COLORADO LUOLOW BANCROFT UBRAKY University of California Berkeley Ludlow BEING THE REPORT OF THE SPECIAL BOARD OF OF- FICERS APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR OF COLORADO TO INVESTIGATE AND DE- TERMINE THE FACTS WITH REFERENCE TO THE ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN THE COLORADO NATIONAL GUARD AND CERTAIN PERSONS ENGAGED IN THE COAL MINING STRIKE AT LUDLOW. COLORADO APRIL 20, 1914 g,x y LUDLOW BEING THE REPORT OF THE SPECIAL BOARD OF OFFICERS APPOINTED BY THE GOV- ERNOR OF COLORADO TO IN- VESTIGATE AND DETERMINE THE FACTS WITH REFERENCE TO THE ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN THE COLORADO NATIONAL GUARD AND CER- TAIN PERSONS ENGAGED IN THE COAL MINING STRIKE AT LUDLOW, COLO., APRIL 20, 1914 C4-8 FOREWORD I am directed to prefix to the report that fol- lows an explanation of its occasion. On the 16th of April, 1914, all of the troops of the Colorado National Guard engaged in the occupation of the strike zone were withdrawn except a small detachment left upon police duty at Ludlow. Four days later the country was startled by the happening of a deadly con- flict between this detachment and the inhab- itants of the strikers' tent colony at Ludlow. The press reports and other sources of infor- mation at the moment were very sensational, conflicting and unreliable. On April 25th His Excellency, Elias M. Ammons, Governor of Colorado, directed the Commanding General to constitute a board of officers to ascertain and report the truth of the occurrences referred to. The Board of Officers was immediately as- sembled, conducted a searching inquiry upon the ground, and within a few days made public its report. After the lapse of many months, when these events have receded into their proper perspective, this repon; remains the one concededly accurate and reliable narrative of what has been made the subject of much ex- travagant comment and misrepresentation. As a matter of public interest, therefore, and by order of Brigadier General John Chase, Ad- jutant General, commanding the National Guard of Colorado, the report is reprinted in this more permanent form for the information of all con- cerned. EDWARD J. BOUGHTON, Lieutenant Colonel and Judge Advocate, Military District of Colorado. Ludlow Denver, Colorado, May 2, 1914. To General John Chase, Brigadier General Commanding the Mili- tary District of Colorado. On April 25, 1914, you appointed the under- signed, Edward J. Boughton, Major and Judge Advocate of the Military District, W. C. Danks, Captain First Infantry, and Philip S. Van Cise, Captain First Infantry, a board of officers to inquire into the causes of the battle at Ludlow on Monday, April 20, 1914, to ascertain what happened during or as a result of that battle, with special reference to the death of women and children, the killing of Martin, Tikas, Filer and others, the burning of the tent colony and the claim that the tents were looted; to fix the responsibility for the battle and its results, and to report fully and impartially our findings and recommendations to the Commanding General. We have examined under oath all officers and prisoners, as many as possible of the soldiers, deputies, mine guards and townspeople of Lud- low and nearby coal camps. We have made every effort to obtain the testimony of such strikers and tent colonists as were not within our reach, but without success. The strike leader, William Diamond, at Trinidad, after promising to produce before us at our request those among his people who claim to have wit- nessed any of the incidents of the day, omitted to do so. A personal request made upon Mr. Lawson and Mr. McLennan, strike leaders, in Denver, was answered in their presence by Mr. Hawkins, their attorney. In this way they de- clined to give us any information, upon the ground that our inquiry was not publicly con- ducted. i As a result of our investigation we submit the ollowing findings, report and recommenda- ions: Battle of Ludlow To a proper understanding of the late deplor- able happenings around Ludlow, some prelim- inary considerations are necessary. It is im- possible to estimate those events justly with- out some general knowledge of the country, the inhabitants of the tent colony ani personnel of their neighbors in the military camp and ad- jacent villages. A crude conception of general directions in the Ludlow vicinity may be had by imagining a gigantic capital letter "K." The vertical line of such a letter would represent the Colorado & Southern Railroad running north and south. At the upper or southern end of this line is what has been called, for want of other name, Water Tank Hill, a low, gently-sloping mesa commanding the territory to the south, east and north. At the lower or northern end of the line is a steel railroad bridge crossing a deep arroyo which runs through the whole country in a general east and west direction. The arms of the "K," except that to be accurate the lower one should be horizontal, represent roads which at the extremities of the arms enter the two canons of Delagua and Berwind. Up these canons lie the largest and richest coal mines of the state, and about the mines are clustered the workmen's villages of Delagua, Hastings, Berwind, Tobasco, Tollerberg and others. It will thus be seen that the point at which the two arms converge and meet the shaft of the letter, that is to say, the point where these two roads unite and cross the railroad, called in that locality the Cross-Roads, is a point that commands the approach to both the canons as well as the travel north and south along the railroad. It was at this commanding point, the Cross-Roads, that the Ludlow tent colony was located. In the angle formed by the arms of the letter, about one-third of a mile from the colony, was the military camp. Since early in November the brown tents of the soldiers and the white tents of the colonists stood thus, fac- ing each other across the railroad. For the protection of the two canons military sub- stations were established, one at Hastings in the northern canon, and one at Cedar Hill in the southern. The Ludlow tent cotony, by far the largest of all such colonies, housed a heterogeneous population of striking miners. The colony num- bered hundreds of people, of whom only a few families were Americans. The rest were for the most part Greeks, Montenegrins, Bulgars, Servians, Italians, Mexicans, Tyroleans, Croa- tians, Austrians, Savoyards, and other aliens from the southern countries of Europe. These people had little in common either with the few Americans resident among them, or with one another. Each nationality had its own leader, customs and mode of life. We are credibly informed that within the colony twen- 6 ty-two different tongues were spoken, unintel- ligible one to another. The percentage of American citizens, even naturalized citizens, was small. It will readily be seen that thece people did not possess much means of inter- changing information or social ideas. This fact is important, as explaining conduct upon their part that otherwise might seem unaccountably strange. The most forceful portion of the colonists were the Greeks. We do not know that they outnumbered the other nationalities in the col- ony, but we are positive that they dominated it. The will of the Greeks was the law of the colony. They were the most aggressive ele- ment, the fighting men; and they imposed their desires upon the rest. These Greeks segre- gated themselves in a quarter set apart to them. They were