Hellraisers Journal: News From Strike Zone of Michigan’s Copper Country; Threats and Mob Attacks Against Union Miners

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

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.

MI Miners Bulletin p1, Dec 2, 1913

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!

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: News From Strike Zone of Michigan’s Copper Country; Threats and Mob Attacks Against Union Miners”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Government by Gunthug Starts Bloody War in Upper Michigan’s Copper Country

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

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 13, 1913
The Keweenaw, Michigan – Government by Gunthug Starts Bloody War

From the Chicago Day Book of December 11, 1913:

MI Government by Gunthug, Bloody War, Day Book p1, Dec 11, 1913

Calumet, Mich., Dec. 11.-(Special.)-Bloody war has broken out in the copper country, and the battle has been waging since early this morning. It was precipitated by the Citizens’ Alliance, which has been making open threat for days that the union leaders would be forcibly driven from Houghton county.

Yesterday President Moyer of the Western Federation of Miners made application to Circuit Judge O’Brien for an injunction restraining members of the Alliance from interfering with officers and members of the Federation. The injunction was granted.

This morning about 2 o’clock gunmen deputies and members of the Citizens’ Alliance attempted to arrest striking miners who had barricaded themselves in their hall at South Range, about eight miles from Calumet. This started the fight.

Thirty-five armed strikers were arrested, and two special trains were sent out from Houghton loaded with reinforcements from the Alliance, one at 5 and the other at 9 o’clock.

In the battle Deputy Tom Driscoll of Houghton was shot and fatally wounded. Many others were wounded, although no list of them has been secured.

The fighting kept up all morning and before noon a total of 500 strikers had been arrested, including Victor Valimakki, Finnish organizer for the Federation, who is alleged to have confessed to the shooting of Driscoll, who was shot through the abdomen and the right arm.

Just before noon a third special train carrying gunmen, deputies and vigilantes was sent to the South Range district, a distance of 27 miles from Houghton.

The fire bells were rung in Calumet and Houghton this morning summoning all members of the Citizens’ Alliance.

Thousands are being held in reserve ready to be sent to any part of the county. The fighting today followed a night of terror throughout the strike district. Two of the gunmen deputies who were shot down yesterday are not expected to live.

Labor leaders predict that wholesale arrests will be made of members of the Alliance for violating Judge O’Brien’s injunction, issued yesterday.

Federation Hall, at South Range, where for more than eight hours today half a hundred striking copper miners battled desperately against a mob of vigilantes and deputy sheriffs, was surrendered by the miners into the hands of the Citizens’ Alliance at noon today. All the defenders of the hall were arrested. Thirty rifles and great quantities of ammunition were confiscated and will be thrown into Portage Lake.

As far as could be learned early this afternoon Deputy Sheriff Driscoll at Houghton was the only person to be fatally injured in the fighting. He was shot through the abdomen and cannot recover, it was stated this afternoon. Henry Koski has confessed to shooting the deputy, the authorities asserted. Koski’s wife is also held for complicity.

[Deputized Company Gunthugs]

The fighting deputy sheriffs are gunmen imported from New York by the Waddell-Mahon strikebreaking agency of 200 Fifth avenue, New York city. They were sworn in by Sheriff Cruse and armed with guns and deputy’s badges.

Waddell said himself that many of them were ex-members of the New York police department. Others were imported from Chicago and other cities, but most of them from the East.

The entire county has been under control of the mining companies, through the sheriff’s office and the Waddell thugs, ever since the strike began last July.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Government by Gunthug Starts Bloody War in Upper Michigan’s Copper Country”

Hellraisers Journal: Western Federation of Miners Executive Board Issues Statement on Industrial Situation in Colorado

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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 9, 1903
Denver, Colorado – W. F. of M. Executive Board Addresses Colorado’s Labor Conflicts

From The Denver Post of December 5, 1903:

WFM Ex Brd after May 1903 Convention, EFL 223, 1904WFM Ex Brd Statement re Colorado Miners Strikes, DP p5, Dec 5, 1903WFM Ex Brd Statement re Colorado Miners Strikes cont, DP p5, Dec 5, 1903

[Photograph added. Note: James Kirwin replaced T. J. McKean on the Executive Board during November.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Goodwin’s Weekly: Polly Pry, in Recent Issue, Pays Her Respects to Mother Jones, “Hideous Hag”

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Quote re Mother Jones Lioness Angel, LW p4, Dec 5, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 7, 1903
Polly Pry Pays Her Respects to Mother Jones, “The Hideous Hag”

From Goodwin’s Weekly of December 5, 1903:

Polly Pry re Mother Jones Hideous Hag, Gdwn Wkly p7, Dec 5, 1903

From the Duluth Labor World of December 5, 1903
-Mother Jones, Lioness, Miner’s Angel and Patron Saint:

Mother Jones Angel, LW p4, Dec 5, 1903 Mother Jones Opposes Mt, DP p1, Nov 22, 1903

[Photo from Denver Post of November 22, 1903]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Goodwin’s Weekly: Polly Pry, in Recent Issue, Pays Her Respects to Mother Jones, “Hideous Hag””

Hellraisers Journal: Big Annie of Calumet: “She faced cavalrymen with drawn sabers, infantry-men with bayonetted guns.”

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

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”

Annie Clemenc w Flag, ISR p342, Dec 1913

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.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Big Annie of Calumet: “She faced cavalrymen with drawn sabers, infantry-men with bayonetted guns.””

