WEBVTT - Part Three: Big Annie Clemenc and the Copper Strike of 1913 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:04.680 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:09.039 Oh hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.399 The only podcast. It's not the only podcast that does this, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.800 but it's this the podcast that does this, the podcast 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.800 that tries to remind you when there's bad things happening, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.560 that there's people who do good things in the face 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.040 of those bad things and try to make the situation 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.480 better for everyone and actually succeed all of the time, 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.040 even though the winds aren't always as measurable as we 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.479 want them to be. There's one thing that I talk 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.840 about over and over again on the show, so there's 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.400 no bottom to how bad things can be. Every little 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.440 bit of not bad in our lives is because of 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.440 people like we're talking about today and people like you, 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.800 people who are trying to fight in whatever ways against 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.280 all of the bad things. It's not hopeless, it's not pointless. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.400 Every fight is worth fighting. And I am your host, 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:06.040 Margaret Kiljoy, and this week and last week, this week 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.400 we are continuing and finishing the story of the nineteen 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.840 thirteen strike against the copper barons, and it's really the 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.680 strike that reading about this, there's something new I add 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.319 to my worldview every week when I do this show. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:30.640 And what it's meant this time is really understanding barons, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.560 understanding copper barons, coal barons, all of these barons of 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.720 the nineteenth century. And I have to admit, Okay, here's 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:40.720 the terrible thing I'm going to tell you. I was 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:45.600 walking around some big old libraries past couple of weeks, 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:48.160 and you know, a lot of them were built by 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.760 Andrew Carnegie. That's why they're called Carnegie libraries. And you 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.800 know how everything used to be like decorated. It's a 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.480 little bit because we were run by barons and not 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.160 by pure capitalists. It's a little bit that people wanted 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:08.600 to show off their wealth by you know, ornamenting things 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.840 and making things for the public good, beautiful. It's possible 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:17.120 that pure rock capitalists are even worse somehow. I don't know. 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.720 I don't know. I don't know what's worse. It's just 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:26.079 two bad things. And where we last left last week, 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.800 our plucky heroes and anti heroes had just decided to 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:36.680 go on strike fifteen thousand workers, the entire workforce of 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.880 the main copper producing region of the country during the 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.119 middle of electrification. Well, not the middle, it's probably about 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.079 the middle. I remember reading that, like, you know, nineteen ten, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.000 only ten percent of US households had electricity, and by 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:54.880 nineteen forty nine it was like eighty percent. Don't quote 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:56.679 me on those numbers. I just read that last week, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:58.840 and I remember statistics for about a week and then 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.560 they disappear from my brain. But in the middle of 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:07.720 the electrification of the country, every copper worker in one 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.239 of the most important copper regions in the country, it's 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.840 no longer the only important copper region in the country. 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.280 They all go on strike. And if the copper barons 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.720 had really and truly been capitalists at heart, entirely motivated 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.960 by profit, they likely would have recognized the union. At 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.079 this point, well, Kieina is no longer the single most 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.160 important copper area in the country. It's a huge fucking deal. 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.080 These guys, the barons, they own nine thousand foot deep mines. 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.200 They need to get them running again. But for both sides, 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.880 the strike was about the balance of power. At least 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.520 as much as it was about money for the owners. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.280 It was about control for the workers. It was about 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.880 control too, but just control over themselves. It is about dignity. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.360 It's also look, these are Europeans. They come from a 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.600 more feudal society, most of them. Of them, even the leftists, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.360 took the promise of American democracy seriously. It's about not 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:11.400 being ruled by feudalism. And the strike is remembered as 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.920 particularly violent these days. If you look it up, it's 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.480 like one of the most violent strikes in US history. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:22.480 But that violence was almost entirely, but not entirely, directed 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:28.400 against the workers, and it started off actually very peaceful. 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.160 The Union, in one of their papers put it like 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.000 this quote, it is doubtful if there ever was a 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.599 strike of equal magnitude that was initiated so peacefully and 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:43.440 remains so or so thoroughly approved by the workers, because, 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.200 like if a lot of the violence and strikes is 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:51.400 preventing strike breakers from working and the entire workforce walks out, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:57.919 there's not as much violence required, right but right away 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.880 the owners freaked out. Before there was a National Guard, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:06.680 there were state militias groups which later became the National Guard, 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.520 and so the entire Michigan militia, all twenty five hundred soldiers, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.599 was mobilized up to the far northern tip of the 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:19.599 state within days. And even worse and more impactfully, the 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.320 companies hired the services of a professional strike breaking company, 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:28.480 the Wattle Mahon Corporation. Six hundred strike breakers showed up. 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.120 And these weren't just sometimes what we say when we 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.320 meet scab, like someone is going to do the work. 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.600 These six hundred strike breakers that showed up are people 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.520 who showed up to break the strike physically. Since the 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.680 companies owned the town, those six hundred strike breakers were 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.320 immediately deputized by the local sheriff, which meant they had 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.000 the power of the law behind them. And it also 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.920 it meant that the public paid for the repression of 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.760 the strike, not the owners. This is the deal that 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.600 the state and capitalists have made with one another since 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:06.680 basically forever you privatize the gains and you publicize the costs. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.040 The canals and then the railroads of this country were 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.200 built in this way. Our tax money funds private ventures 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.120 that then keep the profits. That's why Elon Musk is rich. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.200 And it's interesting too write because it leads us to 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.719 the question of, like, well, what has changed since feudalism, 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.840 Like what has changed since we just like take all 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.240 of the money produced by everyone and then give it 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.880 to the rich people. And in this particular case, the 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.599 strike breakers, the people from the Wattlemehon Corporation were likely 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.440 and they were widely reported to be literal gangsters from 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.960 New York City, So they basically are like, Hey, we're 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.000 going to get the mob to show up here and 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.799 fuck up the workers. If the striking workers were violent 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.960 in scare quotes yelling at and throwing rocks and getting 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:01.599 into fistfights with scabs, the strike break brought guns to 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.599 a fistfight. Less than a month into the strike, the 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.800 strike breakers shot up a union boarding house. It was 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:16.440 August fourteenth, nineteen thirteen. Two Croatian miners striking miners. They're 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.760 wanted for questioning for they took a short cut home 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:24.880 through company property, so they're like wanted for trespassing, and 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.760 a deputized gang of strike breakers showed up to this 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:32.000 Croatian boarding house without any warrants and demanded that the 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:39.160 men hand themselves over. They refused, and unfortunately, the comparisons 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:44.200 to the modern day ring very obvious. Right like immigrants 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.120 are being approached by people who are representatives of the 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.960 law but do not have judicial warrants and being told 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.800 that they have to hand themselves over or violence will ensue. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.880 To this day, a lot of websites describing this take 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:00.960 the side of the strike break. For some reason, a 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.920 lot of the local history websites, not really the books, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.600 but a lot of the local history websites are like 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.400 basically on the side of the managers of this whole basue. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.600 And so they'll talk about how these deputies who showed 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.800 up they were outnumbered and scared of the probably unarmed miners, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.800 which actually, okay, the question of how armed the strike 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.040 was is not one I found much consensus on from 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.520 sources at the time or modern sources, but everyone agrees 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.640 that the Croatian Union miners didn't present any firearms in 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:38.160 this particular confrontation. So the outnumbered and scared strike breakers 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.000 surrounded the boarding house and shot in through every window 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.360 until their guns were empty. Again as soon as someone 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.040 who's deputized says, I was afraid, they are allowed to 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.679 shoot in through windows of unarmed people and murder them. 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.960 And this time they killed two different men, not the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.200 two that they were there without warrants to arrest, and 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.000 they also wounded two adults and a baby. The two 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.520 dead strikers were Alois Tishan, who was eighteen, and Steve Putrich, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.520 who is forty and Putrich didn't die right away. His 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:17.599 last words to his family as he went out to 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:21.679 the hospital were, I am shot, and if anything happens 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.440 to me, send my money to my children. But remember 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.599 how the hospitals are owned by the feudal lords of 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.559 the region. Well, maybe the hospital's being pretty isn't enough 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.160 to make the whole barren thing worth it. Because at 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:39.679 the hospital, the doctor tried to blackmail Peutrich's brother, telling 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.640 him quote, if I operate on your brother and he 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.400 gets well, he will just go out and fight again. 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.640 You go and tell your Croatian people to go back 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.520 to work, and I will treat your brother. And it's 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.920 not surprising that his brother did not survive that doctor's care. 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.760 And also, just like, what does it mean if you're 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.959 blackmail to work? Right? Like, what does it mean if 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.840 you don't actually have the right to refuse work? And 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.120 I've read some confusing and contradictory stuff about the outcome 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.400 of that shooting, but I do know that the sheriff 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.440 did not arrest the killers, but instead one of the 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.360 men who was still wanted for trespassing. But do you 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:26.120 know what will seamlessly cut over to ads it's me. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.839 I'm gonna seamlessly cut over to ads. No one will 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.280 even notice the seams. They'll be like. That was the 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:45.160 smoothest transition she's ever done, and we're back. Despite two 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.040 of the striking miners having been shot dead in their home, 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.839 the strike carried on. Most of the public actions were 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:57.040 either picket lines and attempting to intimidate scabbing workers in 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.120 public parades. Every day, hundreds and thousands of people held 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.760 marches across the region. These weren't the protest marches that 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.599 were used to today. The workers were fighting to be taken seriously, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.520 to have some dignity, and they showed it as best 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.600 they could, marching in orderly lines in their Sunday best clothes. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.199 At the front of nearly every march, a six foot 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.560 two Slovenian woman marched with a giant American flag held 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.640 on a ten foot pole. She carried that thing for miles. 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.560 She was a socialist absolutely through and through, but she 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.880 held the American flag as the strike symbol because part 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.480 of what they were trying to say is that we 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.480 may not be from here though she was, although honestly 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.880 she probably wasn't an American citizen. One, I suspect that 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.439 she wasn't an American citizen because when she came back 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.079 from Europe they probably were like, you're an Austrian on 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.880 the passport, despite where she was born. And two also 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.760 she married an immigrant, and at the time that meant 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:57.720 that she would have had to give up her American 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.959 citizenship even if she had it. But she was sure 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.959 a shit born in America and by all actual rights, 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.000 well inasmuch as borders of any legitimacy, should have been 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.480 an American citizen. So she's carrying this flag to say it, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.840 we may not be from here, but we're as American 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.319 as anybody. Because so much of the hatred against them 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:21.320 was essentially xenophobia, it was also a provocation to carry 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.800 the flag, and her and another flag bearer were physically 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.120 attacked routinely for carrying it. She was cut by an 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.400 officer's bayonet for refusing to give him the flag she carried, 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.360 like she was slashed I think on the arm, like 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.440 through the flag by someone who was like, how dare 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.280 you carry the flag? And I find this okay. As tangent, 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.480 I find this really interesting because just the way that 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.600 people have used American flags for a political protest, have 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:52.440 it's changed meaning and context so many times. I remember 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:57.560 talking to a radical Union coal miner in West Virginia 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.000 a long time ago, and he had just been arrested 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.640 protesting mountaintop removal coal mining, and he was a retired miner, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.360 and I was talking to him about how he had 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.360 been a protester in the sixties, and among the things 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.640 that he said, I've probably told this story before. He 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:17.920 talks about how there he was on one street corner 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.520 and protesting the Vietnam War, and on the other street 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.400 corner black people fighting for black power, and another street 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.199 corner were gay people fighting for gay rights, and they 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:27.959 realized all of them be better off if they all 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.920 stood on the same street corner. I fucking love that. 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:32.920 But one of the other stories that he told me 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.920 was about how they actually put the American flag on 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.240 everything as a sign of disrespect to the flag, because 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.240 at the time, something like an American flag swimsuit would 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.480 be disrespectful. Right, the flag. You have certain rules. You're 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.400 not allowed to let it touch the ground. You can't. 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.520 You certainly can't just like pattern things on it, right, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:53.960 And so at one point he got pulled over and 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.720 he had an American flag draped over his car is 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.640 like a car seat basically, and I think he got 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.560 beat up up by the cop for having disrespected the 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.240 American flag by having it as this car seat. Whereas 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.880 now you tell that same story and you don't provide 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.800 any context, and it'll sound like they were really into 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.480 American symbolism. And so I only half understand what it 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.480 meant for these socialists to be marching carrying the American 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.920 flag at the time. You know, read a lot about it, 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.960 and she sure shit was stabbed for it, and she 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.120 fought physically. She described one day of picketing with her 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.440 and the other wives of miners. Quote, we took a 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.840 lunch and threw it in the face of two scabs. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.680 We jumped at them and fought with them. One of 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.040 them said, God damn you all smash your head in. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.760 One ran away and the other went in the auto. 