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

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:

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.

The first murders in the copper country were committed by the imported gunmen, who fired into a miner’s house [at Seeberville] without provocation and killed two miners. When they were arrested for this cold-blooded murder they were released on bond furnished by the mine managers.

The business of the Waddell-Mahon agency is not to preserve order, but to crush unions and break strikes.

A letter was written from the New York headquarters of the Waddell-Mahon agency on Oct. 2, 1913, to E. E. Booth, Wichita Falls, Texas, in which Archibald Mahon said:

“The Western Federation of Miners is doomed to inevitable disaster and defeat in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We make this prediction at this time, and if you will follow the story of the strike as it appears in the daily papers, and particularly in the ‘Boston News Bureau,’ the well-known financial organ, which has a special correspondent on the ground, you will see that our prediction will be fulfilled daily.”

The rioting started afresh yesterday afternoon. In a fierce battle at Quincy three deputy sheriffs were shot, two probably fatally. Two union strikers were arrested. Many of the so-called deputy sheriffs are imported gunmen, working for the Waddell-Mahon strikebreaking agency of New York. Many of them are former members of the New York City police force. Others are thugs recruited from the big cities.

Thousands of members of the Citizens’ Alliance of Houghton county paraded in Calumet and Houghton yesterday afternoon, shouting for the forcible expulsion of labor leaders from the copper district. This alliance was organized at the instigation of the mine managers.

The sheriff had 3,000 deputies on hand, many of them being Waddell gunmen.

Special Prosecutor Nicholls, Gov. Ferris’ personal representative in the strike district, conferred with Pres. Moyer of the Western Federation of Miners and urged Moyer to keep union men off the streets while the Citizens’ Alliance was parading.

He also conferred with Gen. Abbey, in command of the state militia, about asking Gov. Ferris to declare martial law. In the streets women and children prayed that further violence might be averted.

Gen. Abbey has his headquarters in the armory, which is owned by the Calumet & Hecla Company and is located on company ground near one of the mines. He and his brother officers have cards to the club, also owned by the company. That’s where the militia officers do their drinking and much of their fancy eating.

[Emphasis added.]