Hellraisers Journal: From the American Labor Union Journal: Report from the Colorado Strike Zone by Bertha Howell Mailly-Mother Jones Happily Recovering

9th February 202411th February 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 9, 1904
Trinidad, Colorado – Mrs. Bertha Howell Reports from Colorado Strike Zone

From the American Labor Journal of January 28, 1904:

From the Appeal to Reason of January 30, 1904
-Mrs. Mailly’s Article Was Also Published in the Appeal Along with the Following Drawing by Lockwood and with the Following Introduction:

THE COAL MINERS’ STRIKE IN SOUTHERN COLORADO
———-

(Not much news of the strike of several thousand coal miners in Southern Colorado has reached the outside world. Mrs. Bertha Howell Mailly, wife of the National Secretary of the Socialist Party, went to that district from Omaha last week to be with Mother Jones, who was dangerously ill in Trinidad, but who is now happily recovering. While in the strike district, Mrs. Mailly will write a special series of articles for the Socialist press, the following being the first.)

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From American Labor Union Journal: “The Colorado Bull Pen” by Allan W. Ricker, of the Appeal to Reason

4th February 20244th February 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 4, 1904
“The Story of the Colorado Bull Pen” by Allan W. Ricker

From the Appeal to Reason of January 30, 1904
-The Colorado Bullpen by Cartoonist G. H. Lockwood:

Striking Miner’s Wife and Child

From the American Labor Union Journal of February 4, 1904
-“The Colorado Bull Pen” by Allan W. Ricker:

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

2nd February 20242nd February 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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:

[Part I of II]

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.

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

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Hellraisers Journal: Kate Hilliard, Socialist and Suffragist, Defends Mother Jones after Vicious Attack Made by Polly Pry

23rd January 202425th January 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 23, 1904
Kate S. Hilliard Defends Mother Jones from Vicious Attack by Polly Pry

From Goodwin’s Weekly (Salt Lake City, Utah) of January 16, 1904:

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Hellraisers Journal: Big Annie Clemenc, Strikers’ Flag Bearer, Seriously Ill at Her Mother’s Home in Calumet, Michigan

19th January 202422nd January 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Poem Ellis B Harris re Annie Clemenc n Women of Calumet, Mnrs Mag p14, Nov 27, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 19, 1914
Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc Seriously Ill at Her Mother’s Home

From the Dayton Daily News of January 18, 1914:

Saturday January 19, 1914 – Calumet, Michigan
–Annie Clemenc, Seriously Ill, Cared for at Her Mother’s Home

Annie Clemenc of Calumet has been very ill and under a doctor’s care since early this month. Charles Edward Russell who is in the strike zone as part of the Socialist Party Investigating Committee went to visit her on January 10th. He reported that “she lay in her mother’s house, unconscious part of the time and part of the time shaken with nervous convulsions.” She is receiving sickness benefits from Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota (Slovene National Benefit Society), something she has never needed before.

We are left to wonder how much of a role the Italian Hall Massacre plays in her illness. Annie, as President of the Calumet Women’s Auxiliary (W. F. of M.), was the driving force behind organizing the Christmas Party for the strikers’ children. The evening began with so much joy, but then ended with Annie holding a dead child in her arms, and attempting hopelessly to revive the little one.

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

16th January 202419th January 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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:

From the Miners’ Bulletin of January 9, 1914:

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “Propagating Socialism in the Dakotas” by John W. Gardner

12th January 202412th January 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote EVD Capitalist Press re Socialism, ISR p181, Sept 1900 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 12, 1904
“Comrade John W. Bennett is braving the cold blast of North Dakota’s winter…”

From the Appeal to Reason of January 9, 1904:

In view of the above, a short account of Comrade Bennett’s trip thru Nelson County, N.D. may be interesting….

The afternoon of [December] 8th, Comrade Bennett and I started with a horse and buggy for McVille, where Bennett was billed to speak that night.

When we left my home, a storm, at times approaching a blizzard stage, was raging and grew in severity until, after we had traveled about twelve miles, it became so blinding we were compelled to seek shelter at a convenient farm house. After an interval of about forty minutes, the storm having abated somewhat, we thanked our involuntary host for the shelter and the offer of more so freely extended, and once more plunged forward, arriving at the home of Comrade R. H. Carr about one hour later where a hearty welcome awaited us. After supper, seated by a cheerful hard coal fire with the storm raging outside, what a temptation to say: “There will be no one at the meeting place tonight, let us remain at home.” But the thought that a few might have braved the elements in order to hear the truth compelled us, Comrades Mr. and Mrs. Carr, Bennett and myself, to drive two and one-half miles to the place of meeting and we were amply rewarded by the close and even eager attention with which the fifteen persons there assembled listened to the speaker. While no local was organized that night, I confidently predict that one will be formed there in the near future. …

In closing this short detailed account of a very small portion of the work of our loyal and earnest Comrade Bennett, I desire to say: if the reading of the above inspires one comrade to renewed effort in behalf of the cause we all love, I will feel amply repaid for writing it.

Yours faithfully,
JOHN W. GARDNER

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Martial Law Declared in Telluride; Union Men Arrested and Deported, Must Scab or Leave Town

7th January 20248th January 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 7, 1904
Telluride, Colorado – Martial Law Declared; Union Men Deported

From the American Labor Union Journal of January 7, 1904:

[News from Telluride by A. H. Floaten]

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WE NEVER FORGET: Big Annie Clemenc, Heroine of Michigan’s Copper Country, and Christmas Eve, 1913, Italian Hall Tragedy

1st January 20241st January 2024 Janet RayeMichigan Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914

Up above the strikers stood Annie Clemenc,
girl leader of the miners.
She was not the usual militant Annie Clemenc.
She was saying a prayer for the children.
The Day Book, January 6, 1914

Annie Takes Up Her Flag

Annie Clemenc w Flag, ISR p342, Dec 1913

On July 23, 1913, 9,000 copper miners of the Keweenaw Peninsula, Upper Michigan, laid down their tools and walked off the job. They were led by the great Western Federation of Miners, and they had voted by a good majority for a strike: 9,000 out of 13,000. The main issues were hours (the miners wanted an eight hour day), wages, and safety. The miners hated the new one-man drill which they called the “widow-maker.” They claimed this drill made an already dangerous job more dangerous.

The mining companies had steadfastly refused to recognize the Western Federation of Miners in any way. They would continue to refuse all efforts at negotiation or arbitration, even those plans for arbitration which did not include the union, and this despite the best efforts of Governor Ferris, and the U. S. Department of Labor. James MacNaughton, general manger of Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, famously stated that grass would grow in the streets and that he would teach the miners to eat potato parings before he would negotiate with the striking miners.

The Keweenaw Peninsula was a cold, windy place, jutting out into Lake Superior from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This area was known as the Copper Country of Michigan and included Calumet Township of Houghton County, with the twin towns of Hancock and Houghton ten miles to the south. Calumet Township included the villages of Red Jacket and Laurium.

It was here in Red Jacket, on the third day of the strike that Annie Clemenc, miner’s daughter and miner’s wife took up a massive America flag and led an early morning parade of 400 striking miners and their families. Annie Clemenc was six feet tall, and some claimed she was taller than that by two inches. The flag she carried was so massive that it required a staff two inches thick and ten feet tall. The miners and their supporters marched out of the Italian Hall and through the streets of the Red Jacket to the Blue Jacket and Yellow Jacket mines. They marched silently, without a band, lined up three and four abreast. These early morning marches, with Annie and her flag in the lead, were to become a feature of the strike.

Picket Duty Honored in Spite of Danger

MI Strikers Parade, Annie w Flag, Survey p127, Nov 1, 1913 Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: Big Annie Clemenc, Heroine of Michigan’s Copper Country, and Christmas Eve, 1913, Italian Hall Tragedy” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Machine Guns and the Striking Coal Miners of Southern Colorado

2nd December 20234th December 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote John Lawson 1913, after October 17th Death Special attack on Forbes Tent Colony, Beshoar p74 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 2, 1913
Machine Guns Used to Wage War Against Striking Miners of Southern Colorado

From the International Socialist Review of December 1913:

MILITARISM is the heavy fist of the Capitalist class to beat the worker into abject submission. So well do they know the value of machine guns and soldiers that the utmost endeavor is constantly put forth by the Government-the ever-ready Servant of Vested interests, to seduce boys into the ranks of patriotic hirelings. Militiamen and soldiers are working men, hired for a consideration, to shoot and kill other workingmen in the name· of “law and order.”

Brute force, it is evident, is never entirely discarded by the capitalist robber class in their self-assumed right to exploit the worker of the product of his toil. Behind the courts, judges and injunctions, political machinery, class education and superstition, there always lurks the shadow of the big mit and the heavy club-the Military.

The velvet glove only covets the mailed hand.

Where the barons of the middle ages hired his knights and handmen to prey upon and keep in suppression the serfs of the surrounding territory, the coal barons of Colorado, New York and West Virginia maintain their teachers and editors, their preachers and professors, their lawyers, judges and political heelers for the same identical purpose-the robbing of the working class. When these forces fail to work expeditiously then-the honorable Governor is beseeched to call out the National Guard to preserve “law and order.”

The difference between the first exploiter of labor-the man with the knotted club-and John D. Rockefeller the holy, oily Christian philanthropist, is one of degree only. The robbery of the worker is equally complete. The spoils of the idle robber of today is greater than ever. Only the methods have changed.

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