The Ludlow Massacre | Ep 8

The conflict between striking mineworkers and the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company comes to a deadly climax on April 20, 1914. Two women and 11 children will suffocate to death in a cellar dug underneath a tent in the colony where striking mineworkers and their families had been living for over six months.

When details of the Ludlow Massacre come to light, the nation reacts with horror and outrage. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history."

Music from Epidemic Sound.

Sources for this episode include:

• A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
• historycolorado.org
• Eyewitness to Murder: Recounting the Ludlow Massacre
• History - UMWA
• pbs.org
• revolutionnewsstand.com
• Louis Tikas
• C-Span: Ludlow Coal Miners' Strike and Massacre
• Old Man Trump - woodyguthrie.org

Transcript

Shannon 0:13

It was called the Death Special. An armored truck with two machine guns mounted on the top, used as a weapon of intimidation and terror on striking mine workers and their families in southern Colorado. In September 1913, 10,000 coal mine workers employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company have gone on strike. They want union recognition, better wages, and better working conditions. They want an eight-hour day, an end to child labor, and they want to get paid in U.S. currency and not in company script. Like many mining towns, the men who work for the company that own the mine live in company housing. They have to see the company doctor. Their kids have to attend the company school, and they're paid in company script, which are certificates that can only be used at the company store to buy company goods, which the company marks up. When the men go on strike, they're kicked out of their company housing. So the men, women, and children they set up camp, the Ludlow Tent Colony. The company that own the mine, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, refuse to meet with the strikers, and they hire the Baldwin Phelps Detective Agency to pressure and harass the striking men. In October 1913, gunfire is exchanged between the militiamen and the strikers in the tent colony. This was good news for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company because now the governor can call in the National Guard, more men, and more guns to put down the agitators. To protect themselves from the death special, which would fire indiscriminately above the tent colony and sometimes into the tent colony, the strikers dug cellars underneath their tents to protect themselves. They are about eight feet long by eight feet wide and five feet high, with about three feet of earth between the top of the cellar and the tent space. After about six months of tension, conflict, and intermittent gunfire between the company and the strikers, a violent battle at Ludlow on April 20th, 1914 will shock and appall the nation. Everything comes to a violent climax, and one of these underground cellars will become a death trap for women and children. And the day's events will come to be known as the Ludlow Massacre. The nation, which was used to industrial violence, will react with horror and outrage when details of the Battle of Ludlow and the disregard for the lives of the women and children at the camp come to light. Historian Howard Zinn described the massacre as quote, the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history.

Bobby 3:47

And I'm Bobby.

Shannon 3:48

And this is That American Century. Beautiful state.

Bobby 4:13

Beautiful.

Shannon 4:13

Beautiful. We've been.

Bobby 4:15

We have.

Shannon 4:15

We've been. Do you do you know the state nickname?

Bobby 4:19

The nickname I know. It is the Centennial State.

Shannon 4:23

Very good. Do you know the state's mushroom?

Bobby 4:28

Mmm, that I don't know.

Shannon 4:30

It's the Emperor Mushroom. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Now, mining in Colorado in 1914, it's just about as dangerous as it can get. Between 1870 and 1914, over the course of 30 years, about 45,000 people will die across the U.S. in mine accidents. But miners in Colorado are killed at over twice the national average. And the companies running these mines, they are almost never held accountable, as you might imagine. Between 1870 and the Ludlow massacre in April 1914, the National Guard had been deployed to put down over a hundred strikes in the United States. That's a lot of calling on the National Guard to put down strikes.

Bobby 5:27

Yes, it is.

