Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 27, 1913 Michigan Copper Country – John Walker and John Mitchell Speak to Strikers
From The Calumet News of August 23, 1913:
Note: John Walker reported that the military presence in Michigan’s Copper Country is brutal, and that General Abbey’s troops are acting as:
scab herders, strike-breakers, and black-leg protectors..[who] have shot people in the back, browbeaten men and women, insulted women and girls, and after filling up on beer and whisky sent them by the mine owners, swaggered up and down the streets with their big guns and sabers, a disgrace to the rottenest government on earth, let alone ours……
Alois Tijan-18 and Steve Putrich-40 Who Lost Their Lives in Freedom’s Cause August 14, 1913, Seeberville, Michigan
Funeral for Steve Putrich and Alois Tijan, Calumet, Michigan, Sunday August 17, 1913
The Seeberville Murders
Boarding House of Joseph and Antonia Putrich Site of Seeberville Murders of Aug 14, 1913
On August 14, 1913, deputies and Waddell Detectives, some of whom had also been sworn in as deputies, came to the Croatian boarding house, operated by Joseph and Antonia Putrich, in Seeberville, Michigan. They came to arrest two striking miners who had used a well-worn path, part of which crossed company property. They came without warrants, and on the orders of a company supervisor who wanted the men brought to him. When the two men resisted this unlawful arrest these gunthugs surrounded the little boarding house and fired through the windows until their guns were empty.
Inside the house, men, women, and little children took cover as best they could. When the shooting ended, four men and a baby (daughter of Antonia) were found wounded. Stanko Septic and John Stimac survived their wounds. The baby was burned on the face while held in her mother’s arms and soon recovered. Alois Tijan and Steven Putrich did not.
The Death of Alois Tijan Alois Tijan was shot in his left side. He was taken to an upstairs bedroom where he died in the arms of his brother, Albert. He was 18 years old, and a striking miner.
The Death of Steven Putrich Steven Putrich was also a striking miner. He lived at the boarding house with his brother and his brother’s wife and their four little children, ages 7 months to 4 years. His brother and sister-in-law, Joseph and Antonia, ran the boarding house.
Before he was taken to the hospital, Steven said:
I am shot and if anything happens to me send my money to my children.
Joseph later testified that the doctor told him:
If I operate on your brother and he gets well he will just go out and fight again. You go and tell your Croatian people to go back to work, and I will treat your brother.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 21, 1913
Michigan’s Copper Country – “They never fail who die in a great cause.”
From the Miner’s Bulletin of August 19, 1913:
IN MEMORY of our murdered Brothers
LOUIS TIJAN and STEVE PUTRICH
They never fail who die in a great cause,
The block may soak their gore,
Their heads may sodden in the sun,
Their limbs be strung to city gates and castle walls,
But still their spirits walks abroad and overwhelm
All others in advancing freedom.
No fitter words have been spoken, my dear, brave brothers. Your folded hands strike at the citadels of oppression with greater power than life could ever give. Your silent lips have the gift of eloquence beyond the power of speech. Though dead, you yet speak to us, and live in our heart of hearts.
None can doubt the sincerity of your sacrifice. None can put a greater gift on humanity’s altar than you have done. You fell, my brave young brothers, in life’s morning, ere the heat of the day had begun, while the air was filled with fragrance and song, and you held life’s sweetest dreams.
We pick up those dreams at your graveside; we will carry them on, a sacred trust, and strive to realize them in the lives of all. And when the day is hot, our hearts weary, when faith falters, we will come to your grave to gain new courage, to learn of a devotion that falters not, eternal through the years and across the centuries.
Then we will go forth to battle until victory comes.
You shall not have died in vain. Yours shall be an inspiration in all of freedom’s battles. You shall live in all of freedom’s sons, your grave a shrine for all her lovers.
On your tombs, we will write the words: “They died for us.” In our hearts, we shall carry the high resolve to be worthy of your sacrifice
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 18, 1913
Seeberville, Michigan – Deputies and Waddell Gunthugs Kill Two at Boarding House
From the Miner’s Bulletin of August 16, 1913:
Strikers Murdered by Deputies in Cold Blood
Will they be Punished?
