Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

TBF

(34,294 posts)
Wed Apr 20, 2016, 06:07 PM Apr 2016

Remembering Ludlow

TBF note: I find the corollaries between now and 100 years ago mighty interesting.

The New York Times carried an editorial on the events in Colorado, which were not attracting international attention. The Times emphasis was not on the atrocity that had occurred, but on the mistake in tactics that had been made. Its editorial on the Ludlow Massacre began: “Somebody blundered …”


Ludlow Massacre: April 20, 1914

Shortly after Woodrow Wilson took office there began in Colorado one of the most bitter and violent struggles between workers and corporate capital in the history of the country.

This was the Colorado coal strike that began in September 1913 and culminated in the “Ludlow Massacre” of April 1914. Eleven thousand miners in southern Colorado … worked for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation, which was owned by the Rockefeller family. Aroused by the murder of one of their organizers, they went on strike against low pay, dangerous conditions, and feudal domination of their lives in towns completely controlled by the mining companies. …

When the strike began, the miners were immediately evicted from their shacks in the mining towns. Aided by the United Mine Workers Union, they set up tents in the nearby hills and carried on the strike, the picketing, from these tent colonies.
The Ludlow Tent Colony, before the massacre, consisted of about 200 tents.

The gunmen hired by the Rockefeller interests—the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency—using Gatling guns and rifles, raided the tent colonies. The death list of miners grew, but they hung on, drove back an armored train in a gun battle, fought to keep out strikebreakers. With the miners resisting, refusing to give in, the mines not able to operate, the Colorado governor (referred to by a Rockefeller mine manager as ‘our little cowboy governor’) called out the National Guard, with the Rockefellers supplying the Guard’s wages ...

More here: http://zinnedproject.org/materials/ludlow-massacre/

1 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Remembering Ludlow (Original Post) TBF Apr 2016 OP
Thanks, TBF vlakitti Apr 2016 #1

vlakitti

(401 posts)
1. Thanks, TBF
Wed Apr 20, 2016, 09:45 PM
Apr 2016

A really fine article, and something everyone in this country should know, and damned few do!

Class struggles like these were well known before McCarthyism and cold war ideology came along in the 50s.

Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»Socialist Progressives»Remembering Ludlow