign pointing to the Ludlow townsite and monument was installed. Following significant damage from vandalism in 2003, a celebration of the monument's restoration occurred on 5 June 2005 with roughly 400 people, including UMWA President Cecil Roberts, in attendance. The Ludlow Monument was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark on 28 June 2009. Three years after the "Ten Days War", on 27 April 1917, a Victor-American Fuel Company mine in Hastings, near the former Ludlow camp, caught fire, killing 121 miners. They are commemorated by a marker nearby the monument to the victims of the Ludlow Massacre. Victor-American mines had been targeted during the strike, and some were destroyed during the last week of April 1914. On 19 April 2013, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order creating the Ludlow Centennial Commemoration Commission in preparation for the hundredth anniversary of the Massacre a year later. A Greek Orthodox-led ecumenical service was held at the memorial site on 20 April 2014, which was coincidentally Easter in both the Western and Eastern calendars. ==See also==