MINERS ON STRIKE.

Grey River Argus, 30 May 1914, Page 2

MINERS ON STRIKE.

BATTLE WITH THE MILITARY. MANY KILLED IN AMERICA. (Per Independent Cable Service.) SAN FRANCISCO, April 27. For three days last week there was actual warfare between the <-o<"itoune strikers of Ludlow district^ Coljrario, and the military. The deaths wire greater in number than the \mericai losses in the takmgp-of Vera Cruz frcm Mexico. At least twenty-five lives are know nto ihave been lost, and <(iue statem-ents place the number a? high , as fifty. The officials of the United Mine Workers' in a telegram *o Saiwl Gompers, president of the xVmoric^n Federaion of Labour, at Washington, used the following imploiing Irxiguage: "Will you, for God's sakij and in the name of humanity, cujl noon al lof your citizenship to demand of the President & f the Um:-d States and both Houses of Corur^ss that they leavo Mexico ' alone and < orje iii<o Colorado to relieve these miners, their wives and children:'? .More than _fourJM*J3d red armed strik-. ers faced the State grtjitia in the battle. Each side-holds the,other t blameworthy for the outbreak of violence. Major Hamrock, in chaTge of the militia, declares that the fighting was precipitated by a crowd of. Greek strikers under one Louis Tikas, who opened fire upon a detachment of his men while they were drilling near the miltary camp. Earlier in the day Maior Hamrock had ordered' Takas to release a striker who^, it was asserted, was desirous of returning, to' work- Tikas, ii one of those killed\in' the. fighting. According to the strikers' side of ; the controversy, Tikas went to meet Major Ham rock, at the latter' s request, and never returned. The-fighting- then began. The most lamentable feature of the blody outbreak was the loss of women's and children's -life that it involved. , Of the. jsjcHtal seven .were killed by bullet wounds. The strikers' camp tvas a kind of tent city ? most of them- having been living ' under with their families for some montrs past. , This camp was within the zone, of , 'the battle, -and in order to .the women and'childrerii, holes'; were dust in the ground unde>r thVitents. _.' -However, thevitents caught fire/- Vain aj least 15 Women and were * either hurned or smothered? to death. Labour leaders charge that the military deliberately fired" upon the tent^camp, but this is emphatically '• denied by the military au thorites, ' st who say 'they do not Know how the fire started. Major 'Hamrock .believes the number of .dead to be 33-.- This is- undoubtedly the mosfr seriousf strike" war since the -fighting; in the sameC, State ten yeats^ago, 'surpassing in* loss of life and bitterness of feeling trie conflict I of the Michigan capjperminers with the 1 military authorities^ The Governor of Colorado; v who was in Washington attending to national business when the armed./ hostiitdes began, at once returned. -A special! session of the State Legislature km deal with the crisis , has .been summoned*