A Little Bit About a Great American
Why So Few Know about Frank Little
Time line of important events in
Frank Little’s short lifetime
WHAT DID FRANK LITTLE DESERVE?
I took this from my blog: http://genelantz.org on July 20, 2017:
New Book is the Best Labor History
Botkin, Jane Little, Frank Little and the IWW. The Blood that Stained an American Family. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2017
A giant hole in American labor history has been filled.
Frank Little’s Great Grand Niece has explained every known detail of the great union organizer’s life. 125 pages of careful notations testify to her ability as an historian of the first rank, but she also reveals family records hidden for a century. She has written not only the best biography of Frank Little possible, but she also put the events of his life and times in context so that a reader can, from this one book, draw the important lessons of the missing chapters, 1905-1919, of American history.
Why Frank Little and His Times Matter
Frank Little was a top organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW, the Wobblies, the One Big Union, the OBU. At the time he was lynched, one hundred years ago on August 1, he was Chairman of the General Executive Board. Not all details are known, but his legacy probably includes:
Why Didn’t We Already Know All This?
Within a month of Frank Little’s lynching at the hands of the copper bosses of Montana, The United States government launched the fiercest attack against the working class in our history. Free speech, one of Frank Little’s greatest accomplishments, was trampled. Unionists were hunted down and deported or arrested and tortured. Heavy jail sentences were laid on any of the hundreds railroaded for having “conspired with Frank H. Little” to undermine war production.
Union halls were raided and all records were confiscated. History, especially any history associated with Frank Little, was wiped clean. Fear was so great that even Frank Little’s relatives dared not remember him. Fear was so great that the silence lasted almost 100 years, until now.
–Gene Lantz
You can still find me every Saturday at 9AM Central Time on http://knon.org.
**
This is from the research and travels of Elaine Lantz and me
Frank Little was tortured and murdered in the early hours of
August 1, 1917. After his death, virtually everyone who ever knew him scurried
for cover as America's most shameful repression of a labor organization began.
Any connection with Frank Little was worth a prison sentence, deportation, or
at least a beating.
Little was raised in Oklahoma. Right after the turn of the
century, he became a hard rock miner in Colorado, where he connected with the
Western Federation of Miners. In 1903 they made him an organizer. In 1905, his
union was the main force in organizing the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) whose purpose it was to organize all American workers into One Big Union.
From 1906 on, Frank Little was a leading member of the IWW. He was Chairman of
the General Executive Board when he was killed.
Little Led the
Fight for Free Speech
He especially gained fame as a leader in the free speech fights
of the western states. If local authorities denied the IWWers the right to
speak in public or to congregate under the protection of the Bill of Rights,
the union people would go to jail rather than give up. In fact, using the
tactic now known as nonviolent resistance, Little led them into jail over and
over again. He was almost always the first one arrested and the last one freed.
Free speech in America owes a great deal to Frank Little.
Little Pioneered
Non-Violent Struggle Long Before Gandhi or MLK
Those who believe that Americans should stand up to bullying could
praise Frank Little. In addition to innumerable jail sentences, Little also
suffered mob violence at least twice before the final fatal episode. He was
kidnapped by businessmen and knocked unconscious after being held for several
days. Several years later he was held again. With a rope around his neck for
emphasis, Little was told to desist from labor organizing and to name any union
men in the area. He did neither and was eventually rescued.
Little Stood Up
for Peace
Those who treasure peace owe much to Frank Little, for he spoke
out for peace on every occasion. Mineowners in Butte Montana argued that miners
should risk their lives by continuing to work in unsafe mines because copper
was a valuable war commodity and America had just entered World War I. Other
union leaders wanted to duck the issue, but Frank Little told them:
"Better to go out in a blaze of glory than to give in. Either we're for
this capitalist slaughterfest or we're against it. I'm ready to face a firing
squad rather than compromise!" "War," he warned, "will mean
the end of free speech, free press, free assembly-- everything we ever fought
for. I'll take a firing squad first!"
