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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 17, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – American Flag Knocked to the Ground by Guardsmen
From the Chicago Day Book of September 16, 1913:
Saturday Morning September 13, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Big Annie and Her American Flag Attacked by Guardsmen
Just days after her arrest Big Annie is back in the thick of the fight. This morning she led a march of 1,000 strikers and the women who support them through the streets of Calumet as is her usual routine. At the corner of Eighth and Elm, they were confronted by the militia and armed deputies. A soldier on horseback used his saber to knock her flag from her grasp. A striker came to her aid and was pushed to the ground by another soldier who ripped the silk fabric of the flag as he slashed about with his sword.
Annie was also knocked to the ground. The flag was stomped into the mud by the horses of the guardsmen. Big Annie hung on to the flag as soldiers tried to take it from her, shouting:
Kill me! Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I won’t move. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.
Annie was rescued by other marchers and escaped with only a bayonet blow to the right wrist. The strikers’ march was driven back by soldiers on horseback and by the rifle butts of infantrymen. Deputies joined in on the attack swinging their clubs. The strikers and their supporters retreated to the Italian Hall with Big Annie and her flag, now muddied and slashed.
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