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Reporter in Denver, Describes Conditions in the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 16, 1903
Denver, Colorado – Mother Jones Describes Conditions in Southern Coalfields

From The Denver Post of November 13, 1903:

Mother Jones, Dnv Pst p1, Nov 13, 1903Mother Jones Interview re CO Coal Strike, Dnv Pst p1n3, Nov 13, 1903 Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Reporter in Denver, Describes Conditions in the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: “Clash in the Copper Country”-Photos from the Front Lines of Michigan Miners’ Strike

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

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 8, 1913
“Clash in the Copper Country” by Graham Romeyn Taylor

From The Survey of November 1, 1913:

Clash in MI Copper Country by G Taylor, Survey p127, Nov 1, 1913MI Strikers Parade, Annie w Flag, Survey p127, Nov 1, 1913

[Scene of Seeberville Murders]

MI Seeberville Murder Scene, Survey 128, Nov 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: “Clash in the Copper Country”-Photos from the Front Lines of Michigan Miners’ Strike”

Hellraisers Journal: UMWA Declares Strike of District 15’s Coal Miners Will Begin November 9th. Order Signed by President Mitchell So Instructs President Howells.

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Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 1, 1903
Indianapolis, Indiana – United Mine Workers Issues Strike Call for District 15

From The Rocky Mountain News of October 30, 1903:

CO etc District 15 Strike Declared by UMWA, Mother Jones Prominent, RMN p1, 9, Oct 30, 1903

Note error above: District 15 coal miners are members of the United Mine Workers of America, not the Western Federation of Miners (metal miners).

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: UMWA Declares Strike of District 15’s Coal Miners Will Begin November 9th. Order Signed by President Mitchell So Instructs President Howells.”

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: Emma F. Langdon Reports on Cripple Creek Strike: President of WFM’s Miners’ Union, No. 40, Arrested 

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 13, 1903
Cripple Creek District, Colorado – President Charles Kennison Arrested 

Report of Emma F. Langdon of Victor, Colorado:

Charles G. Kennison Arrested

Emma F Langdon, EFL p8 of 274, 1904
Emma F. Langdon

Sept. 10 Chas. G. Kennison, president No. 40 Miners union, was arrested while riding on an early morning train. There was a number of men on the train on their way to work on some of the unfair mines. Kennison got into an argument with a man by the name of T. J. Sturdevant who was working on the El Paso and at that time was on his way to the mine. Sturdevant immediately became insulting to Kennison and finally struck him in the mouth and on the head. Kennison was reported to have drawn his revolver and attempted to strike Sturdevant over the head, when the gun caught in the bell cord in the car. Passengers on the car immediately interfered and stopped the trouble. Kennison got off the train at Elkton, where he was going, and attended to his business there and then went back to Cripple Creek and notified the sheriff’s office where they could get him. He made no attempt to get away or avoid arrest. General Bell had a detachment of militia out all the forenoon and part of the afternoon looking for Kennison. After he was placed in the county jail a detachment of troops was sent to investigate. They found him there but made no demand for him.

THEN CAME CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY.

Under Sheriff Gaughan said in relation to the matter that the military had no right to interfere with the procedure of the sheriff’s office and if they took Kennison into custody they would exceed their authority so far as he was informed. But as to authority, what authority had they in the district at all? This was only the “beginning of the end.”

Lieutenant Wahm, with a squad of six soldiers, rather surprised the miners at union headquarters in Cripple Creek by stationing his detail in front of the hall. Two of the men were deputed to go up stairs and make a search for the president of the union, but as he was not in evidence they soon repaired again to the street. Lieutenant Wahm was informed that a warrant had been sworn out by some person, unknown for the arrest of Kennison by the sheriff’s office and was asked if he would take Kennison in custody in any event.

“Certainly I will take him,” he answered, “even though he is released on bond. If he is not released on bond and is confined in the county jail I will go back to the camp and will secure sufficient force to get him anyhow.”

The Denver papers of Sept. 10 in speaking of the arrest of Mr. Kennison said in part:

C. G. Kennison, president of Miners’ Union No. 40, was arrested about noon today and placed in the county jail on the charge of carrying concealed weapons. In an interview with our correspondent he said:

“I am guilty of the offense charged. I carried a weapon for the sole purpose of defending my life. The guards at the El Paso mine said that they would stretch me up to an electric light pole. Manager Sam McDonald of the Strong and Gold King properties told me on Bennett avenue that I would be in my grave before the strike was over. I was brutally assaulted this morning and shamefully abused by a lot of scabs and I drew a revolver in defense of my life. I do not care to say any more about the matter at the present time. No, I am not a deputy sheriff. I had a commission but I surrendered it some days ago.”

Deputy District Attorney Cole, when told of the bull pen that had been established at Camp Goldfield said: “It is perfectly outrageous and General Bell has no warrant of law for arresting people and detaining them without a warrant. I shall look into the matter officially at once.”

Kennison was released Sept. 11 at 4 o’clock from the county jail on bond. The charge against him was assault with intent to kill. He gave bond in the amount of $500. Mr. Kennison was in jail just a day when released. The men who assaulted him were never arrested the reader will take note of that fact.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Emma F. Langdon Reports on Cripple Creek Strike: President of WFM’s Miners’ Union, No. 40, Arrested “