Pray for the dead
and fight like for the living
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
—–
Fellow Worker James H. Brew
Card-Carrying Member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Fellow Worker James H. Brew was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He was a miner and a boilermaker, and a seasoned veteran of the Cripple Creek Strike of 1903-1904.
During the early morning hours of July 12, 1917, he was asleep at his rooming house when a band of Sheriff Wheeler’s army of deputized gunthugs and citizen vigilantes came to grab him as part of their warrantless round-up of the striking miners and strike sympathizers of Bisbee, Arizona.
Leading this band of kidnappers was Orson P. McRae, shift boss at the Copper Queen Mine and a member of the Loyalty League. McRae was accompanied by five deputized gunthugs.
FW Brew warned the would-be kidnappers not to enter, but with McRae in the lead, they were determined to force their way inside.
Link up in one socialist company;
Evil must perish!
Only together and united!
Long live the Western Federation of Miners!
-Alex Obremski
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Alexander Obremski
Union Organizer for the Western Federation of Miners
In 1907, Alexander Obremski was a union organizer for the Western Federation of Miners, working in the very dangerous field of the Trinidad area of southern Colorado. The field was considered to be so dangerous that organizers took the precaution of traveling in pairs.
On the evening of May 18, 1907, Brother Obremski was shot down in a saloon in Rugby, Colorado, near Trinidad, by Juan Espinosa, “a Mexican allegedly hired by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) for this purpose.” [See below.]
A large funeral was held in Trinidad on May 22nd to honor the intrepid union organizer. He was survived by two brothers who lived in Starkville, Colorado.
According to M. E. White who had charge of WFM headquarters in Trinidad:
Much credit is due for the three hundred members initiated here in the last five months, and at Pueblo, to the faithful and diligent work of your organizer, Brother James Peretto, and the late Brother Obremsky who took their lives in their hands in the work of educating the slaves of this district.
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SOURCE I
Essays in Colorado History, Issues 5-10
Colorado Historical Society, 1987
(Search with “alex obremski” reveals signature: “Alex. Obremski.”) https://books.google.com/books?id=_ngjAQAAIAAJ
Note: not available online except in snippet view. By using various search-words, I was able to bring up some relevant information. I will be attempting to track down this source in a library.
Page 55-
Alexander Obremski (1876-1907)
Correspondence from Trinidad, Colorado
Published as “Korespondencje. Trinidad, Colo.” in Robotnik Polski
Pray for the dead
And fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WE NEVER FORGET
The Costa Family, Martyrs of Ludlow
THE TINIEST STRIKER
Cedi and Charlie Costa had three children in 1913, Tony-2, Lucy-4, and Onofrio-6. They lost little Tony that year to the flu. At the time of the Ludlow Massacre, Cedi had carried another baby to term. That tiniest striker is not on the list on the back of the Ludlow Monument, but is mentioned as one of our martyred dead in a few accounts of the massacre.
Jack Reed, who arrived in the Trinidad on about April 30th, gives this account:
Two days after the burning of Ludlow, a reporter, some Red Cross nurses, and the Rev. Randolph Cook of Trinidad, were permitted by the militia to search among the ruins of Ludlow tent colony. The battle was still raging, and the soldiers amused themselves by firing into the ruins as close as they could come to the investigators. Out of the cellar under Mrs. Petrucci’s tent, which Louis Tikas had tried so hard to reach, they took the bodies of eleven children and two women, one of whom gave birth to a posthumous child.
And from Walter H. Fink:
Death Beats Life
Death, represented by the Hamrock-Linderfelt butchers, beat Life in the struggle, and young strikers were the penalty. They were just some of the many cases where the innocent had to suffer.
One particular instance of the results of this butchery was had in the undertaking parlor that night.
The young striker was unarmed.
Its mother lay on a cold, hard slab at the morgue, a victim of the Hamrock-Linderfelt murderers. She was found in the death hole at Ludlow when the Red Cross Society visited the devastated city.
If the murderous thugs in Colorado’s national guard uniform had remained away from Ludlow, had not felt it necessary to massacre the innocents to earn their $3 additional pay from the coal operators, there would have been at least one little striker two days old. But the Hamrock-Linderfelt assassins’ lust for blood could not be denied.
