Today marks the 94th Anniversary of the massacre of 45 people in southern Colorado during an ongoing United Mine Workers of America strike at the hands of the Colorado National Guard. The Ludlow Massacre was the culmination of a 14 month strike by some 1,200 mine workers in southern Colorado.
Photo of the miners camp before the massacre
The UMWA was aware of the propensity of the government to call in the National Guard to break strikes. The union leadership placed an emphasis on ensuring that this strike remained peaceful. The mine companies desperately attempted to incite violence amongst the striking miners, going so far as to employ their private detectives to harass and even shoot at the miners camps. Finally in October 1913 Colorado Governor Ammons called out the Colorado National Guard and sent them south to intervene. The deployment of the Guard proved a great financial strain on the state and most of the men were recalled late in the winter of 1914. Those that remained behind were fiercely loyal to the mine companies, many having been former mine company guards. As protesters began peacefully demonstrating the commander of the militia began to turn the screws. As the University of Denver Coal Field War Project explains,
Among other things, the militia commander, General Chase, suspended habeas corpus in the strike zone, conducted mass jailings of strikers, demolished the striker colony at Forbes, and led a cavalry charge (below) on a parade of striker women in Trinidad who were protesting the imprisonment of Mother Jones by General Chase.
The day after Easter was April 20th. That morning the leader of the striking miners, Louis Tikas, met with some of the militia men about a mile away from the miners camp. Anticipating that the course of the strike was about to change dramatically Tikas raced back to the camp and rallied the strikers. The militia had already begun to position machine guns near the camp.
Fighting broke out and the militia opened fire with machine guns on the miners and their camp. They proceeded to burn the camp, ignoring the fact that many women and children were still hiding in the camp. The result was 45 dead, 32 of whom were women and children.
The camp the day after the massacre
The violence that union workers faced in this nation in the early 20th century has, thankfully, receded into the past. Today is a day to remember the sacrifice of the men, women and children at Ludlow. Without them the labor movement would not have grown into the powerful force that it became in the America, the benefits of which are still enjoyed today by American workers both blue collar and white, union and non. Things like the 40 hour work week, the end to child labor, benefits for the worker and his family. None of these would exist without the contribution of labor unions.
The labor movement in America is at a low ebb. After decades of government policy to weaken the labor movement we see only 12% of our work force is unionized. Not coincidentally over this same time period we have seen the growth of tremendous economic disparity in our country. A widening gap between the working class, the middle class and the elite. Middle class workers have seen their wages fall behind the rate of inflation, real wages have been essentially stagnant for nearly 3 decades. For the American middle-class to survive a resurgence in activism for workers rights is needed. Thankfully new leaders have sought to refocus the labor movement into new and growing areas of the economy while more traditional labor stalwarts have continued to do battle in the trades and in the mines.
You can view dozens of pictures of the miners, the camp and the aftermath of the massacre at DU's Colorado Coal Field War Project website.
Also PBS's American Experience website features news surrounding events leading up to the massacre and the massacre itself.
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