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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 8, 1913
“Clash in the Copper Country” by Graham Romeyn Taylor
From The Survey of November 1, 1913:
[Scene of Seeberville Murders]
Tag: Michigan Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914
Hellraisers Journal: From Miners Magazine: “The Faithful Dog” Walks the Streets of Chicago to Advertise Against Scabs
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 7, 1913
Chicago, Illinois – Faithful Dog, Topey, Says, “Don’t Be a Scab”
From the Miners Magazine of November 6, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Michigan Copper Strike, Working Class Solidarity for Miners’ Victory
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 4, 1913
The Michigan Copper Strike, Working Class Solidarity Can Win All Strikes
From the International Socialist Review of November 1913:
THE COPPER STRIKE
[Part II of II]
When the boys heard that several carloads of armed ”guards” were on their way to Calumet from New York City, they got busy. The train was rushed through Calumet, but a few miles beyond was halted by piles of tiles thrown over the tracks. The miners had gathered to see the fun and to show their contempt for the ”guards”. This was too much for those ”clothed with authority”. They immediately opened fire upon the boys. A little surprise was in store for them, however, as the miners stood their ground and instead of turning the other cheek, opened fire in return. So hot did it become for the “guards” that the train hastily backed out and the guards retreated, vanquished.
It is granted by everyone that the “mine guards” are on the ground to irritate the miners into an open and sanguinary revolt. Miners are attacked constantly. Many are seriously injured. Women are insulted and beaten. The miners are armed. Most of them realize that THE ARMED RESISTANCE OF A FEW WORKERS NEARLY ALWAYS FAILS, because the bosses can call all the forces of capitalist society to do their bidding. A group of workers cannot defeat the whole capitalist government-the entire capitalist class-the army. But the miners are not meek and lowly wage slaves. One of them writes to us:
For every miner who is deliberately picked off and murdered by a “guard” they will have to settle with us.
But the men want peace. Not the peace of the lamb that has been devoured by the lion, but the peace that follows a victorious engagement with the enemy, the peace after a strike is won.
Last reports claim that the militia and gunmen have declared that they have been ordered to crush the strike by the use of violence. Following attacks upon the miners, the troopers arrest all they cannot ride down.
Strikers frankly admit their participation in the disturbances. All the big trouble arose when the armed artillerymen deliberately rode down a nine-year-old girl who was the daughter of a striker. It is reported that the soldiers were commanded to go to any lengths to provoke an outbreak by the strikers in order to find further opportunity for brutality and terrorism.
During the absence of the commanding general and his staff the militia and thugs have promised the striking miners a “real reign of terror.” We are not prophets, but we have a suspicion that these boys of the Western Federation of Miners will give them all they are looking for.
In the meantime the organizers are holding meetings and persisting in their picket duty. The spirit of solidarity is spreading rapidly and the mine men are confident of victory.
Much more could be gained, however, if the railroad men and all other miners would join the strike and enlarge the war zone. If many large groups of men in the same industry would STRIKE AT THE SAME TIME, they would be better able to fight the capitalist class.
WORKING CLASS SOLIDARITY and a general stoppage of all work in any industry are weapons that no GUN can destroy nor judge enjoin away.
[Emphasis and detail of photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: The Michigan Copper Strike, 15,000 Miners Waging a Grim Battle
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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]
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.
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.]
Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Miners’ Magazine: “Jungles” by Agnes Thecla Fair
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 27, 1913
“Jungles” by Agnes Thecla Fair, Girl Tramp, Author of Sour Dough’s Bible
From Miners’ Magazine of October 23, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Calumet, Michigan-Gunthugs Shoot into Strikers’ Parade; Thousands Attend Funeral for Manerich
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 18, 1913
Copper Country, Michigan – Strikers Ruled by Deputized Company Gunthugs
From the Chicago Day Book of October 13, 1913:
From the Miners’ Magazine of October 9, 1913:
Partial transcript:
In Houghton county, Michigan, where the copper miners are on strike, the sheriff hired imported gunmen from the Waddell-Mahon agency of New York and swore them in as deputy sheriffs, arming them with guns and official stars.
Sheriff Cruse told me he had 1,2000 of them on duty, and that 400 of them were “company” men-that is, gunmen sworn in as deputy sheriffs, but on the payroll and working under the direction of the mining companies.
James A. Waddell told Walter B. Palmer, government statistician, that he had 108 men on duty in the county and that the Burns Detective Agency had twelve “detectives.”
At the time I was there the state of Michigan had about 650 militiamen on duty. They were armed, of course.
While Waddell was not a citizen of Michigan and Sheriff Cruse had been elected by the people, Waddell was to all intents and purposes the actual sheriff and directed the work of the gunmen.
And the mine managers directed the work of Waddell. He was on their payroll.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Chicago Day Book: Don MacGregor at Ludlow: “Gunmen Always Ready to Open War on Families of Miners”
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 15, 1913
Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado, Sunday September 28th
-Don MacGregor Visits Miner’s Tent, Describes Conditions
From the Chicago Day Book of October 4, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: From The Day Book: Heroine Annie Clemenc by N. D. Cochran-American Joan of Arc in Fight for Liberty
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 10, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc, Leader of Women and Strike Sympathizers
From The Day Book of October 8, 1913:
The news dispatches tell of the arrest of Annie Clemenc, leader of the women strike sympathizers at Calumet, Michigan-the woman who has carried the American flag at the head of the striking miners daily parade.
But that doesn’t tell very much. It doesn’t tell the story of Annie Clemenc. The name means nothing to you who read the mere statement that Annie Clemenc was arrested.
But I have met Annie Clemenc. I have talked with her. I have seen her marching along the middle of the street, carrying that great American flag. It is a silk flag. The staff must be fully two inches thick.
When I read that Annie Clemenc has been arrested I think of the dirty little jail in Calumet. And I think of Joan of Arc and the Goddess of Liberty. Then I think of the notable women I have seen in New York, in San Francisco, in Chicago and in Washington.
Early one morning I trudged along the road, walking at one side with Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, as the parade went from Red Jacket to Laurium and back. Women were in the front-miners’ wives, miners’ daughters-and Annie Clemenc, heroine, marched with them and carried the flag.
Annie Clemenc is a miner’s wife. A Croatian [Slovenian], she was born in this county and educated in the schools of Calumet. If she were dressed in the 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 their hats off to.
A militia officer said to me at Calumet: “If McNaughton could only buy Big Annie he could break this strike.”
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, infantrymen 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.
[She said:]
Kill me. Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I wont go back. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.
And she didn’t go back. Miners rushed up, took the flag and got her back for fear she might be killed.
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.
I asked her if the big flag wasn’t heavy.
[She said:]
I get used to it. I carried it ten miles one morning. The men wouldn’t let me carry it back. I love to carry it.
Hellraisers Journal: 500 School Children Are Now Striking in Sympathy with the Ongoing Michigan Copper Miners’ Strike
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 9, 1913
Keweenaw County, Michigan – School Children on Strike in Copper Country
From The Calumet News of October 7, 1913
-School Children on Strike; Annie Clemenc Convicted:
[…..]
[…..]
Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “A Woman’s Story” by Annie Clemenc of Calumet
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 5, 1913
Annie Clemenc, Wife of Striking Miner, Arrested Yet Again
From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of October 2, 1913
A Woman’s Story
At Seventh Street Tuesday morning a party of strikers met a man with a dinner bucket. I asked him: “Where are you going, partner?” He replied: “To work.” “Not in the mine are you?” “You bet I am.” after talking with him a while his wife came and took him down the street. She seemed very much afraid.
He had just gone when a couple of Austrians came along with their buckets. I stepped up to one I knew: “O! George, you are not going to work, are you? Come, stay with us. Don’t allow that bad woman to drive you to work. Stick to us and we will stick to you.” He stepped back, willing to comply with my request.
Then the deputies came, caught him by the shoulder and pushed him along, saying: “You coward, are you going back because a woman told you not to go to work?” The deputies, some eight or ten of them, pulled him along with them.
A militia officer, I think it was General Abbey, said: “Annie, you have to get away from here.” “No, I am not going. I have a right to stand here and quietly ask the scabs not to go to work.”
I was standing to one side of the crowd and he said: “You will have to get in the auto.” “I won’t go until you tell me the reason.” Then he made me get in the auto. I kept pounding the automobile with my feet and asking what I was being taken to jail for. The officer said: “Why don’t you stay at home?” “I won’t stay at home, my work is here, nobody can stop me. I am going to keep at it until this strike is won.” I was kept in jail from six-thirty until twelve, then released under bond.
[Newsclip added. Emphasis added.]
Note that Annie was arrested by the military only for talking quietly to the scabs. The deputies who man-handled the scab and forced him to go to work against his will were not in any way molested by the military.
This same issue of the Miners’ Bulletin (page 2) contains an affidavit sworn to and signed by 24 strikebreakers. They tell of being shipped into the Copper Country under false pretenses, of being beaten when they refused to work after they realized that a strike was on, of then being kept prisoner in a boarding house for refusing to work, and of not being paid for the work that they did do. These men were finally released, and then made their way to the Union Hall. They swore out their affidavit on Sept. 29 in Houghton County.
And thus, not only do the soldiers not prevent the deputies from making prisoners of imported workers who refuse to be turned into scabs, but the soldiers actively assists these deputies. In fact, many of the soldiers have been made deputies once their term of service ends.
On Wednesday, October 1, Annie, known as the Joan of Arc of the striking copper miners, was arrested yet again, this time by a Major Harry Britton. Annie was marching at the head of 400 strikers, carrying her huge American flag as usual. They were on their way to perform picket duty at the mines when they were stopped by deputies and cavalrymen with Major Britton in command.
Major Britton attempted to arrest Annie, claiming she spit at a scab. When the Major used his sword to beat back a striker who came to Annie’s aid, other strikers joined in the fray. Cavalrymen then charged into the midst of the strikers. Major Britton bragged:
Excited horses prancing about are the best weapons.
He describe the results with satisfaction:
..a striker with his head bleeding, blood flowing down over his shirt, [was] half-staggering along the road.
Annie was arrested along with nine others. Annie was released and an the very next day lead another strikers’ march with her immense American flag.