ATDTDA: (35) pages 1000- 1007
Bekah
bekker2 at mac.com
Sun Jul 6 12:57:49 CDT 2008
The year is about 1914 and Scarsdale, Foley, Frank and Eweball are
all in Trinidad (Trinity), Colorado which is ready to explode
behind the union issues:
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Page 1000
Foley is at the "L.A.H.D.I.D.A" ( la-di-da: pretentious) confab
"Las Animas-Huerfano Delegation of the Industrial Defense Alliance" =
Las Animas and Huerfano Counties, in southeastern/south-central
Colorado, are the site of the southern Colorado coalfields, ground of
the bloody 1913-14 Colorado
Las Animas = souls / short for Animas Perdidas (lost souls)
Huerfeno = orphan
These are the names of the Colorado counties in which the coal miners
were striking.
And Scarsdale gives a little stereotypical greedy capitalist talk to
the L.A.H.D.I.D.A group.
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Page 1001
From Scarsdale's intense little speech,
"Money speaks, the land listens, where the Anarchist skulked, where
the horse-thief plied his trade, we fishers of Americans will cast
our nets of perfect ten acre mesh, levelled and varmint-proofed,
ready to build on. Where alien mockers and jackers went creeping
after their miserable communistic dreams the good lowland townfolk
will come up by the netful, clean, industrious, Christian, while
we, gazing out over their little vacation bungalows, will dwell in
top-dollar palazzos befitting our station which their mortgage money
will be paying to build for us. When the scars of these battles have
faded, and the tailings are covered in bunchgrass and wildflowers,
and the coming of the snows is no longer the year's curse but its
promise, awaited eagerly for its influx of moneyed seekers after
wintertime recreation, when the shining strands of telpherage have
subdued every mountainside and all is festival and wholesome sport
and eugenically-chosen stock, who will be left anymore to remember
the jabbering Union scum, the frozen corpses whose names, false in
any case, have gone forever unrecorded? who will care that once men
fought as if an eight -our day, a few coins more at the end of the
week, were everything, were worth the merciless wind beneath the
shabby roof, the tears freezing on a woman's face worn to dark Indian
stupor before its time, the whining of children whose maws were never
satisfied, whose future, those who survived, was always to toil for
us, to fetch and feed and nurse, to ride the far fences of our
properties, to stand watch between us and those who would intrude or
question? "
with a bit of prophesying about the great ski-country of the future.
"perfect ten-acre mesh"
Mutilation of the land by imposition of straight lines on it. A grid.
Oh the ghosts of M & D.
"telpherage"
Cars suspended from overhead cables, or the system of cables or the
conveyance of vehicles or loads by means of electricity.
Meanwhile, Foley's contemplating something over there in the shadows.
Scarsdale goes down the mountain to the coal area to take a look and
while he is in a car on his train (the Juggernaut) he sees someone -
someone he knows - who? What ghost is this - he knows - he doesn't
know.
****************************
Page 1002
Foley comes in and Foley has seen ghosts too, although not recent
Scarsdale's visitor. Nevertheless, Foley sees that Scarsdale is
quite aware of the ghosts -
"It doesn't matter, Foley. It's all in the hands of Jesus, isn't
it? Could happen any time and to tell you the truth, I look forward
to being one of the malevalent dead."
Scarsdale has a death wish? How long has this been going on? Since
Venice? This is getting very fatalist on the part of Scarsdale -
everybody - Pynchon?
