They are but beggars that can count their worth.
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Twenty years of organizing, and Charlie Miller has never seen a strike like this one. The copper companies haven’t give an inch, but a holiday atmosphere persists as the weather cools.
The company schools are attended only by the children of strikebreakers; after the morning parades, he notices union kids leaving town. Wearing thick-knit sweaters against the early chill, older boys head off on their own, carrying fishing poles and tin cans full of worms, or follow their fathers into the scrubby wasteland beyond the town to check traps or hunt ducks. Younger boys prospect along the railroad tracks and come home—filthy and grinning—with old flour bags filled with coal that’s fallen by the wayside when a sloppy fireman tossed a shovelful toward the engine. Girls carrying buckets slog into the scrubby vegetation around town. Thimbleberries and blackberries have gone past. Raspberries are ripening now.
By noon, the sun has burned off the fog, and it’s hard to believe that it was ever chilly. Sweating and shirtless in the warmth of September’s afternoons, men will gut the fish and butcher the game for smoking while women boil glass jars in big enamel kettles and supervise the older girls in cooking up preserves for the winter.
It gets dark noticeably earlier in September, and the air goes crisp again as the sun goes down. Courting couples, who might only have exchanged glances at church once a week in ordinary times, now have the freedom to attend union picnics and dances organized by Annie Clements to keep morale high. Their evenings are often spent sitting side by side on porch stoops or taking long walks together. They are, of course, relentlessly dogged by the giggling sisters and teasing brothers who have been ordered to act as chaperones by their middle-aged parents—who are, Charlie suspects, luxuriating in the sensation of being well rested and unexpectedly eager to get the kids out of the house for a little while. The men grouse that it will be a misery to redevelop their calluses when they go back to work, but Charlie overhears enough from the women who work in the food and clothing banks to know that they’re happy. “And his hands are so soft now!” is greeted with knowing laughter that becomes more raucous when someone solemnly chants the union slogan with slightly different emphasis: “Eight hours to work and eight hours to sleep and eight hours for what we please!”
Undoubtedly, a few wives are already counting out the months. Soon more husbands will roll their eyes as they tell commiserating friends, “The next one’s coming in May.” Or June. Or July. Yes, they admit, it will be another mouth to feed, but the union is going to get us an extra dollar a day, and that will make all the difference. Even the more reluctant strikers have begun to believe that all this might turn out well after all.
And now, this very morning, old Moishe Glass arrives in the union office with a bottle of vodka and news. Tents are being folded and equipment is being packed up over on the Armory grounds. The Michigan Guard is being pulled out—some of it, at least. Some troops will remain in case violence reoccurs. If not, they’ll be going home soon, too.
Jubilation erupts. Glasses are brought out. The vodka is poured. Even the three kids Charlie thinks of as Mrs. Clements’s ducklings are allowed to join the toasts to Governor Ferris. He won’t toady to James MacNaughton much longer, union members declare, clinking glasses. Soon, they tell themselves. Soon, all this will be settled.
They think the militia’s retreat is the union’s victory. Sitting behind a desk piled high with finance reports from around the Copper Country, Charlie Miller knows different and so does Moishe Glass, although they let the celebration in the union office go on for a little while. Nobody wants to be cast as the mustachioed villain, but in the face of Annie Clements’s persistent, cheerful ignorance, it’s often Charlie Miller’s task to make the others understand what they’re up against, and Moishe Glass is right beside him.
“MacNaughton isn’t giving up,” Charlie warns when the celebration dies down.
“Things gonna get worse now,” Moishe affirms.
“A cloud around every silver lining,” Annie Clements murmurs to Eva. She sits up straight. “Well, then. Out with it! What do you gentlemen have to darken our day?”
Moishe hands Annie a letter. On Calumet & Hecla stationery, it is carefully phrased, designed to cloak its threat with swaths of “in these difficult and challenging times” verbiage. Sobered, she hands it to Eva, and the boys read over her shoulder.
“That went to every businessman in town,” Moishe says. “My place is safe. I’m just outside the city because MacNaughton didn’t want a Jew store in Calumet. But most businesses? They lease land from the company.”
