The capitalist class is always on strike against the working class.
-Mary R Alspaugh
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Tuesday May 25, 1915
From the International Socialist Review: Mary R. Alspaugh on the Colorado Miners
Readers of
Hellraisers will recall the description by Mrs. Alspaugh, featured in the April edition of the
Review, which told of the hardships endured by the former strikers in Colorado since the end of the strike. In this month's
International Socialist Review, an article by Mary Alspaugh again offers a look into the strike and it's aftermath from the point of view of a class-conscious miner's wife.
Mrs. Alspaugh offers some thoughts about the over-powering forces summoned by the capitalist class to crush the miners and their families as they struggle for a decent standard of living. And she deplores the lack of class-consciousness that prevails in mining camps:
During the strike here the miners' wives and daughters organized a woman's auxiliary. A discussion came up in one of the meetings as to whether or not we should patronize a certain merchant who was accused of being "unfair." In fact, there was strong evidence that he was unfair, but one member objected to any discrimination on the ground that she did not believe in "tearing down what it had taken a lifetime to build up." A very remarkable statement, it seemed to me, to come from a "strong union woman," especially in the face of the fact that this very class of people had robbed us of all we had slaved for all our dull, drab lives, and that the very merchant in question was at that moment undermining the Socialist movement—the hope of the laboring class.
From the International Socialist Review of May 1915:
BETWEEN MEALS IN A MINER'S CABIN
By Mary R. Alspaugh
WHEN the miners of Colorado went on strike in 1913 they soon found that they were not striking against the operators merely, but against every petty business and professional man, every politician, coupon clipper, landlord, railroad magnate and banker, against every profit-monger, interest taker and appropriator of unearned increment, against every chamber of commerce, against the whole world of thieves generally, within a radius of a million miles. They called themselves organized, unionized, but the organization that arose and advanced upon them the moment they showed their teeth was to their organization what the light of the noonday sun is to a firefly. They were like matches trying to hold back two-foot timbers.
The capitalists, big and little, were well enough organized that when the strike began and a stand was taken against the operators, the whole class of business and professional people rallied to their support. They said, most emphatically, that they could not abide strikes, that unions made them nervous, and that the outside agitator and organizer was an abomination in the sight of the Lord and an ever-present source of trouble. And this in the face of the fact that they maintain a standing strike against the workers year in and year out, decade upon decade, generation after generation.
The capitalist class is always on strike against the working class. If we will not or cannot pay the price they demand for their goods they immediately declare "closed shop" against us and withhold them. In vain do we argue that we cannot possibly meet their demands; that they will take our homes and starve our children; that this will put us in the streets and baby faces will be pinched with cold; in vain do we cry that it is not humanly possible for us to meet their prices; in vain do we plead with them to stave off the evil day for a little longer—till times get a little better—till work is a little more plentiful. In short, we cry for a chance to just live. We are not concerned with profits. We might as well appeal to a pillar of salt.
And mark you that this is the godly element. Church workers tell us that it is the working people who are largely untouched by the church. But when they cannot or will not pay the price we demand for what we have to sell and we plan to withhold our commodity (labor), every branch of the government, legislative, judicial and executive, from the president down to the county sheriff and local justice of the peace, is at our throats like so many bulldogs. And mark you, this, also, is the godly element. President Wilson, ex-Governor Ammons, General Chase and our local sheriff are not ungodly men; neither are the operators nor the militiamen ungodly, and especially is John D. a godly man.
Bibles in New York; Bullets in Colorado
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It is all a question of being well enough organized to get away with it. And the class that controls the bread supply always comes out best. But the capitalist class is organized politically and industrially, while the working class is not even organized industrially. The workers even vote the capitalist ticket! Who ever heard of a capitalist voting the workers' ticket!
This same class of people who depend upon us for their support and berate us all the time because we cannot pay our bills are at our throats like a pack of wolves the minute we attempt to secure a better wage in order that we may be able to pay them their bills. And these are the persons that we have been accustomed to call intelligent, whom we send to represent our interests in the most important affairs of our lives! ! !
Rockefeller's Style of
Law and Order
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The "law and order" gang have taken from us all that is sacred—our homes, our fires, our liberty, our means of life and even our children—and in its stead have given us—GOD. We live in an age of superstition and every working man and woman who can be corralled is stuffed and crammed with it.
There is no class of people today with whom the truth is so unpopular as it is with the so-called Christians. Introduce the truth to your local sky pilot, try to interest him in Socialism, and see if he doesn't recoil as though you had struck him and tell you with a hard look on his face that it is repugnant to him; that he considers it profane and thinks it very unbecoming in you to speak slightingly of John D. and George Washington. The chances are fifty to one that he will get downright insulting before you part. I have never found any one harder to interest in Socialism than the so-called Christian. He seems to have absolutely no room in his makeup for anything containing an element of the truth.
The Christian will tell you that the way to make the world happier is to Christianize it. Now, as a matter of fact, Christianity will not bring more happiness, but more misery to the race, for Christianity teaches and preaches against the desire for material things. This idea is the mainspring of all its activities. The church has taught its doctrine of noncombativeness, self-sacrifice, meekness, lowliness, turn the other cheek, and the lack of self-respect and self-preservation generally. It has preached against every form of wholesome worldly amusement, against every form of physical gratification, whether it be of food, clothing or bodily comfort generally, until the standard of living has been so lowered it is well nigh impossible to lower it any more. Capitalism has only to tighten its strangle hold a little and the whole race will be chattel slaves. The church can well afford to crumble to dust now, for she has done her work and done it well.
Some time when you cannot pay your month's grocery bill go to your grocer and say to him, kindly: "Mr. Jones, I am very sorry, but on account of being out of work so much I am unable to pay you what I owe you. I regret it very much, but even if you haven't so many material things, there is comfort in the thought that you will have more time to reflect on your spiritual blessings," and see if he doesn't rush right out after the constable and send him down to your house to take the baby's cradle and the cook stove and your bedsprings and mattress, your pillows and the pretty quilts your wife pieced when she was a little girl, and the swiss curtains and the eight-day clock and the rugs your mother worked on for so many years, your little girl's rocking chair and the mirror your brother gave you when you were married and, incidentally, anything else that you happen to possess.
Christ drove this class of people out of the temple and called them thieves. Today we call them merchants, or even Christians. I wonder what Christ would say if He should come back to earth today!
There are some who will object to these sentiments on the ground that they do not believe in attacking a person's religion. Right, provided, however, that religion does not interfere with my means of obtaining a livelihood, but the moment a person's belief begins to affect my bread and butter supply it becomes a matter of the gravest concern to me. The person who supports the church of today either financially or morally is either consciously or unconsciously a traitor to the proletarian movement.
How often we hear it said that "business is business," which means, in plain Anglo-Saxon that any crime on the calendar immediately ceases to be a crime when tagged with the magic word "business," and that those having tickets of admission may do with impunity those things which carry with them a prison sentence or worse when committed by those without the charmed circle. It is the world-old scheme for control by the few of the many, or in other words of getting something for nothing.
During the strike here the miners' wives and daughters organized a woman's auxiliary. A discussion came up in one of the meetings as to whether or not we should patronize a certain merchant who was accused of being "unfair." In fact, there was strong evidence that he was unfair, but one member objected to any discrimination on the ground that she did not believe in "tearing down what it had taken a lifetime to build up." A very remarkable statement, it seemed to me, to come from a "strong union woman," especially in the face of the fact that this very class of people had robbed us of all we had slaved for all our dull, drab lives, and that the very merchant in question was at that moment undermining the Socialist movement—the hope of the laboring class.
The Ruins of Ludlow.
The homes and earthly belongings of 1200 residents destroyed.
Money and valuables that survived the fire were stolen.
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Is it any wonder that we lost the strike: Is it any wonder that the U. M. W. A. has lost thirteen consecutive strikes? Is it any wonder that the Socialist movement is a wreck in the wake of the A. F. of L.? Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church and Father Peter Dietz control our destinies to a big extent? Is it any wonder that the State Federation of Labor instructed union people to vote the capitalist tickets?
Is it any wonder that we have not been allowed a union store, but have had to spend every dollar of our strike relief for upwards of a year and a half with our antagonists and thus furnish them the funds with which to fight us? Is it any wonder that we have not had a union bank, but have allowed the capitalists' banks to handle the millions of dollars that have been spent on the Colorado strike and thus furnished them with funds again? Is it any wonder that the United Mine Workers of Colorado are starving today and have to rub the grain out of barley hay (when they can get it) and eat it? Is it any wonder that the U. M. W. A. is a thousand years behind the times?
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[Emphasis, paragraph breaks and photographs added.]
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SOURCE
The International Socialist Review, Volume 15
ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
C.H. Kerr, July 1914 - June 1915
http://books.google.com/...
ISR of May 1915
https://books.google.com/...
"Between Meals in a Miner's Cabin"
-by Mary R Alspaugh
https://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
Refugees from Ludlow in Trinidad from International Socialist Review of June 1914, search link with "Class War in Colorado"
http://books.google.com/...
The Masses Cover June 1914 Ludlow
http://dlib.nyu.edu/...
Governor Ammons, Baby, Ludlow Massacre,
Fink, 1914
https://archive.org/...
The Masses June 1914
Rockefeller Groping for the Light
http://dlib.nyu.edu/...
Death Special
http://www.du.edu/...
The Labor World, Duluth, Minnesota,
March 14, 1914
https://www.facebook.com/...
The Masses June 1914 Ludlow by Pancoast
http://dlib.nyu.edu/...
Ludlow Destroyed by Dold
http://www.wsws.org/...
Ludlow Massacre, Crucified
http://john-adcock.blogspot.com/...
See also:
"Reward of the Miners" by Mary R. Alspaugh
http://www.dailykos.com/...
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One of These Days -Emmy Lou Harris
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