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π 135 C H A P T E R 7 Gun Hounds, Scabs, and Tragedy With each passing week, the strike seemed to multiply in intensity. Great fits of passion spilled over from the pages of Työmies and the Miners’ Bulletin into the streets of Copper Country towns, locations, and villages. Tension was palpable on both sides. For every step-up in rhetoric by the WFM, the mining companies counteroffered. For every WFM strike parade, pro-company businesses, the Citizens’ Alliance, and the mining companies organized a counterdemonstration. As it became clear that the strike was no short-term affair, the mining companies began to dig into time-tested, steadfast tactics, including the hiring of “peacekeeping” forces and importation of replacement workers. These actions only served to incense and foment a sense of anxiety in striking workers. The copper bosses’ attempt to break the strike, and the WFM’s determination to fully represent striking workers, was heading toward a tumultuous crescendo. Sadly, in events that will likely always remain a dark mystery, that climax came bearing the loss of life, including the lives of some fifty children. In the wake of these events, the Copper Country, the Finnish immigrants’ socialist-unionist movement, and the WFM would never be the same. 136 π chapter seven Kenraali Waddell’s Pyssyhurtia Labor spies were not the only tools the mining companies employed to force the WFM from the Copper Country. As the strike actions endured, mining companies called on the services of supposed “detective agencies.” Much like the Pinkerton Agency, the Waddell-Mahon Detective Agency specialized in union-busting and strikebreaking. In an October issue of Työmies that featured the headline “The Waddell Menace,” the newspaper reprinted excerpts from a circular they claimed to have procured from the Waddell-Mahon Company: We point with great pardonable pride to the fact that this corporation has been selected by James A Cruse of Houghton County—the storm center of the strike—to aid him in maintaining the integrity of the law. We are now engaged in “policing” the 1,019 square miles of territory contained in Houghton County. We are safeguarding the property of the mine owners against intrusion and violence. We are also protecting the lives and home of the 80,098 men, women and children of Houghton County against overt acts. The Western Federation of Miners is doomed to inevitable disaster and defeat in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan . . . We are sure of defeating the Western Federation of Miners in this operation because we have met and defeated them before . . . We ask you to watch the progress of the present strike, because we know it will be a triumph for law and order, a triumph for the mine owners and will furnish still another evidence of the success we have always met with in breaking strikes. We ask you to judge us by results.1 The Waddell men certainly had an impact, but not the “law and order” impact described in their circular. The Waddell-Mahon Detective Agency’s men became especially notorious as hired company thugs known as pyssyhurtia in Finnish, or gun hounds in English. Työmies indicated that Houghton County’s Sheriff Cruse worked with the detective agency, referring to the team as “Sheriffi Cruse ja pyssyhurttien Kenraali Waddell (Sheriff Cruse and the Gun Hounds of General Waddell).”2 Sarell reported about the Waddell tie with Houghton County law and order: “In addition to the soldiers, the officials held on a leash, Gun Hounds, Scabs, and Tragedy π 137 the mining companies hired Waddell-Mahon’s Detective Agency gun hounds to be the so-called ‘guardians of order’ in the strike area. They were assembled from the major cities’ most crooked elements and as far as their fees; Houghton County had to pay and is still paying tens of thousands of dollars monthly as this is being written.”3 In addition to the Waddell men, C&H and the Mohawk Mining Company hired men from the Ascher Detective Agency out of New York City. The Waddell men were disliked, and the Ascher men were received with the same sentiment. The Miners’ Bulletin wrote this about the Ascher men: “They are as tough a looking bunch of men as have ever applied a sandbag to their victim.”4 Possibly the most notorious of the Waddell men’s exploits occurred in mid-August 1913: The character of these bloodhounds dressed as humans revealed itself for the first time on August 14th when they executed one...

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