The Washington socialist. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1914-1915, 1915-04-15
IN MEMORIAM
LUDLOW IAN EPOCH
(By John II. Lawson,)

stand as an epoch.
The Goth day of April, 1914, and
therefore each succeeding goth day of
April, must live forever as n flaming
protest against the use of bayonets
and torches In the hands of mercenary
gunner, clothed with the authority
and kahki cloak of our state or
nation.
On the open plain and nesting at
the foot OF the great Rocky Noun
tains, seeming to seek shelter from the
friendly hills nearby, was Ludlow
Ludlow with her 1900 souls. repre-
senting twenty-one nationalities.
Located here was the largest in
dustrial tent colony the world had
ever seen. The inhabitants had been
attracted to this canvas city from the
unsanitary houses and dangerous
mines in the canyons. They came,
with their scant belongings, hoping
to secure justice and social industrial
and political freedom. They were flee
ing from absolutism and tyranny.
Their good slogan was Zone for all
and all for one" and under the pro-
tecting banner of the United Mine
Workers of America this great har
monious family assembled. to work
out their own salvation, lawfully, fair
| ly and according to the lines of true
citizenship.
They knew no imaginary boundary
| lines, no creed, no other nationality
but the one of their adoption. And
there was no discrimination. They
enjoyed their innocent games and pas
times. All through a long winter
they remained peaceful, contented and
of good cheer. They had a sublime
confidence in each other and a pro-
found faith in the brotherhood of man
and the fatherhood of God.
Yet this law-abiding Ludlow, with
its friendly mixing races of the hard
toll, was to become the storm center
of the greatest industrial struggle
which labor ever had forced upon it.
1t was indeed the Gibraltar of the
striking miners, but it remained a
calm, placid, undisturbed rock against
which the great corporations hurled
in vain their waves of persecution, CO.
ercion and intimidation.
Beautiful Solidarity.
Here stood the little band of mixed
dialects, shoulder to shoulder and with
such dauntless courage that the men,
bers awakened the respect and SYM
pathy of the entire nation. Standing
by the men, with a mighty trust, were
the wives and mothers, the sisters,
and, greatest of all perhaps, the little
children. No murmur of dismay or
fear came from them as they endured
the cold wintry blasts of the Rcky
Mountains region. They might be
browbeaten, robbed, plundered, yet
they stood resolute, determined and
unafraid to the end.
Arrayed against them was all the
vast power Of gold, with the minions
which gold always attracts. There was
the army of the Baldwin-Feltz, fresh
from it's spoilations in West Virginia
and coming as veterans to Colorado.
These human vutures of society had
been recruited from everywhere
| from all those places which might
hold a man who would sell himself
and his gun for the dollars of capital.
| They came with their high-power
rifles, steel armored automobiles, ma
chine guns and great searchlights
which played upon the homes night
after night, only presaging the hideous
yellower light of the flames which
would in the end consume those tents
and those within.
Unable to destroy the union or
break thew alorious spirit of individ-
ual members, the coal corporations
called out. their bought-and-paid-fo
militia. Then, in few short weeks,
the operators had another open ally
the miners another open enemy
CoIorado's Unifrmed VuItures.
No man, woman or child who lived
in that corporation-ridden zone will
ever be able to erase from the mem
ory that period of time when the Colo
RADIO national guard occupied the dis
trict.
Undiciplined, dishonest, unclean of
body and mind, INSCRIPTIONS and
treacherous, these supposed guardians
of human rights and human liberties
had no respect for motherhood, wo-
manhood or childhood. Their one com.
mon desire was to break the strike
and do the bidding of the MASTER
the coal corporation. Neither the
pen of a Hugo, lola nor a Poe
could describe the infamies of the mi
litia during their occupation of that
had been a peaceable strike district
And in the end when some of the
better members of the militia had
gone home-when some of the men
who still retained a heart that could
throb for the oppressed, begged off in
disgust or were Observation-Disclosures