Eighteen miles from the sleepy mining town of Trinidad Colorado stands an immense granite memorial in the middle of Ludlow: a deserted ghost town. Erected by the United Mine Workers of America in 1918, its design depicts a vigilant mother coaxing a child, while a defiant worker looks off into the distance. The site marks a dangerous but forgotten boiling point in labor relations during the Progressive Era, and heralds the beginning of Americans’ near universal hatred for Socialism.
The monument commemorates an extraordinary climax on April 20, 1914, in which two divisions of National Guardsmen stationed on the hills surrounding the suburbs of Ludlow began a day-long bombardment on the colony of striking miners below. Armed with Gatling guns, their barrage forced the families of strikers to dash towards the hills or helplessly dig ditches for cover. A ruse for negotiations lured Lou Tikas, the miners’ leader, to the Guardsmens’ camp, where he was shot to death. That night, the guardsmen descended and set fire to the strikers’ tents, forcing a mass exodus to the wilderness. A telephone linesman would discover the bodies of eleven children and two women, burned near indistinguishably, under an iron cot the following day. These casualties, along with 13 striking miners, became the victims of the “Ludlow Massacre”. News of the “Ludlow Massacre” spread quickly, as the United Mine Workers Union issued a “Call to Arms” against Rockefeller’s mining interests in the Colorado Coalfield War. The Ludlow strikers received reinforcements from 300 mine workers armed with revolvers and shotguns, many coming directly from the funeral of their coworkers. Even members of the national guard refused to be deployed to quell the unrest, declaring that they would not “engage in the shooting of women and children”, which was just as well, since railroad workers refused to transport Guardsmen to subdue the strike. This was the climax of a movement began in September of 1913 by mine workers looking for Union recognition and better wages. Despite gunmen hired by John D. Rockefeller, who owned the mining interests, a devastatingly harsh winter, and the presence of the National Guard to coerce, beat, and arrest the strikers into submission, the miners refused to back down. By April, the situation had escalated into all-out war waged on a 40-mile front with constant raids on civilian infrastructure from both sides that would eventually claim the lives of more than 200 people. The head of this national series of meetings, strikes, and demonstrations came when five thousand marched in the rain to the state capital of Denver demanding the trial of the implicated National Guardsmen, forcing the Colorado governor to ask President Woodrow Wilson for Federal troops to restore order. In the end, soldiers were able to disperse most of the strikers, though the majority gave up after Rockefeller hired new workers. The strikers’ demands were not met, except for a Congressional investigation into the matter that produced 322 arrests for murder for the strikers and 16 Court-martials for the Guardsmen that resulted in one “light reprimand”. More than an inevitable consequence, President Wilson and Rockefeller was able to achieve this status-quo endgame through a popular wave of anti-labor, anti-union, and anti-Socialist sentiment that swept through the nation’s rich and middle classes. Though effective and enduring, the strike was conducted under the worst possible time frame and historical circumstance, resulting in the massacre not being remembered as an example of corporate ruthlessness sponsored by government corruption, but instead as an example of the possible violence and social upheaval that Socialism could bring. In May, the New York Times authored an editorial that declared, “With the deadliest weapons of civilization in the hands of savage-minded men, there can be no telling to what lengths the war in Colorado will go unless it is quelled by force.” For many Americans, the events in Colorado closely paralleled the Anarchist uprisings in the earlier Haymarket Square Riots--- which had instilled a fear of Socialist Revolution and unionized workers, destroying the prominent Knights of Labor--- or the costly albeit nonviolent 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike. It was this fear of Socialist Revolution that drove many Americans under President Theodore Roosevelt and Taft to clamor for social reform. These Progressives would drastically improve sanitation in cities, decrease poverty among immigrant laborers, and reduce the “scourges” of industrialization, such as child labor and unjust working conditions. It is a mistake to associate Progressive Liberalism with Socialism; Progressives were not seeking to nationalize or marginalize free industry, but instead to correct its worst defects in order to safeguard the spread of Capitalism. However, despite the trust-busting efforts of