Two men were murdered at a mine location near Painesdale known as Seeberville, Thursday afternoon August 14. Two others were shot, one of whom may die.
Louie Tijan was shot and instantly killed at his boarding house, by secret service men last night. Steve Putrich shot through the breast, died from his wounds in the hospital about noon Friday. Stanko Stepic in hospital shot through left wrist and wounded in body, may die.
John Stimac, shot in the stomach while sitting at table. The above outrages came as the crimes to the reign of organized thuggery under the direction of James Waddell. These killings are among the fruits harvested in this district from the importation of man-killers. The morning lyer [liar?] of the operator [the Mining Gazette?] stated that the killing was the result of resisting arrest.
Here are the facts.
John Kalem and J. Stimac came from South Range yesterday afternoon, to their home in Seeberville following the railroad track till near the bridge when they took a by-path leading to a mine shack, and on the property of the mining company, although in general use. While near the shaft, a secret service man ordered them back. They replied: “We always go this way, it’s closer,” and went on. They had scarcely reached the house, when Deputy Sheriff, Henry James, trammer boss, and six secret service men arrived. The trammer boss pointed out Kalem as the man. The leader of the secret service man says: “come with me.” He replied: “I guess not.” At that the leader sprang upon him and began clubbing him. All the men ran into the boarding house. Upon command from the leader, the secrete service man, two at each window, began firing into the little home, and James shot one of the party, shooting from the doorway, with the results indicated above.
The tragedy occurred in an Austrian boarding house. The wife of the proprietor has four children, the oldest four years old, the youngest a baby of six months, in her arms, was burned by powder smoke from the shots of the secret service men shooting into the room where she and her children were. Almost at once after the shooting, deputies and soldiers arrived. They searched the house, even going through the trunks of the men. They found no weapons of any kind. There was no resistance to the officers. There was no call upon the men to surrender. The secret service men [Waddell men, many of them sworn in as deputies] came to murder, and they accomplished their infamous purpose.
Then, as if to afford some justification for their murder, they went around the houses of the location picking up all old broken bottles, the product of years and gathered them up, claiming they had been thrown at them. It was too late to manufacture evidence. There were too many witnesses to the crime, who knew what the thugs were doing.
It is reported that the Prosecuting Attorney twice requested that the Sheriff serve warrants upon the murders. He has not done so yet. He divides honors(?) with other accessories before the facts.
Let the reader put down these facts as against the statements of the Mining Gazette, the advocate of deportation, and constantly inviting to assassination.
Seeberville Murders of August 14, 1913:
Two men were gunned down Thursday August 14th in a small hamlet just south of Calumet when deputies and Waddell gunthugs opened fire on a boarding house. Inside the house were men, women and children. Several other men were seriously injured and a baby was burned on the face by gunpowder.
The trouble started when two strikers took a well worn shortcut across mine property. This had long been their route home, and little did they think it would be cause for arrest, much less a murderous barrage of bullets upon their home.
The dead are Steve Putrich and Alois Tijan.
Funeral for Brothers Tijan and Putrich, August 17, 1913:
Mourners arrived in Calumet by train from all over the Keweenaw August 17th for the funerals of Alois Tijan and Steve Putrich. Services were held at the Croatian Catholic Church, St. John the Baptist, with Father Medin presiding. The mourners than marched two miles to Lake View Cemetery lead by the Finnish Humu Band.
After the funeral, 5,000 gathered for a demonstration of solidarity. Joseph Cannon spoke. He blamed the “sultans of industry” for murdering these two men. He named Governor Ferris “as an accessory before the fact of this lamentable double murder.” He pointed out Sheriff Cruse whose “hands dripped with blood.” And to the mine owners, he said:
Boston coppers, long have you boasted of your mines of wealth untold. Long have you grown fat by keeping us lean.
He honored the Martyrs:
Their lips are sealed in death, but they spoke in a thousand tongues the victory which is coming and for which they have not worked in vain.
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!
