Wobbling

Whether or not they know what the Industrial Workers of the World* are all about, the soft coal miners of Colorado have been listening to I. W. W. organizers since last summer when the "Wobblies" engineered a "sympathetic" strike in behalf of the late anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti. Colorado mine operators discountenanced the comparatively conservative United Mine Workers some time ago, introducing company unions to replace branches of the A. F. of L. subsidiary. Wages having been depressed below the Jacksonville scale, the I. W. W., one of whose favorite phrases is "Yours till the next big strike," saw a chance to foment general unrest in Colorado after the success of their Sacco-Vanzetti demonstration. That, plus the natural desire of laborers for higher pay, and the tendency of coaldiggers to suspect their washed-&-brushed employers, was the background of "wobbling" last week in Colorado.

In September, 198 delegates from Colorado mines met at Aguilar, Colo., under I. W. W. auspices. The delegates had been elected by mass-meetings at many a mine. They unanimously endorsed demands drawn up by the I. W. W. including: a) restoration of the Jacksonville minimum wage; b) recognition of the miners' state committee; c) recognition of the miners' agents at mine tripples to check coal weighing (to ensure fair pay for digging done).

The Aguilar conference filed notice of a strike with the Colorado Industrial Commission, as required by law. The Commission investigated the conference and pronounced it unrepresentative of all the coal miners of Colorado. The conference offered to submit its demands to a referendum of all the miners at mass meetings. Then the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co.'s company union, and other local labor bodies, discharged from their ranks all I. W. W. sympathizers. The Industrial Commission pronounced the I. W. W. an outlaw organization and its proposed strike illegal.

In Walsenberg, Colo., where are the state headquarters of the I. W. W., members of the Chamber of Commerce, with the mayor's authority, raided the I. W. W. office. "Smalltown imitation Fascisti," sneered the I. W. W. The next day, Oct. 16, meeting at Pueblo, they called their strike.

The strike "took." Some 4,000 men walked out at once. Some 3,500 joined them later. The I. W. W. took great care to use peaceful methods. Weapons were forbidden. U. S. flags, usually carried by children, headed their processions. Women joined the marches to mines which were still operating, notably a Mrs. Santa Bernash of Trinidad, whose most famed exploit was scratching and rumpling some guards who tried to detain her at a bridgehead near Ludlow.* Her followers pitched two of the guards into Bear Creek. She was arrested, jailed, and to take her place at the marching picketers' head came her sister, Amelia Siblich, called "Flaming Milka" for the bright red dress she wore.

Handsome, young, fearless, scornful, "Flaming Milka" marched to one mine after another in the southern Colorado district, day after day adding to her following. "Don't work, men!" she cried. "A strike is on. Stand by your comrades." Pointing at mine-guards with fixed bayonets, she would cry: "They can't dig coal with bayonets!"

As Milka said, she "fought like hell," until a mounted mine guard rode her down, seized her by the hand, dragged her along, broke her wrist. After that she only addressed mass meetings. One day she went to Trinidad Jail to see some of the I. W. W. organizers and the sheriff gave her a cell of her own.

In most sections it was a fairly friendly strike, with jokes and chaffing between picketers and guards--until last week. Then Louis N. Scherf, whom Governor William H. Adams had placed in charge of the State Law Enforcement Bureau, which was revived to meet the strike conditions, heard of a mass meeting to be held at Boulder prior to an advance on the Columbine mine, one of the few properties in the northern part of the state which had been able to continue operations. Mr. Scherf took a squad of 20 state police and hurried upstate to the Columbine. Adjutant General Paul P. Newlon of the Colorado National Guard, Chairman Thomas Annear of the Industrial Commission, and other representatives of Governor Adams, went too. There was many a witness of the next dawn's happenings at the Columbine.

At daybreak 500 "Wobblies" led by Adam Bell tramped toward the gates to the Columbine property. Deputy Sheriff Lou Beynon of Weld County met them and urged them to turn back. He pointed out that the 20 State Police under Mr. Scherf were unwilling but ready to repel trespassers with gunfire. "Come on, boys, let's go!" cried Adam Bell. The "boys" went--toward the Columbine gates.

The handful of State Police met the mob first with the butts of their rifles. They clubbed and pommeled, and were treated in turn to a shower of sticks, rocks, knife-stabs. One trooper had his eye gouged nearly out. None escaped injury. Mr. Scherf ordered a retreat to the Columbine gates, where he formed the troopers in a double row of ten.

The mob growled and surged. The troopers cursed. Mr. Scherf ordered a volley over the heads of the "Wobblies." They did not wobble. The next volley, point blank into the close-packed marchers, brought shrieks, confusion a halt. Bodies began dropping to the ground--one, two. As the "Wobblies" retreated, more of the wounded fell out. Five died, 20 were wounded, including two women in men's clothing.

Adjutant General Newlon, with a proclamation of martial law in his pocket, sent for militia, tanks, a medical unit. Governor Adams pronounced the Columbine district to be in a state of insurrection. He and his witnesses absolved Mr. Scherf and the state troopers for their deeds of "self-defense." The strikers swore out warrants for the arrest of their comrades' "murderers," asserting that their part in the Columbine episode had been peaceable. They had only wanted to go to the Columbine post office, they said. Wobbly Adam Bell and others were arrested to prevent further post office visiting.

Speaking at Erie, Colo., Frank Palmer, Wobbly leader, cried out: "No one less than John D. Rockefeller is responsible for the deaths of our comrades!"

Mr. Palmer was harking back to 1914, when the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. properties were the scene of bloodshed. Mr. Rockefeller has no interest in the Columbine property (Rocky Mountain Fuel Co.). Nevertheless, Wobbly Palmer's cry echoed in far Manhattan, where Communists appeared with accusing placards* to picket the Standard Oil Building at No. 26 Broadway. Clerks, steel workers from a new skyscraper, pugnacious office boys fell upon and manhandled the demonstrators.

*The I. W. W. was founded at Chicago in 1905 by 203 delegates representing western miners, Socialists and remnants of the defunct American Labor Union. The purpose was to create a new, homogeneous labor body embracing not only the trade union memberships but unorganized agricultural and other unskilled laborers as well, especially the migratory ("foot-loose") class. "One big union" was the central idea of the autonomous crafts in operative idea of the autonomous crafts in the A. F. of L. The I. W. W. was for political action as well as economic. It was to prepare workers for a "Cooperative Commonwealth." Its constitution said: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common." It would make only one bargain with employers--complete surrender of industrial control to the workers. A split soon reft the I. W. W. ranks. William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood of Chicago headed the "direct action" party. The so-called "Detroit Wing" was doctrinaire, not determined about political action. After Mr. Haywood's flight from the U. S. in 1921 to escape jail, the political action clauses of the I. W. W. constitution were erased. The "one big union" motif is all that remains. Wobblies now express their political ideas mostly through the Workers' or Communist Parties. But few Wobblies have coherent political or economic notions. Their allegiance to the I. W. W., which is still said to enroll over 100,000, is largely emotional. It results from the I. W. W.'s opportunist tactics in just such areas as Colorado, where more stable, conservative and therefore more powerful but less idealistic labor organizations, are not active or have been replaced by company unions.

*Scene of bloodshed and destruction during the martial law days of 1914, when President Wilson sent six troops of cavalry to quell the warfare between miners and mine guards.

*Typical inscriptions: "Colorado Government Saturated With Workers' Blood," "We Want No Charity, Mr. Rockefeller, and No Machine Guns," "Mr. Rockefeller, Call Off Your Thugs."