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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 10, 1920
Butte, Montana – Metal Miners’ Honor Picket Line of Blood
From The One Big Union Monthly of June 1920:
“The Richest hill in the world” has once more been stained with the blood of workers. Its arrogant industrial autocrats of Butte have again taken refuge in murder to shield themselves from the organized power of the union miners. The lynching of Frank Little has been paralleled by the massacre on Anaconda road. Butte-naked, barren, black—the city of gun-men and widows, of “sweat-holes” and cemeteries, stands out before the world today a blot on what we call civilization. Machine guns and searchlights command the city from the heights. Armed soldiers guard the approaches to the mines and gun-men loiter at every corner, or whiz up and down the streets at all hours of the day and night. There is one place on Anaconda road where everything in sight has been riddled with bullets. The blood of the dead and wounded has hardly dried in the dust. Miners have been told in unmistakable language that their constitutional right to picket means nothing and that the will of the copper trust is mightier than the law of the land. Bloody Butte! It is an ignoble title—ignobly won. But it is a fitting title.
The overlords of Butte will not permit their right to exploit to be challenged. Drunk with unbridled power and the countless millions profiteered during the war, with lying phrases of “law and order” on their lips, the blood of workingmen dripping from their hands and the gold of the government bursting their coffers they face the nation unreprimanded and unashamed—reaction militant, capitalism at its worst. The copper trust can murder its slaves in broad daylight on any occasion and under any pretext. There is no law to call a halt. In the confines of this greed ruled city the gun-man has replaced the Constitution. Butte is a law unto herself.
This huge mining camp is typical of the present stage of capitalism. The parasites of big business, furious with the realization of their approaching doom, are striking at the working class more blindly,more ferociously and more frequently than ever before. Even their most savage anti-labor laws are proving themselves inadequate to darken the rising sun of solidarity.
The gunman and lynch-mob are more and more replacing the law as measures of labor repression. The old maxim “whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” is finding daily confirmation.
Holy grove, Ludlow, Calumet, Everett and Bisbee still stand as grewsome monuments to the White Terror in America. Butte has been added to the list for a second time. Armistice Day in Centralia is only a few month past yet we can no longer refer to it as “yesterday” but the day before. Yesterday was the massacre on Anaconda road. Nobody knows where the blow will fall tomorrow. Things are moving rapidly these days.
THE STRIKE
On Monday the 19th of April the strike broke out. The miners and muckers, smarting under the high cost of living, the black-list and speed-up systems left the mines in a body and refused to return to work. They assembled in their union hall and drew up demands for a six-hour day, $7.00 wage and the abolition of the speed-up, black-list and “bonus”systems. Two men were demanded on all machines and workings. The class-war prisoners were not forgotten. The first move was to picket the mines which was done quite successfully. Very few miners had started for work and practically all of these returned home when the situation was explained to them. The strikers also appealed to the several craft unions employed on the hill to show their solidarity by striking against their common enemy. Hardly a man worked either in the mines or above ground during the first day of the strike. The mine operators were wildly indignant.
The following morning (Tuesday) pickets were met by considerable numbers of company gunmen. These thugs, without more ado, ordered the miners to “beat it down the hill”. This command was emphasized by blows, curses and an eloquent display of weapons. The picket line was dispersed. An effort to resume picketing in the afternoon was thwarted in a similar manner. Dozens of men were beaten and slugged unmercifully.
On Wednesday morning the 21st of April, the determined pickets again started out to reestablish their broken line. At Park street and Broadway,which is the approach to the Pennsylvania mine,they were assaulted by gunmen and city police and eight or nine were badly beaten with clubs. At Centerville and on the Anaconda road and various other points it was the same story. At the corner of Wyoming and Granite Streets a man was slugged who was neither a miner nor a picket. The gunmen, drunken with license and power, were out to brutalize every workingman in sight. There was none to stop them and the copper trust papers were commending the sluggers for their brave and patriotic work.
The scattered picket lines were reassembled at the union hall. The men came trooping in a few at a time, beaten and bloody. Several bad been slugged beyond recognition. Scarcely any had escaped manhandling from the inhuman mercenaries of the copper trust. The armed guards who had done the beating were rushing from point to point all morning in high powered cars looking for new victims. The laws of the state of Montana give strikers the right to picket and the miners were determined that this right should not be taken away from them by private gunmen of their employers. The matter was discussed coolly and thoroughly. The strikers decided to change their tactics. Instead of a number of groups attempting to picket a number of mines in the face of overwhelming odds, it was decided to consolidate their forces and picket one point on the country road and to remain there in a body. The Anaconda road where it passes the Never Sweat mine was chosen as the point of most strategic value. A little after four o’clock in the afternoon of April 21 the miners, almost five hundred strong, marching in orderly formation, arrived on the scene in a body. They were unarmed.
THE MASSACRE
Almost immediately afterwards big dusty company automobiles loaded with gunmen began to purr up the road. The pickets parted their ranks and silently permitted the sluggers to pass. The gunmen got out of the cars and mobilized a short distance up the road. Sheriff O’Rourke next appeared with a squad of city policemen, plain clothes men and “deputies”. These assembled between the miners and the gunmen. Altogether there were between fifty and sixty officers and sluggers.
Sheriff O’Rourke marched his squad down to where the miners were assembled. Some of the pickets had spread from the county road to the railroad tracks. The Sheriff explained to them that the tracks were company property and requested the miners to keep to the county road. The men consented to this and moved down the road below the tracks. The police and “deputies” tried to keep them going by pushing and jostling the crowd and telling the strikers to “keep moving”. The pickets remonstrated with the Sheriff, stating that they had obeyed his orders in getting off company property but that they had a right to stay on the county road. Several even produced road tax receipts to show that they had been paying taxes in this very road. Others reminded the Sheriff that picketing was lawful in the state of Montana. Many of the pickets were Irish and the Sheriff being of the same nationality a great deal of witty dialogue ensued. O’Rourke assured the miners that he was there to protect their rights and would see that they got a square deal. When asked why he had not been there to protect them on the two preceding days he stated that he had been to Helena to take in a fight and was unaware of what had been happening. O’Rourke failed to state whether it was a dog fight or a prize fight he had been attending. Both are illegal in Montana.
The Sheriff and his “deputies” made another effort to get the miners started down the hill. One picket stepped out of the crowd and told him that the miners were either entitled to picket on the county road or it was his duty to arrest them. O’Rourke replied, “All right, I’ll take you.” The picket was seized and started for a waiting machine. The crowd, seeing what was happening, demanded that if one was arrested all should be taken to jail with him. Whereupon the sheriff thrust the miner back into the crowd saying “Get back there with you!” Two more cars loaded with gunmen passed through the crowd going upwards. A gate was thrown open in the dull red fence bordering the Never Sweat mine to the right of the road above.
A number of gunmen appeared headed by Roy Alley, private representative of John D. Ryan in Butte. Roy Alley is a typical Butte mining official. He is at once an attorney and a “gunner”. The day the strike started he declared openly:
The Wobblies have got us tied up again. It wouldn’t be so bad if they only quit themselves but they are interfering with our loyal men.
We need some more killings and hangings here, and if there were any red-blooded Americans in the camp it would be done.
Alley is an arrogant cowardly, wizzened-faced creature known to the miners as “Alley Rat”. He always makes a point of obtaining with his six-shooter and thugs the things the law will not grant him. This “copper collared” gentleman spoke a few words to O’Rourke. Then he took a start to the extreme right of the company of mercenaries.
SHOT IN THE BACK
Mr. Alley suddenly raised his hand and shouted in a loud voice.
Go and get the s–s of b—-s!
As if awaiting this signal the entire body of sluggers leaped at the miners, clubbing the foremost with billeys, and the butts of rifles and riot guns. Several of the gunmen fired point blank into the ranks of the pickets. Several miners fell to the road. A few tried to crawl out of the way. The remainder of the miners broke ranks and started to run down the hill in every direction. Volley after volley was fired at their retreating forms. Nineteen men were shot in the back with bullets and slugs from rifles and riot guns. In addition to the fire from the gunmen at the railroad tracks a cross fire was opened upon them as they scrambled over gulleys and ditches toward Granite street. Gunmen had been stationed in advance at the Parrott Rustling card office and behind the fence of a nearby mine shaft. No other shots were reported at the inquest excepting those fired by the gunmen from the positions stated. A feeble attempt was made by a copper trust creature, named Templeton, to prove that the shooting commenced from the window of the Simmon’s boarding house on Anaconda road, but this lie did not survive the inquest. It was nailed by testimony of O’Rourke’s own crew.