Thursday morning when the woman was buried a little heap lay in her arms against a breast that never had or never would nurse it.
Beshoar identifies the mother as the “wife of Costa:”
The women and children, too, were buried from Holy Trinity church. Huge, horse-drawn drays carried the white coffins to the church and away again. One long box contained the wife of Costa who had died with the union song on his lips. Against her cold breast was a young striker who had never had an opportunity to nurse it.
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SOURCES
The Education of John Reed
Selected Writings
International Pub, 1955
The Ludlow Massacre
-by Walter H Fink
U. M. W. A., 1914
Out of the Depths
-by Barron B Beshoar
(1st edition 1942)
Colorado, 1980
Pray for the dead
and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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FW Marciionas Petkus
Martyr of the Philadelphia Sugar Workers’ Strike of 1917
By February 21 of 1917 the strike at the Franklin and McCahan sugar refineries had been on for several weeks. At about 5:30 p. m. that afternoon, police were escorting scabs home from the plants when they were met by strikers and their wives, led by Florence Sholde who threw pepper into the faces of the scabs and police.
Wobbly Historian Bob Helms picks up the story:
The crowd grew and the confrontation escalated into a pitched battle of bricks and pistol shots, involving hundreds of union supporters. FW Sholde was arrested for inciting to riot (police agents supposedly had spotted her earlier in the day urging militant action at a meeting), and scores of people were injured on both sides, but Martin Petkus was killed by a single bullet in the chest and fell across a railroad track….
The news reports say that he was one of the striking Franklin workers, that he was “known among them as a giant of strength and courage,” and that the police found an IWW membership card in his pocket. He was recognized by all as a leader, and accordingly his funeral was a formidable event.
Petkus’ body lay in state at the Lithuanian National Hall (still standing), which was the headquarters of MTW IU #510 at that time, and on February 26th he was carried to St. Casimir’s Lithuanian Catholic Church, a dozen or so blocks away, with a crowd of about 10,000 accompanying his casket. Little girls wearing red dresses sold red carnations to union supporters.
Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill
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Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at Sailors’ Rest Mission in San Pedro, April 1911
Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. For the fourth day, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, features FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy. We are presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 4 of this series.
The Songs & Poems of Joe Hill,
Published in the Little Red Songbooks of 1914 & 1916
The Eighth Edition of the Little Red Songbook, published in Cleveland and dated December, 1914, was dedicated as the “Joe Hill Edition.” There were no new Joe Hill song’s in that edition, but there was a poem headed by a drawing of a wooden shoe entitled “The Rebel’s Toast.” The poem appears under the song “Liberty Forever,” but Green believes that the two are not related and states that there is no evidence to indicate that Joe Hill intended for the poem to be sung.
Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cartoon drawing by Joe Hill, September 1911
Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. For the second day, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, features FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy. We are presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 2 of this series.
The Songs of Joe Hill, Published in the Little Red Songbook of 1913
The Industrial Worker of March 6, 1913 announced that the new edition of the Little Red Songbook would include eleven new songs. On the front cover, that issue of the songbook was designated as the Fifth Edition. Nine of the eleven new songs were by Joe Hill, and included: Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part Two”→
Fellow Worker Roy J Horton-29
President of IWW Local 69
Salt Lake City, Utah
~~~~~~~~~~
Fellow Worker Roy J Horton, 1886-1915
—
In Salt Lake City, shortly after midnight on October 31, 1915, Fellow Worker Roy Joseph Horton, President of I. W. W. Local 69, was shot down by “Major” Howell P. Myton, gunthug and lawman.
Fellow Worker Horton, 29, was talking with friends in front of a downtown bar when he asserted, “Any man who would pack a star is a dirty—–.” This remark was overheard by Myton who then confronted Horton, “What do you mean by those insinuations?”
“That is meant for you or any other —– who will wear a star,” Horton replied. Whereupon Myton pulled out his gun, stated “I’ll kill you for that,” and fired three shots at Horton. Two of the shots hit Horton as he staggered away with his back to Myton.
Fellow Worker Roy Horton died there on the sidewalk. Myton was soon thereafter arrested and taken to jail.