secretive. Such was their position and authority that although many of the nations had leaders of their own, the Greek leader was the master of the tented city. By the other colonists the Greeks were regarded as heroes, for many of them, we are told, had seen service in the Balkan wars. The strange thing, and one that we found important, is that there were no Greek women or children in the colony. Living in the immediate vicinity of the colo- nist population just described were three dis- tinct groups of men controlled by distinct feel- ings toward the strikers. In the first group were the non-union workmen in the mines of the adjacent canons. These men were dwelling with their families in the villages about the mines where they were employed. Most of them were recent arrivals, coming in as strike- breakers to take the strikers' places in the mines. This class is not to be confused, as it has been, with the mine guards. The non- union workmen were, as a class, men of indus- try and peace, of practically the same compo- sition as the inhabitants of the tent colony. Their attitude toward the strikers was one of indifference coupled with a fear of molestation. But they held no animosity; they felt them- selves the permanent inhabitants of the vil- lages. A troop of National Guards were en- listed, about the middle of April, among the superintendents and foremen, the clerical force, physicians, storekeepers, mine guards, and other residents of the coal camps. This unit of the National Guard was designated Troop "A," but so recently was it recruited that at the time of the battle of Ludlow it had not yet selected its officers nor was it supplied with uniforms, arms or ammunition. (When this company was called to reinforce the uniformed guardsmen at Ludlow, its members appearing in civilian clothes gave rise, perhaps excusably, to the belief of the strikers that they were armed mine guards, a class much hated by the colonists.) These mine guards formed another distinct class. They are men whose employment is to guard the properties; they are not permanent residents of the mine communities like the non- union workmen, but have come with the strike and will depart with it. The mine guards are usually employed through a detective agency making a specialty of such work. The strikers' ill will toward this agency and the armed guards it furnishes antedates the present trouble and is born of a long series of conflicts in other fields and 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 camps. The third class of men in this vicinity con- sists of the uniformed and armed National Guardsmen who have been on duty during this campaign. With an exception to be note.d pres- ently, this class has no feeling either of hatred or of fear toward the colonists, whose nearest neighbors they were. Throughout the cam- paign a friendly relationship was maintained between the two groups of tents. Ball games were played between them and athletics were indulged in common. We find the attitude of most of the soldiers toward the colonists to have been throughout the campaign one of friendly indifference. We find, however, from the examination of the colonists themselves that this neutral friendliness of the soldiers was not returned, but that a large portion of the strikers harbored a suppressed hostility towards the militia, the intenser for its being suppressed. The exception referred to is the company of mounted infantry occupying the sub-station at Cedar Hill in Berwind Canon, designated Company "B" and commanded for the greater part of the campaign by Lieutenant K. E. Linderfelt. This officer is an experienced soldier and an inexperienced sociologist. He is a veteran of five wars, but wholly tactless in his treatment of both mine guards and strikers. From the beginning of the campaign this militia organization and the strikers in the colony were in frequent petty conflicts with one another. They grew to dislike each other and to worry, harass and annoy one another. Both sides fed 8 the flame of increasing enmity. They pro- voked each other on every possible occasion. The strikers spread wires across the roads in the dark to trip the soldiers' horses and thus to maim both man and beast. The soldiers , indulged in reprisals. In this way dislike grew into hatred and provocation into threats. From threats by each against the others' lives the strikers have come to fear and hate this "B" Company, and "B" Company has come to par- take of the fear of the workmen and the hatred of the mine guards toward the colonists. Upon the withdrawal of flie troops from the field it was felt necessary to leave one unit at Ludlow between the largest colony of the strikers on one side and the richest mines and the most populous mine camps on the other. Company "B" was selected for that service be- cause, albeit hated by the strikers, it was feared and respected by them. Lieutenant Lin- derfelt, whose life was in peril from the deadly hatred of this large foreign population, was relieved of the command and sent away upon recruiting service. Thus it will ue seen that the participants in the dreadful battle of April 20th were distributed around a triangle, the strikers in the colony at the Cross-Roads, the workmen of Troop "A" and the mine guards ai Hastings in Delagua Canon, and "B" Company at Cedar Hill in Berwind Canon. It should here be explained that after fhe coming of the soldiers last October and until their departure a few days before the baltle of Ludlow, there were practically no mine guards in this vicinity, but upon withdrawing the protection of the National Guard from the mines and communi- ties of the strike zone, the mine guards re- turned to the employment of the mine owners. We believe that such an incident as the battle of Ludlow was inevitable under the con- ditions that we found. Our belief is based upon an analysis of the forces of human pas- sion we discovered to have been at work. These forces we find to have been as follows- The tent colony population is almost wholly foreign and without conception of our govern- ment. A large percentage are unassimilable aliens to whom liberty means license, and among whom has lately been spread by those to whom they must look for guidance a dan- gerous doctrine of property. Rabid agitators had assured these people that when the soldien* left they were at liberty to take for their own. and by force of arms, the coal mines of their former employers. They have been sitting in their tents for weeks awaiting the departure of the soldiers and the day when they could seize 9 what they have been told is theirs. When the troops were withdrawn elsewhere and this one unit left at Ludlow, many of the strikers be- lieved 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 uniforms for want of other clothing 1 . They saw the hated mine guards return. They were told by their leaders, as they have always been, that the mine guards intended to attack their colony. The greed, fears and most brutal hatreds 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 ail 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. In this movement, as in all others, the Greeks were the leaders. Not all of the colonists by any means were taken in on the general plan. Those who were thought timorous or unwilling were told nothing of what was going on. We found that there were many in the colony who now bear a deep resentment against the Greeks, who had no wives or chil- dren to protect, for precipitating the battle without