Hellraisers Journal: Policy Committee Issues Statement; Mother Jones Inspires Strikers at Sopris, Ludlow and Segundo

7th October 20239th October 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones re CO Gov Ammons, wont stop talking, Day Book p11, Sept 27, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 7, 1913
Colorado Strike Zone – Policy Committee Issues Statement; Mother Jones Speaks

From the Trinidad Chronicle News of September 26, 1913:

In a general statement issued last night the district policy committee of United Mine of America composed of Frank J. Hayes, John McLennan, John H. Lawson and E. L. Doyle declared their position as follows:

We desire law and order above all things. We shall try to conduct this strike in such a way to command the respect of the public and civil authorities. A man who commits or talks violence as a means to win this strike is not properly representing the mine workers’ organisation.

We depend for success on the justice of our cause. We request the operators to warn their imported gunmen to respect the law and to cease their intimidation of union miners.

We have cautioned our people in this respect and we ask the operators to do likewise. Our responsibility in this matter is the same and we ought to meet it like men.

There is no occasion for the alleged purpose of protecting property. It is an evidence of weakness on the part of operators and is a reproach to all law abiding citizens. There is no need for the operators or their agents to ship hundreds of rifles into this region as they are doing at present for the purpose of intimidating peaceful lawsabiding people. We propose to the beet of our ability to protect life and property and to safeguard the liberties of our people by lawful means.

The strike is complete in every particular. The best in the history of our organisation, notwithstanding statements to the contrary, and the miners of Colorado will remain out of the mines until their rights are fully recognized.

At the scene of the Segundo tragedy [September 24th killing of C. F. I. “Marshal”]…Mother Jones [yesterday, September 25th] delivered another impassioned speech to miners, urging the men to remain on strike until the operators meet the full demands. No illusion was made to the killing of Marshal Lee…..

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

———-

From The Rocky Mountain News of September 27, 1913

Strikers congregated in front of the town hall, where more than 3,000 listened to “Mother” Jones and other strike sympathizers (“Mother” Jones in the center).

——

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Policy Committee Issues Statement; Mother Jones Inspires Strikers at Sopris, Ludlow and Segundo” →

Hellraisers Journal: News Round-Up from the Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike: Company Town “Marshal” Killed

6th October 20239th October 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 6, 1913
News Round-Up from the Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike

From the Trinidad Chronicle News of September 25, 1913:

Note: The Chronicle News is published by Judge Jesse G. Northcutt, attorney for Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

———-

Thursday September 25, 1913
Segundo, Colorado – Company Gunman, Bob Lee, Shot and Killed by Greek Miners

Bob Lee, a gunman brought in to work as a coalfield marshal, was shot and killed by Greek miners near Segundo yesterday. Lee was found on the ground where he had fallen from his horse. His rifle was on the ground beside him still cocked.

The trouble started when the miners were not allowed to send a wagon to the mining camp in order to retrieve their belongs. Bob Lee heard that the Greek miners were taking their anger out on a company footbridge that crossed Las Animas Creek. At about noon, Lee road up on the bridge to confront the miners. Tempers flared as Lee used his horse to push the miners back, and they resisted. As Lee reached for his rifle, shots rang out, and Lee was killed.

The suspects are Tom Larius and four other Greek miners. Word has it that they have fled to New Mexico. A mounted posse has been unable to apprehend them.

———-

From The Rocky Mountain News of September 27, 1913:

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: News Round-Up from the Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike: Company Town “Marshal” Killed” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “A Woman’s Story” by Annie Clemenc of Calumet

5th October 20237th October 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Annie Clemenc, Die Behind Flag, Mnrs Bltn, Sept 16, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 5, 1913
Annie Clemenc, Wife of Striking Miner, Arrested Yet Again

From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of October 2, 1913

A Woman’s Story

At Seventh Street Tuesday morning a party of strikers met a man with a dinner bucket. I asked him: “Where are you going, partner?” He replied: “To work.” “Not in the mine are you?” “You bet I am.” after talking with him a while his wife came and took him down the street. She seemed very much afraid.

He had just gone when a couple of Austrians came along with their buckets. I stepped up to one I knew: “O! George, you are not going to work, are you? Come, stay with us. Don’t allow that bad woman to drive you to work. Stick to us and we will stick to you.” He stepped back, willing to comply with my request.

Then the deputies came, caught him by the shoulder and pushed him along, saying: “You coward, are you going back because a woman told you not to go to work?” The deputies, some eight or ten of them, pulled him along with them.

A militia officer, I think it was General Abbey, said: “Annie, you have to get away from here.” “No, I am not going. I have a right to stand here and quietly ask the scabs not to go to work.”

I was standing to one side of the crowd and he said: “You will have to get in the auto.” “I won’t go until you tell me the reason.” Then he made me get in the auto. I kept pounding the automobile with my feet and asking what I was being taken to jail for. The officer said: “Why don’t you stay at home?” “I won’t stay at home, my work is here, nobody can stop me. I am going to keep at it until this strike is won.” I was kept in jail from six-thirty until twelve, then released under bond.

[Newsclip added. Emphasis added.]

Note that Annie was arrested by the military only for talking quietly to the scabs. The deputies who man-handled the scab and forced him to go to work against his will were not in any way molested by the military.

This same issue of the Miners’ Bulletin (page 2) contains an affidavit sworn to and signed by 24 strikebreakers. They tell of being shipped into the Copper Country under false pretenses, of being beaten when they refused to work after they realized that a strike was on, of then being kept prisoner in a boarding house for refusing to work, and of not being paid for the work that they did do. These men were finally released, and then made their way to the Union Hall. They swore out their affidavit on Sept. 29 in Houghton County.

And thus, not only do the soldiers not prevent the deputies from making prisoners of imported workers who refuse to be turned into scabs, but the soldiers actively assists these deputies. In fact, many of the soldiers have been made deputies once their term of service ends.

On Wednesday, October 1, Annie, known as the Joan of Arc of the striking copper miners, was arrested yet again, this time by a Major Harry Britton. Annie was marching at the head of 400 strikers, carrying her huge American flag as usual. They were on their way to perform picket duty at the mines when they were stopped by deputies and cavalrymen with Major Britton in command.

Major Britton attempted to arrest Annie, claiming she spit at a scab. When the Major used his sword to beat back a striker who came to Annie’s aid, other strikers joined in the fray. Cavalrymen then charged into the midst of the strikers. Major Britton bragged:

Excited horses prancing about are the best weapons.

He describe the results with satisfaction:

..a striker with his head bleeding, blood flowing down over his shirt, [was] half-staggering along the road.

Annie was arrested along with nine others. Annie was released and an the very next day lead another strikers’ march with her immense American flag.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “A Woman’s Story” by Annie Clemenc of Calumet” →

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part II

4th October 20237th October 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Shall We Still Be Slaves by ES Nelson, LRSB 1919 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 4, 1913
Wheatland, California – Hop Pickers Attacked While Meeting on Durst Brothers

From the International Socialist Review of October 1913:

—–

[Part II of II.]

While the workers were still in meeting [of Sunday afternoon, August 3rd] and while they were singing “Conditions They Are Bad,” eleven armed men, headed by Sheriff Voss, whirled into the hop yard in two automobiles. They leaped to the ground. Among them was Edward Tecumseh Manwell, the district attorney. All these armed men charged the crowd. Voss, the sheriff, rushed to the stand, seized Dick Ford, and said he was under arrest. Ford asked for a warrant. Voss struck him. At the same time he lifted his gun, fired and ordered the crowd to disperse. Just then a woman seized Voss. He clubbed her with his gun. She tripped him and he fell.

By this time all the eleven men were shooting and the shots sounded like a battle. Voss went down. The crowd closed in around him. The woman was on top. A Porto Rican, name unknown, rushed from his tent through the crowd and got the sheriff’s gun. He saw the district attorney, Edward Tecumseh Manwell, ready to shoot into the crowd of workers. The Porto Rican killed Manwell. Already one of the workers, an unidentified English boy, had been killed. The Porto Rican then shot Eugene Reardon, one of the deputy sheriffs, and at almost the same time he dropped dead himself with a load of buckshot in his breast, which tore away the ribs and exposed his lungs. Harry Daken fired the shot. All these incidents took place while William Beck, one of the prisoners held in Marysville jail, was running less than two hundred yards.

So dumfounded were the deputies when this Porto Rican boy returned their fire that they ran like scared jack-rabbits. In less than a minute after they charged into the yard they were tearing away again in their automobiles. They made the trip back to Marysville from Wheatland, more than ten miles, in eleven minutes.

Left in the hands of the strikers was the sheriff, whose leg had been broken in the scuffle. Four dead bodies and about a dozen wounded testified to the savagery of the fight. The strikers nursed the wounds of the sheriff and the others injured, regardless of whether they were friend or enemy. After the battle, working-class humanity asserted itself. The sheriff told the men and women that they were better to him than his own men, who had fled. He was taken in a wagon to the town of Wheatland and turned over to his friends.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part I

3rd October 20234th October 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Shall We Still Be Slaves by ES Nelson, LRSB 1919 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 3, 1913
Wheatland, California – Hop Pickers on Durst Brothers Meet and Issue Demands

From the International Socialist Review of October 1913:

—–

[Part I of II.]

ACTING on an invitation by Durst brothers twenty-three hundred men, women and children assembled to pick the Durst Brothers’ hops on their 600-acre ranch near the town of Wheatland, California. The posters and newspaper advertisements described the conditions on the Durst ranch as something ideal. All the workers had to do was to pick a few hops, enjoy a picnic and make plenty of money.

Just prior to August 3 these people assembled at the Durst ranch and found the first thing they had to do was to rent a shack or a tent from agents of the owners at the rate of from 75 cents per week up. The first money they earned was deducted to pay this rent. The rentals charged the pickers were in excess of $480 per week for four acres of ground which the state health inspector has described as a “sun-baked flat.” This in itself was a rather tidy profit for the boss.

It was soon found that Durst Brothers had provided only six single toilets for the twenty-three hundred workers. These apologies for modesty were turned over to the women, who used to stand twenty and thirty deep waiting a turn to use these places, while the whole camp looked on. Later it was found, when the men and women swarmed into the fields to pick the hops, that a cousin of the Durst Brothers had the “lemonade privilege.” In order that this thrifty scion of canny stock should have every opportunity to make an honest penny, Durst Brothers would not permit any water to be hauled into the field, nor would they allow the workers to fill bottles from the water wagons which were used in cultivating the crop. Lemonade was sold to the workers at five cents per glass.

Pay at this hop yard was at the rate of 90 cents per hundred pounds of hops picked with a sliding bonus up to 15 cents, according to the length of time the worker staid on the job. Durst Brothers were particularly urgent that the hops should be absolutely clean of leaves or stems and that only the blooms should be taken. This rigid inspection made the work far slower than in other hop yards.

Conditions were so bad that after one or two days’ work the pickers assembled in meeting and voiced their discontent. They drew up demands for better sanitary conditions, more toilets, that lemons and not acetic acid should be put in the lemonade; that they should have water in the field twice a day, that high pole men be provided to pull down the hops from the poles, and that owing to the strict inspection of the pick that the pay be a flat rate of $1.25 per hundred pounds. This would enable an average worker to earn about $2 per day, out of which he had to pay for his shack and board himself.

These demands were presented to Durst Brothers by a committee. Ralph Durst, testifying before the coroner’s jury, stated that when Dick Ford, the chairman, approached him he “had both his gloves on and that he jocosely slapped Ford across the face.” He then took the demands under consideration. After a time he returned and made evasive promises of remedy of the sanitary conditions, talked a lot about having water in the field and flatly refused to advance the wages. This was on Sunday afternoon, August 3. The workers remained in meeting and were considering the reply of Durst. While they were so assembled Durst telephoned to the nearby town of Marysville for the sheriff and a posse. [to be continued…]

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Jack London on the “Good” Soldier, the Lowest Aim in the Lives of a Young Men

2nd October 20231st October 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Jack London, The Good Soldier, No Killing, ISR p199, Oct 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 2, 1913
“The ‘Good’ Soldier” by Jack London

From the International Socialist Review of October 1913:

Jack London from The Comrade of March 1903:

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Jack London on the “Good” Soldier, the Lowest Aim in the Lives of a Young Men” →