performed by Lee Murdock
The Italian Hall disaster (sometimes referred to as the 1913 massacre) is a tragedy which occurred on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan. Seventy-four men, women, and children, mostly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death when someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party.
Background
The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company C&H was formed from the consolidation of the Calumet and Hecla mining companies in 1871. It was the single largest copper mining company in Michigan's copper country. One of the longest and most disastrous strikes in the copper country took place in 1913, and included all the C&H mines. The strike was the result of many factors, but the most immediate cause was the replacement of the two-man drill with the one-man drill. Prior to this innovation, blast holes were drilled by hand, with one person holding a drill and two others striking it with sledgehammers. The mechanical drills were introduced to cut costs, breaking up family groups which worked together in the mine and eliminating jobs. Wages also played an important role in causing the strike. The amount of wages paid to each worker was based on the depth of penetration into the mines made by each group each day. Miners were usually paid US$2.75 a day for ten hours of work but a select few earned $4. Working conditions also contributed: work days were usually 12 hours long; boys 12 years of age were employed deep in mines to carry drill rods to the drilling teams working 600ft deep in the mines. The strike went on for about 5 months before Christmas.
The Disaster
On Christmas Eve many of the striking miners and their families had gathered for a Christmas party sponsored by the Western Federation of Miners. It is estimated that there were over five hundred people at the party which was held on the second floor of Calumet's Italian Hall. A steep stairway was the only way to the second floor, although there was a poorly-marked fire escape on one side of the building and ladders down the back of the building which could only be reached by climbing through the windows.
The tragedy began when someone yelled "fire." People panicked and rushed for the stairs. In the ensuing melee seventy-three people (including fifty-nine children) were killed. There was no fire. To date it has not been established who cried "fire" and why. The most common theory is that "fire" was called out by the anti-union company management to disrupt the party.
There were several investigations into the disaster. The first, by the coroner, contained serious errors. Witnesses who did not speak English were forced to answer questions in English; most witnesses were not asked follow up questions. It appears that many witnesses who were called had not seen what happened. After three days, the coroner issued a ruling that did not give a cause of death -- the only actual job of the coroner -- but instead cleared those viewed as the obvious culprits: out-of-town strike breakers. Until recently, the transcript of the inquest was not widely available, so people could not evaluate the ruling of the coroner. There are now copies of the inquest available for researchers to examine.
A common story regarding the fire states that the doors at the bottom of the Italian Hall's stairs opened inward. According to the story, when the fleeing party goers reached the bottom of the stairs, they pressed up against the doors which only opened inward, causing many people to be crushed. The theory appears to have first emerged in the 1950's. All photos of the doors suggest a double set of doors with both sets opening outward. The first printed mention of the doors opening inward was in the 1952 book Red Metal by C. Harry Benedict. The doors were not mentioned as a contributing factor at the December 1913 coroner's inquest, the 1914 subcommittee hearing, or in any of the newspaper stories of the time.
Aftermath
After the first wave of grief had passed following the tragedy, while there was bitterness against the company, it was considerably greater against an organization known as the Citizens Alliance (the "Alliance"). The Alliance was funded by mine management and actively opposed the union and the strike. Knowing what poor condition the strikers were in, the Alliance took steps that purported to help the families. It offered money to the union, telling union leaders to spend it as they wished.
The Alliance's offer was not unconditional. Rather, it insisted that Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, publicly exonerate the Alliance of all fault in the tragedy. Moyer refused. Rather than provide such an exoneration, Moyer announced that the Alliance was responsible for the catastrophe, claiming that an Alliance agent yelled the word “fire”. The Alliance assaulted Moyer in nearby Hancock, shot and kidnapped him. They placed him on a train with instructions to leave the state and never return. After getting medical attention in Chicago (and holding a press conference where he displayed his gunshot wound) he returned to Michigan to continue the work of the WFM.
The disaster gave additional life to the strike, as rumors flew about the identity of the man who yelled "Fire!". However, support for the strike declined as organizers left (or were forced to leave) the Copper Country, the WFM ran out of money, and strikers' families experienced great hardships during the winter. The strikers voted to end the strike on April 13, 1914. Mining companies required all strikers seeking a return to work to turn in or destroy their WFM membership cards.
The strike was mostly unsuccessful in achieving its major goals. The mining companies continued introducing the one man drill, which eventually became a standard in all Copper Country mines. Collective bargaining was thoroughly rejected by the mines, leaving miners at the whim of the companies. Many miners simply left the Copper Country, or else returned to the mines for which they formerly worked on the mines' terms.
However, many Copper Country mines did introduce an 8 hour day partway through the strike, for the miners who had stayed to work for them. This continued after the strike, when national labor legislation required shorter workdays. Labor legislation also limited use of child labor and mandated higher daily wages for miners and trammers. All mines eventually changed to a daily wage, leaving behind the old family-group contract system entirely.
The strike is often considered a major turning point in the history of the Copper Country. Even though the mines were successful in the short term, the strike had demonstrated that mines could actually be affected by collective action. The strike also marked the end of the old paternalism of the mining companies. Workers' lives were no longer watched by the mines, and the mines cut back many services which they previously provided.
The mines of the Copper Country were finally unionized many years later. The International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW-CIO), a successor of the WFM, unionized the Copper Range Company mines in 1939, the Quincy Mine in 1941, and Calumet and Hecla mines in 1943, after several interventions by the National Labor Relations Board. A combination of low copper prices, depleted mines, competition from newer and richer mines, and continuing labor troubles eventually closed all of the Copper Country Mines. Calumet & Hecla closed its mines in 1969 after failing to reach an agreement with striking employees. That left the White Pine mine as the only remaining Copper Country mine in production; the White Pine mine closed in 1995.
The Italian Hall has since been demolished, and only the archway remains from that day, although a state historical marker was erected in 1987. The marker incorrectly states that the tragedy was partially caused by inward opening doors. The Michigan Department of History Arts and Libraries has indicated that it will replace the marker to correct that error.
The event was immortalized by Woody Guthrie in 1913 Massacre, which claims that the doors were held shut on the outside by scabs.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_massacre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Country_Strike_of_1913-1914.
1913 Massacre
Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
And the miners are having their big Christmas ball.
I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.
You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.
There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.
A little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.
The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire,"
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."
A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you,"
A man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.
And then others followed, oh a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.
Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.
The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."
Personnel: Lee Murdock, lead vocal, 12-string guitar, producer; Jim Cox, bass; Jeff Thomas, percussion; Jacquie Manning, Rich Prezioso, background vocals; Mark Karney, sound, producer.
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