Hellraisers Journal: “The Class War in Colorado” by John Spargo-W. F. of M. on Strike at Telluride and Cripple Creek

Share

Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 5, 1904
“The Class War in Colorado” by John Spargo-Strikes at Telluride and Cripple Creek

From The Comrade of March 1904:
Western Federation of Miners sends Delegates Reed and Dougan to New York City, will make known the truth about the miners’ strikes in Colorado.

Class War in CO by John Spargo, WFM Delegates Reed and Dougan, Comrade p128, Mar 1904

The article continues for the next two pages and covers the following subjects:
-Military Despotism established by Governor Peabody to crush the striking mines.
-Persecution of Foster, Parker, Davis and Adams.
-Terror inflicted upon Parker’s family.
-The Case of John Glover.
-The Case of Victor Poole.
-Telluride Deportations.
-“The W. F. of M. is one of the most advanced labor organizations in the country.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Class War in Colorado” by John Spargo-W. F. of M. on Strike at Telluride and Cripple Creek”

Hellraisers Journal: Cripple Creek, Colorado-The Persecutions of Union Leaders Parker, Davis, Kennison and Foster Comes to End with Verdicts of Not Guilty

Share

Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 4, 1904
Cripple Creek, Colorado – Union Leaders Freed by “Not Guilty” Verdict

CO WFM Davis, Parker, Kennison, Foster, EFL 1904 p233, 234, RMN p8, Feb 26, 1904
W. F. Davis, Sherman Parker, C. G. Kennison, Thomas Foster
Leaders of Cripple Creek District of Western Federation of Miners

From The Denver Post of March 3, 1904
-Strike Leaders of Cripple Creek Freed by Jury:

Cripple Creek CO Strikers Freed by Jury, DP p1, 8, Mar 3, 1904

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Cripple Creek, Colorado-The Persecutions of Union Leaders Parker, Davis, Kennison and Foster Comes to End with Verdicts of Not Guilty”

Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Militia Dismisses Case Against John M. Glover, Former Congressman from Missouri

Share

Quote Mother Jones, CFI Owns Colorado, re 1903 Strikes UMW WFM, Ab Chp 13, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 18, 1904
Cripple Creek, Colorado – District Court Dismisses Case Against John M. Glover

From the Moberly Evening Democrat of February 11, 1904
Colorado Militia’s Case Against Rep. John M. Glover Dismissed:

John Glover Arrested by Military, SLTb p1, Jan 16, 1904

SECOND CASE DISMISSED.

The case against John M. Glover, formerly Congressman from Missouri, for having shot at Sergeant Smith, was dismissed at Cripple Creek, Colorado, yesterday in the District Court on the ground that the accused could not be tried twice for the same offense. Glover had already been found guilty of an assault upon Sergeant Dittmore.

Before sentence in the latter case is passed Mr. Glover will appeal to the Supreme Court.

The cases of General Sherman M. Bell and General Chase, charged with unlawfully imprisoning citizens in the bull pen while martial law was in effect, were then taken up.

[Newsclip from Salt Lake Tribune of Jan. 16, 1904, added.]
[Emphasis added.]

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Militia Dismisses Case Against John M. Glover, Former Congressman from Missouri”

Hellraisers Journal: House Sub-Committee Hearings on Mine Conditions Underway in Denver, Colorado and Hancock, Michigan

Share

Quote Federation Call by John Sullivan, Mnrs Bltn 1913 1914, MI Copper Strike—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 14, 1914
House Sub-Committee Hearings Underway in Colorado and Michigan

From The Day Book of February 14, 1914
Representatives Casey, Howell and Taylor Are on the Job in Michigan:

MI House Investigation Com, Day Book p9, Feb 14, 1914

From The Indianapolis News of February 9, 1914
U. S. Sub-Committees to Investigate Mining Conditions in Michigan and Colorado:

HOWELL SNOWBOUND;
STRIKE INQUIRY DELAYED
———-

CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE IN MICHIGAN LACKS QUORUM.
———-
REPRESENTATIVES KEPT IN
———-

HANCOCK, Mich., February 9.-The train bearing Representative Joseph Howell, of Utah, the member necessary to make a quorum of the congressional investigating committee, was reported storm-bound somewhere on the lower peninsula today and prospects for a meeting dwindled as the day advanced. Chairman Taylor said that it was unlikely that hearings would begin before tomorrow.

The heaviest snowfall of the winter has kept Mr. Taylor and Representative Casey of Pennsylvania indoors since their arrival on Saturday and they have had no opportunity to see any of the copper country beyond the range of vision from their hotel.

