There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 12, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – Cablegram from Congressman Caroti of Rome
From The Duluth News Tribune of September 10, 1916:
I. W. W. WOULD DRAG IN ITALIAN GOVERNMENT
—–
Cablegram Talked of With Intimation of Interesting
Mother Country of Alleged Murderer.
—–
VIRGINIA, Sept. 9._The following telegram was exhibited today by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, concerning the I. W. W. strike on the range and tending to show that it is having international effect:
Via New York City. Sept 8.
Carlo Tresca, County Jail, Duluth.
Received cablegram from Congressman Caroti at Rome. He is interpelling the Italian government. Agitation started all over Italy. Tom Mann is leading agitation England.
CAMMILLO DEGREGORIUS.
Where the forgoing telegram means that the I. W. W.’s are attempting to interest the Italian government in the case of Tresca is not known, but intimated.
J. J. McCarthy, one of the new leaders, today stated that there were 11,000 miners on the Mesaba range before the strike started, according to figures compiled by the I. W. W.’s. He declares that 2,500 have left the range and that only 2,500 are now working for the mining companies at all range properties. He claims that the strikers’ strength is 10,000 strong.
[He said:]
We are stand for the same principles as at the beginning of the struggle, asking better wages and better working conditions…But we are now also demanding justice for the men in jail.
He read a letter, purported to be from Eugene V. Debbs [Debs], the prominent Socialist, part of which letter reads as follows:
The corporation gunmen are responsible for the trouble you have had. Please let me know who to send relief funds to, as Socialists will aid the movement on the iron range.
McCarthy also showed a clipping from a Pennsylvania paper, stating that 2,500 miners of the Scranton coal district at Old Forge are striking in sympathy with the Mesaba range miners and as a protest to the imprisonment of “Joseph Ettor and Joseph Schmidt.” Though the clipping showed these names, he declared that it was a typographical mistake and should have been Tresca, Scarlet [Scarlett] and Schmidt. This was offered as evidence that a general strike of all I. W. W.’s in all industries in the United States will be called in sympathy with the agitators if they are not given a fair trial.
[Said McCarthy:]
We have received telegrams that 150,000 miners will be called out of the coal fields in event of the conviction of our fellow workers. In case that a general strike is necessitated by the conviction of our men, it may be stated that 200,000 workers will quit work.
The threat to call out men in all industries is not viewed seriously by mining men of the range, who believe that the entire, matter is purely a bluff on the part of the strikers to gain sympathy for their cause. Another telegram shown to support their statements follows:
New York, N.Y., Sept. 8, 1916.
James Gilday, Virginia, Minn.
We stand enthusiastically for general strike if Tresca and companions are not given a fair trial. Labor papers unanimously pledge support.Iron Range Strike Defense Committee of New York.
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[Clipping added of Hilton to Defense.]
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Italian Anarchist of Lynn, Massachusetts,
Support Mesabi Strikers
From Cronaca Sovversiva, pages 1 and 4, of September 9, 1916:
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SOURCES
The Duluth News Tribune
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Sept 10, 1916, page 6-Range
http://www.genealogybank.com/
Cronaca Sovversiva
(Lynn, Massachusetts)
-Sept 9, 1916
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2012271201/1916-09-09/ed-1/seq-1/
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2012271201/1916-09-09/ed-1/seq-4/
IMAGES
Hilton Defends Mesabi Strikers, Lansing MI State Jr, Sept 11, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/206791786/
Cronaca Sovversiva, pages 1 & 4, Tresca, MN Strike, Sept 9, 1916
(See source above.)
See also:
The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905-1917
-by Philip Sheldon Foner
International Publishers, 1965
-Chapter 22, Page 515
https://books.google.com/books?id=e-KlAAAAMAAJ
Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background
-by Paul Avrich
Princeton University Press, 1996
-Chapter 2, Page 29
(Search: Tresca Minnesota.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=lm0SCspDOjQC
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Internationale in Italian
Lyrics by Eugène Pottier
https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/international.htm