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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 5, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Young Weaver Tells of Conditions in Silk Mill
From The Masses of November 1913:
Category: Hellraisers Journal
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Michigan Copper Strike, Working Class Solidarity for Miners’ Victory
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 4, 1913
The Michigan Copper Strike, Working Class Solidarity Can Win All Strikes
From the International Socialist Review of November 1913:
THE COPPER STRIKE
[Part II of II]
When the boys heard that several carloads of armed ”guards” were on their way to Calumet from New York City, they got busy. The train was rushed through Calumet, but a few miles beyond was halted by piles of tiles thrown over the tracks. The miners had gathered to see the fun and to show their contempt for the ”guards”. This was too much for those ”clothed with authority”. They immediately opened fire upon the boys. A little surprise was in store for them, however, as the miners stood their ground and instead of turning the other cheek, opened fire in return. So hot did it become for the “guards” that the train hastily backed out and the guards retreated, vanquished.
It is granted by everyone that the “mine guards” are on the ground to irritate the miners into an open and sanguinary revolt. Miners are attacked constantly. Many are seriously injured. Women are insulted and beaten. The miners are armed. Most of them realize that THE ARMED RESISTANCE OF A FEW WORKERS NEARLY ALWAYS FAILS, because the bosses can call all the forces of capitalist society to do their bidding. A group of workers cannot defeat the whole capitalist government-the entire capitalist class-the army. But the miners are not meek and lowly wage slaves. One of them writes to us:
For every miner who is deliberately picked off and murdered by a “guard” they will have to settle with us.
But the men want peace. Not the peace of the lamb that has been devoured by the lion, but the peace that follows a victorious engagement with the enemy, the peace after a strike is won.
Last reports claim that the militia and gunmen have declared that they have been ordered to crush the strike by the use of violence. Following attacks upon the miners, the troopers arrest all they cannot ride down.
Strikers frankly admit their participation in the disturbances. All the big trouble arose when the armed artillerymen deliberately rode down a nine-year-old girl who was the daughter of a striker. It is reported that the soldiers were commanded to go to any lengths to provoke an outbreak by the strikers in order to find further opportunity for brutality and terrorism.
During the absence of the commanding general and his staff the militia and thugs have promised the striking miners a “real reign of terror.” We are not prophets, but we have a suspicion that these boys of the Western Federation of Miners will give them all they are looking for.
In the meantime the organizers are holding meetings and persisting in their picket duty. The spirit of solidarity is spreading rapidly and the mine men are confident of victory.
Much more could be gained, however, if the railroad men and all other miners would join the strike and enlarge the war zone. If many large groups of men in the same industry would STRIKE AT THE SAME TIME, they would be better able to fight the capitalist class.
WORKING CLASS SOLIDARITY and a general stoppage of all work in any industry are weapons that no GUN can destroy nor judge enjoin away.
[Emphasis and detail of photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Waging a Grim Battle
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 3, 1913
The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Exert Their Labor Power
From the International Socialist Review of November 1913:
THE COPPER STRIKE
[Part I of II]
WAY up in the upper peninsula of Northern Michigan 15,000 copper miners are waging a grim battle against the absentee Copper Kings. The men have worked ten and twelve-hour shifts for many years at an average wage of only $2.00 a day. Recently the companies decided to force the men to work one-man drills. Three miles in the bowels of the earth they planned to send the human moles of Michigan to dig and bring forth wealth for the spending of the bosses.
But they reckoned without the splendid spirit of the miners, who have struggled along under growing pressure from the mine bosses, while the cost of living climbed merrily upward and the standard of living went down with every leap in the prices of commodities.
The mine boys came to a few conclusions themselves and decided to raise the price of their LABOR POWER. They also made up their minds that they would enact a new labor law (among themselves) and cut short their underground workday.
