Eyewitness to Murder: Recounting the Ludlow = Massacre

Eyewitness to Murder: Recounting the = Ludlow=20 Massacre

The labor struggles of the early 20th century, many of = which=20 ended in violence and death, engendered deep concern at all levels of = society=20 and led to a series of governmental investigations. The most = important=97the=20 Commission on Industrial Relations=97was appointed by newly elected = Democratic=20 president Woodrow Wilson early in 1913. The commission was in the midst = of=20 taking testimony from owners, workers, and reformers in dozens of = industrial=20 communities around the country when a coal strike erupted in southern = Colorado.=20 On Easter night, 1914, three women and eleven children were killed at a = mining=20 encampment in Ludlow, Colorado. One of the most famous accounts of what = came to=20 be called the =93Ludlow massacre=94 was the statement of a young = electrical=20 engineer, Godfrey Irwin, who was traveling through southern Colorado and = provided an eyewitness account to a New York World reporter, = reproduced=20 here.

On the day of the Ludlow battle a chum and myself left the house of = the Rev.=20 J. O. Ferris, the Episcopal minister with whom I boarded in Trinidad, = for a long=20 tramp through the hills. We walked fourteen miles, intending to take the = Colorado & Southern Railway back to Trinidad from Ludlow station.

We were going down a trail on the mountain side above the tent city = at Ludlow=20 when my chum pulled my sleeve and at the same instant we heard shooting. = The=20 militia were coming out of Hastings Canyon and firing as they came. We = lay flat=20 behind a rock and after a few minutes I raised my hat aloft on a stick.=20 Instantly bullets came in our direction. One penetrated my hat. The = militiamen=20 must have been watching the hillside through glasses and thought my old = hat=20 betrayed the whereabouts of a sharpshooter of the miners.

Saw Tikas Murdered.

Then came the killing of Louis Tikas, the Greek leader of the = strikers. We=20 saw the militiamen parley outside the tent city, and, a few minutes = later, Tikas=20 came out to meet them. We watched them talking. Suddenly an officer = raised his=20 rifle, gripping the barrel, and felled Tikas with the butt.

Tikas fell face downward. As he lay there we saw the militiamen fall = back.=20 Then they aimed their rifles and deliberately fired them into the = unconscious=20 man=92s body. It was the first murder I had ever seen, for it was a = murder and=20 nothing less. Then the miners ran about in the tent colony and women and = children scuttled for safety in the pits which afterward trapped them.

We watched from our rock shelter while the militia dragged up their = machine=20 guns and poured a murderous fire into the arroyo from a height by Water = Tank=20 Hill above the Ludlow depot. Then came the firing of the tents.

I am positive that by no possible chance could they have been set = ablaze=20 accidentally. The militiamen were thick about the northwest corner of = the colony=20 where the fire started and we could see distinctly from our lofty = observation=20 place what looked like a blazing torch waved in the midst of militia a = few=20 seconds before the general conflagration swept through the place. What = followed=20 everybody knows.

Sickened by what we had seen, we took a freight back into Trinidad. = The town=20 buzzed with indignation. To explain in large part the sympathies of even = the=20 best people in the section with the miners, it must be said that there = is good=20 evidence that many of the so-called =91militiamen=92 are only gunmen and = thugs=20 wearing the uniform to give them a show of authority. They are the = toughest lot=20 I ever saw.

No one can legally enlist in the Colorado state militia till he has = been a=20 year in the state, and many of the =91militiamen=92 admitted to me they = had been=20 drafted in by a Denver detective agency. Lieutenant Linderfelt boasted = that he=20 was =91going to lick the miners or wipe them off the earth.=92 In = Trinidad the=20 miners never gave any trouble. It was not till the militia came into = town that=20 the trouble began.

Source: New York World. Reprinted in Walter H. Fink, The = Ludlow=20 Massacre (1914), 7=9621. Reprinted in Leon Stein and Philip Taft, = eds.,=20 Massacre at Ludlow: Four Reports (New York: Arno and The New York = Times, 1971), 22=9623.