A little later this morning folks will gather at the Ludlow Massacre site in Southern Colorado for a program marking its addition to the roster of National Historic Landmarks. For obvious reasons, I wish I was there, but events conspired against it. I am, though, there in spirit.
As most of you know, the massacre and the surrounding 1913-14 coal field war were the subject of my first book, Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West, so on a personal level I'm glad to see the site get formal recognition. More than 75 people died during that strike, which was effectively a guerrilla war between the coal mine operators and their striking workers. It took the intervention of the U.S. Army to end the fighting after the union side had seized control of some 275 miles of the Front Range. The biggest convulsion of violence came as the strikers routed the Colorado National Guard after the April 20, 1914, Ludlow Massacre in which 11 children and two mothers suffocated as National Guard-spread fire whipped through their tent colony.
It's long been a source of frustration to me that this kind of violence could erupt on American soil and not be entered into the public history. In school we get taught about the Shays Rebellion and other flare ups, such as the anti-slavery activities of John Brown. But we don't teach about this brutal struggle between labor and management, in which the Colorado events were part of a long and vicious arc.
Interestingly, when the Ludlow Massacre does get mentioned, often the details are wrong, reflecting the success the union side enjoyed at the time in using the deaths of the women and children to draw attention
to their struggle. Tellingly, the Ludlow Massacre is what we focus on, not the broader guerrilla war in which they died. And the massacre technically wasn't one, since there's no indication from the historic record that the women and children were intentionally killed.
That does not exonerate the National Guard of brutal acts, but it's important to put such events in as accurate a context as possible. The accepted history is that the abusive companies brutalized their workers, forced them to work in appalling conditions, and then killed their families when the workers stood up for themselves.
The reality is much more nuanced. The owners were brutal and the conditions appalling (mules were valued more than miners because a mule had to be bought, and a miner's time was rented). In my book I argue that the coal miners were in effect freedom fighters rebelling against a corrupt local political and economic system. They were hardly passive victims. Of the dead, most were National Guardsmen (under the control of the coal operators), scabs and mine guards. The strikers won this war, even if they lost the strike. All in all, it reminds of this key passage from the Declaration of Independence:
To my mind, the strikers -- most of them immigrants -- were acting in the grand American tradition of throwing off the bonds of tyranny, even if it was of the local and corporate variety. We do a disservice to our understanding of what we are as a country by ignoring this part of our history.
As most of you know, the massacre and the surrounding 1913-14 coal field war were the subject of my first book, Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West, so on a personal level I'm glad to see the site get formal recognition. More than 75 people died during that strike, which was effectively a guerrilla war between the coal mine operators and their striking workers. It took the intervention of the U.S. Army to end the fighting after the union side had seized control of some 275 miles of the Front Range. The biggest convulsion of violence came as the strikers routed the Colorado National Guard after the April 20, 1914, Ludlow Massacre in which 11 children and two mothers suffocated as National Guard-spread fire whipped through their tent colony.
It's long been a source of frustration to me that this kind of violence could erupt on American soil and not be entered into the public history. In school we get taught about the Shays Rebellion and other flare ups, such as the anti-slavery activities of John Brown. But we don't teach about this brutal struggle between labor and management, in which the Colorado events were part of a long and vicious arc.
Interestingly, when the Ludlow Massacre does get mentioned, often the details are wrong, reflecting the success the union side enjoyed at the time in using the deaths of the women and children to draw attention
to their struggle. Tellingly, the Ludlow Massacre is what we focus on, not the broader guerrilla war in which they died. And the massacre technically wasn't one, since there's no indication from the historic record that the women and children were intentionally killed.That does not exonerate the National Guard of brutal acts, but it's important to put such events in as accurate a context as possible. The accepted history is that the abusive companies brutalized their workers, forced them to work in appalling conditions, and then killed their families when the workers stood up for themselves.
The reality is much more nuanced. The owners were brutal and the conditions appalling (mules were valued more than miners because a mule had to be bought, and a miner's time was rented). In my book I argue that the coal miners were in effect freedom fighters rebelling against a corrupt local political and economic system. They were hardly passive victims. Of the dead, most were National Guardsmen (under the control of the coal operators), scabs and mine guards. The strikers won this war, even if they lost the strike. All in all, it reminds of this key passage from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
To my mind, the strikers -- most of them immigrants -- were acting in the grand American tradition of throwing off the bonds of tyranny, even if it was of the local and corporate variety. We do a disservice to our understanding of what we are as a country by ignoring this part of our history.