Category: Michigan Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914

Hellraisers Journal: News From Strike Zone of Michigan’s Copper Country; Threats and Mob Attacks Against Union Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 14, 1913
Michigan Copper Country – MacNaughton’s Eye, Threats and Mob Rule 

News From Michigan Copper Country

From the Michigan Miners Bulletin of December 2, 1913:

“Seen by the Search-Light” is a regular feature of the Miners’ Bulletin and refers to “MacNaughton’s Eye,” the giant searchlight that James MacNaughton, manager of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, has had erected on top of the main tower situated in the middle of the town of Calumet, Michigan. The searchlight roams about the streets of Calumet, keeping a watchful eye on strikers and scabs alike. It shines into windows of the homes of the residents, interfering with a peaceful night’s rest. Of course most of those streets, the houses, and the property upon which the town itself sits, is owned by C & H. Therefore, we suppose, MacNaughton has a perfect right to make of the town something resembling a prison.

MI Miners Bulletin p1, Dec 2, 1913

Seen by the Search-Light

Senator James, in his office staring at the labor situation of the day, and concluding to remain silent; to draw the votes from both sides at election time.

James Torreana, the Laurium scab supporter, at mid-night when the Hyena walks around the graveyard walls, going to meet the modern Judas A. C. Marinelli, to furnish him with news of strike-breaking nature.

Mike Bargo, the Italian scab herder at the telephone, communicating some scabious news to the “Gazette.”

A small man with spectacles riding a bicycle, from West Portland St. to the office of “The Italian Miner” of Laurium, with a parcel of written matter for publication.

Paul Tinetti looking at Pietro Micca’s picture.

5th St.-The green grass growing in front of Keckonen store, but no other place for lack of pollen matter in the seeds.

[Emphasis added.]

Regarding the “green grass growing,” we will remind our readers that MacNaughton has vowed that “grass would grow in the streets” of Calumet before he would treat with the Western Federation of Miners. This kind man has also vowed to teach the strikers and their families how to eat potato pairings.

Poetry from Miners Bulletin of December 2, 1913:

THE WORKER
By Berton Braley

I have broken my hands on your granite,
I have broken my strength on your steel,
I have sweated through years for your pleasure,
I have worked like a slave for your weal.
And what is the wage you have paid me.
You masters and drivers of men?
-Enough so I come in my hunger
To beg for more labor again!

I have given my manhood to serve you,
I have given my gladness of youth;
You have used me, and spent me, and crushed me,
And thrown me aside without ruth;
You have shut my eyes off from the sunlight,
My lungs from the untainted air;
You have housed me in horrible places.
Surrounded by squalor and care.

I have built you the world in its beauty,
I have brought you the glory of spoil;
You have blighted my sons and my daughters,
You have scourged me again to my toil.
Yet I suffer it all in my patience,
For somehow I dimly have known
That some day the worker will conquer
In a world that was meant for his own!

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: News From Strike Zone of Michigan’s Copper Country; Threats and Mob Attacks Against Union Miners” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Government by Gunthug Starts Bloody War in Upper Michigan’s Copper Country

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 13, 1913
The Keweenaw, Michigan – Government by Gunthug Starts Bloody War

From the Chicago Day Book of December 11, 1913:

MI Government by Gunthug, Bloody War, Day Book p1, Dec 11, 1913

Calumet, Mich., Dec. 11.-(Special.)-Bloody war has broken out in the copper country, and the battle has been waging since early this morning. It was precipitated by the Citizens’ Alliance, which has been making open threat for days that the union leaders would be forcibly driven from Houghton county.

Yesterday President Moyer of the Western Federation of Miners made application to Circuit Judge O’Brien for an injunction restraining members of the Alliance from interfering with officers and members of the Federation. The injunction was granted.

This morning about 2 o’clock gunmen deputies and members of the Citizens’ Alliance attempted to arrest striking miners who had barricaded themselves in their hall at South Range, about eight miles from Calumet. This started the fight.

Thirty-five armed strikers were arrested, and two special trains were sent out from Houghton loaded with reinforcements from the Alliance, one at 5 and the other at 9 o’clock.

In the battle Deputy Tom Driscoll of Houghton was shot and fatally wounded. Many others were wounded, although no list of them has been secured.

