Going to Butte....

Frank Little with Grover Perry

I'm finally traveling to Butte, Montana with my husband to research the graphic novel I'm working on about the IWW union organizer Frank Little. Butte is the location of Frank's Last stand against the Anaconda Mining Company and the atrocity of World War 1.

For his full biography, check my first comic about him on my website www.nicoleschulman.com and this great blog here:http://www.labordallas.org/hist/little.htm

Frank Little has been demonized by many right-wing historians, like Arnon Gutfeld, called a "terrorist" for his total opposition to America's entry into WW1 and the forced conscription of the workers he gave his life defending. He made many passionate and controversial speeches in Butte during the Metal Mine Workers strike of 1917-which began after a fire in the Granite-Speculator mine which killed 162 men. The solidarity of the strike was breaking, many trade unions who stood with the miners had made separate deals with Anaconda and had returned to work. The company refused to deal with the miner's union at all, the AFL had abandoned them, and the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) sent one-eyed metal miner Frank Little to assist in the strike. Butte had strong anti-war sentiment, and many demonstrations against the draft- the local Irish were not about to fight for the British Empire (especially after the 1916 uprising in Dublin). Frank's wrathful speeches against the war, and the military- who were used as strike breakers in past strikes, attacking unarmed civilians- were well received by the thousands who rallied around him in Butte. The company owned newspapers printed distortions of Frank's speeches and labeled him and the striker's "pro-German" and "unpatriotic". All workers who were forced to go on strike during wartime due to increased production, deadly accidents and stagnant poverty-level pay were also called "unpatriotic" and "terrorists". Sound familiar?

Frank was kidnapped by six armed men at 3 am on August 1, 1917, tortured and lynched. Many right-wing papers said "he got what he deserved" and unscrupulous historians blame the victim for his own assassination.

History has proven Frank 100% correct in his predictions on what the War would bring America. Years before he had said it "would be the end of free speech, free press and free assembly"- that it was merely and excuse to crush the rising tide of radicalism in the US- IWW's, feminists, suffragettes, anarchists. Of course the profiteering off the war was a bonus- from the copper they mined in Butte, MT to make shell casings.

Workers died in the mines to make bullets for workers in uniform to kill other workers. That's Capitalism for you...

As in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, dissent was unpatriotic, the media became stenographers for the Federal Government; A war to bring "democracy" abroad helped destroy democracy at home. Dissidents opposed to the Iraq invasion, like Frank Little in 1917, were ignored until it was too late. Thousands of men and women who spoke out against WW1 were imprisoned as "terrorists", as comparable numbers of people of Middle Eastern decent were detained, imprisoned, "renditioned" or deported- and held without charges in Guantanamo Bay to this day. How history repeats itself...

What I am hoping to find in Butte other than Frank Little's grave and the largest contaminated body of water in the nation (The Berkley Pit)?

I'm not sure. I'm going to walk the streets of this historic mining town with a tumultuous history, a place poisoned and abandoned by various mining corporations- and from what I've seen a place of real beauty.

Wish me luck.