Frank and Ewball get their stuff dropped off at Walsenburg
* from the last chapter -this is medical stuff Frank and Ewball
picked up in Denver from Wren and Doc Zhao's- it's for the striking
miners - Dr. Zhao knows Stray. It may be herbals or guns or who knows.
http://neighbors.denverpost.com/album_pic.php?pic_id=1695
Chinese New Year's in Denver ca. 1899 -
and then Frank and Ewball head to Trinidad where there are militia
men all over the place -
On October 28, as strike-related violence mounted, Colorado governor
Elias M. Ammons, called in the Colorado National Guard. At first, the
guard's appearance calmed the situation. But the sympathies of the
militia leaders were quickly seen by the strikers to lie with company
management. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
"Though Ammons intended the militia to act as a peacekeeping body,
his good intentions were not to be, as the militias' presence led to
even more confrontations." http://
www.santafetrailscenicandhistoricbyway.org/ludlow.html
"As the cost of supporting a force of 695 enlisted men and 397
officers in the field bankrupted the state, all but two of the
militia companies were withdrawn after six months. The militia
companies that remained were made up primarily of mine guards."
http://www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow/cfhist3.html
"... the strikers, who were Greeks and Bulgarians, Serbs and Croats,
Montenegrins and Italians..." =
The workforce itself was largely immigrant labor from Southern and
Eastern Europe, who had been brought in as strikebreakers in 1903
(Beshoar 1957:1; McGovern and Guttridge 1972:50). Before the strike,
the UMW counted 24 distinct languages in the Southern Field coal
camps. In 1912, 61% of Colorado's coal miners were of "non-Western
European origin" (Whiteside 1991:48). This obviously had consequences
for organizing the miners and maintaining unity among them during the
strike. It also resulted in the strike and its violence being seen
largely as a result of Greek and Balkan culture, rather than the
conditions in the Southern Colorado coalfields.
From the account of "Coal War History" provided by the Colorado Coal
Field War Project.
http://www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow/cfhist.html
(I'd say the strikers got their acts together here, at this point
anyway, with a very real common enemy and did something - they
weren't fighting each other - the union had a very complete list of
demands (see http://www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow/cfhist2.html
Ewball thinks that the fighting of the Balkan areas is unknown here
in the coalfields (or US?) "they just drop those ancient hatreds ,
drop 'em flat, and become brothers-in-arems, 'cause they recognize
this right away for just what it is."
But the owners seem to encourage stories about "sharpshooters from
the Balkan War and such, and Greek mountain fighters. Serbs with an
appetite for cruelty, Bulgars with a reputation for unspeakable sex,
all those alien races coming over here and making miserable the livse
of the poor innocent plutes, who were only trying to get by like
everybody else."
In some areas, the mining operators took care to bring in more
varied linguistic groups so that communication would be more
difficult. As the "Coal War History" indicates, those stories are
still haunting the books. (See Finnish and Balkan groups in
Minnesota 1907 / 1916 / etc. There is a really good Young Adult book
about the life of a young Minnesota miner family called "The Journal
of Otto Peltonen" which includes an enormous amount of factual
information on the situation there - iron ore, Finns first then
Balkan immigrants, strikes, spies, the whole 9 yards. - scary stuff
- this is where my dad's family was from so that's the interest for me.)
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Page 1003
Ewball also figures there are ghosts around - Balkan Ghosts (see
the Balkan history by Robert Kaplan of that name which has absolutely
nothing to do with Ludlow.) Frank thinks Ewball is nuts.
Trinidad: Columbian Hotel "Centerpiece of Trinidad Since 1879"
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10001913+X-1913
They see Foley Walker outside the hotel.
"... Rockefeller couldn't make it..." Rockefeller owned the
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company which had its big operations near
Pueblo, Co. but also owned a mine or two in the Ludlow area. He
testified before Congress about it later: http://
historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5735/ (interesting stuff) also: http://
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/sfeature/sf_8.html
Rockefeller eventually got much of the blame for what happened at
Ludlow. http://tinyurl.com/67d3y4
Trinidad Main Street - early 1900s
http://www.trinidadco.com/
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Page 1004
Ewball: "They say Foley's a born-again Christer, so he can act as
bad as he wants because Jesus is coming and nothin a human can do so
bad Jesus won't forgive it."
Well, that's curious turn - when did this happen - did I miss
something? But Ewball has other sources of info.
