Now is the time, Boys…
We can make it if you muster
all the strength you have left.
-Manus Duggan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday July 21, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Butte Miners Describe Horrors of Mine Fire
On June 15th, there came forward two miners from the city of Butte to testify for the defense in the federal conspiracy trial against leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World. The miners quietly and calmly described the horrors they had witnessed during and immediately following the mine fire that claimed the lives of 164 of their fellow miners.
From the Billings Morning Gazette of July 16, 1918:
BUTTE CITY OF WIDOWS SAYS WOBBLY
—–
The Daily Missoulian June 10, 1917
CHICAGO, July 15.-“Butte is a city of widows,” said Murta Shay [Murty Shea], a witness at the I. W. W. conspiracy trial today. John Muzilech [Musevich], a miner, told of the fire in the Speculator mine in June, 1917, declaring that the workers were trapped behind cement bulkheads which contained no doors. “We found the bodies piled in heaps against these bulkheads,” he said.
Joseph Kennedy, recording secretary of the Metal Mine Workers of Butte, testified he had joined the I. W. W. in 1917. Since 1909, he said, he had worked about six years under ground in Butte and had never seen a mine inspector in the workings.
George Taylor of Fernwood, Idaho, testified he had worked in lumber camps on St. Mary’s river for many years, but was made, a deputy sheriff last summer during the lumber strike there. He said there was no disorder but that many I. W. W. members who went into the woods to fight forest fires were arrested and locked in a stockade on their return.
—–
[Newspaper clipping added.]
Report from Defendant Harrison George:
[Testimony of Murty Shea]
Next upon the stand [June 15th] came a stalwart, broad-shouldered man, a pleasant-mannered Irish miner from Butte, who told in that nonchalant way usual to those whose every hour of labor is an hour of peril how he and a few other miners had fought their way through that hell of flame and smoke which swept the Speculator Mine in June, 1917, and left its sacrifice to greed in the form of 174 burned and mangled men. The story of this man, who walked out of the jaws of death into the Chicago courtroom is worth perusal.
VANDERVEER: Where were you employed before the Speculator Fire?
A. In the Never-Sweat Mine.
Q. Why do they call it that?
A. Because it is so hot, I guess.
Q. You were working in the Speculator on the 8th of June?
A. 1917, yes.
Q. Do you know when the fire broke out?
A. About 11 o’clock at night, June 8, 1917.
Q. What shift were you working on?
A. The night shift—went to work at six o’clock.
9. What level were you on when the fire broke Out?
A. The 2600.
Q. That means 2600 feet underground?
A. Yes.
Q. How far apart are the levels?
A. 200 feet.
Q. Are the levels in adjoining mines connected?
A. No.
Q. Well, do the workings connect?
A. Some places they do.
Q. How many men were working on the 2600 level with you?
A. About a hundred men.
Q. How many were working “on the breasts” or whatever you call it, where you were?
A. About forty.
Q. What were you doing that particular night?
A. Running a machine.
Q. What kind of a machine?
A. It is called a “Buzzy” machine.
Q. “Buzzy” machine?
A. In other words, we called them in Butte, Montana, “widow makers.”
Q. Why do you call them that?
A. Because it is run by one man. It is not very safe for one man to be working in those mines alone.
Q. It is a drill, is it?
A. Drill, yes.
Q. Is it dusty working around this machine?
A. Pretty dusty. You have to wear a muzzle to keep the dust out.
Q. Were there other men working around you?
A. Yes, two more.
Q. How far away?
A. About 80 feet.
Q. I want you to tell the jury how you first noticed the fire. They don’t know anything about it. They never heard of it.
Spokane Spokesman-Review June 11, 1917
A. Well, gentlemen, I noticed smoke in the stope some time around 12 o’clock I guess. I found an awful taste in my mouth, so thought I would go and get a drink of water and get some powder. So I met the leader from the drift—
Q. You met whom?
A. The leader, and Dugan the “nipper.”
Q. What is the “nipper’s” job?
A. He is the man who packs the tools around to the miners.
Q. Where do you get the powder?
A. Well, there is a magazine down in the mine.
Q. Now, you tasted this unusual taste in your mouth ?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you notice the other men who were there?
A. Well, I couldn’t see them for the smoke. It was getting so thick.
Q. What did you think this smoke was at first?
A. I thought it was powder smoke first.
Q. Thought somebody was shooting?
A. Yes. Then I got suspicious. So I went down to the drift and I met this man Dugan, this “nipper.” He lost his life. So he told me there was a fire in the shaft.
Q. Fire in the Shaft?
A. Yes, and we climbed up to the 2400.
Q. That is, 200 feet?
A. 200 feet.
Q. How did you climb up?
A. Just the “man-way,” up a ladder.
Q. How big a hole is this man-way?
A. Well, enough space for a man to get through.
Q. What kind of a ladder?
A. Just an ordinary ladder.
Q. Did you take your dinner pail with you?
A. Yes, I threw my dinner pail away in the man-way.
Q. Why did you throw it away?
A. I knew I had to fight for my life, then.
Q. How many men went up with you?
A. Fifteen.
Q. When you got up to the 2400, what did you do?
A. We met fourteen more men up in the 2400.
Q. That made 29 of you?
A. 29 of us. They were also running back from the fire.
Q. The fire was down at the shaft, you say.
A. Yes.
Q. How far were you from the shaft?
A. 300 feet.
Q. What did you and these other men do?
A. Well, we went in a drift, and we stayed there for 36 hours.
Q. What is a drift? How wide is it?
A. About six feet wide.
Q. And how high?
A. About eight feet high.
Q. What did you do in that drift?
A. We put up a partition to keep out the gas.
Q. What did you use to build it with?
A. Timber and our clothes; clay and everything.
Q. Everything to pack it up tight?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any air in this place you bulk-headed out?
A. No air at all. Q. What became of the rest of the hundred men down on the 2600 foot level?
A. They died.
Miners Saved by Hero Duggan
Q. There were 29 of you in there?
A. 29 of us in there. Fifteen were able to walk to the station.
Q. You had no air and water?
A. No.
Q. Is there a water pipe through the mine?
A. No, there is not. Q. After you had been in there 36 hours, what did you do?
A. Well, we had to get out. We couldn’t stand the suffering any more.
Q. Did you know anything about how the fire was?
A. Well, we knew the shaft was on fire.
Q. I mean when you went out?
A. No, we didn’t know; just took a chance on our life.
Q. Just took a chance on your life and tore down the bulkhead?
A. Yes.
Q. You could not stay there any longer?
A. No, we would die if we stayed inside.
Q. When you tore it down and got out, what did you do?
A. We rang for the cage in the old shaft.
Q. Did the cage come down?
A. Yes, after half an hour’s time.
Q. When you got up on top, what did you do?
A. Well, some went to the hospital.
Q. How long were you there?
A. I was there for eight hours. I went down there two days later.
Q. Why did you go down there two days later?
A. Well, the effect of the gas was in my brain.
Q. You don’t know of your own knowledge how this fire started, do you?
A. No, I don’t know.
Q. Do you know of any other men on the 2400 foot level that were not in behind the bulkhead?
A. Yes, there were several that were not there. Q. And what happened to them?
A. They died.
Q. Did you see the bodies of any of the men who were burned?
A. I saw some of them in the undertaker’s.
Q. How many?
A. Three.
Q. Just three?
A. They were the bodies that were taken out of the mine before we got out.
Q. Did you see any that were taken out afterwards anywhere?
A. No, I couldn’t stand the pressure. I was upset.
Q. You couldn’t stand what?
A. I couldn’t stand to see it. My nerves were all upset.
Q. You are a pretty strong fellow, aren’t you?
A. Yes, pretty strong.
Q. Now, Mr. Shea, how long was it after that before the strike was declared?
A. Two days later.
Q. Who conducted the strike; I mean what union?
A. Butte Metal Mine Workers Union.
Q. Did the I. W. W. have anything to do with it?
A. No.
Q. Did they have any union there at that time?
A. No, I don’t know of any.
Q. What was the strike about?
A. Well, the rustling card and better conditions in the mines.
Q. About how long altogether have you worked underground?
A. About seven years.
Q. How many times have you seen a mine inspector underground?
A. Oh, a couple of times.
Q. A couple of times in seven years? Would you know beforehand that he was coming down?
A. Yes.
Q. What would you do then?
A. Oh, get cleaned up; get ready for him.
Prosecutor Porter tried to make it appear that the mines of Butte couldn’t be so bad as Shea always remained there. Mr. Porter asked, “Yet, every time you go away for a month or two, you always come back to Butte, to these mines, don’t you?” Mr. Shea: “Yes.”