They looked over the financial reports of the Calumet & Hecla Company and discovered that the mine owners had only put $1,200,000 into the mines originally and had taken out over $120,000,000 for their OWN PROFITS. Most of the mine owners live in cultured Boston and have never seen the inside of a shaft. One man draws down $120,000 salary as president and director of the company. The first vice-president (also a director) holds up the boys for $70,000, while other directors and officers make away with $45,000 and $40,000 each, and the directors are rewarded with a bagatelle of $20,000 a year. From one mine alone the officers of the company grant themselves $370,000 in loot (”salaries”) every year.
Now the boys in the copper mines are fast becoming Socialists. They are all disgusted with the portion they are receiving. They run, manage and work the mines. They are beginning to doubt the wisdom of DIVIDING up so foolishly and partially for the benefit of the mine owners. They are organizing today to FIGHT the bosses in order to secure MORE time to plan for a better resistance later on. The day is coming when they are going to take possession of the mines in the name of the MINE WORKERS, just as the steel workers will take over the steel mills, just as a united working class intends to take over all the mills, factories, shops and mines to be run and operated only in the interests of those WHO WORK and RUN and MANAGE them. They are going to STOP MAKING PROFITS FOR BOSSES.
This is the way all militant labor wars are tending. Today the copper miners are fighting for $3.00 a day and an eight-hour day. Tomorrow they will demand the full value of the copper they dig.
Also, the men are determined to abolish the one-man mine drill.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Blanket Stiff” by Arthur Machia
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 2, 1913
Cover Art by Arthur Machia: “The Blanket Stiff”
From the International Socialist Review of November 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: UMWA Declares Strike of District 15’s Coal Miners Will Begin November 9th. Order Signed by President Mitchell So Instructs President Howells.
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 1, 1903
Indianapolis, Indiana – United Mine Workers Issues Strike Call for District 15
From The Rocky Mountain News of October 30, 1903:
Note error above: District 15 coal miners are members of the United Mine Workers of America, not the Western Federation of Miners (metal miners).
Hellraisers Journal: “Organized Labor” by John Mitchell, President of the U. M. W. A., Reviewed by The Wall Street Journal
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 31, 1903
Review of John Mitchell’s Book, “Organized Labor”
-from The Wall Street Journal of October 28, 1903
Organized Labor; Its Problems, Purposes, and Ideals
and the Present and Future of American Wage Earners
-by John Mitchell, President of the United Mine Workers of America
American Book and Bible House,
Philadelphia, PA, 1903
Prominently placed in the October 28th issue of The Journal is a long review of “Organized Labor,” the recently released book by Mr. Mitchell. The review takes up a full column of the front page and about a quarter of a second column, and contains a surprising amount of praise for the labor leader, if not for all of his ideas:
Mr. John Mitchell, president of the united mine workers of America, has published a book entitled “Organized Labor.” It is interesting, first because its subject is now uppermost in the attention of the public, and secondly, because its author has within a year loomed large in the public eye, by reason of the great anthracite coal miners’ strike of 1902. Mr. Mitchell’s book, therefore, deserves more than the merely perfunctory and passing notices which it has received in the press generally.
It is on the whole well written, temperate in its criticisms, moderate in its claims, and fair in its general judgments. Conservatism is very much the keynote throughout, and the work as a whole serves to strengthen the opinion formed by most fair minded people after the coal strike that Mr. Mitchell may be counted among the ablest most responsible, and most far-sighted of the labor leaders in power to-day. His book is in the main a plea for the principles of trade unionism….
[Emphasis added.]
The Journal then goes on to list Mr. Mitchell’s principles of trade unionism as:
1) Trade unionism seeks to represent the interest of the working class, the workingman should identify his union with his class, and the working man owes duties to his class just as to his country.
2) Trade unionism stands for collective bargaining and is opposed to the individual contract.
3) Trade unionism seeks to secure a “definite minimum standard of wages, hours and conditions of work” for all workers in any given trade.
4) Trade unionism demands equal rights with employers “in determining how, when, with whom, at what time, and under what conditions work shall be carried on.”
5) “The trade unions..have nothing which is not free to all, which may not be shared by any and every capable workman.”