Little Organized
Workers
And those who treasure the right to organize into unions owe him
an especial debt. Little organized farm workers, lumberjacks, miners, oil field
workers, dock workers, and everybody else who worked for a living.
Frank Little's friends and fellow workers remember him:
"For his personal friends he had a strange and wonderful kindness and considerateness,
and he was greatly beloved by them."
"Frank Little will become a tradition, one of the greatest
traditions of the American movement."
I doubt that Frank Little, had he the choice, would regret a
single second of his life or even of his terrible death. He might, in fact,
feel just a little bit compassionate for the rest of us, who do not speak up so
readily. Little's good friend Ralph Chaplin, one of the IWWers who went to
prison, wrote:
Mourn not the
dead that in the cool earth lie --
Dust unto dust --
The calm sweet
earth that mothers all who die,
As all men must;
But rather mourn
the apathetic throng --
The cowed and
meek --
Who see the
world's great anguish and its wrong
And dare not
speak!
--Gene
Lantz
Why Pursue Frank Little?
In 1996, Elaine Lantz and I
went to Butte, Montana, to find out more about Frank Little. When we got back,
I wrote this:
Our rental car pulled off Centennial Street onto a muddy pathway
that led about 100 feet into a peculiar notch cut into earth that had been
piled up 15 feet or so. A tiny rivulet ran through the notch; there were
scattered wooden pilings around it. Looking through a camera lens, one could
see part of the Montana city of Butte, a large mission with a bell tower, and
the pointy hill from which Butte took its name.
Once, the Centennial Brewery dominated the area. The Milwaukee
railroad trestle crossed over the B&O where only the bare notch stands
today. German-Americans lived in the vicinity of the brewery. Many of them
opposed the recent U.S. entry into World War I. Some even supported Germany.
One theory holds that the pro-German feeling in the area was the reason that
vigilantes chose to hang Frank Little from the trestle there.
After dragging him through the streets, they drove under the
trestle. They threw the bitter end of a 25 foot length of half-inch hemp over
the beams above. The noose was around his neck. Then they hauled him up so that
his bare feet dangled high over the B&O tracks. The coroner said that he
died of asphyxiation. That was in 1917.
* * *
In our rental car, we had covered every important landmark that
had anything to do with Frank Little's life and death. The Capri Inn stands
today where his rooming house stood next to the Finlandia Hall. Miners met
daily in the hall and Frank Little spoke passionately to them about continuing
and winning their strike against the Anaconda Mine Company. Leaving his
crutches and clothes behind, the lynchers dragged him from his bed at 4 AM,
August 1.
At the Butte Archives Center, they have two big cardboard
displays about Little and a folder an inch thick. All the local news coverage
of the period is there. The library, too, has a large folder on Frank Little.
Local scholars can direct inquisitive people to the parade route of the funeral
procession and to the grave.
The grave is well cared for by local activists. The epitaph is
still easy to read: "Frank Little: 1879-1917: Slain by Capitalist
Interests for Organizing and Inspiring His Fellow Man." Nobody ever had a
better one.
* * *
Why do we go to so much trouble to find out about Frank Little
and to tell others? That is what we were pondering as we sat in the rental car
on our third visit to the hanging site.
It isn't just to right the injustice done when the government's post-war
rampage wiped out all record and remembrance of one of America's greatest
heroes. We're just working people, not scholars. It isn't just fascination with
a man who made such great contributions to America. It isn't even what it was
when we began, feeling for our Oklahoma homeland and the desire to restore its
heroes to it. Little was actually born in Illinois and only raised in Oklahoma,
for that matter.
We thought about how Frank Little differed from the 6 or 7
cowards who lynched him. Perhaps they were only young and impressionable,
pumped up with company money, liquor, and false patriotism. One rumor says that
Dashiel Hammett, who went on to become a famous and progressive mystery writer,
was one of them. He is supposed to have told Lillian Hellman that Anaconda
offered him $500 to kill Frank Little. Were those 6 or 7 paid murderers really
so bad that we couldn't see the humanity in them? Was Frank Little really so
good that we couldn't see the humanity in him?
