“ The greed, fears, and most brutal hatred of the violent elements were thus aroused, and they began to prepare for battle. They laid in a store of arms, two or three at a time; they bought quantities of ammunition; they built military earthworks in concealed places; they dug pits beneath their tents in which they designed to put their women and children as a place of safety. They got all things ready. The Greeks in particular who had deeply resented the searching of the colony and the taking of their arms by the soldiers, swore that their arms should never be taken from them again. ”

“ What the operators need is an appreciation of the right of labor to organize, to hold peaceful assemblies, and to own property in coal camps. What the strikers need is real leaders who can present their case by argument instead of violence, who will confine themselves to facts and tell the truth. What the militia needs is an esprit de corps that can only be gained by requiring officers to approximate the standards of the Regular Army, a purging of its ranks of partisans and the few malefactors therein, and the support of the government and people of the State. ”

“ The strikers imported their agitators and gunmen, they secured their rifles, and bullets began to hail upon the hills. Finally, with the strikers from the Ludlow tent colony in the ascendancy, the entrance to Hastings and Berwind Canyons were closed in, hundreds of shots fired into the two towns, and a state of absolute anarchy existed. The operators, long crying for State troops, became hysterical in their demands. The people generally wanted the militia, and it is even said that the leaders of the strikers, fearful of results with their men out of hand, likewise joined in the general desire. ”

“ A soldier can not be made in a few days. Discipline is the habit of obedience. The militia had many men who committed abuses, but this was to be expected among 1,400 men, many of them recruits unused to restraint and military training. The military game was a hobby with many, but the permanent pursuit of none. The wonder is, with a constantly growing hostility among the strikers, the abuses were not greater. As the officers learned the game better and got their men used to team work these conditions became less frequent.
The Colorado militia has long been cursed by factionalism. ”

“ Recognition of the union is the main issue with the strikers. The right to run their own business in their own way is the contention of the operators. They further claim, and the evidence before the congressional commission bore this out, that the strike was called by a convention of delegates from the various camps, many of whom had worked in them for only a day or two, and that others were paid to attend. In other words, that the convention was not representative of the working miners of southern Colorado, and hence did not state any claim of their employees. ”

“ The mine guards are usually employed through a detective agency, and the armed guards it furnishes antedates the present trouble and is born of a long series of conflicts in other fields and in other States. During the weeks before the coming of the soldiers last fall, these armed mine guards and the strikers fought many a battle, from all of which it has come to pass that the deadliest hatred exists between the strikers of the tent colonies and the mine guards of the coal camp. ”

“ The detail had a front of from 100 to 150 feet to cover, and opposed to the 10 sentries was a solid mass of strikers, with their club-swinging women in the front rank, giving vent to all manner of profanity, and a sullen bunch of men in the rear urging the women to violence. If trouble had started aothing on earth could have prevented some women being bayoneted and others shot, and then Company K, called on to protect the peace, and impartial as to the merits of the strike, would have been branded to the world as murderers of defenseless women and men protecting their homes from gunmen. ”

“ The strikers have many good tacticians among their leaders, and these located the tent colonies at the very mouths of the canyons. Hence workers in the mines, "scabs," as they are called, and the officials had to pass these colonies on their way to the stations. Strike breakers coming in were greeted with profanity and violence. The mine owners, with the men who did not want to join the union, being thus intimidated, and fearing violence, secured guards for their property. These guards were of various classes, just like men in any walk of life. ”

“ Personal-injury cases against operators are doomed to defeat. The sheriff's office is the cat's-paw of the corporations, and representative government exists only on paper.
The coal mines are in narrow, barren canyons, almost devoid of water, on lands owned or leased by the companies. The houses, in the main, are good. The majority are electric lighted, and the rents are reasonable. The company stores sell at the same price as similar goods are sold in Trinidad and carry stocks far larger and more diversified than do the independent traders adjoining the coal camps. ”

“ In the first are the operators, the union strikers, and the nonunion workers. The second is the public.
No one wins all he strives for. The scheme suggested here is a compromise which offers promise of immediate settlement and possibly a permanent peace in the coal-mining industry of Colorado.
Coal mining has become a quasi public utility. The numerous difficulties between capital and labor require a neutral board to act between both for the interests of all. A State board is political; one selected by the parties directly interested can be nonpartisan, permanent, and effective. ”

“ The strikers now grew arrogant, the operators fearful and good citizens began to leave. Mine guards came back into the district, and- the searchlights again threw their beams across the sky.
The strike was apparently lost. Radicals urged violence as the only way to enforce victory. Tuesday at dawn was set as the time to wipe out the soldiers and then to march on the coal camps of the C. F. & I. at Berwind and the Victor-American at Hastings and Delagua. Some of the colonists warned their friends in the coal camps to move before the attack. ”

“ Lieut. Lawrence, having reported to the major, left to return to his detachment on Water Tank Hill. He had gone but a short way when he galloped back to the station and cried out: "My God, Major, look at those men; we are in for it," pointing toward the Greeks defiling toward the railroad cut. Tikas was the first to answer.
He immediately jumped up, saying "I will stop them," and, pulling out his handkerchief, ran toward the colony, waving to the Greeks to return. A civilian and union sympathizer who met Tikas as he ran, told us that he heard him exclaim: "What damned fools!" ”

“ Armed, because while the operators have complied with the orders for the disarming of their men, the strikers have not. The United States troops stand between the mines and the tent colonies. The strikers, through their leaders, openly state they will renew their call to arms and campaign of violence if the militia again takes the field. A Denver women's peace society, dominated by strikers, declares in the chamber of the house of representatives that it will forcibly oppose the National Guard if again sent into service. ”

“ The operators refuse to meet the "traitors and murderers," as they term the strikers. The militia, damned by strike sympathizers, made the goat of the conflict, unpaid for three months, insufficiently clothed and equipped when in the field, smarting under injustice, disgusted with certain higher officers and the governor, nevertheless stands ready to take the field if supported by State authorities. The mine guards have departed, as the majority of them did before when the guard first went into the field in October, 1913. ”

“ The Greeks, confirmed in their belief and consumed with a suppressed thirst for battle, forgetting their promise to Tikas, seized their rifles and defiled from the colony across the country to the right of the K to a railroad cut on the Colorado & Southeastern tracks, affording excellent cover for delivering a rifle fire onto Water Tank Hill. These Greeks, as nearly as we could discover, were estimated variously in number from 35 to 50 men. ”

“ Instead of sympathy the strikers now have the opprobrium of all good citizens. Instead of trying to win by truth they rest on falsehood and violence. Only May 18 the three most prominent union leaders in Colorado, McLennan, Doyle, and Law-son, sent out telegrams that "barrel-house bums and gunmen militia destroyed Forbes and Ludlow." ”

“ Thereupon the Greeks filed out of the colony to a railroad cut, and soon afterwards fired the first shots of the battle against the soldiers,
This is obvious from the fact that no bodies were found between the colony and the cut. As the Greeks were in open country, the machine gun, if fired, would have mowed them down.
4. The Greeks, always warlike and obstreperous, had no women or children in the colony. They at least had not provided themselves with arms and ammunition for the defense of their homes and families. ”

“ Neither is fair, yet each side cries for this remedy to be applied to the other. Compromise must be brought about. Both sides must win a little, lose more, and shake hands. But it should be understood that a settlement does not exempt law breakers on either side from punishment. ”

“ They have been sitting in their tents for weeks awaiting the departure of the soldiers and the day when they could seize what they have been told is theirs. When the troops were withdrawn elsewhere, and this one unit left at Ludlow, many of the strikers believed that the men whom they saw in uniform were no longer members of the National Guard, but hired gunmen or mine guards who retained their uniform for want of other clothing. They saw the hated mine guards return. They were told by their leaders, as they have been always, that the mine guards intended to attack their colony. ”

“ Many were men of good physique out of work; others were arrant cowards who thought they were getting easy jobs at high salaries.
Nearly all the mining companies gave orders to their guards to stay on their own property and only to bear arms there. In the main this was obeyed. In some canyons the guards did not do so, and proceeded to pick fights with the strikers. The latter, where the guards did not precipitate the trouble, did so themselves. The strikers bought guns with union and individual funds. The operators brought in more weapons, including machine guns. ”

“ Referring again to our simile of the capital letter K it will be remembered that the Cedar Hill station is at the extremity of the upper arm of the letter, and Water Tank Hill is at the top of the vertical shaft, the colony and Maj. Hamrock's tents facing each other where the lines join. It should be added that Cedar Hill is invisible from the tents of the colony, being up the canyon a way, but Water Tank Hill is in plain view of the strikers' tents. ”

“ The military policy of this camp had been, among other things, to cover the Ludlow station at train time with a detail of 10 men and a sergeant. The sergeant reported by phone that the entire colony was at the depot "spoiling for trouble." The captain ordered the first lieutenant to assemble the company and hold it subject to orders, and took two sergeants to the depot.
The colony was out in force. Small rocks covered the road, and the women carried clubs that would have put to shame the maces of the middle ages. Many had spikes driven through them. ”

“ The strikers object to the Baldwin-Felts men, but the operators have every right to object as much to the one hundred or more Greek soldiers whom they -claim were brought in by the strikers to act as gunmen on that side.
If strife is to cease, a scheme that incorporates three factions in the struggle must be adopted. These three are the operators, nonunion miners, and strikers. The operators now recognize only the first two; the strikers refuse to deal with the second. ”

“ The assault upon Tikas and the murder of the three prisoners can not be too severely condemned. As the men were outlaws they could have been shot in their tracks and never captured, but once taken they were entitled to be kept inviolate. These murders by this mine-guard group should he as severely punished as should the murders by the strikers, and both should receive the extreme penalty of the law. ”