Page:Van Cise exhibits to the Commision on Industrial Relations regarding Colorado coal miner's strike.djvu/2

7312 Maj. Hamrock brought the detachment from Cedar Hill down to Water Tank Hill, in plain view of the colony, preparatory to searching the colony for its alleged 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 attack,

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. 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 nationalities 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 children 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. Pvt. Albert Martin, while dying or after death, was horribly mutilated by the strikers. We find this practice to be customary with these people in battle.

7. 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 crossroads. Afterwards it was deliberately spread by the combatants. During the fire the soldiers, upon learning that women and children were still in the colony, went through the tents, calling upon all persons in the colony to come forth, and with difficulty rescuing men, women, and children to the number of some 25 or 30, 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 members of Company B, Second Infantry, armed with Springfield United States Army rifles, shooting on 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 ununiformed members of Troop A, mine guards and deputy sheriffs; all of them were using a miscellaneous assortment of arms and ammunition.

9. During the evening Louis Tikas, James Fyler, and an unknown striker were taken prisoners. Lieut. K. E. Linderfelt swung his Springfield rifle, breaking the stock over the head of the prisoner Tikas.

A group of between 50 and 75, composed of soldiers, the uniformed men of Troop A, mine guards, and deputy sheriffs, were 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. Linderfelt, who turned Tikas over to a noncommissioned officer, whom he directed to be responsible for his life, and then departed.

Shortly afterwards all three prisoners were killed by gunshot wounds. The crowd and prisoners were about 50 yards from the corner of the tent colony, and these men were shot while running toward the tent. 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 bullets of the uniformed men. Fyler fell after running 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 Fyler 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 found there were no signs that the women and children had crowded into the