You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday February 2, 1904
From The International Socialist Review: Unity of Labor of Capital? Part II
Senator Mark Hanna continues to preach the gospel of the unity of Labor and Capital as hard times deepen for Labor and profits increase for Capital. We here offer Part II of two parts of the monthly report on labor conditions by Max Hayes:
THE WORLD OF LABOR
by Max Hayes
The Interstate Commerce Commission recently issued several barrels of statistics, which, sifted down to an intelligible basis, show that as a whole wages during the good times last year were but a few pennies higher than in the panicky year of 1896, when gold-bug parades were organized by such gentlemen as Chief Sargent, or the firemen, to shout for "prosperity," and likewise help the manipulators into office. The commission's report also shows that the earnings of the railways have increased $34,000,000, and that freight rates have been advanced by concerted action and competition eliminated. "No assurance of a decline in rates is apparent," says the report," and there is "no way the advances can be prevented." Yet these magnates, who have advanced freight rates, increased their profits and killed competition, are now busily chopping down wages and laying off men. Daily papers in Chicago and other railway centers announce that thousands of men have been laid off during the last few months, and that many more will follow.
On the other hand railroad men throughout the country complain that the tendency of the railways is to put constantly increasing tasks upon them. Engines are built larger and heavier every year and are now drawing twice the number of cars they were a few years ago, but the same number of employes are allowed to the train. Still another cause of complaint is the recent order of the postmaster general, which will have the effect of making every train in the United States a mail carrier and as such will be under the protection of the government. The railroaders claim that the order is unjust, and they will use every effort to defeat any bill providing for the appropriation of funds to pay train baggagemen in addition to their wages from the railroad companies for the handling of packages of paper mail, which is the purpose of the order. "There is no question but that this innovation," says the official journal of the trainmen, "was the inspiration of the railway managers rather than the postoffice department."
At this writing the miners are sparring with the operators of the bituminous coal fields to ward off the long threatened reduction of wages. It would be difficult to predict what the outcome will be. One miners' delegate put the situation in a nutshell: "The operators want more money, and if they don't get it in the shape of a wage reduction it will come in some other way, such as raising prices of supplies, rents, etc., or laying off men and holding up prices." Quite a number of men are out resisting cuts in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado, Utah and one or two other states, and the drain has become so heavy on the national treasury that the convention last month was forced to increase the per capita tax. In the anthracite field the impression is growing among the men daily that Roosevelt's strike commission, which brought the "open shop" into prominence by refusing to recommend that the coal barons recognize and treat with the union, was a big bunco scheme.
The miners claim that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and other concerns in the combine have blacklisted some of the hardest workers in the cause of unionism, and that their Saturday half-holiday and shorter workday advantages are being brazenly violated. In their desperation the men in the Schuylkill region appealed to the commission to prevent the constant invasion of their rights, and in a lengthy decision Carroll D. Wright, the umpire (and "workingman 's friend"), not only threw them a stone, but he actually went out of his way to assure the Baers that the conditions existing before the strike had been unchanged by the commission, but that the barons could make whatever "voluntary agreements" they pleased with their employes.
Says Mr. Wright: "At the expense of repetition, but in order that there may be no misunderstanding, let me recapitulate the situation: The anthracite coal strike commission did not reduce the hours of labor of company men from sixty to fifty-four per week, nor from any other number of hours to any number, as insisted in the grievance; nor did it prohibit the parties to the submission making any voluntary agreement for their mutual benefit, or perpetuate, or repeal any custom existing prior to the strike not especially made the subject of award. This interpretation, it seems to the umpire, leaves the parties just where they were at the time of the strike, and just where the award of the commission left them — at perfect liberty to fix the hours per day or per week by voluntary action. The commission did not, nor can the umpire now, interfere with that liberty."
Now comes a sequel to this wholesale exploitation. It is estimated by the daily press that the tide-water valuation of the total output of anthracite coal last year was $273,000,000, of which sum "$73,000,000 was paid in wages to the mine workers." Labor being the largest cost in production, it looks as though Baer and his co-conspirators "divided up" the largest portion of the $200,000,000 that was left among them selves. "You can't cram your socialism down our throats!" said some of the very conservative delegates at the recent convention in so many words. No; you can lead a horse to the trough, but he don't have to drink. Surely, if the miners like Baerism there is nothing to prevent them from receiving their fill.