"Toltec Hotel"
Established around 1910. By 2004 "one of historic Trinidad's most
famous but most dilapidated buildings"
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10001874+X-1874
Mother Jones
Mary Harris Jones (1830-1930), labor organizer and advocate. A speech
she made in Trinidad climaxed with: "Rise up and strike . . . strike
until the last one of you drop into your graves. We are going to
stand together and never surrender. Boys, always remember you ain't
got a damn thing if you ain't got a union!"
** see next post for a bit on Mother Jones' Autobiography
Frank and Ewball make a plan to meet up with Scarsdale and Vibe after
lunch
"the C.F.I. office"
Colorado Fuel and Iron - Rockefeller owned - see above;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Fuel_and_Iron
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Page 1005
Ewball, on the subject of who will pull the trigger: "Well, he's
yours by the laws of vengeance, sure.... that's if you want him."
Frank is "disingenuous" when he suggests that Ewball take on
Scarsdale and himself shoot Foley. "psychological talk, and that...
A way of getting back at your Pa, and so forth. Back east thoughts,
horseshit of course."
They flip a silver quarter for it and the reader is not told at this
time who gets the pleasure of gunning whom.
"Where the buildings ended, nothing could be seen above the surface
of the street... only an intense radiance filling the gap, a halo or
glory out of which anything might emerge, into which anything might
be taken, a portal of silver transfiguration, as if being displayed
from teh viewpoint of (let us imagine) a fallen gunfighter."
"a halo or glory" is a ring of light that surrounds a person in
art. They are often used in religious works to depict holy or sacred
figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of
rulers or heroes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_
(religious_iconography)
Also in nature, "a halo" or nimbus, icebow or gloriole is an optical
phenomenon that appears near or around the Sun or Moon, and sometimes
near other strong light sources such as street lights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(optical_phenomenon)
"Out of which a fallen gunfighter might emerge."
Trinidad had a history of gunfights - Frank Loving and John Allen
Trinidad gunfight in 1880:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad_Gunfight
And in 1882, the City of Trinidad hired Bat Masterson to come in and
clean up the town. But when he left town (after working with the
Earp brothers to clear Doc Holliday) in 1883 it was cleared of
gunfights and ready for coal fights.
http://www.sangres.com/history/batmasterson.htm
Sounds to me like TPR wants to set it up like a movie scenario of the
typical gunfight / shoot out. All that's missing is the music, so
may I suggest - http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=qSqr35HZ5Bc&feature=related
(The Man With No Name - Clint Eastwood)
Frank borrows a .44 peacemaker from Ewball because his Smith &
Wesson needs a spring. - Frank has been keeping the cartridges from
the old Confederate Colt which was given to Mayva but they were
supposed to be for Deuce Kindred. - Oh well ...
Peacemaker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Action_Army
These use the same cartridges?
Ewball has a strange kind of anarchism ideas which has some bearing
on something here - I don't know what.
The two would-be gunmen take their places, Frank in an alley between
a photographer's shop and a feed and seed (sounds like where I live)
and Ewball across the street. (music while they wait?)
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Page 1006 -
German Parabellum - a gun
http://www.dreamstime.com/german-parabellum-pistole-(pistol-
parabellum)-image4855028
Scarsdale sees them but is not "heeled" (armed) so he barks: "Well
you see them as clearly as I do, Foley. Take care of it."
Foley has a Luger (the Parabellum) and directs it at Scarsdale's heart.
" Scarsdale Vibe peered back as if only curious. 'Lord, Foley...' "
"Jesus is Lord... " cried Foley and pulled the trigger - eight times.
Foley: " 'Hope you fellows don't mind, but it's payday today and
I've been in line years ahead of you.' "
Frank and Ewball quietly disappear into the crowd while Foley waits
patiently for the militia coming down the street.
And in the middle of snow and horse shit, Scarsdale bleeds out his
blood "nearly black in this midwinter light" and joins the ghosts.
Ewball is embarrassed that he didn't get to shoot Scarsdale - (I
guess he won the coin toss.)
Ewball: "It wasn't you bringing over a supply wagon."
??? (Frank apparently doesn't know either.)
**********************************
bekah
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