A number of startling facts were brought out from the testimony of Under Sheriff Whalen at the inquest who was forced to admit that there was no justification or excuse for the shooting down of miners by company gunmen.
“During all the time that you were there, your attention was fixed on the crowd of strikers?” asked Attorney Donovan.
“Yes,” replied Whalen.
“Did you at any time see anything that justified anybody in shooting into the crowd of pickets?”
“I did not,” replied Whalen.
“In your opinion, as an officer, was there any justification for anyone shooting into the crowd of strikers?”
“Not that I could see.”
“Did the Sheriff or any of his regular deputies or any member of the city police force authorize or order anyone to fire into the crowd of strikers?”
“As far as I know, no.”
It was also brought out from Whalen’s testimony that no effort was made by the sheriff’s office to ascertain who fired the shots or what kind of weapons were used.
SUCH IS BUTTE
Fifteen men were laid low by the treacherous volleys— each of them shot in the back. The strikers paused only long enough to pick up their wounded and help carry them to the union hall. Seven men were seriously injured from gunshots: Tom Manning, James Sullivan, James McCarthy, Peter Marovich and Fellow Workers Lavus, Fait and DeLong. Young Sullivan as he was picked up shot through the spine, whispered this message to his fellow workers: “Tell the boys to fight to the bitter end; tell all the workers to keep off the Hill.” About a dozen others were able to be about after the bullets and slugs had been extracted and their wounds dressed. The wounded men were stretched out on the floor at the union hall. The room resembled a field hospital in France.
Tom Manning had died before reaching the hall. He was a strong, clean, intelligent young miner who was working hard to save enough money to bring his wife and baby from British ruled Ireland to “free” America. His funeral was the biggest and most impressive held in Butte since the burial of Frank Little. Little was lynched by the same bunch of corporation cut-throats that murdered Manning. Both are lying in their humble graves in the “Flats”. Their assailants are still at large—unreprimanded and unpunished—still looking for new victims. Such is Butte.
Realizing that their efforts at peaceful picketing had been made impossible by the brute force of the copper trust, the miners again changed their tactics. Picket lines had been broken up but the blood of miners remained red on the dust of Anaconda Road. Here was the new picket line—silent, accusing, eloquent.
They may prevent us from remaining on the hill but our fellow workers whose blood has been spilled…are maintaining a stronger picket line!
So read the proclamation issued from strike headquarters the day following the massacre. And the miners did not return to work but came out in increasing numbers. The latest word from Butte is that the Workingmen’s Union has struck in a body completely tying up the street car service of the city.
THE PICKET LINE OF BLOOD
But the strikers, in spite of their deep bitterness, did not intend to carry on a long drawn out strike. If their demands, or a considerable portion of them, were not granted in due time they intended to “carry the strike to the job.” So they returned to work with this intention. This is what the I. W. W. loggers did on the West coast in 1917. It won for the loggers then and it will win for the miners now.
The year after the Speculator mine disaster, when the lives of two hundred of their fellow workers were sacrificed to the god of profits, the miners went down into the “sweat holes” and dug up eighteen million dollars in dividends for the parasitical stockholders. The miners claim the massacre has opened up their eyes and that they will never be foolish to “fall” for the speed up system again. “Slow down” is the new slogan. Only the scab will step across the “picket line of blood” to hit the pace that kills and break his fool back to enrich a greedy gang of murderous mine owners. And if the Butte miners adhere to their resolution their pocketbooks will be just as full and the cemeteries in the “Flats” not nearly so much so—in the long run.
A Coroner’s inquest was held over the body of Thomas Manning. Its purpose obviously was not to fix the responsibility for his death but merely to exonerate the gunmen and the sheriff of a possible charge of murder.
Imagine what kind of a verdict can come out of an inquest where the jurors are hand-picked “copper-collared” gentlemen and in which the Coroner himself was afraid to officiate; where one of the corporation lawyers defending the gunmen is a convicted jury briber and the witnesses who testify are miners who know the moment they take the stand they are being spotted for the black-ball or worse. Imagine an “inquest” held in a court-room literally filled with the very thugs who committed the crime—all seated—while the friends of the deceased remain standing because the chairs for their accommodation were purposely removed beforehand! One of the attorneys for the “defense,” D. Gay Stivers, was recognized as one of the armed assassins on the hill.