Shannon 5:28

Corporations will also hire private police forces or private detective agencies to put down strikes. The most famous being the Pinkerton Agency. And these agencies, they make most of their money being hired by corporations to bust up strikes and to intimidate union members or folks that want to join a union or are thinking of organizing. After the Civil War, industry in the United States grows rapidly. People are moving west. Immigrants are entering the country, and they're working in gold mines, coal mines, copper mines, all types of mines. Oil is discovered in Pennsylvania, then in Texas, then in Oklahoma. There's a lot of work, there are a lot of minerals, resources to be exploited. Trusts are established. Businesses investing in other businesses becomes a thing. The U.S. economy completely transforms and grows. Multinational corporations start forming. And a small number of people are getting very rich from the work of a great number of people. Workers around the world are trying to organize. The people want better pay, safer working conditions, eight-hour days, and an end to child labor. Unfortunately, it takes disaster, great tragedy, and public outcry to make change a lot of times. And that is what is going to happen here. In Ludlow, Colorado, April 20th, 1914. The main organizer for the union is a man named Louis Tikas. He was born in Crete while it's under Ottoman rule in 1886. And he immigrates to the US in 1906 when he is 20. He first opens a Greek coffee house. Then he starts working in the northern Colorado coal field mines as a strikebreaker. Now, to be a strikebreaker is very dangerous. The company does not want to give in to union demands for higher pay and safer working conditions, an eight-hour day, etc. So they will hire non-union men to work. This weakens the union. The strikebreaker. He didn't always know that he was breaking a strike. These men are often recent immigrants who don't speak a lot of English. Or they might be African Americans who have fled Jim Crow South. They think they're just showing up for a job, but this wins them no sympathy in the eyes of the folks on strike. What sort of leverage and collective bargaining power can they possibly have if the company can just hire other men to do their job for less? So strikebreakers would also become casualties of the violence happening between labor and capital. Sometimes the strikebreakers would switch sides, though. And this is the story of Lewis Tegas, the leader of the Southern Colorado Ludlow Mine Strike. April 1914. The strike has been going on for about six months. And the governor had recently withdrawn most of the National Guard troops because they cost money. So making up the militia at this point are a few dozen state troops and the hired goons from the Baldwin Feltz Detective Agency. And they're greatly outnumbered by the strikers, about by about 18 to 1. So the militia is feeling a little vulnerable. And the strikers, they are mostly Greeks and Italian. And some are veterans of the 1912 and 1913 Balkan wars. Now you know I love referencing myself.

Bobby 10:29

Yes.

Shannon 10:29

Yeah. Something I mentioned back in episode one when we talk about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand are the wars in the Balkans in 1912 and 1913. Because when Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in 1914, a lot of folks think that it's just gonna be another sort of contained war in the Balkans. There's frequently trouble in the Balkans. 1912 is the first Balkan War. Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro are fighting the Ottoman Empire. They win, thus ending over 500 years of Ottoman rule in most of its European territories. The Second Balkan War in 1913 is between Bulgaria and its former allies because Bulgaria is unhappy with what they got after the First Balkan War. Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo at the end of June 1914, two months after the Ludlow massacre. And people think that this is, as I said, going to be a contained Austria-Hungary versus Serbia situation. That's not what happens, obviously. I also want to mention that some of these men at Ludlow, who are veterans of the Balkan Wars, they had been in the United States before 1912 and they travel back to their home countries to fight for their home countries when war kicks off in the Balkans. So then, when war in Europe begins in August 1914, the conflict that will come to be known as the Great War and then World War I, there are some immigrants in the US that will go back to their home countries to fight for their home countries. And when the US finally enters the war in 1917, the loyalty of what are called hyphenate Americans will be questioned and scrutinized. Will German Americans go fight for Germany? Can we trust these immigrants to be loyal to the stars and stripes? Anti-immigrant rhetoric and prejudice will amp up. But of course, all of that exists before the war. And in April 1914, and in southern Colorado. The militiamen, the guys from the Baldwin Feldz Detective Agency, they consider these working men and their families to be ignorant, to be lawless, savage, Southern European peasants. The day before the massacre, Sunday, April 19th, is Greek Orthodox Easter. And I mean that's really gonna piss off these white Protestants. Easter after real Protestant Easter. That just that makes that makes no sense to these Protestants. Yeah. On Eastern Orthodox Easter, the strikers have a little celebration and a baseball game, which is which is very American. There is nothing more American than a baseball game.

Bobby 13:44

That's true.

