The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 21, 1918, Page 3

. The Bomartiin Tader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League In tlle interest A magazine that dares to of a square deal for the farmers print the truth ‘ . - unions, in using one union to d,eteat _stuff was' being printed and I called " operating in Butte. One is the union ‘copper company, mnor has any ‘been VOL’.@ 7, NO. 16 ‘ST. PAUL MINNESOTA, OCTOBER 21, 1918 WHOLE NUMBER 161: PrusSran Spy System of Copper Kings How Montana Interests Fight Labor With Private Detectives, Gunmen and Corrupt Public Off1c1als—Cr1mes Committed to Discredit Labor Unions Second-chapter of story covering recent in- vestigation made by well-known League man. BY HERBERT E. GASTON = |VIDENCE of how the secret #| agents and gunmen promote labor troubles and violence was revealed to me by Camp- bell and later corroborated by a government official. | . A man who had worked him- union man in the present crisis has confessed that he is a detective employed by a well-known detective agency whose services are hired by the company.' * “This man,” said Campbell, “came to me at_the time of the strike last year and offered to be of what .service he could in writing bulletins and in preparing. legal cases. of defending some of our men who had been ar- rested. He said that he was preparing for prac- ~ tice ‘as a lawyer, though workmg as-a miner, ‘and: that he would be glad to help without charge. . “I was suspicious of the man and rejected his offéer. A little later I found that he had-made him- self very friendly with the young man who was writing our bulletins, pub- lished every other day for clrcnlatxon among-the men. These bulletins were to have been submitted every day to Sullivan, our attorney, before being printed. I saw that some very violent on Sullivan one day to ask him what he meant by lettmg that sort of stuff g0 by.. . ; “I found that he hadn’t seen the bulletins in more than a week and I found also that this- man of whom I ‘'speak was suggesting: or writing the matter that went into the bulletins. “That very day indictments based on the matter printed in these bulle- tins were returned against a number of our officers, including myself.” There are two miners’ .unions now of. which Campbell is the head. It was formed after the g'reat disaster in the Speculator mine in June, 1917. It has no affiliations with-any national orgamzatlon. The other and- rival union was established later. It goes under the name of Metal Mine Work- ers’ Industrial union, and is admit- tedly a branch of the I. W. W.. : “Why is it,” ‘asked ‘Campbell, “that this I. W. W. union is permitted to operate in Butte without interference by. the government or the company? They have never tried to break it up and: they take pains to advertise its eadquarters and’its meetings.”? - The answet, says Campbell, is that. the company is interested in promot- mg uvalry and dlsputes ‘between another and in havmg a unidn ‘into . which its agents can insinuate them- eelgs to control its actnons. Ve "No nmong is. recogmzed by i':he-‘ recognized. since the dlsqolutlon of ‘the - Mzermumon West : He wanted the privilege: self mto some prommence as a - and hstens to complaints, when it hstens at all, only from individuals. Since the present strike of the miners began public meetings of miners have been held. The I. W._ W. union has assumed a certain amount of - open responsibility for the strike. Campbell’s union has not openly indorsed nor openly denounced the strike. Demands have been made which represent the things the miners have been long fighting for. «-“The company,” says Campbell, “is trying to get us into a trap either way. If we come out against a strike which is trying to get the men what they want, then the company’s tools will tell the men that we are a scab outfit and playing the com- pany’s game.” But if we indorse the strike they will call us traitors and try to get us in the fed- eral penitentiary.” - The things openly demanded by the miners are an eight-hour day “from collar to collar,” that is, eight hol}rs from the time of reporting for duty at the mine to leaving the mine, the rlght to send a committee of inspection through the mines every six ‘months, with the privilege of asking sanitary - or other ehanges in the mines, and the abolition of the “rustling card.” Ever since it was introduced in 1912, the “rust- 2 Because no landlord in- Butte. would rent ‘business oflices to the umone, the _organized workers there use this abandoned church as their. headquerlere. Their. old headquarters, which was ‘bombed as Mr. Gaston said in the previous chapter of this story, by company spies, is on company property and the com-’ ; plny leaves: the old: ‘building just as it was after the explosion in 1914 as a arning. to nnion men and as a pretended example to outsiders of how ” men: who: form unions to better then' conditions are. ~ made “seditious statements.” ling card” has been the most fruitful cause of all trouble between the miners and the company. It is a card which a miner must obtain from a cen- tral “rustling card” office and which he must have in order to work in any of the mines. “Rustling cards” are refused at the will of mine company officials. They enable the company to weed out men for “political activity,” for taking too prom- inent.a part in union affairs, or for any other mat- ter. It is evident that one of their purposes was and is to drive out of Butte any miner who engages in any activity distasteful to the company. They~ are customarily, say the men, used against umon leaders. But these are not the only means used to get- rid of “objectionable” men, as the Frank Little" incident indicates. Just a day before I visited Butte there had been a kllhng ‘“on the hill.” A man more or less prom- inent in union circles was shot and killed by a man admfl:tedly in the employ of the copper company in some other capacity than that of miner and said by the men to be generally. known as a “gunman.” The man who did the killing said that his victim ~What-a handy alibi that is in these days! . They tell also a recent incident. of" a pohceman named Lincoln who testi- fied in favor of a miner who shot and ‘killed .a known “gunman.” .The ‘po- liceman said that the shot was in self- defense. - A change of venue was ob- tained for the trial and on the police- man’s story the union man was freed. But the policeman had no such good fortune. He was mysteriously mur- dered while on his beat a few nights later. Union leaders tell ‘of repeated efforts to engage them in quarrels. Frequently they travel in pairs, armed. When I was in Butte an agent of the 'United States war labor board was on hand to make an investigation of conditions. The men have repeat- edly pleaded for .such a federal in- -vestigation. In resolutions the min- government take over control of the mines and they have pledged them- ‘selves to cheerful work under govern- ment control. They have read the statement of the assistant secretary of - labor that there is to be no “conscrip-' tion of labor” without conscription of; mine and factory. They say that the; conditions at Butte are far worse than the conditions of employment. -Underneath the hill on which the city of Butte is built is a great net- work of intersecting tunnels, drifts and shafts going down thousands’ of feet. center of the city is being mined some of the richest copper ore ever taken out of the ground. Above gwound and below “the company” rules. : Shift bosses distribute the “requests” of the - candidates, ity councils, . pany on' the sixth floor of the Hen: nessy building. The city of Butte itself is the pe o4 fect product of the system “whic * built xt.-, Aa one pnsles _ ers have asked that the United States- “conscription of labor,” because the copper company is absolute master of " Right undemeath the business - ‘company for votes for their favored legisla- . tures, governors and United States;