Is the law on our side?
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Every morning, there are strikers’ parades past all the pit heads. “If we march at dawn every working day, we show MacNaughton it’s not laziness keeping miners out of the pits,” Annie argued, and the men saw the logic of that. But she is organizing something different for the coming Sunday: a march past the encampment where twenty-four hundred Michigan guardsmen have pitched tents. And, on the advice of Michael Sweeney, she will lead the parade herself.
“Mrs. Clements, they have rifles and bayonets,” Charlie Miller cries, trying again to reason with her. “They have artillery! They will charge you on horseback. They will beat you and jail you—”
“No,” she replies, her face serene. “They won’t.”
Miller throws up his hands and comes to Michael Sweeney’s side. “It’s like arguing with a dress-store dummy,” he mutters.
“Or a statue of the Virgin,” Sweeney says, but he is grinning as he watches Mrs. Clements from his perch on a stool in the corner of the union office.
She is a blur. Collating stacks of flyers by language, helping the girls pack food parcels for families already running out of groceries, directing the boys to carry the boxes off to the union families. All the photographer can do is stand back and admire her energy, though after two weeks of rooming with Charles Miller, Michael Sweeney knows the union official is being driven round the bend by this woman.
Poor Charlie still has nightmares about the Colorado strikes, and Sweeney understands that. It was all-out war at Telluride and Cripple Creek. Company men with clubs. Troops with machine guns. Midnight slayings and daylight slaughter. The operators and their politician stooges out in Colorado couldn’t get Miller for telling the truth, so they arrested him for desecration of the flag. Not even a real flag, either. Just a drawing of a flag, printed on a flyer, with a plain fact on the stripes.
Martial law declared in Colorado!
Habeas corpus suspended in Colorado!
Free press throttled in Colorado!
Free speech denied in Colorado!
Wholesale arrests without warrant in Colorado!
Union men exiled from homes and families in Colorado!
Corporations corrupt and control Administration in Colorado!
Citizens’ Alliance resorts to mob rule and violence in Colorado!
Militia hired by corporations to break the strike in Colorado!
IS COLORADO IN AMERICA?
Miller was released on bail and immediately jailed again. For his second arrest, they gave the usual excuse: “Military necessity.” Union lawyers appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and got slapped in the face for their trouble. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes decided that all a governor needed to say was “An insurrection exists.” Three magic words were enough to legalize everything and anything done to the strikers or to Miller himself. Beat them, shoot them, jail them, deport them. Even so, Charlie and the Western Federation of Miners have clawed out concessions, year by bloody year. The union has made life in the Colorado mines less hellish, more human if not humane. But winning those concessions exacted a terrible price.
“The woman has no idea what she’s up against,” Charlie mutters. “I swear, Martin. She thinks you can shame the shameless!”
“It’s Michael, not Martin.”
“Michael! Jesus! I’m sorry!”
“I think she’s magnificent,” Michael admits. With her big plans and her unshakable determination, her beautiful smile and her relentless bustling, young Mrs. Clements is indeed convinced that far-away shareholders can be shamed into acting decently. You have to love that, he thinks. She hasn’t been beaten down yet. She’s not cynical. “She still believes in the common good, Charlie, and that’s what the country needs right now.”
Standing at the union office window, gazing at the street traffic, Charlie Miller ignores that remark. “Another family,” he announces, “leaving for Detroit.”
“Russians,” old Moishe Glass tells them, a little breathless from lugging a heavy parcel up the stairway, into the union office.
“Are you Russian, Mr. Glass?” Sweeney asks.
The storekeeper glances at him, but it’s Annie Clements, across the crowded little room, he addresses. “Your order,” he says, letting the package thump onto a table. “Am I Russian?” he asks then. “I’m a Jew. From Vilna. The border keeps changing. So. Am I Russian?” He shrugs. “That’s a debate. Out there? Those families. They are scared Russians. They remember 1905. They gonna run ’fore there’s trouble here. They gonna run to Henry Ford and make cars. I ask ’em, where you gonna run next? Ford gonna cut your pay. He gonna tell you: Work harder, work longer, same money. What you gonna do then? Where you gonna run when Ford bring in the bully boys?”
Carefully, he unties the string around the parcel and coils it around his hand before putting it in his pocket. “I remember, too. Soldiers. Horses. Guns. The Bund—the socialists—we lost, but . . .” He shrugs again. “Losing teaches you a lot. What you do after a defeat? That matters.” He taps the parcel’s shipping address: Glass Brothers General Store, Calumet, Michigan. “Me, I ain’t goin’ nowhere. I make my stand here. In America. Me and my brothers, we got American store. We got American kids. When I leave Vilna, I say, ‘Moishe Glass, you gonna be American, and you ain’t never gonna be afraid again.’ ”
Carefully, reverently, the old man unfolds the brown paper and smooths the wrapping out, saving it for reuse. “Them soldiers down there?” Moishe Glass says. “You show ’em this, Annie.” Gently, he slides his hands beneath the heavy folded fabric and presents an enormous American flag to Annie Clements. “You still gotta get a pole. The flag? My gift to you,” Moishe says. “No charge to the union.”