Shannon 13:45

But I don't I don't think this won them any points with their adversaries. Four drunk National Guardsmen show up to the game with their rifles and start making threats. And they allegedly said something to the effect of, you have your fun today and we'll have our fun tomorrow. Tomorrow arrives. Early in the day, some militiamen head down to the tent colony. And they say that a woman claims her husband is being held against his will in the camp. Louis Tekus, the leader of the striking mine workers, goes down to talk with them. And they meet at a point that is somewhat of a distance from the entrance to the tent colony. He tells him, there is no man in the camp being held against his will. And it seems that this was all kind of a ruse to get Tekas away from the camp for a moment. Because as he is trying to reason with the militiamen, shots start to ring out. And Lewis hears the screams of women and children, and he runs back to the camp to help. Machine gun fire, the death special, is raining fire down onto the camp. And the strikers are firing back with their rifles. People are trying to flee. It's absolute chaos. And women and children seek cover in the cellars that they had dug under the tents. The fighting has been going on for hours. When Louis Tikas leaves the camp to try and establish a truce with the militia. And an eyewitness later will give the following account to the New York World, which is Pulitzer's paper. Quote On the day of the Ludlow battle, a chum and myself left the house for a long tramp through the hills. We were going down a trail on the mountainside above the tent city at Ludlow when we heard shooting. The militia were coming out of Hastings Canyon and firing as they came. We lay flat behind a rock, and after a few minutes, I raised my hat aloft on a stick. Instantly, bullets came in our direction. One penetrated my hat. The militiamen must have been watching the hillside through glasses and thought my hat betrayed the whereabouts of a sharp shooter of the miners. That old trick, you know, don't you love that trick?

Bobby 16:52

Yeah, the hat on the stick.

Shannon 16:53

The hat on the stick.

Bobby 16:54

Yep.

Shannon 16:55

It's a classic.

Bobby 16:56

Yep, I've used it a thousand times.

Shannon 16:58

You sure have. He continues. Then came the killing of Louis Tikas, the Greek leader of the strikers. We saw the militiamen parlay outside the tent city. And a few minutes later, Tikas came out to meet them. We watched them talking. Suddenly, an officer raised his rifle, gripping the barrel, and fell Tikas with the butt. Tikis fell face downward. Then they aimed their rifles and deliberately fired them into the unconscious man's body. It was the first murder I had ever seen. For it was a murder and nothing less.

Bobby 17:43

Well, if if they hadn't been there, I wonder if there'd been anyone else to bear witness to that.

Shannon 17:49

There are some people that some others that give testimony.

Bobby 17:56

Okay.

Shannon 17:56

And I and I think there are others that see this. The man that hits him in the head with the butt of his rifle is brought up on charges. However, the charges are brought by a military tribunal, and he is not convicted. After the militiamen kill Louis Tigas, and after they fire into his unconscious body, they turn out his pockets and they rob him. At dusk, the militia sets fire to the camp. This is from the same eyewitness account quote. I am positive that by no possible chance could the tents have been set ablaze accidentally. The militiamen were thick about the northwest corner of the colony where the fire started, and we could see distinctly from our lofty observation place what looked like a blazing torch waved in the midst of the militia a few seconds before the general conflagration swept through the place. What followed? Everybody knows. So, of course, there will be dispute as to who set fire to the camp. Just like the bonus army camp that we talked about in a previous episode.

Bobby 19:39

Yes.

Shannon 19:40

Did the strikers set fire to the camp? Or did the militiamen set fire to the camp? Typically, I think people set fire to their own property for insurance money.

Bobby 19:51

Yeah. That's not gonna happen here, so I'm trying to follow who has more of a motivation to burn down your shelters.

Shannon 20:00

Right.

Bobby 20:01

That you and your family are relying on.

Shannon 20:02

Right.

Bobby 20:03

And I'm gonna say it's probably the militia.

Shannon 20:06

I think I'd side with you on this, Bobby.

Bobby 20:08

Yeah.

