The state is furnishing us no protection and we must protect ourselves, our wives and children from these murderous assassins. We seek no quarrel with the state and we expect to break no law; we intend to exercise our lawful right as citizens, to defend our homes and our constitutional rights.
-John R Lawson, his signature is first on Call to Arms
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Sunday January 31, 1915
From the Chicago Day Book: Lawson Attacks Rockefeller, Stirs Workers of Nation
John R Lawson
John R. Lawson, hero of the Colorado miners, began his testimony before the
Commission on Industrial Relations on Friday and completed it yesterday. Lawson bitterly denounced Rockefeller for his handling of affairs in Colorado, during the coal strike of 1903 and '04, stating:
The Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. organized and led that attack on the liberties of the freemen, and yet you heard from Mr. Rockefeller's own lips that he never inquired into the causes of the strike, the conduct of his executives, or the fate of those who lost. So little interest did he take in the affair, so faint was the impression made upon him that he cold not even answer your questions as to its larger facts.
Regarding his testimony on the recent strike,
The Day Book of Chicago reported:
Vivid portrayal of the dangers of mining featured today's session of the federal commission on industrial relations....
He [Lawson] bitterly denounced the benefactions proposed by the Rockefeller Foundation. He made it clear, however, that union leaders are hopeful of meeting the Rockefeller interests more than half way in reforming the coal camps and the miners' working conditions.
John R. Lawson is now facing the gallows in Colorado. He is charged with several counts of murder in connection with his part in the issuing of the "Call to Arms" following the
Ludlow Massacre. This is not the first time that he has faced death while in the service of his union, the United Mine Workers of America. His home was bombed in December of 1903, and his wife and daughter barely escaped with their lives. Lawson was later shot and nearly killed by the mine owner suspected of ordering the bombings of the homes of local union leaders.
Yet his courage has never faltered. He was there in the Ludlow tent colony to greet the evicted miners and their families as they streamed out of the company coal camps and into the tent colony on that cold rainy day in September of 1913. Mrs. Mary Thomas remembers him on that day as the wagons and carts of the cold exhausted miners bogged down in the mud:
Lawson was mud from head to foot as he pushed and pulled the vehicles which inched along at a snail's pace.
John R. Lawson stood with the miners throughout the long strike, and he stands with the miners and their families to this very day. He will not waver, though his work for the miners' union should lead to his death at the end of rope, another martyr to Freedom's Cause.
From The Day Book of January 30, 1915:
LAWSON'S ATTACK ON ROCKEFELLER STIRS WORKERS OF NATION
John Lawson, 2nd from left,
with Ludlow Martyr, Louie Tikas (with star)
The million workers of the United States who have their faces turned towards New York city these days while John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is trying to justify the Colorado massacre of men, women and children are today discussing John R. Lawson's bitter arraignment of young John D., yesterday.
Lawson is the Colorado executive board member of the United Mine Workers of America. He went through the Colorado war and he knows better than reformers and sociologists the actual conditions that existed there.
Lawson was white hot before the industrial commission. He had read what the trust press of the country had been printing in defense of the Rockefellers. And he spoke his mind of Rockefeller's life-crushing methods in Colorado and their fake "philanthropies" lauded in the press.
[Mr Lawson told the commission.]
Health for China, a refuge for birds, food for the Belgians, pensions for New York widows, university training for the elect-and never a thought or a dollar for thousands of men, women, and children who starved in Colorado, for the widows robbed of husbands, or of children who lost their fathers. There are thousands of Mr. Rockefeller's employes in Colorado who wish to God they were in Belgium to be fed or a bird to be tenderly cared for.
Your body can well afford to let the testimony of John D. Rockefeller Jr., bring your investigation to an end...Out of his mouth came a reason for every discontent that agitates the laboring class in the United States today, and if remedies are provided for the injustices that he disclosed a long step will be taken away from industrial disturbance.
For more than ten years he has been a director of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co., vested with what is virtual the power of life and death over 12,000 men and their families. This power, let it be pointed out, came to him by no healthful process of struggle and achievement, but entirely through the fact that he was the son of his father. His huge control of men and women was, in effect, a gift that marked the attainment of his maturity.