“And they’ll be evicted if they don’t join the Citizens’ Alliance,” Charlie says, and Moishe nods. “Standard tactic. Completely predictable.”
“What does that mean?” Eva asks. “What’s the Citizens’ Alliance?”
“It’s an anti-union group that will toe MacNaughton’s line,” Charlie says. “Stop doing business with the union. Refuse credit to members. That kind of thing.” Charlie shrugs and drops the next rock on them: “The landlord just gave the union notice. He wants us out of the building.”
There are gasps. The kids look at one another, stricken. Even Annie blinks.
“Me, I gonna take my chances,” Moishe Glass says. “I got good customers ain’t miners. MacNaughton’s cook—even she orders from me! Other big shots, too. I ain’t giving up.”
“Mr. Glass, you need to think of your own future,” Miller tells him. The Glass Brothers General Store has let union families run tabs all summer. If the strike fails, he’ll never get paid back.
Moishe’s mouth turns down as his shoulders come up in a resigned shrug. “I come to America with nothing. So? Maybe I end up with nothing again. Or? Maybe union wins, and we all better off!”
Over in his corner chair, arms crossed, a faint sneer on his face, Joe Clements shakes his head and mutters, “Sucker.”
“You know what I don’t understand?” Kazimir Savicki says suddenly. “Why hasn’t MacNaughton kicked all of us out of the company houses? The papers say the coal miners down in West Virginia got thrown out right away. They’ve been living in tents for months!”
To everyone’s surprise, Jack Kivisto breaks his habitual silence to answer. “Strike fund money pays the rent. The cash goes right back to the company.”
Looking at Annie, Joe says, “I told you so.”
Charlie Miller sits back in his chair and decides it’s time to share the full burden of knowledge. “You may as well learn it all,” he says, tapping the account books he’s been working on. “As of this morning, Local Fifteen has eighteen hundred and twenty-seven dollars left. I don’t know how long the Federation can continue to prop us up. They’re borrowing money from other unions now, trying to keep three strikes going. They might be able to send us another few grand, but barring a miracle, we’ll be broke by the end of September.”
“Well, then,” Eva Savicki says stubbornly, “we’re going to have to get ourselves a miracle.”
Miller smiles at the girl, though there is no mirth left in his eyes when they shift to Annie Clements. She knows what he’s thinking. He doesn’t need to say it aloud, for her own husband already has. I told you so.
* * *
The truth is, while the strike has been more effective than Charlie Miller believed it could be, it has also gone on longer than Annie Clements expected. She thought a week or ten days would bring MacNaughton and the other mine operators to the table. It’s been over two months now. In her weakest moments, she finds it difficult to ignore what Miller calls realism.
Still, to come so far and give up now? Unthinkable.
And she has reason to hope. Every morning after the strikers’ parade, she sorts through the morning mail. Crumpled dollar bills and a few coins have begun to arrive, donations from children and housewives and workers in other towns around Michigan. The tally is rarely more than ten dollars a day and won’t make much of a difference to the strikers, but it is a sign that people outside the Copper Country are paying attention to what’s going on here.
They have support nearby as well. The ladies in Laurium have continued to employ strikers’ wives and daughters to do laundry and cleaning; they occasionally slip a little extra into a rough and reddened hand, or leave a package of leftover food in the broom closet to be found and taken home without the knowledge of anyone’s husband—union or management.
And the backyard gardens and the outlying fields are yielding produce now. There are beans, carrots, and beets to can and pickle. Onions to be hung from rafters. White potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, squash. Cabbage and apples will come in soon, to be packed up with straw down in cellar storage rooms.
An awful thought occurs to Annie: maybe MacNaughton is simply waiting to evict everyone until just before the gardens’ best crops are harvested, right before winter sets in. In ordinary times, in households where nothing is ever wasted, they need all the food they can grow or gather in the summer to stretch wages out and keep the family fed in the winter when store-bought food is far too expensive for the miners’ wives to buy. And these are not ordinary times . . .
And we are no ordinary people, she tells herself firmly. We are going to see this through, and we are going to win.