—————

OPENS HEARING IN DENVER
———-
Congressional Subcommittee Seeks Evidence
of Law Violations.

DENVER, Colo., February 9.-Hearing of testimony in the federal investigation of the Colorado coal miners’ strike began in the senate chamber of the state capitol today. The subcommittee of the house committee on mines and mining which arrived from Washington yesterday, will hold hearings in Denver and at Trinidad, Pueblo, Boulder and other points, to determine whether federal statutes have been violated and to determine on recommendations for the settlement of the Colorado strike and the prevention of future labor struggles.

When today’s hearing opened E. V. Brake, deputy labor commissioner; Professor Russell D. George, state geologist, and James Dalrymple, chief coal mining inspector, gave testimony as to general coal mining conditions in Colorado.

Two distinct strikes are included in the investigation, to be made by the committee. The miners in the northern Colorado coal fields were called out in April 1910, and that strike never has been settled. Since then, many of the strikebreakers who took the places of the union men have been organized by the United Mine Workers of America, and a considerable part of them walked out with the southern men when the strike of all the coal miners in the state was called on September 23, 1913.

The investigating committee consists of Martin D. Foster (Dem.), Chairman, Illinois; James Francis Byrnes (Dem.), South Carolina; John M. Evans (Dem.), Montana; Richard Wilson Austin (Rep.), Tenn., and Howard Sutherland (Rep.), West Virginia.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: House Sub-Committee Hearings on Mine Conditions Underway in Denver, Colorado and Hancock, Michigan”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns

Share

Quote re Annie Clemenc at Mass Funeral Calumet, Day Book p4, Jan 6, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 2, 1914
“Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns

From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:

Calumet MI by LH Marcy, ISR p453, Feb 1914

[Part I of II]

Italian Hall Doors Calumet MI, ISR p453, Feb 1914

SEVENTY-TWO copper miners, with their wives and children, met death at these doors on Christmas Eve in Calumet, Michigan.

A brief hour before this little company of silent ones had passed up the stairs into the Italian Hall to join hundreds of other strikers and their families. A Christmas tree had been arranged by the Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners to put a bit of cheer into the hearts of the kiddies and perhaps to encourage the men and women in their struggle against the copper barons for more bread and better working conditions.

But “Peace on earth and good will toward men” is not down on the capitalist program. For months past imported thugs and gun-men, in the pay of the copper companies, as guards, had gone about shooting up strikers, breaking up union headquarters, disrupting meetings and otherwise “establishing law and order.”

It should surprise no one then to learn that upon this occasion a “mysterious” stranger appeared suddenly in the doorway of Italian Hall with a false cry of “fire!”

Comrade Annie Clemanc [Clemenc] had just finished her address of welcome; the toys were still on the tree-when forty-eight pairs of little feet arose at the alarm and ran down the stairway. They were met by “deputies,” who blocked the doors to escape. In the crush and panic that followed seventy-two human beings were killed.

* * * *

A bleak mining region and the rigors of a Lake Superior winter, with the hardship of five months’ strike, made still more poignant the crushing sorrow. Over the two miles of road from Calumet to the bit of ground owned by the Western Federation of Miners marched the procession with hearse, undertakers’ wagons and an automobile truck carrying a few coffins, followed by 480 miners, in squads of four, carrying 67 coffins. They lowered them into two long trenches that yawned in the snows of the copper country. Behind them came fifty Cornish miners chanting hymns, their voices thick with emotion. Thousands of miners with their wives and children formed the procession. All but a dozen of the burials were in common graves dug by members of the union.

Italian Hall Calumet MI Interior View, ISR p454, Feb 1914

Came the Finns to the fair state of Michigan about sixty years ago-to spend their lifetime and labor time in the mines.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns”

Hellraisers Journal: Charles Moyer, President of Western Federation of Miners, Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers; House Committee to Investigate Miners’ Strikes in Michigan and Colorado

Share

Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 1, 1914
Indianapolis, Indiana – President Moyer Speaks at Mine Workers’ Convention

From The Indianapolis News of January 26, 1914:

Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners gave a long speech at the Convention of the United Mine Workers now in progress in Indianapolis. In his speech, President Moyer described the ongoing violations of Constitutional Rights in both the Colorado and the Michigan strikes:

Charles Moyer, Pres WFM, Survey p433, Jan 10, 1914

…..What is being done in the state of Colorado in the miners’ strike, is being done in the state of Michigan. I don’t think it is any worse. In the state of Colorado men and women have been mistreated by the military, by the armed thugs of the mine owners’ association; they have been arrested without warrant; they have been sent to jail; they have been deprived of all of those rights that are supposed to belong to an American citizen, or one living under this government, the same as they have in Colorado.

