There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Sunday July 16, 1916
The Duluth Labor World Shows Surprising Support for I. W. W.
The above cartoon from The Duluth News Tribune includes “Union Labor” as one of the fingers pointing at the I. W. W. Agitator and telling him to “Get Out!” And yet we find in its latest edition, The Labor World, the voice of the A. F. of L. unions in Northern Minnesota, offering a defense of the Industrial Workers of the World and blaming the recent violence in Biwabik on the practice of deputizing private guards of the mining companies.
The article asks Governor Burnquist to take an unprejudiced view of the strike and to consider conditions on the Iron Range from the viewpoint of the miners as well as from that of the Steel Trust.
From The Labor World of July 15, 1916:
TIME TO ASCERTAIN TRUTH ABOUT
MESABA RANGE STRIKE
SITUATIONGovernor Burnquist is taking too much for granted dealing with the strike on the iron ranges. We will put it in another way. He is relying on information culled from prejudiced sources and fails to exercise the judgment he is capable of exercising in attempting to get at the facts in the controversy between the strikers and the mining companies.
The governor knows there are two sides to every question. This is no exception. Daily papers are trying to befog the issue by laying the entire blame on the few agitators who belong to the Industrial Workers of the World.
But we repeat what we stated in these columns last week. No set of agitators would be able to start anything on the iron ranges or anywhere else unless there was ‘something rotten in Denmark.’
Yes, there are two sides to the question.
There are two sides to the shooting affairs that resulted in the tragedy which snuffed out the life of one of Duluth’s best citizens, Jamie Myron. Governor Burnquist has one version of it. His representative, sent to the range to investigate the trouble got his information from one side and, we are reliably informed by Mayor Boylan of Virginia, made no attempt to get the other side, the miners’ side, of the affair.
For example: The truth has been withheld regarding the activity of the mine guards in connection with Mr. Myron’s murder. It is said by those in a position to know that the shooting was started solely on account of the aggressiveness of one Nick Dillon, a mine guard, who received his training as a bouncer for a house of ill fame in the outskirts of Virginia.
Our informant tells us,—and this is a matter of common knowledge among the people on the range-that Dillon stormed into the miner’s home and demanded that the striker submit to arrest.
The woman at the house told the mine guard that her husband would not be arrested by Dillon. She told him that her husband would submit to arrest by Officer O’Hara of Biwabik. This angered Dillon who, acting under the authority conferred on him by the mining corporation and the sheriff of St. Louis county, attempted to make the arrests.
We presume that legally Dillon has the ‘right’ to make arrests.
But we don’t have to presume this: We know that if the mine guards attended to their business of protecting the mining properties; if the St. Louis county authorities would stop deputizing the private guards of the mining corporations, the trouble on the range would quickly adjust itself.
The strikers on the range would be peaceable if the St. Louis county authorities would give them a square deal.
Deputizing private mine guards and giving them the authority of county officers is not giving a square deal to the strikers.
In the first place these men are not paid by the county, but by the mining companies. They know their masters; they will do their masters’ will. Theoretically, they are officers of the law, but actually they are private thugs of the mining companies, with the cloak of legal authority thrown about them by the sheriff of St. Louis county.
In the very nature of things they cannot act with the fairness and discretion of real officers of the law, paid by the people of the county.
They are not officers of the law. They are not servants of the people, employed to protect the public interest.
They are merely the paid thugs of the mining companies, with the legal authority of the county which attempts to give them a degree of responsibility.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Let us go back and dig up a little local history.
Some two or three years ago there was a dock workers’ strike on in Duluth. Of course, the daily press laid the responsibility at the door of the I. W. W.
But the facts are that the strike started on the Allouez ore docks when five or six men lost their lives because the company declined to adhere to the ordinary rules of safety. The men repeatedly asked the company to overcome defects in the working conditions danger to the men employed on the docks. The company, refused to listen to the appeals of the men.
One night on the docks, about nine o’clock, these half dozen unfortunate workers lost their lives. Their comrades, 600 of them, struck. The strike spread to the Duluth docks where the men walked out in sympathy.
Of course the I. W. W. did it!
David Foley, one of the Oliver’s guards on the range was brought to Duluth to help chase away the trouble-some “agitators” who induced (?) the men to strike. Foley was deputized by the local authorities, of course, but we won’t go into the details of the story.
However, we do want to call attention to one interesting phase of the situation. A hearing was held of police. C. H. Troyer and a number of men interested in the strikers’ cause attended.
The representatives of the strikers’ asked the safety commissioner to recommend the discontinuance of the practice of deputizing private mine guards as officers of the law. They claimed then as the miners claim now that most of the trouble was started by the mine guards, or was due to the presence of these guards.
During the conference Chief Troyer was asked this question:
“Do you think you could manage the situation down there at the docks without the assistance of the mine guards?”
His answer was in the affirmative and the chief made it plain that his force was sufficient to keep order, and that he thought further trouble could be avoided if the imported guards were removed.
Governor Burnquist can stop the deputizing of private guards if he cares to do it. Unprejudiced people on the range, who are in closer touch with the situation than are the editors of the local daily press, will tell him where the responsibility lies, namely, at the door of the authorities who invite trouble when they deputize the men who are paid by the mining companies and who know no other masters.
But the governor has not yet proven himself big enough for the job. He has the power to do this if he wants to exercise that power.
The Labor World hopes that Governor Burnquist will take the bull by the horns and prove to the people of Minnesota where his sympathies are in this controversy. We do not mean by this that we ask him to espouse the miners’ cause. We only ask him to take a clear, unprejudiced view of the situation and act as an informed and intelligent executive should act under the circumstances.
Meanwhile, the great Steel trust continues to play the baby act.
With the legal advantage it enjoys; a giant monopoly whose only object is to make profits at the expense of the workers’ blood and starvation wages, it says, “If the I. W. W. agitators don’t leave town, we will close down our mines.”
Which, is all pure bluff and baby talk.
In the same breath they loudly proclaim through their official mouthpiece that THEY ARE SHIPPING MORE ORE TODAY THAN BEFORE THE STRIKE BEGAN.
The streets of Eveleth, Chisholm, Virginia, Hibbing and other range cities are as quiet as they are at any time, strikes or no strikes.
You can’t find any violence on the ranges. But you can find plenty of violence on the front page of a certain morning newspaper not far from the city of Duluth.
We don’t like to suspect that Governor Burnquist obtains his “reliable” information from this newspaper.
It is easy to ascertain the facts.
Governor Burnquist, it is up to you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-July 15, 1916
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1916-07-15/ed-1/seq-1/
IMAGE
MN Miners Strike, Get Out IWW, Cartoon, DNT, July 6, 1916
http://www.mnopedia.org/event/mesabi-iron-range-strike-1916