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 13, 1903 Cripple Creek District of Colorado – Miners to Begin Strike Monday August 10th
Official Strike Call from the Western Federation of Miners
This is a copy of the official strike notice issued by the Western Federation of Miners which called the miners out on strike beginning Monday morning August 10th.
The Call
All members of the Western Federation of Miners and all employees in and about the mines of the Cripple Creek district are hereby requested not to report for wok Monday morning, August 10, 1903, except on properties shipping ore to the Economic mill, the Dorcas mill at Florence and the Cyanide mills of the district. BY ORDER OF DISTRICT UNION NO. 1.
The W.F. of M. issued the following statement regarding the necessity of calling the miners out on strike:
Manger MacNeil’s refusal to treat with us left us nothing to do but to order a strike and in so doing we adopted the only plan which promises certain success. In our proposals to him no mention was made of his failure to re-employ men who went out in the former strike, as he had agreed. we confined ourselves strictly to the question as to whether he was willing to pay the union wages demanded by his striking employees, and when he absolutely refused to do so or to recognize us in any way, our mission was ended.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 9, 1913 Michigan’s Copper Country – “Fiery” Mother Jones and the Cannons on the Scene
From the Escanaba Morning Press of August 8, 1913:
COPPERDOM IN DREAD CRISIS IS IMPENDING ———-
Houghton, Mich., Aug 7.-The general impression in the district affected by the copper mine workers’ strike is that a crisis impending through the presence of Mother Jones and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Cannon, three fiery orators of the Western Federation of Miners. Persons who have had an opportunity in other strikes to see these people in action say they likely to inflame the strikers and their families to such a pitch of enthusiasm as may result in a reoccurrence of the of the first week of the strike.
The leaders of the strike here, Messrs. Mahoney, Miller and Lowney, have counselled peace in all their recent speeches, have the strikers to preserve law and order and to wait with determination because they are going to win.
But the speeches made by Cannon and his wife [Laura Gregg Cannon] at the Kansankoti hall, Hancock, Tuesday night were certainly not pacific. They aroused more enthusiasm than any speakers previously heard here since the strike opened and gave a good forecast of the result of their later speeches.
The strikers are for the most part phlegmatic Huns, Croatians and Finns, members of races not given to vociferous outbursts. If the Jones and the Cannons of the strike forces can stir these people up something more exciting than has been seen in the past week may be expected.
Mother Jones and Mrs. Cannon have reputations for exciting the women of strike districts to a point of frenzy resulting in rioting. Something of this sort is feared.
An example of the dangerous potentiality in Mother Jones can be seen in the interview given out by her at Calumet Tuesday afternoon [August 5th]. She said:
I’m a socialist, Why shouldn’t I be? That is the party that stands ready to help the working man.
I can’t see the need for the militia. Take a plumber and make him a major and he swells up like a toad and seems to forget that he is a workingman. The struggle is between the employer and employee and the state ought to let them fight it out. The strikers don’t believe in damaging property or the destruction of lives and I always impress on the men that they shouldn’t do damage.
They threw me into the bull pen in West Virginia, but before then, I went with 16 representatives of the miners to see the governor. When they heard I was coming, the governor wired for the fire department and the police and the legislators crawled under their desks and cried, “Is she coming?” The firemen came running up the streets without their socks. I had the devil scared out of the whole bunch of sewer rats. An old woman like me, over 80 years old. They thought I was coming to murder them, I guess.
What do you think the charge was they arrested me on. Stealing a field gun, my dears, and the damn fools were looking for it in the hills for months.
Ah, boys this is a terrible thing to go through. I hope you don’t see the like here. I saw my brave boys, who I know would not commit a crime, taken from their homes to far-away jails while their wives and babies screamed for their husbands. I raised my hand to heaven and prayed for their safe return.
And they talk about the red flag, bless you.Why, don’t they know the red flag was the first flag hoisted at Lexington, that a farmer who didn’t have time to put his shirt on went into the ranks of the bloody Sassenachs [English persons] and waved his red shirt in the air to cheer his comrades. Don’t they know the red bar is the first on the flag, signifying that blood was shed for the union?
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