Hellraisers Journal: House Sub-Committee Hearings on Mine Conditions Underway in Denver, Colorado and Hancock, Michigan

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Quote Federation Call by John Sullivan, Mnrs Bltn 1913 1914, MI Copper Strike—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 14, 1914
House Sub-Committee Hearings Underway in Colorado and Michigan

From The Day Book of February 14, 1914
Representatives Casey, Howell and Taylor Are on the Job in Michigan:

MI House Investigation Com, Day Book p9, Feb 14, 1914

From The Indianapolis News of February 9, 1914
U. S. Sub-Committees to Investigate Mining Conditions in Michigan and Colorado:

HOWELL SNOWBOUND;
STRIKE INQUIRY DELAYED
———-

CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE IN MICHIGAN LACKS QUORUM.
———-
REPRESENTATIVES KEPT IN
———-

HANCOCK, Mich., February 9.-The train bearing Representative Joseph Howell, of Utah, the member necessary to make a quorum of the congressional investigating committee, was reported storm-bound somewhere on the lower peninsula today and prospects for a meeting dwindled as the day advanced. Chairman Taylor said that it was unlikely that hearings would begin before tomorrow.

The heaviest snowfall of the winter has kept Mr. Taylor and Representative Casey of Pennsylvania indoors since their arrival on Saturday and they have had no opportunity to see any of the copper country beyond the range of vision from their hotel.

—————

OPENS HEARING IN DENVER
———-
Congressional Subcommittee Seeks Evidence
of Law Violations.

DENVER, Colo., February 9.-Hearing of testimony in the federal investigation of the Colorado coal miners’ strike began in the senate chamber of the state capitol today. The subcommittee of the house committee on mines and mining which arrived from Washington yesterday, will hold hearings in Denver and at Trinidad, Pueblo, Boulder and other points, to determine whether federal statutes have been violated and to determine on recommendations for the settlement of the Colorado strike and the prevention of future labor struggles.

When today’s hearing opened E. V. Brake, deputy labor commissioner; Professor Russell D. George, state geologist, and James Dalrymple, chief coal mining inspector, gave testimony as to general coal mining conditions in Colorado.

Two distinct strikes are included in the investigation, to be made by the committee. The miners in the northern Colorado coal fields were called out in April 1910, and that strike never has been settled. Since then, many of the strikebreakers who took the places of the union men have been organized by the United Mine Workers of America, and a considerable part of them walked out with the southern men when the strike of all the coal miners in the state was called on September 23, 1913.

The investigating committee consists of Martin D. Foster (Dem.), Chairman, Illinois; James Francis Byrnes (Dem.), South Carolina; John M. Evans (Dem.), Montana; Richard Wilson Austin (Rep.), Tenn., and Howard Sutherland (Rep.), West Virginia.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: House Sub-Committee Hearings on Mine Conditions Underway in Denver, Colorado and Hancock, Michigan”

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II-Profits, Wages and Working Conditions

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Quote re Annie Clemenc at Mass Funeral Calumet, Day Book p4, Jan 6, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 3, 1914
“Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II-Profits, Wages and Working Conditions

From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:

Calumet MI by LH Marcy, ISR p453, Feb 1914

[Part II of II]

Italian Hall Massacre Calumet MI, Small White Caskets, ISR p457, Feb 1914

We have seen how the copper country is governed by an “invisible government”; from the judge on the bench, to the grand jury in session; from the national guard of the state of Michigan, on “duty,” since July 24, 1913, to the sheriff with his hundreds of imported professional strike breakers whom he swore in as deputies. The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, Calumet, is the invisible government of Michigan.

This poor-little-rich corporation was “created” in the early fifties. According to a statement given out by Attorney Peterman, and endorsed by General Manager W. F. Denton, and General Manager C. L. Lawton, we find this devout confession: ”The profits of the Calumet and Hecla have been large, but they were due solely to the fact that the Creator put such rich ore in the company’s ground.”

However, Congress in the year of our Lord, 1852, seems to have been in total ignorance of this little gift on the Creator’s part to the copper crowd, for we find that “it gave to the state of Michigan 750,000 acres of public land, to aid it in building a ship canal around the Falls of St. Mary. The state in turn bargained this land to the contractors who built the canal, at a dollar and a quarter an acre. The lands thus disposed of at so beggarly a price were supposed to be swamp, or overflowed lands, but somehow, and strange to say, a part of them are now the rocky matrices from which the Calumet and Hecla has long been extracting shot-copper,-that company having in some way got hold of them. Years later a man named Chandler, who claimed to have bought the same land over again from the State of Michigan, brought a suit to dispossess the copper company,-charging all sorts of fraud in the switching of swamps so as to be quarries of copper-bearing rock. But the Supreme Court ruled against him, on the ground that as he got his deed from the state, he was in no better plight than the state, and that the state could not go back on its first deed to the canal contractors: so the Calumet and Hecla people kept it.”

This “good thing” was capitalized for $2,500,000 in shares of $25 each, instead of $100-note that. Of this $25 a share, only $12 was paid in. A total cash investment of $1,200,000. According to the Mining and Engineering World of December 27th, Calumet and Hecla has declared dividends on issued capitalization to December 1, 1913, amounting to $121,650,000, or $1,216 a share or $101 profits for each dollar invested.

Dividends for 1900 amounted to 320 per cent; for 1906, 280 per cent; for 1907, 260 per cent. In the Boston market, the stock was quoted on the day before New Years, at 427, bid price. Bearing in mind that the par value of the shares is but $25, this figure means that the stock is now worth more than 1,700 per cent, and bearing in mind also that only $12 a share was actually paid in, it means more than 3,400 per cent, market value. The president of the company receives a salary greater than the president of the United States.

Not long ago, when dividends threatened to be unusually enormous, the company purchased an extensive island in Lake Superior, stocked it with the finest game, and it is now used by stockholders of the company as a hunting preserve.

And the capitalists, who have never seen the inside of a mine shaft, who have stolen and defrauded to gain possession of the Calumet mines, have refused to permit their wage slaves, who produce all the wealth brought out of the mines, to organize into a union. They have denied the right of these workers to organize to demand more wages and better working conditions. Their arrogance is summed up in the words “We have nothing to arbitrate.”

These capitalists want MORE labor from the laborers. They are not satisfied with having stolen hundreds of millions from the men who have dug the wealth from the dangerous recesses of the earth. They demand still MORE.

* * * * * * *

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II-Profits, Wages and Working Conditions”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns

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Quote re Annie Clemenc at Mass Funeral Calumet, Day Book p4, Jan 6, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 2, 1914
“Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns

From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:

Calumet MI by LH Marcy, ISR p453, Feb 1914

[Part I of II]

Italian Hall Doors Calumet MI, ISR p453, Feb 1914

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.

Italian Hall Calumet MI Interior View, ISR p454, Feb 1914

Came the Finns to the fair state of Michigan about sixty years ago-to spend their lifetime and labor time in the mines.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns”

Hellraisers Journal: Miners’ Bulletin: “Harvest of Death, Striking Miner’s Children In Christmas Joys Are Called By The Angel Of Death”-Italian Hall Massacre

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 28, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Men, Women and Children Perish in Midst of Christmas Joy

From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of December 28, 1913:

MI Miners Bulletin p1, Dec 28, 1913MI Italian Hall Massacre, Mnrs Bltn p1, Dec 28, 1913

In the midst of Christmas good cheer and happiness twenty eight little girls, twenty four little boys, fifteen women and five men were swirled into the cruel jaws of death in less than five minutes at the Italian hall, Calumet, on Christmas eve. The striking miners of Calumet had prepared Christmas exercises and the distribution of presents for the little ones and at the appointed time the hall was filled with the happy little tots accompanied by their parents. The Christmas tree gaily decorated and loaded with presets stood upon the stage of the hall. The program was started by Mrs. Annie Clemenc who was making a talk to the children telling them that old Santa had not forgotten them just because their fathers had been denied work, and that they were all to be made happy by receiving many nice presents, candies, fruits and nuts.

The little ones had crowded near the stage their little faces beaming with delight when a fiend in the shape of a man sneaked up the stairway leading to the hall, opened the door and waving his arm cried “fire, fire,” then quickly making his way to the street where he disappeared in the gathering darkness. At the cry of fire the great throng arose as one and made a dash for the front exit of the hall. The way was made for the children first and they filled the stairway so full and crowded from the rear so fast that some of the children were swept off their feet. These little bodies acted a stumbling blocks for those who followed and within a few seconds the stairway was a mass of bleeding crushed, dead and dying humanity. The crowd from above kept crowding into the stairway until it was completely filled with bodies.