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.360 I caught the latter by the coat and pulled so 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.720 hard that I am sure I tore it. Then they 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.120 pulled one of the ladies in the automobile and I 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.160 pulled her out. Then we went back of the automobile 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.840 and I lifted her up to pull the scab's hair, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.480 but the auto went off, and she was up every 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.920 morning at five am on the picket line, well before 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.240 the sun rose. She was arrested so many times the 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:13.440 police lost track. She was convicted three times, twice with 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.400 a fine, once with jail time for hitting a scab 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.520 with an umbrella. And when I say she was a 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.440 diehard socialist, there's one story of her laughing at a 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.040 striking worker being beat by the sheriff. Someone asked her 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.120 why she was laughing, like, okay, so this sheriff is 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.360 beating this striking worker and she's literally laughing at it. 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.640 She's like, Ahaha, fucked that guy. And someone's like, aren't 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:37.600 you on his side? Why are you laughing at him? 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.600 And she said, and I paraphrase, I told him to 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.040 vote for the socialists, and he voted instead for the 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.840 sheriff who's now beating him. Big Annie and the other 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.520 women organized three different women's locals of the Western Federation 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:55.120 of Miners. The Western Federation of Miners consider them auxiliaries, though, 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.920 and at least eight hundred card carrying women who participated 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.440 weren't allowed to come to the strike planning meetings or 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:07.360 vote on major issues. The male. Historian Lynden Comstock presents 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.239 the argument that the women were, on the whole substantially 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.040 more committed to the cause and would likely have voted 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.760 to continue the strike longer than the men. That the 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.520 ratio of men to women change substantially during the course 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.760 of the strike, as more men left and more women joined. 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.360 And I want to unfortunately go on a little small 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.920 tangent about Lynden Comstock in his book. He wrote a 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.120 book called Annie Clements and the Great Kiniwah Copper Strike, 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:36.080 and that's one of my main sources for this particular episode, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.000 especially a lot of the research about Big Annie herself 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:44.200 comes from that book. And unfortunately, there's more to that 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.200 book than I immediately know about. And I can truly 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.840 tell you with certainty because if you look up the 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.120 reviews of that book. When I read a history book, 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.520 I try to read what actual historians have to say 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.080 about that book, and you know, see what people agree 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.880 about or disagree with. And local history books have an 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:06.360 entirely different culture of how that work is done than 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.080 other books. And so the main comments I found on 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.600 that book are in Amazon reviews, and one woman who's 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.520 not named in the review because it's just an Amazon 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.639 user name states that she actually did the majority or 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.639 a lot of the research for that book and was 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.199 left essentially uncredited, including the acquisition of several of the 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.640 photos of Big Annie that were used, including on the cover. 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.399 And if so, that's a shame. I tried to believe 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.040 that men can write books about women and be respectful. 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.920 But if that's the case, that was not a respectful move. 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.200 And I just haven't had the opportunity to do more 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.879 research about that. But back to the actual story, the 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.840 strike dragged on. In a well organized strike by a 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:58.119 well funded union, strikers get strike benefits. They're basically paid 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.119 some percentage of the usual wage for their work as picketers. 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.600 Like so if you're usually paid to work in the minds, 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.800 you might get to, use a modern example, sixty percent 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.960 of your income to show up as a picketer instead, 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.160 because you sure aren't getting paid for mining while you're 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.520 on strike. And I've got a little bit of a 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.000 bias against the Western Federation of Miners in this era. 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.680 I'm a member of the IWW. They had just left 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.000 the IWW, so I have to be careful not to 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.000 talk too much shit like the fact that women's locals 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:28.719 had to be fought for by the women and who 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.040 weren't allowed to vote. Right. It's the kind of thing 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.120 that frustrates me when I read about this. So keep 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.280 my bias in mind when I'm talking about how the 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.080 Western Federation of Miners led this strike. The Western Federation 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.600 of Miners didn't have the resources for this strike, not really. 