‘Hundreds of Ohio Miners March in Honor of Boy Killed by Scab’ by Amy Schechter from the Daily Worker. Vol. 4 No. 251. November 3, 1927.

Nineteen-Year-Old Striker Won Argument With Strikebreakers; One Shot Him

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 2. —Hundreds of striking miners of Sub-District Number 5 of the Ohio district of the United Mine Workers of America are marching today from the Dunglen mine to Smithfield in a funeral demonstration for John Picetti, 19-year-old striker shot and killed by a scab last Saturday afternoon. Miners from all the 80 or more local unions are expected to join the march. The murderer, Linza May of Ironton, was bound for the Rose Valley Mine where he was to act as a strikebreaker. May approached some locked out union men and a heated argument developed. May and three other scabs, John Lanje, Orville Huefel and William Cupt found the argument going against them and left in their car. After their departure, John Picetti and two other strikers, Richard Sharon and Frank Spears, went on toward Rose Valley. They again encountered the scabs near Dillonvale and Linza May pulled his gun and fired, according to Picetti’s companions. Picetti was fatally wounded in the neck and Spears, who was sitting with his arm around Picetti, was wounded in the neck and Spears, who was sitting with his arm around Picetti, was wounded in the shoulder. The scab Lanje declares that Picetti reached for his hip pocket as if to get a gun hut the murdered boy’s companions declared no hostile move was made. May is held on a charge of first degree murder. Feeling is running high among the miners of eastern Ohio where the coal companies have been carrying on a vicious campaign against the union with the aid of sweeping injunctions and United States marshals to enforce them. At a conference of over 300 miners of Subdistrict 5, Ohio, held in Yorkville Miners Hall yesterday, discussion of the urgent need for relief which must be continued was taken up. Many locals were represented including local presidents and secretaries. The local treasuries have long been exhausted, the sub-district treasury is also becoming exhausted. No relief from the national office is forthcoming. One local distributed $100 among its 250 members in seven months. Immediate help is urgently needed, miners here say.

‘10,000 March to Funeral of Boy Killed by Ohio Mine Co. Scab’ by Amy Schechter from the Daily Worker. Vol. 4 No. 253. November 5, 1927.

Murderer Is Son of Notorious Anti-Union Sheriff; Strikers Capture Him

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 4. —10,000 miners, from every local union in five counties, yesterday marched to the cemetery behind the body of John Picetti, 19-year-old union miner and son of a union miner, shot to death by Linza May, scab. The army of mourners marched the three miles from Picetti’s home in Dunglen, Ohio, and stood in the driving rain thru the ceremony at his grave. Wreaths of flowers were sent by local unions of railroad men as well as by many miners’ locals. Picetti’s murderer is the son of a sheriff of Boone County, West Virginia, who was active in anti-union activities in 1924. May shot Picetti after an argument with striking miners which followed May’s inquiry as to the location of a scab mine where he was going to work. May and his three companions were captured by a posse comitatus of striking miners who trapped them at Dead Man’s Crossing, between Rayland and Martins Ferry. A revolver with one chamber empty was found in May’s pocket. A close guard is being kept over the prisoners in Jefferson County jail.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1927/1927-ny/v04-n251-NY-nov-03-1927-DW-LOC.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1927/1927-ny/v04-n253-NY-nov-05-1927-DW-LOC.pdf