The fighting kept up all morning and before noon a total of 500 strikers had been arrested, including Victor Valimakki, Finnish organizer for the Federation, who is alleged to have confessed to the shooting of Driscoll, who was shot through the abdomen and the right arm.

Just before noon a third special train carrying gunmen, deputies and vigilantes was sent to the South Range district, a distance of 27 miles from Houghton.

The fire bells were rung in Calumet and Houghton this morning summoning all members of the Citizens’ Alliance.

Thousands are being held in reserve ready to be sent to any part of the county. The fighting today followed a night of terror throughout the strike district. Two of the gunmen deputies who were shot down yesterday are not expected to live.

Labor leaders predict that wholesale arrests will be made of members of the Alliance for violating Judge O’Brien’s injunction, issued yesterday.

Federation Hall, at South Range, where for more than eight hours today half a hundred striking copper miners battled desperately against a mob of vigilantes and deputy sheriffs, was surrendered by the miners into the hands of the Citizens’ Alliance at noon today. All the defenders of the hall were arrested. Thirty rifles and great quantities of ammunition were confiscated and will be thrown into Portage Lake.

As far as could be learned early this afternoon Deputy Sheriff Driscoll at Houghton was the only person to be fatally injured in the fighting. He was shot through the abdomen and cannot recover, it was stated this afternoon. Henry Koski has confessed to shooting the deputy, the authorities asserted. Koski’s wife is also held for complicity.

[Deputized Company Gunthugs]

The fighting deputy sheriffs are gunmen imported from New York by the Waddell-Mahon strikebreaking agency of 200 Fifth avenue, New York city. They were sworn in by Sheriff Cruse and armed with guns and deputy’s badges.

Waddell said himself that many of them were ex-members of the New York police department. Others were imported from Chicago and other cities, but most of them from the East.

The entire county has been under control of the mining companies, through the sheriff’s office and the Waddell thugs, ever since the strike began last July.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Government by Gunthug Starts Bloody War in Upper Michigan’s Copper Country” →

Hellraisers Journal: Big Annie of Calumet: “She faced cavalrymen with drawn sabers, infantry-men with bayonetted guns.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 1, 1913
Annie Clemenc, Heroine of Michigan’s Copper Country Strike

From the International Socialist Review of December 1, 1913:

“BIG ANNIE”

Annie Clemenc w Flag, ISR p342, Dec 1913

IN the Calumet strike region they are calling Annie Clemenc the American Joan of Arc. Annie Clemenc is a miner’s wife. A Croatian [Slovenian], she was born in this country and educated in the school at Calumet. If she were dressed in fashion people would turn to look at her if she walked down State street or Fifth avenue. Even in her plain dress she is a striking figure. Strong, with firm but supple muscles, fearless, ready to die for a cause, this woman is the kind all red-blooded men could take off their hats to.

I suppose Annie Clemenc knows what it is to go hungry, but I don’t believe all the millions of dividends ever taken out of the Calumet & Hecla mine could buy her.

The day when the soldiers rode down the flag Annie Clemenc stood holding the staff of that big flag in front of her, horizontally. She faced cavalrymen with drawn sabers, infantry-men with bayonetted guns. They ordered her back. She didn’t move an inch. She defied the soldiers. She was struck on her right wrist with a bayonet, and over the right bosom and shoulder with a deputy’s club.

“Kill me,” she said. “Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I won’t go back. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.”

After the parade one morning Annie Clemenc came up to the curb where President Moyer was standing. I was there.

Looking up at him she said:

“It’s hard to keep one’s hands off the scabs.”-From the Miners’ Bulletin.

“Big Annie” has been leading the parades of the striking miners to which she walked early every morning from seven to ten miles. The women have been especially brave and class consciousness in this copper war. And the Finns, who have been educated in the principles of Socialism, are lending a militant character to the struggle that helps much to developing the staying powers of the men

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Big Annie of Calumet: “She faced cavalrymen with drawn sabers, infantry-men with bayonetted guns.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Miners Magazine: Poem by Ellis B. Harris for Annie Clemenc and the Other Women of Calumet

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Poem Ellis B Harris re Annie Clemenc n Women of Calumet, Mnrs Mag p14, Nov 27, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 28, 1913
Poem by Ellis B. Harris for the Heroines of the Michigan Copper Country Strike 

From the Miners Magazine of November 27, 1913:

Poem for Annie Clemenc by Ellis Harries, Mnrs Mag p14, Nov 27, 1913

From The Survey of November 1, 1913:

MI Strikers Parade, Annie w Flag, ed, Survey p127, Nov 1, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners Bulletin: Secretary Wilson Perturbs McNaughton; Gunmen Attack Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 19, 1913
Michigan Copper Country – Labor Secretary William B. Wilson Perturbs McNaughton

From the Miners’ Bulletin of  November 18, 1913:

Miners Bulletin Mnrs Bltn p1, McN v WBW, Gunmen Attack Striking Miners, Nov 18, 1913

An article entitled “McNaughton’s Veracity,” concerning the truthfulness, or lack of thereof, of Mr. McNaughton, takes up almost half of the front page of the current edition of the Bulletin. Suffice it to say that Mr. McNaughton is not happy with the recent speech made by the U. S. Secretary of Labor, William B. Wilson, at the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor:

…McNaughton hollers “liar, liar.” McNaughton’s reputation for truth and veracity is at such a low ebb in this community that those long distance, epithets makes the average person smile, for instance, he stated at the beginning of this strike that 85 per cent of his employees were willing to return to work but were afraid although he had 2,500 militiamen and 1,000 gunmen at his disposal….

[Emphasis added.]

There then follows a list of falsehood after falsehood put forth by Mr. McNaughton. But, on the same front page is a story about the effectiveness of the gunmen, imported into the strike zone by the copper bosses:

GUNMEN ATTACK STRIKING MINERS

Yesterday morning while a large number of strikers were holding their usual morning parade, and when near the Quincy mine, they were joined by quite a number of mounted police who rode amongst them until a point opposite the Quincy was reached when the parade was met by a large force of gunmen. At this juncture, the mounted guards lined up on each side of the parade wilst the gunmen poured a volley into the ranks of the strikers. One striker was badly shot in the hip while it is believed several others were slightly injured by the firing of lead missiles. One guard was badly injured by being trampled upon by one of the frightened horses. The attack was no doubt planned beforehand as the concerted action of the mounted guards and gunmen would imply.

The parade consisted of men, women and a scattering of children, all of whom were quiet and were marching on the county road. The guards and the gunmen had not the least provocation for making this dastardly assault upon peaceable citizens who have a perfect right to parade on the public highway. After the melee, six of the paraders were arrested and taken to jail, but were later released. Assistant states attorney Nichols will make an investigation of this dastardly assault and in all probability will bring the guilty parties to justice.

[Emphasis added.]

Somehow, we suspect, that the last sentence is meant as a bit of sarcasm.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners Bulletin: Secretary Wilson Perturbs McNaughton; Gunmen Attack Strikers” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Labor World: Eighteen Strike Sympathizers, Women and Girls, Arrested in Calumet, Michigan

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 18, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Eighteen Women and Girls Arrested

From the Duluth Labor World of November 15, 1913

WOMEN AND GIRLS ARRESTED AT MINE
———-

Eighteen Charged With Violation of Injunction
at the Mohawk Property.
———-

CALUMET, Mich., Nov. 13.-—Eighteen women and girls, strike sympathizers, were arrested at the Mohawk mine today, charged with violation of the injunction prohibiting abuse or intimidation of workers. They were cited to appear before Circuit Judge O’Brien on Nov. 24.

William Teddy, prominent strike leader, was arrested on suspicion of being connected with the dynamiting of a house in which mine guards boarded at Centennial Heights, Tuesday morning. The investigation of attacks on mail trains carrying imported workmen, is progressing quietly. Eleven arrests of strikers have already been made. The gunmen are losing no opportunity to harass the strikers.

MI Strikers Parade, Annie w Flag, ed, Survey p127, Nov 1, 1913

[Emphasis and photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “The Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Ellis B Harris Children of the Poor, MI MB p2, Nov 11, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 15, 1913
“Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris

From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of November 11, 1913:

Miners' Bulletin, MI, Nov 11, 1913

Little Children of the Poor
by Ellis B. Harris

Little children of the poor,
My heart goes out to you.
Little lives that must endure
Where miseries accrue;
In the factories and mills
There robbed of play and hearth
Suffering a world of ills
For parasites of wealth.

