States, i think, but the cs and i companies which are the coal mines in pueblo start to reflect this story of immigration, people coming from throughout the world greece, italy, poland, other slovakian countries. Also migration north from mexico, migration from new mexico, africanamericans coming from the south. So theres a large mixture of different ethnic and migrant groups as well. As they start controlling the area economically, some of the things i look at specifically is theyll say, okay, new mexicans or the hispanics are living in a adobe houses, they really should be live anything wood structures. So theyll build coal camps that are wood structureses, but then the employees cant heat their houses in the same way because the adobes had kept the heat in better than the wood paneling, so theyll charge so the employees really now have to start using coal from what theyre mined, but they end up paying cost for the coal. Its not like they get an employee discount. Their tons are measured at different rates. So if 2,000 pounds is a ton, the foreman or the weighers might say 2600 pounds is a ton because theres rock mixed in with that coal. Or in order to mine, you have to dig into the mine, but you dont get paid to dig into the mine, you just get paid for the coal you pull out. So theres definitely this what i would label an abuse of economics from capitalbased [inaudible] saying the work that youre doing isnt valued or were not going to pay you for all of these Different Things youre doing. When you go into a coal mine, theres timbers that have to be laid, and theres all these safety precautions, but theyre not getting paid for any of that. Theyre also then, they live in houses. The companys really nice and, you know, they rent them the homes, and theyll take it out of their paycheck. Then it ends up being a problem later on because, actually, theyre charging them more than they should have for the houses. So theres definitely an issue as far as housing and as far as how much theyre getting paid for coal. Theres issues in regards to sometimes theres coal camp guards, sometimes theres barbed wire fences around the coal mining communities. Theyre told that they have to shop in the company store. Theyll get credit from the company store, but then it becomes this cycle of debt where theyre also always beholden to the company because they economically cant get out of the rut. And at time theres not a lot of mine production, theyre going to maybe still stay in the company house, but theyre going to have to pay rent, and when they come back to work, they owe the company money. Youll have fathers and kids and more kids, so youll have generations of people that are in the mine. Theyll buy the majority of stock in the early 1900s, the rockefellers, and hold a large interest until the 1940s. Thats almost 40 years. The rockefellers become very prominent in 1914 because of the ludlow massacre. The ludlow massacre starts off in september of 1913 as a mine strike, and when the miners go on strike, theyre evicted from their companyowned houses, theyre sent out onto the plains of colorado, and they set up a tent colony funded by the United Mine Workers. And theyre basically fighting for 2,000 pounds is a ton, theyre fighting for it to be paid in dollars, theyre fighting to be able to have safer working conditions. 1913 is one of the deadliest years for mine disasters in the history of colorado. So theres a push for them to have better working conditions. Everything that theyre asking for is called a mine safety law, so theyre not asking for anything outside of what should have been given to them. When they go on strike, the governor of the state of colorado calls out the National Guard. Theres questions as far as who actually funds it. Theres a group of depp very businessmen who will denver businessmen who will buy insurrection bonds. The miners, who are predominantlith nick minority predominantly ethnic minority group, they think that the National Guard is coming to protect them, and what they find is more of this idea of martial law. In april of 1914 theres a, its greek easter, and so people in the camp actually celebrate for the greek miners. And then theres a baseball game thats going on, and one of the National Guardsmen actually comes onto the field with three or ow four national be guardsmen and tries to interrupt the game and says youll have your roast today, well have our roast tomorrow. So on the morning of april 20th, 1914, shots are fired. And hen the National Guard and then the National Guard starts attacking the camp, and the miners respond. Theyll shoot into the tents. By the end of day, theyll light kerosene to the coal camp or to the tent colony. Theres a tent seller that a group of tent cellar that a group of women will climb into, 11 children and 4 women. And thats really what ends up making the ludlow massacre this huge mark on National Labor history and national history, because when word spreads of the ludlow massacre, its not just the fact that men are killed at the ludlow massacre, its these women and children die. Southern colorado, for the next ten days, therell be a war where minders will come and attack law enforcement. It only ends whenwood row will withson calls out Woodrow Wilson calls out federal troops to stop it. Thats when the rockefellers start getting involved. They knew what was going on. The minutes from the meeting from september 13, basically, no business happened. We didnt meet. Eventually, the rockefellers decide to deal with it. Theres congressional hearings where the rock fellers say were just stock owners, we dont know whats going on out there. Even though they had on telegram what was going on. And in 1950, John Rockefeller jr. Will come out and with an industrial presentation plan. And his idea is, one of the things he tells the employees, he says were like a threelegged stool, right . Theres the parts, and theres you guys as the employees, and theres me as the stock owners, but were really kind of the same people, and weve never really made any money, so were kind of in the same boat as you guys. So he comes to pueblo first. And i think its not necessarily the documents dont reflick reflect it as much in 1915. But in 1918 rockefeller comes back, and he tries to speak at the building, at the dedication of the ludlow memorial. United mineworkers president , frank hayes, actually walks out to rockefellers car and tells him to turn around. He says youre not welcome here, i cannot guarantee your safety. But i thought rockefeller thought he would be welcomed because what happens when he comes to pueblo because the steel mill was less involved in ludlow massacre. But they would actually come and meet with him, and the idea was you want a union, ill give you a union, its just going to be a companysponsored union. So all of the pr from the time is that its great and wonderful. Theres not a lot of documents talking about the backlash of it. But the United Mine Workers will have these ludlow days where people march the ludlow massacre to remember it. So in southern colorado the story lives on in the memories of family members and in the minds of the mine workers, but as far as the official history as rock feller comes and hes welcomed. But you have these little spots where its clear that hes not. But i think because hes going to go its not all of the miners come together and have a meeting. He might go to starkville, or hell go to camp, hell go to hopedale in florence. So then theres less, theyre less able to really protest him. Its new york city9 thats protesting him, but here its the year after it happens. Again, its companyheld meetings with employees within the structure of the company, so theres not a lot of space for them to be upset with him. Does that a make sense . Theres also then a series of letters at the rockefeller archives where they have families that are living in mining camps that will actually write him letters asking him for money for bandstands. He actually will donate to a church in the area. So i have this issue where sometimes john d. Rockefeller jr. Total jerk and knew what was happening at ludlow, could have avoided it, but i also have moments of thinking that he didnt know how bad the situation was. But i also think that there was such a difference between his perspective of the nation the miners perspective of the nation. For him, i mean, hes living in a mansion in new york city, and these miners are living in squalor in southern colorado. So theres this huge disconnect between them, and theres also a language disconnect as well for a lot of them. Some of the programs he implements are the ymca. So its funny because this last years been, like, the 100th anniversary of the ymca in pueblo which only came because of pueblo. Its huge, and theres this great partnership. Theres a report, the ymca does a report on all of these coal mines which is great for documentation, but it a basically gives suggestions on how to improve the camps. One of them specifically is bathhouses for the men. Theres also gymnasiums built with bowling alleys, theres basketball courts, reading rooms for women that also implement camps. So ll be summer camps thatll be held for the kids. Theres one specifically talked about, stonewall. Theres field days that are kind of occurring already, but this is the official implementation of them, usually in the summer theyre held at all of the different mining camps in colorado. Theyll have competitions. Ive looked more at the womens competitions, so theyll have, like, a naildriving contest i think its men making fun of women that they cant drive nails as great as they can. Theyll have a heaviest woman competition, so actually weigh the women, and whoever the is the heaviest its a public weighing, and whoever is the heaviest women will win her weight in flour. Theyll have a whoever has the most children and the camp doctor has to sign a paper for the woman, whoever has the most children this that camp, and shell win shoes for all her kids. For the men, theyll have first aid competitions basically showing if there was a mining accident, they could actually be able to patch everybody up. Theyll have baseball competitions and basketball. Baseball kind of becomes more implemented in more of a yearround activity. Its seen both by the company and by the employees as something thats definitely beneficial. I argue this is kind of the process of americanization and baseball being the key and the symbol of americanization. So one of the things that happens with the employee representation plan is the idea of if you get hurt, then you can come, you know, with you and your representative, we can talk about how you got hurt. Most of those incident reports they find its always the fault of the employees. So the Company Union is, a basically, flawed. And youll see it specifically because therell continue to be mine strikes in southern colorado. Youll have another mine strike in 192728. So the idea that his employee representation plan doesnt work. He will actually go and give speeches throughout the United States and also into canada about how great his plan is and that you dont have to have, you know, the socialist unions, you could have a Company Union to make it successful. I mean, no, it doesnt work. Its a way for the rockefellers to try to save a face and say these are the things that were doing to improve our situations with the camp. But most of these people stay in a system of [inaudible] its also this idea of, again, its generations and generations of family members. For the people who work at cs and i, i think the big shift is world warm ii. A lot of them will go to war, come back and be able to get their Associates Degree and get work as an electrician or the beginnings of computer programming. So that kind of shifts it for them to be able to leave the coal mines and maybe work in the steel mill. But nothing really changes, i would argue nothing really changes after the ludlow massacre with the employee representation plan. Its a good idea, but implementation doesnt actually occur. I think this is still the question we ask today. Theres still issues with coal mining. The United Mine Workers are still fighting for pensions for employees. I mean, i, it was last week i met with a retired coal miner who had been in the mines for 43 years, and he has black lungs. For him, he gets this great pension, but he also has this condition thats never going to be treated. So for them the scars of what the coal miners live with long term is still an issue thats faced in our nation, thats still a discussion that were having, right . And that just becomes part of the president ial debates as far as how do we use our raw materials, how do we use our mineral resources, right . And then we still have mines collapsing in West Virginia. There was, when we had the huge incident in chile where there was the gold mines and, you know, the phoenix came in and rescued all of these people, 39 miners that were rescued, the next week there was a mine collapse in West Virginia that didnt even make the headlines. So i think the cost of coal still is weighing on our nation. I just dont think were dealing with it. The ludlow massacre forced the nation to deal with it. But if were still having these same discussions 100 years later. Booktv is in pueblo to learn about the citys history and its literary culture. While here we interviewed csu pueblo professor matt harris to talk about the Founding Fathers and religion. We often here in the media that or hear in the media that the culture wars especially with religion began in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan and that the moral majority and the folks who were instrumental in bringing him to office. One of the things i learned was that theres always been a conflict with religion and the role that it should play in public life. And during the founding generation, i was amazed at how this conflict that emerged very clearly. Most of the founders believed that religion was necessary in order to prop up the new democracy or new nation they created. So absolutely religion was incredibly important to most of these founders. Really one of the only things these guys could agree on in terms of what religious liberty meant was that there shouldnt be a statesponsored religion which is part of the First Amendment, but also that americans should be able to freely exercise their religious beliefs. But beyond that, theres a whole host of differences in the First Amendment in terms of what it meant and why they included it. James madison was like his contemporary jefferson, thomas jefferson, both virginians, and they had fought against established religions in the revolution just in the 1780s, and madison was responsible in 1785 for creating a bill in virginia called or a pamphlet, and then his colleague, jefferson, later wrote a bill for religious freedom in which they argued that religions a natural right and that you can freely believe what you want to believe or not believe anything at all. And so these two virginians were instrumental in trying to separate church from state. And you see the First Amendment is a reflection on jefferson and madisons efforts during those debates in the revolution in the virginia legislature. And so it really bears their imprint that they think that the church and state ought to be on two sides of the fence. Having said that though, if you look back at the 1770s and 80s, really it was kind of a novel idea at the time because religion just permeated everything these guys did; writing their state constitutions, they were writing you had to believe in the bible or the god in order to hold Public Office. So that was kind of the sort of thing they were fighting against, that lets not do that sort of thing. Let people believe what they want to believe, and if theyre fit for Public Office, the public will decide what that fitness is. But lets not make them pledge, you know, belief in something. They didnt like religious dogma, but they did recognize that religion was a vital role in the nations founding. Religions interesting, they didnt talk a lot about religion at the constitutional convention. In fact, one of the only things they sid was that they said was that you didnt have to hold Public Office, or you didnt have to believe in the bible or some form of christianity to hold Public Office. Thered be no religious litmus test, which is really interesting. And, of course, that met with a lot of pushback, because a lot of people argued that christians were the only ones fit for Public Office. So they didnt talk about religion a lot because i think they understood how divisive it was. And a lot of the folks who were there were strong personalities who wanted to separate church and state. And some of the more committed christians, i guess you would say, like Patrick Henry, if he were there at the convention, he didnt go, but if he did go, almost certainly he wouldnt have agreed on some of the final outcome of the convention. He would have insisted there was some education presentation of christianity expression of christianity in the final document. For example, in the before they wrote the constitution, many states had what are called establishments of religion. And so if you were, living in new england in the 1700s, your tax dollars would support the Congregational Church which is sort of a brand of puritanism. You really didnt have a choice. Youd pay your taxes, and it would support a local Congregational Church. If you lived in virginia, your tax dollars would support the local anglican church. And so Patrick Henry and others like him believed that if you remove that government support, that somehow the churches would crumble, that they wouldnt exist, that people wouldnt want to pay and support them on their own. But yet Patrick Henry and his virginia neighbors, madison and jefferson, believed something the exact opposite, that religion would still flourish because people would see the need for faith. And