By the Gods, it shall not be!
The bloated, beastly Steel Trust pirates
shall not murder our innocent
comrades and fellow-workers!
-Eugene Victor Debs
Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 2, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: Support Mesabi Range Rebels!
From the current edition of the Review, Comrade and Fellow Worker Eugene Debs calls upon unionists and socialists everywhere to support the Minnesota iron ore strikers and I. W. W. organizers who are now under indictment for first-degree murder:
Murder in the First Degree
By EUGENE V. DEBS
TRUE bills against four strikers and one woman and against Carlo Tresca and two other leaders of the striking iron workers on the Mesabe Range in Minnesota charging them with murder in the first degree, have been returned by a Steel Trust grand jury.
Not one of the accused is guilty. On the contrary, they are all absolutely innocent of the crime charged against them.
It is another case of punishing the workers for the crimes committed against them by their masters. Let us briefly review the facts in this extraordinary strike on the Mesabe Range.
First let me say that I have several times been over that territory and that as far back as twenty years ago I spent several weeks there organizing the iron workers on the range. I am therefore familiar with the conditions which are responsible for the 20,000 iron workers in and about the mines being out on strike.
These mining properties belong to the Steel Trust and in its program of union extermination the trust wiped out all the unions on the range. From that time to this a union man has been a criminal there and treated accordingly.
The Steel Trust, having their employes absolutely at their mercy, began to grind them to the marrow of their bones. Not only were wages reduced to the starvation point but they were treated in all respects more like cattle and hogs than human beings.
If they dared complain they were discharged. Spies among them kept them under suspicion of each other. Petty bosses ruled over them like despots and if they would hold their jobs they must be boot licking sycophants and slaves.
Finally these insulted, outraged peons could endure it no longer and a whirlwind of revolt swept them out of the pits and into a strike. The Steel Trust lost not a moment in attempting to break up the strike and drive them back into the pits. George P. West, field examiner of the Committee on Industrial Relations, tells the story in the report of his investigation. It is as revolting as Colorado at its worst. Every worker in America ought to read it.
The sheriff of the county, a subservient tool of the trust, at once swore in a thousand gunmen and turned them loose, “armed with carbines, revolvers and riot sticks.” It did not take long for these assassins to incite a riot and in that riot two of the strikers were killed. A deputy sheriff who broke into the home of a striker and precipitated a fight was also killed.
Arrests speedily followed and in every instance the victim was a leader of the strike or influential in its support.
Now, comes the indictment of the packed grand jury of the Steel Trust, charging them all with murder in the first degree, and there is not a shadow of doubt that the trust has them all marked for execution.
In the face of these facts what is our plain and imperative duty? What would we expect of our fellow-workers if we had been as loyal as they and were now in their places?
I shall not believe that in this crisis the working class will coldly ignore the indictment of these comrades, the heroic service they have rendered, and abandon them to their fate.
Read the report of the Labor Commissioner of Minnesota and the report of the Committee on Industrial Relations and you will see why these men and this woman, comrades of ours, have been indicted.
Just as the mine owners attempted to murder Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone ten years ago, so now are the same blood thirsty tyrants attempting to repeat their infamous crime in Minnesota.
These comrades, tho as innocent as babies, will be murdered by the Steel Trust as certain as the coming day unless the working class is aroused and stands between the brutal trust and its intended victims.
The Steel Trust is itself the arch-criminal in the case and its clutches are red with the blood of the innocent, but no grand jury will find an indictment against these multi-millionaire murderers.
It is only the poor who are indicted for being the victims of crime and only the rich who go free in spite of their guilt.
I have said enough. You know the story. We are going to stand by our own and see that they get a fair trial. Every one of us must do our part and contribute our share.
My blood runs thru my veins a stream of fire as I contemplate this impending crime against our comrades.
It shall not be!
By the Gods, it shall not be! The bloated, beastly Steel Trust pirates shall not murder our innocent comrades and fellow-workers!
———-
Carlo Tresca. Jos. Schmidt and Sam Scarlett, organizers of the I. W. W. were indicted by a Grand Jury of St. Louis County at Virginia, Minnesota, charged with first degree murder. The same Grand Jury indicted Militza Masanovitch, her husband, Phillip Masanovitch, Joe Orlanditch, Joe Nicitch, and Joe Chernogrotchevitch. The last four named are strikers. All of the prisoners, including the woman with her nine months’ old babe, are held in prison without bail at Duluth. The date of their trials has not been set. The indictments show that the seven men and woman are charged with killing a deputy sheriff by the name of Myron. Remember that none of the organizers were at Biwabik at the time of the shooting. We are confronted with a cold-blooded frame-up. The strikers must have a proper defense, and it is up to you to see that they are not railroaded to prison, or to the gallows.