As soon as the cry of fire had been sounded the city fire alarm was bellowing its harrowing warning and the firemen upon arriving at the scene quickly placed ladders to the front windows of the building and ascended to the hall where they stopped any more from crowding into the stairway upon the dead bodies of their comrades. Within a few minutes the hall had been emptied and the work of removing the dead taken up. The bodies were so tightly wedged into the hallway that they could not be released below and had to be taken from above and carried back into the hall. The bodies were taken to a temporary morgue in the city hall where after identification they were sorrowfully removed to their homes.

The scene was one beggaring description and those who witnessed it will never have it effaced from their minds as long as they live. While the front hallway was being crowded and jammed full of men, women and children others were seeking escape at a fire exit in the rear of the hall, many getting out in this manner. Others jumped from windows and in nearly every instance were severely injured, one little boy who jumped had both legs broken.

One little girl who was jammed in the hallway in a dying condition begged one of the rescuers to save her. She grasped his hand, kissed it, then her little head dropped upon her breast and she was dead. One man whose name was not learned got in the hallway and tried to prevent the frenzied crowd from crowding down the stairs upon those below. He placed his arms across the hall way and checked them momentarily but the force behind became too great and he was swept into the vortex of death, his dead body being taken out a few minutes later. Holding high above her head her little child, a woman and her husband were carried into the mass of humanity trying to get out of the hall. This man and his wife were swept to their death but the child miraculously escaped.

The fiend who caused this terrible disaster made his escape and is still at large. From persons who stood near the door it is learned that he was rather stockily built, a little under medium height, and wore his hat well pulled down over his countenance. Upon the lapel of his coat he wore a Citizens Alliance button, is a statement made by several who got a good view of him. How anyone with reasoning power could have deliberately committed the act is beyond comprehension.

President Moyer of the Federation who was in Hancock at the time of the accident hurried to Calumet and assured those afflicted that their wants would be attended to by the organization at whose head he stands. The funerals of the victims will be held at Calumet this afternoon and will be attended by thousands of sorrowing friends and companions of those who, while in life, stood valiantly by their side in the great fight for justice which still holds within it grasp the entire district. The funerals will be held under the auspices of organized Labor, and no funds other than those donated by such organizations will be accepted. Organized labor has made this request and the wishes will be respected in this matter…..

[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Miners’ Bulletin: “Harvest of Death, Striking Miner’s Children In Christmas Joys Are Called By The Angel Of Death”-Italian Hall Massacre”

Hellraisers Journal: From Työmies of Hancock, Michigan: “MURHATTU! lakkoliasten lasten joloujuhlasta tehtün julma kapitalismen uhriteurastus”

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 26, 1913
Strikers’ Children of Calumet Murdered as Sacrificial Slaughter to Capitalism

From Työmies of December 26, 1913:

Calumet MI Strikers Children Muredered, MURHATTU, Tyomies p1, Dec 26, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Työmies of Hancock, Michigan: “MURHATTU! lakkoliasten lasten joloujuhlasta tehtün julma kapitalismen uhriteurastus””

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: 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: From the International Socialist Review: The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Waging a Grim Battle

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

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 3, 1913
The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Exert Their Labor Power

From the International Socialist Review of November 1913:

THE COPPER STRIKE

[Part I of II]

Michigan Copper Strike, One Man Drill, ISR p269, Nov 1913

WAY up in the upper peninsula of Northern Michigan 15,000 copper miners are waging a grim battle against the absentee Copper Kings. The men have worked ten and twelve-hour shifts for many years at an average wage of only $2.00 a day. Recently the companies decided to force the men to work one-man drills. Three miles in the bowels of the earth they planned to send the human moles of Michigan to dig and bring forth wealth for the spending of the bosses.

But they reckoned without the splendid spirit of the miners, who have struggled along under growing pressure from the mine bosses, while the cost of living climbed merrily upward and the standard of living went down with every leap in the prices of commodities.

The mine boys came to a few conclusions themselves and decided to raise the price of their LABOR POWER. They also made up their minds that they would enact a new labor law (among themselves) and cut short their underground workday.

They looked over the financial reports of the Calumet & Hecla Company and discovered that the mine owners had only put $1,200,000 into the mines originally and had taken out over $120,000,000 for their OWN PROFITS. Most of the mine owners live in cultured Boston and have never seen the inside of a shaft. One man draws down $120,000 salary as president and director of the company. The first vice-president (also a director) holds up the boys for $70,000, while other directors and officers make away with $45,000 and $40,000 each, and the directors are rewarded with a bagatelle of $20,000 a year. From one mine alone the officers of the company grant themselves $370,000 in loot (”salaries”) every year.