giving th;ir fellows opportunity to pre- pare for it. While these warlike preparations were going forward, though they were con- cealed from some in the colony, yet they were shared by others who knew better and who, in the last analysis, must take their share of the responsibility for the awful results that ensued. We learn that there was found in the tent of John R. Lawson large stores of ammunition in thousand-round boxes, awaiting distribution. By all tl ese means the fighting part of the colony had worked themselves into a frenzy. The col- ony was electrified; a spark only was needed to set off an explosion. The spark fell unwit- tingly on Monday, the 20th of April. As is usual with such inevitable conflicts, the battle was unexpectedly precipitated and by a trifling incident. Two facts in this con- nection stand out very clearly. One is that the conflict was contemplated, prepared against, deliberately planned and intended by some of the strikers, and was feared and expected by the s.oldiers and inhabitants of the mining vil- lages. The otl'er fact, equally clear, is that neither side expected it to fall at the time or in 10 the manner that it did. That the colonists were and intended to be the aggressors there can be no doubt in the world. It was evidently with some difficulty that the Greek portion of the colony had been restrained from giving battle, now the main body of state troops was withdrawn. We find from examination of the colonists themselves that talk of such an attack upon the soldiers, to be followed by a seizure of the mines, expulsion of the non-union work- men and vengeance upon the mine guards, had been rife in the colony for many days. Ac- cording to the Greek church, Easter fell on Sunday, the 19th, and we have it from Greeks and others in the colony that the Greeks at least had planned such an attack as part of the festivities of that day. In the celebration on Sunday, however, the Greeks got pretty drunk and the matter was postponed until Tues- day. We find that these plans of the Greeks were not known generally throughout the col- ony, and many there were who were wholly ignorant that the colony gossip of an attack had taken any such definite form. There were two Greeks in the colony who had a brother at work in the nearby Ramey mine near the en- trance of Berwind Canon. On Sunday, after the plan to deliver the attack on Tuesday had been perfected, these Greeks visited their non- union brother, told him of the plan and begged him to leave before Tuesday's work of destruc- tion commenced. This workman communicated the information thus received to his employers at the mine on Sunday evening, who had in- tended to warn Major Hamrock before Tuesday morning. Before that information was dis- closed the battle was precipitated on Monday. It is very certain that the soldiers were not expecting any attack or molestation at the time on the day of the battle. II is true that such an attack was always feared by soldiers and civilians alike. All believed that sooner or later it would come. For weeks before the withdrawal of the troops it had been a set- tled belief that some day, when the military force should be weakened, the strikers would undertake to wipe out soldiers and civilian workmen alike. But on the morning of the Ludlow conflict the idea of battle was furthest from the minds of the few remaining troopers. Had such an attack been planned by the mili- tary, the soldiers would have occupied the com- manding positions and delivered it at dawn instead of allowing those places to be occupied by the strikers with such force that it took all day to drive the colonists from them. In- stead of any such warlike preparations, we find 11 that on Monday morning, at 'the very time the battle began, Major Hamrock, in command, had with him in the tents facing the colony but three men, one of whom was a cripple. The entire force of soldiers in the vicinity num- bered thirty-four, of whom twelve occupied the tents in view of the colony, and twenty-two were stationed at Cedar Hill in the mouth of Berwind Canon. The rest of Major Hamrock's dozen were watering their horses or attending to their routine camp duty at some distance from the tents when the fire commenced. At the station at Cedar Hill there were pres- ent the wives of three of the officers, the wives and children of several of the enlisted men, with civilian visitors and their wives, all of whom had spent Sunday with their relatives. One of these women was shortly to give birth to a baby. With all of these women and chil- dren at the entrance to the canon, and with the certainty that the defeat of the- soldiers meant the invasion of their camps and the villages beyond, it is folly to believe that at such a moment the battle was deliberately brought about by the troops. The other unequivocal fact that we find is that the battle was unexpectedly precipitated on Monday, and that its coming was not known at all to the soldiers nor to a greater portion of the tent colony. It had been planned by the Greeks for Sunday. It was planned by them for Tuesday, but the spark that kindled the fires of war fell without warning on Monday morn- ing. Lieutenant Linderfelt, who happened to be visiting his brother at Cedar Hill on Sunday and whose return to Trinidad with his wife was for some reason delayed until Monday morning, received a letter from some foreign woman, claiming that her husband was being detained against his will in the tent colony. This letter was sent to Major Hamrock at the tents near the colony. A few soldiers are detailed to meet every train to see that the passengers getting on or off are not molested by the colonists. By this train detail Major Hamrock sent word to the Greek leader, Louis Tikas, who was also chief man of the colony, calling attention to the letter and demanding the release of the writer's husband. Tikas denied that any such man was in the colony. The men of the train detail answered that they were sure he was, and that if not delivered they would come back in force and get him. These men, of course, had no authority for any such statement, but it was in line with the ill feeling that we have described 12 as existing between these particular men and the colonists. The train detail reported the answer of Tikas to the Major, who then called Tikas over the telephone and asked him to come to the military camp, as he had done a hundred times before, to talk it over. The reply was most unusual. For the first time Tikas flatly refused to come to the Major's camp. Thereupon the Major telephoned to the station at Cedar Hill, and told the Captain in charge that he might have need of him and his men to search the colony for a man held pris- oner there. The Cedar Hill detachment was ordered to drill on the parade ground at Water Tank Hill. 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 Major Hamrock's tents facing each other where all the lines join. It should be added that Cedar Hill is invisible from the tents of the colony, being up the canon a way, but Water Tank Hill is in plain view of the strikers' tents. A part, not all, of the men from Cedar Hill saddled their horses and pro- ceeded to Water Tank Hill. In the meantime Tikas telephoned to the Major that he would meet him at the railroad station, which is about equi-distant from the two sets of tents. After this conversation Major Hamrock telephoned again to Cedar Hill and directed the remaining soldiers to join their troop on the parade ground, and to bring with them the machine gun. We find that after the train detail left, Tikas was surrounded by his Greeks in the colony, and that these Greeks were under the impres- sion that the colony was about to be again searched for arms a thing which they had vowed they would never again permit. The Greeks were vociferous and insistent upon giv- ing battle to the soldiers at once if they should appear. Tikas did the best he could to dis- suade and quiet them. It was then that he called Major Hamrock by telephone. Return- ing to the group of Greeks, he told them that he must go to the station to see the Major, and got them to promise that they would do nothing until his return. Tikas met at the station Major Hamrock and the woman who had writ- ten the letter and who complained that her husband was being held a prisoner in the colony. Tikas recognized this woman and then stated that he knew her husband, who had been in the colony on Saturday, but was no longer there. During this conversation at the station the first detachment from Cedar Hill arrived on Water Tank Hill, and their officer, Lieutenant Lawrence, galloped down to the station and re- ported to Major Hamrock. In the meantime the Greeks continued talking together in the colony, awaiting the return of Tikas. Three women, who had been to the store near the station, returned excitedly to the colony, and called the attention of the Greeks to the arrival of the troopers on Water Tank Hill. This was enough to set the smouldering fire aflame. 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 country to the right of the "K," to a railroad cut on the Colo- rado & Southeastern tracks, affording excellent cover for delivering a rifle fire on Water Tank Hill. These Greeks, as nearly as we could dis- cover, were estimated variously to number from thirty-five to fifty men. Their march across the country was in plain view of all save the Major, Tikas and Lieutenant Lawrence, talking together in the station. At the same time there left the colony a much larger number of men of other nation- alities, armed with rifles, going northwest to the arroyo crossed by the steel bridge at the foot of the "K." This group was never o served by any of the soldiers, and their takin position in the arroyo was related to us by civilians. Lieutenant 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 an cried out: "My God, Major, look at these men; we are in for it," pointing toward the Greek defiling toward the railroad cut. Tikas was the first to answer. He immediately jumped up, saying, "I will stop them," and, pulling out hi handkerchief, ran toward the colony, waving t the Greeks to return. A civilian and unio sympathizer who met Tikas as he ran, told us that he heard him exclaim: "What damned fools!" Major Hamrock directed Lieu- tenant Lawrence to return to his troop and await developments. After the Lieutenan reached Water Tank Hill, and not before, th< machine gun and remaining men from C Hill arrived. Major Hamrock hurried from th station to his tents, and reported the conditions to General Chase in Denver. While returni to his camp the Major observed the women an children of the colony in large numbers run ning from the colony north to the shelter of the : ig 14 arroyo. This was observed also by the men In the tents, by the Major's adjutant, Lieutenant Benedict. and by the men on Water Tank Hill. All tell us that the exodus of women and chil- dren was sufficient to account for all that were known to be in the colony. Lieutenant Bene- dict, observing the colony at this time through his field glasses, plainly saw Tikas leave and hurry toward the Greeks, now nearly arrived at their intended position. Tikas was carrying a rifle in one hand and a field glass in the other. It is evident that on returning to the colony and seeing the futility of preventing the out- break, Tikas had armed himself and hastened to his compatriots. As yet no shot of any kind had been fired. In expectation of just such an attack, a signal had been devised. Two crude bombs were made of sticks of dynamite, and it was under- stood that if the colonists attacked suddenly, so that there was not time to telephone the various villages in the canons, or the wires were cut, these bombs should be exploded as a warning. After telephoning to Denver, the Major caused these bombs to be set off, and so far as we can learn, this was the first ex- plosion of the day. We learned from the col- onists that they were thought to be some new kind of ammunition or possible artillery pos- sessed by the soldiers. In the meantime, while all this was going on, there were still but the three men left in the soldiers' tents with the Major, the rest con- tinuing their routine duties at some distance, in apparent ignorance of what was happening. But in the meantime the men on Water Tank Hill were deployed as skirmishers, observing the advance of the Greeks toward their cover. The men almost rebelled against their officers at this time, demanding to know whether they must allow the Greeks to reach concealment before opening fire. Lieutenant Linderfelt or- dered that no shots should be fired unless the soldiers were first fired upon. About the time the Greeks reached the cover of the railroad cut, the fire began. We are unable to state from which point the firing came first, except that it came from the strikers. Upon that point all of the witnesses of all shades of sym- pathies arc wholly agreed. Some of the soldiers insist that the firing was opened from the di- rection of the steel bridge and arroyo, while others are satisfied that it came from the Greeks in the railroad cut. From whatever soun > the firing came, the first of it was di- rci-td toward the soldiers' tents, but it must very soon have been directed generally against 15 Water Tank Hill and the whole countryside between that point and the Hastings Canon. After the fire started, it was several minutes before the men on Water Tank Hill were di- rected to return it. The enlisted men in this position we find still resentful against their officers for withholding their fire so long. The position taken by the Greeks in the railroad cut was one that proved very difficult to drive them from. Thus the battle began, and its history from this time, as we learned it from all sources of eye-witnesses, is a history df the advance of the detachment on Water Tank Hill down the shaft of the "K," past the colony, to the capture of the steel bridge at the foot, which was not accomplished until after dark. Shortly after the firing commenced, it be- came very general. On the strikers' side it proceeded from the railroad cut, from the tent colony and from the arroyo beyond it. It was returned from Water Tank Hill, from a row of steel cars in the vicinity of the soldiers' tents, and from houses and stores along the road between the colony and the northern canon. Lieutenant Lawrence and three men advanced from Water Tank Hill toward the Greek posi- tion in the railroad cut with a view to dislodge the men shooting from that cover. One of these men, Private Martin, was shot through the neck. He called, "Lieutenant, I am hit." As the blood gushed out in spurts, the Lieu- tenant put his thumb into the wound and stopped the flow of blood. A first aid bandage was then applied. The strikers' fire proved in- supportable, and the squad withdrew, helping Martin back with them. They were compelled to leave Martin under cover and return without him. As they retreated the strikers followed until under cover. Several