Pray for the dead and
fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: The Martyrs of the Mesabi Iron Range Strike of 1916”
Your welfare ain’t on that rich man’s mind.
-Hazel Dickens
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 3, 1916
Miss Flynn to Hold Meetings in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is currently on tour on behalf of Mesabi I. W. W. defendants who are charged with first degree murder-we refer our readers to the recent article by Eugene Debs in the International Socialist Review.
Before leaving northern Minnesota, Miss Flynn spoke with Joe Ettor at a meeting in Virginia, Minnesota, where she said:
Tresca, Scarlett, Smith and the others are in jail for your sake, remember them.
She also spoke to the Ministerial association at the Duluth Y. M. C. A. where she declared:
A very large majority of the workers on the iron range are foreigners, and they have no friends except among their kinsmen and fellow-workers. If the American-born people would only co-operate, and enlighten the lives of these poor unfortunates, all these disturbances and misfortunes would be done away with.
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday September 28, 1916
Denver, Colorado – Jane Street on Housemaids’ Union
The Denver’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union, Local No. 113 of the Industrial Workers of the World was founded last spring by Miss Jane Street. Today we offer part two (of two parts) of an article about that union and its tactics from The Washington Post of September 24, 1916:
How A Cold Storage Egg Started
The Servant Girls Union (Part II)
—–Miss Jane Street, organizer of the Housemaids’ Union, speaking of its purposes, said for publication in this newspaper:
Of all the abused people on earth none is worse treated than the general housemaid. The majority of housewives follow an aged tradition of looking down on those who serve them and their families and refuse to practice patience or give counsel or regard the women they hire as human beings with like impulses, like passions, like aims and hopes as their own.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ IU, Part II”
As for the women on the picket lines,
they are not playing “the baby act.”
They’re good soldiers.
They’re thoroughly “game,” those women and
we should be immensely proud of them.
-Lenora Austin Hamlin
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 26, 1916
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota – Mrs. Hamlin Describes Conditions
From the Duluth Labor World of September 23, 1916:
BLAMES PRIVATE POLICE FOR VIOLENCE
IN MINERS’ STRIKE
—–
Lenora Austin Hamlin Gives First Pen Picture of
Actual Conditions on Mesaba Range From
Disinterested Standpoint—Makes Telling
Report to Woman’s Welfare League
of St. Paul.
—–
Lenora Austin Hamlin of St. Paul was sent by the Woman’s Welfare league to get first hand information about the treatment accorded to men and women during the miners’ strike on the Mesaba range, following a speech made before the league by Mary Heaton Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
The St. Paul women wanted a colorless story of actual conditions. Mrs. Hamlin, well trained for this sort of investigations, was requested to do the work. She visited all the important points in the strike zone, and her story confirms the claims made during the strike by the miners.
Minnesota is closely following in the footsteps of Colorado and West Virginia, as is shown by the report. It reads in full as follows:
Members of the Woman’s Welfare league will recall that on Tuesday, Aug. 15, we were addressed by Mary Heaton Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on the subject of strike conditions on the range and that great interest was aroused by their descriptions of the part women were taking in the strike and the hardships they were enduring in consequence.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Hamlin Blames Private Police for Violence in Mesabi Range Strike”
Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 15, 1916
Duluth, Minnesota – I. W. W. Defendants in Court
From The Duluth News Tribune of September 14, 1916:
NINE I. W. W.’S AWAIT, DECISION
—–
Attorneys for Prisoners Argue Motion
to Quash Indictments for Murder.
—–
COURT TO DECIDE TODAY
—–
Other Prisoners Indicted for Offenses
on Range Plead Guilty.
—–Whether or not the nine prisoners indicted for murder in the first degree for the alleged killing of James Myron, deputy sheriff, at Biwabik, will go free or whether they will have to face trial will be known this morning at 9:00 o’clock when Judge Bert Fesler will give his decision in the district court on a motion made by attorneys for the defense to quash indictments on the grounds of illegal search and seizure of certain property of the defendants by Sheriff John Meining.
