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Williams Album 0 : p. 10

Calumet Public School Library

Italian Hall (Calmut, Mich.)

Copper mines and mining -- Michigan -- Calumet

Scrapbooks

AH01a019

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Newspaper clippings (Dec. 19 to Dec. 29, 1913) regarding the 1913 Copper Miners' Strike by the employees of the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company in the Calumet, Michigan area and the Italian Hall disaster. Page is hand numbered ""10"". -- Dec. 19 - The Western Federation of Miners published an affidavit, which told of violence ordered and committed by guards from the Asher detective agency. -- Dec. 20 - A big return to work movement is expected. -- Dec. 21 - The Michigan Federation, met with local strike leaders in Calumet and Hancock, announced plans for a state-wide labor convention to be held in Lansing to discuss strike. -- Dec. 22 - Attorney General Grant Fellows of Hudson, Michigan left for Lansing convinced there will be no further violence in the district. -- Dec. 23 - Pursuant to the injunction Judge O'Brien issued on behalf of the Western Federation restraining the Citizen's Alliance, the defendants through Attorney's Rees, Robinson and Petermann and Hanchette and Lawton have filed noticed. -- Dec. 24 - Hand written above article ""Dec 24 Xmas Eve Italian Hall Disaster."" The article begins with a note saying it was ""Taken from the extra edition on the Calumet news on December 24."" During a Christmas entertainment, arranged by women of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners, at the Italian Hall on north Seventh street, a man called ""fire."" There was a rush for the exits and the children jammed into a solid mass from which none could move. An alarm from fire box No. 45 was sounded, but there was no fire. The dead have been moved to Red Jacket Town Hall until they are identified. -- Dec. 26 - The community has raised $25,000 to be used for relief purposes and burying the dead. G.A. Sovacool, special representative of the Milwaukee Sentinel was the first outside correspondent to arrive to cover the Italian Hall disaster. -- Dec. 27 - Final arrangements for the funeral of the victims of the Italian Hall disaster were made by the committee representing the striking miners. 70 bodies will be laid to rest in the Lake View Cemetery. Offers to relieve sufferers of the Italian Hall Disaster were refused by Charles Moyer of the Western Federation of Miners. He was interviewed in Hancock by a committee, named by the relief committee, consisting of President Joseph Wills of Laurium Village, Mayor F.H. Schumaker of Red Jacket, John H. Rice of Houghton, James T. Fisher of Laurium, and A.E. Petermann and M.A. Thometz of Calumet. Green Bay Wis. (AP) Charles H. Moyer President of the Western Federation of Mines reports being beaten, shot and dragged before he was deported from Hancock to Channing Michigan. -- Dec. 28 - The announcement by Charles H. Moyer and other officials of the Western Federation of Miners that the cry of fire in the Italian Hall was sounded by a man wearing a Citizens' Alliance button was shown to be false, as none of eleven witnesses saw a button on the man or connected him with the Alliance. There will be a grand jury inquiry into the alleged deportation of Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Mines. O.N. Hilton of Denver, chief of consul for the organization arrived here and stated that Moyer will return to the district as soon as he recovers from his wounds. The $25,000 relief fund for the aid of families bereaved by the Italian Hall Disaster is largely untouched, but available. R.H. Little special descriptive writer for the Hearst papers in Chicago, and Miss Gertrude Price feature writer for the united Press services of Chicago have arrived to write about the Italian Hall Disaster and copper mine strike. -- Dec. 29 - Conflict of evidence became apparent as to the identity of the man who shouted ""fire"" in the Italian Hall Disaster. Three witnesses said they saw the man wearing a Citizens' Alliance button, two of these witnesses admitted to having talked with federation officials. Chicago - Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners plans to return to Calumet when he is released from the hospital with a personal body guard including his brother, Chief of Police Moyer of Boone, Iowa. Joseph Medill Patterson a special writer, and John Lovett, both of the Chicago Tribune arrived in Calumet.