Here Vanderveer resumed on redirect and raised a laugh that swept the court, to vanish in the tragedy of the witness’ last replies. VANDERVEER: You are a miner, aren’t you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What else do you know besides mining?
A. Mining and common labor; that’s all.
Q. What is your nationality? Irish.
Q. What kind of a camp is Butte?
A. Butte is a pretty hot camp.
Q. Well, lots of Irish there? A. Lots of Irish, yes. More widows in Butte than in any other town of its size in the United States.
Q. More widows. Is that the reason you go back there?
A. I guess so.
Q. Is that the reason you are single?
A. Well, I mean—the mines have made all these widows.
Q. Why have you never married, Marty? A. Because I would never live to be an old man in Butte.
Q. What is the matter?
A. Well, the miner’s consumption gets you when you are about 37.
Q. Is that prevalent around there?
A. That is common; yes, sir.
Q. What causes it? A. Oh, the hot mines and the copper dust.
[Testimony of John Musevich]
Another Butte miner, John Musevich, a Croatian, followed Shea upon the witness stand. Frankly and simply, this bent, rough-handed man poured forth a torrent of broken English, a pent-up story of Labor’s side of the class war. John has a large family in Butte, where he has lived for 14 years. Because of his activity with the short-lived union of 1914, this man had been blacklisted, and every day for over a year he had called at the “rustling card” office seeking in vain to get a chance to ask for work. Finally, when the A. C. M. thought he had “learned his lesson” he was allowed to go to work at the Speculator Mine. Only a glimpse of Musevich’s testimony can here be given. Asked by Vanderveer if the mine was dusty, he replied, “Dusty ? I should say it is !”
Q. What kind of dust?
A. It is a copper dust, and now it is a damned sight worse. When you get into this zinc ore or lead ore, it is dry, hard ground; it makes fine stuff like flour and it goes right into your lungs.
Q. Is that good for you?
A. I don’t think it is for nobody good.
Q. I understand that (Speculator) shaft is timbered on all sides?
A. Yes, the shaft is timbered with 12×12’s.
Q. Does that timber get dry?
A. That shaft was dry as a bone, because that shaft was downcast; the air going down.
Q. Was there any water in there to take care of fire? Any fire hose, or nozzles down there for the miners to put out a fire with?
A. No, there wasn’t any at all.
Musevich had come to the Speculator to go on shift at midnight on June 8th. The fire being on he could not get a cage to go down and after discovering the reason he and other men acting under orders of the “Super” had tried to check the blaze in the shaft by playing a hose down the shaft mouth and only succeeded in driving the smoke downward to the lowest levels. Then two heroes-two who are nameless in history because they wear no livery of an empire and sought to save human life instead of destroying it—two men seeing the ore skips were still running, threw some old cars in the bottom of a skip, converting it into an emergency cage; and then, in a desperate attempt to rescue their fellow workers trapped half a mile in the mountain’s belly below, they—“catch the first cage and they went down and they ring the bell to 22.”
Q. That means the 2200 foot level?
A. Rang the bell for 2200 foot level, tried to save the men from there first, but when they came down (witness pauses), they (at the top) move the cage after about half an hour’s time.
Evidently these two men were overcome before they had a chance to leave the cage in their heroic efforts to save the men at the 2200 station.
Q. Were you there when the cage came up?
A. Yes, sir. Somebody went into the engine room and told the engineer to hoist the cage up, that them fellows is burned all through. So he pulled it up, and when the cage come up it was red hot. So they turned the hose on that cage to cool them fellows off, and left that cage there for about a half an hour to cool it off. Then it was about 3 o’clock [3 a. m. June 9th], I believe, and they lowered the cage down to the platform, and we opened the cage and was trying to get them fellows out, and so—them fellows was both of them crossed his arm, one on each other and got their heads together; so when we tried to pull it out, I was just on the side to get one man from the right arm; and I kept the arm in my hand, and the hand it was loose.
Q. The arm pulled off?
A. Yes, so then I grabbed the whole body and throwed it off on the platform and covered it up with a canvas. The arm was burned off and the foot was burned just down to the bone sticking out; that’s all it was with them two fellows. You could see where the nose was and the eyes, and that’s all. They were as black as anything.
