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Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 13, 1914
Chicago, Illinois – Former Michigan Gunthug Testifies Before House Committee
From the Chicago Day Book of March 10, 1914:
Tag: Hancock MI
Hellraisers Journal: Charles Tanner Testifies Regarding Attack on Charles Moyer by Citizens Alliance Mob
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 27, 1914
Hancock, Michigan – Charles Tanner Testifies Before House Sub-Committee
From The Milwaukee Leader of February 25, 1914:
Hellraisers Journal: Margaret Fazekas, Age 14, Holds Her Own as Witness Before House Subcommittee at Hancock, Michigan
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 25, 1914
Margaret Fazekas Testifies Before House Subcommittee
Tuesday February 24, 1914 – Hancock, Michigan
Although only 14 years old, Margaret Fazekas appeared before the Congressional Investigating Committee this morning and held her own throughout the long interrogation. Margaret is the young girl who was shot in the back of the head last September as she performed her picket duty:
MARGARET FAZEKAS, a witness, sworn, testified on examination as follows:
Mr. HILTON [Attorney for the Miners]. How old are you?
The Witness. I was 14 in August.
Mr. HILTON. Where do you live?
The Witness. Wolverine.
Mr. HILTON. Do you remember the 1st day of September last and what happened on that day?
The Witness. Yes, sir. _ ,
Mr. HILTON. Tell what happened on the 1st day of September.
The Witness. September 1 I went out on picket duty with the other women. We were marching back and forth on the streets, and there was about 13 deputies, and there was some more deputies on the other side to those that were close to us. There were about 13, and they were telling us—we weren’t doing any harm at all—they told us to go home for breakfast, and we said we had just as much— we can stay there just as well as they can. We weren’t doing any thing at all. Some of the ladies told them to go for breakfast, and then they turned back, and we thought they were going home for breakfast. But when they turned back toward us they had the revolvers in their hands, and they started shooting, and as soon as I saw the revolvers I turned back and started to run, and so I don’t know anything afterwards.
Mr. HILTON. Were you shot?
The Witness. Yes, sir.
Mr. HILTON. Show the committee where you were shot. (The witness removed her hat and indicated to the committee the location of the wound on the side of her head.)
The Witness. My hair is on top so it doesn’t show.
The CHAIRMAN [Congressman Taylor]. Is it in the back of the head, just behind the left ear?
The Witness. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Did the bullet enter your brain?
The Witness. I don’t know. Dr. Roach said some of my brain came out, but he put it back in again, and he took a bone out of it—a small bone.
Mr. HILTON. How long were you in the hospital?
The Witness. Four weeks and a half.
Mr. HILTON. Not expected to live? The
Witness. No, sir; nobody expected it.
Hellraisers Journal: Women of Michigan Copper Country Tell of Brutal Treatment from Company Guards; Berger Testifies
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 24, 1914
Hancock, Michigan – Deputized Company Gunthugs Brutalize Women
From the Detroit Evening Times of February 17, 1914:
From the Duluth Labor World of February 21, 1914:
BERGER TESTIFIES AT STRIKE INQUIRY
———-
Says Socialist Party Had Nothing to Do With Strike
Simply Contributed Money
———-Victor Berger appeared before the congressional committee at Hancock [Michigan] Tuesday to tell what he knew about the copper strike. Mr. Berger appeared as a committee witness. He was not called by the Western Federation of Miners. He declared the Socialist party had nothing to do with calling the strike and nothing to do with fomenting it. “When the strikers got hard up” he said, “the Socialists gave them financial aid up to $25,000 in money and a greater quantity of clothing.”
Mr. Berger said the national flag of the Socialists was the Star Spangled Banner, but “the red flag is our international flag-the red flag of brotherhood.”
Women Were Assaulted.
The committee listened to a large number of women witnesses during the week. One woman said she was hit in the back by a rock thrown by a gunman. She was afterwards arrested and was taken to jail in an automobile carrying her 4-months-old baby with her. The baby died from exposure from the cold a few days later. She has not been able to find out why she was arrested…..
The woman whose baby died was Margaret Cibacca. Her testimony, describing how she was taken into custody along with her children and then dumped out into the cold, is disturbing. Mrs. Cibacca the wife of a striking copper miner, was at home with her five children, ages 3 months to six years, when the deputies came pounding at her door. They told her that they wanted her to come to the mining office to visit a sick woman.
She gathered up her five children and went with them in their automobile to the mining office of the Baltic Mine. They forced her to leave the three older children outside in the cold with only the six-year-old to watch them. The two littlest ones, they allowed her to take inside. Once they had her in the office, they locked the door. She was alone in there with three deputies. There was no sick woman.
She asked why she was there, what she had done, and they laughed at her and beat her, even as she held her little children. She begged them to let her go home and feed her children, and they laughed at her again and began to beat her with a club on her side and on her back as she attempted to ward off the blows and protect her tiny children. The bruises can still be seen on her back.
Finally, they forced her with her children into the automobile for the drive to Houghton to see Justice Little. On the way they told her that she would be locked up for six months. Justice Little questioned her for about a half hour and then told her she was free to go, but go where? There was no ride back to Baltic, eight miles away, the deputies were gone, and she had no money.
