Detail View: Colorado Coal Project: Interview with Mike Livoda (part 1 of 4)

Colorado Coal Project

Interview with Mike Livoda (part 1 of 4)

Black, Howard

local

Margolis, Eric, 1947-

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n00101170

McMahan, Ronald L.

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no94033808

Coal miners--Personal narratives

Coal Strike (Colorado : 1913-1914)

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1404237

Coal miners--Obituaries

Strikes and lockouts--Coal mining--Colorado

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85128770

Baldwin-Felts Detectives, Inc.

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/738424

Coal mines and mining

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/865355

Coal mines and mining--Colorado--Huerfano County

Coal mines and mining--Colorado--Las Animas County

United Mine Workers of America

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/515758

Jones, Mother, 1837-1930

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1730605

Labor disputes--Colorado

Lawson, John R., 1871-1945

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/372494

Interviews

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/1423832

Coal miners--Photographs

Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation

http://id.worldcat.org/fast/572994

"Interview by Harold Black -- from Lee Scamhorn" [i.e., Scamehorn]. Mike Livoda came to the U.S. in 1904, from Austria-Hungary (now part of Yugoslavia); he had a 6th-grade education in Europe. He started work in the steel mills in Steubenville, Ohio -- loading pig iron at night, 13-hour shifts, at age 16, for $1.75/day. He started mining coal in Red Lodge, Mont. in 1907: work was seasonal, so he moved on to Sheridan, Wyo. and to Denver in May 1910. Coal miners in northern Colo. were out on strike about 1910-1913. Mike was working in a non-striking mine in Leiden: miners were cheated on their tonnage and got no payment for dead work. Working conditions in the coal mines violated the length of workday laws and the right to hire their own checkweighman. Livoda transferred to southern Colo. mines when the U.M.W.A began organizing there in Jan. 1912. Robert Yulich of Trinidad had notified John Lawson that Livoda might be a good union organizer; Lawson approached Livoda to act as an organizer. He preferred to stay undercover working in the mines -- partly for his own safety (he was forced out of Walsenburg and beaten up in Ravenwood, Colo.). In 1912, he first organized the mine in Aguilar, CO -- which prompted 65 armed men to enter the town to investigate. The coal companies sent in men to try to run him out of town, but local people supported Livoda. He then organized in Trinidad, at Sopris, Piedmont, and the Segundo. Miners often went out on strike before being organized as a union. To protect their jobs, Livoda recruited union members one-by-one and made them swear to secrecy -- not even to share the information with their wives. He often had to recruit after dark, hiding during the day to avoid jail and beatings. Livoda would meet sympathetic miners at fraternal lodges (e.g., Serb National Federation, Croatian Fraternal Union of America), weddings, funerals, or other social events. He was influenced by the early labor leader Samuel Gompers. The union demanded a reduction of hours from 10 to 8 per day, a raise from $2.95 to $3.15 (per day?), and an independently hired checkweighman. Miners were also striking for the right to trade where they please -- not just at the company store. They also demanded the right to be paid every 2 weeks (not just once per month) and to be paid in cash, not in "scrip". The company exploited the local lawmen and the company store to keep miners in check: local authorities even coerced non-citizens to vote illegally for favored candidates in local elections. The coal company operators included Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, Victor American Fuel, and Rocky Mountain Fuel. Livoda calls the Victor American Fuel Company "one of the bitterest company that we had to fight within Colorado." There were then about 10,000 miners in Las Animas and Huerfano counties of Colorado. Sheriff Jeff Farr ran Livoda out of Walsenburg for union organizing, but he returned and defied the sheriff. In 1913, miners voted to present demands to the "operators" and voted to go out on strike 23 Sept. 1913; it snowed hard in Ludlow that day. A tent colony was established for the striking miners and their families, who were thrown out of company housing -- about 1800 people. Aguilar had about 2000 people, both in tents and in non-company housing. There were also U.M.W.A tent colonies at Suffield, Forbes, Aguilar, Rugby, Prior, and Walsenburg, Colorado. The strikers included Mexicans, "Spanish-Americans," Scotch-English, Russians, Poles, Romanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Italians, "negroes", Slovaks, and Czechs. Livoda noticed that different ethnic groups got along well when they were prospering, but tensions developed with economic struggles. He worked with Mother Jones, traveling from one union local to the next to maintain support for the strike. She was in her late 70s at the time of the strike (1913/1914) but he remembers her as a lively speaker. Prior to the import of enforcers, the operators began bringing in strikebreakers, "scabs." At Ludlow, strikers encountered groups of mounted, armed company guards. Baldwin-Felts enforcers for the operators terrorized the colonies, firing into them with a machine gun. John Nemo (a company guard) was killed in a skirmish at Water Tank Hill; then, the National Guard entered the area. Livoda claims that many of the National Guard were actually company guards who enlisted. John Lawson was later convicted for the crime (but freed on appeal).The strikers had more trouble with the militiamen under command of Linderfelt, but fewer problems with men commanded by Frank Cise. Pat Hamrock was a colonel of the National Guard and also seen by strikers as a threat. According to Livoda, the original National Guardsmen eventually were mustered out and replaced by company enforcers who enlisted at the company's behest. According to him, the militia claimed a boy was in the Ludlow camp and wanted out -- Louis Tikas went across to negotiate and was killed. On 20 April 1914, Livoda and John Lawson left Trinidad upon receiving a plea for help from Ludlow; Livoda was in Ludlow from the 20th, for the next 7 days. Mike claims that of the strikers there were 5 men, 2 women, and 13 children killed that day (including Charlie Costa, his wife, and 3 kids). The strikers had armed themselves for self-defense. After the massacre, the union bought rifles for members; members later turned their weapons into the federal troops but retrieved them as the troops left. The Attorney General for the State of Colorado (Farrar) prosecuted cases against the miners: 435 miners were indicted after the Ludlow massacre; 168 union supporters were indicted in Las Animas County, alone. Livoda and other striking miners were indicted for murder and arson, after the Ludlow massacre. In Denver, 300 women marched on the Governor's office, demanding that Pres. Wilson sends in Federal troops. Mike describes the killing of Belcher (a company enforcer); the crime was blamed on Zancanelli but was probably committed by Sam Carter or A. B. McGary; Livoda helped smuggle them out of town afterward. Mike was involved in the fight at the Forbes mine, where strikers captured 2 machine guns from company forces. Livoda was married in 1917 and elected vice-president of the district for the U.M.W.A in 1924. In 1918/1919, he moved on to organizing steelworkers in Pennsylvania and Ohio -- working for W. Z. Foster of the A. F. of L. He then went to Calgary, Canada to deter Communist influence on the miners' union there. He returned to Colo. in 1920 and took up the office of vice-president of District 15, U.M.W.A. Mike doesn't favor divisive ethnic strife (nor does he support student unrest on college campuses). He discusses immigrants in the early 1900s: they worked hard so that their descendants might have easier lives. Livoda criticizes the regional newspapers as tools of the coal companies -- except for the Denver Express, which was a more labor-friendly paper. He credits Pres. Franklin Roosevelt with many workers' rights in this country. (The transcript concludes with a photo and part of Livoda's obituary in the Rocky Mountain News, 17 April 1984.)

summary

University of Colorado Boulder Archives

Livoda, Mike, 1886-1984

1968-11-08

1968-11-15

1968-11-30

Text

application/pdf

narv_coloradoCoal_transLivoda1.pdf

https://ark.colorado.edu/ark:/47540/372x1c75n873

English

Title: Interview with Mike Livoda (part 2 of 4), including his wife, Kate

isPartOf

https://ark.colorado.edu/ark:/47540/ts4x3314z0rh

Title: Interview with Mike Livoda (part 3 of 4), including his wife, Kate

isPartOf

https://ark.colorado.edu/ark:/47540/q6406299s277

Title: Interview with Mike Livoda (part 4 of 4)

isPartOf

https://ark.colorado.edu/ark:/47540/n4912d9452sc

Aguilar (Las Animas, Colorado, United States, North America) (populated place)

1904/1968

Huerfano County (Colorado, United States, North America) (civil)

Las Animas County (Colorado, United States, North America) (civil)

Ludlow (Las Animas, Colorado, United States, North America) (populated place)

Trinidad (Las Animas, Colorado, United States, North America) (populated place)

Walsenburg (Huerfano, Colorado, United States, North America) (populated place)