HISTORY'S CURRENTS
THE COLORADO COAL FIELD WAR
By John Bailey

In the years 1913 to 1914 coal miners in Colorado struck against the Rockefeller owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company located in what is known as the Southern Coal Field. The coal found in the Southern field was a high-grade bituminous coal primarily used for coking coal in the steel industry.

Mining is one of the most dangerous occupations, but in the early days of our country conditions were horrible for the miners. Between 1884 and 1912, there were 42,898 reported deaths in U.S. mines. Of these deaths, 1708 were in Colorado, which was second only to Utah; fatalities in Colorado were twice the national average. In one county the coroner's juries were hand picked by the sheriff. In a ten-year period only one of 95 deaths was blamed on the coal company.

The miners lived in gated communities owned by the coal companies. The miners resided in company owned houses and shopped in company owned stores. The priests, teachers, doctors, and deputized armed guards were all company employees.

In 1913 the miners secretly organized a union affiliated with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and proposed a list of seven demands:
1. Recognition of the union.
2. A 10% increase in tonnage rates. (miners were paid by the tons of coal, not by the hour)
3. An eight hour work day.
4. Payment for "dead work." (miners were paid only for mining coal and not for laying track, shoring and timbering)
5. The right to elect their own check-weightmen. (the miners believed they were being cheated at the scales and wanted a union representative to inspect the scales)
6. The right to shop wherever they chose, live where they pleased, and choose their own doctors.
7. Enforcement of Colorado mining laws and an abolition of the company guard system.

When the demands were refused, about 90% of the miners struck and were evicted from the camps. The miners moved to about a dozen camps where they lived in tents provided by the UMWA. The camps were located in spots where strikebreakers could be easily intercepted. The operators quickly brought in strikebreakers and hired a West Virginia detective agency. The operators quickly initiated a campaign of harassment, which included murders, beatings, and periodically spraying the camps with machine guns. The purpose of the harassment was to incite the miners to retaliate so the governor would call out the National Guard, thus relieving the operators of the financial responsibility of paying for private security. In October of 1913 the governor called out the Guard.
The guard quickly became a strikebreaking force, carrying the harassment to a new level. Habeas corpus was suspended, and there were mass arrests of strikers. Prisoners were beaten and tortured, a cavalry charge was mounted against a group of women and children, and one tent colony was demolished. After six months, the state was bankrupt and withdrew all but two companies of militia composed mostly of camp guards.

On April 20, 1914, the strikers at the Ludlow camp celebrated Greek Easter, and shortly thereafter gunfire erupted. For several hours the militia fired on the camp until a train arrived between the strikers and the militia. A sympathetic train conductor kept the train parked as a shield so the strikers and their families could escape into the fields. After the strikers left, the militia burned the tents, killing two women and ten children. They also filled the well with coils of barbed wire. By the end of the day, at least 25 people had been killed in what has become known as the Ludlow Massacre.

When news of the Ludlow incident got out, the other striking miners declared war on a 40-mile front, destroying mines and attacking the militia. The governor asked for and received Federal intervention, thus ending the ten-day war. The strike lasted until December 1914, ending in defeat for the strikers. 408 miners were arrested with 332 being charged with murder. Ten officers and twelve enlisted men were also court-martialed for the assault on Ludlow. All strikers and militia were exonerated.

While the strike was unsuccessful, it did arouse public sympathy for the miners, leading to better conditions for all workers throughout the U.S. In 1916, the UMWA bought the 40 acres surrounding the Ludlow camp and erected a memorial to the dead strikers and their families. John D. Rockefeller was singled out as the villain of the entire affair. Due to his efforts at polishing his tarnished image, the Ludlow Massacre can be said to have caused the birth of the public relations industry.

History's currents, or current history? You decide.