Arguments lasted all day and were concluded late yesterday afternoon. Assistant County Attorney Boyle of Virginia represented the state while Attorney John A. Keyes of Duluth assisted by Attorneys Arthur Le Seur of Fort Scott, Kansas and L. O. Whitsell of Denver, Colo., appeared for the defendants.
Prisoners Greet Friends.
The prisoners sitting in the front row of chairs just inside the railing waved greetings to scores of friends, who attended the hearing. Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, noted I. W. W. speaker was an interested spectator. Carlo Tresco sat with Sam Scarlet [Scarlett] and Joseph Schmidt, all indicted I. W. W. agitators, listened intently to the proceedings. Tresco has raised a luxuriant goatee since his imprisonment, giving him a rather distinguished look. He appeared to be unable to keep his hands away from it. Mrs. Marsonovitch [Masonovich] sat with her husband and from time to time talked excitedly with much gesticulation.
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 12, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – Cablegram from Congressman Caroti of Rome
From The Duluth News Tribune of September 10, 1916:
I. W. W. WOULD DRAG IN ITALIAN GOVERNMENT
—–
Cablegram Talked of With Intimation of Interesting
Mother Country of Alleged Murderer.
—–
VIRGINIA, Sept. 9._The following telegram was exhibited today by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, concerning the I. W. W. strike on the range and tending to show that it is having international effect:
Via New York City. Sept 8.
Carlo Tresca, County Jail, Duluth.
Received cablegram from Congressman Caroti at Rome. He is interpelling the Italian government. Agitation started all over Italy. Tom Mann is leading agitation England.
CAMMILLO DEGREGORIUS.
Where the forgoing telegram means that the I. W. W.’s are attempting to interest the Italian government in the case of Tresca is not known, but intimated.
J. J. McCarthy, one of the new leaders, today stated that there were 11,000 miners on the Mesaba range before the strike started, according to figures compiled by the I. W. W.’s. He declares that 2,500 have left the range and that only 2,500 are now working for the mining companies at all range properties. He claims that the strikers’ strength is 10,000 strong.
It’s the wrong way to treat the Miners
It’s the wrong way to go.
It’s the wrong way to best the Miners,
As the Steel Trust soon will know.
God help those dirty Mine Guards,
The Miners won’t forget.
It’s the wrong way to treat the Miners,
And the guards will know that yet.
-Written by a Miner in Jail
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 9, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – Appeal for Support
From Michigan’s Escanaba Morning Press of September 7, 1916:
SAYS DEPUTY KILLED MYRON
—–
Virginia, Minn., Sept. 6-Deputy Sheriff Edward Shubisky killed Deputy Sheriff Myron during the Biwabik riot July 3 and not Sam Scarlet [Scarlett], Carlo Tresco [Tresca] and others of the I. W. W. indicated for the murder of the officer, according to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who made the sensational charge at Socialist hall here last night before an audience made up, it is said, largely of curiosity seers.
She declared that Deputy Shubisky had fired three shots said that three bullets caused the death of Myron’ that Shubisky admitted firing three times. “Myron was struck in the back and it appears that Shubisky, who declares he does not know where he fired the three bullets, killed him,” she shouted. Nick Dillon, special deputy, was accused of the murder of Tom Ladvala, Biwabik pop-man.
Her version of the Biwabik tragedy was that Mr. and Mrs. Masonovich and three boarder were in their home when Deputies Myron, Shubisky, Dillion and Hoffman entered; that Dillion struck Masonovich; that Mrs. Masonovich tried to get her husband’s shoes and that she was knocked down by Dillion and that three boarders jumped to the rescue of Mrs. Masonovich; that Dillion left for help and that in the excitement Shubisky accidentally killed Myron. She claimed that the boarders had no firearms.
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday August 29, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – Mrs. Masonovitch Held in County Jail
From the Duluth Labor World of August 26, 1916:
STUDY CONDITIONS OF MINERS WIVES
—–
Women’s Welfare League Would Relieve
Suffering In Strike Zone.
