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Christmas Eve and the 1913 Massacre at Italian Hall in Michigan [1]

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Date: 2023-12-23  

The tragedy, 110 years ago on Christmas Eve in Italian Hall in Calumet Michigan, must never be forgotten. There were two sides in conflict at the time, the rich mine owners backed by their ruthless strike breakers and the miners striking against exploitation. So there are two versions of what happened that night, the evident truth as testified in court but buried by a shifting denial and dishonest coverup promoted for years. The conservative establishment and their media succeeded in spreading the lie that the tragedy was an “accident” and dismissing the truth of the massacre as socialist propaganda.

Or they would have succeeded but for a young, angry guitar-wielding songwriter named Woody Guthrie (FBI: 5’ 5”, 135 pounds, suspected communist). Woody’s father was the worst kind of man, earning his living cheating Native Americans in Oklahoma out of their belongings, supporting violently racist politicians and later running a brothel. Woody’s mother died in an insane asylum. Woody left home, traveled during the Great Depression, and tried to make a living singing simple truthful songs for the common people. On one of his trips, he learned the real story and wrote a song he called “1913 Massacre”.

Bob Dylan, with midwestern Ukrainian mining roots, also sang a cover of the song (below), as well as a tribute to Woodie Guthrie that echoes the song. In 2017, Daniel Wolff wrote Grown-Up Anger , telling the story of the music and the truth.

“Guthrie’s song is the story of how the American system kills its own. It describes a deliberate act: dozens of children are smothered to death because a small group of people own the wealth of the earth—and they’d rather kill than share. To Guthrie those were documented facts. To the state of Michigan and official history, his ‘lousy, miserable song’ was just repeating an old conspiracy theory, part of the Left’s version of the truth, the losers’ version, long since proven wrong. Except on the key fact. Guthrie turns out to be right.”

I visited Keweenaw National Historical Park this summer on my quest to raise awareness about carbon pollution, and I walked over a mile underground into the Quincy Mine, once the world’s largest, steepest and deepest. In a small corner of the museum in Calumet, there’s an exhibit about Italian Hall, just a few blocks away from the site of the ruin, next to a lavish old theatre built by the mine owners. The site of the hall is an empty space between brick buildings, with the remains of an archway and a couple small contradictory signs about the history. It was foggy and unclear. But the true history has emerged at last.

To oversimplify, the mine owners were keen to replace ½ of their miners with a new drill that could be operated by one person instead of two. The miners, many having immigrated with their families, went on strike. The owners hired strikebreakers and paid to stoke anti-union sentiment. Many of the striking miner families were trying to boost their spirits at a Christmas Eve party on the second floor of Italian Hall. A man with an anti-unionist lapel pin was seen by several witnesses entering the hall and yelling “Fire” repeatedly. The doors were apparently blocked, partygoers were trapped, and about 5 dozen children and 2 dozen adults suffocated in the resulting panic.

To illustrate the strikebreaking tactics, a union organizer was attacked by a mob, shot, put on a train out of Calumet and told never to return, still bleeding from his shoulder. He survived, was seen by a journalist and got his story published. Without evidence, ‘alternative facts’ mysteriously circulated long after the tragedy, saying that the strikers must have done it themselves to gain sympathy, that it would have been impossible for an anti-unionist to enter as the doors were guarded by unionists, that the doors must have opened inward and not been blocked, that there actually had been a fire, and that it was simply a tragic accident. Exhaustive research by academics now acknowledges the basic truth: someone wearing an anti-union pin yelled “fire” into a crowded building and that the doors were obstructed. It was premeditated mass murder: a massacre.

Remember, organize and vote.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/23/2213449/-Christmas-Eve-and-the-1913-Massacre-at-Italian-Hall-in-Michigan?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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