Then we knew we had found the key to our search!
The difference between Frank Little and the lynchers; the
difference between Frank Little and anybody else; the difference between Frank
Little and ourselves! That is what we are searching for, cherishing, and trying
to tell others about!
The difference between Frank Little and his attackers is the
difference between the baseness, cruelty, isolation, and mistrust that
characterizes so much of our lives and the nobility, caring, and sacrifice that
Frank Little epitomizes in his life and death.
That difference is worth searching for; worth
telling about!
Why
Don’t Americans Know About Frank Little?
June 8, 1992
Dear friends and relatives of Frank Little,
I will hurry with some things because I know you have a family
reunion in progress. I'm sending these things because I believe that Frank
Little should be honored as one of Oklahoma's greatest heroes both for his
accomplishments and for his great personal courage.
Hardly anything is known about Frank Little
and there are three main reasons:
- His personal effects, taken by government agents, have never been found. If he kept clippings or
copies of his own writings, they are unknown.
- The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies) were not
eager to publicize their anti-war leanings in a time of great physical
repression. Little's outspokenness was thus an embarrassment to some of them at
that time.
- The fantastic repression which included murders, jail sentences, and
public whippings forced all dissent into silence.
For references on
this see "Tar and Feather Patriotism in Oklahoma" in the Oklahoma
Chronicles. Any mention of the anti-war Frank Little during the period after
his death was almost always going to be negative.
Timeline on life of Frank Little
1879: Frank Little apparently was born in Illinois in 1878, but
moved to Missouri, then Ingalls, Oklahoma, the area around Yale, near Stillwater, as a child. His father was a doctor. He had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Both brothers
attended college at Stillwater
1900: Little had become a “hard rock” metal miner and an Arizona
member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM)
1903: Little had been hired by WFM to organize the copper camps
of the Clifton Morenci Metcalf area
1905: The Western Federation of Miners was the main force
launching the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). I’m not positive, but I
believe that Frank Little attended the organizing convention
1906: Frank Little officially entered IWW
1907 WFM convention pressed WFM into IWW philosophy of direct action.
Little advocated "direct action." Spoke against a narrow electoral
approach to politics. When WFM left IWW, Little stayed in IWW. WFM expelled
him.
1909: Frank Little and others read the Declaration of
Independence on a Spokane (Washington) street, got 30 days and was subjected to
unusually cruel treatment. The Spokane fight ended in March 1910 and Frank
Little came to Fresno, California, where his brother, Fred was
organizing farm workers
1909, September 28: Frank Little arrested in Missoula, Montana
during as free speech fight began there.
1909, October 8: Little and others released from jail. Free
speech allowed in Missoula.
1910, Oct 22: "On October 22nd Frank's brother W.F. Little
was arrested under mysterious circumstances for drunkenness. He pleaded not
guilty originally but when he appeared in court on the 24th he changed his plea
to guilty and asked the mercy of the court. He told the Judge that he had a
wife and family to support and could spend no more time in jail. He also promised
to quit the I.W.W.. The judge found him guilty and gave him a ninety day
suspended sentence. (footnote here says Fresno Morning Republican,
October
1910, December, Beginning of Fresno free speech fight. After
Spokane, Frank Little was in Fresno to help found Local 66 of the agricultural
and construction workers. Arrested there for street speaking. "Your jails
and dungeons hold no terror for me," he told the judge, and was put into
the tank on a bread and water diet. Frank Little among the first arrested,
served 28 days in solitary..." They were arrested over and over until
March, 1911! I expect that Little was in jail that whole time. Freezing cold
and wet.
1911: IWW organizing headquarters (a tent) burned by rioters.
Frank Little spoke out for non-violence and prevailed.
1911, March 9: Frank Little and the other Fresno free speech
fighters released from jail
1911, Oct 6, He was arrested in Kansas City
1911: at IWW convention in Chicago, Little was elected to the
General Executive Board of IWW
1912 Little was in Oklahoma City to organize a local (oil field
workers? Agricultural?)
1913 in Denver for free speech
1913, May 22: Arrested in Peoria, Illinois, on charges of
conspiracy to start a riot during another free speech fight
1913 Agitated in the ore dock strike in the Duluth Minnesota area
(Is this near Superior?). On July 22 he was beaten by steel company goons and
left unconscious in a gutter.
1913, August 2: kidnapped by local businessmen and was held
prisoner for several days until rescued by newspaper reporters and a party of
striking dockworkers. He gave a speech that afternoon!
1914: Butte Miners' Local #1 fell apart after its union hall was
dynamited to smithereens. Anaconda Mining Company executives must have been
very happy about that.
1914 organizing oil field workers in Drumright, Oklahoma.
Brother Alonzo worked in Drumwright. in 1914
1914 IWW convention, elected to the General Executive Board.
Appealed to convention for formation of Agricultural Workers Organization 400
(AWO 400). AWO set up an 800 mile picket line. The AWO is widely believed to be
the most successful of all IWW union operations. It endured long after the
Palmer Raids. William Z Foster claimed that Little agreed with his strategies
concerning work with the American Federation of Labor
1916 May have been charged with vagrancy in Joplin, Missouri
1916, August 16: In Mesabi Range. Arrested at Iron River
(Michigan?). Lynched from jail and, with a noose around his neck for emphasis,
was told to cease his activities and divulge the names of local leaders. He gave
no names and was knocked unconscious. He awoke in a ditch in Watersmeet, some
35 miles from Iron River
1916, November: IWW Convention in Chicago
1917, April 6: War declared. Conscription law (Draft)
implemented. Frank Little told Ralph Chaplin "I'll take a firing squad
first."
1917 (approximately): Frank Little was attacked by a gunman in
El Paso, Texas. He received a double rupture, which compounded his rheumatism.
Little was a man in great pain.
1917, June 5: Miners in Butte, Montana had launched another
organizing drive to re-start their union. Butte Miners Local #1 had already
lived through an interesting and colorful existence
1917, June 8, Spectator Mine disaster in Butte took 164 lives.
Strike for better safety conditions. Little went from Arizona to Chicago with
leg in cast to discuss war. Had leg in cast "as the result of an accident
in Oklahoma." he argued, "Better to go out in a blaze of glory than
give in. Either we're for this capitalistic slaughterfest or we're against it."
1917, July 2: Against Little’s advice, Miner’s start striking in
Bisbee. Within a few days, Frank Little had a car wreck in Bisbee that put him
on crutches with a broken ankle. He organized from his bunk in a miner’s cabin.
1917, July 10: deportation of about 100 IWW
and Mine-Mill members -- at Jerome, Arizona, just south of Flagstaff -- by a
"Loyalty League" organized by the United Verde Copper Company. These
workers were dumped in California and then driven back into Arizona by a
California sheriff's posse -- and finally imprisoned at Prescott, Arizona. In
this same period of time, Frank Little’s broken ankle apparently kept him from
being deported.
1917,
July 12: Cochise County [Arizona], was the scene of the Phelps-Dodge Copper
organized "Loyalty League" roundup and deportation of 1200 striking
copper workers at Bisbee [not counting three that were killed.] This was in the
context of the great IWW-led copper strike that stretched from Butte, Anaconda,
and Great Falls down to the Mexican border. The 1200 were taken without food or
water by box cars and dumped at Columbus, New Mexico. They were Chicano, Anglo,
Oriental, and Native -- either members of the IWW or members of Mine-Mill [or
both, a practice that actually lingered through the 1950s in the Western copper
situation.]
1917,
July 17: En route to Butte, Little stopped in Salt Lake City, Utah, to send a
telegram to Governor Campbell: “The membership of the IWW is tired of the
lawlessness of the capitalist class and will no longer stand for such action. If
you, as governor, will not uphold the law, we will take the same into our own
hands. Will you act, or must we?”
