Rebel Voices
Page 60
Forget the plea they silenced with their lead,
Forget the hillside strewn with murdered dead
Where once they drove me—mocked me when I fell
All black and bloody by their holes of hell,
While all my loved ones wept uncomforted?
Is this the land my fathers fought to own—
Here where they curse me—beaten and alone?
But God, it’s cold! My children sob and cry!
Shall I go back into the mines and wait,
And lash the conflagration of my hate—
Or shall I stand and fight them till I die?
2
WHEN THE LEAVES COME OUT
By A PAINT CREEK MINER
The hills are very bare and cold and lonely;
I wonder what the future months will bring?
The strike is on—our strength would win, if only—
O, Buddy, how I’m longing for the spring!
They’ve got us down—their martial lines enfold us;
They’ve thrown us out to feel the winters sting,
And yet, by God, those curs could never hold us,
Nor could the dogs of hell do such a thing!
It isn’t just to see the hills beside me,
Grow fresh and green with every growing thing.
I only want the leaves to come and hide me,
To cover up my vengeful wandering.
I will not watch the floating clouds that hover
Above the birds that warble on the wing;
I want to use this GUN from under cover—
O, Buddy, how I’m longing for the spring!
You see them there below, the damned scab-herders!
Those puppets on the greedy Owners’ String;
We’ll make them pay for all their dirty murders—
We’ll show them how a starving hate can sting!
They riddled us with volley after volley;
We heard their speeding bullets zip and ring,
But soon we’ll make them suffer for their folly—
O, Buddy, how I’m longing for the spring!
3
THE MINE GUARD
By A PAINT CREEK MINER
You cur! How can you stand so calm and still
And careless while your brothers strive and bleed?
What hellish, cruel, crime-polluted creed
Has taught you thus to do your master’s will,
Whose guilty gold has damned your soul until
You lick his boots and fawn to do his deed—
To pander to his lust of boundless greed,
And guard him while his cohorts crush and kill?
Your brutish crimes are like a rotten flood—
The beating, raping, murdering you’ve done—
You sycophantic coward with a gun:
The worms would scorn your carcass in the mud;
A bitch would blush to hail you as a son—
You loathsome outcast, red with fresh-spilled blood!
4
Pat Brennan, author of the popular “Harvest War Song,” composed these verses which appeared in Voice of the People (September 17, 1914).
DOWN IN THE MINES
By PAT BRENNEN
We delve in the Mines, down below, down below.
Yes, we delve in the Mines down below;
We give to the World all the wealth that we mine,
Yet we’re slaves to the mines down below;
We’re stripped to the waist like a savage of old,
Down in the regions where cold is unknown.
Our Masters have made us, for ages untold,
Their Slaves in the mines down below, down below,
Their Slaves in the mines down below.
With shovel and pick we work till we’re sick,
Down in the mines down below, down below;
Down in the mines, down below.
With hammer and drill we drive and we fill
Our lungs with the gases, the gases that kill;
We’re sent to the “Flats,” all rigid and still,
Us Slaves from the mines down below, down below,
Us Slaves from the mines down below.
But let’s stand together for once at the top,
Then you bet your sweet life the murders will stop—
And don’t go to work till you’ve had your own way,
Down in the mines down below, down below,
Down in the mines, down below.
5
This unsigned song appeared in Solidarity (August 5,1916) during the strike of the iron ore miners on the Mesabi Range in Minnesota.
Solidarity, September 16, 1916.
THE IRON ORE MINERS
(Written in Jail)
(Tune: “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”)
The Miners of the Iron Range
Know there was something wrong
They banded all together, yes,
In One Big Union strong.
The Steel Trust got the shivers,
And the Mine Guards had some fits,
The Miners didn’t give a damn,
But closed down all the pits.
Chorus—
It’s a long way to monthly pay day,
It’s a long way to go
It’s a long way to monthly pay day,
For the Miners need the dough,
Goodbye Steel Trust profits,
The Morgans they feel blue.
It’s a long way to monthly pay day
For the miners want two.
They worked like hell on contract, yes,
And got paid by the day,
Whenever they got fired, yes,
The bosses held their pay.
But now they want a guarantee
Of just three bones a day,
And when they quit their lousy jobs
They must receive their pay.
Chorus—
It’s the wrong way to work, by contract
It’s the wrong way to go.
It’s the wrong way to work by contract
For the Miners need the dough.
Goodbye bosses’ handouts,—
Farewell Hibbing Square.
It’s the wrong way to work by contract
You will find no Miners there.
John Allar died of Mine Guards’ guns
The Steel Trust had engaged.
At Gilbert, wives and children
Of the Miners were outraged
No Mine Guards were arrested,
Yet the law is claimed to be
The mightiest conception
Of a big democracy.
Chorus—
It’s the wrong way to treat the Miners,
It’s the wrong way to go.
It’s the wrong way to best the Miners,
As the Steel Trust soon will know.
God help those dirty Mine Guards,
The Miners won’t forget.
It’s the wrong way to treat the Miners,
And the guards will know that yet.
The Governor got his orders for
To try and break the strike.
He sent his henchmen on the Range,
Just what the Steel Trust liked.
The Miners were arrested, yes,
And thrown into the jail,
But yet they had no legal rights
When they presented bail.
It is this way in Minnesota
Is it this way you go?
It is this way in Minnesota,
Where justice has no show.
Wake up all Wage Workers,
In One Big Union strong.
If we all act unified together,
We can right all things that’s wrong.
Chorus—
It’s a short way to next election,
It’s a short way to go.
For the Governor’s in deep reflection
As to Labor’s vote, you know.
Goodbye, Dear Old State House,<
br />
Farewell, Bernquist there.
It’s a short way to next election
And you’ll find no Bernquist there.
Get busy, was the order to
The lackeys of the Trust,
Jail all the Organizers
And the Strike will surely bust.
Trump up a charge, a strong one,
That will kill all sympathy,
So murder was the frame-up,
And one of first degree.
Chorus—
It is this way in Minnesota
Is it this way you go?
It is this way in Minnesota,
Where justice has no show.
Wake up all Wage Workers,
In One Big Union strong.
If we all act unified together,
We can right all things that’s wrong.
6
The following five songs were included in an undated, paperbound collection of twenty-five poems and songs, titled New Songs for Butte Mining Camp. Acquired by I.W.W. member John Neu-house and now in the library of folklorist Archie Green, this booklet has been microfilmed by the Stanford University Library. A copy of the microfilm is in the Labadie Collection.
Page Stegner, in an unpublished study, “Protest Songs from the Butte Mines,” wrote: “It may safely be said that few if any of the songs in this book have ever been reprinted, and there is considerable doubt whether they were widely known in Butte even at the time they were written. Apparently, they never entered oral tradition, the principal scholars in the field have not noted their existence, and they are not remembered by anyone yet interviewed who lived and worked in Butte. In any scholarly definition they cannot be considered folksongs, yet this does not eliminate their importance to the folklorist or the labor historian. Their real value lies in the insights they give into the actual causes of the strikes and labor problems from the viewpoint of the miner and labor organizer. Furthermore, they are representative not only of the causes of labor agitation, but also of what the labor organizers thought would be the most stirring issues among Butte workmen and most useful for organizing the labor class. They are social documents of this class in the Butte mining area.”
Tom Campbell, who is mentioned in these poems, was the Butte miners’ leader who ran against Charles Moyer for the presidency of the Western Federation of Miners in 1912, charging that W.F.M. officials had done nothing to oppose the newly instituted “rustling card” system in Butte nor the discharge of a large number of Finnish Socialist miners. Campbell was expelled from the W.F.M. for these charges. In 1917 he was elected president of a new union, the Metal Mine Workers, formed after the June 1917 Speculator Mine fire of the North Butte Mining Company.
“Con” Kelly was Cornelius Kelly, vice-president of the Anaconda Copper Company, the largest ore producer in Butte. Kelly is reported to have said that he would see the grass grow on the muck heaps in Butte before meeting the demands for better working conditions presented to the company by the I.W.W. This remark is preserved in Scottie’s song, “Cornelius Kelly.”
Page Stegner noted: “Perhaps one of the most important contributions of the song book to labor history and the labor historian is the way in which several of the songs reflect the difficulties labor organizers had in breaking down ethnic barriers and getting workers to cooperate with other racial groups. Scottie’s song, ‘Workers Unite,’ is one of the best examples of this problem.”
Both Scottie and Joe Kennedy were remembered by a retired electrician, Tiger Thompson, a Wobbly who worked in the mines of Butte in 1917 and 1918, who was interviewed by Stegner in Portola Valley, California.
THE MINER
By “SCOTTIE”
(Tune: “Standard on the Braes O May”)
The miners in the mines of Butte
Are in rebellion fairly,
The gathering clouds of discontent
Are spreading fast and surely.
The miner’s life is full of strife,
In stopes and drifts and raises,—
Don’t judge him hard, give him his due,
He needs our loudest praises.
