Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 9, 1920
Butte, Montana – W. F. Dunne on the Anaconda Road Massacre
From The Liberator of June 1920:
Why Copper Is Red
By W. F. Dunne
ANOTHER crimson chapter has been added to the bloody history of Butte, Montana. It was written on April 21 when Winchester repeaters in the hands of gunmen of the Anaconda Mining Co;, poured their deadly loads of buskshot into a peaceful assemblage of striking miners.
Thomas Manning is dead, two more lie at the point of death, twelve more were wounded. Everyone of the victims was shot in the back.
The Butte Daily Bulletin of April 26, 1920
The miners struck on Monday, April 19. Their demands were as follows:
Release of all industrial and political prisoners. Six-hour day from collar to collar. Minimum wage scale of $7 a day for all workers in the mining industry. Abolition of the rustling-card. Abolition of contract and bonus and so-called efficiency system. Two men work together on all machines, and two men to work together in all workings.
The picket lines were sent out and by Tuesday evening, as they say in Butte, “the hill was clean.” The hoisting of ore ceased. The strike was called on Sunday, April 18, by Local 800 Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World, at two meetings attended by over 2,500 miners. For several weeks miners had been leaving Butte by the dozens, dissatisfied with the contract and bonus system instituted by the mining companies. Men were forced to take contracts and if they made more than a day’s pay received but a fraction of their increased earnings in their envelopes; if they failed to break enough rock, at the price per cubic foot paid, to equal a day’s pay, they were fired. At the Sunday meetings some speakers urged postponement of action until June but were greeted with silence. The miners wanted to strike and strike at once. The demands were drawn up, the strike declared and a committee appointed to close all of the boot-legging joints to eliminate trouble as far as possible. Between forty and sixty illegal places were closed on Monday evening by the miners committee but they were immediately told to open up the following morning by the authorities, and did so.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 8, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – Miners and Citizens Battle Company Gunthugs
From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 1, 1920:
Ten or twelve men were killed in a battle between Baldwin-Felts gunmen and citizens of the town of Matewan, W. Va., on May 19. The exact number of deaths has not been learned, because it is said that one or more bodies were lost in the Tug river when some of the men attempted to swim across. The battle was the result of activities of the gunmen who were in the employ of the Stone Mountain Coal Company. It has been impossible also to obtain a correct list of the names of the dead.
Matewan is in the very heart of the Tug river field, one of the most notorious hotbeds of nonunionism in West Virginia. Coal operators in that field have for years resisted with all of their power the efforts of the miners to organize and join the United Mine Workers of America. They have employed all of the bloody tactics that have prevailed in such fields for many years, including the use of gunmen and thugs, the blackjack and other methods of repression.
A short time ago the miners employed at a mine owned by the Stone Mountain Company undertook to form an organization. The company immediately applied the usual remedy. It discharged the men from its employ. Then the company decided to evict the men and their families from the houses in which they lived and which were owned by the company. It was the thought of the company that this would help to break up the movement for the organization of a local union.
A large force of “detectives” was hired from the Baldwin-Felts agency at Bluefield, W. Va., and sent to Matewan to evict the miners and their families. An Associated Press dispatch from Matewan told the story of the battle as follows:
The shooting, in which Baldwin-Felts detectives clashed with citizens and the police, followed the eviction of a number of miners from Stone Mountain Coal Company houses yesterday, according to the authorities. Two mines were closed recently when it became known that an effort was being made to unionize them. The miners claim that the detectives were sent to dispossess families of workers who had been discharged.
A shot, said by the authorities to have been fired from the coat pocket of Albert Felts, a detective, and which ended the life of Mayor Cabell Testerman, started the battle. An instant later Felts, according to authorities, was killed by “Sid” Hatfield, chief of police. The shooting then became general, and when the battle ended seven detectives, the mayor, and four miners were dead and three other persons badly wounded. Felts, it is said, had a warrant for the arrest of Chief Hatfield on a charge that he had taken a prisoner from detectives some time ago. The mayor was reading the warrant when he was killed.
It was said that the gunmen wore badges as deputy sheriff’s of Harlan county, Ky., and that they had been imported from there to Matewan.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 3, 1920
Minneapolis, Minnesota – May Day-I. W. W. and A. F. L March Together
From The One Big Union Monthly of June 1920:
[Part II of II.]
Some of those in charge attempted to turn the speaking into a “campaign rally” to boost some local aspirants for different political offices and relegate all other speakers to the rear and have the crowd tired out before any genuine working class speakers could get the platform, and they succeeded to a certain extent; but when W. F. Dunne, editor of the Butte Daily Bulletin, managed to get the floor he lost no time in explaining how the Workers’ International Labor Day had been desecrated by those who had no other desire except to get into office, no matter how, and that those who would stoop to misuse Labor’s holiday would need watching.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 2, 1920
Minneapolis, Minnesota – May Day Celebrated by 10,000 Workers
From The One Big Union Monthly of June 1920:
[Part I of II.]
On May 1st, 1919, when the workers of Minneapolis attempted to celebrate International Labor Day, their parade was broken up several times by the police and other willing tools of the money interests, but they always succeeded in reforming and managed to continue their parade until their destination had been reached. All speaking was stopped by the police, but that did not seem to dampen the spirit of the workers, as will be seen from what happened on May 1st, 1920.
Only about two thousand participated in 1919, but as a result of police opposition all unions in Minneapolis took part in one gigantic parade on May 1st, 1920, with the result that close to 10,000 workers were participants in the largest and most enthusiastic May Day celebration that Minneapolis ever had. Not a word was said in regard to this by most of the local news perverters. Only one paper had the decency to mention the affair, in spite of the fact that it was one of the most important events of the day.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 1, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Eugene Debs Accepts Nomination for President
From The Atlanta Constitution of May 30, 1920:
DEBS POINTS WAY FOR SOCIALISTS
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Praises Russian Russian Revolution, and
Criticises Platform When Notified of
Presidential Nomination.
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Expression of keen but friendly criticism of the socialist platform, as adopted in New York city, and of sentiments of sympathy with the Russian revolution, which Eugene V. Debs declared the greatest achievement of all time, were the features of the unique ceremony conducted in the federal prison in Atlanta Saturday morning, when the prisoner was formally notified by a committee of his party that he had been nominated for president by the socialists.
Every possible courtesy was extended the committee and the aged convict by the prison authorities. There were some fifteen people present at the notification, some seven of them socialists, perhaps as many newspaper men, and a fellow prisoner of Debs-Joe Caldwell, of Rhode Island, a member of the communist party.
The exercises were held in a beautifully lighted room on the ground floor, with a nice view through the barred windows. Just before this took place. Debs met his friends in the hallway and kissed each one, four men and one woman-Dr. Madge Patton Stephens, from Terre Haute, his home town, and a friend of his family. Then, for half an hour, a moving picture man snapped all conceivable poses of the nominee and his committee.
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