Little children of the poor,
You, tender, precious flowers,
Blooms for gardens sweet and pure,
Yet robbed of playtime hours.
Is it strange that blood runs wild
And hands are clenched in wrath
When we contemplate a child
Upon the thorn strewn path?

Little children of the poor,
Brave hearts shall place the blame
For the lives that you endure,
And point the nations’s shame.
Boasting here of Freedom’s reign
And scorning royal commands,
Forging them a master’s chain
To shackle baby hands.

Little children of the poor,
Pearls for trampling swine,
Cast and mired that they secure
The wealth from mill and mine.
There are those who hear the call
From far off Galilee,
Heeding, until Mammon fall
And you, His Jewels, are free.

Little children of the poor,
A future day shall break,
When no one can e’er secure
Your lives for profit sake;
When the people’s rule shall fill
The world with melody,
And childhood’s joys and laughter thrill
The world with ecstasy.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “The Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Miners’ Bulletin (W. F. M.) of Michigan Copper Country: “Government by Gunmen”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 14, 1913
Michigan Copper Country – Striking Copper Miners Governed by Gunmen

From the Miners’ Bulletin of November 11, 1913:

The Miners’ Bulletin is the official newspaper of the Western Federation of Miners in the strike zone of Michigan’s Copper Country. The latest issue contains a scathing indictment of the community’s indifference to the terror being spread through-out the strike zone by the Waddell-Mahon Company gunthugs, known as “Waddies.” The strikers maintain that these imported gunthugs have been deputized by Sheriff James Cruse of Houghton County, in defiance of state law, although the Sheriff continues to deny that the imported gunmen have actually been formally deputized. The article stated in part:

WFM Miners Bulletin MI 1913

When the citizens of a community show such indifference as to permit any corporation of greed to import gunmen for the purpose of intimidating the working-class of said community in their peaceful demands for simple justice, it certainly is a sad commentary on the stability and integrity of the community. It seems the people of the copper region of this state would have profited by the experience of Idaho, Colorado, and South Dakota camps in the fight for justice by the working-class. There are thousands of good, loyal citizens who could have been deputized to keep the peace, and who would have done their duty without fear or favor, but the mine companies did not want this kind of policing: they wanted the thug, the crook, and the gunman in order to create as much trouble as possible: then comes the National Guard, and the trick is done. The mining officials can then sit home in their easy chairs while the troops guard their property and scabs imported by their agents from all the largest cities in the country. Regarding Government by Gunmen, the Omaha Daily News has the following to say: “The police power is supposed to be the arm of the government to uphold law and order and justice. In theory, policemen are public servants. YOUR employees, hired to execute YOUR will.”

What are the facts?

Throughout the 1,019 square miles of Houghton county, Michigan in the copper country the policing has been subjet to  imported gunmen, recruited from the slums of the great cities by a corporation of strikebreakers under the pay of the mining companies: and this Michigan instance is not unique, but typical….

Be that as it may [the abdication of popular government in the Michigan copper country], this hiring out of the police power to disreputables in the interest of greed and oppression WILL HAVE TO BE STOPPED. The alternative is slavery.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Citizens Alliance Formed in Michigan Copper Country with Goal of Eradicating the Western Federation of Miners from the Keweenaw District

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 12, 1913
Michigan Copper Country – Citizens Alliance Formed to Combat W. F. M.

From The Calumet News of November 10, 1913:

MI Copper Country Citizens Alliance Formed, CNS p1, Nov 10, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: Annie Clemenc Arrested Along with 98 Other Strikers and Sympathizers Marching in Fierce Blizzard

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Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal -Tuesday November 11, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Ninety-Nine Arrested Marching in Fierce Blizzard

From The Calumet News of November 8, 1913:

MI Annie Clemenc Arrested with 98 Others Marching in Blizzard, CNs p8, Nov 8, 1913

Cavalrymen stationed in Calumet this morning [November 8] arrested ninety-nine strikers and sympathizers on a blanket charge of violating the injunction [against picketing]. The arrests were made on Calumet avenue near the M. E. church, between 6 and 7 o’clock. A parade, headed by “Big Annie” Clemenc, proceeded north from Red Jacket road and when a number of workmen passed the marchers yelled and cursed them, it is alleged…..

From El Paso Herald of November 9, 1913:

Parade in Blizzard, Annie Clemenc Leads Pickets, El P Hld p1, Nov 9, 1913

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