Down in these holes each shift he goes
And works mid dangers many,
And gets the “miner’s con” to boot,
The worst disease of any;
In hot-boxes he drills his rounds,
Midst floods of perspiration,
And clogs his lungs with copper dust,—
A hellish occupation.
The merry breezes never blow
Down in these awful places
The sun’s rays are one-candle power
That shines on pallid faces;
The only birds that warble there
Are “buzzies” and “jack hammers,”
Their song is death in every note,
For human life they clamour.
Conditions such as these, my friends,
Have made the miners rebels,
The under-current is gaining strength,
The mighty system trembles;
The revolution’s coming fast,
Old institutions vanish,
The tyrant-rule from off the earth
For evermore ‘twill banish.
7
THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING
By “SCOTTIE”
(Tune: “The Campbells Are Coming”)
The Campbells are coming, Hooray! Hooray!
The “Campbell’s real union” is here to stay
The buttons are blazing, the bosses are raving
The Campbells are coming, Hooray! Hooray!
The Englishman, Scotchman and Irishman, too,
American, Dutchman, Finlander and Jew,
Solidarity, July 7, 1917.
Are all turning Campbells, good luck to the day,
The Campbells are coming, Hooray! Hooray!
The rustling card system, it sure has to go,
Six dollars we ask and more safety below,
And after awhile six hours in the day
The Campbells are coming, Hooray! Hooray!
The prostitute-press is bucking us hard,
And the A. F. of L. is just quite as bad,
But well show them all we’re made of right clay,
The Campbells have come and they’re going to stay.
The Campbells are coming, Hooray! Hooray!
The “real Campbell’s union” is here to stay,
The buttons are blazing, the bosses are raving,
The Campbells are coming, Hooray! Hooray!
Solidarity, July 14, 1917.
8
CORNELIUS KELLY
Of all the men in old Butte City,
That needs contempt or even pity,
There’s one that rules on the Sixth Floor
That’s got them all skinned, by the score.
This old gent’s name is Cornelius Kelly,
Was meant to crawl upon his belly,
But listen, boys, he’s good and true
The Company’s interests to pull thru,
But when it comes to working men,
He’d rather see them in the pen,
Or burning in eternal hell,—
His nostrils would enjoy the smell.
“The grass would grow,” so says this plute,
“In Anaconda and in Butte,
Before I meet the men’s demands,
As this is final as it stands.”
All right, old boy, the time will tell,
You cannot stop the ocean’s swell;
It’s we who dig the copper ore,
While you lie in your bed and snore;
It’s we who fold our arms and stand
Until we get our just demand.
Five months ago we told you so—
(The grass is coming very slow).
9
THE COPPER STRIKE OF ‘17
By JOE KENNEDY
On the twelfth of June we called a strike
Which filled the miners with deligh
t,
In union strong we did unite,
On the rustling card to make a fight.
The Bisbee miners fell in line,
And believe me, Miami was not far behind;
In Globe they surely were on time,
To join their striking brothers.
The companies were money mad,
This strike made dividends look sad;
The men to Con these words did say,
“They’ll be twice as short before next May.”
The local press it came out bold
And said it must be German gold,
Although we did not have a dime
The morn we hit the firing line.
Although we re classed as an outlaw band,
We’ve surely made a noble stand,
Our fight is just for liberty
And make Butte safe for democracy.
Six hundred gunmen came to town
And tried to keep the strikers down,
In spite of all we re full of vim,
Our password is, “we re bound to win!”
The old war-horse is in the game
I know all rebels heard his name,
For thirty years and more, I’m told,
His fellow-workers never sold.
The A.C.M. they tried their skill,
When Fellow-Worker Little’s blood did spill,
The day will come when union men
Will have a voice in Butte again.
Fellow-Worker Campbell, true and bold,
His comrades would not sell for gold;
He said to Con, “Why, 111 get mine
By standing on the firing line.”
Now respect to all true union men,
Who have courage to fight until the end;
To copper barons we will say,
“The rustling card has gone to stay.”
10
WORKERS UNITE
By “SCOTTIE”
Ye sons that come from Erin s shore,
Just list to what I’ve got in store,
Of Celtic race and blood you came,
Of fighting blood and noble strain.
Your blood on every battle field,
You’ve shed for master class to wield,
The Iron Hand in name of state,
To bring you to an awful fate.
But, Irishmen, you’re not to blame,
In other lands it’s just the same,
The workers of the world are slaves,
The parasites are heartless knaves.