Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 2, 1914
Chicago, Illinois – Annie Clemenc Stands with Striking Henrici’s Waitresses
From The Day Book of February 28, 1914:
THE JOAN OF ARC OF THE CALUMET COUNTRY
SIZES UP THE WAITRESSES’ STRIKE
BY JANE WHITAKER
Do people go in that restaurant and eat? Oh, that cannot be possible when they know these girls are picketing outside in a battle for their rights?
I smiled as the question was asked by Annie Clemenc, the Joan of Arc of the Calumet country, the girl who has led so many parades of the striking copper miners and their wives, the girl who has been arrested so many times as she silently or verbally protested against the injustice of the conditions that surround the working class.
“They do patronize that restaurant, some people,” I answered, “but I always try to excuse them by believing they are representatives of the Restaurant Keepers’ Association and the Brewers’ Association, who are backing Henrici’s fight against labor. And even those people have a look of half shame and half bravado on their faces as they come out.”
But the girls inside! The girls who have taken the places of these girls on strike.
Annie’s arm trembled under my fingers, and I knew she was thinking bitterly of the word she uses when she speaks of the miners who have taken the places of the strikers in Calumet.
Aren’t they ashamed to go on serving the people who patronize this restaurant when they know that outside these girls are fighting not only for themselves but for all working women?
She did not wait for me to answer. [She murmured:]
How I pity these girls. They go up and down so quietly with no protest. You can only tell the battle they are fighting by the flag that they carry. Six slim girls and almost an army of police. I could not obey as they obey. I would cry out, “There is a strike here, don’t you go in.”
“When they have done that, they have been arrested and sometimes man-handled,” I explained gently.
“I know what that is,” she answered, and her soft brown eyes grew hard with bitterness. I knew she was thinking of that parade not so many months ago when she led a band of strikers and their sympathizers. When one of the large American flags was cut to shreds by the militia and she snatched the other, and waved it aloft in her strong arms, as she cried:
“Come on. Follow me!”
And I knew she was thinking of the cowardly soldier who had, under a uniform that pledged him to serve his country and protect the rights of her people, a heart filled with love of gold and hatred of the toilers a soldier who struck at Annie with a saber and cut a gash across her wrist, from which the blood poured over her hand.
Annie Clemenc and Ben Goggia, Center Calumet, Michigan, September 13, 1913
And I knew she was thinking of how she had held that flag until its red, white and blue clothed her like a gown, and had cried:
“Kill me, go on and kill me. I don’t care what you do, but you got to kill me through the flag of my country. I respect my country’s flag, if you do not.”
But the cowardly soldier contented himself by striking at her, and several of the strikers dragged her away.
I knew she was thinking of all these things, as I pointed out to her Officer No. 813, the big, brawny man who had belittled himself and his manhood, according to the story told by Miss Meyers, by insulting defenseless girls.
And I pointed out to her Police-woman Mrs. Boyd, who was smiling and chatting with some men, but whose eyes glittered and whose jaw set firmly as the pickets approached and passed.
“You will see things here that will strike you as very strange,” I said. “This is what is termed, a highly civilized city, and in highly civilized cities where labor is trying to come into its rights and capital is fighting to keep labor suppressed, you see brute force matched against woman’s frailty and never against equal strength of men. Only today mounted police rode down a band of unemployed, hungry men, weak and almost hopeless, but the police rode on their horses and used their clubs. They never fight with equal odds in labor wars.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 14, 1913 Michigan Copper Country – MacNaughton’s Eye, Threats and Mob Rule
News From Michigan Copper Country
From the Michigan Miners Bulletin of December 2, 1913:
“Seen by the Search-Light” is a regular feature of the Miners’ Bulletin and refers to “MacNaughton’s Eye,” the giant searchlight that James MacNaughton, manager of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, has had erected on top of the main tower situated in the middle of the town of Calumet, Michigan. The searchlight roams about the streets of Calumet, keeping a watchful eye on strikers and scabs alike. It shines into windows of the homes of the residents, interfering with a peaceful night’s rest. Of course most of those streets, the houses, and the property upon which the town itself sits, is owned by C & H. Therefore, we suppose, MacNaughton has a perfect right to make of the town something resembling a prison.
Seen by the Search-Light
Senator James, in his office staring at the labor situation of the day, and concluding to remain silent; to draw the votes from both sides at election time.
James Torreana, the Laurium scab supporter, at mid-night when the Hyena walks around the graveyard walls, going to meet the modern Judas A. C. Marinelli, to furnish him with news of strike-breaking nature.
Mike Bargo, the Italian scab herder at the telephone, communicating some scabious news to the “Gazette.”
A small man with spectacles riding a bicycle, from West Portland St. to the office of “The Italian Miner” of Laurium, with a parcel of written matter for publication.
Paul Tinetti looking at Pietro Micca’s picture.
5th St.-The green grass growing in front of Keckonen store, but no other place for lack of pollen matter in the seeds.
[Emphasis added.]
Regarding the “green grass growing,” we will remind our readers that MacNaughton has vowed that “grass would grow in the streets” of Calumet before he would treat with the Western Federation of Miners.This kind man has also vowed to teach the strikers and their families how to eat potato pairings.
Poetry from Miners Bulletin of December 2, 1913:
THE WORKER By Berton Braley
I have broken my hands on your granite, I have broken my strength on your steel, I have sweated through years for your pleasure, I have worked like a slave for your weal. And what is the wage you have paid me. You masters and drivers of men? -Enough so I come in my hunger To beg for more labor again!
I have given my manhood to serve you, I have given my gladness of youth; You have used me, and spent me, and crushed me, And thrown me aside without ruth; You have shut my eyes off from the sunlight, My lungs from the untainted air; You have housed me in horrible places. Surrounded by squalor and care.
I have built you the world in its beauty, I have brought you the glory of spoil; You have blighted my sons and my daughters, You have scourged me again to my toil. Yet I suffer it all in my patience, For somehow I dimly have known That some day the worker will conquer In a world that was meant for his own!
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 15, 1913 Calumet District, Michigan – Annie Clemenc, Maggie Aggarto and Four Other Women Arrested on the Picket Line
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