Hellraisers Journal: From the Miners Magazine: Appeal to the Labor Movement from Michigan Copper District Union No. 16

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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 5, 1913
Hancock, Michigan – W. F. of M. District Union No. 16 Appeals to Labor Movement

From the Miners Magazine of September 4, 1913
-Dan Sullivan, C. E. Hietala, and John H. Walker Sign Appeal to Labor Movement:

WFM Miners Magazine p3, Sept 4, 1913Appeal fr MI WFM 16, Mnrs Mag p7, Sept 4, 1913

…..Now, we turn to you, the organized workers of this country, in our hour of need. We stand united, determined to win. We are fighting one of the richest mining corporations in the world. It is as heartless as it is rich.

We have nothing but empty hands, our wives and children. They are urging us on, helping in the struggle. A northern winter will soon be here. We must have food and fuel. We are fighting this battle for all. We are willing to endure any sacrifice. The copper barons hope to drive us back to the mines through the hunger of our wives and children That is the only thing that can defeat us. Bayonets do not scare us, and thugs won’t mine copper. 

If the mine managers of this district knew that the American labor movement was behingd us, that you would not see us defeated for the lack of bread, the fight would be won now.

Speak so that the copper kings and the world will know that you are behind us in this strike with your dollars as well as sympathies…..

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From Miners Magazine: Mother Jones Visits Striking Michigan Copper Miners, Received with Open Arms

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Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 15, 1913
Mother Jones in Michigan’s Copper Country, Encourages Striking Miners and Families

From the Miners Magazine of August 14, 1913:

…..“Mother” Jones, that dauntless and fearless heroine who kept alive the courage of the strikers of West Virginia and who was held a prisoner by the military authorities for several months, entered the state of Michigan last week to cheer the strikers on to victory. 

Though “Mother” Jones has passed the four-score mile-post, yet her heart still beats as strongly for the rights of man as when the fire of youth flashed from her eye, and ere the strike has become a matter of history the mine operators of Michigan will know that a woman with Spartan courage can keep alive within the breast of revolting slaves the glorious flame of freedom’s purest inspiration.

The battle in Michigan must be won.

Fifty thousand men, women and children are involved in the strike and the sinews of war are needed to care for the men, women and children who have rebelled against industrial slavery.

The fight in Michigan is not only the fight of every member of the Western Federation of miners but it is the fight of every man and woman who stands beneath the folds of labor’s flag……

[Emphasis added.]

From the Miner’s Bulletin of August 14, 1913:

GEMS FROM MOTHER JONES.

The nation was founded as the result of a strike. Lincoln brought us all on a strike against black slavery; we are out on a strike against wage slavery and feudal bonds.

Sweep away all differences of nationality. You are all Americans.

We are going to quit developing muscle and develop a brain for the working class.

Stick together! Wake up! The hour is here! The dawn has come!

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrives in Michigan’s Copper Country to Support WFM Strikers, Greeted by Great Throng

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Quote Mother Jones My Life Work, Cton Gz June 11, 1912, ISR p648, Mar 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 8, 1913
Copper Country, Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan – Mother Jones Arrives

From The Calumet News of August 5, 1913:

HdLn Mother Jones Arrives, Calumet MI Ns p1, Aug 5, 1913Article Mother Jones Arrives Speaks, Calumet MI Ns p1, Aug 5, 1913[……]

Mother Jones with Guard at WV Bull Pen, Calumet MI Ns p1, Aug 5, 1913—–Mother Jones, Calumet MI Ns p1, Aug 5, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners Magazine: “A Logical Plea to the Copper Miners of Michigan” by Guy E. Miller

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Wealth Belongs to Producers, Mnrs Mag p1, July 10, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 11, 1913
“A Logical Plea to the Copper Miners of Michigan” by Guy E. Miller

From The Miners Magazine of July 10, 1913:

Miners Magazine July 10, 1913Plea to MI Copper Miners by Guy Miller, Mnrs Mag p8, July 10, 1913

Guy E. Miller:

Guy Miller, EFL p207

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Hellraisers Journal: How the Coal Miners’ Victory in West Virginia Was Turned Into a “Settlement” by W. H. Thompson, Part I

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 4, 1913
West Virginia Coal Miners’ Victory Turned into “Settlement”-Part I

From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:

WV Settlement by WH Thompson, Tent at Holly Grove, ISR p12, July 1913

[Part I of III]

To those who have been actively engaged in the epochal struggle of the coal miners in this state the present status of affairs is anything but optimistic.