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.200 Strike benefits were rare and sparse, and you know, there's 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.280 all of these people talking about being like, well, I 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.000 went in for strike benefits and they just didn't have 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.360 anything for me today. And you know, so people are 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.080 really hungry. And it's probable, just like with an armchair 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.400 looking back one hundred and thirteen years later, it's probable 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.199 they called the strike too early because their coffers had 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.080 been drained by strikes further west in recent months before 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.320 this one. They hadn't had a chance to rebuild their 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:17.320 war chest, their strike chest as it were. Still, the 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.840 strikers knew what they were getting into, you know, they 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.680 knew that there was going to be hardship involved. That's 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:29.119 what a strike is. And the snows came. A November 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.080 blizzard brought ten inches of snow in one day, but 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.720 still they paraded through town and shut down mine entrances, 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.479 and eighty people were arrested during the storm. There'd been 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.080 an injunction past saying no one was allowed to pick it, 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.160 not even peacefully, but that injunction was ignored every single day, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.600 and at least in the first weeks, the only period 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.640 I found information about the strike was complete and successful, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.399 and not a single mind was running. And so in November, 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.080 a third force, after the militia and the strike breaker, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.560 was put together to fight them. So you've got the military, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:08.359 you've got the cop gangsters, and now you have a 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.600 counter union, the sort of thing that happens every single 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.959 time I've talked about it again and again on the show. Basically, 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:20.679 a astro turf that is fake grassroots community group comes together, 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:25.240 financed and directed by the bosses. Literally happens every time. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.040 This was called the Citizens Alliance, and the name wasn't 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:31.840 a coincidence either. It sounds like just sort of a 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.920 generic title, right, But they were saying we're the citizens, 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.360 were the real Americans, born and bred, and they were 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.040 financed by the mining companies, and they attacked the Western 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.119 Federation of Miners, officers and anybody associated with them, And 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.280 when I say attacked, I mean attacked like they're going 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:55.639 to shoot somebody pretty soon, right, And they exist to 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:57.959 make it seem like the whole story is two sided, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.920 that some locals were against the unions and some were 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.280 in favor of them, Like, oh, it's who's to say, 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.520 you know, the overwhelming majority of the people who work there, 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:08.880 or a couple other people who are like the children 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:14.560 of rich people, and both of equal weight. It's technically 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.000 true that some locals were against the unions and some 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.120 were in favor, but it is a lie by presenting 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.560 two very uneven groups as equally valid. And as workers 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:29.399 got more desperate, some decided to meet gunfire with gunfire. Again, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.159 I've run into conflicting information about how armed the strike was. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.359 Most of the history that I've read seems committed to 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.919 making the strike seem palatable to the modern audience, And 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.000 I don't even want to get mad at those historians. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.000 Almost every labor historian I've ever read does this, Like 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:51.240 everyone downplays the fact that things were spicy, right, because 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:53.760 everyone wants the miners, the strikers to be the sort 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:58.119 of poor, innocent victims of the evil, big bad barons 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.080 and by doing that, we remove people's agency. And I'm 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:03.920 not going to try and make the strike seem palatable 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.240 to you. I'm going to have my biases. They're going 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:07.960 to come through, but I'm going to try not to. 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.560 And when I read socialist and anarchist speakers talking about 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.160 the strike a few years afterwards, I run across people 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.680 saying things like the mistake that workers in Calumet made 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:23.159 was that they put down their weapons, so there were 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:28.680 probably more weapons involved than most people will say. It's 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:32.040 true that the Western Federation of Miners was very explicit 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:36.320 that they didn't want gunfighting. Throwing hands was probably fine, 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:38.960 but they made statements to the workers like it's better 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:41.840 to get shot and die than to shoot back, which 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:44.040 goes well with the fact that Mother Jones showed up 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.879 at this whole thing. I believe that Mother Jones was 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.679 essentially a fraud, seeing my episodes about her, Like in 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.480 West Virginia, for example, she worked very hard to keep 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.639 miners from getting too rowdy, including blind to them about 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.240 concessions that have been made in their favor, being like, 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.439 oh no, don't rise up violent. I heard from the 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.600 President himself that everything is going to be fine, and 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.160 she's just lying because she doesn't want people to get 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.639 too rowdy. I have a very low opinion of mother Jones, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.480 and a lot of accusations against embezzlement were levied against her. 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.440 She gets credit for having been a founder of the IWW. 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.880 She left very shortly after and disavowed it. Mother Jones 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.280 showed up at one point. My best read of the 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.600 situation is that the somewhat reformist union didn't want the 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.040 miners armed and encouraged them to disarm themselves even as 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.919 they were being gunned down in their own homes. I 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.360 don't even want to say specifically that they are inherently 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.520 bad for having done that. I just am trying to 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.800 I believe that that's what happened. They looked at the situation, 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:47.760 and with their set of values, they said that it 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:49.960 is a much better idea if this does not become 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:54.600