1917, July 18: Arrived Butte, still on crutches. Spoke in
baseball park on July 19 against war and for safe mining conditions
1917, July 27: With Frank Little’s backing, women began picket
duties in Butte
1917, August 1, hoodlums kidnapped Little from his boarding
house bed. They dragged him behind their car and, eventually, hung him from a
nearby railroad trestle. "When his body was taken down, it was seen that
the cast on his leg had been shattered and that both of his kneecaps had been
crushed."
1917, August 5, 3000-6,800 (estimates differ) people at his
funeral in Butte. It was the largest funeral in Montana history. In his last
telegram to Bill Haywood, Little had written, "We've got what it takes to
win!"
1917, August: The United States Government unleashed J. Edgar
Hoover and the worst anti-labor repression in our history. The IWW office in
Chicago was among the first places raided. IWW members faced deportations,
arrests, blacklisting, and physical abuse for the rest of their existence as a
major United States labor organization.
**
What Kind of Man Was Frank
Little?
What
Kind of Person Was Frank Little?
His grand-niece remembered a kind present from him when she
was just a little girl. She had no
information as to why some references say that W.R. Little had been a Quaker.
She didn’t know why he was called a half-breed Cherokee. Neither of those things were precisely true. She
doesn't believe that Frank ever married or established a home. She had no
artifacts of his life and didn't know if any existed. When he died, one
obituary listed him as having supported his mother in Oklahoma and his
sister-in-law in California.
James P Cannon wrote a tribute: "The rebel youth see him as
a hero. His soul is marching on." "For his personal friends he had a
strange and wonderful kindness and considerateness, and he was greatly beloved
by them." "I remember vividly to this day the quieting effect of his
entrance into the jail in Peoria, Illinois, during the strike and free speech
fight there in 1913..." "Frank Little will become a tradition, one of
the greatest traditions of the American movement. A study of his life will
become part of the revolutionary education of the American revolutionary
youth."
IWW leader and songwriter Ralph Chaplin liked Little: “I liked
Frank Little. I liked him because of his candor, courage, and unfailing good
humor. I liked him because the sight of factories made him wrathful and
ribald." But Chaplin also said that he was sincerely concerned about
Little going to Montana because of the broken leg, but also "because of
what I considered his intemperate manner of speaking - dangerous enough even in
peace times. Little always blurted out the unvarnished truth as he saw it
regardless of how it sounded or who it hurt." Little argued with General
Executive Board for stand against war, but they never took one. Chaplin had
written editorials against and Haywood had spoken, but no statement from GEB
ever was made.
Little certainly was plain spoken. Chaplin quotes him on the war
question: "Better to go out in a blaze of glory than to give in. Either
we're for this capitalist slaughterfest or we're against it. I'm ready to face
a firing squad rather than compromise!" As he prepared to leave he told
Chaplin "It's better to go down slugging." "He was bitter on the
subject of war. ‘War,’ he
Renshaw, Patrick, The Wobblies. The story of Syndicalism in
the United States. Anchor Books. Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY
1967. pg 160-1: "Little was nevertheless the toughest, most courageous and
impulsive leader the IWW ever had. He joined the IWW in 1906, was active in the
free speech fights at Missoula, Fresno, and Spokane, and went on to organize
the lumberjacks, metal miners, oil field workers and harvest bindle stiffs all
over the West and Southwest."
Not everybody loved Frank Little
Editor William F. Dunne later admitted that he used Little's
death as a rallying point for the Butte miners’ fight while not actually
sympathizing much with Little. Dunn called him "illiterate, embittered,
and badly informed on labor problems." (This may have been a result of
fear rather than actual personal opinion. Nobody dared admit that they even
knew Frank Little, much less had any respect for him.)
The Mine Miller and Smelter workers’ paper blasted Frank Little
for making a speech at a labor meeting in Joplin. They wrote, “Trouble maker
was soon observed sneaking out of the hall. Later he was arrested by Joplin
police on a charge of vagrancy -- having threatened a policeman on Main
Street." Calls Little "cur that he is". "For the past
number of years his sole mission on earth appears to be to destroy the Western
Federation of miners where there is organization, and by peddling his damnable
lies among the unorganized, prevent them from attaching themselves to the bona
fide union of their industry." After the WFM left the IWW, they were
hostile to it.
