It’s the wrong way to treat the Miners
It’s the wrong way to go.
It’s the wrong way to best the Miners,
As the Steel Trust soon will know.
God help those dirty Mine Guards,
The Miners won’t forget.
It’s the wrong way to treat the Miners,
And the guards will know that yet.
-Written by a Miner in Jail
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 9, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – Appeal for Support
From Michigan’s Escanaba Morning Press of September 7, 1916:
SAYS DEPUTY KILLED MYRON
—–
Virginia, Minn., Sept. 6-Deputy Sheriff Edward Shubisky killed Deputy Sheriff Myron during the Biwabik riot July 3 and not Sam Scarlet [Scarlett], Carlo Tresco [Tresca] and others of the I. W. W. indicated for the murder of the officer, according to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who made the sensational charge at Socialist hall here last night before an audience made up, it is said, largely of curiosity seers.
She declared that Deputy Shubisky had fired three shots said that three bullets caused the death of Myron’ that Shubisky admitted firing three times. “Myron was struck in the back and it appears that Shubisky, who declares he does not know where he fired the three bullets, killed him,” she shouted. Nick Dillon, special deputy, was accused of the murder of Tom Ladvala, Biwabik pop-man.
Her version of the Biwabik tragedy was that Mr. and Mrs. Masonovich and three boarder were in their home when Deputies Myron, Shubisky, Dillion and Hoffman entered; that Dillion struck Masonovich; that Mrs. Masonovich tried to get her husband’s shoes and that she was knocked down by Dillion and that three boarders jumped to the rescue of Mrs. Masonovich; that Dillion left for help and that in the excitement Shubisky accidentally killed Myron. She claimed that the boarders had no firearms.
Mrs. [Miss] Flynn made a plea for Carlo Tresca, Sam Scarlet and Joe Schmidt, the I. W. W. agitators, who are charged with the murder of Myron. “You brought Tresca, Scarlet and Schmidt here; you must come to their defense,” she implored. She upbraided the strikers for not attending strikers’ meeting. The enthusiasm shown earlier in the strike at meetings, was missing.
—–
[Photograph added.]
From Kentucky’s Courier-Journal of September 7, 1916:
GENERAL STRIKE THREAT.
—–
I. W. W. Demands Fair Trial
For Accused Members.
Hibbing, Minn., Sept. 6.-Threats to prolong the strike of iron ore miners of the Minnesota ranges by calling a general strike of 200,000 members of the Industrial Workers of the World employed in various industries from coast to coast, have been sanctioned at headquarters of the organization in New York and Chicago, “if fellow workers” now held in Duluth under murder indictments “are not given fair trial,” according to messages received to-day by local leaders.
Messages were telegraphed from Hibbing recently to labor leaders, publications and societies announcing that a general strike would be called unless the prisoners were released. A message received to-day by James Gilday, Hibbing, secretary of the Central Strike Committee, said:
We stand enthusiastically for a general strike if Tresca and companions are not given fair trial. At a conference labor papers have unanimously pledged their support. Many unions are ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Long live a general strike.
MINNESOTA IRON RANGE STRIKERS’ RELIEF COMMITTEE.
Arthur Giovanitti, Chairman, New York City.Giovanitti [Giovannitti], it was said, was the companion of Joseph Ettor when both were tried for alleged murder in connection with the Paterson, N. J. [Lawrence, Mass.], strike.
—–
[Photograph added: Fellow Workers Giovannitti and Ettor, 1912 postcard.]
From the September edition of The Masses:
Fighting Steel
Arturo Giovannitti
* * *
One power alone could raise its arm against the Steel Trust in these days when God and Demos are nursing their wounds in the field hospitals. Not the government, for the government is the head salesman and the toll collector of the Steel Trust. Not Public Opinion, for the trust has given it a permanent job as head eunuch in the harems of its favorite actresses and odalisques. Not the press, for America has no press, but only penny paper counterfeits of the people’s currency. Not the American Federation of Labor, for the helots of the Steel Trust are not laborers and cannot pay dues. No, not even the Church, even if it wanted to, for all those helots, half a million of them, are damned and belong forever to Him That Denies. Only one power could do it, for only one power was as godless, fearless and ruthless as the Steel Trust; as disrespectful of traditions, as disregardful of laws, as unafraid of gunfire and hellfire, as unppeasably hungry for power, as unslakably athirst with the passion of life-a power as dark and ominous, yet lighted by the distant gleam of the bonfire of men blazing on the hilltops of the jungle of beasts-the I. W. W.
It tried to slay the beast of Steel for ten years and failed. It is now trying again. It will try forever till it wins or dies. Let us help it win or let us help it die. It is everyman’s duty to do either one job or the other.
Look at these men in Minnesota. Here are the St. Michaels of the everlasting hereafter, battering down the closed gates of the new earth. Look at them.
Twenty thousand iron miners, unfed, half clad, uncultivated, rough, crude, dirty, ill-smelling, illiterate, savagely primitive in their needs and longings, without visions, without philosophies, chain bound to the belly and galley, are now embattled against the Beast. Human worms, alive, gnawing at a giant that is carrion before it is corpse. Look at and study this struggle if you want to know about life. Close up all your books-they are worthless. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, what was and is and will be, is right here.
There is nothing unusual, nothing brilliant, nothing romantic; no human interest, no poetry, no sudden great inspiration, no art in this struggle. There is nothing but the silent and invisible omnipotence that made old worlds crumble to the dust, and new archies, new orders, new kinships of men rise and be. On one side gold, brains, culture, refinement, the invulnerability of righteousness, the bullets of the State and fulminations of the Church, and around all this the silence of quailing little souls that see but bear no witness. On the other side hunger, ignorance, fatigue, stupidity, pestilence, the chilling silence of folded arms and eyes that stare.
The bank on one side, the jail on the other. There the Steel Trust with its two billion dollars and its hosts of mighty men riding in state through the aisle of a prostrate multitude of fools-here the I. W. W. with Carlo Tresca and Joe Schmitt staring through the prison bars into the alert eyes of a handful of living men. Who shall win?
There is no question as to who shall win. It is the weaker, for he alone who has no power has the will to acquire it. But how long must it take?
* * *
I don’t know who you are who read these lines. I don’t know what you do or can do-but I know that you can think. Think, then, and if you think straight, help these men win their battle, help them slay the Beast. Help them blow open the coffer where the blood-booty of the world war is stored, and feed with it a new generation of fighters. Help them batter down the jail walls, and release from the purgatory the beasts of toil that they may be transfigured into real men. Help them come out of the smoke and the furnace, the darkness and the depths. Help them return, Tresca and Schmitt and the seven other men accused of murder by those who have made murder synonymous with law and order, to open the places where men meet to know and love each other through strife and turmoil. Think, and give them what you can. Your voice first, if your heart is between your lungs; a shout of defiance if your teeth are used to bite out the knuckles of your enemies; a word of kindness if your lips have been sweetened too long with the mead of life.
Then your money. They need your money. Every cent that you don’t need out of this week’s income does not belong to you. Send it to them, through this magazine which belongs to them before it belongs to you. Invest your pennies in the struggle against the coupons and remember that bronze, in any form, is always mightier than gold.
But be quick. Don’t delay. This the fore-thunder of the great storm, the vanwind of the coming gale. There is still hope for America and the world because of this. It is a sign of the times, a proof that the spirit of revolt is not dead, that the Revolution is still forging forward on the red tides of war. Ireland last spring-Spain yesterday-today America in the sweat shops of New York and iron fields of Minnesota. The lines are being drawn, slowly but surely. Tomorrow is at the threshold of today. Red glares are in the skies. Red visions are in the eyes of all men, everywhere. If you want to be alive and live this hour in the fulness of its strength, see where you must go. Decide. Soldiers and militarism on one side, all over the world-on the other the first call of the Revolution and the slow mobilization of the Mob.
[Appeal for Support added.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Escanaba Morning Press
(Escanaba, Michigan)
-Sept 7, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/31468933/
The Courier-Journal
(Louisville, Kentucky)
-Sept 7, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/119079885/
The Masses
(New York, New York)
-Sept 1916
http://dlib.nyu.edu/themasses/books/masses065
Fighting Steel by Arturo Giovannitti
http://dlib.nyu.edu/themasses/books/masses065/18
IMAGES
EGF, Tresca, MN Iron Miners Strike, Ev IN, Aug 17, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/139947620
Giovannitti & Ettor Signed Postcard, 1912, cartoliste
http://cartoliste.ficedl.info/article3777.html?lang=fr
Appeal for Support, Virginia, MN, Sept 6, 1916
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/41/v41i02p082-094.pdf
See also:
Arrows in the Gale
-by Arturo Giovannitti
-intro by Helen Keller
Connecticut, 1914
https://archive.org/stream/arrowsingale00glovrich#page/n3/mode/2up
To Joseph J. Ettor On his 27th Birthday
https://archive.org/stream/arrowsingale00glovrich#page/n71/mode/2up