In the building trades there are mutterings of coming storms in many places when the season opens next month. The bosses are organizing and are not hiding their hostility to unionism. The structural ironworkers are still engaged in battle with the Iron League, which has been strengthened by the affiliation of the Fuller Construction Company, and other branches are becoming uneasy at the outlook. The Parry crowd is also busy, claiming that over 200 local alliances and 3,000 firms are affiliated with their association [the National Association of Manufacturers.] Damage suits are coming thick and fast. Small sums of $10,000 to $25,000 don't seem to satisfy some of the bosses. Out in Calaveras county, California, the miners are asked to pay $250,000 to their masters as damages; in San Francisco a horseshoeing boss wants $100,000 from the union, and the hatters are asked to pay upward of $300,000 to a boycotted manufacturer. Suits for smaller sums are pending in every industrial center in the country.
Meanwhile Hanna's agitation in favor of union labor becoming an "ally" of capital is becoming a leading issue among the organized workers, and there will be some warm discussions between his adherents and opponents in the unions. Of course, if it is true, as Senator Hanna claims, that labor and capital are brothers, there shouldn't be much trouble in the happy household, for no matter if wages are reduced the money remains in the family anyhow. And then if labor is laid off the capitalists will probably have to go to work to support themselves.
SOURCE
The International Socialist Review
A Monthly Journal of International Socialist Thought
Volume IV, July, 1903-June, 1904
Charles H Kerr & Company, 1904
"World of Labor" by Max Hayes
- from February 1904 ISR
http://books.google.com/...
-for article by Hayes: page 526
-for Feb 1904 issue of ISR: page 471
-both page numbers refer to scroll bar at bottom of document
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Monday February 2, 1914
The Keweenaw, Michigan - Striker John Laitola Shot by Scabs, Not Expected to Live
Funeral for Steven Putrich and Alois Tijan
Shot and Killed by Waddell Gunthugs at Seeberville
John Laitola, striking copper miner, was shot by James Johnson, a scab, yesterday near the Superior mine as he confronted Johnson and three other scabs who were on their way to work. Laitola is not expected to live. Prosecuting Attorney Lucas is looking into the matter. An arrest is expected. We have learned that the Lucas doubts the story of self-defense told by Johnson, and further believes that the gun found on Laitola was planted on him by the killers.
The trial of the Waddell men in the killing of the strikers at the Seeberville boarding house begins today. Five gunthugs are on trial, and the sympathy of kept press almost brings tears to the eyes. They are fine "young men of good character and agreeable social manners," while the men they murdered were "ugly" and "drunk," according to the The Daily Mining Gazette. Left unexplained by the Gazette is why men of such good character would come to seize men, without authority of law, and then shoot up a home, especially one containing a family with young children, when the men resisted being unlawfully seized.
SOURCES
Rebels on the Range
-by Arthur W Thurner
MI, 1984
Death's Door
The Truth Behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder
-by Steve Lehto
MI, 2006
Photo:Funeral of Steven Putrich and Alois Tijan
http://coppercountry.wordpress.com/...
See Also: WE NEVER FORGET: August 14, 1913 The Seeberville Massacre
http://www.dailykos.com/...
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Sunday February 2, 2014
More on the funerals of Steven Putrich and Alois Tijan:
The funeral for Steven Putrich and Alois Tijan, the victims of the shootings at Seeberville, took place today in the Calumet district. The outpouring of sympathy was overwhelming as estimates of 3500-5000 strikers, strike sympathizers, and community members showed up for the funeral procession, with several hundred attending graveside services. The caskets were carried in horse-drawn carriages, with young women dressed in white behind 18-year old Tijan’s carriage, a Croatian custom. As Tijan died an unmarried young man the Daily Mining Gazette reported that the custom signified “that the dead died with his life incomplete, as he had not married and reared a family.”[1] The procession was a blend of somberness and solidarity for the strikers and their sympathizers. At the gravesite in Lakeview Cemetery, which had been adorned with eight American and Croatian flags, strike leaders made passionate speeches and paid their respects to the fallen. One WFM leader blatantly accused Houghton County Sheriff Cruse of the murders because of his support of the Waddell-Mahon men, and went on to note that any mining officials and community members against the strikers had blood on their hands from the Seeberville incident.
SOURCE
Copper Country History
http://coppercountry.wordpress.com/...
[1] Daily Mining Gazette, August 19, 1913.
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?-Bett Butler
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
-Yip Harburg