Hellraisers Journal, Monday April 23, 1917
Ludlow, Colorado – John R Lawson Speaks at Memorial for Martyrs
Yesterday on the field where the Martyrs of the Ludlow Tent Colony lost their lives in Freedom’s Cause during the Ludlow Massacre, thousands of miners and their families gathered to remember and honor the sacrifice of those heroic men, women and little children. They came by special trains from Trinidad and other towns of Southern Colorado. Every road leading up to the former Colony was lined with automobiles and horse-drawn rigs.
Trains arriving at Ludlow station were met by a dozen bands as thousands of miners and their families, speaking many different languages, left the platform and marched to the site of the Black Hole where the two women and eleven children had perished three years earlier in the fight for shorter hours and higher wages and decent living conditions.
From Tollerburg came a parade of five thousand men and women, each one wearing a red bandanna and carrying a small American Flag. The Flag of Ludlow led the parade, perhaps reminding the strikers of the day in December 1913 when the Martyred Hero of Ludlow, Louie Tikas, had marched beside Mother Jones in Denver carrying that same flag.
Marching in the parade were John R. Lawson and Ed Doyle, who were enthusiastically greeted by the thousands who lined the roads to cheer as the parade pass by them to the site of the Ludlow Massacre.
Lawson and Doyle, although no longer officials of the United Mine Workers, are yet much beloved by the miners and their families who will never forget the courage of these two big men who never bowed before the terror of the company gunthugs nor cowered before the mine-guard infested militia.
Both Lawson and Doyle spoke from the platform to those assembled. They remembered the Ludlow Tent Colony, recounted the strike, and spoke of hope for a better future. They were followed by others speaking in Italian, Slavic, Spanish and Greek.
John Lawson dropped flowers into the The Black Hole of Ludlow were the women and children had perished when the militiamen had set fire to the tent above their heads.
Ceremonies ended with the band playing and the crowd singing, “Nearer My God to Thee.”
As shadows lengthened Lawson said to Doyle:
Those same shadows were here three years ago today. They stabbed at the colony. They foretold the tragedy of that day…Death is always present in the coal districts, Ed. It will strike many times, perhaps in a different way and in different circumstances, but it will always be present…hundreds, perhaps thousands will die here yet for King Coal.
Louie Tikas with Flag of Ludlow at Denver, December 1913
SOURCES
Out of the Depths
-by Barron B. Beshoar
Colorado, 1980
https://books.google.com/books?id=gQ4eAAAAIAAJ
National Historic Landmark Nomination, May 2008
-by Historians: R. Laurie Simmons and Thomas H. Simmons
and by Charles Haecker, Archeologist
-Edited by: Dr. Erika Martin Seibert, Archeologist
(An excellent condensed history of the Strike,
the Massacre, and the Ludlow Monument.)
https://www.nps.gov/nhl/find/statelists/co/LudlowTentColonySite.pdf
Commemorative Purchase, Development, Dedication,
and Subsequent Use of the SiteAt the UMWA convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, in January 1916, John McLennan announced the union’s purchase of a forty-acre piece of land near the town of Ludlow on the site where strikers and their family members died.154
McLennan reported a monument would be built to the memory of those who had lost their lives in the massacre. Later in the same year, several hundred coal miners gathered on the property and ceremoniously joined the union. Thereafter, union rallies and commemorations became a regular yearly event at the Ludlow site.155
At their convention the following year, the UMWA proposed to erect a permanent monument at Ludlow and obtain the necessary funds for its construction by sending a letter to each local union requesting a contribution from each member. The public was also invited to donate…. On April 22, 1917, the union dedicated the land with speeches from prominent labor leaders and an elaborate ceremony that attracted thousands of miners and their families, who paraded to Ludlow: “Every man and woman wore a red bandanna, the strikers’ emblem. They waved small American flags and carried the battle scarred flag of Ludlow triumphantly at the head of the march.” At another gathering of more than 3,000 miners at Ludlow in July 1917, UMWA President John P. White delivered a patriotic message stating the mine workers would remain loyal to the cause of democracy.156…
154 The UMWA International Headquarters indicates its files contain a deed transferring the forty-acre site from John P. White, UMWA president during the 1913-14 strike, and his wife, Ida, to the union in 1931.
155 Daily Journal (Telluride, CO), January 28, 1916; Larkin, “Site Management Plan Draft,” 11.
156 United Mine Workers Journal, April 19, 1917, 4; United Mine Workers Journal, June 14, 1917, 7; Eagle Valley (CO) Enterprise, April 20 and July 13, 1917; Sampson, Remember Ludlow, 27.[Emphasis added.]
IMAGES
CO Strike 1913-14, UMWA Policy Com, Ludlow Massacre Fink 1914
https://archive.org/stream/ludlowmassacrere00finkrich#page/68/mode/1up
Autobiography of Mother Jones
-Scroll down to “illustrations” and follow link for photo at page 102
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/jones/autobiography/autobiography.html
See also:
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday April 19, 1917
From the United Mine Workers Journal: Ludlow Martyrs to be Honored
-Colorado Miners & Families to Honor the Martyrs of Ludlow on Sunday, April 22, 1917
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-colorado-miners-families-to-honor-the-martyrs-of-ludlow-on-sunday-april-22-1917/
For Flag of Ludlow carried by Louie Tikas:
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday December 18, 1913
-Mother Jones and Louie Tikas Lead March to State Capitol with Flag of Ludlow
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/18/1263606/-Hellraisers-Journal-Mother-Jones-and-Louie-Tikas-Lead-March-to-State-Capitol-with-Flag-of-Ludlow