—–
VIRGINIA, Aug. 26.-Mrs. L. A. Hamlin of St. Paul, a member of the executive board of the Women’s Welfare league of that city, visited in Virginia and Biwabik recently, making an investigation of the strike conditions for the St. Paul club and for the charities and correction committee of the Minnesota Federation of Women’s Clubs, of which Mrs. V. F. Kinney of Minneapolis is chairman.
Mrs. Hamlin is making the investigation for the purpose of reporting on the manner in which the women of the range are treated, especially by the special deputy sheriffs employed by the mining companies. The women’s Welfare league was recently addressed by Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of the I. W. W. and Marie Heaton Vorst [Mary Heaton Vorse], who visited on the range to secure news of the strike for Harper’s magazine and other eastern publications.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Flynn, Vorse, and Women’s Welfare League Fight for Wives of Striking Miners”
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday August 27, 1916
Mesabi Range, Minnesota-“To Hell With Such Wages!”
From The Survey of August 26, 1916:
When Strike-Breakers Strike
The Demands of the Miners on the Mesaba Range
By Marion B. Cothren
[Part I]
THE strike-breakers of 1907 have become the strikers of 1916 in the iron mines of Minnesota. Coming over in boatloads from south eastern Europe nine years ago and hired by the United States Steel Corporation to break the iron strike called at that time by the Western Federation of Miners, these polyglot nationalities speaking thirty-six different tongues have become Americanized in the melting pot of the Mesaba mines. Today Finns, Slavs, Croats, Bulgars, Italians, Rumanians, have laid down picks and shovels and are demanding an 8-hour day, a minimum wage of $3 for dry work and $3.50 for wet work in underground mines and $2.73 in open pit mines, abolition of the contract labor system, pay-day twice a month.
The last of May, so the story goes, Joe Greeni, an Italian employed underground in the Alpena mine at Virginia, Minn., opened his pay envelope to find a sum much less than he had under stood his contract called for. “To hell with such wages”, cried he, throwing his pick in the corner, whereupon he vowed never to mine another foot of ore. Second thought, however, convinced Greeni, that action was deadlier than inaction. For three days he stayed at his post, going from stope to stope, saying, “We’ve been robbed long enough, it’s time to strike!” Then he left for Aurora to begin agitation at the extreme eastern end of the range in the little St. James’ mine with its force of 40 miners.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: On the Mesabi, “When Strike-Breakers Strike” by Marion B Cothren, Part I”
Hellraisers Journal, Friday August 18, 1916
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota-I. W. W. Leaders Under Arrest
From Indiana’s Evansville Press of August 17, 1916:
LEADERS OF MESABI MINE STRIKE KIDNAPPED?
FORTS AND SEARCHLIGHTS PART OF WAR PLAN!Special Correspondence.
HIBBING, Minn., Aug, 17.-“Forts” are being erected by gunmen of the steel trust interest in the hills of Mesabi iron range; searchlights play by night over the mining villages, up and down the main streets of Hibbing, Virginia and Eveleth; kidnaping, the “bullpen” and wholesale intimidation are said to be an attempt to crush the growing strike of workers.
Put in Jail
On the smaller Cuyuna range, south of this district, the strike already has resulted in a miners’ victory, and this fact is spurring the Mesabi strikers on to greater effort and sacrifices in their own strike.
The county jail at Duluth, 75 to 100 miles from the scene of the strike, is filled with miners’ leaders arrested on technical charges of “murder,” the only excuse for which seems to be in the fact that in a free-for-all fight at Biwabik, responsibility for which has not been yet fixed, two men were killed!
All the miners arrested on “murder” or “riot” charges are railroaded down to Duluth, where there is a large colony in jail, including Joe Schmidt, Carlo Tresca, Frank Little, Sam Scarlett and Jos. Gilday all prominent strike leaders.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: War on the Mesabi, Forts and Searchlights Part of Plan Against Striking Iron Miners”