In those first days when he might have been expected to possess a certain enthusiasm in the vast responsibilities, Colorado was shaken by the coal strike of 1903-04. It is a matter of undisputed record that a mercenary militia, paid openly by the mine operators, crushed this strike by the bold violation of every known constitutional right that the citizen was thought to possess.
Men were herded in bull pens like cattle, homes were shattered, the writ of habeas corpus suspended; hundreds were loaded on cars and dumped into the desert without food or water, others were driven over the snow of the mountain ranges; a governor elected by 15,000 majority was unseated; a man never voted for on that office was made governor, and when there came a thing called peace the black list gave 6,000 miners the choice between starvation or exile.
The Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. organized and led that attack on the liberties of the freemen, and yet you heard from Mr. Rockefeller's own lips that he never inquired into the causes of the strike, the conduct of his executives, or the fate of those who lost. So little interest did he take in the affair, so faint was the impression made upon him that he cold not even answer your questions as to its larger facts.
Other high lights from Lawson's testimony:
John D., Jr., did not know whether 50 per cent of his employes worked 12 hours or not. He said if they did he couldn't tell whether it would be a hardship because he was not acquainted with the work they did.
Asked whether he would vote to discharge an executive officer if it should be proved that he had spent money to corrupt the electorate, he answered, " I should want to know the conditions."
He did not know that the company built special buildings for saloons, charging high rental, or that church meetings were compelled to be held near saloons, and that in some case saloons were in close contact with the schools. Nor was he aware that his officials dictated the appointment of our preachers and school teachers and exercised the right of discharge if they offended by criticism.
John Hays Hammond defended corporations. Charles W. Eliot, former president of Harvard, spoke for the Rockefeller foundation.
----------
PORTRAY MINING DANGERS
John Lawson, Mother Jones,
and UMWA Attorney, Horace Hawkins
New York, Jan. 30.-Vivid portrayal of the dangers of mining featured today's session of the federal commission on industrial relations. John R. Lawson of Denver, president of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America [Lawson is International Executive Board Member from District 15, not President], continued his presentation of union labor's case against the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.
He bitterly denounced the benefactions proposed by the Rockefeller Foundation. He made it clear, however, that union leaders are hopeful of meeting the Rockefeller interests more than half way in reforming the coal camps and the miners' working conditions.
The commission was working hard to "clear the decks" for the appearance of J. P. Morgan, Monday. It hoped to dispose of Lawson and Amos Pinchot, reform lawyer today, so that the early part of next week may be devoted to Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, George F. Baker and other noted financial lights.
The question of absentee landlordism is being given more and more attention in the hearings and the commission hopes that Morgan and Carnegie will have much to say on that subject.
-----------
[photographs added]
---------------
SOURCES
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Jan 30, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Out of the Depths: The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader
-by Barron B. Beshoar
Colorado Labor Historical Committee of the Denver Trades and Labor Assembly, 1942 -
https://books.google.com/...
Those Damn Foreigners
-by Mary T. O'Neal
Minerva Book, 1971
http://books.google.com/...
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Five Homes Bombed in New Castle, Colorado,
Strike Leaders & Families Targeted
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Unions Issue a "Call to Arms"
as the Coal War Explodes in Strike Zone
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Industrial relations: final report and testimony, Volume 8
-United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
http://books.google.com/...
8003-Testimony of Mr. John R. Lawson
http://books.google.com/...
Industrial relations: final report and testimony, Volume 9
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
https://books.google.com/...
8017-Testimony of Mr. John R Lawson-continued
https://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
John R Lawson
http://www.loc.gov/...
John R Lawson, 2nd from left, Louie Tikas (with star)
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/...
John R Lawson, Mother Jones, Attorney Hawkins
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
The Battle Cry of Union
We are fighting for our rights, boys,
We are fighting for our homes,
Shouting the battle cry of union;
Men have died to win the struggle;
They've died to set us free,
Shouting the battle cry of union.
The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the gunthugs, and up with the law;
For we're coming, Colorado, we're coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
-Frank Hayes
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````