The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 14, 1918, Page 5

3.\ g 128 - E R 7N - Y 7 ol > ) <'$ & berths in a Pullman sleeper on the train, we weren’t allowed to do so, the conductor explaining that ‘it was against the rules, adding that he wasn’t re- sponsible for the rules, and adding to this: “What more can you expect when the govern- : ment is running the railroads?” I had heard before some talk of attempts on the part of railroad managements-to use employes that they could control to spread arguments against government ownership, but it was the first time I had seen it in actual ‘operation. Moreover, I was pretty sure the man was wrong, because not four months before I had bought a berth on the same kind of a ticket. But we made the best of it, and discovered that by tearing thé seats down in the day coach and balancing them on bags and the backs of other seats, we could make fairly comfort- able beds. And we did it and saved the money that would otherwise have gone to the. heirs of Mr. Pullman. And other topics of what is likely to happen " after the war were. brought up—queshons that 4 Montana Labor Under Copper ngs Special Interests Viciously Exploit Men as Well as Natural Resources Under Autocracy Built Up by Corrupting State Government The first of two chapters covering a recent investigation made on the ground. The second chapter will appear in the next issue of the Leader. BY HERBERT E. GASTON ~.STOOD in the corridor of the United States government building in the metropolis of a great western state, bidding goodby to a man who is a noted character there. As he stood shaking my hand he suddenly took on an air of great pre- -occupation, looked away from me toward a corner of the hall, and answered my parting words in an absent-mmded manner. Soon I noticed that his attention was not on me, but that he was intently watching a stairway which someone was descending. A man in overalls came into view. He proved to be, apparently, a janitor in the building. When he had passed out of the ' corner, my acquaintance faced me again. . world as the leader of a . forts by stirring up trou- . his” bed in a lodging . biles out to a railroad . ‘carried by a gang of A trivial incident, you will say. Yet not so trivial, but typical, rather, of this town of. Butte, Mont., principal city of the “Treasure state,” itself built on a hill under which nature has stored the wealth of an empire in useful metal. In Butte men eye each other with suspicion, and with good reason. The man with whom I had been talking had especially good reason for suspicion. He was Tom Campbell, president of the principal mine workers’ union in Butte, a man who has been advertised to. the band of traitors, block- ing the nation’s war ef- ble in the copper and zinc mines: I talked with Tom Campbell nearly all of a fall afterncon. I didn’t decide that he was a traitor. I decided that he was far from that; that he was a leader of men and an honest man. . If any one should ' be suspicious - of men in Butte Tom Campbell. should. A few months ago a cripple was assaulted in house in Butte, beaten into insensibility and masked men in automo- | THE NEW GANG TAMER | probably are being discussed all over the United States, not only in cantonments but in civil life -as well, such as these: How is the government going to find employment for its men when peace comes? How is it going to provide for the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, whowant a chance to go back on the soil ? With all the free land gone that is fit for farming, will the government seize some of the vast unde- veloped tracts, held for private speculation? How is the war debt going to be paid? After a while the conversation got rather hazy, as conversations are apt to do when the questions are too large, and especially when men are tired . from a hard day’s work. But I couldn’t help think- ing of the case of Private Joe Perkins and his sore throat, and myself and my tan shoes. Instead of waiting for trouble to arise, in future, isn’t the government likely to work up some scheme to meet trouble half way and prevent it, if possible? Aren’t the old proverbs, “A stitch in time saves trestle, where, in in- solent -mockery of the’ law, he was hanged by the neck until life was gone from his broken form. Then the threat was spread abroad in Butte that others would “get theirs.” The threat . was made definite against half a dozen others. These received cards signed by the cabalistic sym- bol of the old vigilantes of Montana, with numbers indi¢ating the order in which they were to go. Who were the gang that did these things? “In- dignant citizens,” says the hired press of Montana, “men of patriotism and respectability, anxious to protect the good name of Montana from agitators.” They refer to them as “vigilantes,” comparing them to the bold spirits who created law in mining camp days where only a fockery of law existed. But others are more specific about who these men were; and, I am inclined to