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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 14, 1914
March 4th at Milwaukee Federated Trades Council
-Annie Clemenc Speaks on Michigan Copper Strike, Beaten, Slashed, Shot At
From The Milwaukee Leader of March 5, 1914:
From The Dayton Herald of March 13, 1914:
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 28, 1914
Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc Leaves on Speaking Tour
From The Calumet News of February 27, 1914:
Annie Clemenc to Tour with Mother Bloor
Annie Clemenc, known as the Joan of Arc of Calumet, left the strike zone February 26th to go on tour with Ella Reeve Bloor, a well-known member of the Socialist Party of America, and a hard-working union organizer. Annie was given a rousing send-off at the train station by members of the Women’s Auxiliary of Western Federation of Miners. The Women’s Lodge of the Slovene National Benefit Society was also well represented. Annie holds the office of Local President in both organizations.
Annie was dressed in a new black suit and a handmade hat, both given to her especially for the tour. Dog Picket joined them for the send-off, and a photograph was taken of Annie and Mother Bloor with Picket standing on a table between them. Annie can be seen standing tall in her new suit and hat.
The speaking tour will include Milwaukee and Chicago and these states: Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. They will also visit Washington, D.C.
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 2, 1914
“Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns
From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:
[Part I of II]
SEVENTY-TWO copper miners, with their wives and children, met death at these doors on Christmas Eve in Calumet, Michigan.
A brief hour before this little company of silent ones had passed up the stairs into the Italian Hall to join hundreds of other strikers and their families. A Christmas tree had been arranged by the Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners to put a bit of cheer into the hearts of the kiddies and perhaps to encourage the men and women in their struggle against the copper barons for more bread and better working conditions.
But “Peace on earth and good will toward men” is not down on the capitalist program. For months past imported thugs and gun-men, in the pay of the copper companies, as guards, had gone about shooting up strikers, breaking up union headquarters, disrupting meetings and otherwise “establishing law and order.”
It should surprise no one then to learn that upon this occasion a “mysterious” stranger appeared suddenly in the doorway of Italian Hall with a false cry of “fire!”
Comrade Annie Clemanc [Clemenc] had just finished her address of welcome; the toys were still on the tree-when forty-eight pairs of little feet arose at the alarm and ran down the stairway. They were met by “deputies,” who blocked the doors to escape. In the crush and panic that followed seventy-two human beings were killed.
* * * *
A bleak mining region and the rigors of a Lake Superior winter, with the hardship of five months’ strike, made still more poignant the crushing sorrow. Over the two miles of road from Calumet to the bit of ground owned by the Western Federation of Miners marched the procession with hearse, undertakers’ wagons and an automobile truck carrying a few coffins, followed by 480 miners, in squads of four, carrying 67 coffins. They lowered them into two long trenches that yawned in the snows of the copper country. Behind them came fifty Cornish miners chanting hymns, their voices thick with emotion. Thousands of miners with their wives and children formed the procession. All but a dozen of the burials were in common graves dug by members of the union.
Came the Finns to the fair state of Michigan about sixty years ago-to spend their lifetime and labor time in the mines.
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 19, 1914
Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc Seriously Ill at Her Mother’s Home
From the Dayton Daily News of January 18, 1914:
Saturday January 19, 1914 – Calumet, Michigan
–Annie Clemenc, Seriously Ill, Cared for at Her Mother’s Home
We are left to wonder how much of a role the Italian Hall Massacre plays in her illness. Annie, as President of the Calumet Women’s Auxiliary (W. F. of M.), was the driving force behind organizing the Christmas Party for the strikers’ children. The evening began with so much joy, but then ended with Annie holding a dead child in her arms, and attempting hopelessly to revive the little one.
Up above the strikers stood Annie Clemenc,
girl leader of the miners.
She was not the usual militant Annie Clemenc.
She was saying a prayer for the children.
The Day Book, January 6, 1914
On July 23, 1913, 9,000 copper miners of the Keweenaw Peninsula, Upper Michigan, laid down their tools and walked off the job. They were led by the great Western Federation of Miners, and they had voted by a good majority for a strike: 9,000 out of 13,000. The main issues were hours (the miners wanted an eight hour day), wages, and safety. The miners hated the new one-man drill which they called the “widow-maker.” They claimed this drill made an already dangerous job more dangerous.
The mining companies had steadfastly refused to recognize the Western Federation of Miners in any way. They would continue to refuse all efforts at negotiation or arbitration, even those plans for arbitration which did not include the union, and this despite the best efforts of Governor Ferris, and the U. S. Department of Labor. James MacNaughton, general manger of Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, famously stated that grass would grow in the streets and that he would teach the miners to eat potato parings before he would negotiate with the striking miners.
The Keweenaw Peninsula was a cold, windy place, jutting out into Lake Superior from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This area was known as the Copper Country of Michigan and included Calumet Township of Houghton County, with the twin towns of Hancock and Houghton ten miles to the south. Calumet Township included the villages of Red Jacket and Laurium.
It was here in Red Jacket, on the third day of the strike that Annie Clemenc, miner’s daughter and miner’s wife took up a massive America flag and led an early morning parade of 400 striking miners and their families. Annie Clemenc was six feet tall, and some claimed she was taller than that by two inches. The flag she carried was so massive that it required a staff two inches thick and ten feet tall. The miners and their supporters marched out of the Italian Hall and through the streets of the Red Jacket to the Blue Jacket and Yellow Jacket mines. They marched silently, without a band, lined up three and four abreast. These early morning marches, with Annie and her flag in the lead, were to become a feature of the strike.
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 31, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Little White Caskets Carried Two Miles to Lakeview Cemetery
From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of December 31, 1913:
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 25, 1913, Christmas Day
Calumet, Michigan – Christmas Eve Party for Strikers Children Ends in Tragedy
From The Detroit Free Press of December 25, 1913:
Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: Christmas Eve 1913, Italian Hall Massacre at Calumet, Michigan”
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 23, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Strikers’ Children Will Receives Gifts at Christmas Eve Party
The Calumet Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners will hold a Christmas party for the children of the strikers on Christmas Eve. The party will be held in the Italian Hall in Red Jacket. Annie Clemenc, president of #15, has taken the lead in planning for the event, and she has been energetic in raising money for gifts for the children. For many of the striker’s children, these will be their only Christmas presents. The children will receive candy, hats, mittens, and even a few toys.
The children’s party will begin at 2 p. m. There will be a party later in the evening for the adults.
The Calumet Women’s Auxiliary was organize in September, and each member is a card-carrying member of the Western Federation of Miners, but, sadly a member without a vote. And yet these women make their voices heard, marching in the parades, facing the deputies, the Waddell men, the militiamen, and going to jail right along side their striking husbands, fathers, and brothers.
Annie is well known for leading the daily early-morning parades with her massive American flag.
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 1, 1913
Annie Clemenc, Heroine of Michigan’s Copper Country Strike
From the International Socialist Review of December 1, 1913:
“BIG ANNIE”
IN the Calumet strike region they are calling Annie Clemenc the American Joan of Arc. Annie Clemenc is a miner’s wife. A Croatian [Slovenian], she was born in this country and educated in the school at Calumet. If she were dressed in 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 off their hats to.
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, infantry-men 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.
“Kill me,” she said. “Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I won’t go back. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.”
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.”-From the Miners’ Bulletin.
“Big Annie” has been leading the parades of the striking miners to which she walked early every morning from seven to ten miles. The women have been especially brave and class consciousness in this copper war. And the Finns, who have been educated in the principles of Socialism, are lending a militant character to the struggle that helps much to developing the staying powers of the men
[Emphasis added.]
