Tag: Labor Martyrs

Hellraisers Journal: FW Manning Dies, Was Wounded in Massacre Inflicted Upon Miners by Anaconda Company Gunthugs

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote re IWW Martyr Manning ACM Massacre, BDB p1, Apr 26, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 27, 1920
Butte, Montana – Fellow Worker Thomas Manning Dies

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of April 26, 1920:

ACM Massacre, Thomas Manning Death, BDB p1, Apr 26, 1920—–

M’CARTHY AND SULLIVAN HOVERING ON BORDER
OF DEATH IN LOCAL HOSPITAL
———-

In the early hours of yesterday morning the spirit of Thomas Manning, first of the victims of the bloodlust of the Anaconda Copper Mining company’s gunmen as evidenced in the massacre of last Wednesday on Anaconda Road, fled to join the spirits of those who at Ludlow, and at other industrial centers of the United States have offered up their lives on the altar of devotion to the cause of the wage slaves.

On a cot in St. James hospital James Sullivan, with his spine shattered by a bullet from one of the company assassins and the lower part of his body paralyzed, lies awaiting the call of the Angel of Death. On another cot in the same institution, John McCarthy, his lungs riddled with shot fired by the murderers of Manning, also awaits the call and is hourly expected to join Manning in the Great Beyond.

Manning joined the ranks of the labor martyrs, sent to their deaths by the greed of the corporate interest who never hesitate to use the riot gun, the machine gun, the rifle and the bayonet to perpetuate the enslavement of the workers, at about 1:30 o’clock yesterday morning. Despite the severity of his wounds and the frequency of internal hemmorhage the merciful administration of opiates by the hospital authorities made his last hours on comparatively painless, although his tortured body tossed and turned in the delirium of approaching death.

The name of Manning, first of the martyrs of Wednesday, the twenty-first, has been emblazoned on the scroll of organized labor in Montana and from reports reaching Butte from the various organizations of workers throughout the state, “Manning!” will be the shibboleth around which the wage slaves will rally to end forever the reigns of the copper, the lumber, the power and the railroad kings in Montana.

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WE NEVER FORGET the Men, Women and Little Children Who Lost Their Lives in Freedom’s Cause at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925———-

WE NEVER FORGET WNF List of Ludlow Martyrs ed———

Sept 15, 1913 – Trinidad, Colorado
Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America

The delegates opened their convention by singing The Battle Cry of Union:

We will win the fight today, boys,
We’ll win the fight today,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union;
We will rally from the coal mines,
We’ll fight them to the end,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.

The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the Baldwins and up with the law;
For we’re coming, Colorado, we’re coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.

The miners faced the grim prospect of going out on strike against the powerful southern coalfield companies, chief among them, John D Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The coal operators had steadfastly refused to recognize the Union and had ignored all attempts at negotiation.

The miners had had their fill of dangerous working conditions, crooked checkweighmen, long hours, and low pay. They lived in peonage in company towns, were paid in company scrip, and were forced to shop for their daily needs in high-priced company stores which kept them always in debt. But, mostly they hated the notorious company guard system. Every attempt to organize had been met with brutality on the part of the coal operators.

Mother Jones addressed the convention for over an hour, urging the men to:

Rise up and strike! …Strike and stay with it as we did in West Virginia. We are going to stay here in Southern Colorado until the banner of industrial freedom floats over every coal mine. We are going to stand together and never surrender…

Pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don’t fear a governor; don’t fear anybody…You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, “Let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Fellow Worker Ferry is Second to Die Due to Brutal Treatment at Spokane’s Franklin School Prison

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 11, 1910
Spokane, Washington – FW Ferry Dead Due Brutal Treatment at Franklin School

From The Spokane Press of April 8, 1910:

IWW Spk FSF, WNF FJ Ferry, Spk Prs p1, Apr 8, 1910—–

34 DAYS ON BREAD THE CAUSE
—–

F. FERRY, AN INVALID AFTER JAIL EXPERIENCE,
SUCCUMBS TO PNEUMONIA.
—–

Another death is chargeable to the brutality of the system of Chief of Police John Sullivan and the members of the Spokane police department.

Another agonizing face will await the coming of these men in the Great Beyond, where they will face the responsibility that they so shrewdly shift here below, in the name of the majesty of the law.

The latest victim of police inhumanity to man is an aged man named F. Ferry, a resident of Spokane for years, who died last night at the Spokane general hospital, Third and Washington, following a brief but deadly attack of pneumonia.

IWW Spk FSF, Franklin School Jail, ISR p612, Jan 1910—–

Ferry took part in the free speech fight last fall and was among the first arrested and sent to the Franklin school. There, by order of chief Sullivan, he was placed on bread and water for 34 days and left the prison a physical wreck. He has since been an invalid, unable to work, and barely able to crawl around. Wednesday night he took suddenly sick with pneumonia, which found in his worn and emaciated body an easy victim, and all that medical science could do to save him was of no avail.

True, Ferry was an I. W. W. Yet he was an American citizen, a resident of Spokane for many years, whose only offense was that he thought the right of free speech should be accorded his fellow workingmen. He was a quiet, inoffensive man, past 60 years of age, and even in a Russian prison his gray hairs would have been respected and less harsh treatment shown than was manifested by the cowardly police force of Spokane.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: Funeral of S. O. Chinn, Spokane Free Speech Martyr, Largely Attended

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 8, 1910
Spokane, Washington – S. O. Chinn Gets Grand I. W. W. Send-Off

From the Industrial Worker of April 2, 1910:

IWW Spk FSF v Employment Sharks, IW p1, Apr 2, 1910—–

CHINN’S FUNERAL LARGELY ATTENDED
—–
Many Watch Procession on Riverside Avenue
-Strains of the Marseillaise Heard-I. W. W.
Members Who Attend Funeral Wear Red Neckties.
—–

Funeral services for S. O. Chinn, age 27, which were held from the I. W. W. hall proved a magnate as the procession of men, women and children following the hearse and the brass band moved down Riverside Avenue. The last tribute was paid by James Thompson, national organizer of the Industrial Workers at the I. W. W. Hall at 616 Front Avenue, in which he declared that the man had given his life in the interest of the working class.

Three hundred Fellow Workers packed the hall to capacity and after the services followed the hearse and band to Riverside Avenue and Monroe Street, from which point the hearse and pall bearers proceeded to Greenwood cemetery, where Chinn was buried. The casket was draped with the flag of the organization of which Chinn was a member and an officer. Chinn came to Spokane last fall to participate in the free speech fight. His home was originally at Hutchinson, Kansas.

The funeral proceedings attracted a great deal of attention. Before the hearse walked four officers of the I. W. W. with red neckties and red badges of the organization in their buttonholes, while the band before pealed out the martial strains of the “Marseillaise.” Stretching behind for four or five blocks marched the members of the organization, who came out to pay their last respects to the man that had sacrificed his life for the cause of Free Speech.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Spokane Press: S. O. Chinn, Local IWW Secretary, “Did Not Die in Vain”

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 30, 1910
Spokane, Washington – “S. O. Chinn Did Not Die in Vain”

From The Spokane Press of March 21, 1910:

VICTIM CHINN DID NOT DIE IN VAIN
———-

IWW Spk FSF, Duddy re Chinn, Wkgmns p3, Mar 26, 1910
The Workingman’s Paper
March 26, 1910

S. O. Chinn did not die in vain.

The funeral of this victim of Sullivan’s brutal methods occurred yesterday, and while Chinn was but a simple worker in the ranks his cortege was one of the most imposing the city has seen in months. It was not an I. W. W. demonstration, for hundreds were there who were not followers of the union; it was the respect of honest men for another man who died for what he held to be principle.

Chinn’s death appears to have bean the turning point, in the sentiment of Spokane regarding the police system. Before Chinn died the recent conflict was generally regarded as merely a fight between authority and anarchy; now that the dust has settled, the average worker is discovering that it was a fight between brutality-senseless brutality run amuck-and devotion to a principle by men who had nothing to gain and everything-even life itself-to lose.

The Portland (Ore.) I. W. W. local on Saturday passed strong resolutions on Chinn’s death [see inset], condemning Mayor Pratt and Acting Chief Sullivan. While these resolutions will have no especial effect in Spokane they will in Oregon, and as they are being sent out to every city and town where the telegraph goes, the result will be that this city will be given a most unfortunate name for needless brutality; all because it had a chief of police, a mayor and a prosecuting attorney who could think of nothing but brutality to quell a disturbance. The I. W. W. conflict could have been settled in two days had the commonest principle of sense and humanity been used. They were not, and a great flare of scandal arose.

———-

[Inset and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: IWW Spokane Secretary Turned Free Speech Fighter Dead Due to Brutality of Chief Sullivan

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 28, 1910
Spokane, Washington – FW S. O. Chinn Gives His Life for Freedom of Speech

From the Industrial Worker of March 26, 1910:

DEAD AS RESULT OF BRUTAL TREATMENT
—–
Thirty-five Days on Bread and Water Brings On
an Attack of Diabetes and Causes
Death of S. O. Chinn, Spokane Free Speech Fighter.
—–

IWW Spk FSF WNF S. O. Chinn, Spk Prs p1n2, Mar 17, 1910
Spokane Press of March 17, 1910

Because of Chief Sullivan’s brutal system, S. O. Chinn, who contracted diabetes after being fed on bread and water for a period of 35 days, died at Deaconess Hospital of Spokane on Friday evening, March 18th. This brutal treatment was accorded him because of his participation in the Spokane free speech fight.

Chinn was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He had resided at Spokane for a period of two years, and for a time was secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the I. W. W. locals of that city. Those who knew him best knew him to be scrupulously, even fanatically, honest. He never drank, his personal life was clean and he was zealously devoted to what he thought was right.

Chinn went to jail because he believed that the constitution meant what it said; that free speech and free assemblage were inalienable rights; that as a man it was his duty to see that they were not trampled under foot. He caused no disturbance; he demanded merely what he considered were his rights. He believed that constitution meant what it said. But Chief Sullivan and the powers that be in Spokane had decreed otherwise.

Nowhere but in Spokane have men been put on bread and water for 35 days; from three to five days is the army regulation. For the average man a diet of bread and water for ten days, as it was allowed to the imprisoned free speech fighters, means chronic disease, but for 35 days S. O. Chinn was given a bread and water diet, and from the barbarity of the treatment he emerged a wreck and died a lingering death.

The Spokane Press has the following to say on Fellow Worker Chinn’s death:

He was one of the town’s citizens and a quiet, soft-spoken, hard-working man. But he had determination; so had Sullivan to prove that when he said the constitution wasn’t worth a damn, that he knew what he was talking about, so Sullivan kept Chinn on bread and water for 35 days, and so today Chinn, by giving up the struggle and finally dying, admits that Sullivan knew what he was talking about.

Don’t you wonder if Sullivan is real proud and happy of his little victory over S. O. Chinn?

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Hellraisers Journal: Mary Heaton Vorse on Great Steel Strike: Strikers Killed, Beaten, Ridden Down Because of Gary’s Principles

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Fight for Righteousness n Justice, Gary IN Oct 23, 1919, Ab Chp 24———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 27, 1919
Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from the Front Lines of the Great Steal Strike:

People have died, people have been wounded, they have been beaten, ridden down by mounted police, and have suffered in great numbers, fine and imprisonment, because of Mr. Gary’s principles.

From the Kansas Trades Unionist of December 26, 1919:

CAMOUFLAGE IN INDUSTRIAL WARFARE
By Mary Heaton Vorse

GSS Dead n Wounded, Btt Dly Bltn p2, Oct 10, 1919
Butte Daily Bulletin of October 10, 1919

Do you know what the steel strike is about?It is about the right of free men to join freely in organizations which will deliver them from conditions which prevent them being men. It is a fight as to whether one man can coerce the men in the industries of five great states.

There are wars being fought now in Europe over territories not so large and involving the lives of fewer human beings.

This strike is a strike for democracy. It is a fight for the opportunity for wider citizenship.

People against profit. Feudalism against Americanism-a blacker feudalism than the world has known for a long time, for in the most autocratic monarchies the people had the right of petition.

If they had something they wanted to say to their king, they could say it. He would read their petition, he would reply to it.

Judge Gary is more autocratic than any monarch. He denies his men the right of petition. He throws their petitions into the waste basket.

For principles sake.
For principles sake Mr. Gary has let this strike go on.

People have died, people have been wounded, they have been beaten, ridden down by mounted police, and have suffered in great numbers, fine and imprisonment, because of Mr. Gary’s principles.

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WE NEVER FORGET-James Kelly Cole Who Lost Life on November 17, 1909, En Route to the Spokane Free Speech Fight

Janet RayeWe Never Forget
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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, Ab Chp 6, 1925———-

WNF, James Kelly Cole, IWW Spk FSF, Nov 17, 1909, Rev Writings Poems p12, 1910 ———-

WE NEVER FORGET
James Kelly Cole Who Lost His Life in Freedom’s Cause,
November 17, 1909, at Tomah, Wisconsin
———-

James Kelly Cole, Poems Cover, 1910
“It was on a pilgrimage to help others
who believed in the rights of men
that James Kelly Cole was halted suddenly by death.
A railroad accident at Tomah, Wis., November 17th, 1909,
ended only too untimely his brief, young, hopeful life.
He lived well and bravely and thus did he die.”

———-

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