Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn for The Masses: “The Minnesota Trials”

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It is a privilege and a duty even by sacrifice
to advance our priceless cause.
-John R Lawson

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 5, 1917
From The Masses: FW Flynn on Behalf of Minnesota Defendants

EGF, MN Iron Miners Strike, Ev IN, Aug 17, 1916

The following article was obviously written for The Masses by Fellow Worker Flynn, I. W. W. organizer, before the plea agreement was reached in the cases of the strikers and organizers charged with first degree murder in connection with the strike of iron miners up on the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota. The article is nevertheless valuable for the information given regarding the defenses campaign along with a short history regarding “criminal conspiracy” as related to labor struggles, past and present. Tomorrow’s Hellraisers will present an article from this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review, written by Harrison George, which claims the plea agreement as a victory for the strikers and for the cause of labor in general.

From The Masses of January 1917:

The Minnesota Trials

Masonovich-P. & M. & Boarders, ISR, Sept 1916

Many of our friends fail to appreciate the magnitude of the Minnesota strike, involving 15,000 miners and the United States Steel Corporation, and are beguiling themselves into belief that the murder cases pending are not serious.

Mrs. Masonovitch [Masonovich], the woman prisoner, wife of one of the strikers, is a particularly pathetic and appealing figure, a young and beautiful Montenegrin woman, mother of five children, one a nursing baby. She speaks little English, does not understand the proceedings, looks frightened and bewildered and clings frantically to her children. If the parents should be convicted these little ones would be practically orphans. The older ones, twelve and eight, bright, nice boys, tell very clearly what happened on July 3, the night of the tragedy, how the deputies came to arrest their father, how one struck their mother and threw her to the floor, how the fight then started in which Mr. Myron was killed, and how Nick Dillon, the notorious gunman, shot and killed Thos. Ladvalla [Tomi Ladvalla-WE NEVER FORGET], a bystander. If the episode was not connected with a strike, it would be comparatively easy to clear these poor people.

MN Iron Range Strike, Tresca Scarlett Schmidt Button, 1916

The other group of defendants are the organizers, Carlo Tresca, Sam Scarlett and Joe Schmidt, They are charged with first degree murder though not with directly participating in the trouble since they were miles away, but are alleged to have made inflammatory speeches. The old “blanket” charge of conspiracy is made against them, precedented on the Chicago anarchist cases in 1886. This same charge, you will remember, was tried unsuccessfully against Ettor and Giovannitti in Lawrence, successfully against Ford and Suhr in California, and Lawson in Colorado. The lawyers here, including Judge Hilton of Denver, a famous criminal lawyer, believe that this case can be made historic, that it is a clear cut labor fight which can be used to break once and forever the hold of the Chicago precedent on the courts.

For so many defendants and such a complicated case, we require several excellent lawyers and have engaged John A. Keyes of Duluth; Mayor Power of Hibbing, Arthur LeSeur of People’s College, Fort Scott, Kansas, and Judge Hilton of Denver The cost we have estimated at $25,000.00, which may seem large but is relatively small considering the reputation of these lawyers and the costs of similar trials elsewhere, The Moyer-Haywood Pettibone case cost $300,000.00; The Ettor-Giovannitti case $60,000.00. The scene of action, the Mesaba Iron Range, is sixty miles long and twelve miles wide and witnesses must be secured from every town in which the organizers spoke. We have at least twenty serious strike cases still on hand besides these, to be tried shortly.

Donations should be sent directly to James Gliday, Treasurer, Box 372, Virginia, Minn.

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN.

[Photographs added.]

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SOURCE

The Masses
(New York, New York)
-January 1917
http://dlib.nyu.edu/themasses/books/masses069/1
“The Minnesota Trials” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
http://dlib.nyu.edu/themasses/books/masses069/8

IMAGES

EGF, MN Iron Miners Strike, Ev IN, Aug 17, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/139947620

Masonovich-P. & M. & Boarders, ISR, Sept 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA161

MN Iron Range Strike, Tresca Scarlett Schmidt Button, 1916
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lbc1ic/x-lbc.0321/LBC0321.TIF

See also:

Hellraisers Journal: Plea Deal Reached in Iron Miners’ Cases; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Bids Mesabi Range Good-Bye
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-plea-deal-reached-in-iron-miners-cases-elizabeth-gurley-flynn-bids-mesabi-range-good-bye/

WE NEVER FORGET: The Martyrs of the Mesabi Iron Range Strike of 1916
https://weneverforget.org/we-never-forget-the-martyrs-of-the-mesabi-iron-range-strike-of-1916/

Tag: Masonovich Family
https://weneverforget.org/tag/masonovich-family/

Mesabi Range
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesabi_Range

In the Shadow of the Statue of Liberty:
Immigrants, Workers, and Citizens in the American Republic, 1880-1920

-ed by Marianne Debouzy
University of Illinois Press, 1992
(Search with: “criminal conspiracy” and choose page 275.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=jr9odn9rXBIC&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Ettor and Giovannitti before the jury at
Salem, Massachusetts, November 23, 1912

IWW, 1912/1913
https://archive.org/stream/ettorgiovannitti00etto#page/n3/mode/2up

Hellraisers Journal: Ford & Suhr will each leave a wife and two children to battle with this world.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/3/1348779/-Hellraisers-Journal-Ford-Suhr-will-each-leave-a-wife-and-two-children-to-battle-with-this-world

Hellraisers Journal: John Lawson, Hero of Colorado Coalfield Strike, Sentenced to Life in Prison
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/5/4/1382169/-Hellraisers-Journal-John-Lawson-Hero-of-Colorado-Coalfield-Strike-Sentenced-to-Life-in-Prison

Hellraisers Journal: Lawson, “I shall fight for these principles as hard as I can, in jail or out.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/5/5/1382409/-Hellraisers-Journal-Lawson-I-shall-fight-for-these-principles-as-hard-as-I-can-in-jail-or-out

Hellraisers Journal: “Solemnly facing iron bars and prison walls, I assert my love for justice.” (The Lawson Statement)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/7/14/1401566/-Hellraisers-Journal-Solemnly-facing-iron-bars-and-prison-walls-I-assert-my-love-for-justice

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