think, more truthful. - - “Company gunmen,” they say. They tell it laconically, as a matter of fact, a thing with which every citizen of Montana and every visitor in Mon- tana should be familiar., B - The truth is that when Frank Little, the L W.W. to eternity at the end of regarded only in a nar- row sense as a violation of “law” in Montana. “The company,” the Anaconda Copper Min- ing company, is regard- ed as the law in Mon- - tana. What it orders to ‘be -done is done. Did Tom Campbell obey the orders of “the vigilantes” to leave Butte under threat’ of ,death? He did not. He and the - others who had been threatened merely bought guns for them- selves and for weeks slept in one room, fully guards alwajs on watch. But the vigilantes, per- haps deciding that with a little more such fla- ..grant .provocation the govemment the Unit- edu States -#light “decide ' to establish democracy in Montana, did not come. ", Campbell,: Dunn and . the others still: walk the streets of Butte—free men, except when they PAGE FIVE agitator, was thrown in- . a rope in Butte it was~ dressed, with armead . nine,” and “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,”. proved so valuable in the army, apt“to be applied in civil life, too? I don’t know, but for one I’'m inclined to think so. War insurance, almost every one is agreed, is one of the most statesmanlike and practical things of the century; it promises to nip in the bud the flood .of pension claims such as those that the govern- ment is still paying, with greater expense than ever, from a war of nearly 60 years ago. And per- sonally I'm inclined to think that the people at home, who have time for such things, are going to wake up and see that other things are settled too by the stitch-in-time method—that too big a war debt isn’t piled up; that plans for a welcome home for the soldiers will be made, not a mere brass- band welcome, but a welcome that will provide them chances to get the jobs that they are best fitted for, regardless of what they happened to be doing - before the war broke out. I don’t know whether these things will come to pass or not, but I hope they will. The rule of copper in Montana, which Mr. Gaston’s story on this page shows as bearing down viciously on labor, is also a deadly enemy of the farmer. With the aid of labor organized farmers in Montana will soon drive the copper autocrats out of political power there. are thrown into jail on one pretext or another by : local or state officers. . Not even the company itself will deny that these leaders of the union men in Montana are brave men and faithful to a cause.. Nor have we yet seen a denial that these are men of ideals of hu- nlan liberty, men willing to fight and to sacrifice that .others shall have greater liberty and greater opportunity. ) But they call them “agitators,” “IL. W. W.,” “So- cialists,” “visionaries.” What a tragic mistake it is when men who are at- tached to liberty, to equality of opportunity, who are willing to fight and to die for the very fruits of de- mocracy, are put into a position of opposition to our ‘boys who are fighting for those very thmgs abroad. A partial strike was on in the mines of Butte when I was there. fourth- or more had left their' jobs. Who had or- dered the strike no one seemed to know or to be ready to admit knowledge. The call had come in an anonymous poster signed by a “miners’ commit- tee,” but with no names. - Many miners left “the hill” in response to the call. Many, undecided whether they ought to obey the call or not, had left Butte to go to work in other camps. Thomas Campbell and others of the Independ- ent Metal Mine Workers’ union, the larger of the two miners’ unions in.Butte, are outspoken in their opinion about this strike. “It is a company strike,” they say. “It was _ brought about by tools of the company agitating among the union men. “The object? Just another step in the program of breaking the backs of the miners’ ynions.”” " It is the charge of the men that the company . regularly employs spies who enroll themsleves in the unions and who not only report what is said and done in union meetings, but who are commis- éion_ed with the task of either controlling the unions ‘in the interest of the company or of promoting revo- lutionary tactics among the unions with the object of discrediting the unions and breaking them up.’ These tactics, they say, were responsible for the dlsruptlon of the old Western Federation of Min- ers’ union and the dynamiting of its hall in Butte in 1914. This ruined hall, by the way, still stands on Main street—is allowed to stand by the com- pany—as an exhibit of the violence of the miners and their inability to _govern themselves. It is a monument, say the union men, to the fact that the = company will not leave the miners’ unions alone to operate and to represent the interests of the men, but, is continually intriguing to dlscredlt and bo destroy ‘them. Of some 25,000 miners em- ° . ployed in the mines of Butte and the vicinity a Tt ————— e |