You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Friday August 28, 1903
Butte, Montana - Anaconda Copper Mining Company hands out "blue tickets."
Anaconda Copper has been most unhappy with County Assessor Newton Levengood who was elected in 1902 on the Labor-Socialist ticket. Levengood set about hiking their property taxes, and they could no longer count on the devaluation of their property enjoyed before. In Deer Lodge County, all property was assessed a total increase in value from $7.5 million to $15.8 million. Three-quarters of the added property tax was to be paid by the corporation.
However, these increases were returned to the low valuations formerly enjoyed, thanks to the Democratic County Commissioners.
The ACM Company has taken to monitoring the political activities of its employees, and all Socialist or suspected Socialist receive "blue tickets" at the end of their shifts signally that they are being fired. The Western Federation of Miners has protested these firings to no avail.
SOURCE
The Gibraltar
Socialism and Labor in Butte, Montana 1895-1920
-by Jerry W Calvert
Montana Historical Society Press, 1988
Thursday August 28, 1913
The Southern Coalfield, Colorado - Louis Tikas sends in report to District 15.
Louis Tikas is organizing in the southern coalfield and reports directly to Ed Doyle, Secretary-Treasure of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America. In his latest report, Tikas writes that the has been in he Southern Field since the first of August, and that he has visited the mines of Huerfano and Las Animas counties. He has also visited fourteen of the mining camps including Pike View, Ravenwood, and Delagua.
Tikas has gathered statistics on the Greek miners. He states that there are 350 Greek miners working in the Southern Field. Thirteen of them have been killed since the first of the year, and many more injured.
SOURCE
Buried Unsung
Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre
-by Zeese Papanikolas
U of Utah Press, 1982
Hellraisers Journal on vacation!
Hellraisers will appear in abbreviated form until Sept 2nd for a vacation of sorts. A total vacation is not possible since the capitalist never took any time off in their suppression of the U.S. labor movement.
Solidarity,
JayRaye