You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Monday August 28, 1916
Mesabi Range, Minnesota-Strike Investigators on the Scene
From The Survey of August 26, 1916:
When Strike-Breakers Strike
The Demands of the Miners on the Mesaba Range
By Marion B. Cothren
[Part II]The crux of the trouble, is the demand of the underground miners, for a minimum of $3 for dry work and $3.50 for wet. The underground men are paid either by the foot or by the carload, the rate depending upon the quality of the ore mined and conditions of work—hard and wet mining for instance bringing more than soft ore and dry mining. Thus, although the captain (boss) of the mine agrees beforehand upon the rate to be given a miner, this contract price may be changed from time to time as the character of the ore changes.
At the end of the month the miner receives his pay, less the cost of the powder he has used at $7 a box, of fuses at $1 per hundred, and caps at $1 per box. In the coal mines an itemized due bill is given the miner with his wages, but in the Mesaba iron mines the due bill simply states the total amount paid without showing the varying rates or the deductions for supplies. The result is that the miners complain that these total amounts are often much less than they had expected, that while they had figured on from three to four dollars per day net, the wage actually received is usually less than $3 and some times less than $2.
As for the companies, they offer no explanation for using this kind of due bill in dealing with men, many of whom are foreigners and none of whom are expert bookkeepers. They claim, however, to have raised the wages of contract miners on February 1 from $2.67 a day to $3.13 a day; on May 1 from $3.13 to $3.40; and to have raised the open pit miners from $2.25 to $2.60 a day. These figures show that while 11.8 per cent of the men are getting $4 or more, over 27 per cent are still receiving less than $3 a day. The miners themselves admit the raise of wages in open pit mines but say that if the change has been made in contract work it has been offset by deductions, which still give many of them far less than the desired three dollars.
Miner after miner, voice ringing- with indignation, will pour out, not in excitement or violence, but in carefully measured words, giving dates, places and amounts, innumerable instances where the contract system has robbed him, as he says, of his just wages. Hundreds of affidavits sworn to before notaries public relate specific cases of mine captains guilty of extorting money from men to get them jobs and keep them jobs; guilty of reducing contract prices if the wages became too high; guilty of favoritism toward those who bought them whiskey, who bought chances in fake raffles and who even suffered their wives to be maltreated.
On the other hand, Pentecost Mitchell, vice-president of the Oliver Mining Company, which is a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation and employs three-fourths of the men on the range, stated that he personally had authorized the expenditure of $2,000 to discover graft among the captains and had found none. He also declared that the contract system was the only feasible one because work on the day plan had no incentive. When it was suggested that, in that case, the company might discharge miners who were “laying down on their jobs”, Mr. Mitchell clinched his argument with the words, “Well the men want the contract system!”
For two months and a half the strike has continued. Fully one-half of the strikers have left the range to take up other lines of work. With a remarkable absence of violence, according to the employers themselves, the remaining half has stood firm in its demands in spite of a hostile press; of the presence of some 2,000 armed mine guards and deputy sheriffs; of evictions from company lands; and of about 200 arrests for so-called disorder on the picket lines and other minor charges.
The “gunmen” or armed mine guards in the pay of the mining companies, yet sworn in as deputy sheriffs, and the large number of deputies under Sheriff Meining of St. Louis county are generally admitted to have been recruited from the worst elements of society. Stationed at frequent intervals along the roads, silhouetted against the sky as they stand, gun in hand, on the tops of the surrounding hills, stationed at the very doors of the miners’ cottages, sometimes drunk and often brutal, they are a constant source of irritation to the miners and an undoubted cause of much of the trouble which occurs.
There have been only two serious disturbances, however, one resulting in the shooting of a striker, John Aller [Alar], on the picket line in Virginia and the other in the death of Deputy Sheriff Myron who went with two other deputies to the home of a miner, Philip Mesanowitch [Masonovich], to arrest him for some minor offense. A general shooting affray resulted and although the coroner’s jury could not fix the responsibility, the police arrested several I. W. W. organizers, including Carlo Tresca, far from the scene of the shooting, as “accessories after the fact.” This in Minnesota carries the same penalty as first degree murder. Mrs. Mesanowitch, leaving four little children behind and taking with her a seven-months’ old baby, was also thrown into jail accused of murder in the first degree.
During the strike four different investigations have taken place. That the investigation of George P. West for the Industrial Relations Committee “would be unfair and onesided was known before he arrived and consulted only miners”, say the mine officials. That Gus Lindquist, Governor Burnquist’s special investigator, would whitewash the officials in his report “was evident to every miner from the fact that he never tried to hear the miners’ side” according to the strikers.
The two investigations now being conducted on the range, one by the Minnesota Labor Department at the request of the State Federation of Labor; one by W. R. Fairley, a miner, and H. Davis, a mine manager, for the United States Department of Labor are looked to by both sides for fair play and justice.
While no response has been given to resolutions drawn up by the mayors of the range municipalities, and a committee from the miners, asking for a conference between the mine officials and the strikers, it is confidently expected that the report of these federal investigators will form the basis of a settlement which will bring both sides together and win a higher standard of living for the iron miners of Mesaba Range.
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SOURCE
The Survey, Volume 36
(New York, New York)
Survey Associates, 1916
https://books.google.com/books?id=yK9IAAAAYAAJ
The Survey of August 26, 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=yK9IAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA530-IA3
“When Strike-Breakers Strike” by Marion B. Cothren
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=yK9IAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA535
IMAGE
MN Iron Miners Strike, Recruiting, Cothren, Survey, Aug 26, 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=yK9IAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA536
See also:
The Railway Conductor, Volume 33
Order of Railway Conductors, 1916
https://books.google.com/books?id=KuEDAAAAYAAJ
The Railway Conductor, September 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=KuEDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA624-IA1
“Report on Strike of Iron Miners in Minnesota”
(Submitted by George P. West to Committee on Industrial Relations)
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=KuEDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA642
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Vigilante Man – Ry Cooder