attempts were made by the soldters during the day to recover their wounded comrade, but it was not until the afternoon when Captain Carson arrived from Trinidad with reinforcements and another ma- chine gun that they were able to drive the strikers back and reach the place where Mar- tin lay. Just before dark this was accom- plished and Martin was discovered dead and mutilated. He had been shot through the mouth, powder stains evidencing that the gun was held against his lips. His head had been caved in, and his brains exuded on the ground. His arms had been broken. In such a way does the savage blood-lust of this Southern European peasantry find ex- pression. In this connection we find also that without exception where dying or wounded 16 adversaries, whether soldiers or civilians, had fallen into the hands of these barbarians they were tortured or mutilated. The coroner and other civilian witnesses testified before us as to the condition of the corpses recovered in the many battles in the Southern field. Hocker- smith, killed near Aguilar, Dougherty and Chavez, killed near Delagua, and many others, were all tortured or mutilated when dead or dying. As we prepare this report Kanor Lester is deliberately slain at Walsenburg while at- tending the wounded under the protection of the Red Cross of Geneva, recognized as in- violable by civilized men the world over. It is shocking to think of our Colorado youth de- fending their state and exposed to practices of savagery unheard of save in the half-believed tales of the Sicilian Camorra. ~ The recovery of Martin's body, thus muti- lated, we find to have had the effect of exciting his comrades to a frenzy, which may account for some things that took place later near the tent colony itself. Lieutenant Lawrence engaged the Greeks in the railroad cut all day long. We find that he never left Water Tank Hill, except to advance against the cut. His machine gun was used only in that direction until late in the after- noon. Captain Linderfelt and two lieutenants of the same name, with other men on Water Tank Hill, sought all day to advance down the shaft of our letter "K" to the steel bridge and arroyo at the northern end. In the meantime Lieutenant Benedict and the men at the mili- tary camp, reinforced later by Troop "A" from Hastings, who came down the northern canon, were engaging the strikers firing from the arroyo, the tent colony and beyond. During the morning the men fighting around the two groups of tents were reinforced by "A" Troop, the non-union men from Hastings, and also by the mine guards from both canons. In the afternoon the men on Water Tank Hill were joined by Captain Carson and a number of "A" Troop men from Trinidad and vicinity with an- other machine gun. Along toward dusk Lieu- tenant K. E. Linderfelt was able to advance as far as the railroad station, about 600 yards from the tent colony. His advance from this point to the colony and beyond to the steel bridge and the arroyo was covered by the two machine guns on Water Tank Hill, which were trained on the strikers retreating along the line of the railroad and on the steel bridge, after having finally dislodged those who had been firing all day from the cut. This the first time the niMfinm. .mnis \\cre turned 17 in the direction of the colony, and that they were trained down the railroad right-of-way and not upon the colony is evident from the most casual inspection. We found the fences, water tanks, pump house and other objects on the right-of-way riddled with machine gun bul- let-holes, but posts, chicken-houses and other objects that remained standing directly in front of the colony and in the line of fire appeared to be scathless, thus proving beyond any doubt that the colony was never at any time swept by the machine guns. This does not mean that the machine guns were not fired into the col- ony, as we shall presently show that they were, but it does show that there was no general and wanton mowing down of the tents, as has been imputed. Under the protection of the ma- chine guns' fire, Captain Linderfelt, Captain Carson and Lieutenant K. E. Linderfelt were from this time able to advance steadily. They were accompanied by part of the Water Tank Hill detachment, the reinforcements from Trin- idad in civilians' clothes, and some mine guards. Their fire was returned from their front all along the arroyo and from the tent colony itself. The men to the west between the colony and the canon were about this time likewise able to press closer to the arroyo and the tent colony. As both these forces ap- proached the colony the heaviest fire seemed to come from the very tents themselves. The fire of all was for the first time drj wn directly into the colony. It was then that Major Hamrock tested his range with the machine guns on Water Tank Hill and sent them directly into the first tents of the colony itself, at the same time the strikers' fire drew a return from all combatants into the same tents. It was this concentrated fire upon the nearest tents in the southwest corner of the colony that set them on fire. It could not be supposed that any women, children or other non-combatants re- mained in the colony itself. The women and children had been seen departing early in the morning, and it was impossible to believe that the strikers would draw the fire of their oppo- nents from all sides into the colony if any women and children remained therein. Shortly after the fire started the detonation of some high explosive like some giant powder or dynamite was both heard and seen. From one of the tents a shower of its contents could be seen rising high in the air, emitting a blaze of fire. As one tent caught after another, sev- eral other explosions occurred. During this time some of the men, having nearly reached the tent colony, heard the screams of women 18 and called to men whom they saw firing from between the tents to get their women out. The only answer was the words, "You go to hell," spoken with a foreign accent and accompanied by a rain of shots. The men in the colony being driven back and the presence of women being thus known, Captain Carson, Lieutenant Linderfelt and other officers and men, made a dash in among the burning tents for the pur- pose of rescuing the women and children. At first they took several women from the tents, some of which were on fire and some not; then they discovered some subterranean pits be- neath many of the tents and that some of them were stored with human occupants. The rescue work was most difficult, as the women refused to accompany the soldiers and even fought against being taken away. They said after- wards that they believed the soldiers would kill them. They had to be dragged to places of safety. When the pits were discovered the difficulty of getting out the women and chil- dren was increased. Captain Linderfelt took a woman from one tent who could not speak English, but who made him understand that he must return. She went back with him and in- dicated one of these holes in the ground, from which the Lieutenant took two little children, just in the nick of time. He stalked from the colony with these children in his arms. Cap- tain Carson relates that when he was in an apparently open-floored tent he heard the cry- ing or whining of something" living beneath. He had to chop away the floor, which was nailed down upon these people in order to get them out. These holes were so constructed as to conceal their presence and the openings to them were usually hidden by the bed or some article of furniture being placed above them. During the whole time that this rescue work was going forward the colony was under fire from the arroyo, so that not only did the officers and men have to contend with the fire and with the reluctance of the deluded people they were rescuing, but were taking the greatest chances of destruction by making targets of themselves in the light of the burning tents. We find that the work of rescuing these women and children, to the number of some twenty- five or thirty, by Lieutenant Linderfelt, Captain Carson, and the squads at their command, was under all the circumstances, truly heroic and must stand out boldly in contradistinction to ili'- abandonment of the helpless women and children by their own people and the subse- quent efforts to kill their rescuers, regardless of the safety of the rescued. It was supposed 19 by the officers, after a thorough search of the colony, that all of the remaining women and children had been taken out. The event proved that one of the pits had been missed in the search. In this pit were subsequently discov- ered two women and eleven children, all dead. This chamber of death measured in feet 8x6x4 y 2 . When found it was almost closed. The quantity of air contained in such a space we found could not have supported the life of these occupants for many hours. Their bodies, when found, bore heartrending evi- dences of their struggles to get out. If these women and children were placed in this pit at any time during the morning, it is our belief that they died of suffocation hours before the tents caught fire. Among those taken out of the colony by the rescue parties was a man named Snyder and his family. The man carried in his arms the dead body of his little son. This boy had been shot in the forehead and was indeed the only person shot in the colony. A story was given wide publicity that this lad was ruthlessly shot down by the soldiers while trying to get a drink of water for his dying mother. Snyder came to the depot with this dead child in his arms, and there, in the pres- ence of many civilians and officers, related how the boy had gone outside to answer a call of nature and had faced toward the arroyo from which the strikers' fire was coming, when he was accidentally hit in the forehead by the bullet that caused his death. It was Snyder who told in this conversation how the Greeks had planned this battle for their Easter the day before. At that time, whatever he may say now, his resentment was bitter against the Greeks in the colony, whom he blamed for everything that had happened. A collection was taken up among the officers and the sol- diers, amounting to some eighteen dollars, and given to refugees. During the rescuing and afterwards, the tent colony was invaded by the soldiers and mine guards for quite a different purpose. By this time the uniformed guardsmen had been joined by large numbers of men in civilian attire, -part of whom were from Troop "A" and part of them mine guards, all unknown to the uni- formed soldiers and their officers and all un- used and unamenable to discipline. By this time, the time of the burning of the tents, the nondescript number of men had passed out of their officers' control, had ceased to be an army and had become a mob. Doubtless all were seeing red on both sides of the conflict. This may account for the insane shooting by the 20 strikers during the rescue of their women and children, and it may also account for what happened in the tents. We find that the tents were not all of them destroyed by accidental fire. Men and soldiers swarmed into the col- ony and deliberately assisted the conflagra- tion by spreading the fire from tent to tent Beyond a doubt it was seen to intentionally that the fire should destroy the whole of the colony. This, too, was accompanied by the usual loot. Men and soldiers seized and took from the tents whatever appealed to their fancy of the moment. In this way, clothes, bedding, articles of jewelry, bicycles, tools and utensils were taken from the tents and con- veyed away. So deliberate was this burning and looting that we find that cans of oil found in tlie tents were poured upon them and the tents lit with matches. From a tent marked "John Lawson's Headquarters" were taken a store of new underclothes and a mass of am- munition piled in thousand-round boxes. It has been said that the next morning there re- mained standing tents which were afterwards destroyed. A very careful investigation of that statement has led us to a settled belief, and we so find that all of the tents were burned on Monday night and that what burning ana looting there was was completed before morn- Ing. To return now to the progress of the battle, while the tents were burning and after the rescue work had been completed and the | women and children cared for, the men under Captain Linderfelt pressed on down the rail- road, and after a stubborn fight took and occu- pied and held the steel bridge that commanded the arroyo. The taking of this bridge ended the battle. From this time on for several hours the firing continued, but in gradually diminish- ing volume, until it ceased altogether, about midnight. In taking the steel bridge two men had been left at a pump house between the colony and arroyo. At this point these men took a pris- oner who proved to be Tikas, Louis the Greek. The men brought this prisoner back along the railroad to the Cross-Roads at the corner of the colony, and called out, "We've got Louis the Greek." Immediately between fifty and seventy-five men, uniformed soldiers, men of Troop "A" and mine guards, rushed to that point. Lieutenant Linderfelt came up with the others. Tikas was then turned over to the Lieutenant, his captors returning to their post. Some words ensued between the Lieutenant and Tikas over the responsibility for the day's 21 doing's. Lieutenant Linderfelt swung his rifle over Louis' head, breaking the stock of the gun. There were cries of "Lynch him" from the crowd. Someone ran into the tent colony and got a rope and threw it over a telegraph pole. Lieutenant Linderfelt had difficulty in restraining the crowd. He declared that there should be no lynching and turned the prisoner over to Sergeant Cullen, with instructions that he would hold the Sergeant responsible for Tikas' life. About this time two other pris- oners were brought to the Cross-Roads, whom Captain Linderfelt had captured at the steel bridge and sent down. These were Filer, the secretary of the union, and an unknown whom we believe, however, to have been Frank Ru- bino. Sergeant Cullen in turn turned his pris- oners over to Privates Mason and Pacheco. Lieutenant Linderfelt then went back along the tracks to the station. During this time the group of men and prisoners at the Cross-Roads was standing erect in the glare of the burning- tents; they were not firing but afforded an ex- cellent target to their adversaries. Shortly after the departure of Lieutenant Linderfelt, firing was resumed. The men returned to their places under cover of the railroad embankment and recommenced firing into the colony. The three prisoners ran through this fire toward the tents and were all shot before they reached them. Tikas was shot in the back, showing that he was killed from the soldiers' side. Filer, however, who got nearest to the tents, was shot in front, showing that he was killed from the strikers' side. The unknown, who dropped between the other two, we have no information of. Two