In the copper mining town of Great Falls, a strike by Teamsters against retail stores gets the aid of women from the city’s Socialist and labor movements.

‘The Strike in Great Falls’ by James B. Scott from International Socialist Review. Vol. 13 No. 5. November, 1912.

The working class in the State of Montana are awakening, the battle cry for industrial freedom is re-sounding; the state is full of proletarian agitators and the masters of the bread are afraid of the rising “mob” that threatens the destruction of their profits.

In the peaceful little city of Great Falls, a city that is in the hands of the Amalgamated Copper Co., the spirit of revolt is in the air.

For four long months the teamsters have been on strike for an increase of 50 cents a day, the owners of the jobs have refused to give the slaves the raise and the fight is on. The other day one of the striking teamsters carried a banner in front of one of the largest stores in the town with this inscription, “STRAIN BROTHERS, BOTH STORES—ARE UNFAIR TO ORGANIZED LABOR”. Ones of the brothers of the merchant, a prominent ear, eye and nose doctor, one of the most prominent church members and “reputable” citizens, assisted by another three respectable business men attacked the banner carrier. Two were arrested, one of them was the striking teamster. We bailed him out and inside of ten minutes he was again out on the street with another banner. He had scarcely gone two blocks when the tools of the master class—the police—re-arrested him for carrying the banner and fixed his bail at $100. The trial came up in the police court, Louis J. Dilno, the Socialist candidate for the legislature, defended the teamster. On the first charge he was found guilty and fined $5.00. The case was appealed to the District Court. The second charge was “creating a nuisance.” The carrying of the banner was certainly a nuisance to the business men, but as the working class make up 90 per cent of the population of this town it couldn’t be a nuisance to the working class. The court was packed with working men and the Justice of the Peace sat there and hardly knew what to do with himself. Upon “hearing the evidence” he discharged the striker.

The Mayor of the city, Ex County Attorney and corporation lawyer, issued an order to arrest the first one who was seen on the street with an “unfair banner.” A mass meeting was called, Tom Lewis was there, he took the 1,500 men and women by storm. Never in the history of Great Falls was there such an enthusiastic meeting. The crowd went wild over Tom’s speech. Mrs. Jeannie Teague, a daughter of the late Freeman Knowles, got up in the meeting and told them that the women of the Women’s Mutual Improvement Club, an auxiliary of the Socialist Party, would carry all the banners they wanted carried. Tom Lewis suggested that they take the Council Chambers by storm the following evening and stop the passage of an ordinance that would prohibit the carrying of banners.

The following day thirty women walked up and down the streets in front of the scab stores carrying banners, declaring that the stores were unfair to organized labor. The police tried to stop them but failed; the working class lined the streets for seven blocks and the police retired to the alleys, and the Corporation Mayor failed to put in an appearance. The City Council convened the same evening for the purpose of passing the ordinance to stop the carrying of banners; the Council Chambers were flooded by the women of the Mutual Improvement Club—Mrs. Livingstone, who is editor of a magazine called “The White Slave Review,” got up to address the Council, but the Mayor rapped the gavel and adjourned the Council. The women are fast coming to the front in the State of Montana, and it will only be a matter of a few years when the women will be everywhere in the foremost ranks on the Industrial battlefield.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n05-nov-1912-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf