21-year-old wobbly miner Hugh Haran was accidentally shot while guarding the Butte Daily Bulletin offices from a rumored attack by gun thugs.

‘Thousands Pay Tribute to Labor Devotion of Hugh Haran’ from the Butte Daily Bulletin. Vol. 2 No. 211. April 24, 1920.

Escorted by more than 2,000 working men of Butte, mostly miners, the mortal remains of Hugh Haran, the young striker who was accidentally shot and killed in The Bulletin plant early Thursday morning while acting as a volunteer guard following reports that gunmen of the A.C.M. company were to raid and destroy the plant, were laid at rest in the Catholic cemetery this morning.

The funeral procession comprised in addition to the 2,000 marchers a large number of autos filled with women and elderly men who also turned out to express their grief at the loss of young Haran, who, although young in years, was ardent in his work in behalf of the enslaved wage workers of Butte’s mines. In the van, as an escort of honor, marched about 50 young companions of Haran, each wearing prominently displayed the red badge of the International Workers of the World.

Long before 8 o’clock this morning the street in front of I.W.W. hall on North Wyoming street, was thronged with fellow workers of young Haran who gathered to pay their final tribute to his devotion to the cause of the workers.

From the I.W.W. hall the long line of marchers proceeded to St. Mary’s church, where they met the funeral cortege which had started simultaneously from the Haran home, 307 West Granite street. There the mourners crowded the church during the impressive funeral services of the Catholic church. At the conclusion of the services the procession formed in line and with the workers marching four abreast, proceeded to the cemetery. The main body of the marchers left the procession at the Harrison avenue viaduct, the remainder proceeding to the graveside, where the final rites were performed.

The casket was covered with flowers sent by grief-stricken friends and acquaintances and fellow workers.

The Butte Daily Bulletin began in 1917 in reaction to the labor wars in Montana, the Speculator Mine fire killing 168 miners; IWW organizing, and the murder of IWW organizer Frank Little in Butte. Future Communist leader and IWW organizer William F. Dunne and R. Bruce Smith, president of the Butte Typographical Union published the paper as an outgrowth of a strike bulletin with the masthead reading, “We Preach the Class Struggle in the Interests of the Workers as a Class.” It became daily in August 1918 and in September 1818 officers raided their offices and arrested Dunne and Smith on sedition charges. An extremely combative revolutionary paper, while unaligned, it supported the struggles of the Left Wing in the SP, reflecting the large radical Irish working class of Butte also supported Ireland’s and the Bolshevik revolution, as well as the continued campaigns of the IWW locally and national as well as the issues in Butte. It ran until May 31, 1921.

PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-04-24/ed-1/seq-1/