(Tulsa Democrat, 8/12/17) "Tulsan says F.H. Little,
lynched IWW leader, always cursed the flag" The article, a letter from
W.E. La Forge, slanders Little throughout by calling him unpatriotic, lazy,
illiterate, etc. The writer indicates that he has been "a friend" of
Little's! It concludes "His many acquaintances who have read of his final
exit can but say: 'I told you so!!"
Readings on Frank Little
Cannon, James
P, "Frank Little, the Rebel -- on the ninth Anniversary of his
death." Labor Defender Aug 1926. In Equal Justice Vol 1-2.
pg 133. Also in compilation by Pathfinder Press: Notebook of an Agitator.
A tribute to Little. Says that someone soon will compile a systematic work on
Frank's life. Says he was physically courageous.
Chaplain, Ralph, Wobbly, the Rough and Tumble Story of an
American Radical. Union of Chicago Press. 1948
Chaplin, Ralph, "Frank Little and the War". Labor
defender, Aug 1926. Says Little's right leg had been fractured in an auto accident
in Arizona.
Call, The, "Organizer for IWW hung from a
trestle by masked murderers". 8/2/17. New York. Says Little was born in
Fresno California 38 years before. Had just left Globe, Arizona. "He was
the support of his mother and his sister-in-law." Actually, I’m pretty
sure he was born in Illinois
Dubofsky, Melvyn We shall be All. A History of the Industrial
Workers of the World. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.
1969. This is the definitive history of IWW. Many references to Frank Little.
pg 1325 Little argued at WFM 1907 convention against a simple electoral
political strategy. Several references in this book show that Little advocated
nonviolent struggle in the free speech movement. James Cannon says, though,
that Little had a pistol in one episode. Apparently, Little believed in
nonviolence as a strategy, not a religious commitment. pg 222: at 1911 IWW
convention, Little was among leaders who advocated strong central leadership.
pg 223: Foster claimed to have convinced Frank Little and Earl Ford to his view
of tactics for the IWW at 1911 convention. pg 314 in 1914 convention, Frank
Little made motion to start organizing harvest workers corectly. Result was AWO
400 organized by Walter T Nef. pg 321: "In 1913, for example, Frank Little,
James Cannon, and E.F. Doree carried the Wobbly gospel North.... But in August
local Duluth businessmen kidnapped Little, and though other Wobblies later
rescued him, such repressive tactics kept the IWW from gaining recruits in the
district. pg 346: "Haywood, Chaplin, and Frank Little... had no intention
of
making peace with the American system;"
Dunne, William
F., "August, 1917, in Butte. The Murder of Frank Little". Labor
Defender vol1-2, pg 123. August, 1926. The cover of the magazine is a
death's head of Little. I wonder whatever happened to it? Dunne's piece is a
wonderfully written update on what happened after Little died. He claims they
shut down Anacona, the largest mine in the world, the first time it had ever
been closed by a strike. "We stopped completely the production of that
primary war necessity -- copper -- when it was selling for 26 1/2 cents per
pound." He goes on to accuse anaconda and certain perpetrators of the
murder
Gutfeld, Arnon, "The murder of Frank Little; Radical labor
agitation in Butte, Montana, 1917. From publication Labor History. Lots
of bibliographical references from Butte newspapers
Hall, Covington, Labor Struggles in the Deep South
& Other Writings. Edited & Introduced by David R Roediger. Charles
S Kerr, Chicago, 1999. Covington Hall was an IWW supporter, orator, and editor
in Louisiana and Texas during the first half of the 20th century. These are his
personal recollections of big labor events, especially from an area from New
Orleans into East Texas. Page 187 mentions that Frank Little of the IWW had
"spoken before many Socialist Party locals in Oklahoma." As Hall
explains it, the IWW would not allow farmers nor even sharecroppers, to join.