These two men went to their death when they “rang the bell to 22. Musevich is speaking now of rescue work later when he went down to take out the dead.
Q. Now, did you find any bodies underground?
A. I found at the 2200 station. There was six of them there.
Q. Where were they?
A. They was right on a pile of rock; the station was burned and the ground was caved right on top of them.
Q. Do you know anything about the bulkheads under there?
A. There was bulkheads some place; on the 28 there was one, and on the 24 and 26.
Q. Where were the bulkheads?
A. To the east side, going to the High Ore Mine.
Q. Did the levels go through from the Speculator to the High Ore?
A. Yes, they was open.
Q. How were they on this night of the fire?
A. Well, because the fire—was open about three weeks before. Then they put some bulkheads in some of them places where gas was coming from the Murdock Mine.
Q. What kind of bulkheading?
A. Cement, about six inches thick.
Q. Any doors in them?
A. No, I broke one on the 1800, and there wasn’t any door. The door was from the other side; wooden doors. Then in the middle they put boards and eight inch cement.
Q. Could you open it from the Speculator side? A. No.
Q. You broke it? How did you break it?
A. I was breaking with the machine, blasting. But them fellows, when they ran to the bulkhead on 26, they found them in a bunch, 19 of them.
Q. Dead?
A. All dead, yes.
Q. How were they found?
A. Well, them men—nobody could look at that. And they was bare; and there was nothing but drawers on them and shoes. They took their jumper and overalls and shirt and what they have and tried to bulkhead themselves with it, but they couldn’t stop the gas, you know. It was too much gas. They fell. They worked with their hands. It was in the dark, and when a man is in the dark, about six or seven feet room between the timber and the level, you can’t do much. The rock is all over.
Q. How far were they from the bulkhead?
A. They was right there in the bulkhead.
Q. But if it had been open, the men could have got through?
A. Oh, yes, if that was open the men could go through the High Ore. Q. And saved their lives?
A. Sure.
Q. Did you notice the fingers of any of those men?
A. Oh, yes, they was all wore out, working to save themselves.
Q. They were what?
A. They was wore out. It was terrible to see it. It was bad to look at it.
Q. Do you know what caused the strike?
A. Well, the people was scared because two shafts was burned that way; and they talking—“Let us go on strike to get better conditions and get our own control through the mines.”
Q. Do you know when President Taft went through the mines?
A. (Laughing) Oh, yes. (In 1914)
Q. Do you know where they took him?
A. They took him down in the Leonard Mine.
Q. Did you ever see the drift he was in ?
A. He was in the 1200 drift, the station. A foreman, Tom Mitchell, he had that drift just limed as it could be, and whitewashed, you know.
Q. Whitewashed?
A. Yes, station and everything. It is as clear as street is here today—that drift for about a thousand feet or so the surveyors find out there ain’t any ore on there, and they put the miners in there and set up the machines, and so when President Taft was coming in, the miners working on the machines and he took the crank and he say “All right, golly, the miners have snap in Butte.” But the truth is the other places is terribly hot.
Q. Do you belong to the I. W. W.?
A. No, sir.
Q. Ever belong to it?
A. No.
Q. You belong to the Butte Metal Mine Workers, do you?
A. Yes, sir.
[George Taylor, Deputy Sheriff]
The next witness was one George Taylor, who was employed as deputy sheriff during the lumber strike. Taylor said he was discharged because there was no violence; the I. W. W. were law-abiding.
[Joseph P. Kennedy, Butte Union Organizer]
When the next witness, Joe Kennedy, organizer of the Butte Metal Mine Workers’ Union, began to testify, Nebeker was forced to make retreat. The prosecution had to swallow its first contention that the Butte union was “only the I. W. W. camouflaged.” Kennedy corroborated others in regard to the causes of the strike, told how he had organized the independent union, and, also, he told of how that union’s hall had been raided on September 5th, 1917, and the membership list taken, as was done at the I. W. W. hall the same day. Strangely enough, after the government officers laid hands on the list of members, many of these were suddenly discharged by the A. C. M. although miners were badly needed in production.
Fire and Brimstone:
The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
-by Michael Punke
Hachette Books, Feb 5, 2013
(Note: I have used Punke’s research for # of dead.)
(search using names or subjects mentioned above) https://books.google.com/books?id=vZ-ZAAAAQBAJ
