You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 17, 1907
Mesabi Iron Miners’ Strike: Good News from the Front Lines
From the Duluth Labor World of September 14, 1907:
GRAND JURY REFUSES TO INDICT STRIKERS
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No Miscarriage of Justice in Duluth Courts.—
Won’t Practice Range Methods.
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Jury Practically Holds That Petriella Was
Justified in Protecting Himself.
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Teofilo Petriella
The cases against the striking miners on the Mesaba range have fallen flat. When the Grand Jury took up the matter of the nine miners who were bound over on the charge of inciting a riot they listened to the evidence presented by the state, and then promptly, and very properly dismissed the matter by asking that the defendants be released.
Petriella too, who was bound over for carrying concealed weapons, was dismissed, and his $1,000 was returned to him.
One of the members of the grand jury in commenting on the cases said: “It was ridiculous to bring such frivilous cases before the grand jury.”
Judge Brady ought to see by this time that he is putting the county to needless expense in binding men over to the grand jury simply because hirelings for the Steel Trust bring them before him.
Petriella admitted carrying a revolver, but the jury thought he was justified, in view of the fact that newspapers on the range were threatening his life, advising tar and feathers, and demanding that he be driven from town. Petriella’s bail money was returned to him.
As for the nine men who were held on riot cases, they came waltzing down Sixth avenue Wednesday evening delirious with delight.
They had been in jail here and at Hibbing a month and it was some time before it leaked through to them from the members of the party who could speak English that they were free. After that a more happy bunch of miners than the party at the jail one doesn’t often see.
There were nineteen originally arrested at Hibbing on riot charges. The riot consisted in the fact that two men called at a boarding house and said the lodgers better quit working. Someone unknown is said to have thrown a stone that hit a deputy and there was some scuffling on the street on the way to jail.
The deputies, some of whom are not residents of this state, went into lodging houses and pulled men out on the charge of rioting, where there is no evidence that they were anywhere near the scrimmage.
The presentation of the case at Hibbing showed that the charges were absurd, and those who were acquainted with it were surprised that the men were held at all.
The strike on the range is being conducted with remarkable pluck. The Finnish miners are as firm as when they went out, and they swear that they will stick until concessions are granted by the Steel Trust.
By the way that was an awful jolt the Tax Commission handed to the big trust Wednesday when it raised the valuation on its properties to almost $117,000,000. The valuations have heretofore been made by local county officials, with the exception of last year when the state board of equalization made a moderate raise. It makes a considerable difference in treating with the Steel Trust when one gets away from its environments.
Two deputies at Eveleth the other day went into a house where a woman had been accused of poking fun at them, and these human brutes beat her unmercifully. They were each fined $50 for their criminal behaviour. And Sheriff Bates says that his deputies are as respectable lot of fellows as can be secured anywhere. We have our opinion of Sheriff Bates’ idea of respectability.
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GOV. JOHNSON SAYS HE DID NOT STOP INQUIRY
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Holds It Up to the Bureau of Labor to
Complete Range Investigation.
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Labor Commissioner Williams on the Other
Hand Says He Was “Pulled Off.”
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Deputized Company Gunthugs
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The workingmen throughout the state of Minnesota have been very much interested in the investigation of the employment of non-resident thugs as deputy sheriffs in St. Louis county during the miner’s strike by the state administration.
While Labor Commissioner Williams was in Duluth he told the Editor of the Labor World, a number of his political friends, and several members of organized labor that his purpose had been to make a thorough and searching investigation, but that when he had completed his work in St. Paul, he was told by Governor Johnson that he need go no further into the matter.
This came as a thunder clap into the ranks of organized labor, and at a meeting of the Federation Council held in St. Paul on the Sunday preceding Labor Day the matter was thoroughly threashed out. Resolutions were adopted by the Council instructing the officers to make a careful inquiry.
Secretary-Treasurer McEwen visited Governor Johnson. He related to the Governor that it had been reported to the Federation that he had “Pulled Mr. Williams off,” and that nothing was being done in the matter.
This, the governor very strongly resented. He informed the secretary-treasurer of the Federation that he had requested the Labor Commissioner to make a most thorough investigation; that no counter instructions had since been given, and that it was up to the Bureau of Labor to complete its work.
It is not our purpose to place either Governor Johnson or Labor Commissioner Williams in a false light. We simply acted in the matter in an official capacity. We deem it our duty to inform the workingmen of Duluth and Saint Louis county of the situation as we found it. It now resolves itself into a question of veracity between the Labor Commissioner and the Governor. We promise our readers that we shall not rest until the truth is known.
The Western Federation of Miners on the Mesaba Range:
An Address Delivered November 26, 1906, at a Social Entertainment of the Hibbing Mine Workers
-by Teofilo Petriella
Miners Union No. 155, W.F.M.
(Sadly, not yet available online.) https://books.google.com/books?id=x8GrnQEACAAJ
“Speech by William E. McEwen, secretary-treasurer of the Minnesota State Federation of Labor, on the ethical aspect of the “Lock out” in Duluth: fifteen hundred men deprived of means of subsistence for no other reason than their being union men.”
-by William E McEwen
Minnesota State Federation of Labor, 1908
(Sadly not yet available online.) https://books.google.com/books?id=ztvLmgEACAAJ