“A flag won’t stop a bullet,” Charlie Miller says.
Sweeney is smiling broadly, pleased when Mrs. Clements returns a conspiratorial grin. “You’re right, Charlie,” Sweeney says, clapping him on the shoulder. “It isn’t armor, but it’s going to do the job.”
The photographer looks at the wall clock then, takes his hat off a hook by the door, and picks up a flat leather portfolio. “Well, I’ve an appointment to keep with Major Van Den Broek,” he tells the room cheerily. “I’ll just leave the camera equipment here, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Clements?”
She nods and smiles again, already moving on to the next task.
* * *
Kneeling on the floor, banging brads into the lath they’ll use to stiffen banners and placards for tomorrow’s parade, Kazimir Savicki sits back on his heels and watches Mike Sweeney disappear down the stairs.
“Which side is he on? That’s what I want to know. Is he on the level?”
A few yards away, Jack Kivisto freezes, his stick-straight, white-blond hair falling forward, obscuring his face. He is the son of a notorious anti-union man. He’s joined up now, like so many others did after his father was killed, but he knows there’s some suspicion. Especially from Kaz, who thinks Jack joined the union only because he likes Eva. Which is not the case. Truly. After his father died, before the strike started, Jack Kivisto worked for a couple of weeks underground. That was all it took to convince him that any plan for staying out of the mine was a good plan. Anyway, Kaz is talking about the photographer. Which is a relief.
“He’s always taking pictures of the militiamen, and he’s always hanging around the office here. How do we know he’s not giving things away?”
“Like what?” Carrying an armload of donated clothing, Eva pauses to look at the pile of placards Jack has finished lettering. “You have such nice handwriting,” she says admiringly.
Jack is pretty sure Eva likes him. Which is embarrassing. He doesn’t want to encourage her, so he barely nods in response.
“He could tell them lots of things,” her brother is saying. “He could tell them that Annie and Mr. Miller don’t get along. Lots of things.”
“Well, Annie likes Mr. Sweeney, and that’s enough for me.”
“And he rooms with Miller,” Jack points out, regretting the remark instantly. Shut up, he tells himself. Shut up. Shut up.
“See, Kaz?” Eva says. “Annie trusts Mr. Sweeney, and Mr. Miller rooms with him, so he must be all right.”
A long shadow falls over them. Standing in a shaft of light from one of the tall windows, Annie comes over to inspect the boys’ handiwork. It was a gamble to invest in a heavy, stiff paper stock for placards, but fabric banners would be too heavy for the marchers in tomorrow’s parade.
“Don’t they look wonderful, Annie?” Eva asks.
“They do indeed,” Annie agrees. “Well done, Jack. You have a good eye. All the lines are nice and level. Did you young gentlemen sand the lath down? I don’t want anyone to get splinters tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kaz tells her, and Annie moves on.
Still hoping for conversation, Eva asks, “Jack, how is your mother doing?”
“Good, I guess.”
“Isn’t she worried about losing the house now that you’re not working?”
He glances at Kaz Savicki and sees the question on his face. “We get help from the church,” Jack tells him.
Eva shifts the pile of clothing in her arms to get a better grip. She might be waiting for Jack to jump up and help her with it, but he makes himself busy with the lettering again. “I’m so glad you’re with us now, Jack! You’re making a big difference.”
“Thanks,” he says, trying not to cringe.
“Annie,” Kaz calls out, “why is Mike Sweeney hanging around with that militia officer?”
“He’s taking pictures so the newspapers can’t say nothing is happening up here. He’s getting us publicity. And publicity will get us support.”
“See?” Eva asks her brother.
Kaz just grunts.
Across town, Major Henry Van Den Broek has this much in common with a fifteen-year-old union kid. Like Kazimir Savicki, he doesn’t quite know what to make of Michael Sweeney. Outwardly, the photographer has been friendly and helpful since the Guard arrived, often stopping by the commander’s tent for a little chat before sauntering off to his boardinghouse, where he shares a room with the representative of the Western Federation of Miners.
“Major Van Den Broek!” Sweeney cries this afternoon, offering his hand. “I’ve just learned that we are colleagues! You’re a correspondent for ‘This Week in the World,’ are you not, sir?”
Van Den Broek has not told anyone in Calumet that he contributes a column now and then for Detroit Saturday Night, and he must look startled, for Sweeney grins knowingly. “Ah, well, Major, we journalists are in the business of finding things out, now, aren’t we! As it happens, I’ve just sold a photograph of you and your men to that very organization. The editor mentioned that we are pulling our oars in the same ocean and might do well to work together.”
He opens a portfolio with a thick stack of clippings and hands Van Den Broek a photograph of mounted guardsmen arriving in the city. “And don’t you all look splendid! Like Spanish conquistadors arriving in Mexico . . .” he says, letting Van Den Broek take in the implications. “I’m quite partial to this one, too,” he adds, admiring his own work before handing the major a picture of the guardsmen’s neat rows of peaked tents, with the Calumet library in the background. “That’s going into next weekend’s edition,” he says. “Now, here’s one taken last year during the Lawrence mill girls’ Bread and Roses strike. And don’t the bully boys look bad, threatening those sweet young things. Imagine if there had been a camera man down in Wolverine last week . . .”
“That wasn’t us,” Van Den Broek says, a little defensively. A Hungarian woman reportedly refused to let a deputy sheriff search her boardinghouse. She claimed she’d been making noodles when a soldier barged in, knocked her down, and dragged her out of the house by her hair. Her husband is said to have been beaten unconscious by Sheriff Cruse’s men.
“I know, sir! And that’s why I’m here—for the same reason you are. Both of us are—in our own ways—on the side of the angels. We’re here to get the story straight and keep things from getting out of hand, are we not? You’re standing between peaceful strikers and company goons with tin badges, paid to beat the hell out of them. And my photographs will show what really happens. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your fine troopers to be falsely accused of brutality.”
Van Den Broek follows Sweeney’s gaze toward the military encampment surrounding the Calumet Armory and finds himself faintly embarrassed. Young men in khaki banter and josh and wrestle, happy to escape their daily routine in offices and stores. They are sleeping in tents, taking their meals in the open air. If it weren’t for the cavalry horses and artillery, his troops would look like Scouts on a wilderness excursion. “Boy soldiers,” the striking miners call them. “We served in a real army back in the old country,” one tough old bird yelled when the militia arrived, “and we can fight them boy soldiers here!”
After watching the horseplay for a moment, Van Den Broek glances at Sweeney and sees the photographer’s indulgent smile.
“Sure,” Sweeney says, “they can be a rowdy bunch, but my money’s on you to keep them in check. And I am here to promise you: it certainly won’t be the union’s fault if there’s trouble tomorrow.”
Van Den Broek looks at him sharply, but Sweeney’s blue gaze is on the sky now. “Weather Bureau says no rain tomorrow, just a bit of overcast coming in from Canada. That can flatten out the pictures, although people won’t be frowning menacingly into the sun, which is good . . .” His hand comes out. “I’m sure you have duties to perform, sir, so I won’t trouble you longer.”
Van Den Broek watches the man go—all lank, loose affability.
In his own youth, Henry Van Den Broek went to Cuba with the 31st Michigan Volunteers. Now solidly in middle age, he has the paunch of a respected Lansing businessman but he’s remained active in the Michigan National Guard, even going so far as to raise and run Michigan’s Battery A, First Field Artillery. One day, he believes, state militias will be called upon for service outside the United States. The Spanish Empire and its minions must be contained and beaten back. He believes that America is the nation that must do this and so, for fifteen years, he has kept himself and his men fit and ready to fight in Panama, or in the Philippines, or along the border with Mexico. He has steeled himself to face imperial armies, hostile natives, jungle heat, venomous snakes, malaria, yellow fever, typhoid . . .
“Major,” his master sergeant asked him a week after they arrived in Calumet, “what in hell are we doing here?”
Van Den Broek took in the high blue skies and brilliant sunshine softened by a cool breeze off Lake Superior. “Beautiful day,” he observed, ignoring the question because he wasn’t sure he could answer it.
The entire Michigan Guard has been mobilized to battle rampaging union thugs. They have been told that life and property are at stake in the Copper Country. Their orders are to suppress riots and aid civil officers in imposing law and order. Since arriving three weeks ago, the Michigan guardsmen have patrolled the pleasant streets and impressive industrial yards of the Copper Country. A meat market burned down a few days ago. The arsonist might have been a union man, but he could just have easily been a disgruntled supplier or even a relative with a grudge. There have been no other fires. Nothing has come of rumors that someone might dynamite a fancy social club where mining officials meet for supper and cigars. The union parades have been peaceful. Almost joyous. Thus far, casualties among the guardsmen have been limited to some infected blackfly bites, a sprained ankle, and several cases of severe hay fever.
To date, he has found nothing he can turn into an article for Detroit Saturday Night, and yet . . .
He has an uneasy feeling that this may change tomorrow.
It certainly won’t be the union’s fault if there’s trouble . . .