At last, her husband was able to come for her. He brought blankets for the children who were cold to the bone, especially the three-month-old baby, from waiting outside for their father. They were too late for the train back to Baltic, and the striking miner was forced to spend his meager strike benefit on a rented automobile to take his tired, hungry, and terrified family home.
The baby came down deathly ill the next day, and died shortly thereafter.
Hellraisers Journal: House Sub-Committee Hearings on Mine Conditions Underway in Denver, Colorado and Hancock, Michigan
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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:
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.
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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.
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OPENS HEARING IN DENVER
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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.]
Hellraisers Journal: News from the Michigan Copper Strike: Striker Shot, Seriously Wounded; Seeberville Murder Trial Begins; Congressmen on the Way
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 5, 1914
News from Michigan Copper Strike: Striker Shot; May Prove Fatal
From The Calumet News of February 2, 1914:
[Note: Names above are incorrect, see below.]
Monday February 2, 1914, Hancock-Houghton, Michigan
–Striker John Laitila Shot by Scabs, Not Expected to Live
John Laitila, striking copper miner, was shot by James Johnson, a scab, yesterday near the Superior mine as he confronted Johnson and three other scabs who were on their way to work. Laitila is not expected to live. Prosecuting Attorney Lucas is looking into the matter. An arrest is expected. We have learned that the Lucas doubts the story of self-defense told by Johnson, and further believes that the gun found on Laitila was planted on him by the killers.
The trial of the Waddell men in the killing of the strikers at the Seeberville boarding house begins today. Six gunthugs are on trial, and the sympathy of the kept press almost brings tears to the eyes. According to The Daily Mining Gazette, the gunthugs are “young men of good character and agreeable social manners,” while the men they murdered were “ugly” and “drunk.” Left unexplained by the Gazette is why men of such good character would come to seize men, without authority of law, and, when the men resisted being unlawfully seized, then shoot up a home, especially one containing a family with young children..
From The Indianapolis Star of February 3, 1914:
House Mine Committees To Inquire into Strikes
Washington, Feb. 1-Subcommittees of the House committee on mines will leave Washington next Wednesday night for the West to investigate the Colorado and Michigan mine strikes.
The Colorado investigators, Representatives Foster, Illinois, chairman; Byrnes, South Carolina; Evans, Montana (Democrats); Austin, Tennessee, and Sutherland, West Virginia (Republicans), will go first to Denver, then to Trinidad and Pueblo and later to Boulder.
Representatives Taylor of Colorado, chairman; Hamlin, Mississippi; Carey, Pennsylvania (Democrats); Howell, Utah, and Switzer, Ohio (Republicans), the subcommittee for the Michigan inquiry, will go direct to Calumet and take in Houghton and other places in the strike-affected area.
None of the committeemen would venture a prediction as to how long their tasks would occupy them.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: President Charles Moyer and Auditor Charles Tanner of the Western Federation of Miners Return to Upper Michigan’s Copper Country
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 16, 1914
Houghton, Michigan – Cheering Crowd Meets Moyer and Tanner at Station
From the Miners Magazine of January 15, 1914:
From the Miners’ Bulletin of January 9, 1914:
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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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:
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.]
Hellraisers Journal: Moyer Shot, Beaten, Threatened with Lynching and Deported from Michigan by Citizens Alliance
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 27, 1913
Hancock/Houghton, Michigan – Moyer and Tanner Kidnapped and Deported
Last night at about 8:30 p.m. Sheriff Cruse and a “committee” paid a visit to the Scott Hotel in Hancock. They went to the room of Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. The “committee” was determined that the leaders of the W. F. of M. should reconsider their refusal to accept any donations from the Citizens’ Alliance to the families of the victims of the Italian Hall Massacre. Mr. Moyer remained adamant that donations from the Citizens’ Alliance amounted to blood money and that the union would bury it’s own dead.
No sooner had this “committee” left the room than a mob burst into the room. They began to beat Moyer and also Charles Tanner who was there with him. A gun was used to beat Moyer over the head which discharged during the assault. Moyer was shot in the shoulder. Moyer and Tanner were dragged out of the Hotel and down the street to the train station in Houghton. At the Houghton-Hancock bridge they were threatened with hanging, and shown a noose brought for that purpose.
The kidnappers put Moyer and Tanner on the Chicago train. Deputy Sheriff Hensley and Deputy McKeever were assigned to accompany the deportees. The deputies wore their Citizens’ Alliance buttons right next to their deputy badges for all to see.
The train stopped briefly in Milwaukee, and reporters were able to get the story from Moyer and Tanner. The reporters also witnessed Moyer’s “pillow and bed linen were soiled with blood from wounds in his scalp and back.”
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From the Chicago Day Book of December 27, 1913, Noon Edition
Hellraisers Journal: From Työmies of Hancock, Michigan: “MURHATTU! lakkoliasten lasten joloujuhlasta tehtün julma kapitalismen uhriteurastus”
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 26, 1913
Strikers’ Children of Calumet Murdered as Sacrificial Slaughter to Capitalism
From Työmies of December 26, 1913:
