8 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, March 1, 1919 Butte Soviet Strike Travelog peculiarity to the revolutish. Theycale above any other in Butte; enersentality towers out up general.
ITERE are cities in America which, one feels, By Harold Lord Varney Bulletin, with its passionate summonings to strike, is found and real everywhere.
associated with stirring revolutionary traditions.
the six months struggle. And the growth or even the newsboys were class conscious. When Or else they are enacting the revolutionary drama halted with only a few hundred Finns.
the strike began, they spuned the Butte Miner and today. Such a city is Chicago. Such a city is Paterson, or Seattle, Wash. Such a city is Butte, But after the strike, the tide began to turn. Slowly, thc Butte Post. Many were the fights between the but steadily, the membership mounted uployal little fellows until not a boy was left to sell the Mont.
ward. Campbell control of the Irish found a powerorgans of the. And so the menace of a lying In Butte, ideas which are wildly new, elsewhere, are traditional and common place. Proletarianism is full adversary old Joe Shannon. Volumes could be press was averted. The truth of the strike was pub written about Joe Shannon. For thirty years he has lished and read and popularized.
an accepted theory. Class consciousness is surpris battled the His And although the Bulletin was founded and owned ingly gener Even the dread letters. are by the of uions it is not opposed to the a badge of popularity, and the w. feels here in rule, compelling force He was a leader in the On the contrary, Bolshevism and the all the familarity of home for Butte claims the honor flare up of 1914. Gradually now, in the early months find favorable interpretation in its columns. The of being the birthplace of the Wobly. For it was of 1918. he swung the Irish miners to the shares in the management. The policy here in Butte, in the long ago year of 1893, that the of the Bulletin is the policy of a One Big Union. It Western Federation of Miners organized, and the In September, 1918. when the outrage of the Chiis opposed to craft autonomy. It seeks revolutionary Western Federation of Miners was but the opening cago convictions was wired to Butte, the unionism. It does not Ainch from exposing even phase of the Industrial Workers of the World. was strong enough to call out 6, 000 miners on a three unions of the of when, like the engineers, Naturally, then, in coming to Butte upon the sumweeks protest strike. And what was more significant, they prove disloyal to labor broader cause.
it was strong enough to return to work again intact.
mons of the strike, foresaw a revolutionary strugLong has the labor movement needed such dailies ple. And now, in the heart of the fight. do not It was on Feb. 6, that this third and present strike as the Bulletin. Let us liope that the present surge hes tate to state that this Third Butte Strike is the began. The drunk and mad with the unof the New nionism will bring many ach voices most perfect and class conscious of all the strikes bridled lust of its war profits, determined to cut in its wake.
of the wages. With 53. 000, 000 of undivided profits in its Such are the forces which have combined in this Butte, even in normal times, seems colorful and a day. And the next day. The workers rushed from epoch making Butte Soviet Strike. With a harmony which is unbelievable, they are fighting the altitude ratified of atmosphereFringed by a circle the mines. By the second day, the mines were empty.
of mine dotted mountains, which, in the winter By the third day, the strikers were turning to other and their gigantic opponent is already on the run, crafts and planning to make the tie up stand white and státely with their snows this copper It is literally, an entire city in arms against the copper trust. But the only weapon which they bear eyes of city bursts upon the blase the The at last dominated the miners.
traveller from It is the one weapon which is indomitable solidarity.
the east, as a city unutterably different. And, upon was discovered that their membership had passed the closer intimacy. as he brushes against the strata of 5, 000 mark before the stike began. With the strike The outstanding figure of the situation is its population, he learns that its people are unlike on, new hundreds swarmed in.
Emblee. His name strange to many even of the students of the He does not belong to the any others. Human temperaments in Butte are un And as they had grown, Campbell independent old deniably Butesque.
union had declined. It mustered only 200 men when group who led the and sprang into the third strike came.
In times of strike, the difference is cast into a deepAnd it has acted merely as national fame at Lawrence and Paterson: Haywood. Ettor Flyn Tresca.
an auxiliary throughout the present situation.
er relief. Class lines approach a bitterness here, unHis personality is not spectacular: le does not attempt oratory Embree dreamed of, in other cities. The great copper octoBut the have not attempted to press their pus the leaps into conflict like a madden control. They have shared it. They have taken adrepresents the new generation of leadership which is slowly coming to the fore in the place of the old.
ed, revengeful beast. And the workers, since their vantage of this strike situation to cement a new unity Fle is western in psychology. His education was in tragic lesson of 1914. meet the assault with ranks with the of craft unions of Butte. They the Western Federation of Miners. He is an executdisciplined by an unwavering goal of Revolution. have admitted these unions into joint control with ive, not an possibly, in this distinction, the basic He is a strategist, not a spellIt was this discipline which first struck me. The them of the strike. They have taken a leaf from binder. And strike. was a week old when came. had read the Russia and from Seattle. They have formed a So difference between the of Lawrence days capitalist papers and was prepared for scenes vict.
and the ci soday, is made inost plain. It chaos and riot. did not find them.
In this Soviet the Soldiers. Sailors and Workers is Embree who generals the strike at Butte.
Instead, there was quiet and furposeful restraint.
Council every bona fida union in Butte, except MoyThe nines were closed and smokeless. The streets His control of the miners springs from their coner aggregation of engineers, is affiliated. The conHe knows the miners and he knows the were crowded with idle men, but they shuffled along trol of the strike is vested in this delegate body. It in a strange calmness. From time to time, soldiers was this body which decided to make the strike gen strike which perished in the deporation. His perComer Trust. He fought at Bisbee and he led the clattered past with rifles and ugly looking bayonets.
eral. And SO began to follow But there were no fights. The strikers kept their the electric ans, the machinists, the street car men, orality inspires belief and his decisions are tactical and lucid. And his courage, has never Alinched from way with indifference and the footsteps of the solthe smelter workers, the boiler makers, the molders, diers died away in the crunching snow. No street it fight.
the laborers. the culinary workers one by one, they The Inder such leadership, the strike grinds on.
cars were running. The quiet of Sabbath, or better, came off the job in a general city wide revolt. And issue of course is still speculative. But come victory of a holiday. was everywhere.
like a permanent governing body, this Soviet sits or defeat, one battle has already been won the minTo visual ze the Butte situation. one must view it cortinuously, legislating every detail of the changing crises.
ers are organized. And their organization will go in the frame of its labor factors. And these factors, back, stronger for the fight. And the Soviet, grown in this present strike are four. splendid advantage was won by the strikers when from this strike. will become an institution in the ist. The they enlisted the support of the returned soldiers. laber movement of the city an indestructible organ 2nd, The Independent Metal Mine Workers Despite tremendous pressure from the the of solidarity. Its very existence will continue to boys from France enlisted in this new fight against constitute an argument for unity.
Union.
the least of Butte. They headed the picket lines, 3rd, The Soldiers. Sailors and Workers Council.
clal in their uniforms. They put one over the But there is one organization in Butte which has ith. The Butte Daily Bulletin.
bosses when they entered the Army and Navy Club been false to the cause of labor from the beginning.
To consider them singly, the power of the first meeting. Like similar bodies in other cities, the This is the Engineers, organized in the of litte Army and Navy Club is a counter revolutionAs in the 1917 factor, the in Butte was undreamed of they have refused ratil the present strike revealed it. Again and again, cildiers. puddenly swarming in to exercise their ary junta, controlled by city politicians. But to join in the fight of the miners. They have refused to enter the Soviet. And while every of in the nast. the had attempted to come into boily in Putte lookeel to them as an example, they Butte and had failed.
in 1914, it spurred prerogative 10 votc. captured the organization, enthe riners to free themselves from the coil of Moyer dorseel the strike, and elected delegates to the Soviet.
attempted to bludgeon the spirit of the ism, it smashed the old Miners Union and wreckel voting against it, two to one. If defeat comes, the Of course, retaliation followedl. The local Red responsibility will be obvious. And if the temper of the old Miners Hall, but then came the saturnalia Cross officials blacklisted all pro strike soldiers and of martial law and the bayonet drove them from the the other of bodies in Butte can be used barred them from the relief funds. And a detach by the utterances in the a Soviet, defeat in the city. After that, followed a blighted per od of three ment of regulars, sent to Butte by the governor. drove will bring a definite rift in the ranks of the of years in which the rustling card reigned unchallenged the pickets from the hill and stripped off the uniforms unions and be the precursor of a secession of and unionisin was but a word of whispers.
from the W: solliers.
crafts to the There is a bitter undercurThe s. tried again in 1917 and paid into But, despite persistent provocation, the strikers rent among the union men against the Engineers.
the struggle the life of their bravest fighter, Frank hell their hands from violence. Strenuous efforts Anel day by day, this undercurrent is threatening the Little. And by 1917, they had found a new and were made to declare martial law. The regular of itself. Certainly, whatever the outcome, unspeakable following the Fons. But the supre troops picked and thought proof, for this strike the will emerge with a prestige and a suppracy of the in the 1917 strike was blocked dutyharried the citizens on the streets, justled port which it never had before.
sturdy.
Illile there have been no general arrests so fai, The strike of 1917 can best be described as a struzmeie ma monets. On February 10, they raided the the. is expected to seek reprisals soon. The gle hetween the Finns and the Irish. It is these two building. Iroke up a mass meeting, and Trust owned press is demanding arrests. If their nationalities which fill Butte. And in 1917, the Irisht cisared out the strikers. But the s were words are an index to the future. it will be the Finns were stalwart followers of Tom Campbell grimy sitent and the troops marched away. who will be made to suffer for the strike. Wholesale (ambal threw luis weight against the But apart from the and the Soviet, the deportation is demanded by the Miner. reWhen the 12. 000 Butte rushed out of the outstanding factor of the strike is the courageous solution has been introduced in the Montana Legismines in that wild, precipitate stampede, they did utte Daily Bulletin. In other strikes, the workers Inture for similar action. But the Finns themselves not follow the example of their Arizona brothers. have been paralyzed because publicity was in the are blandlv indifferent. should worry, one of Instead of the they followed Campbell. lands of the pluies. In strikes. the venom them chuckled in a recent mceting. And this is the And he organized them in an independent union tha of the press has been a barbed and fatal foe. But spirit of all the strikers.
Metal Mine Workers Union. It was this union, in Butte. the situation is grotesquely reversed. Here, Undoubtedly, the next chapters of the strike will with its 4, 000 enrolled members, which dominated it is the capitalist papers which are silenced: and the soon he enacted.
fidence.
other crafts the miners It may Bute