Pray for the dead
and fight like for the living
-Mother Jones
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Fellow Worker James H. Brew
Card-Carrying Member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Fellow Worker James H. Brew was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He was a miner and a boilermaker, and a seasoned veteran of the Cripple Creek Strike of 1903-1904.
During the early morning hours of July 12, 1917, he was asleep at his rooming house when a band of Sheriff Wheeler’s army of deputized gunthugs and citizen vigilantes came to grab him as part of their warrantless round-up of the striking miners and strike sympathizers of Bisbee, Arizona.
Leading this band of kidnappers was Orson P. McRae, shift boss at the Copper Queen Mine and a member of the Loyalty League. McRae was accompanied by five deputized gunthugs.
FW Brew warned the would-be kidnappers not to enter, but with McRae in the lead, they were determined to force their way inside.