The verdict of the Coroner’s inquest was all that had been expected of it. Read it over:
In the matter of the inquest held at the courthouse and St. James’ hospital. Silver Bow county, Montana, from April 29 to May 13, 1920, before John Doran, acting coroner for said county, we, the undersigned jurors, find the following verdict: “That Thomas Manning died April 24, 1920, at St. James’ hospital, Butte, Silver Bow county, Montana, from the effects of a wound caused by a .32-caliber bullet fired from a pistol in the hands of some person to this jury unknown. We find that there is no testimony tending to show where Thomas Manning was when shot.”
(Signed)
GEORGE HAGERMAN, Foreman.
MARK EZEKIEL,
THOMAS DRISCOLL,
M. E. DOUGHERTY,
THOMAS FLETCHER,
R. J. DWYER.The legal process of our courts, when dominated by property interests instead of traditional American justice, are as rotten as the capitalist system itself. They offend high heaven with the stench of their corruption.
BUTTE AND CENTRALIA
Butte is in reality the aftermath of Centralia. To one familiar with both cases there is a remarkable similarity. At Centralia the loggers, justified by all the laws of man and nature in defending themselves from a lynch mob, were nevertheless convicted of murder by an intimidated jury. Furthermore, in the reaction that followed, union halls were closed and thousands of union loggers thrown in jail. Unquestionably the copper trust sought to operate on similar lines in this instance. The lives of a few of their gun-thugs meant nothing to them. Troops were called into the district three days before the massacre. The assassins were stationed with riot guns and rifles at three different points on Anaconda road. The stage was all set for a second Centralia. The only thing missing was a convenient shot from the ranks of the pickets. Everything had been done to provoke them into violence beforehand. As it was the copper trust made a weak effort to prove that the miners fired the first shot. The lives of a few of its degenerate mercenaries would have been a cheap price for the copper trust to pay for the orgy of repression and union smashing that would inevitably have followed. But the scheme failed.
As it turned out it was fortunate that the five hundred pickets were unarmed. Had a single shot been fired in self defense or a single gunman killed, there is no doubt the halls of the union miners would have been raided and closed. The capitalist papers would have carried screaming headlines about “I.W. W. outlaws in Butte shooting unoffending mine-guards in the back.” Union officers would have been arrested and tried for murder and thousands of miners persecuted and hunted to earth, as was done to the loggers of the West coast, after Centralia. Stool pigeons and provocateurs are trying to incite premature and hopeless acts of violence in all parts of the United States today. Patience, iron discipline are more important right now than any small deed of angry reprisal.
As a miner remarked to the writer a few days ago in Butte,
Let them have their inning now. We refuse to stop fighting the copper trust, in order to battle with its hired thugs. We have our industrial power. They cannot take this away from us, and we intend to use it where it will hurt the most. Things won’t always remain this way. Labor’s day is dawning, and as for the “killers”-they’ll keep.
Butte bids fair to be a thorn in the side of American plutocracy for some time to come.
BLOODY BUTTE
The Butte Building Trades Council has sent out thousands of the following significant handbills, printed in black and red. All union men—I. W. W. and others—will do well to read the message and take warning:
STAY AWAY FROM BLOODY BUTTE
The Workers (on April 21, 1920), numbering fifteen, were shot down in cold blood by the hired assassins of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co.
In the guise of deputy sheriffs, and in the company of their employers, these men performed their dastardly deeds.
The constituted authorities of the city and county—the sheriff, his regular deputies and uniformed police—not only stood passively by watching the slaughter of the innocent workers, but several of them actually participated in the shooting.
The Workers, peaceably and quietly picketing avenues of approach to the places of employment, and strictly within the law, were mowed down by the incarnate fiends hired for this purpose.
Workers alone being shot, no arrests have been made.
Today tears of the orphans and widows are falling where lately flowed the blood of their loved ones.
Workers, keep away from Bloody Butte, lest you be their next victim.
All Unions of the Building Trades, who have been locked out since February 2, 1920, are standing firm against all odds.
Bankruptcy is stalking the merchants of Butte.
The Workers are withdrawing their funds from the banks of the city.
