The Coal War

by Upton Sinclair

  It is their claim that rifle-firing was begun by the strikers, and had continued for some minutes, before the three signal-bombs were set off by the militia. Against this, the testimony of the strikers is unanimous that not a shot had been fired anywhere when the signal-bombs were heard. But my reason for rejecting the statement of the three militia officers is not the testimony of the strikers; it is the evidence brought before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, impugning the good faith of the officers upon this point. There was a disinterested witness available, Mr. M.G. Low, pump-man of the Colorado and Southern Railroad water-tank at Ludlow. This witness, a decent and fair-minded man, had watched the events from close at hand, and he testified that first Major Boughton and then Captain Van Cise came to him and questioned him as to what he had seen; he told them that the bombs had been fired first, and that the first sounds of rifle firing had come from the militia position on Water-tank Hill. Yet having had this statement, the officers failed to call him before their body or to mention his testimony in their report!

  The other contention of the militia report to which I have not considered it necessary to pay attention is the one that the first fire in the tent-colony “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 stoves at Ludlow were of the kitchen range variety, not to be upset by rifle bullets. As for the concentrated fire of rifle bullets setting fire to tent-canvas, I have not been able to find any military man who would consider such a theory. The statement seems the more superfluous, because the militia officers admit that shortly afterwards other tents were deliberately set fire to by the uniformed militiamen, in the manner described in the affidavits of the strikers and their wives. Here are four paragraphs from the report bearing upon this point:

  “We find that the tents were not all of them destroyed by accidental fire. Men and soldiers swarmed into the tent-colony and deliberately assisted the conflagration 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 conveyed away.

  “So deliberately was this burning and looting done that we find that cans of oil found in the tents were poured upon them and the tents lit with matches.”

  Now I have carefully investigated all the evidence bearing upon the Ludlow massacre, and believe it may safely be declared an established fact that the destruction of the tent-colony was deliberately carried out by militiamen; also that it had been planned in advance and was directed throughout by militia officers. There is, in the first place, the affidavit of Mrs. Susan D. Hollearin, postmistress at Ludlow, who witnessed a great deal of the fighting from her office, which was used as headquarters by the officers. She testified that before the fighting began she heard Major Hamrock say, “Line up, boys, and get ready.” She testifies that the bombs went off before any shots had been fired. She testifies that she heard Lieutenant Linderfelt, in command of the machine-guns, say, “Keep working on the tent-colony. Shoot everything that moves.” She testifies “I looked down and saw that one tent was on fire at that time. Later another tent caught fire. There was no wind, just a little breeze. The tents seemed to catch fire from the outside, and caught in spots. About the time the train came in, the women and children in the colony began to scream, and could be heard in the depot, and I heard the soldiers giving the women and children orders to ‘Get a move on you, and get the hell out of here,’ and such statements as that.” She testifies that in the morning, hearing that Mary Petrucci’s children were still inside the tents, she took a flag of truce. “When I got nearly there I saw three or four soldiers leaving. They had been firing the few remaining tents. I saw this.”

  There is the testimony of W.J. Hall before the Coroner’s inquest. Mr. Hall was the driver of an automobile, having nothing to do with the strike; he testified that he was stopped on the road by the militiamen, who took his car and used it for the moving of a machine-gun. He heard the orders given “to go in and clean out that colony. For them to drive out and then to burn the colony.”

  The testimony of Doctor Aca Harvey, of Aguilar, before the Coroner’s inquest. He was trying to attend a dying man who had been shot through the head. He carried a white flag, but was fired upon. The militia used explosive bullets. He saw two fires started separately. Mr. Hayes, his companion, climbed up onto the water-tower with his field-glasses, and described to him men in uniform throwing oil upon the tents, setting fire to them; he could see the blaze.

  R.J. McDonald, before the Coroner’s inquest, a military stenographer employed by the troops, went out with them to see the fighting, and at six P.M. he heard one of two militia officers (whom he named) say, “There is thirty minutes yet before dark, and we have to take and burn the tent-colony.”

  A.J. Reilly, freight-brakeman on the Colorado and Southern freight-train, stopped to let a passenger-train pass. He saw the tents blazing. “Saw a man in military uniform touch a match to the third tent. Ten or fifteen more stuck their guns up to our faces and told us to ‘move on and be damn quick about it,’ or they would shoot us.”

  “Did you say anything to those men?”

  “No, sir, not a word.”

  “Who were those men who stuck their guns up to your faces?”

  “Uniformed men.”

  The testimony of William Snyder, store-keeper at the Ludlow tent-colony, whose twelve-year-old boy had his brains shot out by an explosive bullet.

  “Did anybody come to your tent while you were there?”

  “Yes, the militia came there.”

  “What did they say to you?”

  “They set fire to the tent, and opened it and came in.”

  “They set fire to your tent?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  (The remainder of the remarks of the militia, as testified to by Mr. Snyder, are given in the text of this novel—except that a number of unprintable oaths have been omitted.)