Shannon 20:09

After the camp was set on fire, most were able to escape. But not all. The following day, after the fires had ended and the militiamen were finished looting the tent colony of anything they deem to be a value, the damage is assessed and a horrifying discovery is made. One of the pits or cellars that had been dug underneath a tent is uncovered. And inside are two women and eleven children. They are all dead. Afraid to run through the gunfire that the militia was pouring into the camp, the women and children thought their odds of survival were greater if they stayed below ground in the pit. News coverage of the massacre starts the day after, on April 21st, but a lot of it is incorrect. Details can't be verified. Lines had been cut. And another event was dominating the headlines and the front pages on April 21st, 1914. And that is the invasion of Veracruz and a potential war with Mexico. So this story in the East Coast papers and Midwest papers, as I mentioned last episode, uh coverage is sparse or it's it's varied. It does get front page coverage in more Western papers and Colorado newspapers. The days pass though, and more details of the massacre and eyewitness testimony starts to get published, and public outrage swells. Now industrial violence is not shocking to the American people. Industrial violence is a pretty normal thing. It's been happening for over thirty years. But two women and eleven children dying in a pit dug underneath a tent, too afraid to run through machine gun fire, is appalling. The New York Times on April 22nd carried a story about the Ludlow massacre on page seven. Pages one through six was all about the invasion of Veracruz and war with Mexico. And the story of the battle at Ludlow. I think it's about one column in the New York Times on page seven. And I'm I'm gonna have you read if you're amenable, Bobby. I'm gonna have you read some of that story if you don't mind.

Bobby 23:03

Sure, absolutely. Absolutely, here we go. The Ludlow camp is a mass of charred debris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifle's fire, the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered this afternoon, disclosed the bodies of eleven children and two women. With arms ready, both sides, after a day of ominous quiet, now await the coming of dawn. When, it is predicted, the battle will be resumed with greater bloodshed than that which has occurred.

Shannon 23:51

The total casualty count at Ludlow was twenty-five. Louis Ticas, seven strikers, two women, eleven children, a passerby, and three militiamen. After the massacre, a ten-day war will rage in southern Colorado, and the fighting will finally end when the governor of Colorado convinces President Wilson to send in federal troops. Investigations will take place, hearings will be held, the public wants answers. They want accountability, and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company will be villainized and scrutinized. Now you could consider the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company somewhat of a family business. The majority of the business was family-owned and family operated. The family was the Rockefellers, the richest family in the United States, the richest family in the world in 1914.

Bobby 25:13

Oh boy.

Shannon 25:16

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, owned by the Rockefellers, they have everything. And the strikers, what little they do have before the Ludlow massacre, now have nothing. The have and the have not. We will continue on with the struggle between labor and capital and the Rockefeller family in our next episode. But before we go, I have some fun facts for us. Woody Guthrie, you know Woody Guthrie.

Bobby 26:04

Yeah, the the folk singer.

Shannon 26:06

American singer-songwriter. He wrote a song about the Ludlow Massacre, which I will play at the end of the episode. These fun facts they are about Woody Guthrie. Woody Guthrie was born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie in 1912.

Bobby 26:26

Oh, okay.

Shannon 26:28

Woodrow Wilson in 1912 is the governor of New Jersey, and he's born Woody Guthrie is born just about two weeks after Woodrow Wilson gets the Democratic nomination for president in 1912.

Bobby 26:42

Isn't that interesting? That is interesting.

Shannon 26:44

Mm-hmm. Now Woody Guthrie had Huntington's disease, which he inherited from his mother. Huntington's disease is a neurodegenerative disease. And when he starts to get into his mid-30s, it starts taking a toll on him. His second wife divorces him. He marries for a third time. And Woody Guthrie, he's moving around the country. He's depending on the kindness of a lot of his friends who set him up with lodging and whatnot because he's he's unable to perform. He's unable to play the guitar. He injures his arm. The Huntington's disease, it leaves him unable to control his muscles. In 1954, he and his third wife move to the Beachhaven apartment complex in Gravesend, Brooklyn, not far from Coney Island. Guthrie would call it the Beachhaven apartments. And he hated his Brooklyn landlord so much that he wrote a song about it. In the song, he calls out the racial discrimination happening at the apartments in the 1950s. Black people were prohibited from renting at the Beachhaven apartment complex. And there's about 2,700 apartments. It's a huge complex. Still exists.

