You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Thursday October 22, 1903
From the El Paso Herald: "Combine of Miners Numbers 1,000,000"
From El Paso, Texas, comes the good news of peace and co-operation between the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers of America:
Merger to Combat Owners' Association.-Effort to Settle Difficulty.
Cripple Creek.-The most gigantic combine ever effected will be made in this district within the next week and a half, when the Western Federation of miners and the United Mine Workers of America will form an alliance for the purpose of fighting organized capital, which recently has been organized to combat unions throughout the country. The basis of operation will be perfected this week, when President John Mitchell of the mineworkers and Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation confer as to the perfection of plans for the operation of the high combine. This gigantic combine takes in nearly a million miners in the United States.
The action by the union people is taken as a result of a meeting of the mine owners' association at Colorado Springs recently, at which it was decided to make their movement a powerful one to fight unionism in the country.
SOURCE
El Paso [TX] Herald
-of October 21, 1903
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Wednesday October 22, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado - Mother Jones to Governor: "These women ain't going to bite you!"
Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado, arrived yesterday in Southern Colorado to make a personal tour of the strike zone. He came accompanied by several state officials. Near Walsenburg, on the public highway leading into the C. F. & I. Company's Ravenwood Mine, an Oklahoma gunthug refused to give a pass to the chief executive of the state of Colorado so that he could continue on his chosen route. The private company gunthug said to the Governor:
You may be the governor and again maybe you ain't. I dunno. But you ain't got no pass to get in here and you ain't going in, see?
Governor Ammons and his party of state official were forced to turn back.
In Trinidad, Governor Ammons sojourned at the Hotel Cardenas. Imagine his surprise when he looked out the window to find Mother Jones leading a parade of 1500 women and children who were followed by 2500 more in a grand show of support. The Colorado & Southern railroad refused Mother's request to carry the strikers and their families from Ludlow into Trinidad, and yet many of them managed to make their way into Trinidad to march in the parade. They were joined by the women, children, and miners from many of the other tent colonies as well.
They all came marching and singing, led by a brass band, and carrying signs of protest:
Has the Governor Any Respect for the State?
A Bunch of Mother Jones' Children
We Want Freedom, Not Corporation Rules
If Uncle Sam Can Run the Post-Office, Why Not the Mines?
We Are Not Afraid of Your Gatling Guns, We Have To Die Anyway
Give Us Another Patrick Henry for Governor
The Democratic Party is on Trial
Do You Hear the Children Groaning, O Colorado
Mother, believing that the residents of the tent colonies deserve an encouraging word from their Governor, brought the women and children into the hotel and straight up to the door of the Governor's room. According to reports, every hallway was packed. Mother called to the Governor, but he would not come out. She beat on the door and yelled:
Unlock that door and come out here. These women ain't going to bite you.
The Governor remained barricaded in his room.
Governor Ammons will leave the strike zone today or early tomorrow. Reports indicate that he is unwilling to call out the National Guard at this time. He told reporters:
The strike is no Sunday school picnic, but conditions aren't as bad as I had been led to believe.
SOURCES
Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader
-by Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
Buried Unsung
Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre
-by Zeese Papanikolas
U of Utah Press, 1982
Mother Jones
The Most Dangerous Woman in America
-by Elliott J Gorn
NY, 2001
El Paso [TX] Herald
-of October 21 & 22, 1913
Note: none of my books give an exact date for these events. The El Paso Herald gives us a date for the Governor's visit, and from there we get close to the date of Mother Jones' march. Unfortunately, I don't have access to any Colorado newspapers which very likely did a better job of covering Mother Jones in Colorado during the strike.
Photo: Zinn Education Project
http://zinnedproject.org/...
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any other copy of an even better photo except for this one which has been turned into the cover for the film featured at this link. I am lucky enough to own an 8x10 of the actual photo. Boy is holding sign about not wanting to live under corporation rules. Gunthugs are seen lurking at side of the street.
http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/...
Best I could find, from
APWU, labeled at this site as from 1903 Children's Crusade, folks in Colorado told me that it was from a march in Trinidad or Walsenburg in October 1913.
Tuesday October 22, 2013
More on Elias Milton Ammons, Democratic Governor of Colorado, 1913-1915:
...On November 5, 1912, Ammons was elected Colorado's nineteenth governor, and on January 14, 1913 he was sworn into office. During his tenure, he advocated education improvements, he endorsed increased highway construction, and he initiated a state parks system. The state was reapportioned for congressional districts, and the election of Colorado's U.S. Senators was changed to a popular vote. Also during his administration, the civil service system was fortified, and laws pertaining to public utilities, banking, and insurance issues were improved. Ammons' most challenging issue was the Ludlow Massacre, a coal miners' strike, which ended in violence when the National Guard was called to out vacate miners from company property....
emphasis added
The biographer is playing loose with the facts here. The tent colonies were not established on company property. The striking miners and their families, having been evicted from the company towns into the rain and wet blowing snow, moved into tent colonies on land rented by the United Mine Workers of America. They had every right to be there.
National Governor's Association
http://www.nga.org/...
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The Death of Mother Jones-Gene Autry
O'er the hills and through the valley
In ev'ry mining town;
Mother Jones was ready to help them,
She never turned them down.
On front with the striking miners
She always could be found;
And received a hearty welcome
In ev'ry mining town.
-Anonymous