Tag: Minnesota Lumber Workers Strike of 1916-1917

Hellraisers Journal: Industrial Workers of the World Banned in Duluth; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Out on Bail

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 27, 1917
Duluth, Minnesota – Chief of Police Declares Ban on I. W. W.

From The Duluth News Tribune of June 26, 1917:

PLACE BAN ON I. W. W. ACTIVITY
—–
Police Will Not Tolerate Belligerent
Attitude of Radicals Any Longer.
—–

MN Miners Strike, Get Out IWW, Cartoon

Chief of Police McKercher announced last night that the I. W. W. activities in Duluth are over from now until the end of the war. His announcement follows the raids Saturday made by the police on I. W. W. headquarters.

No meetings by the radicals, nor speeches or outbursts by known I. W. W. agitators will be tolerated, he declared flatly. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, arrested Saturday [on charge of vagrancy], has been warned by the police not to attempt to address any radical meeting in this city, it was said.

“There will be no demonstrations against war or against the government’s plans for over-production during the war period,” asserted the chief….

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Hellraisers Journal: FW Joe Ettor and Attorney S. M. Slonim Speak Out on Labor Conditions in Northern Minnesota

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday February 5, 1917
The Labor World – Reports on Labor Hearings

Joseph Ettor, Smiling Joe, text added

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:

The Labor World, Feb 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.

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Hellraisers Journal: Minnesota House Delays Anti-IWW Bill; Labor Committee Holding Hearings; Joe Ettor Testifies

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 2, 1917
St. Paul, Minnesota – House Labor Committee Holds Hearings

If the Minnesota State Senate thought that the House would quickly join them in the passage of the so-called “I. W. W. Riot Fund,” they were sadly mistaken. The bill has been tabled for now, and the House Labor committee is in the process of holding hearings into conditions up on the Mesabi Iron Range and in the logging camps of northern Minnesota.

From The Minneapolis Morning Tribune of January 30, 1917:

ACITON DEFEREED ON I. W. W. RIOT FUND
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MN16 Gunthugs on the Mesabi, ISR Jan 1917

The House appropriations committee at its meeting last night deferred a recommendation on the so-called $50,000 I. W. W. appropriation annually for a period of two years to employ deputy sheriffs for the suppression of labor troubles in northern Minnesota, pending action of the labor committee.

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[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Rebellion in Lumber Camps of Northern Minnesota: Harrison George Reports

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The camps are deserted, the strikers firm,
the bosses wild and the cat sits on
every log that straggles thru
to the mills of Minnesota.
-Harrison George

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 1, 1917
Northern Minnesota – Lumber Workers Fight for Dignity

IWW Metal Mine Workers IU No. 490, Hibbing MN, June 19, 1916, Crpd

The Duluth News Tribune could not contain its glee when the Mesabi Iron Miners’ Strike was defeated last December and the I. W. W. organizers bid the workers of the Range good-bye. So imagine then the surprise when less than two weeks later the Industrial Workers of the World again appeared on the Range, this time to organize under the leadership of “Timber Beast” Jack Beaton and Fellow Worker Charles Jacobson, Secretary of the Virginia L. U. A meeting was held in the Finnish Socialist Hall of Virginia, demands issued, and soon a strike was on at the two sawmills and in the lumber camps of the Virginia & Rainy Lumber Company.

From the International Socialist Review of February 1917:

Lumber Workers, Camp Grub Pile, ISR, Feb 1917

WHILE the Lumber Workers’ Union, the bull-pen of the Industrial Workers of the World, was in convention at Portland, Ore., during the last week of December, the rumblings of revolt began half way across the continent among workers of that industry in Minnesota.

North and westward of the Mesaba Iron Range lies millions of acres of swamp lands. In the primeval state, these swamps were covered with magnificent forests where roamed the Indian and the fur-bearing fox, bear and beaver. In this section John Jacob Astor’s fur business in the early times laid the base of the present Astor-crat fortune. A very simple process—the Indians skinned the animals and Astor skinned the Indians.

Later huge land grants the railroads secured by bribery and worse practices, opened the forests to the pillage of the Lumber Trust. Where the government yet retained title to timber lands, the lumber trust in open defiance simply entered and stole the finest of timber and used the political axe on all annoying officials.

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