The Road to Ludlow

Abstract This chapter explores how three different groups countered the Western Federation of Miners’ (WFM) labor organizing and attempted to mitigate the industrial violence that plagued Colorado’s mining industry. Mine owners deployed corporate paternalism and company towns, under the guise of business sovereignty, the right of owners to totally control the workplace. Just as the WFM defended control over their workplaces as a property right, Colorado mine owners, notably Colorado Fuel & Iron, asserted that enterprises were extensions of their personal property and thus immune from outside regulation or labor interference. While somewhat successful, this method faced high costs and worker dissatisfaction. Into this breach stepped Progressive technocrats who believed that summit arbitration, the gathering of opposing parties to come to a fair compromise as a means to ending violence, would solve the impasse. Additionally, maternalist reformers evoked the sanctity of the home and family as a way to mitigate the impact of industrial violence, especially on women and families.