BUILDING TRADES COUNCIL,
Butte, Montana.AN APPEAL
The victims of the Anaconda Road—the men who were wounded and shot down by the hired murderers of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. and Sheriff O’Rourke and his squad of regular deputies and uniformed police on bloody Wednesday, April 21st,—have been given every care and attention that medical skill and hospital service affords. Young Sullivan is still in a room at St. James’ hospital, attended night and day by trained nurses and given every care that that institution can give. Several of the wounded who have been discharged from the hospitals are still under the care of the surgeons.
The charge for hospital services and surgeons’ bills will run the expense considerably over a thousand dollars, to say nothing of the funeral expenses of Fellow Worker Manning. Butte Branch of the Metal Mine Workers’ Industrial Union No. 800 has been taking care of the bills for these expenses as they are presented from time to time, but the strain on the treasury will be more than the branch can stand.
Besides the hospital and funeral expenses, there is the added expense for taking care of the strike sufferers, at whose homes the wolves of want and hunger have already come prowling. Thousands of the breadwinners of Butte families are on strike and many of them are in actual need now and on the relief list. These workers and their wives and children must not be allowed to starve. It is the hope that the companies will soon be forced to accede to all or a part of the demands of the strikers, but the need for relief exists now and will exist for some time after the strike has been called off.
We are taking this means of appealing to all class-conscious workers to contribute to the hospital and relief funds for this strike. Look up a delegate or member who has the relief lists issued by Butte district and give what you can. If there is no list in your camp or community send in and get a list and circulate it or send in your contributions to Nick Radivoeff, Secretary of Butte District, 318 North Wyoming St., Butte, Montana.
From page 64:
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCEC & IMAGES
Quote re IWW Martyr Manning ACM Massacre, BDB p1, Apr 26, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-04-26/ed-1/seq-1/
The One Big Union Monthly
“Published Monthly by the General Executive Board
of the Industrial Workers of the World”
(Chicago Illinois)
-John Sandgren, Editor
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008910402
Volumes 2-3, 1920-1921
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101058908474&view=image&seq=9
OBU Mly of June 1920
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101058908474&view=2up&seq=330
“Picket Line of Blood” by Ralph Chaplin
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101058908474&view=image&seq=339
Ad for “Centralia Conspiracy” by Ralph Chaplin
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101058908474&view=image&seq=394
Note: James Sullivan died from his wounds on Dec 7th, 1920, at Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland, where he had been taken to spend his last days with his parents and siblings.
BDB of Dec 8, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-12-08/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
Tag: Anaconda Road Massacre of 1920
https://weneverforget.org/tag/anaconda-road-massacre-of-1920/
Tag: Ralph Chaplin
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ralph-chaplin/
Tag: Thomas Manning
https://weneverforget.org/tag/thomas-manning/
Tag: Frank Little
https://weneverforget.org/tag/frank-little/
Feb 7, 1913-Attack on Holly Grove
Maud Estep describes the murder of her husband, Francesco:
http://www.wvculture.org/history/thisdayinwvhistory/0207.html
http://www.wvculture.org/history/labor/paintcreekestep.html
Dec 24, 1913-Calumet
WE NEVER FORGET: The Italian Hall Massacre-Christmas Eve 1913
https://weneverforget.org/we-never-forget-the-italian-hall-massacre-christmas-eve-1913/
Apr 20, 1914-Ludlow Massacre
Mary Petrucci speaks:
Testimony of Mary Petrucci: She fled burning tent as militia fired upon her and her children.
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mary-petrucci-fled-burning-tent-as-militia-fired-upon-her-and-her-children/
Mary Petrucci of Ludlow: “She touched and called to her three children, and they were all dead.”
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-mary-petrucci-of-ludlow-she-touched-and-called-to-her-three-children-and-they-were-all-dead/
Tag: Everett Massacre of 1916
https://weneverforget.org/tag/everett-massacre-of-1916/
Tag: Bisbee Deportations of 1917
https://weneverforget.org/tag/bisbee-deportation-of-1917/
Tag: Granite Mountain-Speculator Mine Fire of 1917
https://weneverforget.org/tag/granite-mountain-speculator-mine-fire-of-1917/
Tag: Centralia Armistice Day Conspiracy of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/centralia-armistice-day-conspiracy-of-1919/
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There Is Power in a Union – John McCutcheon
Lyrics by Joe Hill