bullets passed clear through the body of Tikas, showing that they must have been steel-jacketed bullets, such as are used by the soldiers and also by some, of the mine guards and Troop "A" men. The one bullet that was found in his body is a soft-nosed bullet, which is an ammunition never used by the soldiers. In speaking of the different kinds of bullets used in the battle of Ludlow, we are led to controvert a statement that the soldiers and men supporting them used explosive bullets. It is not difficult to understand why this mis- take is made. The steel-jacketed bullet used in the present Springfield rifle makes a noise in passing through the air very like an explo- sion. By the sound alone it could very easily be mistaken for an explosive bullet. The bul- let extracted from Louis Tikas was not an ex- plosive bullet. It was submitted to us by the coroner and we found it to be a very common type of soft-nosed bullet. While not inhuman, 22 like explosive and poisoned bullets, still it is a thing prohibited under the rules of civilized warfare. The strikers that day were actually using explosive and poisoned bullets, as many such were recovered. The explosive bullet contains at its nose a small percussion cap which, upon striking, explodes a charge within and scatters the bullet in tiny fragments, thus tearing a large and ghastly hole in anything in which it is imbedded. Some of the poisoned bullets contain no poison, being a composition of lead and copper instead of steel and nickel, as our bullets are now made. Others are filled with verdigris. The former ammunition was used for a while shortly after the Civil War, and has been universially known as a poisoned bullet, because it sets up blood poisoning al- most instantly wherever it penetrates the human body. There is little left to tell. The remaining hours of the night were spent by both sides in desultory firing, gradually dying out about mid- night. The refugees from the tent colony seem to have betaken themselves in a general east- erly and northeasterly direction to the farm houses on the plains and the cover of the Black Hills low hills, two or three miles to the east rising from the plains. These hills swarmed with men all the next day. The tent colony continued to burn in fact, it burned all of Monday night and Tuesday night. Whether or not some tents remained standing on Tues- day morning which were then destroyed by men in uniform, as has been stated, we were unable to determine. Such a thing is possible, but not probable, in our judgment. Around about midnight Monday the soldiers and their allies were withdrawn from the field of battle and given a few hours' sleep. Before the dawn on Tuesday they were all awakened and sent to occupy the commanding positions in all di- rections at some distance from Ludlow. This was done in expectation of a renewed attack. It is this circumstance, of which there can be no doubt, that leads us to the belief that there were no soldiers in the vicinity of the tent colony when daylight broke on Tuesday and that all the tents were destroyed on Monday night. We find that the dominant feeling among the refugee colonists on Monday night and before a second thought came to them or was sug- gested to them, was resentment against the Greeks for starting the battle, which was bound to entail results that it did. This feeling of resentment against the Greeks prevailed even over their resentment against the soldiers, but 23 the incident was later made a handle to inflame the minds of these deluded men to the acts of slaughter and rapine that followed throughout the state. It was made the excuse of many bold and defiant utterances and acts of treason against the state by certain .union leaders, who had the opportunity by their influence and au- thority to prove themselves really great and good men and worthy citizens. Instead, by all means of exaggeration, incendiarism and treasonable practices, they made of the battle of Ludlow a means of organizing a real rebel- lion, with its attendant awful consequences. We do not presume even to hint where the ultimate responsibility lies in the present strike. It may be that the coal operators or the union are wholly to blame for the condi- tions that have made such results possible; it may be that both sides are partly at fault. But the conditions having been brought about and being actually existent, whatever the cause, we feel that for their treason and re- bellion against -organized society, with the hor- rible consequences of anarchy that followed, certain union leaders must take the respon- sibility before man and God. Findings of the Board 1. We find that the remote cause of this, as of all other battles, lies with the coal opera- tors, who established in an American industrial community a numerous class of ignorant, law- less and savage South-European peasants. The present underlying cause was the presence near Ludlow, in daily contact one with another, of three discordant elements strikers, soldiers and mine guards, all armed and fostering an in- creasing deadly hatred which sooner or later was bound to find some such expression. The immediate cause of the battle was an attack upon the soldiers by the Greek inhabitants of the tent colony, who misinterpreted a move- ment of troops on a neighboring hill. 2. These Greeks and the more violent ele- ment of the strikers had prepared for such an event by bringing back into the colony the arms secreted to escape the searches of the guardsmen. This was done in the latter part of March. They also secured a large amount of ammunition, and awaited a favorable mo- ment for an engagement in which they hoped to catch the soldiers unprepared, and thus wipe out the defense of Hastings and Berwind Canon. Their plans miscarried and the battle precip- itated suddenly on Monday morning was unex- pected by all. 24 3. A military detail went to the colony to demand of Louis Tikas, the colony leader, the release of a man said to be detained by the strikers. The man was not delivered. Hot words passed between the soldiers and strikers. When the detail left, the Greeks, over the pro- test of their leader, ran for their guns and threatened to fight. Major Hamrock brought the detachment from Cedar Hill down to Water Tank Hill, in plain view of the colony, pre- paratory to searching the colony for its al- leged prisoner. Some excitable women, seeing these troops on the hill, and nervous over the actions of the Greeks, rushed into the colony, screaming that the soldiers were about to at- tack. 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 dead bodies were found between the colony and the cut. As the Greeks were in open coun- try, the machine gun, if fired, would have mowed them down. 4. The Greeks, always warlike and obstrep- erous, 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. They had their guns in hand with the intention of starting trouble when the soldiers appeared on the hill. 5. The women and children of other na- tionalities rushed to the protection of an arroyo in the rear of the colony. Some took shelter in pits prepared for such use under the tents. The presence of these pits and the women and chil- dren in them was unknown to the soldiers. Many men in the colony seized their guns and took up a position in this arroyo and on the railroad bridge that crossed it. 6. Private Albert Martin, while dying, or after death, was horribly mutilated by the strikers. We find this practice to be cus- tomary with these people in battle. 