Consequently, they formed their own organization. Hall felt that the IWW had
made "one of the biggest mistakes in its history..."
Harrison George, The IWW Trial. Story of the Greatest Trial
in Labor's History by one of the Defendants. Arno Press & The New
York Times, 1969. Dallas Public Library 343.31 H427i. George took notes
while he and 112 other defendants were tried for conspiracy by the United
States Government. 166 leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) had
been indicted, but all of them weren't found in time for the trial to start.
Haywood,
“Big Bill,” Letter from William Haywood to F. Little concerning the IWW's
position on the war and the upcoming Convention in Denver. It was originally
used in the trial of the United States vs. William D. Haywood, et al. This
exhibit was part of the deposition of John W. Hughes for the Michael Simmons
vs. the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Company.
University
of Arizona Special Collections AZ 114 Box 1, folder 1, exhibit 50.
Here is the complete text: July 27th.-17 F. H. Little Yours of the 24th.
to hand, and the contents of same noted with care. In reply will say, that I
note with pleasure that you have got the Branch of #800 going in Butte, but
that you have not yet received the Charter, I will say that the Charter has
been sent, and you should have received same by this time.
In regard to sending Moore down to
Arizona, will say he is already there, and well on the job, received a wire
from him to-day, saying he had secured the release of all the prisoners in
Prescott, He is now going up to Globe, Miami and Bisbee, expect a report from
him from these places soon.
In regard to the Statement of the Board
on War, will say, after the statement in this week's Solidarity by the Editor
it would be superfluous to publish the statement of the Board, as it is
practically the same and covers the same essential points as
"Solidarity's" statement.
Note
what you say about the Craft Unions scabbing in Butte, and echo what you say,
"But what can you expect from that bunch."
In regard to the Conference in Denver, I
am afraid that as far as we are concerned we shall not be able to participate
in that Convention. Perry says the Branches of #800 will not be able to afford
the mileage and expenses of any delegates, and as #490 only figures upon
sending one man, and all that #800 could send would be one delegates, it seems
as far as we are concerned, we shall not be represented. I think myself, that
Butte was and is the logical place for such a conference, it is adjacent to the
great mining belt of the Couer-D-Allene country, and would be just as centrally
located for us, as Denver, and then you are right there.
However you will explain matters in
Butte, showing how, owing to the various strikes now on, we are unable to
finance delegates to the Conference.
With best wishes, I remain. Yours for the
O.B.U. [One Big Union, editor] “Signature”
International Socialist Review, "The man that was
hung" ISR Sept 1917. Vol XVII, No. 3. pg 135, found in Tamimint library,
NYU. Photo at graveside, hundreds of men. Photo of him in coroner's office. I
understand photo of cadaver was widely circulated in Butte. Here is how they
quote Little's speech, "Governor, I don't care what you are fighting for,
but we, the Industrial Workers of the World, are fighting for Industrial Democracy."
They blame standard oil for everything! Says 6,800 working
people followed Little's body to graveside.
La Forge, W.E., "Tulsan Says F.H. Little, Lynched IWW
leader, always cursed the flag" Tulsa Democrat, 8/12/17. By W.E. La
Forge with long prologue. La Forge claims to be a friend of Little's but bad
mouths him all the way through.
Lehmann, Ted, Pamphlet in Fresno, California, library dated 25
May 1971, "The Constitution Guarantees Freedom of Speech--Rats! The Fresno
Free Speech Fight" Through inter-library loan, I obtained a barely
readable xerox copy of this pamphlet. Gives IWW preamble and a little
background. He says that Frank Little was not widely known until the Spokane
free speech fight in 1909. Then, his success in Fresno catapaulted him into
national leadership. Photo of Frank, just like mine. From "Labadie
Collection photo files". pg 7: "Frank was in Spokane to help with the
fight there and had sent his brother letters describing his experiences and
arrests in that town." W.F. Little
(this must be Fred) organized Local 66 of the IWW "This local was composed
of a majority of unskilled fruit workers.
