You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Monday February 5, 1917
The Labor World – Reports on Labor Hearings
In this weeks edition of the Duluth Labor World we find coverage of the hearings which took place on January 30th before the Labor Committee of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Joe Ettor, I. W. W. organizer, testified, as did Virginia Mayor, Michael Boylan, and Duluth Attorney, S. M. Slonim.
Working conditions in the lumber camps were scored by Joe Ettor who stated:
Go into the lumber camps of Northern Minnesota; live the lives of the lumberjacks and then see if you wonder at conditions of unrest.
From The Labor World of February 3, 1917:
INVESTIGATE CONDITIONS
—–House Labor Committee Conducts Hearing
on I. W. W. Situation.
—–
MANY WITNESSES TESTIFY
—–
Labor Conditions in Northern Minnesota
Said to Be Abominable.
—–ST. PAUL, Minn., Feb. 1.—The house committee on labor is determined to ascertain the facts, with regard to the situation in the lumber camps in Northern Minnesota.
It took all Tuesday afternoon to examine two witnesses, members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and Attorney S. M. Slonim, of Duluth, the third witness, did not furnish his testimony until late in the night.
Several persons who have been national figures in labor wars were on hand, in addition to a score of witnesses from the range country, including C. M. Atkinson, editor of The Mesaba Ore, and Michael Boylan, mayor of Virginia.
Ettor Scores Conditions.
[He asserted:]
Ignorance alone is responsible for the unfair attitude shown toward the I. W. W. It is an organization of the working man, the working woman and the working child.
Go into the lumber camps of Northern Minnesota; live the lives of the lumberjacks and then see if you wonder at conditions of unrest. Fancy 50 men, all with wet feet and legs, retiring at night in a small shack, unventilated. To prevent putting on wet clothing the next morning they must hang their socks over the only stove. This merely is one of the many unpleasant conditions to which the lumberjack and mine employes are subjected.
It is not so much the wages paid. Give our men fair living conditions. Feed them fairly and permit them to organize. Then you have picked up the key to the entire situation.