Michigan Copper Strike, Soldiers and Strikers, ISR p270, Nov 1913

Now the boys in the copper mines are fast becoming Socialists. They are all disgusted with the portion they are receiving. They run, manage and work the mines. They are beginning to doubt the wisdom of DIVIDING up so foolishly and partially for the benefit of the mine owners. They are organizing today to FIGHT the bosses in order to secure MORE time to plan for a better resistance later on. The day is coming when they are going to take possession of the mines in the name of the MINE WORKERS, just as the steel workers will take over the steel mills, just as a united working class intends to take over all the mills, factories, shops and mines to be run and operated only in the interests of those WHO WORK and RUN and MANAGE them. They are going to STOP MAKING PROFITS FOR BOSSES.

This is the way all militant labor wars are tending. Today the copper miners are fighting for $3.00 a day and an eight-hour day. Tomorrow they will demand the full value of the copper they dig.

Also, the men are determined to abolish the one-man mine drill.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Waging a Grim Battle”

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V Debs & Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Denied Right to Speak in the State of Minnesota

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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday July 4, 1917
St. Peter & Duluth, Minnesota – Freedom of Speech Denied

From the New Ulm Review of July 4, 1917:

EUGENE DEBS IS BARRED FROM
PUBLIC SPEAKING
—–

Eugene Debs, ISR, Sept 1916

St. Peter’s Chautauqua opened Sunday, July 1, and will continue until next Sunday, July 8. An excellent program has been arranged and is being carried out, with a large attendance. Eugene V. Debs, who had been secured to deliver one of the lectures, has been forbidden by the Minnesota Safety commission to deliver a public lecture in this state. The St. Peter committee was notified to that effect late last week. Mr. Debs was to have delivered the Fourth of July address on the Chautauqua program. St. Peter people, who had anticipated hearing a patriotic address by Mr. Debs feel that the Safety commission has convicted him without a trial.

The commission offered to send C. W. Ames, a member of that body to take the place of Debs on the program, but the offer was declined without even thanks. In fact the offer was considered, according to the St. Peter papers, somewhat presumptuous on the part of the commission.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the City of Duluth:

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Hellraisers Journal: Rebellion in Lumber Camps of Northern Minnesota: Harrison George Reports

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The camps are deserted, the strikers firm,
the bosses wild and the cat sits on
every log that straggles thru
to the mills of Minnesota.
-Harrison George

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 1, 1917
Northern Minnesota – Lumber Workers Fight for Dignity

IWW Metal Mine Workers IU No. 490, Hibbing MN, June 19, 1916, Crpd

The Duluth News Tribune could not contain its glee when the Mesabi Iron Miners’ Strike was defeated last December and the I. W. W. organizers bid the workers of the Range good-bye. So imagine then the surprise when less than two weeks later the Industrial Workers of the World again appeared on the Range, this time to organize under the leadership of “Timber Beast” Jack Beaton and Fellow Worker Charles Jacobson, Secretary of the Virginia L. U. A meeting was held in the Finnish Socialist Hall of Virginia, demands issued, and soon a strike was on at the two sawmills and in the lumber camps of the Virginia & Rainy Lumber Company.

From the International Socialist Review of February 1917:

Lumber Workers, Camp Grub Pile, ISR, Feb 1917

WHILE the Lumber Workers’ Union, the bull-pen of the Industrial Workers of the World, was in convention at Portland, Ore., during the last week of December, the rumblings of revolt began half way across the continent among workers of that industry in Minnesota.

North and westward of the Mesaba Iron Range lies millions of acres of swamp lands. In the primeval state, these swamps were covered with magnificent forests where roamed the Indian and the fur-bearing fox, bear and beaver. In this section John Jacob Astor’s fur business in the early times laid the base of the present Astor-crat fortune. A very simple process—the Indians skinned the animals and Astor skinned the Indians.

Later huge land grants the railroads secured by bribery and worse practices, opened the forests to the pillage of the Lumber Trust. Where the government yet retained title to timber lands, the lumber trust in open defiance simply entered and stole the finest of timber and used the political axe on all annoying officials.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Rebellion in Lumber Camps of Northern Minnesota: Harrison George Reports”