Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Heroine Annie Clemenc by N. D. Cochran-American Joan of Arc in Fight for Liberty

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Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 10, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc, Leader of Women and Strike Sympathizers

From The Day Book of October 8, 1913:

Heroine Annie Clemenc, Day Book p1, Oct 8, 1913

Annie Clemenc with Flag, Day Book p3, Oct 8, 1913

The news dispatches tell of the arrest of Annie Clemenc, leader of the women strike sympathizers at Calumet, Michigan-the woman who has carried the American flag at the head of the striking miners daily parade.

But that doesn’t tell very much. It doesn’t tell the story of Annie Clemenc. The name means nothing to you who read the mere statement that Annie Clemenc was arrested.

But I have met Annie Clemenc. I have talked with her. I have seen her marching along the middle of the street, carrying that great American flag. It is a silk flag. The staff must be fully two inches thick.

When I read that Annie Clemenc has been arrested I think of the dirty little jail in Calumet. And I think of Joan of Arc and the Goddess of Liberty. Then I think of the notable women I have seen in New York, in San Francisco, in Chicago and in Washington.

Early one morning I trudged along the road, walking at one side with Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, as the parade went from Red Jacket to Laurium and back. Women were in the front-miners’ wives, miners’ daughters-and Annie Clemenc, heroine, marched with them and carried the flag.

Annie Clemenc is a miner’s wife. A Croatian [Slovenian], she was born in this county and educated in the schools of Calumet. If she were dressed in the fashion people would turn to look at her if she walked down State street or Fifth avenue. Even in her plain dress she is a striking figure. Strong, with firm but supple muscles, fearless, ready to die for a cause, this woman is the kind all red-blooded men could take their hats off to.

A militia officer said to me at Calumet: “If McNaughton could only buy Big Annie he could break this strike.”

I suppose Annie Clemenc knows what it is to go hungry, but I don’t believe all the millions of dividends ever taken out of the Calumet & Hecla mine could buy her.

The day when the soldiers rode down the flag Annie Clemenc stood holding the staff of that big flag in front of her, horizontally. She faced cavalrymen with drawn sabers, infantrymen with bayonetted guns. They ordered her back. She didn’t move an inch. She defied the soldiers. She was struck on her right wrist with a bayonet, and over the right bosom and shoulder with a deputy’s club.

[She said:]

Kill me. Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I wont go back. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.

And she didn’t go back. Miners rushed up, took the flag and got her back for fear she might be killed.

After the parade one morning Annie Clemenc came up to the curb where President Moyer was standing. I was there.

Looking up at him she said:

It’s hard to keep one’s hands off the scabs.

I asked her if the big flag wasn’t heavy.

[She said:]

I get used to it. I carried it ten miles one morning. The men wouldn’t let me carry it back. I love to carry it.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Heroine Annie Clemenc by N. D. Cochran-American Joan of Arc in Fight for Liberty”

Hellraisers Journal: 500 School Children Are Now Striking in Sympathy with the Ongoing Michigan Copper Miners’ Strike

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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 9, 1913
Keweenaw County, Michigan – School Children on Strike in Copper Country

From The Calumet News of October 7, 1913
-School Children on Strike; Annie Clemenc Convicted:

Michigan Copper Country School Strike, Calumet Ns p1, Oct 7, 1913[…..]
Michigan Copper Country School Strike, Calumet Ns 2 p1, Oct 7, 1913Michigan Copper Country School Strike 3, Calumet Ns p1, Oct 7, 1913[…..]
Michigan Copper Country School Strike 3, Calumet Ns p1, Oct 7, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: 500 School Children Are Now Striking in Sympathy with the Ongoing Michigan Copper Miners’ Strike”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “A Woman’s Story” by Annie Clemenc of Calumet

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Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 5, 1913
Annie Clemenc, Wife of Striking Miner, Arrested Yet Again

From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of October 2, 1913

A Woman’s Story

Annie Clemenc w Flag, Dtt Tx p2, Sept 25, 1913

At Seventh Street Tuesday morning a party of strikers met a man with a dinner bucket. I asked him: “Where are you going, partner?” He replied: “To work.” “Not in the mine are you?” “You bet I am.” after talking with him a while his wife came and took him down the street. She seemed very much afraid.

He had just gone when a couple of Austrians came along with their buckets. I stepped up to one I knew: “O! George, you are not going to work, are you? Come, stay with us. Don’t allow that bad woman to drive you to work. Stick to us and we will stick to you.” He stepped back, willing to comply with my request.

Then the deputies came, caught him by the shoulder and pushed him along, saying: “You coward, are you going back because a woman told you not to go to work?” The deputies, some eight or ten of them, pulled him along with them.

A militia officer, I think it was General Abbey, said: “Annie, you have to get away from here.” “No, I am not going. I have a right to stand here and quietly ask the scabs not to go to work.”

I was standing to one side of the crowd and he said: “You will have to get in the auto.” “I won’t go until you tell me the reason.” Then he made me get in the auto. I kept pounding the automobile with my feet and asking what I was being taken to jail for. The officer said: “Why don’t you stay at home?” “I won’t stay at home, my work is here, nobody can stop me. I am going to keep at it until this strike is won.” I was kept in jail from six-thirty until twelve, then released under bond.

[Newsclip added. Emphasis added.]

Note that Annie was arrested by the military only for talking quietly to the scabs. The deputies who man-handled the scab and forced him to go to work against his will were not in any way molested by the military.

This same issue of the Miners’ Bulletin (page 2) contains an affidavit sworn to and signed by 24 strikebreakers. They tell of being shipped into the Copper Country under false pretenses, of being beaten when they refused to work after they realized that a strike was on, of then being kept prisoner in a boarding house for refusing to work, and of not being paid for the work that they did do. These men were finally released, and then made their way to the Union Hall. They swore out their affidavit on Sept. 29 in Houghton County.

And thus, not only do the soldiers not prevent the deputies from making prisoners of imported workers who refuse to be turned into scabs, but the soldiers actively assists these deputies. In fact, many of the soldiers have been made deputies once their term of service ends.

On Wednesday, October 1, Annie, known as the Joan of Arc of the striking copper miners, was arrested yet again, this time by a Major Harry Britton. Annie was marching at the head of 400 strikers, carrying her huge American flag as usual. They were on their way to perform picket duty at the mines when they were stopped by deputies and cavalrymen with Major Britton in command.

Major Britton attempted to arrest Annie, claiming she spit at a scab. When the Major used his sword to beat back a striker who came to Annie’s aid, other strikers joined in the fray. Cavalrymen then charged into the midst of the strikers. Major Britton bragged:

Excited horses prancing about are the best weapons.

He describe the results with satisfaction:

..a striker with his head bleeding, blood flowing down over his shirt, [was] half-staggering along the road.

Annie was arrested along with nine others. Annie was released and an the very next day lead another strikers’ march with her immense American flag.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “A Woman’s Story” by Annie Clemenc of Calumet”

Hellraisers Journal: Copper Country of Michigan: Picketers Marching Behind the Flag Attacked by Soldiers and Deputies

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Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 17, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – American Flag Knocked to the Ground by Guardsmen

From the Chicago Day Book of September 16, 1913:

MI Copper Strike The Flag, Dy Bk p5, Sept 16, 1913

Saturday Morning September 13, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Big Annie and Her American Flag Attacked by Guardsmen

Just days after her arrest Big Annie is back in the thick of the fight. This morning she led a march of 1,000 strikers and the women who support them through the streets of Calumet as is her usual routine. At the corner of Eighth and Elm, they were confronted by the militia and armed deputies. A soldier on horseback used his saber to knock her flag from her grasp. A striker came to her aid and was pushed to the ground by another soldier who ripped the silk fabric of the flag as he slashed about with his sword.

Annie was also knocked to the ground. The flag was stomped into the mud by the horses of the guardsmen. Big Annie hung on to the flag as soldiers tried to take it from her, shouting:

Kill me! Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I won’t move. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.

Annie was rescued by other marchers and escaped with only a bayonet blow to the right wrist. The strikers’ march was driven back by soldiers on horseback and by the rifle butts of infantrymen. Deputies joined in on the attack swinging their clubs. The strikers and their supporters retreated to the Italian Hall with Big Annie and her flag, now muddied and slashed.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Copper Country of Michigan: Picketers Marching Behind the Flag Attacked by Soldiers and Deputies”

Hellraisers Journal: Annie Clemenc and Maggie Aggarto Arrested on the Copper Strike Picket Line in the Calumet District

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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 15, 1913
Calumet District, Michigan – Annie Clemenc, Maggie Aggarto
   and Four Other Women Arrested on the Picket Line

From The Calumet News of September 11, 1913:

Annie Clemenc n Others Arrested, CNs p1, Sept 11, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Annie Clemenc and Maggie Aggarto Arrested on the Copper Strike Picket Line in the Calumet District”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Copper Miners’ Bulletin: The Story of a Strike Heroine, in Her Own Words

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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 8, 1913
Heroine of the Michigan Copper Strike Tells a Story of Fighting Scabs

From the Miners’ Bulletin of September 6, 1913:

WFM Miners Bulletin MI 1913Annie Clamenc MI Strike Heroine, Mnrs Bltn p1, Sept 6, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Copper Miners’ Bulletin: The Story of a Strike Heroine, in Her Own Words”