From Protest in Rochester, NY
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“Remember Ludlow!”![]()
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In 1913, mine workers organized with the United Mine Workers went on strike against Rockefeller in the Colorado mountains. They fought for the eight-hour day, for safe working conditions, for an end to the company store system and better compensation, and, above all, for union recognition. They were met with brutal repression. Forced out of the company-owned houses they lived in, they set up tent colonies; union-busters mounted machine guns on cars and randomly fired into their tents at night. Many miners dug pits under their tents to attempt to protect themselves. This went on for some time, as the strikers tried to prevent the National Guard and hired gunmen from bringing in scabs and murdering their families.![]()
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107 years ago today, the National Guard attacked the tent colony. In her autobiography, Mother Jones wrote that the miners “defended their home with their guns. All day long the firing continued. Men fell dead, their faces to the ground. Women dropped. The little Snyder boy was shot through the head, trying to save his kitten. A child carrying water to his dying mother was killed.”![]()
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When night fell, the union-busters drenched the tents in kerosene and set fire to them; they prevented rescuers from entering to try to save the dying strikers and their families. Thirteen children burned to death in one of the pits dug under the tents.![]()
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All this to prevent recognizing workers’ power and giving in to their demands.![]()
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In the aftermath of Ludlow, one writer wrote of the National Guard presence in Colorado, “Peace can never be built on the foundation of Greed and Oppression. And the federal troops cannot change the system -- only the strikers can do that. And though they may lay down their arms for a time -- they will ‘Remember Ludlow!’”![]()
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And so will we.