Speaking of precursors, your own citation [17] points out the dead strikebreaker was found
AFTER company guards had used the machine gun on the Death Special to kill a miner and injure two kids.
] Through various agencies the company was able to hire men to take a more aggressive stance against the striking workers, armed guards were supplied to harass strikers and union organisers. An armoured car with a mounted machine gun was even built which was appropriately named the ‘Death Special’ by the company guards. As tensions escalated between CF+I and the strikers, miners dug protective pits beneath their tents to shield themselves and their families against random sniping and machine gun fire from the company guards. On October 17th the ‘Death Special’ was used to attack the Forbes tent colony resulting in the death of one miner. A young girl was shot in the face and another boy’s legs riddled with machine gun bullets also. Confrontations between striking miners and scab workers were also resulting in additional deaths. On October 28th the Governor of Colorado, Elias M Ammons called out the National Guard to take control of the situation.
] The miners however, persevered. Union members and organisers were kidnapped and beaten, shots being fired into the camps from strike-breakers and the National Guardsmen were a constant occurrence and the harsh winter was taking its toll. Worried about the continuing cost of keeping the National Guard in the field, Governor Ammons accepted an offer from the Rockefeller family to put their men in National Guard uniforms.
] On March 10th the body of a strike-breaker was found near railroad tracks near the Forbes tents and the National Guard’s General Chase ordered the colony to be destroyed. The strike was reaching a climax, and National Guardsmen were ordered to evict the remaining tent colonies around the mines, despite them being on private property leased by the UMWA.
] Ludlow was the largest of the colonies, and on the morning of April 20th 1914, troops fired into the camp with machine guns, anyone who was seen moving in the camp was targeted. The miners fired back, and fighting raged for almost fourteen hours.
The mine owners were an even more violent force, also engaging in aggression. The Pinkerton detective agency is still prohibited by law from doing business with the government of the United States or of the District of Columbia.
> any response is a "massacre".
It's been widely called the Ludlow Massacre for over a century.
Your putting words into my mouth means you would rather use personal attacks than talk about the real issue, which is that the government laws are supposed to take the edge off both union AND corporate power.
If you take away laws that support union power without also taking away laws that prohibit otherwise legal union power, like the ability to negotiate for a closed shop, then you aren't actually in favor of contract liberty but of corporate power.