The 1927
Strike
by Richard Myers
In 1927 the Industrial
Workers of the World called a general strike to protest the execution of
anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Compliance with the walkout on
the part of Colorado’s
coal miners surpassed all expectations.
This occurred in the
state that had given us the Western Federation of Miners, Big Bill Haywood, Cripple Creek, and the
1914 Ludlow Massacre in which the lives of women and children were sacrificed
to corporate greed. Colorado
had seen discontent and uprisings by coal miners over a period of some fifty
years. For many, Ludlow
seemed a watershed, an event that drew worldwide attention to the state’s
policies of industrial feudalism. Ludlow
ushered in Rockefeller’s company union and the birth of the public relations
industry to repair John D.’s reputation. But Colorado’s coal operators were not yet
finished spilling the blood of workers.
Conditions in the
mines were desperate. Miners complained that coal bosses didn’t give a damn
about their lives. They observed that mules used to haul the coal were treated
better than the men. It cost money to purchase and train mules; men could be
hired for nothing, and then forced to pay their own expenses.
Miners were not paid
for “dead work” such as timbering that kept the mines safe. They had to pay for
their own tools and blasting powder. Miners were cheated at the scale that
weighed their coal. Many coal companies paid in scrip redeemable only at the
company store. Coal towns were armed camps surrounded by barbed wire. Perhaps
most frustrating, Colorado
coal miners had suffered significant pay cuts in recent years. http://www.rebelgraphics.org/serene.html
Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were committed anarchists who had been active in many
workers’ struggles. In 1916, Sacco was arrested for taking part in a
demonstration in solidarity with workers on strike in Minnesota. In the same year he took part in
a strike in a factory in Plymouth,
Massachusetts. It was here that
he met Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who was one of the principal organisers of that
strike. Like most anarchists, the two were also active in their opposition to
the First World War.
In April 1920,
anarchist Andrea Salsedo was arrested and detained for 8 weeks. On the morning of
May 3rd, he ‘fell’ to his death from the 14th floor window of a New York Dept.
of Justice building. Sacco and Vanzetti, along with other comrades, immediately
called a public meeting in Boston
to protest. While out building support for this meeting they were arrested on
suspicion of “dangerous radical activities”. They soon found themselves charged
with a payroll robbery which had taken place the previous April in which 2
security guards had been killed.
The case came to
trial in June 1921, and lasted for seven weeks. The state’s case against the
two was almost non-existent. Twelve of Vanzetti’s customers (he was working as
a fish seller) testified that he was delivering fish to them at the time of the
crime. An official of the Italian Consulate in Boston testified that Sacco had been seeing
him about a passport at the time. Furthermore, somebody else confessed to the
crime and said that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had anything to do with it.
The judge in the
case, Judge Webster Thayer, said of Vanzetti: “This man, although he may not
have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally
culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions.” The foreman of
the jury, a retired policeman, said in response to a friend of his who ventured
the opinion that Sacco and Vanzetti might be innocent “Damn them. They ought to
hang anyway.”