The miners after having put up a fight that won the admiration of the entire working class the country over, have lost their strike and are being driven sullenly back to the Coal Trust’s subterrean hells to produce coal for their brutal masters under the same conditions which have prevailed in the West Virginia coal fields for years, and against which these miners revolted over a year ago.

It is not my intention to give a recapitulation of the stirring events of the Paint Creek strike, but rather a hurried sketch of the manner in which a well earned victory was turned into an empty and meaningless settlement, by a combination of forces against which the miners found themselves helpless.

The coal diggers of the Kanawha valley have proven themselves to be as brave and loyal a set of men as ever established a picket line. They have stoically and uncomplainingly borne the barbaric and inhuman treatment to which they were subjected by the Coal Trust and its political creature-the state government. They had by the sheer force of solidarity, and in spite of the weakness of the antiquated tactics taught them by the officials of the United Mine Workers of America, brought the coal barons to their knees. The state government, too, had exhausted its ingenuity and failed to break the strike. There remained but one hope for the masters of the mines. That was to enlist in their behalf the United Mine Workers of America.

When in the course of these remarks I use the expression ”U. M. W. of A.,” it is meant to apply, not to the men who actually dig coal, but rather to the official oligarchy known as the National Executive Board, members of which were handling the strike in this state.

Overtures were evidently made to these representatives by Governor H. D. Hatfield, acting for the coal autocracy. An agreement was reached, and the three organizations, viz: the Coal Trust, the State government and the U. M. W. of A., acting co-operatively, played the last card which won for the mine owners that which they would have never gained unaided by their last ally.

Everything being “understood” and agreed upon, Hatfield made public what he termed a “proposal for the settlement of the Kanawha strike.”

The proposal made no mention of the three cardinal demands of the miners the elimination of the hated guard system, the right to belong to a union and the payment of the “Kanawha Scale” of wages. In fact it offered absolutely nothing in the way of concessions from the operators-merely insisting-when sheared of its luxuriant verbosity-that the miners return to work under the same conditions that existed before they struck-if the mine owners would let them.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: How the Coal Miners’ Victory in West Virginia Was Turned Into a “Settlement” by W. H. Thompson, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners’ Magazine: The Smeltermen’s Strike in Colorado City, Led by WFM, Part V

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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 24, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –
Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part V

From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:

THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.

[Part V of V: Miners of Cripple Creek Support Smeltermen]

WFM button

The Cripple Creek Press, the official organ of organized labor of the Cripple Creek district (since suspended) had the following to say in its editorial columns of March 15:

The announcement of a settlement of the differences between the Mill and Smeltermen’s Union No. 125, of Colorado City, and the managers of the Portland and Telluride mills is pleasing to the people of this district, but the failure of the United States Reduction and Refining Company to enter into the agreement made by the other mills means something which is not pleasing. It means that unless the mines shipping to the Standard mill accede to the demands made upon them by the executive board of the Western Federation of Miners, that they quit shipping their ores to the said United States Reduction and Refining Company on Monday, that the miners employed by them will be called out by the Federation. It means that when these men are called out in support of their brothers on strike against the Standard mill, they will go out and tie up those mines so tight that Manager MacNeil will have a difficult time in getting material to keep his pet scabs at Colorado City employed. The Western Federation has done everything in its power to bring about an amicable settlement, and when Manager MacNiel refuses to accept the terms made by the managers of the other mills he places himself behind the pale of public consideration and the only thing now left for the mine managers who are shipping to his mill will be to whip him into line or submit to a strike of miners employed by them. There is no middle ground with the miners on this question. They will be compelled to insist upon the demands made by them being complied with or walk out.

The governor failed to keep his promise that he would immediately withdraw the troops, and the delay of the governor in issuing his order recalling the state militia caused the following to be issued from the headquarters of the Western Federation of Miners on March 17:

The representatives of the Western Federation of Miners, since the strike was declared at Colorado City, have at all times held themselves in readiness to confer with the mill managers for the purpose of bringing about an amicable adjustment of differences. For months previous to the strike, the officers of the Federation labored early and late to bring about an honorable settlement, which would prevent any open rupture between the mill managers and their employes. The officers of the Federation have given a respectful hearing to representatives in all departments of business, and at all times have shown a disposition to submit their grievances to a board of arbitration. Had the mill managers manifested as earnest a desire to pour oil upon the troubled waters as the Western Federation of Miners, the people of the state of Colorado would never have been compelled to forward protests against the executive of the state for his loyalty to corporate interests.

Had the mill managers exhibited even the slightest disposition to act in a spirit of justice to their employes the strike would have been averted and the treasury of the state would not have become a graft for military officials who are “bug house” when clothed with the uniform of blue. The militia of the state has been used for the purpose of inciting riot, but with all the infamous schemes concocted by Bell and Brown, the strikers have remained unruffled, and have shown to the people of Colorado that they are law-abiding, and that even uniformed ruffians could not goad them to acts of violence. The sheriff of El Paso county has demonstrated that he has been a willing auxiliary in the hands of the mill managers to exaggerate the conditions of the situation at Colorado City so that corporations which refuse to arbitrate could secure the militia to perform picket duty at the expense of the state.

The governor, toward the close of the interview Sunday morning, admitted without any solicitation, that the representatives of the Western Federation of Miners had gone more than three-fourths of the way and had been more than fair in bringing about a settlement and that he would at once issue an order to withdraw the troops. The governor admitted, after his personal investigation of affairs at Colorado City, that he was unable to connect the strikers with any violation of the law. In the interview that was held Sunday at the governor’s office to arbitrate with Manager MacNeil, the governor receded from his former agreement to withdraw the troops. He asked the representatives of the Western Federation of Miners for a further concession, namely, that he would immediately withdraw the troops providing that the Federation would withdraw all suits against the officers of the state militia. The representatives of the Federation were again magnanimous and accepted the proposition of the governor.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners’ Magazine: The Smeltermen’s Strike in Colorado City, Led by WFM, Part IV

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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 23, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –
Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part IV

From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:

THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.

[Part IV of V: Reporter Talks with Wives of Strikers]

The Post in its issue of March 13, said editorially:

WHAT WOULD YOU DO, GOVERNOR,
WERE YOU A MILL HAND?

WFM button

Governor Peabody, do you wish to learn the difference between the men working in the strikers’ places at Colorado City and the strikers? You did not see the strikers when you visited the military camp there. You talked with the men at work in the mills.

Governor, there is a profound difference between those—and that difference represents the truth.

* * *

You talked with the men at work in the guarded mill, governor, and they told you that they had no complaints to make.

At that moment a woman, sent by The Post, was doing a natural and practical thing. She was at the homes of the strikers talking with their wives.

They were very poor, governor, so poor that the check you pay in a fashionable cafe for one meal would mean the very affluence of food for a striker’s family for one week.

And yet the men had worked very, very hard, governor. They had given every muscle and all the endurance they possessed to the mill— every bit of it—and yet their children would have shouted for joy and their wives wept over the sum of a restaurant check carried by a bowing waiter to the proud cashier of a fashionable cafe.

* * *

And then this woman, who writes for The Post, went to the homes of the “scabs” and saw their wives and children and the men when they returned gloomily home—the men who told you, governor, that they had no complaints to make.

Theirs are the homes, governor, where, after the credit at the store is cut off in the middle of the month, the women live on crusts of bread so that the men may have an egg or a bit of meat to keep up their strength to work for the mill until next pay day, when credit is restored and they can have enough to eat for another half month.

But the men are working—they have no complaint to make.

***

Governor Peabody, imagine that you were shorn of your power, your fortune, your home—imagine that you had nothing wherewith to support your family, save a chance to earn enough to keep them half alive.

And suppose, governor, that you might lose that chance by a complaint. What would you do? Possibly you would cling to it; possibly you would try to smile through the cold sweat in your face and say:

“I have no complaint to make. Let me alone!”

* * *

Or perhaps, Governor Peabody, if you found that there were beside you good and true comrades, brave men, who would stand by you, you might throw down your tools and say to your employers:

“You must pay us living wages—By God, you must!”

* * *

That is the difference, governor, between the men who are striking and those who have no complaint.

Read Dora Desmond’s story in The Post today, the story written in the laborers’ poor homes, written in the pure light of the sacrifice of their wives, written on the very heart of unrequited toil.

“Nothing to arbitrate!”

Why, Governor Peabody, don’t you know that if you and the rest of the men who sit in their artistic homes with one hand fondly caressing sweet, sunny-haired children and the other holding up the newspaper wherein they read the news of the strike, don’t you know what you and they would do were the conditions reversed?

What would the so-called “ruling classes” do if they found themselves giving their lives for one-half of a right to live?

* * *

How long would “the great conservative, intelligent citizenship” stand it? How long would the mill owners toil in weary silence? How long would you endure slavery?

Did it ever occur to you what the men would do who demand that union labor shall be crushed were they the toilers?

Did it ever occur to you, governor that they might say:

“We can’t arbitrate poverty and suffering.”

But union labor offers to arbitrate, governor.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners’ Magazine: The Smeltermen’s Strike in Colorado City, Led by WFM, Part IV”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners’ Magazine: The Smeltermen’s Strike in Colorado City, Led by WFM, Part III

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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 22, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –
Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part III

From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:

THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.

[Part III of V: Moyer Submits Terms for Arbitration]

WFM button

As soon as it became known throughout the state that the militia had been ordered to Colorado City, organized labor in every hamlet, village and city of the state, acted as a unit, in carrying out the instructions that were conveyed in the address that was issued by President Moyer and Secretary-Treasurer Haywood. The first petition that was presented to the legislature in condemnation of the governor, was laid upon the table by a vote of twenty-nine to nineteen. The members of the legislature did not seem to realize that organized labor throughout the state was thoroughly aroused, and when petition after petition came into the chambers of the law-makers, the corporation-owned lackeys of the Peabody administration felt “a change of heart.

The governor for a few days played the role of the parrot to Manager MacNeil, and echoed the slogan of the corporations: “There is nothing to arbitrate.” “Nothing to arbitrate,” exclaimed the governor, when the state militia, at an expense of $1,500 per day are located at Colorado City, to give assistance to the mill trust in binding the shackles of a more galling bondage on the limbs of the serfs, who rebelled against czarism in Colorado. Nothing to arbitrate, when mill managers ride in $14,000 automobiles, and their employes live in hovels, surrounded by squalor of the most abject poverty? Nothing to arbitrate while misery is the legacy of the mill workers, and fabulous dividends, for the trust? Governor, in the language of the street, “you are a corker.” The sentiment of the people of Colorado was expressed in the numerous petitions that poured into the state capitol, and the governor showed symptoms of receding from his former position.

* * *

Sherman Bell, the adjutant general, who was recently appointed by the governor, at the urgent request of the Mine Owners’ Association, and whose salary in the capacity of adjutant general is $1,800 per year, plus $3,200, which is to be appropriated by the Mine Owners’ Association, has assumed the attitude of a military autocrat. This imperial bum hero, who won a questionable reputation in the Spanish-American war, by crawling behind the breastworks of black men, who stormed San Juan hill, vomited the burning lava of his pent-up indignation in the following words to a correspondent of the Denver Post:

You may say for me, in the most emphatic and unqualified terms, that while President Moyer, of the Western Federation of Miners, is in Denver carrying a white flag of truce and asking for the good offices of Governor Peabody to relieve him and his factional Coeur d’Alene followers from their present embarrassing predicament, he is acting with a double purpose here by waving a red flag under a black flag and at the same time is endeavoring to be relieved of any and all responsibility for the firing at our sentries by Moyer’s assassins and forcing his ideas of arbitration. There is nothing to arbitrate with us on this matter, and everybody concerned might just as well understand it. That is all there is to that.

Sherman Bell is not supposed to assume the duties of adjutant general until Gardner of “Wrath of God” and “Snowslide Fame,” steps down and out at the expiration of his term in the month of April. But Bell is anxious to impress the mine owners with the fact that their princely donation of $3,200 per annum in conjunction with the regular salary is duly appreciated, and that no effort will be spared on his part to fully meet their expectations in serving the interests of the corporations.

President Moyer, in the same issue of the Denver Post, which quoted the belligerent verbosity of Bell, had the following to say to a Post correspondent:

The Mill and Smeltermen’s union agreed to submit their differences to a board of arbitration, and were willing to abide by the decision of such a board. The terms submitted for arbitration by the Federation are as follows:

First—That eight hours shall constitute a day’s work in and around the mills.

Second—That all men now on strike or who shall have been discharged by the different milling companies for no reason other than that they were members of Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s union, be reinstated.

Third—That members of organized labor be not discriminated against, but be privileged to affiliate with a labor organization, and that they be not discharged for said affiliation.

Fourth—That the scale of wages, as set forth in the demands of the Mill and Smeltermen’s union be paid.

FifthThe Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s union is willing to submit the above demands to a board of arbitration, selected as follows: The first member of the board to be selected by the governor or the mill managers; the second member to be selected by the Western Federation of Miners, and the third to be selected by the two; and the Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s Union No. 125, agrees to abide by the decision of the said board, providing that pending their deliberations, the state militia, armed guards, strike breakers and all pickets be withdrawn from in and around the above mentioned mills.

CHARLES MOYER,
Representing Mill and Smeltermen’s Union No. 125.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners’ Magazine: The Smeltermen’s Strike in Colorado City, Led by WFM, Part II

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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 21, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –
Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part II

From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:

THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.

[Part II of V: W. F. of M. Attempts to Negotiate]

WFM button

Previous to the strike being declared, the following letter was presented to the mill managers by the Mill and Smeltermen’s union of Colorado City:

We respectfully present for your consideration a schedule relating to employment and wages in and about the mills. This schedule has been carefully considered by members of the Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s union No. 125, W. F. M., and they deem it a fair and reasonable minimum scale for the services in the various lines of work, and inasmuch as throughout the immediate surrounding places a like or higher scale is in effect, it is evident that both the employer and the employes regard a scale not lower than the one presented as just and equitable. Should there be any part of the schedule, however, which appears to you as not being fair and just, we will be glad to take the matter up with you, and assure you of our willingness to look at things from the company’s standpoint as well as our own, and do that which will promote harmony and justice.

We are greatly aggrieved over the discharge of individuals who have been, so far as we are informed, faithful employes of the company, and the only reason for their dismissal being the fact of their membership in this union.

We do not object to the company discharging men whose services as workmen are unsatisfactory. We are not now, nor do we intend to uphold incompetent men nor insist that they be either employed or retained in the employment of the company, but we must protect the men in their rights to belong to the union, even to the extent of discontinuing to work for any company which so discriminates against them.

Realizing that you will require some time to consider the accompanying scale, the committee will call upon you on the 25th inst. and expect a definite answer.

This letter was signed by the official committee of the union, but the letter received but little courteous consideration from the managers. When all overtures of the union failed to bring about an amicable adjustment of differences, the strike was declared as a last resort for justice. The mill managers exhausted every resource to fill the places of the strikers, but their efforts were unavailing. The governor then came to the rescue by recognizing the order of the sheriff, who wears the collar of the corporations. The Denver Post contains the following in its issue of March 6:

This is the telegram sent to the Colorado City mill managers by the Denver Post:

Are you willing to submit to arbitration the trouble between your company and the mill workers employed by you, the arbitration board to be appointed by joint arrangement of parties involved? Please answer at our expense.

THE DENVER POST.

This is the reply:

There is no trouble between our company and mill workers employed by us. Our employes are now and have been perfectly satisfied with wages and treatment. Wages paid by us more and hours of labor less than ore reducing plants with whom we compete. Our employes don’t ask to arbitrate. Our plants are full-handed and all our employes and plants require is protection from the violence of outsiders not employed by us. We would be pleased to have your representative visit our plants and fully investigate.

C. A. MACNEIL.
Vice President and General Manager
United States Reduction and Refining Company.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Miners’ Magazine: The Smeltermen’s Strike in Colorado City, Led by WFM, Part II”