A general protest must be aroused throughout the entire country. Sunday, October 22nd, 1916, will be a day of defense meetings to open the jail doors. Let every Union and Local arrange a meeting for that date. Have speakers of different nationalities. Tresca, Schmidt and Scarlett have done noble work for the strikers and must be set free. John A. Keyes, of Duluth; Victor Power, of Hibbing; Leon Whitsell, of California, and Arthur LaSueur, of Ft. Scott, will defend these men. Send all funds for the defense to William D. Haywood, 164 West Washington Street. Chicago, Ill.
Pennsylvania Cossacks by John Sloan
(For more on the relationship between the oppression of the coal miners in Pennsylvania and iron ore miners of the Mesabi Range, see the article below.)
The Review on the Steel Trust, the Coal Miners of Pennsylvania and the Iron Ore Miners of Minnesota:
MILLIONS MADE ON THE MESABA
ANDREW CARNEGIE, father and patron saint of the Steel Trust, once said: Take away all our money, our great mills, ore-mines, and coke- ovens, but leave our organization, and in four years I shall have re-established myself.
That the Steel Trust wields more power than the government at Washington is but saying something which every student of industrial and political life recognizes as a cold fact. Its will is law. Its supreme will is the supreme law. The State of Pennsylvania has been owned, body and soul, by this trust for years. The making of steel is its leading industry. Pennsylvania politics is steel and coal politics. Its laws protect steel and coal property. Only last Thursday, September 14th, 262 coal miners in an open union meeting were arrested in a body, thrown in jail and are now being held in default of $1,305,000 bail, by orders of the Coal and Steel Trust.
In Minnesota six men and one woman are charged with murder in the first degree, by orders of the Steel Trust. The story of how the coal and iron happens to be owned by the Steel Trust will never be written. More than once the Steel Companies have accepted large money losses rather than disclose their secrets in courts, but, we find that sometime in 1892 a Pittsburgh capitalist by the name of Oliver formed a company to operate the Missabi Mountain mine on the Mesaba Range, in order to secure as cheaply as possible a supply of high-grade Bessemer ore for his Pittsburgh mills.
However, he was short of capital and soon after we find him giving the Carnegie Company one-half the stock of the Oliver Mining Company, in consideration of a loan of one-half million dollars, secured by a mortgage on the ore properties, to be spent in development work. In this way the Steel Trust secured its first grab at the iron ore without the cost of a dollar.
In 1896 Capitalist Oliver and Capitalist Frick leased the other great mines on the Mesaba Range from John D. Rockefeller on a royalty basis of only 25 cents a ton. This low price was given by the Rockefellers on the condition that the output of 1,200,000 tons a year be shipped over the Rockefeller railroads and steamships on the Lakes. The contract was to run for fifty years and meant a saving of $27,000,000 to the two gentlemen. How easy it is for a capitalist to save money!
We thus see the mines, transportation and mills tied together in one vast industrial organization. Upon the organization of the United States Steel Company, the Carnegie-Oliver Company owned two-thirds of the known Northwestern supply of Bessemer ores —roughly, 500,000,000 tons, which Mr. Schwab valued at $500,000,000.
The first Mesaba mine secured by Mr. Oliver had an output of 164,000 tons per month. In fact, eight men with a steam shovel not only mined but loaded 5,800 tons of ore in ten hours, at a cost of less than 5 cents per ton for labor.
Ninteen summers and winters have passed over the range since the first mine was opened. Thousands of miners worked long hours during the hot months, only to be laid off when winter came on, because they had mined too much ore. Strikes also came and went. In June, this year, 15,000 strikers downed tools, although unorganized. They faced an army of Steel Trust gunmen without flinching. They are now facing the courts. Meanwhile, what are you doing to help them win?
The Review on the Mesabi Strike Fund:
From Local 65, I. W. W., Bisbee, Ariz.—Secretary writes: “We have been very successful in raising funds for the Mesaba Range strikers. Over $200 was sent in the first part of August.”
“Local 106, W. F. of M., has donated $50. Warren District Trade Council has sent $10, and the state convention of the A. F. of L. donated $50 to the strike fund. We are selling 100 copies of [the Mesabi] Strikers’ News every week and forty copies each of the Industrial Worker and Solidarity, as well as a bunch of Reviews. Yours for the O. B. U. Sebla Maxwell.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The International Socialist Review, Volume 17
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
Charles H. Kerr & Company,
July 1916-June 1917
https://books.google.com/books?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ
ISR October 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA195
Murder in the First Degree By EUGENE V. DEBS
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA203
MILLIONS MADE ON THE MESABA
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA230
Mesabi Strike Fund
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA247
IMAGES
Eugene Victor Debs, ISR, Oct 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA203
Carlo Tresca & Big Bill Haywood, ISR, Oct 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA205
Pennsylvania Cossacks by Sloan, ISR, Oct 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA196
Note: this is half of a double-page drawing by John Sloan from The Masses of April 1915
http://dlib.nyu.edu/themasses/books/masses049/14-15
Chg IWW, Mesabi Strike Fund, ISR, Oct 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA247