Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 14, 1914 March 4th at Milwaukee Federated Trades Council -Annie Clemenc Speaks on Michigan Copper Strike, Beaten, Slashed, Shot At
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 2, 1914
Chicago, Illinois – Annie Clemenc Stands with Striking Henrici’s Waitresses
From The Day Book of February 28, 1914:
THE JOAN OF ARC OF THE CALUMET COUNTRY
SIZES UP THE WAITRESSES’ STRIKE
BY JANE WHITAKER
Do people go in that restaurant and eat? Oh, that cannot be possible when they know these girls are picketing outside in a battle for their rights?
I smiled as the question was asked by Annie Clemenc, the Joan of Arc of the Calumet country, the girl who has led so many parades of the striking copper miners and their wives, the girl who has been arrested so many times as she silently or verbally protested against the injustice of the conditions that surround the working class.
“They do patronize that restaurant, some people,” I answered, “but I always try to excuse them by believing they are representatives of the Restaurant Keepers’ Association and the Brewers’ Association, who are backing Henrici’s fight against labor. And even those people have a look of half shame and half bravado on their faces as they come out.”
But the girls inside! The girls who have taken the places of these girls on strike.
Annie’s arm trembled under my fingers, and I knew she was thinking bitterly of the word she uses when she speaks of the miners who have taken the places of the strikers in Calumet.
Aren’t they ashamed to go on serving the people who patronize this restaurant when they know that outside these girls are fighting not only for themselves but for all working women?
She did not wait for me to answer. [She murmured:]
How I pity these girls. They go up and down so quietly with no protest. You can only tell the battle they are fighting by the flag that they carry. Six slim girls and almost an army of police. I could not obey as they obey. I would cry out, “There is a strike here, don’t you go in.”
“When they have done that, they have been arrested and sometimes man-handled,” I explained gently.
“I know what that is,” she answered, and her soft brown eyes grew hard with bitterness. I knew she was thinking of that parade not so many months ago when she led a band of strikers and their sympathizers. When one of the large American flags was cut to shreds by the militia and she snatched the other, and waved it aloft in her strong arms, as she cried:
“Come on. Follow me!”
And I knew she was thinking of the cowardly soldier who had, under a uniform that pledged him to serve his country and protect the rights of her people, a heart filled with love of gold and hatred of the toilers a soldier who struck at Annie with a saber and cut a gash across her wrist, from which the blood poured over her hand.
Annie Clemenc and Ben Goggia, Center Calumet, Michigan, September 13, 1913
And I knew she was thinking of how she had held that flag until its red, white and blue clothed her like a gown, and had cried:
“Kill me, go on and kill me. I don’t care what you do, but you got to kill me through the flag of my country. I respect my country’s flag, if you do not.”
But the cowardly soldier contented himself by striking at her, and several of the strikers dragged her away.
I knew she was thinking of all these things, as I pointed out to her Officer No. 813, the big, brawny man who had belittled himself and his manhood, according to the story told by Miss Meyers, by insulting defenseless girls.
And I pointed out to her Police-woman Mrs. Boyd, who was smiling and chatting with some men, but whose eyes glittered and whose jaw set firmly as the pickets approached and passed.
“You will see things here that will strike you as very strange,” I said. “This is what is termed, a highly civilized city, and in highly civilized cities where labor is trying to come into its rights and capital is fighting to keep labor suppressed, you see brute force matched against woman’s frailty and never against equal strength of men. Only today mounted police rode down a band of unemployed, hungry men, weak and almost hopeless, but the police rode on their horses and used their clubs. They never fight with equal odds in labor wars.”
Up above the strikers stood Annie Clemenc, girl leader of the miners. She was not the usual militant Annie Clemenc. She was saying a prayer for the children. The Day Book, January 6, 1914
Annie Takes Up Her Flag
On July 23, 1913, 9,000 copper miners of the Keweenaw Peninsula, Upper Michigan, laid down their tools and walked off the job. They were led by the great Western Federation of Miners, and they had voted by a good majority for a strike: 9,000 out of 13,000. The main issues were hours (the miners wanted an eight hour day), wages, and safety. The miners hated the new one-man drill which they called the “widow-maker.” They claimed this drill made an already dangerous job more dangerous.
The mining companies had steadfastly refused to recognize the Western Federation of Miners in any way. They would continue to refuse all efforts at negotiation or arbitration, even those plans for arbitration which did not include the union, and this despite the best efforts of Governor Ferris, and the U. S. Department of Labor. James MacNaughton, general manger of Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, famously stated that grass would grow in the streets and that he would teach the miners to eat potato parings before he would negotiate with the striking miners.
The Keweenaw Peninsula was a cold, windy place, jutting out into Lake Superior from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This area was known as the Copper Country of Michigan and included Calumet Township of Houghton County, with the twin towns of Hancock and Houghton ten miles to the south. Calumet Township included the villages of Red Jacket and Laurium.
It was here in Red Jacket, on the third day of the strike that Annie Clemenc, miner’s daughter and miner’s wife took up a massive America flag and led an early morning parade of 400 striking miners and their families. Annie Clemenc was six feet tall, and some claimed she was taller than that by two inches. The flag she carried was so massive that it required a staff two inches thick and ten feet tall. The miners and their supporters marched out of the Italian Hall and through the streets of the Red Jacket to the Blue Jacket and Yellow Jacket mines. They marched silently, without a band, lined up three and four abreast. These early morning marches, with Annie and her flag in the lead, were to become a feature of the strike.
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.
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