  The affidavit of Mrs. Alcarita Pedregon. She swears, among other things, “I seen a militiaman come over there and look inside the tent and strike a match and set fire to the tent. I stayed in the tent until it was all burned up. There were eleven children and two women suffocated with the smoke where I was. I lost two children in this cave when the tent burned. I don’t know where my husband was at this time. I looked up out of the hole and saw the soldier set fire to the tent with a match. I lost everything I had in this fire.”

  The affidavit of Mrs. Ed. Tonner. “My tent was so full of holes like it was like lace, pretty near. It could have been about four when little Frank got his head hurt, and a little while after this they tried to set the tents on fire. I kept bobbling my head up and down, and Mr. Fyler said, ‘For God’s sake keep your head down, or you will get it blown off.’ About six o’clock they turned around and tore the tent between the two tents, and they set the broom on fire with coal oil, and they set the tent on fire, with me right underneath with my five little children. Then Gusta Retlich, she helped me out with the children, grabbed them up, and then we run to a Mexican lady’s tent farther down, and then Louie the Greek helped me, he helped me down into a hole and threw water in my face as I was fainting with all the children.”

  The affidavit of Mrs. Gloria Padilla: “At sometime late in the afternoon they started to burn the tents. When the tents were first fired they did not burn my tent, later in the evening the soldiers came back to fire the rest of the tents and they heard my children crying, and they said there is a family in there, and they helped me out and took me and the children to the depot. While at the depot three Mexican guards got mad at the women and said they ought to be burned in the tents.”

  The testimony of Mrs. Margare
t Dominiske, before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, in New York City. “About three o’clock was when they started to shoot so awfully hard. And about a quarter to six one of the men from the arroyo came up to where we were. He said we had better get out of here because he said there is about fifty militia right close to the camp, and he said they are burning up the tents and if you crawl out here you can see it. So I crawled out and I looked down and I saw about six or eight tents burning. And then I saw five militiamen cross from the tents that was burning over to those that was not burning, and three of them had torches, and two had cans. I don’t know what was in the cans, but I think it was oil. They went into one of these other tents, and I got back into where my children were. Pretty soon some said it looks like there is a train, that that will be our only chance of escape. So I went and crawled back out and looked out again to the tents and I saw the militia going into them, they was all on fire, so I judge from that they had set it on fire, and when this train came—”

  “Chairman Walsh: You say that they had torches and that they were lighted?

  Mrs. Dominiske: Well it looked like a broom, to me, that is what it looked like from where I was at, looked like they were brooms lit. Then when the train came, why we all got out of the well and out of the barn and went to the arroyo. And on the way there, as she stooped to get under a fence, one of the ladies had a big apron on and she stooped to get under the fence and there was a bullet passed right through her apron, and another passed over my head and exploded. It was an explosive bullet and exploded right in front of another lady, and she had a baby in her arms, and she fainted. We got into the arroyo and we went down to a ranch about five or six miles from Ludlow.”

  The above is only a part of the evidence bearing upon one episode of the novel; I do not exaggerate in saying that I could prove fifty other incidents in as much detail. Before writing the story I studied eight million words of printed or typewritten evidence, in addition to many millions which I gathered directly from the lips of witnesses. I invite anyone who suspects me of exaggeration to examine at least a part of this evidence himself.

  When I wrote “The Jungle” it was my purpose to call attention, not so much to evils connected with the country’s meat supply, as to injustices suffered by the working people who prepare it. As I said afterwards, I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach. Now once more I am aiming at the heart. This book goes out as an appeal to the conscience of the American people: an appeal for millions of men, women and children who are practically voiceless—not merely in Colorado, but in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Alabama, a score of states in which miners and steel-workers have been unable to organize and protect themselves.

  It is an appeal against the hideous nightmare of Government by Gunmen: a new form of sovereignty which has grown up in America, a system nation-wide in scope, having many millions of dollars invested in it and employing tens of thousands of men. The public is told that its purpose is the preservation of order; but let the reader of this book carry away one definite certainty—the purpose of Government by Gunmen is not order, but oppression, not peace but slavery. These “guards” and “detectives” come, not to prevent violence, but to provoke it; not to protect industrial property, but to crush labor organization. They are private mercenaries, fully equipped for military campaigning, as well as for secret diplomacy; trained in every phase of their peculiar kind of warfare, and as merciless and irresponsible as the condottieri of Italy. If they are permitted to go on developing their power in this republic, they will bring upon us a slave rebellion as bloody and cruel as those of Spartacus and Eunus against Rome.

  APPENDICES

  EXPLANATION OF EDITORIAL PROCEDURES

  Three drafts of The Coal War survive at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, typescripts which may be designated A, B, and C, early to late. In the original purchase of the Sinclair Papers in 1957 the Lilly acquired the early A type script, consecutively paginated 1-290, the first 41 pages of C, and several sections of The Coal War designated here as B. Not until the autumn of 1968, in its fourth acquisition of Sinclair Papers, did the Lilly obtain the remaining 376 pages of C.