Roosevelt and Taft, the regulating powers of the Interstate Trade Commission, and the beginning of Federal regulation in factories, massive labor unrest like the Ludlow strike demonstrated that too little had been done to correct the horrendous conditions of industrialized labor, and that rebellion among the lower classes would continue. To many workers, Progressive reforms, though bettering their quality of life, “were enacted with the tacit approval, if not the guidance, of large corporate interests” according to Labor Historian James Weinstein. They had done little to secure fair working hours, legalize unions, and secure basic working security for many. Yet to the urban middle class--- who were satisfied with Progressive reforms--- the continued strikes and opposition of labor unions proved troubling and served to turn them against the lower class sentiments of Social Equality. The economic philosophy of Laissez Faire, after the disastrous 1912 Bull-Moose Progressive election, would win out once again. Though the days of the Gospel of Wealth were over, a new wave of social conservatism spread across the nation, which after the Great War would result in almost a celebration of reckless business on the stock market and industry, and foreign isolationism during the Roaring Twenties. Another factor turning public opinion against the Ludlow Strikers was the concurrent American occupation of Veracruz following the jailing of a dozen American sailors by a local Mexican warlord. The invasion served to protect Rockefeller’s oil interests in Mexico, and prevented the prominent industrial city from falling into the hands of hard-line leftist extremists like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, who was commonly identified as little more than a bandit in America. An American naval bombardment and invasion that was heavily opposed by civilians resulted in over a hundred Mexicans dead, but little overall impact in the course of the Civil War. But to American newspapers, the act of aggression was an assertion of American honor and might against a tyrannical dictator to further the spread of free-trade principles and democratic ideals. A century before our war in Iraq, the American invasion of Veracruz created a patriotic national consensus for a military spirit that covered up unemployment, hard times, and class struggle. The nation, united under a banner of nationalism that would later influence its decision to enter World War I, simply forgot about the less pressing issue of labor dispute. And often, those most patriotic were the laborers who had earlier clamored for rights, but now saw their labor-- however unfair --as the pivotal archstone to the American military-industrial machine. The Strike in Ludlow served to turn many Americans away from the ideals of Socialist revolution towards more moderate Progressive measures of reform. It equated Socialism and Socialist leaders like Eugene Debs as dangers to national stability, and instigators against American nationalism and pride during our invasion of Veracruz, and especially when America stepped into the world stage during World War I. The violence of Socialist strikes like Ludlow, and their subsequent failure to result in any social change, forced Americans to consider the looming threat of a Class Revolution and made their organizers into anarchists and extremists. Today, many of these sentiments remain, fostered by the US message of Capitalist solidarity during the Cold War, and our ever steadfast belief in the American Dream of Social Mobility. One cannot know if Socialism could have worked in America, or if it inevitably would have crashed our nation into the instability and economic dysfunctionality of Mexico under Socialist rule. Perhaps our disparaging attitude against Socialism is justified, but due to events like the Ludlow Massacre, the United States will never know true socialist measures, and continues to lean ever-conservative today. While failing to take root in America, the Ludlow massacre served to galvanize many elsewhere. In June of 1914, a young MacKenzie King was hired by Rockefeller to implement reforms in his Colorado Coal Mines. The deplorable conditions and inhuman treatment King witnessed inspired him to secure fairer wages and a decrease in working hours. In fact, the US government would look upon these reforms as inspiration when passing laws to regulate an eight-hour workday and minimum wage. For King, his experiences served to radicalize him as a Socialist in his native Canada. In 1935, when King was elected as Prime Minister of Canada, he would implement fair labor reforms to alleviate the ills of the Great Depression. Serving for 21 years, the longest of any Canadian leader, King would begin a long tradition of class equality and socialism in our Northern neighbor, inspiring the labor movements of the 21st Century.
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