6) Trade unionism seeks to enforce the union shop in order to protect the union contract. (Or, as The Journal put it, trade unionism seeks “the monopolization of work for union men by enforcing the union shop..”)
7) Trade unionism seeks permanent industrial peace by means of trade agreements (the union contract.)
The Journal supports the right of the workingman to organized and bargain collectively, but is greatly troubled that allegiance to class should be valued as highly by a worker as allegiance to country, and calls this idea “a deep and dangerous fallacy.” The Journal also takes a stand against the “union shop,” failing to understand that without a “union shop,” the union contract that they so laud as leading to industrial peace, cannot be enforced.
The review ends with this recommendation:
While we totally disagree with Mr. Mitchell on the points discussed above, we can safely recommend his book to those who desire to inform themselves respecting the whole question. If we have in any way misrepresented his position we regret it heartily. We are fully as anxious to understand him as he is to be understood.
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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and Representative Keating, of Colorado, Speak at Meeting of Washington (D. C.) Central Labor Union, Urge Federal Investigation
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 30, 1913
Washington, D. C. – Mother Jones and Rep. Keating Speak at Meeting of C. L. U.
From The Washington Times of October 28, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Governor Ammons Orders Troops Out Against Strikers in the Coalfields of Southern Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 29, 1913
Denver, Colorado – Governor Declares Martial Law in Southern Coalfields
From The Denver Post of October 27, 1913:
Officers of the United Mine Workers of America in conference with Governor Ammons regarding the strike situation in the Southern coal fields. Left to right are Governor Ammons, John McLennan, district president of the United Mine Workers of America and president of the Colorado State Federation of Labor; Vice President Frank J. Hayes and President John P. White of the United Mine Workers of America.
From The Rocky Mountain News of October 28, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: “Rich Suffragets Know Nothing of Miners’ Wives’ Suffering Says Mother Jones” by William G. Shepherd
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 28, 1913
Mother Jones Lectures Rich Suffragettes on Suffering of Miners’ Wives
From the Chicago Day Book of October 27, 1913:
RICH SUFFRAGETS KNOW NOTHING OF
MINERS’ WIVES’ SUFFERING
SAYS MOTHER JONESBY WM. G. SHEPHERD
Trinidad, Col., Oct. 27.-Mother Jones, 81, here fresh from the West Virginia prisons to help Colorado coal strikers, recently gave me her opinion on women’s suffrage.
From what I see of conditions in this corrupted state of Colorado, where they have had women’s suffrage for 14 years, it seems to me that the influence of women has been utterly useless. I wish Mrs. Pankhurst would frame me a statement as to why women’s suffrage has failed so utterly in Colorado. Conditions of women and children in mining districts are worse than in any other part of the United States.
This state is owned by corporations. Votes of the women of Colorado have never helped Colorado women and children, made their lives easier or lessened their toil or gained for them any additional human rights.
The rights of lower classes are less respected in this great woman suffrage state than in West Virginia, where women don’t vote. It is like prescribing cough medicine to cure consumption for Mrs. Pankhurst to suggest votes for women as a cure for economical slavery.
Mrs. Pankhurst doesn’t understand problems of the lower classes; she belongs to the upper classes. What does Mrs. Belmont or Mrs. Mackay or other rich women who surround Mrs. Pankhurst know about suffering of miners’ wives and infants? Mrs. Pankhurst travels with women who are opposed to what laboring classes of America stand for. They demand to know what right Mrs. Pankhurst has to associate with such women at the same time she talks about uplifting the world. The consumptive, economical America needs something more than Mrs. Pankhurst’s celebrated cough syrup. I wish Mrs. Pankhurst were coming to speak to the women in the tented camps of the coal strikers of Colorado. It would be more of a lesson for Mrs. Pankhurst than for the wives.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Miners’ Magazine: “Jungles” by Agnes Thecla Fair
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 27, 1913
“Jungles” by Agnes Thecla Fair, Girl Tramp, Author of Sour Dough’s Bible
From Miners’ Magazine of October 23, 1913:
