You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday September 13, 1914
FromThe Voice of the People: A Fellow Worker Reports from Butte
Copper Miners of Butte, Montana
On the sad subject of the conflict between the miners of Butte which led to the disintegration of the Butte Miners' Union No. 1 of the Western Federation of Miners and the formation of the Butte Mine Workers Union as an independent union, readers of
Hellraisers have heard opinions and analysis
from various sources. Eugene Debs and Mother Jones, for example, have condemned the new union in the strongest language possible. Big Bill Haywood, on the other hand, voiced his support for the B. M. W. U. and cited the reasons for the break-up of No. 1 of the W. F. of M.
The September 10th issue of The Voice of the People, an I. W. W. newspaper out of New Orleans, now offers us a report from a fellow worker who is on the ground in Butte, Montana:
Facts Regarding Butte, Mont.
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Butte, Mont., Sept 4th, 1914.-I am writing you a few facts about the situation in Butte. The militia arrived on the ground Tuesday afternoon and immediately took charge of city and county affairs.
Dan J. Donohue, the father of the infamous militia bill which the union men of the state defeated some time ago, is in charge with the rank of Major and the Conley, warden of the State Penitentiary at Deer Lodge, has been appointed Provost Marshal and is running the police department.
As soon as the soldiers were settled, the company got busy signing W. F. of M. scabs as gun-men to protect their property and keep the delegates from the new union away from the mines.
D. Gay Stivers, a fourth rate lawyer, is recruiting officer and has as his chief assistant an adviser John C. Lowney, the executive board member of the W. F. of M. The Federation scabs now acting in the capacity of deputy sheriffs are busy serving warrants on the active members of the new union; they grabbed four men from the office of the new Butte Mine Workers union on Wednesday; the next morning at 2 a. m. they raided the I. W. W. hall for the purpose of confiscating the records and books but were outwitted. Then to get even, they arrested seven fellow-workers who were sleeping in the hall and tried them, that same morning, before their military court. Three were turned loose and the other four were given jail sentence of three months and 100 fine, sentence to be suspended if they left town within 12 hours; one of these four men has lived in Butte for three years and has worked in the mines continuously, yet he is considered a vag.
Attorney General Kelly was heard to say that he would rid the town of all I. W. W.'s. President Muckie McDonald and Vice-President J. E. Bradley, of the Butte Mine Workers Union or the new union, so called, have left town, for the present, to avoid arrest. Joe Shannon and several other fellow-workers were arrested on a kidnapping charge and are being held without bail.
No one is allowed to communicate with them in any way.
The fellow that was deported as a scab, O'Brien by name, was brought back by the Sheriff and is now serving his master as a gun-man.
Con F. Kelly, Vice-President of the Amalgamated Copper company, and a bunch of his hirelings in the Citizen Alliance had the sewer rats brought in here when the town was as quiet as a country church-yard. Governor Stewart had given orders for the mobilization of the troops at Helena and everything being so quiet and peaceful, he was about to order them home again, when foxy got busy and pulled a dynamiting job in the yard of the Parrot mine, the place where the prospective slaves must go for their Rustling cards before they can even ask for a job.
They took the watchman away to another mine and exploded probably half a box of powder near the front of the office where they have been dealing out the rustling cards to the victims for the past year of so; the noise of the explosion at that hour 1;30 a. m. naturally aroused everyone around for several blocks and caused intense excitement; the company immediately offered a reward of $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of this "dastardly out rage."
We have evidence to the effect, however, that the reward item was set up and locked in the forms at both the Anaconda Standard and the Butte Miner offices before the fake explosion took place.
The company had continually stated that they were not concerned in the fight between the B. M. W. U., and W. F. of M., but as soon as the new union began to assert its jurisdiction and attempted to compel all under ground workers to join and also compel recognition of a set of working rules, they got busy and made their plea for the militia.
These rules to which there was so much objection provided for better air, better ventilation in hot places, the establishment of toilets on each level, the discontinuance of blasting at noon, and also instructed the men not to tolerate any bulldosing from bosses as in the past.
While on this subject, I want to tell you that up to the present time there has been no toilets of any description in some of the mines and it is only recently that they have taken the trouble to remedy this bad feature. If a miner asked to go to the surface or was caught in the act of answering Nature's call any where below ground, he was instantly discharged.
You can probably imagine what these conditions led up to in a Hell hole confining 2000 or 3000 men. Butt Local No. 1, Western Federation of Miners signed two contracts in the past eight years which have saved the company at least $50,000,000 in wages alone, as there was an overwhelming sentiment at that time for a substantial increase in wages.
The stool pigeon, however, were on the job on both occasions to protect the interests of their masters, and, by packing the meetings at the small hall and herding the ignorant suckers, succeeded in putting them over.
They also permitted their members to testify for the company at every coroner's inquest and in personal injury suits against the company, with the result that every man who meets death in the mines was a victim of his own carelessness and the company has yet to lose in a personal injury suit. The leading attorney of this county has repeatedly stated in public that it is not possible to secure a verdict against the Anaconda or Amalgamated Copper Company.
There is a movement now on foot to try and get all the Butte unions to go out on strike and shut the town down.
B. Lorton. Fin. Sec. B. P. L
SOURCE
The Voice of the People
(New Orleans, Louisiana)
-of Sept 10, 1914
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
IMAGE
Mine Workers of Butte
(exact date unknown, about 1914-1920
used here to represent Butte Mine Workers of 1914)
http://www.miningartifacts.org/...
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Hellraisers Journal is on vacation!
Hellraisers will be on a vacation of sorts until September 22nd, and will appear in abbreviated form until that date. A complete vacation is not possible since the ruling class never took a vacation from their suppression and oppression of the working class.
There are no limits to which powers of privilege
will not go to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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