Mother Jones has been deprived of her liberty by the military, and is now confined in the custody of the military of that state, without any warrant, absolutely deprived of her constitutional rights.

In the state of Michigan representatives of organized labor have been assaulted, ordered from the state, deprived of every right that we are supposed to enjoy under this great Constitution of ours, and yet, after months of effort we are at this time uncertain as to whether our national government, our representatives down at Washington, are going to make an investigation: are going to inquire into the facts as whether or not these things that we claim and that we believe we furnished them a preponderance of evidence of, are in violation of our American citizenship. They say, I believe, as an excuse for their hesitancy in acting, that they do not want to interfere with state rights, and in answer to that we say that the Constitution of the United States gives the right to every American citizen to meet in peaceable assembly, to freely express himself in speech…..

[Photograph added emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Charles Moyer, President of Western Federation of Miners, Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers; House Committee to Investigate Miners’ Strikes in Michigan and Colorado”

Hellraisers Journal: Scandal Monger, Polly Pry, Claims Mother Jones Could be Former Madam Who Once Ran Houses of Ill-Repute

Share

Quote Dorothy Adams re Mother Jones asleep moonlight, Tammany Tx p10, Aug 12, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 22, 1904
Denver, Colorado – The Polly Pry Claims Mother Jones Could Be Former Madam

Mother Jones per Polly Pry, Florence CO Dly Tb p1, Jan 5, 1904

Leonel Ross Campbell, Denver journalist now turned scandal monger, writing under the name of Polly Pry, has recently directed her prying gaze upon Mother Jones. In her magazine, The Polly Pry, Campbell claims to have evidence, supplied by the Pinkertons, that “proves” that Mother Jones once ran various houses of ill-repute in Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, and San Francisco. The file, it is claimed, dates back to 1889.

According to the report, Mother Jones could be the madam who hired the “best looking girls on the row” for her house on Market Street in Denver where she went broke after her paramour, “Black-leg,” supposedly ran off with one of her girls. She then began drinking and was arrested and jailed several times. The Prying Polly further reported that this woman was:

…an inmate of Jennie Rogers’ house on Market street, Denver, some twelve years ago. She got into trouble with the Rogers woman for bribing all of her girls to leave her and go to a house in Omaha-for which act she was paid a procuress fee of $5 to $10 apiece for the girls.

She was a confidential servant in Rose Lovejoy’s private house on Market street, Denver, and with her several years. …

Lived in Eva Lewis’ house on Market street at the time the Coxey Army passed through here, and took a prominent part in the Denver preparation for their care.

Is known to Harry Loss, a piano player at 1925 Market street, who says he knew her first in Omaha in 1894, when she lived in a house at tenth and Douglass.

She was then selling clothes to the girls. A sewing woman for the sporting class living on Lawrence street…says it was commonly reported that she was a procuress by trade.

[Emphasis added.]

The Pinkerton report goes on to claim that a Mary Harris (using her maiden name) was a “vulgar, heartless, vicious creature, with a fiery temper and a cold-blooded brutality rare even in the slums.”

Now, in the slander sheet which bears her pen name, Miss Polly Pry is careful to maintain a distance from her lurid charges by reporting on a supposed report on Mother Jones. Very clever of her, and also in keeping with her usual style of reporting on labor leaders who are the often made the targets of her attacks. She has previously defamed U. M. W. District 15 President Howells, U. M. W. National Organizer William Wardjon, and U. M. W. National Executive Board Member John Gehr. Anti-union newspapers across the country see fit to pick up these sordid stories from The Polly Pry and reprint them.

For her part, Mother Jones refuses to give dignity to the charges by responding to them in any way. U. M. W. attorneys doubt that a law suit would be successful since the charges made by The Polly Pry are implied rather than made directly.

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Scandal Monger, Polly Pry, Claims Mother Jones Could be Former Madam Who Once Ran Houses of Ill-Repute”

Hellraisers Journal: President Charles Moyer and Auditor Charles Tanner of the Western Federation of Miners Return to Upper Michigan’s Copper Country

Share

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

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 16, 1914
Houghton, Michigan – Cheering Crowd Meets Moyer and Tanner at Station

From the Miners Magazine of January 15, 1914:

Moyer and Tanner Return to Michigan Copper Country, Mnrs Mag p3, Jan 15, 1914

From the Miners’ Bulletin of January 9, 1914:

Moyer and Tanner Return to Michigan Copper Country, MB p1, Jan 9, 1914

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: President Charles Moyer and Auditor Charles Tanner of the Western Federation of Miners Return to Upper Michigan’s Copper Country”