Frank Hayes

Early life

He was born in the coal mining town of What Cheer, Iowa, in 1882, but moved with his family as a boy to Illinois. At the age of 13, he began working in the coal mines. His father was active in the unions.

UMWA involvement 1904–1919

He joined the United Mine Workers and held a number of local union offices before being elected secretary-treasurer of District 13 in 1904. A socialist, he allied himself with the radical left-wing of the miners' union and agitated for greater militancy and adoption of socialism as the union's only economic and political philosophy.

He was elected an international vice president in 1911. While a vice president, he helped strategize and organize the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia and the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913–1914 (during which the Ludlow Massacre occurred).

Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912

The Paint Creek Miners' Union with the help of Hayes, serving as the UMWA International Vice President, declared a strike with eight demands. After the demands were known the Cabin Creek Miners' Union joined the striking miners as well. During the first month of the strike the UMWA organizers kept peace, but subsequently the mine operators hired the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency to break the strike. After 300 Baldwin-Felts Detectives arrived, the labor organizer Mother Jones also arrived and was subsequently arrested.

The strike lasted from April 18, 1912, through July 1913. After the confrontation, Fred Stanton, a banker, estimated that the strike and ensuing armed conflict cost $100,000,000. The confrontation directly caused perhaps fifty violent deaths, as well as many more deaths caused indirectly by starvation and malnutrition among the striking miners. In the number of casualties, it counts among the worst conflicts in American labor union history.

Ludlow Massacre

The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel and Iron Company guards on a tent colony of 1,200 coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. About two dozen people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller Jr., was widely criticized for the incident.

The massacre, the seminal event in the Colorado Coal Wars, resulted in the death of 21 people. The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, which lasted from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the miners against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, and the Victor-American Fuel Company.

In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of antiunion establishments over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg. The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States", commonly referred to as the Colorado Coalfield War.

The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history". Congress responded to public outcry by directing the House Committee on Mines and Mining to investigate the incident. Its report, published in 1915, was influential in promoting child labor laws and an eight-hour work day.

The Ludlow site, 18 miles northwest of Trinidad, Colorado, is now a ghost town. The massacre site is owned by the United Mine Workers of America, which erected a granite monument in memory of the miners and their families who died that day. The Ludlow Tent Colony Site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009, and dedicated on June 28, 2009.Modern archeological investigation largely supports the strikers' reports of the event.

UMWA President 1917–1919

In 1908, while on the UMWA executive council, Hayes unsuccessfully ran for Illinois Secretary of State on the Socialist Party ticket. When UMWA president John P. White resigned in 1917 to take a federal government job, Hayes was elected president to succeed him. Hayes' tenure as UMWA president was not an effective one. He was not a firm leader, and lacked administrative abilities. His health deteriorated quickly during his presidency, probably due to alcoholism. By 1919, he turned most of his duties over to John L. Lewis, who was named the union's acting president. Hayes resigned the office of president in 1920. Although he retained a position and salary as an international field representative, he retired to Colorado.

Later life and death

Some time after vacating his leadership position in the UMWA, Hayes joined the Democratic Party and ran for U.S. Senate in 1926, coming in third place in the Democratic primary with 14% of the vote. A decade later, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, serving from 1937 to 1939.

Hayes died in Denver, Colorado, on June 10, 1948, at age 66. Not much has been written about his cause of death but he did suffer from alcoholism during his life.

Labor songs and poetry

During Hayes' retirement to Colorado he wrote labor songs and poetry (much of it concerning the Ludlow Massacre).

"We're Coming, Colorado" by Frank J. Hayes

Source:

Sung to the tune of "The Battle Cry of Freedom"

(John D. Rockefeller Jr., testifying before the congressional committee, investigating the Colorado strike, when asked if he approved of the use of machine-guns and paid gunmen to break the strike, even though scores of people were murdered, replied: "My conscience acquits me.")

Ludlow Massacre Monument activist

Frank Hayes sent the following letter about a monument for the Ludlow Massacre to another member of the UMWA leadership upon his retirement. He continued to be a voice for miners throughout the rest of his life. This letter is just one that was featured in the United Mine Workers Journal and the Hellraisers Journal

Dear Sir and Brother:

Just a few lines to advise that we expect to have the Ludlow Monument erected and in place by next Decoration Day, and we propose to hold dedication exercises at Ludlow on that date. In view of this fact, it might be well to postpone the anniversary demonstration until May 30th, at which time we expect to hold a great demonstration at Ludlow, which will be attended by all the members of the International Executive Board. I suggest that you notify your Local Unions as to our intention to hold dedication exercises on May 30th.

With all good wishes, I am,

Fraternally yours,

FRANK J. HAYES, President

It may be stated here that owing to difficulties encountered in transporting material, the original arrangements to have the monument arrive at Ludlow in time to hold dedication services on the day of the anniversary of the Ludlow massacre, could not be carried out. The dedication and memorial exercises will be held on Decoration Day as set forth in the above communication.

All local unions of Dist. No. 15 are advised to make suitable arrangements to be represented at Ludlow on the 30th day of May, when it is expected that the miners of Colorado will foregather in a mighty demonstration to pay tribute to those who died that the United Mine Workers might endure in Colorado.