  B and C typescripts were initially identical in content, C the ribbon copy and B the carbon. Since Craig Sinclair’s hand is distinct from Upton’s, an examination reveals that she was responsible for all B emendations, while he made every revision in C. A comparison of both versions indicates that, in all probability, Sinclair and his wife worked through them simultaneously at first, each holding a copy, and then Sinclair made further changes at a later date. These final revisions are almost uniformly of a minor nature, generally a matter of word substitution. Although no differences exist between B and C drafts in the vast majority of pages, there can be no doubt that C is a later version than B. C incorporates most B emendations but deliberately rejects others. An example will make this process apparent and, at the same time, illustrate the nature of Sinclair’s revisions.

  In Book III of The Coal War, prior to final emendation, Hal Warner is engaged in a dialogue with Congressman Simmons.

  “You see,” explained Mr. Simmons, “ours is a government of divided powers. The task of this committee was to investigate a possible need of new legislation.”

  “Will you recommend any new legislation?”

  “It’s difficult to think of any that would remedy this present situation.”

  “Let me suggest something then, Mr. Simmons. You would end this struggle if you made membership in a union compulsory in coal-mines.”

  It was evident from the look on Mr. Simmons’ face that he was not going to recommend anything like that! “It would seem to me,” he said, “that the problem is to get the present laws enforced.”

  “Well,” said Hal, “I’ll compromise on that. How are we to do it?”

  “It’s the duty of the Governor of your state.”

  “But he won’t do his duty. We’ve spent five miserable months proving that! So what next?”

  In B, Craig made a single emendation, the substitution of “would make”: “You would end this struggle if you [would make] membership in a union compulsory in coalmines.”

  As may be seen from the text (pp. 260-261), when Sinclair made his final revision of C typescript, he wished to make Hal appear more direct, forceful, and authoritative. Sinclair initially added “would make” as Craig suggested, but then excised it. He saw that his earlier use of “something” and “anything” was vague, and he substituted the much more concrete “law” whenever possible, four times in all. In place of the wordy sentence, “You would end this struggle if you [would make] membership in a union compulsory in coal-mines,” Sinclair emended to: “Let me suggest a law, Mr. Simmons—a law that would end this struggle at once. Make membership in a union compulsory in all coal-mines.” Given this tone, Hal’s later talk of compromise and his weak interrogatories are inconsistent. Therefore, when Simmons states “that the problem is to get the present laws enforced,” Sinclair removes altogether Hal’s uncertain rejoinders: “I’ll compromise on that. How are we to do it?” It is readily apparent that Sinclair’s final emendations in C draft are direct, emphatic, and more effective than his earlier version.

  The differences between Sinclair’s hand and his wife’s, evident after a close inspection of manuscripts and handwritten letters, make it a relatively straightforward matter to join the two C fragments together and establish the final text of The Coal War with certainty. The fact that C is the ribbon copy, and B the carbon, introduces yet another safeguard in the identification and choice of C version as copy-text. This text of The Coal War is a critical, unmodernized reconstruction: critical in the sense that it is not an exact reprint of the copy-text; unmodernized in that, apart from established editorial procedures, every effort has been made to present the text in as close a form to Sinclair’s finally revised typescript C as possible.

  Editorial alteration is of two basic types. First, since S
inclair did not catch every typographical error, they are editorially corrected. Second, inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, word-division, and punctuation are normalized by utilizing the principle of most frequent usage. Sinclair adhered to a virtually uniform practice of placing punctuation outside quotation marks when the quoted matter was a phrase or term, as opposed to conversation. His few departures from this custom may all be attributed to his own or his typist’s carelessness. Sinclair’s practice is clear and, since it was a quite common system of punctuation in America at least through the 1930s, his customary pattern has been adopted.

  In matters of doubt, the first edition of King Coal has been turned to for authority. The copy-text is everywhere legible, and Sinclair’s revisions are clear. Editorial alteration has been conservative and always weighed against the values of authorial purpose and possible stylistic idiosyncrasy. But for the exceptions previously noted, this text of The Coal War represents a faithful transcription of typescript C as finally revised and submitted to the Macmillan Company for publication.

  About the Author

  Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, activist, and politician whose novel The Jungle (1906) led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Born into an impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair entered City College of New York five days before his fourteenth birthday. He wrote dime novels and articles for pulp magazines to pay for his tuition, and continued his writing career as a graduate student at Columbia University. To research The Jungle, he spent seven weeks working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants. The book received great critical and commercial success, and Sinclair used the proceeds to start a utopian community in New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he founded the state’s ACLU chapter and became an influential political figure, running for governor as the Democratic nominee in 1934. Sinclair wrote close to one hundred books during his lifetime, including Oil! (1927), the inspiration for the 2007 movie There Will Be Blood; Boston (1928), a documentary novel revolving around the Sacco and Vanzetti case; The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism; and the eleven novels in the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lanny Budd series.