Bobby 28:09

Now what year is this again?

Shannon 28:10

This is 1954, is when Woody Guthrie moves into the Beachhaven apartment complex.

Bobby 28:19

Okay.

Shannon 28:19

He writes a song about the landlord he hates. He never recorded the song, but the lyrics were discovered. Many, many years later. He never recorded the song, but I I want to read some of the lyrics to you, if that's if that's alright.

Bobby 28:36

That's alright with me. Yes, please.

Shannon 28:38

The lyrics. Beachhaven ain't my home. No, I just can't pay this rent. My money's down the drain, and my soul is badly bent. Beachhaven is Trump's tower, where no black folks come to Rome. No, no, old man Trump. Old Beachhaven ain't my home.

Bobby 29:01

Oh boy.

Shannon 29:02

The Beachhaven apartments are owned by the Trump family. African Americans were prevented from renting apartments in the 2700-unit complex. And in 1973, the United States Justice Department successfully sued the Trump family for racial discrimination. Filed in October 1973, the suit named Fred Trump and Donald Trump, who was then president of the company, for engaging in a quote, pattern of practice of discrimination across 39 buildings in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. The Trumps were represented by Roy Cohn. The Trumps settled the case that the Justice Department brought against them in 1975 without an admission of guilt or wrongdoing. But the settlement required the Trump organization to adopt procedures to prevent future discrimination, including sending weekly vacancy lists to the New York Urban League and advertising to non-white communities.

Donald Trump 30:22

Wiley Woody Guthrie. Total loser. Woody Guthrie is Antifa. Very b very bad. Bad songwriter.

Shannon 30:36

Better to be part of Antifa though than the organization that I'm a part of. Shantifa.

Bobby 30:43

That's right, that's what I call you.

Donald Trump 30:47

Shantifa, dangerous progressive. Very bad. Bad for this country. Shantifa, the most dangerous woman in the world.

Shannon 31:01

Not just in America, but in the world? In the world. Oh my. Oh my.

Donald Trump 31:10

She should be locked up. Locked up. She's a communist. She's a Marxist. She's bad.

Shannon 31:21

I wouldn't I wouldn't consider myself a communist or a Marxist.

Donald Trump 31:25

I wouldn't consider you or anything.

Bobby 31:37

Oh boy.

Shannon 31:42

Sources for today's episode include A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. HistoryColorado.org.org The New Yorker.com For a list of all sources. Please see the show notes in this episode.

Woody Guthrie 32:09

It was early springtime and the strike was on. You drove us miners out of our doors, out of the houses that the company owned. Into the tents up in Little Little O We were worried bad about our children. State troopers guarded the railway bridge. Every once in a while a bullet would fly and kick up gravel around her feet. We were so afraid that she'd kill our children. That we took a cave that was seven foot deep. Took the children and the pregnant woman down inside the cave to sleep. It was late that night. The soldiers waited. All the smilers who were to sleep. Correct your hand a little captain And soaked our tents in courtesy. Well they struck a match And the blazing started. They pulled the triggers on their captain's guns. Made a run for the children, but the fire will stop me. And thirteen children died from their guns. Droke in the blankets To the Waffen's corner And watch the flames From the place that down some floods Drag their belongings Waffle your bullets Kill them all the rams Lorang the governor Put the phone up the president Tell him call up the national guitar Put the national guitar belong to the governor Will for guessing it for the very heart I never will forget The looks on the faces of the men and women Let off the day to preach the funeral To lay the corpses of the dead away Will the women from Trinidad Rook some potatoes of the Wallinsburg In the label cards assumed potatoes and they brought some guns back And put a gun in every hand sleep The troopers charged us They didn't know that we had guns And the redneck minus They shot the soldiers You should have seen The Bastards run We took some cement walls cave up Where the thirteen Little children died I tank called for the Mine Workers Union And then I hung my head and crying