Page:Van Cise exhibits to the Commision on Industrial Relations regarding Colorado coal miner's strike.djvu/14

7324 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 can not be moved away, I recommend that the commanding general and the governor urge upon the commanding officer of the Federal troops the unwisdom and danger of permitting the tent colony to be reestablished at Ludlow.

My brother officers do not feel the necessity for such a step.

VAN CISE EXHIBIT NO. 2. [Article written May 30, 1914, as the situation then appeared.]

[By Philip S. Van Cis.e, captain, National Guard of Colorado.]

What Colorado needs is toleration, calm judgment, and a strict enforcement of all laws. 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. What the Nation needs is radically amended immigration laws that will keep out anarchists and lawlessly inclined Italians, Greeks, and other south European peoples.

The present situation is an armed truce. 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. Property values have materially decreased, investors are frightened from the State, positions are insecure, and the great third party, the public, does the suffering.

On the merits of the strike much can be said on both sides. A premise to any fair statement must be that there is little law in Las Animas and Huerfano Counties when operators and miners are participants. (The strike has likewise spread into violence in Fremont, Rotitt, and Boulder Counties, but this statement does not apply to them, as far different and very excellent conditions exist there.) 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. The school facilities are at least average, and the school building is the usual place for the moving-picture shows, dances, and other entertainments of the camp. But they are not open for any assembly of the men to discuss social welfare, wages, or law enforcement. Nor are the men allowed to gather for that purpose. The employment of a mixture of nationalities aids the operators in their work of keeping the men apart.

The strikers, after they went out of the mines, received widespread publicity for their claims that the operators had machine guns trained on their camps,