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Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 8, 1913
Heroine of the Michigan Copper Strike Tells a Story of Fighting Scabs
From the Miners’ Bulletin of September 6, 1913:
Transcript:
A STRIKE HEROINE
———-We have hundreds like her. Here is her story:
At 5:30 A. M. on September third I came to Sixth Street and joined eight or nine other women, wives of strikers, and we went behind the French Church and met six scabs and two deputies. We saw some Italian women picking down clothes and as they were wives of scabs we said: “You are hungry on Christmas, that is why you work now.” They put down their clothes and came toward us. The deputies told us to shut up. One of the deputies raised a club as if to hit me on the head and I put up my arm and received the blow on the arm. One deputy was fighting with three ladies, another deputy was throwing rocks at us. We did not have anything to throw but sand.
Some of the deputies came and hollered at us, one saying that he would like to kill the big lady (and of course that meant me). A black looking deputy put a club up and said he would hit me, but a soldier who had come there stopped him. Then some mounted soldiers came and tried to push us off the street, and we said: “If we were nice, young girls, you would not do that.”
We stayed and watched for scabs and saw one coming quite a distance up the road. We ran to catch him but the scab-laddies hollered and he ran off. We went up the street to wait for him, but the auto followed us. We took a lunch and threw it in the face of the two scabs, John Spreitzer and Joseph Geshell. We jumped at them and fought with them. One of them said: “God damn you, I’ll smash your head in.” One ran away and the other went in the auto. I caught the latter by the coat and pulled so hard that I am sure I tore it. Then they pulled one of the ladies in the automobile and I pulled her out. Then we went back of the automobile and I lifted her up to pull the scab’s hair, but the auto went off.
Three other ladies who had gone to another corner to watch the scabs were met by some deputies, and they took two of them to jail [Kate Rajacich and Annie Fabich] but the other ran away and came to tell us what had happened. We went and asked a soldier, who was watching about them, and he said he would see. He went in and sent another soldier out, who pulled his bayonet, put it in front of him, and came toward me, touched me with it and thinking he cut my coat, I looked, but seeing he had not, I said: “Oh, it is not sharp.”
We then went away and up the street where we met two of the fattest soldiers I ever saw and asked them about the two ladies and told them that if they did not get the ladies out, they could put us in-too. One said he had nothing to do with it, and the other said he would see about it. Then they asked us why we were fighting with the law. We told them we were not fighting with the law but for our bread. He said something about the governor and I told him that if the governor was a Socialist, we would not have to fight this long. We told them that the working men keep the capitalists up and if the working men were not here they would not be walking around.
We told them to look and see if the miners were as fat as they were. They did not like this, and said: “Do you think you will win this fight? We are not up here for you but to put the strikers back to work” I said: “Do you think two or three dozen scabs will break this strike? I will be on the street till they win.” The officer said they would stay all winter. We told them to stay more if they wished, we would keep on.
[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Miners Bulletin p1, Aug 14, 1913
Copy in possession of JR
Miner’s Bulletin
“Published by authority of Western Federation of Miners
to tell the truth regarding the strike of copper miners.”
Tyomies Printing, Hancock, Michigan
-Sept 6, 1913
Copy in possession of Janet Raye.
The Calumet News
(Calumet, Michigan)
-Sept 3, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086633/1913-09-03/ed-1/seq-8/
See also:
Annie Clemenc and the Great Keweenaw Copper Strike, page 30
-by Lyndon Comstock, 2013
https://books.google.com/books?id=0-FGAgAAQBAJ
“A Heroine Whose Name is not Found in the Society Columns”
-by N. D. Cochran
-from The Day Book, pages 1-4, of Oct 8, 1913
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1913-10-08/ed-1/seq-1/
“Female Agitators
The Women of the 1913-1914 Keweenaw Copper Strike
-by Allie Penn
Upper Country: A Journal of the Lake Superior Region, 2018
https://commons.nmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=upper_country
Tag: Michigan Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/michigan-copper-country-strike-of-1913-1914/
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The Rebel Girl – John McCutcheon