Lips compressed, back straight, she finishes opening the morning mail, counts out the bills and the little piles of change, and brings the money with her to Charlie Miller’s desk. Head high, she waits for him to sigh and look up from his account books.
“Fifteen donations,” she declares with determined cheer. “Eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents!”
She turns on her heel and goes back to her desk, just as Mike Sweeney comes pounding up the staircase.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announces, spreading a stack of newspapers on Annie’s desk, “the women’s parade is news around the country.”
Eva drops a pile of children’s trousers and shrieks when she sees the headline of the article on the top of the stack. “ ‘Anna Clements, an American Joan of Arc!’ ” she reads. “ ‘With the American flag wrapped around her, Mrs. Clements declared, “ ‘ “If this flag does not shield me, then let it be my shroud!” ’ ”
“I never said that!” Annie cries. “Mr. Sweeney, did you . . . ?”
“Of course! That, madam, is my job!” He leans over and points out a paragraph. “Look! This one calls you Lady Liberty.”
Eva squeals again. “Listen to this! ‘One miner’s wife is worth a thousand MacNaughtons. When facing cavalrymen with sabers, the woman in white refused to back down and won the day.’ ”
Joe stands.
Everyone falls silent.
“I need a drink,” he says, starting toward the staircase.
“I’ll have supper for you at six,” Annie calls. “Joe? Did you hear me?”
There’s no response, apart from the slamming of the door downstairs. For a time it is as though Joe Clements has taken all the air in the office with him.
“It’s hard on him,” Charlie Miller says. Annie opens her mouth, about to defend herself, but Miller continues: “It’s not just him, Mrs. Clements. It’s hard on all the men. Sitting around. Waiting.”
It’s only then that Mike Sweeney remembers his other errand. Digging into his pocket, he pulls out the special delivery letter the mailman handed him on his way up the stairs to the office. “This just came,” he tells Charlie.
Bracing himself for more bad news, Miller slits the envelope and unfolds the letter. It is short, and astonishing. He falls back against his chair and murmurs, “I’ll be damned.”
Annie comes to his side and he looks up at her, mouth open, offering up the letter. She gasps, her face a mixture of amazement and vindication.
“What?” Eva demands. “Annie, what is it?”
“The Federation is wiring us more money!”
The room erupts: Kazimir and Eva Savicki hugging, Jack Kivisto smiling, Sweeney doing a little jig, Moishe Glass holding his palms upward toward heaven. Charlie Miller can hardly move. “They said they couldn’t do anything! I’ve been begging them for months—”
“It’s the pictures!” Sweeney cries. “I knew that parade would work! How much are they sending?”
“A thousand dollars,” Annie says, awestruck.
Miller says, “Divided among seven thousand union men still on strike.”
“It’s something,” Annie insists stubbornly. “It’ll buy us a few more days . . .”
“Hours,” Miller says, every bit as stubbornly.
“Damn you, Charlie!” Sweeney cries. “Why do you always—”
“Because somebody in this town has to be realistic!”
“Oh, for the love of God! Just let the happiness live for a moment before you strangle it in the cradle!”
“Every day that passes makes us weaker and the operators stronger!”
Eva bursts into tears. Kaz and Jack glare at Charlie.
“Gentlemen!” Annie Clements shouts, holding the sobbing girl in her arms. “Mr. Miller, please!”
He throws up his hands and walks to the office window, getting his anger under control. She means well. All the women do. The Auxiliary has done wonders to keep up morale and ease the burden on their men, but they just don’t understand what’s happening among the miners.
No matter what Mike Sweeney thinks—Charlie has tried to let their hope persist. They don’t realize how many men have defected. Some say they’re going to Detroit, to make automobiles. Some have quietly gone back to work in the mines, despite the contempt and resistance of relatives and neighbors, and they’ve sent a delegation to MacNaughton, offering to form a union independent of the Western Federation of Miners. They even promised they wouldn’t even ask for formal recognition if the CEO was willing to negotiate wages and working conditions with them.
Of course, MacNaughton turned them down. He knows what Charlie Miller has known from the start. When men like Joe Clements sit and wait for other people to decide their fate, it eats at them. It grinds them down in a way the labor itself doesn’t. All MacNaughton has to do is wait.