7. The origin of the fire in the tent colony was accidental; that is to say, it was due either to an overturned stove, an explosion of some sort, or the concentrated fire directed at one time against some of the tents. The fire began in the corner nearest the Cross-Roads. After- wards it was deliberately spread by the com- batants. During the fire the soldiers, upon learning that women and children were still in the colony, went through the tents, calling upon all the persons in the colony to come forth, and with difficulty rescuing men, women and children to the number of some twenty-five 25 or thirty, including one William Snyder and his family. Then the tents were fired. 8. The troops engaged in the beginning were the regularly enlisted and uniformed mem- bers of Company B, Second Infantry, armed with Springfield U. S. Army rifles, shooting only the cupro-nickel bullet as manufactured for the army. They had one machine gun. Later in the day they were reinforced by a second machine gun. There were also the un- uniformed members of Troop A, mine guards and deputy sheriffs, all of whom were using a miscellaneous assortment of arms and ammu- nition. 9. During the evening 1 Louis Tikas, James Filer and an unknown striker were taken pris- oners. Lieutenant K. E. Linderfelt swung his Springfield rifle, breaking the stock, over the head of his prisoner, Tikas. A group of be- tween fifty and seventy-five, composed of sol- diers, the ununiformed men of Troop A, mine guards and deputy sheriffs, was present with these prisoners. An attempt to hang Tikas went so far that a rope was procured and thrown over a telegraph pole. This lynching was prevented by Lieut. K. E. Linderfelt, who turned Tikas over to a non-commissioned of- ficer, whom he directed to be responsible for his life, and then departed. Shortly after- wards all three prisoners were killed by gun- shot wounds. The crowd and prisoners were colony, and these men were shot while running about fifty yards from the corner of the tent toward the tents. The evidence is conflicting whether they were made to run or tried to escape. Tikas, after running a few feet, fell, shot three times in the back. The only bullet found in his body was of a kind not used by the soldiers, although the two other wounds might have been made by the Springfield bul- lets of the uniformed men. Filer fell after run- ning some distance beyond, having reached the colony. The evidence is also conflicting whether at the time these men were killed, shots were being interchanged between the soldiers and their allies with the tent colony, but Filer was shot in the front while running toward the tents. 10. Eleven children and two women were smothered to death in a small pit under one of the tents. None of them was hit by a bullet. This pit was not large enough to support the life of such a number for many hours. The construction of the pit made it a veritable death-trap, and its inmates probably died from suffocation before the tents were burned. When 26 found there were no signs that the women and children had crowded into the entrance of the pit, as would have been the case had they at- tempted to rush out when the tent above caught fire. 11. We find that the colony was looted by participants and spectators in the battle. About 15,000 rounds of ammunition were taken from the tent marked "Headquarters of John Law- son." 12. All women and children have been ac- counted for. Every possible pit or cellar has been examined, and no bodies remain in the colony. 13. Only one person was killed or wounded in the colony itself by gunshot. Frank Snyder, a twelve-year-old boy, was shot in the head. His father stated that evening that this boy had gone outside the tent upon a call of nature and was shot in the forehead while facing the arroyo from which the strikers' fire came. 14. The colony was not swept with the ma- chine guns. This is proven by the fact that the chicken-houses, out-houses, tent frames and posts still standing in the colony exhibit no bullet-holes, while the buildings and fences along the railroad track are riddled with bullet- holes made by the machine gun trained on the steel bridge and pump house. 15. The soldiers were lawfully and dutifully bearing arms. It was lawful for them to pos- sess the machine gun and to bring it to the hill. The strikers, on the other hand, were acting unlawfully in securing and using their arms and ammunition. No attack upon the colony had ever been made or intended by the soldiers, and the explanatiou that arms and ammunition were kept in the colony for de- fense is untenable. 16. We find that in apparent anticipation of a preparation for the battle at Ludlow, rifle pits were prepared by the strikers on the south side of their colony along the county road and close to the tents and along the west side of the colony. These rifle pits show conclusively the careful and deliberate preparation of the strikers for battle, and their location along the front and side of the colony nearest to the military camp was such that when used they could not be defended against without firing into the colony. Such care had the strikers themselves for their women and children that these pits were located where any return of the fire from them would be drawn directly into the colony itself. 27 Recommendations of the Board We make the following 1 recommendations: A. Feeling that this board of officers was not constituted to determine possible guilt or innocence, we recommend that a general court martial be appointed to try all officers and en- listed men participating in the treatment and killing of prisoners, and the burning and loot- ing of the tent colony. B. We recommend to the legislature the es- tablishment of a permanent state constabulary for police duty in disturbed regions of the state, whereby the young men of our volunteer National Guard may be relieved from engaging in riot duty with a people numbering among them ferocious foreigners whose savagery in fight we found exemplified in the killing of Major Lester while under Red Cross protec- tion, and the maiming and mutilation of Pri- vates Martin, Hockersmith and Chavez. C. We strongly urge the state and federal governments to proceed at once to the appre- hension and punishment of all persons engaged as instigators or participants in the treasons, murders, arsons and other acts of outlawry in this state since the battle of Ludlow. Respectfully submitted, EDWARD J. BOUGHTON, Major and Judge Advocate. WILLIAM C. DANKS, Captain, First Infantry. PHILIP S. VAN CISB, Captain, First Infantry. 28 Additional Recommendation of Major Boughton I feel it my duty to add a recommendation to those made by the Board of Officers. Be- lieving that the outbreak at Ludlow was di- rectly due to the presence near each other of deadly enemies in the persons of strikers, non- union workmen and mine guards, festering a canker of hate and brutality of which the battle was the inevitable expression, I greatly fear that the same forces again at work will again develop the same or a similar result. To my thinking, good citizenship demands that these elements of rapine and slaughter be kept apart. As the mines and coal camps cannot be moved away, I recommend that the Commanding Gen- eral and the Governor urge upon the command- ing officer of the federal troops the unwisdom and danger of permitting the tent colony to be re-established at Ludlow. My brother officers do not feel the necessity for such a step. EDWARD J. BOUGHTON, Major and Judge Advocate. 29