Little, Frank, (I don't
have this but I need it) Industrial Democracy (or was it Solidarity?)
July 28, 1917. Has 3 page article by Frank Little. For interlibrary loan try
RLIN CUBG86-53796. Nigel Sellars has ordered it. Also the 3/24/17 Solidarity
has comparison of war policies of IWW
and AFL. //I’ve tried library resources and asked several historians, but never
found a copy of this key article//
Little, Frank, “Rank and File,” A Report on Free Speech fights, Solidarity,
Aug 10,1912. Little also had article in the May 29, 1916, and June 3, 1916,
issues of the Industrial Worker about organizing opportunities in general and
in the lead and zinc mines of the Oklahoma, Kanasas, and Missouri Tri-State
Region. Several other reports and letters from Little appear in other Wobbly
publications, according to historian Nigel Sellars
Little family relative, Letter to me from Frank Little’s
grand-niece in Oklahoma. 7/25/92. Tells where her grandfather and grandmother
are buried. Asks me not to give out her name or address. Very sweet letter
about Frank Little her uncle, whom she regarded highly, but never spoke of. I
also have several letters & e-mails from other family members in Arizona,
Oklahoma, and Missouri
McGuckin, Henry E, "Memoirs of a Wobbly." $6.95
Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co 1740 West
Greenleaf Av #7, Chicago Il 60626
Miles, Dione, Something in Common: An IWW Bibliography
Miners Magazine, “IWW try troublemaking." July 6, 1916. I
think this is publication of Mine Mill & Smelter workers. It is an attack
against Frank little by the WFM after they left the IWW.
Renshaw, Patrick, The Wobblies. The story of Syndicalism in
the United States. Anchor Books. Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY
1967. This is a little paperback. pg 162: "Little then wrote a passionate
antiwar statement which appeared in Solidarity on July
28, 1917, only three days before he died." (Nigel Sellars
thinks it is in Industrial Worker, not Solidarity) pg 160-1:
"Little was nevertheless the toughest, most courageous and impulsive
leader the IWw ever had. He joined the IWW in 1906, was active in the free speech
fights at Missoula, Fresno, and Spokane, and went on to organize the
lumberjacks, metal miners, oil field workers and harvest bindle stiffs all over
the West and Southwest."
Sellars, Nigel, my notes of discussion with historian Nigel
Sellars, who agrees with me that Little is a great American.
Schwoegler, Steve, “Frank Little, Where are you Now that we Need
you?” From Industrial Worker July 1982. Pg 5. This is the best little
short list of Little's movement's I've ever seen: //I put them into time line//
Silver Bow County archives in Butte, Montana: Butte Archives
Center, they have two big cardboard displays about Little and a folder an inch
thick. All the local news coverage of the period is there. The library, too,
has a large folder on Frank Little. Local scholars can direct inquisitive
people to the parade route of the funeral procession and to the grave
Snell, Viola Gilbert, "In Memory of Frank Little" by
Viola Gilbert Snell. pg 6 of Industrial Pioneer. Long poem eulogizing him.
Xeroxes from Wayne State University
Tulsa Democrat and Tulsa World articles
about death of Frank Little and Greencorn Rebellion. Also list of burial
records of several Littles in Yale library
Wallace,
Naomi, Poem about Frank Little in Massachusetts Review, Spring, 1999.
She may also be working on a film script
Werstein, Irving, Pie in the Sky, An American Struggle. The
Wobblies and their Times. Delacorte Press, NY, 1969. in OU library. pg 56
describes Fresno free speech fight. pg
114-115 gives short bio of Little's participation in IWW.
Winters, Jr, Donald E, The
Soul of the Wobblies. The IWW, Religion, and American Culture in the
Progressive Era 1905-1917. Greenwood Press, Westport, Cn 1985. Pg 118.
"St. John, Heslewood, Ryan, Percy Rawlings and Frank Little ... led the
convention radicals; ..." at Western Federation of Miners convention in
1907. Little & group wanted to join the IWW militant wing
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